"The existence of Ming Gong is the reason why the Song Dynasty has been unable to sing and dance to peace!" Zeng Gongliang left these words angrily and planned to leave. The so-called "not speculative" is more than half a sentence.
Jia Changchao laughed and said: "It is normal to have different political opinions. Why should Ming Zhong hurt others with harsh words? Forget it, I will leave now and leave the court to you young people. There is a memorial written by me here. Please bother Ming Zhong to submit it to me."
His Majesty."
Zeng Gongliang was extremely surprised. What did Jia Changchao mean by this sentence? He found that Jia Changchao took out a written memorial from his left sleeve and placed it next to Zeng Gongliang. Then he waved his sleeve and left Chengtai Hall.
Zhao Zhen was behind the curtain, his face was livid, he looked like a cunning old thief. There had just been some movement in the palace, so he was able to take the lead and invite himself out. There was already evidence in the palace scandal case that showed that he was closely related to Jia Changchao.
Walking out of the curtain and seeing the stunned Zeng Gongliang, Zhao Zhen sighed and said: "People say that you, Zeng Mingzhong, are a good old man. I didn't believe it before, but now I find that it is true."
Zeng Gongliang pointed to the memorial in his hand, and then to himself. He found that the things he encountered today were beyond his expectations, and none of them could clearly define his position.
Zhao Zhen took the memorial from Zeng Gongliang, opened it, took a look at it, then gently tapped his palm with the memorial and said: "Resigning and returning home? Isn't it too easy to think about it? Can the humiliation I have suffered be laughed off?
?”
Zeng Gongliang cupped his hands and said, "Your Majesty, please make it clear that if Your Majesty is humiliated, I will fight to the death to seek justice for Your Majesty."
Zhao Zhen smiled and said: "It is your moral integrity to humiliate your ministers and die, but it is not okay. People think that I will not make this matter public, so they are so unscrupulous. Therefore, my humiliation is certain and cannot be changed. If I tell you, I will be even more humiliated, and the royal family's reputation will be lost. One more thing is worse than one less thing. Let's settle some accounts together later.
Aren’t you here to play chess with me? Let’s start then, I just want to be quiet and kill some bad luck on the chess board.”
The confused Zeng Gongliang accompanied the emperor to play chess in the flower hall. He was naturally flustered and defeated by the emperor. After the game, Zhao Zhen threw the chess pieces in his hands into the lacquer box and said with a smile: "Ming Zhong is uneasy.
This chess game is really tasteless. Since you are an honest person, don’t imitate others and think too much. You have done a good job in practical work. It is natural that many capable ministers in the Song Dynasty are not used to these intrigues.
Tell me, why did you come to the palace to see me? I don't believe that you, Zeng Mingzhong, would have time to come and play chess with me. This is very inconsistent with your character. Tell me, I am calm and relaxed at this time."
Zeng Gongliang tried his best to put aside the doubts in his heart and said: "Has your Majesty received the secret recipe of the new gunpowder from Yunzheng in Sichuan?"
Zhao Zhen seemed to have thought of something interesting and laughed: "I did receive it, and I asked the Boy Army to make it. The power is really amazing, completely beyond my expectation. I have prepared a light chariot for Yunzheng."
The title of Lord, as a token of my gratitude to him for his unwavering loyalty to the Song Dynasty."
Zeng Gongliang rubbed his hands habitually and said: "I dare you to take a look!"
Zhao Zhen refused without even thinking a word: "No!"
Zeng Gongliang raised his hands with difficulty and said, "Why? As a weapons supervisor, Wei Chen knows the secret recipe."
Zhao Zhen looked at Zeng Gongliang's red face and suppressed a smile and said: "Prevent fire, guard against theft, guard against Zeng Gongliang!" As soon as the words came out, the emperor couldn't stop laughing, and patted the table to pick up the chess pieces that had not been put away. It was shaken and scattered.
It took a long time to recover. Looking at Zeng Gongliang's resentful face, he started laughing again. He finally stopped his laughter and said to Zeng Gongliang: "These are Yun Zheng's original words. There are thousands of instructions and instructions in the memorial." Tell me, I must not tell you that as the controller of the military secrets of the Song Dynasty, you have the bad habit of writing and writing. If the secret of gunpowder is leaked, the Song Dynasty will be even more dangerous. He also To be ambitious, before the Song Dynasty built a solid military defense line, the secret of gunpowder must not be leaked."
Zeng Gongliang asked curiously: "The military defense line of the Song Dynasty?"
Zhao Zhen walked to the edge of the map of the country and the mountains, made a faint scratch on the border of the Song Dynasty with his hand, and sat down again. When Zeng Gongliang spoke and Yun Zheng's memorial was handed over to him in Hanlin, Zhao Zhen stayed up all night. Zou Tong held a candle and accompanied the emperor as he looked at the frontier of the Song Dynasty over and over again. If Yun Zheng's plan succeeded, Zhao Zhen thought that he would be able to give an explanation to his ancestors even if he died.
Zeng Gongliang's memory was very good. The emperor just scratched it casually with his hand, and a turmoil arose in his heart. He looked at the emperor suspiciously and said: "Your Majesty, if I'm not mistaken, you just seemed to have separated Qingtang and Hanhai." , Yanyun Sixteen Prefectures, and even Dali Nanzhao and Annan Kingdom were included together."
"The mountains are the key, the sea is the barrier, the pass is the throat, the rooster crows in the east, the moon is half-mooned in the west, the spring grass is luxuriant in the south, and the ground is frozen in the north. This is why the Han and Tang Dynasties are majestic..."
