[Said that the supplement will definitely be done, and there will be a change at night]

The flames surrounding a small house, the clamor of hundreds of soldiers, replaced the firecrackers of the New Year.

Obviously, when the New Year is approaching, there is no atmosphere in Xingqing Mansion that should be during the New Year.

The door was open, and cries came from the courtyard, and soon, a middle-aged man who seemed to have some status was carried out of the courtyard and pressed against the street in front of the door. Several men and women rushed out of the door, but were immediately dragged back again. A soldier swung down with a broadsword, and his head rolled away.

The crying was louder.

Li Qing stood in the courtyard, looking at the red light on the courtyard wall, his face was blank. The official of the family whose house was raided and destroyed was only separated from his house by two houses, and they often met on weekdays, and during the New Year and festivals, they were also indispensable for personal contacts. I said hello when I went out this morning, who would have thought that I would become a soul under the knife in a blink of an eye.

His teeth clenched tightly, and his hands trembled slightly. He was afraid, he was afraid, the fate of his neighbor could fall on him at any moment. Today he is a direct bachelor of the Privy Council, and tomorrow he will be the training envoy of his Xiazhou regiment.

"Sir." With the voice, a soft hand clenched Li Qing's trembling fist.

Li Qing tilted his head, and his eyes were full of concern. This is his wife.

Li Qing married the daughter of a small tribe, but her gentle personality was more like a Han girl than a woman from the Dangxiang clan.

"It's fine." Li Qing shook his head, but he held his wife's hand and didn't let go.

This is the eleventh official to be killed in two months. If you count from the time when Hanlin Scholar Jing Xun was killed more than half a year ago, it is already the thirteenth.

Except for Jing Xun, none of the high-ranking officials who were disposed of were qualified to stand on the Zichen Palace, but all of them were officials in positions of real power.

In addition, these days, there are the next generation of several small clan chiefs and elders who joined Banzhi, as the personal guard of the Son of Heaven, who died in the palace inexplicably.

Great Xia was not the Song Kingdom, and the strife within the imperial court only ended with one side going out. It's the same as the Khitan, he always speaks with a knife. The winner lives, the loser dies, and there is no third result. And before the two sides decide the winner, the fish and shrimp that were swept into the whirlpool don't know how many more people will be killed and injured.

Li Qing didn't want to be next. But the Liang family, which he took refuge in, has not made any major moves so far, allowing the lord of the country to continue to hold a butcher's knife and slash the Liang family's supporters in the court.

In the first battle of Luowu, although Liang Yibu was victorious and defeated, after he came back, he slaughtered the opponents in the country and cut down the opponents. The ruthlessness at that time was completely gone, which made Li Qing's heart sink day by day.

Every time he went to the court, Li Qing seemed to have walked through before the ghost gate. As a Hanchen who favored the Liang family, he knew that he might fall into the same fate as those thirteen people at any time. The only thing that can comfort himself is that he has not yet killed the general.

The military generals in the DPRK and China have their own backstage, and they have military power in their hands, which is indeed not easy to touch. In the past, the people who were usually dealt with were basically civilian officials.

To be able to serve as civil officials in the Western Xia court, the vast majority of them are Han people, and a large number of scholars came from Shaanxi, because they couldn't get the Jinshi and couldn't get an official position, so they simply gritted their teeth and went to the Western Xia, taking Zhang Yuan, Wu Hao and Jing Xun as an example to seek a wealth and nobility.

Before the Liang family was in power, these civil officials were all prostrate at Liang Yi's buried feet. Now that he is always in power, he puts the goal of purge on them first.

As soon as the thirteen civil officials with real power are gone, there are very few civil servants in the DPRK and China.

The sound from outside the courtyard gradually faded, but the sound of broken horses' hooves kept passing in front of the door.

Li Qing sighed and looked back at his thinly dressed wife, "Let's go back first, it's too cold outside." ”

Seeing that his wife did not move, he smiled again, held hands, and walked towards the warm room.

As soon as he sat down by the brazier, a cup of hot burning knives was handed over.

After taking the hot wine, Li Qing looked at his wife, who was not beautiful but extremely virtuous, and finally let go of his frowning brow.

"Don't worry, it'll be fine." Li Qing said to his wife. It's also saying to yourself.

Bingchang is really crazy.

In order to eradicate the Liang clan, he flattered the Khitans too much. 30,000 horses and camels a year, if sold to the Song people, at least 500,000 yuan.

Not only did it fail to restore the decline of the Liang family against the Song State, but in order to use the strength of the Khitans, a large number of livestock were sent to the Liao State. The result of desperately currying favor with the Liao State was to make the Western Xia Kingdom more and more impoverished

The country's expectations for the new emperor, who had just been in power for a short time, had fallen to the bottom in a few months. Nothing could be worse than now.

Don't you know the consequences of doing this? Li Qing can see him every day, and he knows that he is by no means stupid. But if you always want to control the court, you must use ruthless hands to eradicate the power of the Liang family. At the beginning, he killed Jing Xun, the mastermind, which was his announcement,

As a high-ranking general, Li Qing knows very well how embarrassed the national economy is today. It's reached a point where it's unsustainable. The military salary has not been paid for two months, and Li Qing has not reached out in the military salary for a long time, but has taken out money to help the soldiers under his command who have no money to support their families to supplement their families.

