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Many years later, Fielding, who was already one of the most loyal ministers at the Emperor's side, still had a clear picture of the moment as if it had just happened, and he wrote in his secret note: "You cannot comprehend the feeling of regaining recognition when you have been utterly abandoned by everyone and will be reduced to the abyss, and that smell will be unforgettable for the rest of your life." The pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info "This account was not released to the public until decades after Fielding's death.

Looking at Wu Feng's actions with admiration, Ling Tianfang only felt that he had nothing to say, the bearing of the smiling and lazy boss in front of him was indeed incomparable to anyone, he could only give a thumbs up and simply repeat a sentence: "High, really high!"

Wu Feng already knew Fielding's ability, if he wanted to really win his loyalty, the right time was now, he boldly handed over the position of city guard that had fallen to Fielding again, and let him continue to take on this important position, undoubtedly regarded him as a henchman who could be entrusted with heavy responsibilities, such a beautiful and generous hand, not only won Fielding's loyalty to the ground, but also made all the generals present, including Ling Tian, have a state of mind for their master's bearing.

After learning that the Northwest Army had entered Taixuanfu in a big way, the Carman's westward army, which had already marched to the city of Taixuanfu, retreated under the leadership of Duke Merry, and slowly retreated to the border between the Principality of Gerlok and Taixuanfu, and also drew part of the troops back to join the battlefield in the Jiama region, which greatly increased the pressure on the Gerlok and Imperial coalition forces fighting on the Jiama front, and the crisis in Taixuanfu seemed to have been resolved.

At the same time, among the nearly 150,000 Kaman troops that had been assembled at Jiayuguan, the commander of the Seventh Corps, Viscount Dominic, led his corps to escort more than 50,000 prisoners (including 20,000 reservists) to the north, and also sent liaison personnel to contact the Imperial Central Committee and Li Wufeng respectively, hoping to negotiate on the capture matter. Tens of thousands of people who originally lived in the Jiayuguan fortress were ordered to leave the fortress within a week, and the 30 miles outside the fortress were designated as a forbidden area, and ordinary people were strictly forbidden to live and engage in agricultural and animal husbandry activities.

Claudia, who had been appointed commander of the front army stationed at Jiayuguan, led the Sixth Corps, which had entered from the north, with a total of more than 100,000 troops, and began to conduct large-scale military exercises outside Jiayuguan, posing as if they could go south at any time.

And Wu Feng also reacted quickly after inspecting the defense system of the entire Taixuan Mansion. On the one hand, he ordered to reinforce the walls of Taixuanfu City, and added a lot of arrow holes and hidden forts on the original basis, and at the same time ordered to immediately carry out the widening of the moat, and asked the Northwest County War Readiness Department to immediately dispatch a batch of improved multi-bow repeaters (Note 1) and giant stone throwers from Qingyang to Taixuan to strengthen the active defense capability of the city's defense, and appointed Ling Tianfang as the commander-in-chief of the defense army in the entire Taixuanfu area, and Fielding, the city guard of Taixuanfu, as the deputy commander-in-chief, with full responsibility for the security and defense of the Taixuanfu area, and the second in the Northwest Army, the Fourth Division, the First Cavalry Division of the Northwest Reading Force, and the former Second Garrison Division of Taixuanfu, a total of four divisions are subordinate to the Taixuanfu Defensive Theater.

After inspecting the city defense system of Taixuan Mansion, Wu Feng inspected various parts of Taixuan Mansion and entered a more important market town, and focused on Xuanwu Town in the southwest corner. As early as half a year ago, while learning about the development of the gold mine in Bashan Province, Wu Feng secretly learned from the department responsible for exploration under the General Administration of Industry and Mining that there is very likely to be a mixed vein in the southwest of Taixuan Mansion, which belongs to the same large multi-vein belt as the iron ore belt in the south of Lulong Mansion, but there is a fault in the middle, which extends intermittently to the southwest of Taixuan Mansion, and there is a high probability of rich copper ore resources in the southwest of Taixuan Mansion, which is also one of the reasons why Wu Feng is unwilling to give up Taixuan Mansion.

If the detection of the General Administration of Industry and Mining is true, the copper vein belt can be developed, it will bring a great boost to the economic development of the entire Northwest including North Luzon, you must know that copper ore is an indispensable thing for the national economy and people's livelihood, and it is also a necessary mineral for coinage in mainland countries, and the annual consumption in this area alone is very amazing, and the existing mines found are far from being enough, so all countries attach great importance to the detection and mining of copper ore.

And Wufeng has always been very annoyed by the lack of ore resources in his territory, the six provinces in the northwest plus such a vast and rich piece of land in Northern Luzon except for Yinchuan Province has coal, iron and silver ore resources, no mineral resources have been found in other places, and Yinchuan Mansion is just not within his control, even the iron smelting industry in Qingyang Mansion must import coal and iron ore from Yinchuan Prefecture, although the distance is not too far, but it is enough to consume a lot of transportation capacity, and it is also made by people, how can this make Wufeng rest easy?

