choke element

Chapter 997: Trends (Part )

When the whistling sound from outside reached the parade ground, the soldiers holding bows and arrows became visibly excited.

Someone immediately turned around to look at Guo Ning, who happened to have his back to them, and waved to Huo Yi, who was about to turn out of the door. When he was about to turn back, another attendant reported something, which happened to stop the emperor.

So they made a look at each other, and the smartest one among them immediately ran towards the outer wall.

Behind the high wall in that direction, there was originally a long corridor. In the early years, someone rebelled and attacked the Marshal's Mansion. Here, they attacked Wang Shixian who was traveling with them, and almost beat his brains out. Later, when the lower-level officers of the Great Zhou drank and talked, they gave this place a name, calling it the place where Marshal Wang suffered.

This joke was a bit insulting. However, in the eyes of ordinary emperors, these overlapping corridors and walls might be a source of security, but in the eyes of an emperor like Guo Ning, they were a potential safety hazard that separated the inside and the outside. So when the building was later rebuilt, the emperor ordered the entire area to be flattened, so that the building could be directly adjacent to the military camp outside through several gates.

The soldier ran to the door, asked the armored soldier with the halberd a few questions, and then they all leaned out and listened for a while.

Soon he came back panting and shouted, "The Mongols used iron cannons to capture Linhuang Prefecture! The enemy is coming aggressively, we are going to have a big battle!"

According to the rules, such important military intelligence should not be leaked at will. In the previous dynasty, even in the Southern Song Dynasty, which was vaguely looked down upon by everyone, the consequences of leaking military secrets were very serious, and losing one's own head was the least of the consequences.

But the Great Zhou established by Guo Ning was essentially a regime shared by a group of warriors. The warriors in the group had distinct classes, but they also shared life and death and were as close as brothers. There was no secret between them. Outsiders ridiculed this as a makeshift team, which was true. So what the senior generals from the Red Coat Army knew at noon had already begun to spread by the afternoon.

Next to Guo Ning’s Marshal’s Mansion was the camp of the Imperial Guard.

The soldiers of the Imperial Guards were composed of soldiers who had made military achievements and were eligible for promotion from various local armies. After six months to a year of training, a small number of them would remain in the Imperial Guards, while the majority would be transferred to the military academy in Tianjin for training, and then promoted to higher ranks and sent back to their old units. In other words, the Imperial Guards were the only way and preparatory class for the promotion of soldiers in the entire Great Zhou army.

This kind of military setup was to integrate the military groups with complex origins as quickly as possible, and also to strengthen the emperor's control over the army. Of course, the latter was easy given Guo Ning's prestige, and the soldiers in the army all regarded themselves as disciples of the emperor.

With such identities, it is not easy to hide any secrets in the army from them.

Just a few months ago, the news that the imperial court had taken control of the situation in Goryeo leaked from them, and was immediately seized by a group of semi-retired veterans in the military.

Most of those people were from the mountain villages in the northern border areas, and they belonged to another big faction in the army. So Guo Ning asked Jing Anmin to come forward and promised them a lot of benefits, so that they turned their attention to Goryeo.

When they heard that something happened in the northern border, the camp was in an uproar, and the soldiers in the archery range were also in an uproar.

For a moment, they ignored military discipline and asked questions one after another. The soldier in charge of the inquiry ran back and forth twice before he explained the situation clearly with gestures.

Unlike the higher-ranking Red Jacket Army generals, when they heard that their side had suffered losses in the northern border, the soldiers were first furious, and then their eyes were filled with flames of eagerness to fight.

One man drew his sword with his backhand and subconsciously wanted to swing it a few times, but then he realized that this was disrespectful, so he put it back into the sheath heavily: "Good! Excellent!"

After shouting, he felt his blood boiling. He untied the water bag at his waist and began to drink water. After drinking two gulps, he shouted again: "It's a good thing that the Mongols came! I have been thinking about fighting for a long time! I was just about to fight them!"

