Chapter 293 – Where are you, I am here?

Thousands of riders rushed to the Old Dushan defense line with the momentum of sweeping Pinggang, the leader of the main general, it is clearly to conquer the South General title remotely lead the military minister Wu Chongxuan, this member of the Spring and Autumn meritorious veteran generals rolled over on his horse, stood in the devastated barracks, gripped the whip, narrowed his eyes and did not say a word. The corpses of the soldiers who died in the battle have been emptied, but the bloodstains on the ground are still shocking, which can be seen from the tragic situation of the previous battle.

Not far away from the four or five lieutenants look like the army senior ranks side by side to come, in the center of the armored man holding the head, in Wu Chongxuan five steps in front of the bombing kneeling, sobbing uncontrollably. Wu Chongxuan saw this scene, his face gloomy, inner turning over, Wang Tongshan was used by the Yan Ci Wang to check and balance the northern border soldiers and horses key figure, in the end, is Zhao Bing Zhao cast this pair of father and son do not feel at ease with him Wu Chongxuan in the north of the border only hand to cover the sky, Wu Chongxuan this trip by the court recruited, looks like the scenery, in fact, the tree attracts the wind, the infamous Wang Tongshan, was going to be Wu Chongxuan vital a chess piece to attract the attention of the officials of Liyang, especially the clear stream of civilian officials. Especially the attention of the Qing current officials, Wu Chongxuan deliberately with the young son of God, put forward a proposal, even Wang Tongshan themselves are not expected generous conditions, that is, Wang Tongshan to be appointed to the title, although not Marquis, but just wait for the end of the war in Guangling, Wang Tongshan, that is, you can Marquis and Zhennan General dual identity sitting in the town of the south of Guangling River in the area of the state of Jian, the constraints on the suppression of Yan Zhi Wang’s southern border troops and horses, in order to prevent the Zhao Bing downwind! Now Wang Tongshan died violently, not only will he be able to prevent Zhao Bing from going north. Now Wang Tongshan died violently, not only the western line of the court less a member of the charge of the unparalleled fierce generals, on the war situation in Guangling, and on Wu Chongxuan’s future layout in the court is also far-reaching, how can Wu Chongxuan not gnash his teeth, hate to that young feudal king skinning and cramping?

Wu Chongxuan looked at the dead head, eyes round, face hideous. Even if you see Wang Tongshan’s head with your own eyes at this moment, Wu Chongxuan still can’t help but be in a trance, by virtue of his military achievements and military power in the southern border can’t be Wang Tongshan, that one man with a halberd can pick over the entire barbarian tribe of fierce generals, just like this dead? To be honest, not only Wu Chongxuan disliked this person from the bottom of his heart, I’m afraid that even King Zhao Bing of Yanzhi and Nalan Yuci disliked Wang Tongshan, not to mention Zhao Zhuo, the son of the world who had personally assassinated Wang Tongshan. But this world is so realistic, no matter how tyrannical and cruel Wang Tongshan, but this person led the troops to fight the ability to not have half a bit of water, the southern border barbarians are extremely difficult to tame, often repeated, today to submit to the next day to rebel like tea and dinner, only Wang Tongshan this god of killing the barbarians in the highest prestige, so that whenever the barbarians rebel, as long as the tree up that pole of the general flag of the Wang Tongshan, can be said to be looking at the wind to give up, so much so that in the early years of a great joke, one of the counter-revolt of a man who was a good man, and he was a good man, but he was not a good man. So much so, that in the early years, there was a big joke, one of the rebel generals specially spent 200,000 taels of silver to send someone to borrow the flag from Wang Tongshan to go to the poor mountains to pacify the rebels. The king of Yanzhi, Zhao Bing, therefore had to transfer Wang Tongshan to the northern border, so the southern border officials all regarded the unruly Wang Tongshan as the Xu Snapdragon of Liyang.

With the death of the man, Wu Chongxuan sighed, stooped down to help up the infantry lieutenant who had been loyal to Wang Tongshan, and said in relief, “Lieutenant Situ, I will avenge General Wang’s death and even at the risk of being reprimanded and demoted by the imperial court, I will deploy 5,000 infantry cavalrymen to intercept and kill Xu Fengyen!”

