Empress Dowager Guo frowned slightly and said: "You kid, how long has it been now and you are still joking with your mother?"
Shao Yan rubbed the back of his head in embarrassment. Although Queen Mother Guo was not his biological mother, her love for him was definitely from the heart, even more than that of his biological parents. Perhaps it was because he had been an orphan since he was a child.
, whenever he stood in front of Queen Mother Guo, he always felt particularly cordial and wanted to lie on her body and act coquettishly.
Seeing their mother and son reunited, Xiao Shunzi couldn't help but feel happy for them from the bottom of his heart. However, the autumn wind was blowing outside, and there was also a slight chill. He had to consider the health of his two masters, especially Shao Yan, in such a cold weather.
He was actually still wearing a thin coat, so he interjected from the side: "Your Majesty, Queen Mother, it's cold outside, if you have anything to say, we'd better go back to the palace to talk."
Empress Dowager Guo appreciated his thoughtfulness and nodded: "Xiao Shunzi is right. Your Majesty, you have been out of the palace for such a long time, so it's time to go in and have a look. Come, go in with your mother." As she said this, she reached out to help her.
Shao Yan's hand
To be honest, before the palace gate opened, Shao Yan really wanted to 'go home' for a walk, but when he thought of the soldiers fighting on the front line at the south gate, he felt very guilty. A country, a country, all...
What a heavy burden it was to bear on the bodies of these thousands of people. As the leader of a country, how could he sit on the throne with peace of mind? The more he thought about it, the more uncomfortable he became, so he subconsciously retracted his hand and shook it.
He shook his head and said: "No, Queen Mother, I'd better live in the south gate. There are the cutest warriors of our Donglin Kingdom there. I can't leave them alone."
"The cutest warrior?" Queen Mother Guo covered her lips and giggled, "Silly boy, there is Zhang Huaide watching over the south gate, so you don't have to worry, not to mention you didn't abandon them, you know they are
We, the guards of Donglin Kingdom, have the responsibility to protect our country, and we don’t owe them anything.”
Shao Yan shook his head and said: "What the Queen said is wrong. I heard from General Zhang that they held on at the South Gate for nearly a month when there was not enough food and grass. This is already very rare. I went to see them and many soldiers were unable to eat.
They guarded the city tower every day and night. In order to prevent enemy attacks, they even moved the bed directly to the city tower. They stayed there every day without taking off their clothes or taking off their swords. However, they did not complain at all. In such a bad environment
Under the circumstances, they used their tenacious will to hold back the hundreds of thousands of troops outside."
After a pause, he sighed and said: "I am proud to have such soldiers. To be honest, they should live on the emperor's salary and solve problems for the emperor. But when I look back at those courtiers, which one is not the same?
With hundreds of tons of salary every month, what on earth did they do? Each of them only has eyes for themselves, and they can escape faster than anyone else at the critical moment. I--" Speaking of anger, Shao Yan didn't want to go on.
The truth is that family scandals should not be made public. Most of these ministers were left to him by the late emperor. There is no need for him to expose the shortcomings of the late emperor.
After hearing his "gushing", Queen Mother Guo's face suddenly darkened. When Shao Yan first came to the throne, she once wanted to clean up the mediocre officials in the court, but she stopped her. At that time, she mainly considered the new
The emperor has just been established and has not yet established his footing. If he goes to war, it will inevitably lead to unnecessary disputes.
Now that I think about it, if I had followed Shao Yan's wishes, we might not be in this situation today. Thinking of this, he said with relief: "Your Majesty, everyone has their own ambitions, as the ancients said, husband and wife are birds of the same forest. When disaster strikes,
Flying separately, if the husband and wife are like this, let alone the ministers, you should be more open-minded."
Shao Yan heard a hint of resignation in her tone, and thought to himself, since the Queen Mother has said this, if I continue to say it, wouldn't I be contradicting her? Besides, everything she did was for the sake of
I'm fine, hey, forget it, take one step at a time, the sky won't fall down, what are you afraid of? Then he vowed: "What the mother said makes sense, please rest assured, I know very well that I have a heavy responsibility on my shoulders, even if I put it aside
There are high mountains and dangerous obstacles in front of me, and I have to push them down. Even if I am defeated today and lose a country, I will definitely rebuild a huge empire in the future. I want the people of the world to see what it means.
