The rise of the prince

Chapter 469 The Emperor's Private Visit + Incompetent Coach, Exhausting the Army

"The daughters of the people pay homage to the emperor, and to the concubine Tian." In fact, when he saw the concubine Tian, ​​Shiyu knew in his heart who it was.

She met the emperor once at Fumenglou's family banquet, and she didn't have much impression, but she met Concubine Tian many times. Who else can accompany Concubine Tian, ​​except the current Majesty.

Saluting in poetry, I felt a little nervous.

"Get up."

The emperor glanced at her.

The old man above is gray-haired and doesn't look like an old man in his sixties, because he is too old, except for a pair of eyes, he still has divine light. He looks like an old man in his 80s and [-]s, probably because he has worked too much.

Listen to Shiyu, he speaks without the slightest accent, with little ups and downs, those who are unintentional listen to it kindly, those who have a heart listen to it fearful, as for her.
Shiyu felt that she was half-hearted, and he wanted nothing more from the old man, but she was also afraid, afraid that he would not admit herself.

But this kind of fear does not stem from the Ninth Five Lord in front of him, but from that guy.

He is the grandson of the emperor and the empress, and he is only a grassroots. What if the emperor, who is a grandfather, doesn't recognize her?

Experienced so many days and months, so many days and nights, so much trust each other, share weal and woe
Shiyu is almost unimaginable, how would she continue her life without him by her side, she never imagined that there would be such a day before, she was so independent, self-reliant, proud, believed in herself, blamed him, and gave herself to rely on.
"Are you afraid? Are you afraid of me?" The emperor said, "A woman with such scheming methods shouldn't be afraid. Maybe you have a wrong mind, so you have a lot of things on your mind?"

The people around were breathing in, and she felt worried eyes, so she didn't need to look at them.

Shiyu's heart tightened slightly: "Ministers are indeed afraid, but...not afraid of the emperor."

"Aren't you afraid of me? Then what are you afraid of." The emperor's words were three points cold.

"Your Majesty, Shiyu is still young, so it's inevitable that he said something wrong." Concubine Tian interjected, and Degong and the others also looked over worriedly, and winked at her again and again.

Shiyu understands their kindness, but she is her, just like the guy caressing her back at night and whispering in her ear: "I like you, you are unique, right or wrong, right or wrong, beautiful Gorgeous and incomparable, with a heart as strong as a thorny rose, under the kingship, before the overlord, you can still control yourself."

Shiyu took a deep breath, and kept echoing those words in her heart. She raised her head and said with a straight voice: "The daughter of the people is a member of the palace, so it is the prince who is afraid of it, and I am afraid that I will lose his trust."

"You are afraid of him, why do you describe yourself as timid in front of me?"

"The emperor is the grandfather of the prince, blood is thicker than water." Shiyu said calmly.

After hearing this, the emperor didn't continue to question, and his face softened, "Yes, he is chaste and devoted to the Lord, serving the Lord without any second thoughts, and he is also knowledgeable and sensible, and he understands the general situation, there is only one thing wrong."

Hearing this, Shiyu felt nervous, bowed her head and said nothing.

"What's wrong is that since you are a member of the royal family, you can't call yourself a daughter of the people in the future. Although whether you can enter the royal ancestral hall depends on your good fortune. I can't say that you are a royal person now, but after entering the gate of the heavenly family, you will eventually be with me." Common people are different, you have to understand your identity, you know."

After the words fell, Shiyu finally breathed a sigh of relief and nodded quickly.

"Thank you, Your Majesty." Concubine Tian reminded her.

Shiyu hurriedly knelt down to thank her.

The emperor's face became serious, and he said solemnly to her: "But you must also remember that I believe in Xingzhou, not you, and since he dares to hand over the power of the mansion to you, I will believe in his vision." But women are more wise than good, I will take my time to see."

After the Houtang finished speaking, accompanied by De Gong and everyone in the Wangfu, the emperor looked at the large area of ​​the new Wangfu in Houshan, saw the hydraulic workshop and the graphite furnace with great interest, and even touched those tall water wheels in person. , and curiously asked Shiyu how these big wheels are transported and what is the use of them.

Shiyu answered the emperor's questions from time to time. It could be seen that he was very happy. Although he was old, he was always in high spirits and almost visited the entire back mountain.

Only the most important steelmaking plant in Wangfu was not visited, because there was so much smoke and dust, and there was still a pungent smell in the winter.

That guy repeatedly told her not to go to those places.

Because the high-temperature gas at the mouth of the graphite crucible is chronically poisonous, some workers who have already worked as coolies have begun to have symptoms of constant coughing. The only thing the Palace can do is to compensate each of them with ten guan dollars at the end of each year. There is no other way.

In fact, the prince has known about this for a long time, and he also knows that it is harmful, but steelmaking cannot be stopped
He said that if there is not enough steel in a few years, people will die.

