June is scorching hot, and all roads in the Central Plains are entering the flood season, with sudden torrential rains and rivers swollen.
In the rivers and rivers in Hehuai, Hedong, Hebei and other places, during the wars in the past two or three years, the river embankments were either man-made damage or left unattended and repaired and became incomplete and loose.
After summer, as the water levels of streams and rivers continue to rise, streams and rivers frequently burst out, and floods rush out, flowing freely between low hills, mountains and plains, and many thoroughfares to commercial ports have turned into swamps.
To a considerable extent, this also slowed down the enemy's speed of mobilizing food, men and horses to battlefields in Pinglu, Gongxian, Fengtai, Sizhou, Weinan and other places.
Although the enemy troops have not yet withdrawn from these battlefields, they have suspended their offensive and focused on repairs, consolidating their camps, and other matters.
This gives both sides a rare breathing period.
Taking advantage of a rare opportunity, Emperor Jianji summoned Xu Huai, Zheng Huaizhong, Gao Junyang, Gu Jiqian, Liu Yan, Yang Lin and Huai Wang Zhao Guan to enter the court for a business decision in late June.
Migration to the South.
This was also the first time that Emperor Jianji formally summoned the emperor's younger brother, King Zhao Guan of Huai, to Xiangyang to gather the brothers.
On the first day when the generals arrived in Xiangyang, Emperor Jianji held a grand banquet in the palace.
The standard of greeting King Huai was also the highest.
In addition to Prime Minister Zhou He and Prince Zhao Yi of Wuwei County, they led all the civil and military officials out of Xiangyang City to Nanxu Wharf to greet him. In addition to building a special palace for Huai Wang Zhao Guan in Xiangyang City, Emperor Jianji also authorized all the entourage of Huai Wang Zhao Guan.
The guards and soldiers, about two thousand men and horses, entered the newly built Prince Huai's Mansion in Xiangyang City.
Other generals, including Zheng Huaizhong, Gao Junyang and others who were enthroned as Dukes, and their guards and horses must stay in Fancheng on the north bank. Only ten or dozens of retinues are allowed to enter Xiangyang.
The Xiangyang Imperial Palace was only rebuilt on the basis of the original Yamen of the Jinglue and Yamen. The Chongwen Hall was the main hall of the Yamen of the original Jinglue and Yamen, and its regulations were much smaller than the formal Chongwen Hall in Bianliang.
The main hall can only accommodate more than thirty seats. Xu Huai has achieved great success over the years and has divided seats in civil and military affairs. As a military minister, he ranks behind Hu Kai, Zheng Huaizhong, Gao Junyang, Gu Jiqian, Wen Hengyue, Yang Lin and others.
And before Liu Yan, Zhang Xin, Deng Gui and others.
As for the seats of civil servants and clans, Prime Minister Zhou He was at the head, followed by Prince Zhao Yi of Wuwei County and Gao Chunnian who participated in politics, followed by Gu Fan, Wu Wenche, Xu Wei and others, followed by Zhu Hang, Qian Shangduan, Jin Zhuangcheng and others.
Emperor Jianji specially pulled Prince Huai to sit in the middle of the hall. Princess Yingyun was also wearing court clothes today, sitting upright beside Emperor Jianji, but her beautiful face still looked childish.
No matter how prominent their status may be, other generals and officials can only sit at the banquets in the corridors and courtyards at this time.
The traditional court banquet has certain rules for drinking, eating, and singing congratulations. Although the court banquet is lengthy, it is easy to get through.
Now everything is being simplified and these complicated rules are omitted. However, according to the rules, everyone in the palace cannot eat and drink with open stomachs, nor can they whisper to people they know well. The banquet seems a bit long and boring.
When Xu Huai came to Xiangyang this time, he had already confirmed that there were some things that he could not change. Chushan could only resort to the next best thing based on the cruel reality and seek a more realistic and pragmatic way to survive.
