This city once had unimaginable prosperity and experienced countless sufferings. As the capital of the Song Dynasty, its golden glory and dazzling glory have long gone away, but even a little bit remains.
The legacy is enough to make this city have a vitality that surpasses its peers. Even the new Tianjin Prefecture in the north has to compete with it.
In the middle of the twelfth lunar month last year, Kaifeng Mansion resumed the Lantern Festival that had been a smash hit decades ago. The city immediately provided residents and guests with all kinds of pleasant, fresh, and lively things to enjoy, making this place once again popular after a hundred years.
We welcomed merchants from all over the north and south, some from as far away as Sichuan.
This year's festival is approaching, and the Kaifeng government has come up with a new trick. It has ordered that the pre-show date for the lantern festival be advanced half a month. So on both sides of several streets radiating from the center of Kaifeng City to all directions, colorful sheds have been erected.
The house is used as a temporary venue to display lanterns and display various goods.
This not only made local restaurants and merchants extremely excited, but also some Buddhist temples and Taoist temples outside the city became particularly lively.
A large number of people swarmed on the streets. They not only watched, cheered, burned incense, and asked for fortune-telling, but they were also busy talking about weight, doing business, buying small items, and buying in bulk. There were even more people watching the opera.
Listening and speaking, gambling and chess, and watching other people's plays and games. The jubilant crowds seemed to cover up the decades of decay, and made people forget the disaster of war.
Of course, the war never really stopped on the northern border of the Great Zhou Dynasty. The evening before yesterday, news came from the postal road that the emperor led his army northward and reached the old place of Wushabao in one go, where he killed the Mongols.
The new army formed by the Mongols, and the emperor was so majestic that the Mongols were frightened by the war and made many concessions, which greatly deepened the court's control over the grasslands.
For officials south of the Yellow River, the threat from the Mongols seemed to have passed a long time ago, and the grasslands were very far away. What happened there seemed to be in another world.
But no matter what, this is good news. The officials' faces were filled with joy and they walked a little faster when they came and went. Yesterday, many people did not eat in the official office at noon, but chose to go home.
After telling his family the good news, the Nanjing deputy stayed behind. Yin Chang, the deputy envoy of Nanjing Road Tongjun, simply gave an order to give the officials a half-day holiday today to make them happy.
Because Emperor Guo Ning of the Great Zhou Dynasty likes to patrol everywhere, if the superiors are good, the subordinates will follow suit. In several military command departments in the south, including Nanjing Road, military commanders are usually directly stationed in the army and travel to the enemy countries they directly face.
Border. It is their deputy who is responsible for daily military and political affairs.
Especially during the New Year holidays, Yin Chang was always busy with many people coming in and out of the courtyard where the Office of the Tongjun Division was located. Not only were there relevant officials from the Left-behind Department and the Tongjun Division, but also the Transport Department and the Sentencing and Inspection Department.
People were often sent to ask for instructions and inquiries. It was not until Yin Chang ordered everyone to disperse, and after entering the courtyard several times, it became quiet.
Looking at where Yin Chang was, he found that even the soldiers on duty at the door had been dismissed.
Inside and outside, he was the only one sitting in the hall.
Yin Chang did not go back to his mansion, but just sat there, flipping through thick documents, and writing a few lines of words with his pen from time to time.
The nobles and warriors of the Great Zhou Dynasty came from mixed backgrounds. Many of them were just pawns and bandits, and did not even know a few words. Only because they clung to Guo Ning, they held high positions one by one. Guo Ning has continued to work hard over the years.
Strengthening the construction of military academies and introducing these groups of people to military academies in turn for training is of course to cultivate the backbone of the military, but it is also because many people in the army have shallow intelligence and are not qualified for big tasks.
Yin Chang is different from them.
As early as the Taihe period, he relied on his achievements in conquering the Song Dynasty to achieve the jurisdiction of the sixth-rank Binzhou military. If it were not for the influence of Han identity, it is not impossible to win the fifth-rank commander and the fourth-rank defense commander. After more than ten years, Yin
The military jurisdiction of Chang became the de facto lord of a state, and he still achieved considerable results in both military and political administration.
When turmoil arose in various parts of Shandong, Yin Chang managed to get everything right and stood firm. In the eyes of the imperial court, he was a powerful local official and one of the few great leaders in the red coat army. When he arrived in Ding Haijun, he was also
He left the town of Jinan and served as an envoy to the German army.
Such senior officials will naturally gather huge authority. Especially when he is in the big city of Kaifeng and comes into contact with various forces. Since this year, even if Guo Zhongyuan returns to Kaifeng, Yin Chang will still be stronger than him.
Busier.
After reviewing more than a dozen books in one breath, Yin Chang looked up at the sky outside the hall.
I don't know when thick clouds hung low in the sky, as if you could reach out and touch them. The courtyard was surrounded by brackets and cornices on three sides, making it look increasingly darker. Yin Chang got up, held the candlestick himself, and lit several large copper lamps around the house. He felt his heart beating fast.
