Traveling through time and space and becoming a deposed prince, he just wants to survive!

The imperial court had received reports from messengers of the Prince of Dingzhou regarding the Xiongnu's southward advance towards Weizhou and Daijun, and also knew that the Prince of Dingzhou, Zhao Xin, had sent troops to intercept them.

The rest of the situation is not very clear, and we will have to wait for further reports to find out.

Zhao Xin sent troops to block the Huns from moving south from Weizhou and other places. This was also the mission of the king of Dingzhou, and there was nothing wrong with this issue.

The problem is that the imperial court wants to know the total number of troops Zhao Xin has sent out for this war, and also wants to know how strong Zhao Xin is in combat!

All of these are matters of great concern to the emperor.

Similarly, the magistrates of Guangchang and Weizhou jointly submitted a letter, which also reached the three provinces, requesting assistance from Dingzhou and reporting the fall of the magistrate of Pingyang.

Wei Rong was the left prime minister of the Great Zhou Dynasty, a minister who was specifically responsible for handling information from the six ministries. It could be said that he had connections everywhere.

Chui Gong Hall.

Zhao Heng looked around the court with leopard eyes.

"Your Majesty, last night we received an urgent message from a postman eight hundred miles away. The report arrived after midnight. I have requested the Left Prime Minister to come to the Ministry of War to discuss matters at 3:00 AM. I have come to the court to report this to Your Majesty!"

The ministers lowered their heads and listened to the report from Lu Junyi, the assistant minister of the Ministry of War.

There was a war going on in the north, and the court officials were in an uproar. Everyone started to think about their own interests, as to who would fight, who would fight, whether they would win or lose, and what would happen next?

The Great Zhou shared the world with the aristocratic families. If the next dynasty was the Han Dynasty, it would be the same. It didn't matter to them. Aristocratic families would last for thousands of years and dynasties would last for hundreds of years.

However, these people are inevitably worried about the attack from foreign races. After all, those who are not of our race must have different hearts. Who can tell?

"Your Majesty, the Xiongnu have already captured Pingyang, but we still don't know their next plan. Will they march directly south to attack Dingzhou? Or will they move to Changshan and encircle Daijun? We don't know yet, so..."

The Minister of War, Guo Zixiu, was over seven feet tall, with thick eyebrows, big eyes, and thick lips. He wore a "curled tassel crown" on his head, a purple robe, golden fish-scale armor on his left arm, a tiger-head shoulder cape, and a sable fur cloak on his back.

He spoke in a voice as loud as a bell, taking a step forward.

Wei Rong belonged to the Gyeonggi Province sphere of influence, and the most successful route for these people in his family was to send their daughters to the imperial court. In the past, aristocratic families wanted to prevent one family from dominating the other, so they agreed to not allow their children to be handed over to the royal family.

The Wei family took this route and successfully squeezed into the top five families.

However, their family also has an unwritten rule, which is not to interfere with the advancement of the aristocratic families, but businesses within Gyeonggi Province are not allowed to suppress their Wei family.

Lu Junyi was from the Fanyang Lu clan, and his rank meant he had no influence in the court. Wei Rong, knowing that the Lu clan was too close to the Xiongnu and that they were skilled in dancing, decided to extend a favor.

Wei Rong knew that the enemy situation was unclear, but this was the opportunity to make money. This way he could gain benefits and relieve the court of its worries.

"Your Majesty, although Minister Guo has analyzed the situation, I believe that preparations for war are still necessary. If the Xiongnu were to sweep across the country, it would cause great harm to the surrounding people."

As soon as he finished speaking, the court officials below began to discuss in low voices again.

What he said was true, but mobilizing troops would involve the issue of money and food. The court would certainly provide money, but transporting food was a very troublesome matter, so the court would lend some to the noble families near the battlefield.

The Wang and Li families of Taiyuan and the Lu family of Fanyang were all close together. Of course, the Li and Cui families of Zhao County were also closer to the battlefield.

In any war, the noble families near the battlefield would either participate in the fighting or sell out their country for personal gain.

