choke element

Yelu Chucai raised his head, looked at the sky, turned his eyes away from the dark clouds, and looked straight ahead.

In front of his eyes, the water potential of Lushui was a bit too high, the sea breeze was blowing, the white waves were layered, and the open water surface was undulating and turbulent. The big piles are shaking.

This has been a problem for Zhongdu Road for a long time.

Many rivers, including the Lushui River and the Lugou River, dry up in autumn and winter, making it difficult to afford water transportation. When the water floods in spring and summer, once heavy rains occur upstream, the downstream floods and cannot be controlled.At this moment, Xu Ding was busy dealing with the flood, and had been living on the embankment for three to five days, so Yelu Chucai was the only official who came out to welcome the envoy from the Southern Dynasty.

In the past three years, Dajin's Zhongdu Road directly faced the flames of war. The capital was besieged three times, coup d'état twice, and a foreigner broke into it once. It can be described as extremely embarrassing.During this process, the Southern Dynasties sent several waves of envoys, but they failed to enter the country.The latest group of envoys had to come from the sea, but soon after arriving in Zhongdu, they bumped into the Mongolian army and entered the city, almost losing their lives.

Now that Zhou Guogong is in power and the government has changed, he can no longer lose face.So this time when the Song envoy went north, what he greeted at the pier was not a certain doctor or the emperor's close friends, but Yelu Chucai, the privy envoy of the current dynasty.The banquet and other etiquette later were also carefully arranged according to higher standards.

The water vapor filled the river, and Yelu Chucai had a lot of documents to review every day, and his eyes were not as good as before, so he asked the entourage beside him, "Has the envoy from the Song Dynasty disembarked?"

"Reporting to Prime Minister Qi, I have already disembarked. But..."

"But what?"

"Li Yun is not on board, will something happen?"

"Where is Li Yun? It is Jia Sidao from Song Dynasty who went north with the boat!"

Yelu Chucai scolded in a deep voice, and said again: "You don't have to worry. Jia Sidao went back to the Southern Dynasty in a light boat halfway. At this time, he should declare in the Southern Dynasty that our navy is about to send troops to Hebei to suppress Kaifeng's rebellion. "

The attendant was taken aback: "The military affairs of my dynasty, just say that, okay?"

Yelu Chucai coughed twice: "We have been spending too much recently, and we are quite dependent on maritime trade financially. Since Nanchao asks for it, we might as well help a little. It is unnecessary. However, we are not the object of Nanchao's whatever it wants. Jia Sidao was traveling in the Southern Dynasties to release some news to reassure the Song people earlier; I am here, but I want to have a good talk with the envoys of the Song people and earn some benefits. As for when to send troops, whether to send troops, that is We have to look at the outcome of the talks first, and then we will see when Duke Zhou returns from Shandong."

The attendant was convinced: "The Prime Minister is brilliant! In this way, we will turn to the guest, and we will be able to handle the people of Song Dynasty!"

Suddenly there was a noise from the officials in front, it turned out that the boat had already cut through the waves and was about to approach the trestle bridge under the vigorous sliding of the four boatmen.

Yelu Chucai and his entourage all turned towards the direction of the boat, showing reserved and polite smiles.

"Don't mention Jia Sidao's matter again. But the merchants here in Tianjin are probably eager to know the court's judgment on the war in the south. You might as well let the wind out of what I just said. Well, let's say that Zhou Guogong intends to Send troops from all of them to threaten Kaifeng's rebellion and quell the chaos, but the conditions still need to be negotiated, and this matter cannot be rushed."

The attache hesitated.

"what happened?"

"Businessmen don't know the importance of things. If I open my mouth, I will know most of the way in a day or two. Will it spread too fast? Merchants must take the opportunity to stock up, and there may be troubles in the market. "

"Hoarding is another matter. But Zhou Guogong wants them to know about it earlier. If you know about it earlier, you can rest assured."

"……Yes."

Because of the potential for flooding in summer, the entire Tianjin Prefecture is surrounded by several small cities located on dry highlands, and there is no complete city wall planned.There are two small cities that were even built specifically for cargo transshipment and merchant exchanges. There is no city wall at all, so access is too convenient, and they are not majestic.

Within the scope of Tianjin Prefecture, there have always been people who have been earning money from Dinghai, but they have broken ties with Kaifeng in private. For this reason, some interested people even arranged secret channels to relay messages with fast horses.

Zhang Lin, the governor of Tianjin, wrote to the Marshal's Mansion several times, asking for the assistance of the Department of Records and the Department of Left and Right to eradicate these things that eat inside and out.However, both the Department of Records and the Department of Left and Right are very busy. The two doctors, Xu Yu and Li Yun, seldom appear in Zhongdu in the past six months.