"Shut up! Don't talk nonsense in front of the emperor." A general scolded.

This general was Zhang Pingliang, who was born in a Liaoxi military household. He had been on the battlefield for a long time and was very dignified. After he shouted, the soldiers' uncontrollable noise disappeared instantly, and everyone immediately returned to a solemn attitude, leaving no response to the noisy voices in the military camp outside.

Seeing that everyone had calmed down, Zhang Pingliang slowed down his tone and said in a deep voice: "The military and national affairs will be arranged by your majesty and the generals and ministers in the court. We just need to do our own things and wait for your majesty's orders!"

At this moment, everyone continued to line up and shoot at the target.

Zhang Pingliang was holding a bow and arrow, waiting for his companions in front to shoot, when someone behind him whispered, "Your Majesty is coming towards us, are we really going to do nothing?"

"Why, are you happy that an important city in northern border has been lost?" Zhang Pingliang took a step forward.

"That's absolutely not possible!" The man behind him chuckled, and took a half step forward and said, "But you know in your heart that trouble in the northern border is better than peace and quiet. We have to say something and can't let this opportunity slip away!"

In recent months, as the northern part of Goryeo was brought under control, the power deployed to the sea by the imperial court increased explosively. Many soldiers in the army received relevant orders and crossed the sea to the east and south.

Some people have discussed whether to set up a Protectorate in Goryeo, following the example of the heyday of the Tang Dynasty. Others say that because the sea trade routes from Goryeo to Japan and Song were busy, the semi-public administrative agency originally set up in Qingyuan Prefecture in the Southern Dynasty was no longer suitable, and a formal government office should be set up in Shandong or Jeonra Island, and sufficient water and land military equipment should be allocated.

This chain of interests from south to north, involving multiple countries and tens of thousands of miles of sea routes, is so long that no matter how much manpower is invested, it will not be enough. Fortunately, the court had previously encouraged a large number of officers to take their old subordinates and relatives to go to the sea on their own initiative, and had given special preferential treatment to the salaries and merit records of the relevant personnel in advance.

But there are always people who are unwilling to go to the sea. Many people's hometowns are in the north, and they are used to the vastness of the north; some people have a blood feud with the northern tribes and want to take revenge. These people all hope that the court will continue to put pressure on the north and fight the Mongols to the end.

In the minds of these people, the pressure from the Mongols on the court was not too great, but too light, so light that the court could not allocate stronger forces to deal with it. And because of financial needs, the court always invested its main forces in the south or the sea, which made them vaguely impatient.

After all, people have different ideas. Some people see the situation where generals and backbones of the army continue to move south as a reward and a pioneering effort, while others see it as a weakening. If the weakening of the northern garrison continues, will we still be able to fight Mongolia?

In the minds of these soldiers, the scale of the battle that the emperor led more than 10,000 people to the north at the beginning of the year was far from enough. Genghis Khan's large-scale march southward this time and the victory of defeating Linhuang Prefecture just forced the court to reinvest its strength in the north, and also gave them the opportunity to make meritorious deeds on the battlefield!

There is no need to worry at all. Your Majesty is the emperor on horseback, and he will go to the battlefield himself... and he cannot do without us!

And the Mongols could never be a match for the elite troops of the Great Zhou!
I heard that they had taken over Linhuang Prefecture and were now rampant in the Yanbei Mountain area. Their momentum was a bit scary. But was that a big deal?

Even if the Mongols managed to get some gunpowder weapons, so what? Back then, they rode fast horses and long bows and trampled the world. Their might was earth-shaking. Wherever they went, they killed Han people in large numbers, leaving only one in ten alive. That horrible scene often wakes people up from their sleep... In the end, weren't they driven back to the grassland by the united Han people?
When the Han soldiers swung their swords, the Mongolian heads also rolled down. Zhang Pingliang had tried it at least twenty times!

