Not to mention the Battle of Ningxia, the number of beheadings in the Korean Campaign of 5,600 frightened the hundreds of civil and military officials in the capital three times a day, and the Ministry of War successively sent more than 300 people to conduct an examination of their military exploits.

There were nearly 200,000 Japanese who were annihilated by Xiao Ruxun in the Korean War, and nearly 40,000 were beheaded.

Since then, Xiao Ruxun's war exploit report has been recognized by the Ministry of War as the most credible, and the officials of the Ministry of War know that Shang Shu Shixing admires Xiao Ruxun very much, so the officials who reviewed it felt that it didn't matter if it was a little false, and it was supposed to please the boss, but every time the result of the review was no false report.

In this environment where everyone in the generals falsely reported their military exploits, Xiao Ruxun's appearance made people question, doubt, and disbelief, but the number of miracles has increased, and everyone has gradually become accustomed to it.

Therefore, no one doubted that he had annihilated 25,000 captives in the north in half a month and beheaded more than 4,000, and it was directly recorded as real data.

In this harsh winter, people really need fiery victory data to support their beliefs and restore their trust in the imperial court and the officials and soldiers.

Xiao Ruxun is like a great god and a needle of the sea god pushed out by the official, and has gradually become an irreplaceable general of the pillar country in people's hearts, and I feel that as long as Xiao Ruxun goes out, he will definitely win.

The formation of this kind of psychological factor is something that some people who contribute to the situation absolutely do not think of and disdain to think about, because no matter how good the reputation of a military general is, it cannot withstand the popularity accumulated in the imperial examination for hundreds of years.

Doesn't matter.

In the same way, people only saw the glorious results of the victory, but few people noticed the unusual escape route of the northern captives—shouldn't they flee north? Why did you lose three battles in a row and then keep fleeing south? Isn't that weird?

Xu Guangqi and Li Zhizao both noticed this detail, but they didn't pay too much attention to it, but Shi Xing was quite concerned about it, and was curious about the strange escape route of the northern captives, and personally wrote to ask Xiao Ruxun.

Shen Yi also noticed this strange detail, but he didn't say anything.

Yang Junmin also noticed this strange detail, his face turned even paler, he couldn't help coughing a few times, his face was tired, and then he endured the pain and wrote a letter.

Shen Li also noticed this strange detail, he thought about it carefully, his face was solemn, but he didn't think about it further.

Of course, Zhu Yijun was the first to know and the only one in the court who knew the truth of this matter, and he looked at the detailed secret recital written to him by Xiao Ruxun, and showed a satisfied smile.

Xiao Ruxun has determined that this war is caused by some ugly scandal within the Jin merchants, and the dog-eat-dog expansion incident.

The reason for the expansion is currently unknown, it may be that someone is behind it, or it may be that the Beiyu saw the wealth and wanted to get more, all in all, the initiator must not have expected that things would deteriorate to such a point.

After the northern captives were defeated three times, especially the last two times, Xiao Ruxun caught up with their main force and blasted the hammer, after being defeated, not only did not flee north, but went south more frantically, along the way kept dividing troops to harass those county towns, and Xiao Ruxun was divided into troops several times to solve it, but they still kept going south.

This is tantamount to making it clear that their purpose is to destroy the big Jin merchants humanely, and by the way, they will fight the autumn wind to eat enough, Xiao Ruxun doesn't even know if these guys have the fear of death, they have obviously been beaten so badly.

It's just that although the situation is crisis, but for the imperial court, for the emperor, the opportunity is also very obvious, half of the Jin merchant territory in the north of Qi County has been controlled by the army, and the Jin merchant households have suffered heavy casualties and are almost completely wiped out, if the emperor wants to control Shanxi, he must take advantage of now.

Those northern captives continued to run south, Xiao Ruxun was in hot pursuit, and now he didn't dare to let the northern captives continue to break the city, because he was the governor, if he lost some cities, he would be responsible, although it was a pity that the Jin merchants south of Qi County could not continue to be humanely destroyed, but Xiao Ruxun believed that someone would be eager to take action.

After Zhu Yijun finished watching Xiao Ruxun's secret recital, he burned it and summoned the great eunuch Wang De.

"How's the guy? We must speed up the deployment of this matter, and we can't let the courtiers catch up with us. ”

Wang De nodded and replied: "The master's orders to the old slave do not dare to slack off, and sixteen people who have experience in being mining tax eunuchs have been selected, please choose your majesty." ”

Wang De said that this handed over the list of candidates.

Zhu Yijun looked at it, named the names of six of them, arranged for them to go to six areas in Shanxi to supervise the mining operations, and instructed them to disperse their eyeliners to the people when they arrived in the local area, and lay the third intelligence line outside Jinyiwei and Dongchang.

Zhu Yijun intends to rebuild the West Factory in fact, and even the Insider Factory.

Doesn't it mean that the courtiers can't do things if they don't allow the emperor, and they still need the courtiers' permission to do things with eunuchs? Do I need the permission of the courtiers to use my own internal funds for funds?

Drawing on his previous experience, Zhu Yijun decided to act cautiously, plump up his wings, and wait until the time was ripe to try to take back his power.

The spring is cold, the Beijing division in February of the twenty-sixth year of Wanli is still cold, under the peaceful scenery of this icy and snowy land, the undercurrent is surging, all forces are urgently operating their own strategies, each village has its own tricks, it depends on who can seize the opportunity with a purpose.

Under this background, on the ninth day of the second month of the 26th year of Wanli, the Spring Festival examination began, and the thirty-six-year-old Xu Guangqi and his friend Li Zhizao went to the imperial examination room together and began their own decisive battle at the top of the field.

The three consecutive three-day imperial examinations were like going to the battlefield, sitting in a leaky or dilapidated or low dormitory in the bitter cold, eating hard dry food, drinking ice-cold water, enduring both physical and psychological torture, and stiffening together from the soul to the body.

After the three exams in nine days, the whole person has been sublimated, and if you think about it later, it must be a very interesting thing, after all, there are too few people who can experience such a thing.

Although Xu Guangqi is thirty-six years old, this is the first time he has experienced such a thing, and thanks to Li Zhizao's suggestions before the exam, he did not suffer because of preparation.

However, the hunger and cold in the house still seriously affected his physical and mental health and performance, and he didn't know how he passed the exam on the last day.