Zhang Lin can only rely on the yamen servants of the Tianjin government to handle affairs, and it is difficult to clean up in a short time.Therefore, the attendant can be sure that as long as there is one mouth at home, within three days, not to mention Zhongdu Road, even Wanyan Heda on Hebei West Road will know the news.For at most five days, rumors will be heard from Kaifeng Mansion.

In this way, when we display it, will the Kaifeng court be prepared?
The attendant still hesitated, but since Yelu Chucai gave the order, he had to do it to the letter.He secretly planned in his heart, to call together a few merchants he knew well at night...

Oh, that's all.The mouths of merchants are better than deceitful ghosts.Even if I only talked to three or five people in my family, the whole Tianjin government will know it that night, and there is no way to stop it!

at the same time.

Li Yun, who had just been mentioned by Yelu Chucai, was kneeling profusely in sweat in the side hall of Lin'an Prime Minister's Mansion, not daring to look up.

"That is to say, that Zhou Guogong is obviously in Haizhou, but after hearing the news, he rushed all the way from Shandong to Zhongzhong. He and Xuan Zeng just missed it?"

"Yes."

"Hmph." Someone in the hall sneered: "I'm afraid it's not a coincidence, but a deliberate one. After Xuan Zang arrived in the central capital, they would put all kinds of etiquette into full play, but shirk formal negotiations. These barbarians want to sit down Watching the fight between snipe and clam. If we hadn’t lost tens of thousands of people in Huainan, they wouldn’t have moved at all!”

"But they will eventually move."

"Oh?"

"They are acting like this, but in fact they are showing weakness. They are just trying to get more benefits from us. And they are so dedicated to seeking benefits because the north is broken. They really need benefits, and they can't do without them for a moment. Our support in food, money and supplies. Therefore, sooner or later they will take action, whether it is one step earlier or one step later."

"Hey, it can't be early, it must be late!"

"So what if it's late? Can you remind me instead of Xuan Zang?"

The dignitaries in the hall argued for a few words, and a majestic voice said: "Jia Sidao, I heard that you are a bit clever. At this time, do you have any ideas?"

The person who spoke was Shi Miyuan, the first-class minister in power in the Southern Dynasty.

"The villain has no idea..." Jia Sidao bowed his head deeply: "But when the villain's boat passed by Huangshuiyang, he was replenishing water at Fenglichang in Taizhou, and heard something."

"speak."

"My father Jia She, the deputy envoy of Huaidong Zhizhi, is mobilizing all the grain ships on the canal to supplement the march of the Loyalty Army."

There was silence in the hall.Someone laughed loudly: "Here we go again! Both of you, father and son, are full of business methods. While showing off to the navy, threatening to cut down on food and fodder transactions; The imperial court’s money; by the way, it can also force the merchants to offer some benefits...Jia She is going to eat three more, right?”

Some people also said: "The method is simple and rough, and it works. The northerners are short of food, so we only make a fuss about food, and that's as it should be. For example, raising dogs and hawks, don't we all think of ways to eat?"

Shi Miyuan also laughed a few times: "Jia She's family wealth has been squandered by his good son, so we must hurry up and earn some back."

After a pause, he said: "Tell Jia She, Li Dadong and the others that no matter what, we must ensure the food and fodder of the loyal army, so that they will fight hard. The soldiers stationed there must also be supervised."

"Yes. Prime Minister, don't worry, we will handle it separately."

The penetration of Kaifeng in the Southern Dynasty was far inferior to that in Zhongdu. They didn't understand what happened in Lin'an, but the Song people suddenly increased their investment in Huainan, and more and more troops were entangled with their side. You can't hide it from people.

In fact, it didn't take more than a month to defeat the whole battle.However, the scale of the war and the amount of troops invested gradually got out of control. Seeing that the consumption of looting money and materials has almost exceeded half of the previous looting.In other words, if this battle is fought for another month, the Kaifeng court will lose money.

For hundreds of years, Song people have always had this kind of virtue. They may not win on the battlefield, but they always seem to stick to the brown sugar and don't let go.

In the past, when Dajin became ruthless, he mobilized the northern troops to go south, and gave the Song people a ruthless blow, until they were honest and obedient, and knelt down to pay money and food.At this moment, Kaifeng government is short of finances, but it can't support the big battle.What's more, news came from Zhongdu one after another, saying that Guo Ning, the navy, might respond to the Song people and send troops from Zhongdu, so the garrisons in Hebei and Datong Prefecture in Xijing could not be moved.

In the end, the Nanjing Road Command Army Division could only write one after another, urging the troops that were supposed to be the successors to move south quickly.This army included a considerable part of the armored troops of the town defenses in various parts of Nanjing Road and a considerable part of the soldiers of the thirteen captains of Kaifeng Prefecture.