Chapter Ninety-Seven: Overnight in the Wilderness

Zhao Ta figured out the joints, and quickly got rid of the frustration, pondering and pondering, as the emperor, in addition to the fear of rebellion, of course, he was also afraid that the ministers would unite to set him up so that although he enjoyed a prestigious name but had no real power, dividing and attacking, and engaging in balancing the art is also an important part of the emperor's mental technique, so the ministers fought each other in factions without misunderstanding the major national affairs, in fact, when the emperor saw it, I don't know how happy he was.

Cai Jing and Tong Guan disagreed, it is likely that the emperor's father intentionally or unintentionally let out the wind, expressed his dissatisfaction with Tong Guan, and induced Cai Jing to express his stance against Tong Guan, and it may even be his instruction to use the country's first assistant as a gunman, deliberately smearing Cai Jing, so that he had to stand in line again and destroy the relationship between the two. Zhao Ji's wishful thinking is: let Cai Jing completely offend Tong Guan, and make Tong Guan and Cai Jing fight to the death!

On the other hand, Zhao Ta felt that his father did not deliberately target Tong Guan, and whoever was in that position, he would not rest assured, saying something unpleasant, 'Who let him catch up'. Another purpose is that cranes and mussels compete with each other for the benefit of fishermen, because Cai Jing also has the ability to influence the government and influence the development direction of the Great Song Dynasty, and someone also needs to check and balance. However, looking for the civil and military forces of the Manchu Dynasty, although there are many loyal and virtuous ministers, their ability and strength are not enough to balance Cai Jing, so they chose Tong Guan, who led the troops outside, so that the two leaders of the Great Song Dynasty, Yiwen and Wu, did not agree and fought with each other, so that he could sleep peacefully and have fun!

In addition, although the Song Dynasty at this time was at the peak of the economy, military and other aspects, it was still impossible to fight the Western Xia and the future Fuyanyun, and it would take countless amounts of money. If there is no person with superb financial management ability to come out and preside over the overall situation of government operation, even if Tong Guan, Gao Yu, and these people can fight, they will not be able to support a long-term war.

And Zhao Ji was also quite impatient with Zhang Shangying, a 'righteous gentleman' in the DPRK and China, and he couldn't even get money for his own fun, let alone support the war, and they would stare at their private life style all day long, and he had to personally take care of everything, so he couldn't handle all the government affairs first like "someone", let him just read the report of the results!

During the war, Zhao Ji thought of Cai Jing, but his official reputation was not good, and the Yuan Youbei incident caused dissatisfaction all over the world, even if Zhao Ji intended to let him return to the court, he would inevitably be boycotted by the ministers of the DPRK and China. So, in order to remove the obstacles to his return to the court, and also to raise money for the war later, some people jumped out under the emperor's instructions, and Gao Yu, the commander-in-chief of the forbidden army, also had to do some controversial things, and after Cai Jing returned, he vigorously supported Tong Guan's "Ping Rong Policy" and led to a series of wars later.

The Song-Xia border was peaceful for about six or seven years, and the border situation between the Song Dynasty and the Western Xia began to deteriorate again around the fifth year of Zhenghe. After recuperating for a period of time, the military strength of the Western Xia gradually recovered, and began to provoke the Great Song Dynasty, Tong Guan once again put on the armor to lead the troops to the expedition, at this time he was already the commander-in-chief of the Northwest Six Roads through a slight pacification envoy, the official residence Tai Lieutenant, a very human minister, if Cai Jing, who was in charge of the government, did not agree, it was difficult to do it only with the emperor's favor.

Although he caught the mastermind behind the scenes, Zhao Tan was not optimistic, thinking that the rise of Tong Guan was still the idea given by Cai Jing, even his eldest lady was handled by Lao Cai, and Cai Jing's second comeback, Tong Guan also contributed to it, he ran up and down, fanned the flames, created public opinion, won over the forces of various factions, paved the way for Cai Jing, and spared no effort. This shows that the relationship between the two people is absolutely extraordinary. Thinking that they are all from the past, they will not understand the mystery! Zhao Ta now doubts whether these two people have colluded a long time ago, secretly reached some tacit understanding or deal, and performed a double reed ...... for the emperor and the Manchu Dynasty.

Zhao Ta from him and himself, on the surface, under the recommendation of Wang Hao and others, was appointed as the deputy envoy of the Northwest Zhulu Jingluo pacification, Hedong Jingluo pacification envoy, and got the privileges granted by the emperor, must have divided Tong Guan's military power, robbed him of his credit, and he has always been flying to the northwest will be able to curb Tong Guan's momentum, although Cai Jing was first opposed, but later enthusiastic, making people feel that he also stood on Zhao Ta's side, hoping to see Tong Guan's jokes.

But a few people know the inside story, not to mention that this is a transaction, from another point of view, the emperor will send the most favored prince to train under Tong Guan, which can also be regarded as a move to support orphans, and it is a great trust in him. In addition, anyone with a discerning eye can see that the prince now has signs of singing against the emperor, and the emperor is already not interested in him and has a heart of dethronement, and now once the second prince has made great contributions at the border, changing horses is a matter of course. As for the concubine, the emperor can inherit the throne like a concubine, and it is not impossible to get here, at that time Tong Guan has the merit of supporting the dragon, and it cannot be said that Cai Jing gave Tong Guan a great wealth!

