In Dangxiang City, the sky is covered with heavy snow.
Thirty miles south of the royal city, there are several mud houses almost covered with snow, forming a small courtyard.
An almost frozen homing pigeon staggered into the yard.
This is a post station set up by the party's military, and it can also be regarded as a warning point and communication transfer station.
Nowadays, the city in the north of Dangxiang is closed due to heavy snow, and carrier pigeons have limited physical strength. It is difficult to fly directly from Xizhou to the capital, so the only way to deliver the message is through relays.
The Southern Expeditionary Army released homing pigeons from Xizhou. They did not fly directly to the royal city, but flew two to three hundred miles north. The mission was completed when they reached the inn.
The inn picked up the letter and then arranged for a new carrier pigeon to continue flying north until it reached the inn south of the royal city.
The soldier on duty at the post station heard the noise and quickly opened the door.
After flying for more than a hundred miles against the biting cold wind, even a carefully trained homing pigeon couldn't bear it. When it landed on the ground, it was so cold that it couldn't stand up.
A soldier ran over and picked up the carrier pigeon on the ground in distress.
He is the person in charge of raising pigeons at the inn, and he really likes to take care of the pigeons. He carefully raised this pigeon and sent it to the Southern Inn two months ago. Now that the pigeon is almost frozen, the pigeon fancier is very distressed.
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While untying his sheepskin coat and stuffing the doves into his arms, he complained: "How can we send a message in such a cold weather and such a strong wind?"
"There must be important information!" the person in charge of the station urged: "Look at the letter quickly!"
No matter how reluctant the pigeon breeder is, he can only take out the pigeons.
The bamboo tubes on the pigeon's legs were clearly painted with three red and one purple seals.
"It's an emergency military situation!"
The expressions of both of them changed.
In the feudal era, purple was regarded as the most valuable. The three red seals represented the highest level of emergency military situation. The purple seal represented that it was related to the royal family and should be sent to the palace immediately.
The person in charge of the inn didn't even have time to change his clothes, so he took the bamboo tube off the pigeon's leg and went straight to the stable.
A moment later, the war horses neighed and rushed into the wind and snow, heading straight for the imperial city.
It has been snowing for almost a month, and the snow on the official road has reached the horse's belly. Even if the person in charge of the post station beats him hard, the horse can't run fast.
The pigeon farmer sighed and stuffed the pigeon into his arms again.
Although it was only thirty miles away, the person in charge of the inn kept running from afternoon to dusk before finally reaching the south gate of King Dangxiang City.
At this time, the war horse under his seat had its butt whipped to pieces. When the person in charge of the station jumped off, the war horse could no longer hold on and fell directly to the ground. It looked like it was dying.
But the person in charge had no time to take care of it and ran straight to the city gate.
The soldiers at the city gate also saw someone approaching on horseback, but because of the heavy wind and snow and the darkness, they could not see the identity of the person coming and did not dare to open the city gate.
"I am Ha Linghei from Post No. 7. I have important military information that must be submitted to the Imperial City immediately!"
The person in charge shouted while holding the inn flag in his hand.
Even so, the soldiers guarding the city did not dare to open the door. Instead, they lowered a hanging basket from the city wall and hoisted the person in charge of the station up.
In Dangxiang City, the new emperor Li Lingxuan sat behind the desk, frowning as he read the memorial.
This year's snowstorm was more severe than last year. Many cattle, sheep and herdsmen froze to death on the grassland. Every day, he received a large number of memorials requesting funds for disaster relief.
However, Dakang has not paid tribute to the party for two years, and coupled with the two successive southern expeditions, the royal family now does not have much food inventory.
In the past, there was still some money from Dakang as tribute, but now, with the city closed due to heavy snow, the royal family can't buy anything even if they have money!
At this moment, Li Lingrui suddenly missed the Jinchuan Chamber of Commerce.
If the Jinchuan Chamber of Commerce is still there, they will definitely prepare a large amount of inventory in advance, which should be able to alleviate the current disaster situation.
But soon, Li Lingxuan gritted his teeth and gave up the idea.
As the emperor, he could guess Jin Feng's plan, and because he was worried that the Jinchuan Chamber of Commerce would gradually control the party, he suddenly attacked the Jinchuan Chamber of Commerce and the Zhenyuan Escort Bureau without sufficient preparation.
Thinking of the encirclement and suppression, Li Lingxuan could not help but grit his teeth secretly.
In fact, before the siege of the Jinchuan Chamber of Commerce and the Zhenyuan Escort Agency, he thought he would make a fortune, but unfortunately the escorts were always wary of Party items.
As soon as the siege began, many escorts realized something was wrong. When the party members surrounded the chamber of commerce, they directly set fire to the warehouse.
The materials stored in the warehouse of the Chamber of Commerce are mainly cloth, which can be easily ignited and difficult to extinguish. Bayi Chinese website
What made Li Lingxuan most angry was that when the Chamber of Commerce was stacking materials in the warehouse, they deliberately piled ironware, refined salt and other materials that were not easy to burn with kerosene and grenades.
The fire not only burned the cloth, but also detonated the grenades.
After the encirclement and suppression, Dang Xiang found almost nothing except some iron tools that could not be burned or exploded.
Originally, he also coveted the airship that Tieniu left near the tomb of King Dangxiang. He planned to sneak attack the flying team and captured the airship.
Unexpectedly, the escort of the flying team was more vigilant than an eagle. When he found himself surrounded, he immediately took an airship to escape.
After the airship was captured by Hai Dongqing, the pilot detonated the grenade very decisively and blew up the steam engine.
The steam engine is the core component of the airship. Without the steam engine, even if the party members get the torn air bag, it will be nothing more than a piece of rag.
In other words, the party members were busy working for a while, and except for arresting a group of bodyguards and chamber of commerce guys, nothing happened.
As for the captured bodyguards and chamber of commerce men, Li Lingxuan did not dare to execute them at will, for fear that Jin Feng would secretly send Li Jishan back.
This can be regarded as a tacit understanding between him and Jin Feng.
"Otherwise, distribute the bodyguards and merchant guild guys to each tribe?"
Li Lingxuan thought to himself.
In the past, Dangxiang would plunder a large number of people from the Central Plains every year and bring them to Dangxiang as slaves. A few months ago, Tieniu came and asked Dangxiang to release the slaves from the Central Plains. At that time, Li Lingxuan had no choice but to comply due to pressure from the airship.
Before winter, almost all slaves from the Central Plains were taken back by the Jinchuan Chamber of Commerce.
At the beginning, the Dangxiang people didn't think anything was wrong. Only after winter came did they realize the seriousness of the matter.
Before, in winter, most outdoor work was done by slaves from the Central Plains. Now there are no slaves, so only the party members can do these things themselves.
For the Dangxiang people, the value of slaves is not as good as cattle and sheep. They will freeze to death. They don't care. They can just go to the Central Plains to catch a batch next year.
But now that there are no slaves, when the party members come on their own, they will be the ones who freeze to death.
Since the beginning of winter, countless people have frozen to death in Dangxiang.
Just when Li Lingxuan was thinking about whether to distribute the bodyguards and chamber of commerce men to each tribe, the great eunuch walked over with small steps.