Zhao Zhen recited a short passage casually, grabbed the chess pieces on the table and caressed them, thought for a long time and sighed: "This is the limit of my dream...
However, some people say that when Taizu waved his jade ax by the Dadu River and said that the Song Dynasty would end here, it was a short-sighted strategy. If a country loses its desire for land, it will also lose the motivation to move forward...
He also said that the biggest reason why the Song Dynasty is full of ills now is that there are too many soldiers, too many officials, and the people have less land. Just imagine, once the Song Dynasty has the sixteen states of Yanyun, the garrison in Hebei will only need two or three achievements to rely on geographical advantages. So the border guards are blocked, and the same is true in the northwest. If the vast sea is in my hand, where will I need to raise millions of people on Huanzhou, Yongxing Military Road, and Qinfeng Road?
He also said that there were not many officials in the Song Dynasty, and the structure of the stacked houses was just because there was not so much land to accommodate these officials. If the reality just mentioned happened, the officials in the Song Dynasty might not be enough.
The Yellow River and the Huaihe River were the two harmful rivers of the Song Dynasty. The Yellow River would change its course once every few decades. Each change of course would bring huge scars to the Song Dynasty. Once the Yellow River entered the Huaihe River, the disaster would be even more heartbreaking. .
The Song Dynasty had invested a huge amount of money and manpower in regulating the Yellow River and the Huaihe River. Now the result of the transformation is that the embankment of the Yellow River is now higher than Kaifeng City. The guy also said that if he wanted to attack the city, he didn't have to contend with the Song Dynasty's imperial army. As long as the cavalry is sent to dig the embankment of the Yellow River when the flood season comes, Bianliang City can be prevented from being attacked. At that time, Wang Jian, the powerful general of the Qin State, relied on cutting water to flood the beams and finally destroyed the powerful Wei State. History There has been a precedent in the past. The guy asked me if I wasn't worried?
If the land of the Song Dynasty was vast enough, there would be no such thing as land annexation in the Song Dynasty. It would be difficult to control the Yellow River, so we would not control it. We would just move the people away from the Yellow River Flood Area. In this way, every time the Yellow River overflows, the Yellow River Flood Area will be flooded.
Bring a large piece of fertile land, where we can only grow food but not live in people."
Zeng Gongliang took off his official hat, scratched his hair, breathed in the cool air and said to the emperor: "This is a dream!"
"I know!" Zhao Zhen replied angrily, licking his dry lips and said, "How come no one has had such a dream before?"
Zeng Gongliang sighed and said: "No one dares, and no one has ever had such a strange idea."
"But some people say that as big as the heart is, as big as the future is, as long as you persevere, you will eventually achieve your goal. That guy even mentioned about conquering the title of King of the Sixteenth State of Yanyun, and even said that if he reaches that height in the future,
He wants me to give him Qiongzhou as a fiefdom, and he plans to retire there..."
"Who is this person?" Zeng Gongliang asked word by word through gritted teeth.
"Yun Zheng, aren't you and I talking about him?" Zhao Zhen seemed to be very happy and continued: "If he can really take back the Sixteenth State of Yanyun to me, it will be easy for Wang Jue to give it to him, and it doesn't matter if Qiongzhou is given to him.
, it’s a smoky place anyway…”
"Your Majesty, wake up, this is simply an impossible dream. This is deception. Yun Zheng should be sent to Qiongzhou!"
Zhao Zhen laughed, pointed at Zeng Gongliang and said: "They described such a scene to me in the memorial, which made me fascinated, but it is hard to say, this guy now has ten thousand soldiers..."
"That's 10,000 Xiang troops, 10,000 Xiang troops who only know how to work and do hard work. There are still more than 30,000 mouths behind him that need to be filled. If he can be self-sufficient within ten years, I will be thankful to God."
Zhao Zhen clicked his lips, reluctantly left the topic and said to Zeng Gongliang: "The secret recipe of gunpowder was burned by me, so I can only pass it on by word of mouth. The secret recipe is very simple, but my dear, you have to think clearly. Once you
If you know the formula of gunpowder, you will always be under the protection of the Boy Army, and it will be difficult to maintain any privacy."
Zeng Gongliang didn't care about these things at all. He was now alone in the capital, his family members were still in his hometown, and he only had two old servants around him. He was self-sufficient and had nothing to hide. He nodded decisively in agreement.
As Zhao Zhen spoke, he casually wrote down the classic formula for gunpowder taught to him by Yun Zheng. Zeng Gongliang took a look at it and then personally threw the small paper ball into the small charcoal stove for making tea, and used tongs to scatter the paper ashes.
Just give up.
It was impossible to hide the formula of gunpowder from Zeng Gongliang. If the Song Dynasty wanted to mass-produce gunpowder, it could not do without Zeng Gongliang, so the emperor told him the ultimate secret of gunpowder after warning him.
Zeng Gongliang closed his eyes and thought for a while, then asked the emperor doubtfully: "So simple?"
Zhao Zhen nodded and said: "It's that simple. Those rough-handed soldiers in the Boy's Army can make it, so there shouldn't be any problem in your hands. However, Han Lin said that the gunpowder made by the Boy's Army is not as powerful as
Yunzheng made it himself."
Zeng Gongliang nodded and said: "This is inevitable. As long as the ratio of the dosage of the gunpowder is a little different, the effects will be very different. The purity of those things will also affect the quality of the gunpowder. I will definitely pay attention to it." (To be continued)