Zhao Ta thought about it, and made a big head, in which the relationship is complicated in the wrong, it is really difficult to understand clearly, which made him more aware of the famous saying in his previous life, 'There are no eternal friends in the world, only eternal interests', the courtiers are divided and combined, and the fight is inseparable from the drive of interests, how can there be a good person in the world like himself who is dedicated to 'the world for the public'!

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Now that it has gone deep into the hinterland of Hedong Road, the local government has learned that the pacification envoy has crossed the border, how can they not come to take a look, and by the way, they will send a New Year's gift as usual, which saves them their affairs, and they don't have to make a special trip. So the journey is no longer lonely, every time you cross the border, there will be people to pick up and send back, Zhao Ta hated this, sometimes deliberately change the speed and route of the march, but rarely succeeded, these people can just meet the prince's team every time they go out on patrol, and the time is extremely accurate, and the location is also just right, neither delaying the prince's journey, nor will he miss his own gifts. This made Zhao Ta wonder, so much so that he wondered if these people had been professionally trained in tracking and could accurately grasp their itinerary so accurately!

The prince's handling of the gifts received along the way once again opened everyone's eyes, all the medicines were sent to the health team, the food was sent to the fire army, all the money was handed over to the camp planning department, and a special soldier fund was set up to relieve the families of soldiers living in poverty and reward soldiers with outstanding performance, and this outstanding does not specifically refer to combat exploits, excellent performance in training, serious and responsible work, helping comrades-in-arms, abiding by discipline, etc., it is possible to get rewards from consistent money to ten dollars.

When everyone was skeptical of the prince's policy, soon a soldier named Sun Bao was the first to be rewarded, and he was just able to dry everyone's boots every day after camping... Let everyone have a new understanding of the greedy prince.

Approaching the end of the year, everyone is ready to go home for the New Year, the business travel on the post road is scarce, the cold wind is bleak, and the sound of hooves is good, as if they are the only lone army in the world to move forward bravely. Although the journey is more than halfway through, the terrain here is more hilly and mountainous, and it is already rugged and difficult to travel, and there are two winds and snowstorms, so the marching speed has slowed down, not as before.

When the day came out in the morning, the sky was gloomy and gloomy, as if it were about to change. At this time, the army entered the boundary of the state, here is only two hundred miles away from Taiyuan Mansion, but the ancient times are different from the modern times, five miles out of the state city is sparsely populated, not to mention that it is close to the border, and it is normal to walk dozens of miles and not see the village. Zhao Ren saw that the weather was not good, so in order to rush to the camp near Qianbian Prefecture County, he did not rest at noon, and relied on dry food to solve his lunch.

But people are not as good as the sky, in the afternoon just after walking only ten miles, there was a strong wind, and then it snowed, insisted on walking for a while, the wind and snow became bigger and bigger, the snow flakes hit the people could not open their eyes, people and horses could not walk. At this time, the scouts who explored the road reported that they had to pass through a mountainous area to reach the nearest county seat, and now this marching speed was unreachable. Considering that there are many recruits in the team now, and most of them have no experience of marching in such complex terrain and meteorological conditions, Zhao Ren and Wang Ye decided to choose an open and flat place to camp nearby. …,

After the order was issued, the scout team immediately sent several teams of sentry scouts to brave the wind and snow to find a suitable camp, half an hour later, the scout reported that they found a leeward valley near the main road, near the water and the forest, and the area was not small, and they could go down to the village.

When Zhao Tan arrived at the valley with the Chinese army, the positions of the battalions had been divided, and there were still four combat battalions in the four corners, and the Chinese army and the baggage battalion were in the middle, but the valley was long and narrow, 500 steps long, but less than 200 steps wide, and the hillsides were full of trees that had grown for many years. Now the weather is cold enough to ignore the flash floods that form after the snow melts, the dense forests can also prevent avalanches caused by heavy snowfall, a small frozen river flowing down the valley can provide plenty of water, and a small basin formed by mountains on three sides can block the raging wind and snow, which is also a good place to camp.

In order to prevent invasion, the gap between the carts around the camp was also blocked with felled trees, forming a closed camp. In less than an hour, the gates had been erected, the banners had been erected, the tents had been erected, the temporary stables had been erected, the fire army had dug ice and water to prepare dinner, and the battalions had sent people to cut down a large number of trees, light bonfires, and clear the roads, and everything was in an orderly and orderly manner.

As soon as this side was settled, there was a sound of people shouting and neighing horses outside the gate, and a team was blocked by the wind and snow on the road like them, and the caravan that missed the accommodation also took a fancy to this place and wanted to enter the valley, but was blocked by the soldiers at the mouth of the valley. After some negotiation, they were allowed to camp fifty paces outside the gate, but they were not allowed to set foot in the barracks. But this was only the first group, and it didn't take long for several caravans to camp outside the gate, gathering a hundred carts and three or four hundred people!

*J Novel Knight