So what if they have a few more iron cannons? The Jurchens had this thing back then, but they were still defeated by the Emperor of our dynasty. His Majesty once said that it is people who decide whether a war will be won or not!

"go with!"

As Zhang Pingliang shouted, the trembling bowstring brushed past his ear, and the arrow was pushed out violently by the bowstring, drawing a straight line in the air and hitting the target right on the target.

Who among the soldiers who could serve in the Imperial Guards had not honed their martial arts through hundreds of battles? Before Zhang Pingliang, several people took turns shooting arrows, and every arrow hit the bull's eye; after Zhang Pingliang, several more followed suit, and every arrow hit the target, demonstrating their extremely high level of training.

Dozens of steps away, Guo Ning glanced at his subordinates who were shooting one after another, then smiled and nodded: "Jin Qing is here."

Yelu Chucai walked slowly towards the shooting range and stroked his increasingly luxuriant beard.

The Mongols were coming with more force than expected, and no matter how perfect the original pre-war preparations were, including the mobilization and transportation of food and fodder, they inevitably needed to be adjusted. This was what Yelu Chucai was good at.

That morning, he had made careful arrangements in all aspects, had a leisurely lunch, and then made a simple report to Guo Ning.

The nervousness of many officials outside was largely alleviated by Yelu Chucai's orderly attitude.

However, when he got here, he saw Guo Ning practicing archery with the soldiers as usual, and Yelu Chucai's nervousness was also relieved a lot.

Although he had little to do with the military, he had been in the army with Guo Ning and had a good eye. Looking closely at the postures of the soldiers, he saw that their deliberate concentration was too obvious to be acting, and the desire to fight underneath was almost tangible and could not be concealed at all.

These soldiers are undoubtedly tigers and wolves.

As a well-read Confucian scholar, Yelu Chucai once solemnly suggested to Guo Ning when the foundation of the Great Zhou Dynasty was gradually established, hoping that Guo Ning would follow the example of the Southern Song Dynasty and suppress the power of the military to ensure the long-term stability of the regime. However, Guo Ning not only refused, but also intensified the status of the military, constantly enriching the military's power in both political and economic aspects.

Yelu Chucai was a little dissatisfied with this, especially after a certain incident.

During that period, Yelu Chucai tried to get a share of the pie in the military community, but he had to sit back and watch tens of thousands of Khitans rush into Goryeo like crazy. Although they later became a tool for the court to control Goryeo, they could no longer help Yelu Chucai compete for the center.

So he watched the soldiers' performance with admiration, and said casually: "Look at the soldiers' mood at the moment, they are very excited?"

"I think so too."

Guo Ning laughed dumbly: "Because there have been no major wars in the past two years, most of the soldiers of the Imperial Guards who were supposed to be released as officers in recent periods have been delayed. Everyone has been anxious for a long time. Now the war in the northern border has reignited. Not to mention the merits earned on the battlefield, the loss of Linhuang Prefecture and other places alone will inevitably bring a large number of casualties, which will vacate many positions for generals and colonels!"

Yelu Chucai hesitated for a moment, then smiled: "Your Majesty is very insightful about the minds of warriors. It is really admirable."

"Warriors have seen many deaths and deaths, so they are inevitably cold-blooded and straightforward in their pursuit of wealth and fame. This is the nature of tigers and wolves. But when foreign enemies are still eyeing us covetously, it is better to raise a group of tigers and wolves at home to drive them than to raise a group of pigs and sheep to share!"

As Guo Ning led Yelu Chucai towards the pavilion, he said, "I'm afraid the Mongols could never have imagined that our tigers and wolves would have such a will to fight, right?"

After walking a few steps, Guo Ning turned around and saw that Yelu Chucai's expression was a little serious.

"What if the Mongols expected this?"

"Ok?"

"Your Majesty, the Mongols are also fierce and fierce... And don't you think their movements this time are a little strange?"