The lieutenant with his head in his hand covered in blood said in a deep voice, “I implore the great general to let my humble servant serve as a horse frontman!”

The remaining lieutenants in Wang Tongshan’s army also clasped their fists and asked for orders, “I implore you to allow my subordinates to avenge the death of Xu Fengnian!”

Wu Chongxuan’s face was expressionless and his mind was racing. In front of these lieutenants and their subordinates, a total of more than 10,000 soldiers, are Wang Tongshan from the southern border to the northern border of the direct line, Wang Tongshan killing is not false, but the lonely Wang Tongshan has never been greedy for money, all the rewards are willing to thousands of gold scattered, especially military achievements reported to the King of Yanzhi, never deducted half a point, and even many of the Wang Tongshan personally killed the enemy chief of the war, but also to the Department of Generals, so in the Wang Tongshan fought under the promotion of fortune Therefore, if you fight under Wang Tongshan, you will be promoted and get rich much faster than in other departments. Common military generals use people, use dogs not wolves, unless they are tigers, otherwise they have to worry about their own protection, Wang Tongshan fierce reputation, so under the hands of many jackals and wolves prima donna. Wu Chongxuan in fact has been very attentive to this set of good war lieutenants, originally thought of Wang Tongshan died, the group of dragons without a leader, it should be pushed into the boat to follow him to conquer the south of the great generals to kill a future, but now it seems, may not be able to be used for him ah.

Wu Chongxuan patted the infantry lieutenant’s shoulder, and pointed to the front line of Laodu Mountain with his horsewhip, “As long as you capture Laodu Mountain, you can gallop freely in the territory of Guangling Road, not only that, as long as there is news of Xu Fengyen’s whereabouts, you will be notified at the first time, and the cavalry troops of the two departments of Tanghe and Li Chunyu will try their best to cooperate with you in intercepting Xu Fengyen.”

Wu Chongxuan glanced at Wang Tongshan’s head, “As for General Wang, when you break through Laodu Mountain, I will appeal to the court and just say that your main general died in battle at Laodu Mountain, and will definitely ask for a posthumous marquisate gift from the court.”

That group of lieutenants led their orders and thanked them.

When Wu Chongxuan led his troops to leave, he looked back at the camp and then said to the commander of the army beside him, “Send a secret order to Li Chunyu, when Old Dushan celebrates the victory, have him lead a night attack, and do not leave any of the powerful lieutenants, including Situ Yushan, behind. As to how many soldiers and horses he can enlist afterward, it will depend on his own ability, and at the same time tell Li Chunyu that if he acts ineffectively, and any mutiny occurs in Wang Tongshan’s old division, it will be replaced by Tang He to reorganize it.”

That pro-army leader left with a team of elite riders at fire speed, at this time Wu Chongxuan deliberately slowed down his horse’s speed and waited until a scout-like lightly armored youth approached, only then did he open his mouth and asked, “Duke Yuan, in your opinion, assuming that the trail is discovered, how many people would need to be deployed by our army to keep the person who killed Wang Tongshan?”

The young man who was referred to by Wu Chongxuan as Mr. Yuan instead of an official position in the army did not have the slightest bit of the constricted awe that the other lieutenants had when facing Wu Chongxuan, and frankly said, “Shangshu Wu is not joking? Rather, are you asking this question very seriously?”

The two masters of General Wu’s retinue both showed undisguised annoyance, they have long been displeased with this young man of Yuan surname who joined the army in the middle of the day from an unknown origin, with no inch of strength in his hands, but with an extremely large frame of mind, and every time the Great General took the initiative to speak to him in a peaceful manner, he also looked like he was dying to do something about it.

Wu Chongxuan was not angry at all, nodded seriously and said, “No kidding.”

The young man who was temporarily acting as a ranger scout smiled, “Three to five thousand people may not be enough, ten thousand elite cavalry is more or less the same.”

Wu Chongxuan gave a hmmm, then said doubtfully, “Didn’t they say that even that Li Chun Gang was only able to break armor by two thousand six with a single sword on the banks of the Guangling River after he returned to the realm of the Land Immortals? Could it be that the contemporary four great masters of martial arts evaluation have already skyrocketed in battle power far more than those top masters of the pre-Armor era? How dare they need 10,000 people to surround them in order to build their success?”