Soon, my palms became sweaty.
He has great ambitions, and he also thinks that he has the talent to make great achievements. However, in the past few years, the people, money and material resources of the Great Zhou Dynasty have been pouring out to the three recruiting bureaus in the north, and the three military commanding bureaus in the south are facing the world.
It is the fattest piece of meat in the world, but it still cannot be eaten.
Sometimes, Yin Chang had to compromise with this fat man, pretending to be modest and friendly to his neighbors, and from time to time he smiled and accepted the generous gifts given by the people of the Southern Dynasties.
This situation makes Yin Chang feel very tired. If he wanted money, he would have been able to scrape the ground when he was a local emperor in the first twenty years of his life. But now he doesn't care about this at all.
He took refuge with Guo Ning because Guo Ning respected him and regarded him as a new and powerful arm in Dinghai Navy. Later, he followed Guo Ning in the crusade against Kaifeng. He also mobilized various units of the Red Coat Army and traveled thousands of miles to establish a solid foundation.
of military exploits.
However, in the past few years, Sikong, the commander of the southern army, has a huge force, but has never been able to truly exert its power. On the contrary, the northern warriors have relied on their merits in defending the grassland and have become closer and closer to the inner circle. In this regard, Yin
Chang was very dissatisfied.
From a personal point of view, this situation caused him to waste several years in the south. No matter his official position, title or reputation, he did not make any progress. He is almost sixty years old, how many years can he last in the army? Every day wasted.
This reduces his already very few military career in which he can still ride a horse.
From a rough perspective, Yin Changye really doesn't understand what the Zhou Dynasty has been thinking in recent years. The current territory of the Zhou Dynasty, in the south, is similar to the territory of Guo Zhou that was replaced by the Song Dynasty, except for the capital in the hands of the Southern Dynasty.
This area of Southwest Road.
At that time, Wang Pu, Guo Zhou's adviser, proposed to Zhou Shizong that the way to attack was to start from the Yi. He should first capture the north of the Yangtze River, then sweep the south of the Yangtze River, and capture Wu Zegui. Guang and Guang were all ministers, and Min and Shu could be summoned by flying letters.
If they don't arrive, they will advance from all sides and sweep down Shu. The easy ones will be pacified one by one, and then they will move north to capture the difficult ones.
This strategy was the strategy used by the Song Dynasty to unify the world later in the Southern Dynasty, and it is still correct today. If we have to find fault and point out the omissions in it, we can only say that it is easy first and then difficult, because the Song Dynasty has no way to win in the north, and
Without horses, it was really impossible to win.
But the Great Zhou Dynasty is not the Song Dynasty! The Great Zhou Dynasty is in the north, with a vast northeastern hinterland, endless horses and foreign races to drive, which is more than a hundred times stronger than the Song Dynasty!
With such conditions, why not go to war? Why not wipe out the Song Dynasty and mix it up? What's the point of doing business with the Song people? Since the south is rich, wouldn't it be more fun to grab it with a knife?
Yin Chang did not understand the emperor's intention anyway. He wrote several times, vaguely mentioning whether the national policy should be changed in response to the current situation. But the court never responded.
Yin Chang was very impatient about this. So taking advantage of his current status and the connections he had accumulated over decades of long-sleeved skills, he gradually began to gather a group of soldiers who were interested in going south to fight and make meritorious deeds. Even starting last year, he even reached out to
The Tianjin government is trying to slow down and relax the continuous transfer of supplies to the north, and then slowly leverage changes in the general direction from these small aspects.
With his shrewdness and ability, he can naturally handle these things properly, which is effective and does not involve himself.
But among the documents returned from the postal route this time, in addition to Lubu who had won the battle in the north, there was also an urgent report from two subordinates he sent to the north, Xu Wende and Guo Zheng. The urgent report said that the supervisory agency directly under the emperor
The Secretary, for some reason, was eyeing the Tianjin Mansion, and Li Yun, the doctor on the left and right, was personally making inquiries. The two vaguely felt that the visitor was evil, and after discussing it, they decided to leave the Tianjin Mansion quickly to avoid the limelight.
Neither of these two people are hesitant. Since they said in the secret letter that they would leave Tianjin Mansion, they will not delay. Calculating the distance, they will not be much slower than Fei Qi on the post road. Yin Chang estimates that at most
Two days later, at this moment, the two of them should return to Kaifeng and report to Yin Chang.
Where are they? Why haven’t they arrived yet?
Yin Chang looked outside the door and saw that his two trusted subordinates had not come yet.
He was a little restless. He unfolded the military and political documents on the desk, but felt dizzy and suddenly couldn't stand it anymore.
At this moment, footsteps were clattering outside the courtyard gate, and several people were hurriedly walking. Yin Chang threw the documents, stood up, and went out to greet them.