"Eternal Emperor"
Queen Mother Guo didn't even blink when she saw him speaking, and her loud voice expressed her firm confidence. With a son like this, what more could a mother ask for? While moved, she silently prayed to the deceased emperor, hoping that he would
Can you protect your son from this catastrophe?
At Shaoyan's invitation, Queen Mother Guo came to the South Gate with him. It was already late at night, and the mother and son were chatting in the room. From the initial suppression of bandits in the forest, to the destruction of Changqing City, and later to the continuous
Capture five cities and more
Shao Yan used his impeccable tongue to describe the whole process vividly. In order to make the story sound smoother, he intentionally or unintentionally mixed some exaggeration into it, but it gave it a different flavor.
Empress Dowager Guo had heard these "stories" from the spies a long time ago. Although she knew that he was deliberately exaggerating, she couldn't refute it, so she could only pretend to be surprised until Shao Yan told the whole story while sweating profusely.
He couldn't help but cover his lips and chuckled: "I didn't expect that so many things happened during the emperor's trip. This Mu Ying is also a reasonable girl. It would be a blessing if the emperor can bring her back to the palace."
Oh, I've been talking for a long time, but you only heard one Mu Ying. I dare you to tell me all those wonderful moments in vain. Alas - Shao Yan wiped his sweat helplessly and thought to himself, when did this happen? This old queen
If you are still in the mood to mention this, most likely because you miss your wife so much that you go crazy. Oh, how pitiful the hearts of parents in the world are, no wonder she
Seeing that Shao Yan didn't answer, Queen Mother Guo looked around the room, frowned slightly and said, "By the way, Your Majesty, the Ai family has been here for a while, why don't you see this girl Yunyun? Has she already fallen asleep?"
Shao Yan was stunned for a moment. When he was on the road, the Queen Mother had asked about this girl many times, but he ended up interrupting the conversation. Now that he had arrived home, if he kept hiding it, it would probably arouse the Queen Mother's curiosity even more.
In desperation, he had no choice but to say hesitantly: "Mother, she is no longer here."
"What do you mean she's gone?" Queen Mother Guo asked in shock.
"She has left me." Shao Yan said this in one breath. After hearing this, Queen Mother Guo almost fell to the ground. In fact, the spies she sent before also knew about this, so they deliberately
Whether she concealed it or not, this news was undoubtedly a shocking and tragic news for her. Yunyun's tender face instantly appeared in her mind. What a good girl, how could she just say she was gone?
"It's all the fault of the Ai family. If this girl's legs could walk, she wouldn't be like this." The old queen blamed herself and shook her head.
"Mother, please don't say that. She was brutally killed by an adulterer just to save me. It was me who failed to protect her. Even after she died -"
"What else?" The Queen Mother asked urgently with tears in her eyes.
"She -" Shao Yan still can't forget the scene of Yun Yun's body being hung on the tower that day. He wanted to tell the Queen Mother all this, but seeing that the old Queen Mother was so sad, he thought about it and decided not to, so he waved his hand and said
: "Things are over, I don't want to bring up old wounds again."
Queen Mother Guo nodded: "Indeed, Yunyun is a very good girl. When she leaves like this, the person who will be most saddened is the emperor. The queen mother should not expose your wounds at this time." As she spoke, she wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes, faintly.
He sighed: "My mother has been here before. I can see that this girl is really sincere towards you. The Ai family has watched her grow up. What is this girl thinking? The Ai family can tell at a glance. Since she was a child,
It's obvious that you made a mistake, but this girl is the one who carries it for you every time. Your father and I love her from the bottom of our hearts. We wanted to let you appoint her as queen when you grow up. Alas, we didn't expect this.
So many things have happened along the way.”
"Mother, let the past go by. You don't have to be too sad. I believe that Yun Yun has a spirit in heaven, and I don't want to see you unhappy." Shao Yan patted her shoulder gently and said
To be blunt, half of Queen Mother Guo's words were true feelings and half were out of comfort. How could Shao Yan not know that the old Queen Mother never thought about letting Yunyun become the queen from the beginning to the end? Yunyun's father Yuntian
Lin died because of her. No matter how generous she was, she would not give her such a noble title as the mother of a country. No woman would do this kind of thing, which is like shooting oneself in the foot. It's just that
When the old Queen Mother heard that Yunyun was dead, she felt a lot of guilt in her heart.