But the young man’s words in the ridicule meaning is quite heavy: “Some things are not so calculated, not to mention Li Chun Gang’s real combat power is how high, counting those who died on the battlefield of the martial arts masters, none of them is not the death of the battle not to retreat the ‘stupid’, such as that by the Xu family iron horsemen stepped into the mud of the Western Sichuan sword emperor. Prior to this, the Wu Family’s nine swords had broken through the Northern Mang’s ten thousand horsemen, but in fact, it was also because there was really no way to retreat from the pursuit and blockade that they had to make a desperate attempt. Wang Tongshan in the southern border called invincible, is nothing more than when no heroes to make the vertical son of fame, relying on a natural brute force and diamond body, naturally able to consume all the Tianxiang realm below the experts, Cheng Baishang JI six Ann really take him nothing to do, but as long as the north, such as the replacement of Deng Ta’a to try it? I estimate that it is that Peach Blossom Sword God one or two sword things only, to put it bluntly, even if I am against Wang Tongshan, within fifty strokes he has the upper hand, but after a hundred strokes Wang Tongshan will surely die.”

When these words came out, the great general of conquering the south was still calm, the two high eyed and rather conceited expert retainers both changed their faces greatly.

The young man blandly said, “Southern border? There’s a f*cking jianghu there. The heavens are vast, not the scenery of a small well.”

This young man who had once quietly fought the tide for two years in the East China Sea’s Martial Emperor City, and had now changed his surname from Jiang to Yuan, looked into the distance, “Might as well be honest, at Xu Fengyian’s realm, as long as he wants to leave, unless it’s the three of them, Cao Changqing Deng Tai’a Topaz Bodhisattva, no one can stop him, much less chase after him. That’s why my earlier so-called 10,000 horsemen siege is actually nonsense.”

Wu Chongxuan lamented for no reason, “It’s not a comforting thing to have a jianghu higher than a temple.”

The young man unprecedentedly concurred, “One day, where we stand, there will be no immortals nor chivalry, and the jianghu augurs will all be carp in the pool.”

The northwest corner of the imperial city of western Chu there is a lake, the lake is not big, but the fame is not small, the name is even more interesting, it is called “Jianghu”, because it is said that the small lake is bottomless, the source of water and the capital outside of the Guangling River.

There is a young woman in elegant palace dress sitting in the water pavilion on the lake, no one around, all the music is silent.

Probably be restrained habitually, it is not easy to escape to leisure, she then took off her boots and sat cross-legged, she did not appreciate the early spring charming lake scenery, but the body leaned forward and bent over with her head down, in front of her eyes neatly stacked stacks of copper coins, different denominations, different sizes, different old and new, different heights.

She looked at those copper coins in fascination, and traveled for miles.

She remembered a lot of old things, such as the dilapidated hut, such as the small but very green vegetable garden. For example, back then, she carried the heavy as a mountain of book boxes, step by step to climb the mountain, at that time she only felt that moving books is like moving mountains. Another example is that afterward, reading books to make money, every word is money, the feeling is going to be much better.

West Chu’s current courtroom, although compared to the past is much cooler, but when she sits in that chair every day, she will find that the earliest those are still pure and clear eyes, there is no longer, replaced by some gloomy atmosphere, like a section of rotten wood. She is very later to learn, the court has changed several sets of people several sets of fresh faces, there are constantly the disciples of the world family influx into it, so the father and son in the same court, and even the three generations of the same yellow and purple public ministers have begun to appear. In that great golden hall, where she sat, there were frequent quarrels within the hall, the literati quarrelled with the military, the literati quarrelled with the literati, and the military who clung to the wings of the literati quarrelled with the military, and almost everyone seemed to be doing their duty for the country, and everyone’s claims were righteous, so that everyone appeared to be so impassioned, and all were not at fault.

She does not understand.

Old Imperial Master Sun Xiji was getting older and older, and had even had to sit on that imperial chair the last few times he had been to court.

