On the twenty-eighth day of the first month of the fifth lunar calendar of Jianlong, the crown ceremony of the young emperor Chai Zongxun was carried out in a solemn, solemn and solemn atmosphere, with the participation of all the important ministers of the imperial court and all the envoys in Beijing.

It stands to reason that the crown ceremony is equivalent to a coming-of-age ceremony, which marks the beginning of a man's growth and fulfillment of his responsibilities, which can be regarded as a major event and a happy event. As the king of a country, the crown ceremony not only marks that he has grown up, but also means that he can truly fulfill the responsibilities of an emperor and begin to personally govern and govern his country. But for Chai Zongxun, who was carrying out tedious ceremonies in the Daqing Hall according to the command of the master of ceremonies of the Ministry of Ceremonies, he did not have the joy of growing up and the feeling of being about to be in power and shouldering heavy responsibilities.

Although the sixteen-year-old Chai Zongxun was trying to maintain a serious and solemn posture and meticulously complete one ritual after another, the depression and helplessness in his eyes still revealed his true psychological state. Because he knows very well that after the crown ceremony, except for the queen mother, who has to withdraw from the court according to the rules, and no longer listen to the government as before, there will be no change in other things. Although since the Beiping Army entered Kaifeng, even if the queen mother is above the court, she can't control anything in the court, and she is a puppet at the mercy of others like herself. But even if she usually doesn't say a word behind the bead curtain, as long as she has the queen mother by her side, she will feel at ease, and she will not be unsure and worried when facing Wang Kunjun, Zhang Weixin and other "chaotic ministers and thieves".

Thinking that in the future, he would have to face those powerful ministers who controlled the situation in the capital and even the entire Great Zhou Dynasty alone, and could control the fate of himself, his mother and his brothers at any time, Chai Zongxun's heart was sad. At this moment, how he wished that he was not born in this era when martial artists were in power and imperial power was like a marquee, not in the family of the emperor, but in a family of ordinary people, where he could serve his parents and love his brothers and sisters, and live a plain, harmonious and beautiful life as a family. He would rather not want the current glory and wealth, do not want the current brocade clothes and food, and do not want to be controlled by others everywhere, and he is always worried that the Song Guogong who sits in the main hall will no longer want to sit below him when he bows his hand slightly at most, and will not even bend his waist, or is encouraged by his brothers who want to take his future to the next level, and does not even give himself the opportunity to be a puppet, and drives himself down from that dragon chair, or house arrest, or assassination, and then replaces him.

It's just that depression is depression, worry is worry, and helplessness is helpless, for this crown ceremony planned and presided over by the "Qingyuan" brothers, which is essentially to serve his strategy of cutting the domain, Chai Zongxun did not dare to slack off in the slightest. As the saying goes, "the times are stronger than people", in the face of a group of "rebellious ministers and thieves" who can take the lives of themselves and their mothers at any time, no matter how dissatisfied Chai Zongxun is with Wang Kunjun and others, he can only bury his resentment deep in his heart, and dare not have the slightest disobedience on the surface.

Just two days before Chai Zongxun's crown ceremony was held in Kaifeng, after leaving a stand-in who looked similar to himself to participate in the crown ceremony, through the assistance of Zhao Yantao and the full "cooperation" of the "dark feather" branches of various prefectures, prefectures and counties along the way, Sun Yu, who was carrying a fake "wax pill silk book", also arrived in Changchun Prefecture, Shangjing Province, where the Khitan Emperor carried out the "Chunnai Bowl", and met Yelu Jing relatively smoothly.

Although at this time, whether it was Yelu Jing or other Khitan military generals, they had long lost the courage and courage to confront and compete with the Great Zhou, or the Beiping Army. It can be seen that for the extremely rich gift presented by Sun Yu on behalf of the Lord of Shu, Yelu Jing did not reject Meng Chang's proposal to form an alliance against Zhou, but as he did when he treated the envoy of the Southern Tang Dynasty (Jiangnan), he accepted the rich gifts while saying some words of solidarity and support for the Lord of Shu against the Great Zhou, so as to appease Sun Yu's heart. As for the alliance between the two sides to attack Zhou, Yelujing did not immediately give a definite attitude, but said that he would discuss with the ministers first, and then give them a reply.

The Khitans' ambiguous answers made Sun Yu, who was bent on bringing in the rescue troops and saving the country from the calamity that was afraid to come soon, and was worried about the king, both impatient and uneasy. But if you don't form an alliance or not, you can't send troops, and now the initiative is in the hands of the Khitans, no matter how eager and eager he is, he can only wait patiently, waiting for the Khitans to give him a satisfactory answer.