Because she had to deal with the threats from the Kingdom of Jin and the Kingdom of Mongolia, she knew that the Kingdom of Jin was confronting the Kingdom of Liao at this time, and the outcome had not yet been determined, so she didn't know why he decided that it was the Kingdom of Jin that he was going to deal with.

As for the Mongolian country, she has never heard of it at all. After deliberately inquiring, she heard some news from the merchants returning from the north. There are some tribes of nomads scattered in the northwest of Liao. They are called Mongols, but they are basically a mess, not enough to form a country.

Did the prince think they would take advantage of the chaos to establish a kingdom and then go south?
In short, she doesn't understand, but she can't stop. She also knows that it is harming others, but maybe it is to save others. She believes in him and doesn't need any reason.

In the afternoon, the sky was still gray, and the emperor returned to the palace accompanied by everyone. The strict cooking in the kitchen had already led people to a busy day, but he had never received the emperor before. There are 66 dishes, which is considered difficult for him.

Because Yan Cook was originally from the army leader, how could the army pay so much attention to food, but the imperial chef in the palace could cook hundreds of dishes at every turn, which he couldn't do.

Fortunately, the emperor and concubine Tian didn't care. They were accompanied by Mr. De, Tang Zhouwei with a sharper nose than a dog, Ji Chunsheng, and her, because she is the current supervisor of the palace.

Even so, outsiders are not allowed to sit at the same table with the emperor. After being reminded by De Gong, under her arrangement, the servant moved another small table from the main hall to seat the accompanying ministers, while the emperor and concubine Tian sat alone at the big table. The tables are all together, but after all, there is a gap in the middle, which is not a violation of the ancestral system.

But at the dinner table, the emperor mentioned something that shocked everyone, that is, he was going north!

"Your Majesty, the cold winter months are not good for the dragon's body." De Gong came to his senses, put down his chopsticks and said.

"Yes, yes, Xiang Wang is right. Your Majesty must take good care of the body of the dragon, which is the blessing of the people of Jingguo." Tang Zhouwei hurriedly followed.

The emperor also put down his chopsticks and waved his hands: "You don't have to worry, the twelfth lunar month will be off for one month this year, and the affairs of the court will be temporarily handed over to Wang Aiqing until the end of the year. I'm going to take the waterway, the waterway is not bumpy, and I'm not afraid of fatigue. I haven’t been out of Beijing for many years, this time I just went to see it.”

"The emperor is out of Beijing, I'm afraid that the court will be in turmoil." Degong still hesitated to speak.

Shiyu quietly put down her chopsticks, didn't eat, and didn't make a sound, she knew that even if she was the head of the palace, she couldn't say anything about it.

"That's why I'm going to pay a private visit in a low-clothes, go quietly, come back quietly, and then come to the palace." The emperor looked at her as he spoke, and was taken aback by Shiyu.

"I want to borrow the boat from the palace to go north. As soon as the royal boat leaves Kaiyuan, everyone will know that I will go north. There will inevitably be a lot of troubles. The boat from the palace frequently travels to and from Jiangzhou. I can use it to go north to deceive people. "

Shiyu nodded quickly: "Okay, I'll arrange it right away."

The emperor beckoned, "You don't need to arrange it separately, it's not good to be too ostentatious. Since it's a private visit on a microservice, it should look like a private visit on a microservice."

"What did you say!" Wei Yubai was in a hurry. She originally wanted to ride a fast horse and lead her own soldiers south to find King Pingnan, explain the situation here to him, and then make arrangements.

As a result, she prepared the fodder early in the morning, fed the horses, and was about to leave after lunch, but the soldiers came to report that Yang Hu took hundreds of elite soldiers of the Yang family under his command and went out of the city to hunt down the black bandits!
She couldn't calm down immediately, this Yang Hu is simply an idiot!
Her Wei family and the Yang family are family friends, across the Taihang Mountains, the Yang family and the Liao country have been at odds for many years to the west, and the Wei family has been at odds with the Liao country to the east for many years. In their generation, Yang Wenguang and Wei Chaoren often exchanged letters, He also took his family to visit, because only the cooperation of the two can jointly resist the Liao Kingdom in the north.

If Guanbei is defeated, the Liao people will take the official road south from Guanbei Road and cross the Taihang Mountains, and the Yang army will be attacked on both sides.

In the same way, if Taiyuan falls and the Liao Kingdom moves south from the west and passes through the Taihang Mountains in the east, the Wei family will also be attacked from both sides.

So the two children have been in touch since they were young, and they knew each other early. This Yang Hu has been interested in her since she was a child, and her father asked her several times tactfully how she would promise her to the Yang family's son, but Wei Yubai refused.

Not only because her father valued her, she knew that her father also had some other considerations, that is to imitate the Yang family and strengthen ties with the court Tian family.

For these frontier foreign ministers, it is very important that someone in the court speak for them. The Yang family has such a status today, to a large extent because the Yang family and the Tian family had a marriage. Now the grandfather of the head of the Yang family once married Since he became the princess of the Tian family, the emperor has always been more at ease with the Yang family.