And the people wearing the official robes of the military ministers in the great hall were getting fewer and fewer, one after another rushing to the battlefield, one after another many more people died in battle, posthumously and beautifully posthumously.

She still didn’t understand why those people, were willing to die with such determination. Just like she didn’t understand why when she sat in that chair for the first time, those gray-haired old men cried with such sadness, relief and gratitude.

There were a lot of things she didn’t understand, but Uncle Chess Waiter said that all she had to do was sit there every day and that would be enough.

She felt that this was something that she could do, and told herself that she must do it well.

Today she sat here, on a cloud.

At this moment, above the sky of the palace, a flock of yellow finches swept by quickly.

For some reason, a yellow finch instantly fell, snapping and gently falling onto the ridge of a palace pavilion, dripping with blood.

At the same time, her side of the “river lake” of a lake surface, clearly no object in the water surface, but the splash of a string of extremely thin water columns, and then quickly returned to calm.

In the last half a month, the palace eunuchs and palace maids from time to time will find on the road there will be one or two birds of prey carcasses, some of them have arrows running through their bodies, some of them have their wings cut off by sharp instruments, and more of them have fallen into a pool of flesh and blood directly.

What is even more strange is that their emperor, in this half of the month a lot of time to stay in the lake sitting in silence, at first there will be elite imperial guards in the distance, but soon everyone somehow feel a cold, at first mistakenly thought that it was the cause of the spring cold, but whenever the palace door after the night ban they left, whenever away from that small lake, obviously there is no day of the night, should feel more and more cold is right, but Instead, they felt much warmer. Over time, that regardless of the wind wind small always level as a mirror of the small lake, it seems particularly odd, especially the entire capital began to spread rumors of countless birds fell, began to have songs spread throughout the streets, saying that this is a woman when the country’s scourge, there are even more ill-intentioned strange talk where innuendo, saying that His Majesty the emperor is actually a mountain out of the wild fox spirit, lived for thousands of years, but is wearing a human skin only. The one that made the old generation of Western Chu remnants feel the most grief and anger was the one that said in the marketplace that the empress Jiang Si was in fact an orphaned girl by the side of the road that Cao Changqing had casually found, and that she was only a puppet that Cao Changqing had raised in order to satisfy his selfishness of serving as an imperial master.

A group of three people came outside the water pavilion under the bowing lead of the eunuch in charge of the Secretarial Supervisor.

All three were surnamed Song, three generations of Songs, Song Wenfeng, Song Qingshan, and Song Maolin.

Song Wenfeng and the old master Sun Xi Ji and the former state master Li Mi, are considered to be a generation of the old man, is now in charge of the province under the door of Chu, Song Qing Shan is now the Minister of Rites, father and son are considered to be the leader of the literary world of Chu, and before the domination of the literary world of the Liyang dynasty Song family, two husband and wife are very similar. As for Song Maolin, it is even more famous, especially when the “North Xu South Song” “Xu Zi Song Zhang” these two simple catchy saying, such as the spring breeze generally spread throughout the north and south of the Yangtze River, so that Song Maolin for a time there is a kind of “the world who do not know the gentleman! “The weather, so in the temple last year will be the marriage of the Song family Yushu and His Majesty the Emperor, even the beginning of the less enthusiastic about the matter of the old master Sun Xiji, the last wind also loosened, once personally persuade the Cao Changqing presided over the military affairs of the naval division in the Guangling River.

The eunuch was about to report, Song Wenfeng smiled and shook his hand, his eyes signaling his son and grandson to stay at the bottom of the steps, pick up the steps alone, stood on both sides of the willow willow in the water pavilion, but there is no half salute, not Song Wenfeng old eyes, but the old man understands the truth that kneeling down to do business with people is not to earn silver, this truth, twenty years ago Song Wenfeng did not know.

Song Wenfeng spoke softly, “Your Majesty, I have some words that I don’t know when to speak or not.”

The young woman with the most beautiful posture was impassive.

Song Wenfeng had to admit that this woman, even regardless of her identity, based on her looks alone, was indeed worthy of her own eldest grandson to be mesmerized by her. Even the old man himself, who had been sober for many years, had some small thoughts of “regretting having been born fifty years earlier”.

