In September, autumn is crisp.

Zhao Yu officially honored the title in the sky and called the king of Chu.

Such a royal title, the first is to indicate that he inherited the inheritance of the ancestor Chu King Zhao Defang, and the second is to clearly formulate the strategy of first west and then east to clear the south of the Yangtze River.

After nearly half a year of rest, under the leadership of Xu Da and Chang Yuchun, the captive army went along the Jiangxi River for the first time, set up an attack position on the line of Jiujiang and Hongdu, and gradually advanced westward, encroaching on Xu Shouhui's territory step by step.

In the east, Zhao Yu adopted the strategy of uniting with Fang Guozhen to suppress Zhang Shicheng. Although Fang Guozhen has been wandering in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian and other places for many years, he has never been able to break through the blockade of the river, but his power should not be underestimated. After years of ups and downs, this person seems to have faded his ambition to look at the world, and under the support of Zhao Yu, he is happy to add a lot of troubles and troubles to Zhang Shicheng, and he just ignores Zhao Yu's acquiescence to infiltrate the two Zhejiang. Even if he didn't, he didn't have much to counterbalance Zhao Yu.

Zhao Yu's strong rise, the identity of the emperor of the previous dynasty, won the hearts of the people in Jiangnan, especially under the deliberate promotion of the captive army and the staff of the Chu Palace, the call for the revival of the Song Dynasty became more and more fierce in Jiangnan. Forced by the situation, Fang Guozhen even lowered his posture and invited the King of Chu to rush to Yashan to worship the young emperor of the Great Song Dynasty and Lu Xiufu and Prime Minister Lu Cheng.

And all over the south of the Yangtze River, even in Zhang Shicheng's territory, there is a craze for remembering the loyal soul in Shilin. Between the tea shops and taverns, countless romance scripts praising the martyrs of the previous dynasty have emerged, and even the children with drooping hairs sing the righteous songs of Prime Minister Wen Cheng every time. It seems that overnight, people have finally regained the integrity and arrogance that have been lost for more than a hundred years, or they have just precipitated in their bones and never forgotten, but at this moment they suddenly burst out like a blowout!

Under the infection of this wave, even in the city that has not yet been attached to the king of Chu and is still under the rule of the Yuan court, those Mongolian nobles do not dare to wantonly beat and insult the Han people as before, and even treat the Han gentry preferentially, and always prepare for surrendering to the army of the king of Chu.

Compared with the steaming situation in the south of the Yangtze River, the situation in the north is not very optimistic, and Liu Futong organized several counterattacks, all of which were ruthlessly defeated by Li Chahan, the king of Ruyang. The vigor and vitality of the Red Turban Army in the north have been exhausted, and it is difficult to do anything unless there is a big turnaround. At the end of the road, Liu Futong showed his perseverance and perseverance, and refused the surrender of the Yuan court several times, with a resolute attitude.

On the one hand, this person has a monstrous old grudge with the Five Elements Banner, on the other hand, if it were not for this person in the north to resist the fierce offensive of the Yuan Court, the rebel army in the south of the Yangtze River would be very difficult to reach the current climate. Especially since the beginning of this year, he has continued to struggle and fight back, giving Zhao Yu an extremely favorable opportunity and situation.

Now, Zhao Yu can only order the Miao army, which has been reorganized and stopped, to slowly advance to Xuzhou, and share some pressure on Liu Futong, which can be regarded as a return for the peach. However, he also understood that Liu Futong was about to decline, and it was difficult to improve again, so he signaled Chang Yuchun to gradually take over the blank land in southern Henan when he moved westward, so as to meet Liu Futong's defeated army and the people of Henan.

At the same time, Zhao Yu sent a lot of materials from Huainan to Liu Futong, one was to abide by the agreement he reached with Liu Futong when he returned from the Western Regions, and the other was to hope that Liu Futong could support him for a while. Now the situation in Jiangnan is still not clear, and it is not enough to support him to move his army north and drive straight into the Yuan army. But he also understands that it is quite unrealistic to hope that Liu Futong can continue to persevere. If you want to buy more time, you'll have to plan for something else.

Today's Yingtian, although the situation is very good, but if it is said that the world is invincible, it is also a bit exaggerated and premature. The so-called people's aspirations must connect all parts of the south of the Yangtze River and hold all of them in their hands before they can be turned into a practical force. And before that, if Liu Futong, the northern barrier, was defeated, the army of the Yuan Court would be able to drive straight into Yingtian without any obstacle and directly kill Yingtian City! At that time, these forces in the south of the Yangtze River were afraid that they would all point their spearheads at Yingtian without exception. After all, Zhao Yu put much more pressure on them than Yuan Ting. The wood is beautiful in the forest, and the wind will destroy it!

Time, what Yingtian lacks now, is still time!

It is obviously unrealistic to expect the enemy to give him enough time to calmly arrange. Zhao Yu has been thinking about what to do to buy enough time. Just when he was exhausted, Yan Yuan sent a letter from the north, which made Zhao Yu faintly see a glimmer of hope.