Fortunately, good news has come from Shuangdui Province in North Luzon, the news of the discovery of iron ore belts in the northern area adjacent to Wusun Province has been confirmed, and the preliminary work has begun to be carried out, Lu Man's vision and sense of smell are extraordinary, the development of a large iron mine is very important to the economy of Shuangdui Province, especially the development of the backward areas in the north of Shuangdui, he knows better than anyone else, when the instructions of Wufeng and Xiao Tang arrived, this guy had already begun to organize people to develop and build an improvised road from Shuangdui to there, and was ready to convert the improvised road into a standard road within two years。

Now if you can develop the copper mines of Taixuan Mansion, you will have the two major ore resources of copper and iron in your territory, and you don't have to worry too much about being controlled by others once you start a big battle, but the location of these two places is not very good, they are both in the border area with outside forces, Shuangdui Mansion is a little better, Wusun does not have this strength to threaten him, but this Taixuan Mansion is different, the Lulong Mansion and the Principality of Gerlok next to it are under the threat of the Kamans, if they are developed, the Kamans will inevitably not have a peeping heart.

But now I can't take care of a lot, I can't waste food because of choking, I'm afraid that the Kaman people won't even do normal construction, Wu Feng specially told Fielding for this, asking him to do the preliminary work as soon as possible, once the copper mine is implemented, he must start to roll out the work immediately, and must not shrink because of the fear of war, especially the road traffic and some other necessary work in the early stage must be done in front.

Just when everything was going according to plan, the negotiation envoy of the Kaman people also came to Taixuanfu City, about the resettlement of tens of thousands of people who were expelled from the Jiayuguan fortress has spent most of the funds of Taixuanfu, and now the question of prisoners of war makes Wufeng also feel very embarrassed, if you really want to redeem these more than 50,000 prisoners of war, the funds required are also astronomical, and at the moment Wufeng does not have such a large amount of money in his hands, but the benefits of redeeming this batch of prisoners of war are also quite large, first of all, more than 30,000 of these prisoners of war are the elite soldiers of the original Taixuanfu First and Third Garrison Divisions, and their combat effectiveness is far stronger than these garrison units that have just been formed, they were not captured because they lost the battle, but because of internal betrayal, so as long as they were slightly reorganized and aroused their fighting spirit, they could become a wolf and tiger army, which is undoubtedly a big help for Wufeng, who is currently in urgent need of increasing military strength.

Therefore, after the arrival of the Kamanian envoys, Wu Feng decided to take this group of soldiers into his own hands, no matter what method he adopted. As for the specific funding required, Wu Feng didn't want to worry too much, and left it to Xiao Tang and Su Qin to figure out their own way, of course, it would be best if they could scrape a little bit from the central part of the empire, but Wu Feng didn't have much hope.

"What should we do?", "Whose fault is it?", "The empire encounters an existential crisis", "The Bloody Empire" and other headline reports filled the major media and newspapers of the empire, and the loss of Jiayuguan was unacceptable to almost all the people of the empire, from the common people to the aristocratic gentry, from the rich businessmen to the urban poor, there was an uproar in the countryside, and all the public places in the teahouse and hotel were talking about this matter, and almost all the spearheads were pointed at the General Military Affairs Administration, which was extremely responsible for this matter.

And more well-informed people revealed through various channels that the traitor was actually a person sponsored by a royal noble, and the news media, which had always been open, chased after him and dug up the roots, and soon the news that the traitor had a very close relationship with a certain prince spread very loudly, and for a time there was a storm in Yanjing, and the undercurrent was surging.

After receiving the news of the fall of Jiayuguan, the imperial emperor Situ Mingyue immediately stopped his vacation, set off for the west overnight, and convened an emergency state meeting on his boat, which made urgent arrangements for the urgent situation in front of him. At the suggestion of the Minister of War, Ho Chi Chiu, and the Minister of the Interior, Lu Wenfu, the Imperial Council of State passed several emergency orders.

First of all, the 2nd Division of the City Guard Corps stationed in Yanjing was ordered to immediately move westward to stabilize the situation in the Principality of Gerok and Beiyuan County, and prevent the chain reaction caused by the fall of Jiayuguan from affecting the situation in the Battle of Gerook. At the same time, the other three divisions of the City Guard Corps stationed in Wuhu were ordered to immediately leave for Yanjing and hand over the defense to other local garrisons. In addition, the 3rd, 4th, and 5rd Divisions of the Fourth Army Corps also began to return to their original stations in Kansai County one after another to ensure the stability of the situation in Kansai.

At the same time, the meeting also decided that the Imperial Foreign Affairs Office could conditionally accept the Maqi Khan's proposal for peace talks, so as to achieve the purpose of reducing the pressure on the garrison of Wuhu County.

"Lu Aiqing, is the situation you said really that serious?" Situ Mingyue's face was full of exhaustion, the news of the fall of Jiayuguan had already filled his heart with frustration and resentment, and the news brought by Lu Wenfu made him feel like pins and needles.

Looking at His Majesty the Emperor's suspicious eyes, Lu Wenfu also sighed secretly in his heart, even now, he has spent a lot of effort and still has not been able to fully understand the depth of this Taiping Sect, but time has not allowed him to drag it out any longer, and the strong strength of the Kaman side and the large-scale invasion of the Kaman people make him feel frightened every day, and he is afraid that he will wake up and be anti-flag. In the end, after getting the information about the loss of Jiayu Pass, he didn't dare to delay any longer, he had to report this serious situation to His Majesty the Emperor, even if it would be a surprise or trigger the other party's preemptive strike.

Such a blow to the head made Situ Mingyue, who was already in a very bad mood, even more unacceptable, and his suspicious gaze made several important ministers present feel a chill.

Note (1): The frame-shaped multi-bow repeater, improved by the repeater and fixed on a specially customized bracket, can erect multiple repeaters at the same time, and can adjust the shooting angle and direction, its quality is stable, the surname and shooting accuracy are much improved than the ordinary repeater, is the Northwest County Economic Development Agency Science and Technology Department and the War Readiness Department of cooperation products.