As for their Wei family, her father hoped that she could marry into the Tian family, so that the emperor would have less worries about the Wei family.

It is precisely because of this that he shirks the marriage with Yang Hu.

Personally, Wei Yubai also dislikes Yang Hu very much. Since childhood, Yang Hu has offered her courtesies many times, and she understands what the other party means, but she refuses them all.

To put it bluntly, although a person like Yang Hu is a general, he has the appearance of a general but not the inside.

Ever since she was a child, she has always had this kind of view on her brother who is a few years older than her.

This time it was even more incisive and vivid. More than 2000 black mountain bandits had a crossbow that they did not know where to get in their hands, and they were familiar with the terrain.
He thought it was the bravery of the general, but he didn't know that it was the spirit of a man. He was prestige for a while, but he never thought about the lives of his soldiers! Making jokes about the lives of his soldiers is never called bravery of a general!
Throughout the ages, there has been a great general who has left a great reputation and is capable of fighting. Which one is not supported by the soldiers.

It is short-sighted, thinking that courage is commendable, but in fact it is stupid!
Wei Yubai was in a hurry, so he had to quickly mobilize his own soldiers, together with the warriors from the local defenders, he made up a total of twenty or so people, and hurriedly chased eastward, hoping to catch them back in time.

She doesn't care about Yang Hu's life or death, but the hundreds of elite soldiers of the Yang family who came with him are all veterans of many battles. They have defended the country for so many years, and they have survived all battles. They shouldn't be buried together because of the ignorance of the coach. In the hands of bandits.

At noon, she took 24 people out of the city on horseback, and then chased eastward. She recruited two local hunters in the team, and they knew the way well.

Because of the snowfall last night, the snow covered the horseshoe marks, and they didn't know where Yang Hu and his party were going, so they could only walk along the east road.

When it was getting dark in the afternoon, the majestic Taihang Mountains were already in front of us, running across the north and south, straight to the sky, like a gray giant, blocking the way to the east, the terrain began to steepen, the mountains were like knives and axes, and the team The Orion dared not go any further, because if he went any further it would be the territory of the Black Bandits.

Wei Yubai had no choice but to stop. At this moment, she saw a large flock of black crows circling under the gray sky in the distance, like a black cloud, and they were whining.

She has seen a lot in Guanbei, she has seen this kind of scene, and immediately has a bad feeling.
Wei Yubai raised her hand to stop the crowd. She was confident in her horsemanship, so she drove the horse forward alone. If the situation was not right, she would run backwards.

As the horse continued to move forward, the field of vision behind the hillside in the distance gradually opened up, and slowly, she could see clearly
A hundred paces away, at the foot of the hillside, beside the road, under an old tree with dead branches, there is a pile of heads, forming a small hill. There are also a few heads hanging on the nearby branches and swaying in the wind. Cloth strips, but the crimson flag with the word "Yang" can be vaguely seen, slightly rolled by the cold wind.

Her heart sank in an instant, her nose was sore, and she almost wanted to cry. She didn't know whether it was sadness or fear in her heart. She wanted to go there to collect the corpses of the warriors, but her reason repeatedly warned her not to go there. There are too many such things outside the Great Wall. The corpse of the partner attracts the people who come to collect the corpse, and then ambushes him
There was a vast expanse of white on both sides of the road, and she couldn't see anything. With tears in her eyes, she turned her horse's head and shouted: "Run! Run back, the faster the better!"

As soon as she finished speaking, the accompanying soldiers came to their senses and beat the horses under their crotches vigorously and ran back.

Sure enough, within a few steps of Wei Yubai's horse, hundreds of people came out of the snow on both sides of the avenue in the distance, chasing them and shooting arrows, but at a distance of hundreds of steps, the bows and crossbows were not strong enough, and there was no horse, so the distance was very fast Being pulled away, those bandits couldn't catch up at all.

They ran all the way for several hours, until it was completely dark, and they stopped when they saw the lights in the distance. There were no bandits behind them, and everyone was still in shock.

Everyone was rejoicing at their narrow escape, but Wei Yubai cried in a low voice. There were at least hundreds of heads in that pile, veterans of hundreds of battles, who survived in the hands of the Liao people. Maybe they killed many foreign enemies, and finally died in the hands of a few bandits. , this kind of winter will eventually become the food in the belly of wild beasts.
Just because of the ignorance and ignorance of the general, so many loyal and righteous soldiers were buried, no matter how powerful they are, how can they deal with thousands of bandits who are familiar with the terrain and have powerful crossbows in their hands!Bandits are familiar with the terrain, so they can strike first, and with a crossbow in their hands, their armor is useless!
In grief, Wei Yubai had no choice but to send someone to report the incident to Uncle Yang in Taiyuan, and then he prepared to go south. The next afternoon, Yang Hu came back in despair. His five hundred elite soldiers from the Yang family only brought back more than 100 people. , and the rest. Most of them were seen by Wei Yubai that day.

(End of this chapter)