The old man frowned, slightly aggravated voice said: “your majesty, forgive the old minister bluntly, nowadays the great power is no longer in my Da Chu, Jiang’s kingdom if you want to survive, you have to use external forces ……”.

When she turned her head and shifted her eyes from those strange and bizarre copper coins, Song Wenfeng locked eyes with her, and was surprisingly a little weak.

Song Wenfeng clenched his teeth and said in a deep voice: “I won’t hide it from your majesty, at the present time, many officials who are not proper ministers have even privately colluded with Wu Chongxuan, the Secretary of the Department of Military Affairs of Liyang, and Lu Shengxiang, the Lord Commander of the Southern Expedition, to continually leak out the marching formation and deployment of troops of my Chu. At such a critical moment, the old minister is willing to be the evil person who will be left in a bad odor for the sake of my Da Chu mountains and rivers ……”

She calmly said, “Is Lord Song trying to say that you are slightly more loyal than those people? That they were wallflowers and fell to the Liyang court, while your Song family had more backbone and chose Yanzhi King Zhao Bing?”

Song Wenfeng’s old face flushed, moreover, she was filled with shock, why was even this kind of secret private matters known by this little girl doll?

She blandly said, “I not only know that your Song family chose Yan Zhi Wang, but also the Ministry of Officials, Zhao Shangshu, privately sent someone to Lu Shengxiang to submit a secret letter, the Ministry of Public Works, Liu Shangshu, and the Ministry of Ceremonies, Ma Shanglang, chose to rely on Wu Chongxuan.”

Since the windows of heaven have been opened, and each is speaking openly, Song Wenfeng could not care less about that old face, stood up straight, stroked his beard and smiled, “As long as Your Majesty promises the old minister ……”

Not waiting for Song Wenfeng to finish, the empress Jiang Si waved her hand and said, “You go.”

Song Wenfeng didn’t move a muscle and laughed coldly, “Your Majesty, do you still think that the current Xichu is still the Xichu of last year? I dare to ask where is Kou Jianghuai? And where is Cao Changqing? Your Majesty, if you are willing to take a step back now, then King Zhao Bing of Yanzhi will promise you that you can still be the emperor for another ten years, and in the future, you can abdicate to him or his son in a dignified manner.”

She just looked down at those copper coins, “You guys live your lives, just be happy. But if you think that Cao Changqing and Lu Dantian are not in the capital, you can do whatever you want, you can force me to do anything …….”

Song Wenfeng’s smile was playful, “How dare the old minister, who in the world doesn’t know that your majesty is an expert like the Sword Immortal.”

She suddenly frowned tightly, her face turning white.

The eunuch in charge of the Secretarial Supervisor at the bottom of the steps trembled and bowed his head.

Song Wenfeng exhaled heavily and walked over to the water’s edge, looking out at the river, “At this time Sun Xiji is almost dead, and the qi in your body, Your Majesty, is almost collapsed. If it wasn’t for the fact that the old minister still remembers the late emperor’s favor, today, even if I let this palace take the name of Song, how difficult would it be?”

The old man smiled, “Of course, it doesn’t matter what Western Chu’s surname is, or even what the world’s surname will be in the future, because no matter how the emperor takes turns to be the emperor, we, the Song family, will not be missing.”

Her face regained its calmness, and she didn’t even bother to raise her head, she just looked at those copper coins and imperceptibly skimmed and sniffled.

She wasn’t scared, nor was she worried.

She was just a little aggravated.

Hello.

Whether I see you or not is one thing.

But it’s another thing if you come or not.

So.

Where are you?

At the gates of the Western Chu Capital, a breeze suddenly whisks through.

The breeze whisked through the twelve gates.

When that attacking figure suddenly stopped outside the gates of the Imperial City, its large sleeves were still fluttering lightly.

The armored guards up and down the city gates were all dumbstruck.

That incredibly handsome young man had his hands folded around his sleeves and was wearing twin swords at his waist.

This young man did something, he cupped his hands to his mouth and fed.

It was as if he was telling someone, and it was as if he was just telling the entire capital, telling the entire Great Chu.

I’m coming.

I am here.

I have come from the northwest to the southeast.