However, thinking that the Zheng family would miss the best opportunity to enter a stalemate situation if they withdraw from Heluo, Xu Huai felt unspeakably unhappy.
After entering the main hall and sitting at the desk, Xu Huai had no good expressions towards Zheng Huaizhong, Zheng Cong and his son. They even turned sideways from beginning to end, not wanting to look at Zheng Huaizhong, Zheng Cong and his son. Zhao Fan also accompanied him this time.
I came to Xiangyang, but I was only allowed to sit outside the hall.
Every family has eyes and ears in Xiangyang, and Xu Huai doesn't need to act like a white rabbit, pretending not to understand that the Zheng family is fueling the flames against Chushan in Xiangyang these days.
Others in the palace also had their own thoughts.
The banquet dragged on for an hour in dullness, and finally Emperor Jianji ordered the banquet to be withdrawn. Under the corridor outside the palace, the generals who were having the banquet in the courtyard, except for Zhao Fan, Ge Boyi and a few other people who were called in to participate in the discussion, everyone else left first.
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At this moment, His Highness's dull atmosphere suddenly disappeared. Everyone knew that this was about to get down to business, and everyone looked at Xu Huai and Zheng Huaizhong.
Whether they move south or not, the most serious impact will be on the morale of the generals guarding the Heluo defense line.
However, from beginning to end, it was the Zheng family who could not withstand the defensive battle of Pinglu, which was like a grinding mill, and they were determined to withdraw southward. It was the Zheng family who was behind the scenes and fueling the flames. In fact, there was no need to avoid talking about it anymore.
Princess Yingyun was still sitting behind Emperor Jianji and did not leave. Everyone was not surprised.
The Bianliang Disaster dealt such a heavy blow to the clan that almost all the descendants of the royal clan were wiped out.
Nowadays, apart from Jian Ji, there are only a few members of the remaining clan in Dai Viet.
Although Yingyun was a daughter, Emperor Jianji had no other children around him, and even the Ministry of Internal Affairs only had about a hundred palace eunuchs and maids. Emperor Jianji sometimes asked Princess Yingyun to learn to handle some simple government affairs when she was older, so who could force her to do so?
Isn't it the one who bravely stood up and accused Emperor Jianji?
The customs of the previous dynasties were still much more enlightened than those of later generations, and the constraints on women were far less severe than those of later generations.
Of course, Huai Wang Zhao Guan was not deeply suspicious of his niece Yingyun's participation in government affairs.
Whether he can secure his position as the crown prince, ultimately depends on whether the wariness between him and his brother Jianji can be eliminated.
If it cannot be eliminated, he will never feel at ease in Shouchun, and nothing will change because of Yingyun; but if he can eliminate the grudge, guard against Emperor Jianji, and become brothers, his status will not be worried about being shaken by Yingyun.
This subtle relationship even directly affected the attitude of the Huai Palace towards the southward migration.
The Huai Palace's eyes and ears in Xiangyang had long captured the barely disguised undercurrent of the Zheng family.
Zhou He and others advocated moving south. The core reason was that they were worried that the Huai Palace would not be able to defend the Huaihe River, which would endanger both the Yangtze and Huaihe Rivers. The destination of the southward move was also Jianye, which was originally planned to the southeast of Luzhou.
If Prince Huai and the brothers Jianji were harmonious, everyone in Prince Huai's palace would naturally hope that the move to the south would come true.
After Emperor Jianji moved south, in addition to tens of thousands of elites moving south from Xiangyang to the vicinity of Jianye, as Huainan's backing, they could also reinforce Huainan's operations at any time. More importantly, they would strengthen their rule over Jianghuai and other places, and more fully
Raising and mobilizing troops, money and food from Jianghuai and other places, as well as large-scale naval training based on the Yangtze River, fundamentally made the Jianghuai defense system more rigorous.