As a general, the situation is so embarrassing, and the situation of other low-level officers will only be worse. If you can't get enough income from the Song people, the Great White High Kingdom will collapse, which will be a matter of an eye.

……………………

Although there was a delay of nearly a month between the information received and the dispatch of the fine work lurking in Xingqing Mansion, this did not affect Zhao Xu's deducing that the sworn enemy in the northwest who had plagued the Great Song Dynasty for many years was putting a nail in his coffin.

Since Jing Xun was executed, the split of the Western Xia court has been inevitable, and this is obvious. Zhao Ji, who was far away in Tokyo, could see it clearly without the courtiers who were familiar with the inside affairs of Western Xia to explain to him.

Zhao Ji is the Son of Heaven, and he can understand the psychology of the current lord of Western Xia. In other words, he is in the usual position, on the one hand, he is close at hand, controlling the court and suppressing his mother for many years; On the one hand, it is not surprising that the enemy, who is thousands of miles away, will make the current choice, but the means of action are still to be discussed.

The Song people would not necessarily attack Bactria ; Even if you attack the Great Xia Kingdom, you may not be able to hit the city of Xingqing Mansion; Even if it hits the city of Xingqing Mansion, there is still Liao's father-in-law to rely on. Can the Liao State watch the Great Xia Kingdom perish? Therefore, you can usually not worry about the Great Song Dynasty officials and soldiers who are sharpening their knives on the side of Hengshan.

And the power of the Liang family is around him, and he may lose everything at any time, and when he looks at the court, it is all the courtiers who were promoted by closely following the Liang brothers and sisters before. When the queen mother listened to the government, she had no respect for herself, and she had accumulated grievances for many years, where would she continue to endure it?

This is a good thing for Zhao Ji. Especially in the past year, the Western Xia sent envoys one after another to fully express their goodwill to Zhao Ji, and begged the Emperor of the Great Song Dynasty to give up the idea of attacking the Western Xia for the sake of the stable life of the people of the two countries. Such a move fully satisfied Zhao Ji's psychology of great joy.

'Prepare for war or prepare for war, and when you are ready, send troops. Zhao Ji was in the side hall of the Wuying Palace, circling around the sand table.

Zhao Ji will not be Song Xianggong who talks about benevolence and righteousness, and he will not be in vain, and he will not make a mistake in negotiation and preparation. It's normal to talk here and fight there, otherwise how did the Abyss Alliance come about? The alliances under the city are all fought out, not to mention that the future that Zhao Ji intends to prepare for the party members is to destroy the country, not simply claim to be a minister.

What Zhao Ji wants to see most is the civil strife in Western Xia, and the weakness of the Western Xia envoys at the moment is also in line with his heart.

"Official, the envoy of He Zhengdan of Xixia has arrived in Beijing and is resting in the Duting West Station." Li Shunju came back with the news, "The embassy envoy is receiving them, do you want to give another banquet?" ”

"Didn't the envoys of Western Xia say anything else?" Zhao Ji raised his head from the sand table.

"Nope." Li Shunju knew that Zhao Ji wanted to hear some answer, but the envoy of Western Xia really didn't have anything else, "It should just be here to congratulate Zhengdan." But a lot of tribute was brought. ”

"When a foreign vassal pays tribute, which time did the imperial court not give back a property of equal value? What is the difference between more and less? "The official army has won every year, and Zhao Ji has long since stopped taking Western Xia in his eyes, "As a vassal, I don't repair tribute." If you can give Liao 30,000 livestock a year, you will give me 50 horses?! I didn't want to see them, so I sent them out. ”

Li Shunju lowered his head and did not answer the order.

Zhao Ji turned around and glanced at Li Shunju: "Go and pass Yuan Jiang here." Let's take a look at who is on duty and pass it on together. ”

Li Shunju responded at this time and hurriedly walked out of the hall. This is where he makes Zhao Ji value. How to deal with the envoys of the Western Xia should be directly instructed to the Zhongshu Zaizhi, and of course he can't be a eunuch who oversteps his authority to receive orders.

Yuan Jiang should go to the palace, and after some instructions, Zhao Ji looked at the time and went to Qingshou Palace.

The Empress Dowager Cao, who had a serious illness in August, has only recently recovered slightly. It's just that his health is getting worse and worse, and Zhao Ji is calm in the morning and dusk, and he comes to inquire about his condition every day.

When I entered Qingshou Palace, I saw Cao half lying on the couch, looking at the clothes on his body, he had just gotten up.

"What's wrong with the mother?" Zhao Ji asked the people around the Cao family, "Who has been here?" ”

"Shu Kingdom has just been here, and now I go to Baoci Palace." Cao Shi leaned on the pillow, his hair was gray, wrinkled, and he was much older than half a year ago, "I just told him about his eldest brother's pox." ”

Zhao Ji sat down beside Cao's bed: "The eldest brother of the Shu country has also planted?" ”

"Right behind your second brother." Cao raised his eyes, "In the capital, thousands of people have been vaccinated with pox these days. It is said that some people later wiped their bodies with pox pulp from pox patients, but none of them got sick, and it seems that it does have a miraculous effect. Shushou and Sixth Brother can't delay any longer, and if they drag it out, they will have one more day of risk. If you get sick, it's too late. ”

Only Emperor Cao said these words, no matter which concubine, even Empress Xiang, did not dare to take the risk with the only imperial heir and make a decision for Zhao Xu.