In fact, since the envoy stationed in Kaifeng sent the news that Sun Yu wanted to go north to Jingdao to pay respects, Yelujing already knew what the other party wanted to do, and had a plan for forming an alliance with Houshu to resist Zhou, and his discussion with the Minister of Civil and Military Affairs was just a pretense. Speaking of which, since the defeat in the Battle of Youyun, the loss of the most prosperous and wealthy Sixteen Prefectures of Youyun and the loss of most of the land in Zhongjing Province in the "Overlord Operation" of the Beiping Army, whether it is Yelu Jing as the emperor or the Khitan Wenchen generals under him, they have long reached a consensus and reported a belief - gifts can be received, alliances can be made, and agreements can be reached, but it is absolutely impossible to go south to attack Zhou. Therefore, Yelu Jing asked Sun Yu to go back and wait for a reply just to show his emperor's calmness and the city, and there was no need to discuss it with others at all.

So, after waiting patiently for three days, Sun Yu finally got the answer he wanted from Yelu Jing - Da Liao agreed to form an alliance with Shu to resist Zhou, and agreed to use the 20th day of August of the lunar calendar of that year to raise troops together and attack the Central Plains from the north and south.

However, as with the original perfunctory and prevarication of the Southern Tang Dynasty (Jiangnan), in order to avoid leaving the handle to the Zhou State as much as possible, so that it would turn its eyes and troops to the north, the Khitans who formed an alliance with Hou Shu this time still resolutely did not agree to the conclusion of the alliance in black and white, but in case of any mistakes when Sun Yu returned, so that the alliance fell into the hands of the Zhou State, and then affected the alliance between the two countries to attack the Zhou Dynasty, they refused Sun Yu's request to hope that the two sides would enter into an alliance, and only reached an alliance agreement verbally.

Although he failed to make a substantive alliance with the Khitans, Sun Yu thought that Yelujing, as the king of a country, would never break his word and renounce the alliance at the cost of losing his trust in the world. Second, the toughness and strength of the tens of thousands of guards around the Khitan Emperor's "Chunnai Bowl" camp also made Sun Yu feel that the strength of the Khitans was still there. Although it may not be able to completely defeat the Zhou State, it is still certain that the Zhou army will not dare to go south to attack Shu with all its strength to contain the strength of the Zhou army and harass the Zhou army's flank. Therefore, in Sun Yu's view, although he failed to bring back a letter of alliance to the lord during his arduous mission, it was also worth the trip.

However, Sun Yu, an outsider, did not know that the 50,000 Khitan leather room palace tent troops around the "Chunnai Bowl" camp were all the elites that the Khitan emperor could master, and after several previous defeats, especially after losing the sixteen states of Youyun, which were the most densely populated, the military strength of the Khitan could no longer be compared with before the Battle of Youyun. Now counting this guard army and the subordinate army, the tribal army and even the township, the total strength that the entire Khitan can gather is only 250,000. Although it is not small in terms of absolute numbers, only the emperor's guards and some of the vassal armies and tribal armies are more combative, and the rest of the soldiers and horses are just a few and strong. If you really want to fight, especially with elite soldiers and horses like the Zhou army, it is basically to increase the scale of prisoners for the other party, and it is not a good thing. What's more, even the most elite Khitan soldiers and horses such as the Pi Room Palace Tent Army have no chance of winning in front of the elite of the Zhou army like the "Flying Dragon Army", and it is good not to be surrounded and slaughtered.

Unfortunately, as a Chinese minister of Shu, Sun Yu did not understand the true strength of the Khitan army, let alone how powerful the Zhou army, especially the "Flying Dragon Army", was so deceived by the appearance shown to him by the Khitans, and finally brought back a seemingly hopeful, but meaningless covenant to Meng Chang, the lord of Shu. Moreover, when Sun Yu returned to Houshu with the Khitan Emperor's "promise", a report material that was jointly explored and sorted out by the "Dark Feather" Linhuangfu Branch and the Changchun Prefecture Branch Hall recorded Sun Yu's envoy to the Khitan and the details of the negotiations between the two sides was also sent to Beiping City from the Khitan Shangjing Road in an expedited manner of 800 miles, and then forwarded by the radio there, and finally sent to Wang Kunjun's desk five days after Sun Yu reached an agreement with the Khitan court. At this time, Sun Yu had not yet walked out of the Khitan and went to Beijing.

On the first day of the second lunar month of the fifth lunar calendar of Jianlong, as the first big court meeting after the "pro-government", there was no bead curtain tent on the Daqing Hall that blocked the posture of the Empress Dowager Xiaofu, Chai Zongxun sat alone on the dragon chair, and listened uneasily to listen to the Song prince Kunjun who sat in the main hall to report to him the first major event that the court meeting needed to deal with - the puppet emperor Meng Chang of Hou Shu secretly colluded with the Khitans and formed an alliance, intending to send troops at the same time on August 20 this year, attacking from the north and south, invading the territory of the Great Zhou Dynasty, and destroying the stability of the Great Zhou Dynasty. Heinous. Now that the evidence is conclusive, Da Zhou must crusade against it in order to set an example.