After Zhao Yu became king, the original structure of the Five Elements Banner Secret Camp was abolished and rebuilt as one of the four guards in front of the palace, and Yan Yuan, the original director of the secret camp, also became the first of these leaders of the Ming Sect to obtain a formal official status and was appointed as the commander of the palace avant-garde. Perhaps it was the reason why he was in charge of the secret report of the spy, Yan Yuan also had a bit of the ability to pretend to be like a person and a ghost, and the new commander put on the official robes neatly, and the reckless aura that originally permeated his body was gone, and Zhou's body was filled with a strong official authority that could not be offended.

Walking into the newly completed Chu Palace, Yan Yuan looked left and right for a moment, and smiled at Zhao Yu: "With the prestige and power of the sect leader in Jiangnan now, this palace is indeed a little incommensurate and too simple. Some time ago, I went to Zhang Shicheng's Wu Wangfu, which was so magnificent, I am afraid that even the palace could not be compared. ”

After Zhao Yu heard this, he waved his hand and smiled: "One place and one custom, it is not uncommon for Suzhou to have such a magnificent palace in a prosperous and sublime place. We have just experienced a military disaster in Yingtian, and it is the time for a large construction project to repair and rectify. Many people are still living on the streets, and at this time, I still do what I am doing with the excitement, just have tiles to cover my head. ”

Yan Yuan sighed after hearing this: "It's a pity that many people can't understand the deep meaning of the manager, and now there is a lot of construction everywhere in Yingtian City, competing to build private houses. ”

Zhao Yu just smiled and didn't say anything. For the ministers and generals under his command, Zhao Yu has always ignored the personal subsection issues, except for reminding them in the direction of the major sections. Hundreds of kinds of rice raise thousands of people, and it is impossible for him to completely restrain everyone to be loyal to the country and the people. These people who came to take refuge in him either to revitalize the Han Dynasty and display their ambitions, or to glorify their ancestors and be glorious and wealthy. Whether it is noble or selfish, as long as these people do not violate the law and can still get by on their faces, Zhao Yu will not stop them. If what these people are doing is really contrary to what he is doing, and he is so indulged in pleasure and not enterprising as he is now, Zhao Yu will not be severely reprimanded, but will gradually be idle and no longer reused.

After all, there is a friendship between monarchs and ministers, if those people only love the glory and wealth in front of them, and have no further ambitions, Zhao Yu is also happy to give them a glory in this world.

Therefore, in the six months that they were stationed in Yingtian, a large number of courtiers who initially followed Zhao Yu gradually moved away from the center of power, and took on an idle official position with a high rank but no great power.

At the same time, there are also many truly talented and ambitious courtiers who have been promoted and reused, such as Shen Wansan, who was not outstanding at all, has gradually been promoted to a high-powered degree of support and transfer, and he is the minister of finance. And among the many new people who have taken refuge, a number of talents who can be used have really emerged, such as Li Shanchang and others.

Zhao Yu used such a subtle means to gradually complete the transfer of power and a new structure to adapt to a higher level of rule. The ministers under his command each took what they needed and got what they wanted, and there were one or two voices of grievances and complaints, but it was not enough to shake the current stable and stable atmosphere.

Yan Yuan is here to make a briefing every three days, and now his men, although there are only 1,500 guards in the front of the palace on the surface, in fact, there are spy personnel hidden in the shadows, from the coast of the East China Sea to the top of the Tianshan Mountains, from the bitter cold of the north to Java in the South Sea, from the deep palace to the wharf of the market, it can be said that they all have their ears and eyes, all over the north and south of the river, no matter where there is an unusual movement in the world, it can be fed back to Ying Tian in the shortest possible time.

In such a vast and vast situation, if the messengers that deliver news every day in every detail are gathered, several wagons cannot be loaded. With so many messages, most of them are useless, and it takes hundreds of people every day to just aggregate and sort them out and sort out the really valuable information from them. And those who are judged to be worthless, but should not be discarded, but should be copied down by someone and archived in different categories, so that they can be read and used at any time when the situation changes.

As the person in charge of such a large organization, Yan Yuan has great power, but he is also trembling, lest he make a mistake in his negligent judgment for a while, so that truly useful information is missed or delivered in a timely manner.

Among these huge sources, some of them were specially ordered by Zhao Yu to be reported no matter how big or small, and the rest needed to be judged and selected by Yan Yuan and his subordinates, and reported every three days.

Recently, Zhao Yu has focused on the changes in the situation in the north, and Yan Yuan has also reported on this as a key focus. In addition to the changes in the overall situation, even the subsections such as the rescue of the six factions are also described.

These things on the rivers and lakes are no longer enough to work Zhao Yu bothered to think about it at the moment, he encouraged these people to go north to cause chaos in the Tartar court, and force back those assassins who were already small paths, Shang Ke, if he wanted to rely on them to win the most precious time for Ying Tian at the moment, it was simply impossible. Therefore, he listened to these things only as a pastime story. After receiving a few letters presented by Yan Yuan that had to be opened and read by himself, Zhao Yu changed slightly, and after a moment of silence, he said: "Maybe we have to send people to Dadu to manage it well, if it is convenient, we might as well save those people from the six factions." In the end, we Han people should not fall into the hands of Tartars and be wantonly humiliated. (To be continued.) )