However, from another perspective, if the two brothers were deeply wary of each other and were both afraid of causing trouble to Xiao Qiang, then Emperor Jianji's command of civil and military ministers and tens of thousands of elite guards to move south would be the greatest restraint on Huainan.
However, the cruel reality before the Huai Palace is that the Red Husbands are indeed building ships and training naval forces in Xuzhou and Yingzhou. After the next winter comes, there will be tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of soldiers crossing the Huaihe River at any time and heading south.
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Ge Boyi, Wang Boxian, Yan Shiyong and others all expected that even if they could repel the Japanese soldiers again, they would not be able to resist the enemy to the north of the Huai River. Huainan would inevitably become damaged due to the brutal war, and even raise seven soldiers in the later stage.
Even 80,000 troops and horses are difficult.
Therefore, everyone in the Huai Palace suggested that Huai Wang Zhao Guan take this opportunity to come to Xiangyang to participate in the court meeting to show that he has no intention of independence; even if he cannot improve the relationship with Emperor Jianji and Xiangyang generals, they should at least see the Xiangyang monarchs and ministers with their own eyes.
Attitude towards Huainan.
Although Emperor Jianji's mother died young and King Huai's mother was able to take over the Renming Palace, she exerted more pressure on Emperor Jianji and the former prince. After the fall of Bianliang, King Huai also had ambitions to gain prominence in Weizhou, but Renming
The palace did not blatantly persecute Emperor Jianji, but King Huai finally chose to support Emperor Jianji.
Even if they didn't believe in Emperor Jianji's character, everyone in the Huai Palace did not think that Emperor Jianji would persecute King Huai when the enemy was pressing down on the country and the mountains and rivers were in ruins.
When everyone in Xiangyang saw that Huai Wang Zhao Guan personally brought Ge Boyi and others to Xiangyang to attend the court meeting, it was not difficult to guess that they did not have strong objections to the move to the south.
Therefore, the focus of everyone's attention fell on Xu Huai and Zheng Huaizhong.
"In recent days, there has been a lot of discussion in Xiangyang City about the move to the south. I specially summoned the generals here because I wanted to make an early decision," Emperor Jianji said in a deep voice as he unveiled this heavy topic in person, a little gloomily.
He glanced at everyone in the hall and asked, "I have read all the memorials. Is there anything different at this time, or do you have different thoughts?"
"The great affairs of the country are decided by your majesty and the others. This is the system of the ancestors. We, the foreign ministers, obey the imperial edicts and act, how can we arbitrarily discuss the rights and wrongs of the court?" Zheng Huaizhong said loudly.
Since the founding of the Dai Viet dynasty, civil society has been used to control military affairs and civil affairs have governed military affairs. All strategic national affairs have been decided by the people and ministers. Military ministers who make arrogant comments on government affairs will be impeached by the Yushi Yuan Yuan.
This tradition is still deeply imprinted in the hearts of traditional military officials. As soon as Zheng Huaizhong said these words, Yang Lin, Liu Yan, Gu Jiqian, Gao Junyang and others habitually kept their mouths shut even if they were not happy in their hearts.
"According to what Duke Zheng said, Xu Huai presented three memorials to His Majesty in succession regarding his move to the south, which makes it appear that he has ulterior motives?" Xu Huai stared at Zheng Huaizhong with sharp eyes and asked tit for tat.
"I have sent an edict to all the ministers to ask for advice. You have expressed your thoughts for the sake of the country and the country, and it is not an arbitrary suggestion. However, Mr. Zheng also spoke in a mature and prudent manner." Emperor Jianji saw that Xu Huai refused to give in to Zheng Huaizhong, so he had no choice but to
He came out to be the peacemaker and said, "If you have any ideas, please tell me. There is no need to think too much about Zheng Gongzhi's words."
"Thank you, Your Majesty, for understanding my veteran's painstaking efforts." Zheng Huaizhong did not even look at Xu Huai, and saluted and thanked Emperor Jian...