Being a traitor has nothing to do with being rich or poor. There are many people in this world who are poor, but they have noble character and would never sell out their masters for fame and fortune.

When foreign races invade, the aristocratic families that are the first to be affected will mobilize, first by sending people to fight, and second by providing money and food to provide assistance.

Without their own territory, these families will be coveted by another power group even if they are alive and even if they are rich.

Even if you have your own family in another place, after several generations, even if you go to seek refuge with them, others will look down on you!

So when Wei Rong said to start preparing, the people who would discuss it would be these noble families. What they were most worried about was the direction of the Xiongnu's main attack, not the number of casualties.

Just don't stick to your own field, and for the rest I can only say haha...

After Zhao Heng had gone through a lot in Chuzhou, the second prince came in time to repair the relationship. He also had to give face to his second brother, who had a promising future, so he decided to stop while he was ahead.

As for the Cao Gang! His policy is to continue to suppress them. Who made him not give himself face? Especially from the beginning, he made it clear that he wanted to recruit the Cao Gang for his own use.

As a result, the dog that swam ashore began to betray itself.

Uncle is tolerable! Aunt is intolerable!

Zhao Heng is not made of clay. After the flood, he encountered a snow disaster in the north. Even if the salt was transported to the north, it would definitely be very difficult. No matter how huge the profit was, it would be difficult to recover the lost market.

The Cao Gang’s largest market was north of Yanzhou, and of course they would occasionally dabble in Qizhou and Zhaozhou (including the area around present-day Dingzhou).

Now that the Cui family has become Zhao Heng's people, naturally the Cao Gang's market is no longer within the Cui family's sphere of influence.

Therefore, the Cao Gang had to spread towards Dingzhou. However, the Cao Gang, eager for quick success, raised the transportation costs to a very high level, causing Dingzhou County to refuse the Cao Gang's conditions at all.

On the contrary, the Cui family of Qinghe took advantage of the situation and directly joined forces with the Li family of Zhaojun to divide up the market of Dingzhou County.

In fact, the salt market in Dingzhou County is not easy to do, especially the large amount of salt in the soy products produced in Zhao Sheng's Luancheng.

For example, protein meat is marinated with salt, and a large amount of fine salt is attached to the surface.

This can't help but make some people start to think about buying such products, cleaning off the salt, and finally calculating the cost separately. It turns out that buying protein meat is very cost-effective.

Some people even buy protein meat in whole packages. The reason is simple: some merchants shake off the salt grains on the protein meat and the remaining salt can be sold again.

The Cao Gang was originally established along the Grand Canal with the intention of monopolizing the shipping business on the Grand Canal.

The Grand Canal during the Zhou Dynasty was centered in Luoyang, extending north to Yanzhou (now Beijing) and south to Yuhang (now Hangzhou).

Chuzhou in the middle is an important transportation center between the north and the south, so setting up a branch here is not only a consideration of transportation, but more because of the importance of the salt market here.

As a result of Zhao Heng's actions this year, not only was water transportation threatened, but the profits from the salt market were almost lost.

The headquarters of the Cao Gang was actually in Liangshan, which is also one of the locations of the famous Liangji Canal.

The current leader of the Cao Gang is called Tang Ming. In fact, he was originally from Wu. He had studied and participated in the imperial examinations, but he failed for many years.

While riding a boat, he suddenly got an inspiration because of the price of the boat ride. So he got to know Zhang Jun and others who made a living by ferrying fishermen on the Jishui River at that time, and monopolized the boats traveling in the surrounding area.

At first, they simply concentrated large and small ships to monopolize water transportation. Eventually, they set up stakes on the water, causing passing ships to hit the stakes and become stuck. They then demanded that other ships move forward or pay people to remove the stakes.

Although everyone knew that this was done by Tang Ming's men, there was no evidence and it was not convenient to report to the police. Moreover, Tang Ming was very good at dealing with people. When they encountered the ships of dignitaries, they would not only not make things difficult for them, but would also take the initiative to step forward and lead the way.