After being sad, she slowly recovered and avoided the topic and said: "Your Majesty, she died to save you, which shows that she has great expectations for you. You must cherish your life."
, no matter what happens in the future, you have to live well, you know?"
Why does this sound like a separation between life and death? Shao Yan was very surprised, and nodded in understanding: "Of course I understand that my life is related to the people of the world, even if I want to die, I can't do it."
"Don't talk nonsense." Queen Mother Guo quickly blocked his mouth with her hands and said with a frown: "You are the emperor, don't talk about death easily."
Shao Yan chuckled: "I know I was wrong, please forgive me, mother." But he said in his heart, what is happiness? This is happiness! Hey, it feels good to have a mother.
Seeing him smiling playfully at her, Queen Mother Guo suddenly felt angry and funny. She pretended to be serious and said, "You kid just won't grow up."
Shao Yan pouted and said: "Of course, I will always be your son no matter where I go. A son will never grow up in front of his mother."
"You are so talkative." A bright smile appeared on Queen Mother Guo's face
The more the mother and son chatted, the more they talked about it. They talked about everything from boring political affairs to military life, from astronomy to geography, from inside the palace to outside the palace... They talked about everything, as if they wanted to thoroughly study the entire earth.
They kept talking like this until dawn, and when the morning sun slowly rose from the horizon, Shao Yan felt like his eyes were fighting. Not only that, after talking all night, his saliva was dry and he was so hungry.
He screamed, and Queen Mother Guo personally cooked a bowl of chicken soup for him. Although Shao Yan did not have the habit of drinking chicken soup in the morning, he was really hungry, so without saying anything, he picked up the soup bowl and drank it in big gulps.
, then he lay down on the bed and fell asleep
I don't know how long it took, but he suddenly felt a little pain in his head, and his whole body was jolting constantly. He opened his eyes drowsily, only to find that he was lying in a carriage. Judging from the extent of the turbulence, the carriage must have
Driving on the mountain road, he patted his dizzy head hard, sat up slowly, opened the curtain and looked out, only to see two teams of Donglin cavalry outside the carriage. The mighty team, less to say.
There were also hundreds of people, many of whom were wounded soldiers. Some were wearing crutches, some were supporting each other, and they were walking with a limp.
Chang Yixiao and Zhang Huaide rode at the front. Their expressions were very depressed. The armor on their bodies was crooked and there were a few drops of blood on the saber on their waists. They seemed to have experienced a life-and-death battle.
"Smile, General Zhang, where are we going?" Shao Yan looked at all this and couldn't help but asked curiously.
His shouting really startled the two of them. They both quickly turned around and came to the carriage, saying in unison: "Your Majesty, are you awake?"
Shao Yan felt his head was dizzy, and he hurriedly asked the two of them: "How long have I been sleeping? Why do I always feel that I have no energy and my head is dizzy?"
The two looked at each other, but neither of them responded. Shao Yan guessed that they must be hiding something from him, so he said with a straight face: "What is it that makes you so concerned that you even dare to hide it from me?"
The two of them trembled slightly, but still did not make any reply, but their faces were much redder than before. Shao Yan felt something was wrong. He looked at the soldiers outside, who were obviously in a defeated posture, and asked casually: "
Tell me, what is going on?"
Seeing that the two still refused to speak, Shao Yan shouted at the top of his lungs: "Stop the car!"
The two of them did not dare to neglect, and hurriedly stopped the team. After the carriage stopped, Shao Yan tried his best to get out of the carriage, walked up to the soldiers, and then asked loudly: "Tell me the truth, everyone."
, what is going on? If no one speaks again, I will kill you without mercy."
The soldiers all hung their heads on their chests and were speechless. They often smiled. Seeing that Zhang Huaide could not hide it from the emperor, they both knelt down and cried loudly: "Your Majesty, we have suffered a big defeat. The south gate has been broken. The Chu soldiers
Drive straight in, Donglin Kingdom - it's over."
Shao Yan suddenly felt thunderous, his body tilted, and he almost fell to the ground, "What? When did this happen?"
"Three days ago"
"Three days ago?" Shao Yan was confused. In other words, I slept for three whole days? Oh my God, this--how is this possible?