On the wedding day, my wife was abnormal

It was as if a breeze blew by, blowing away the treetops and making the door sway gently. Chu Xiling slowly raised her head from the carved armchair, her eyes falling softly and delicately on Lin Zhen.

Perhaps she hadn't expected to have a visitor to her small courtyard, let alone that this unexpected visitor would be Lin Zhen. Thus, a simple smile naturally spread across her lips, like the gurgling of a stream.

She nodded slightly.

"It turns out to be Prince Lin. What a rare guest."

"Princess Qingqiu, how are you?" Lin Zhen responded with a warm smile and stepped lightly into the elegant courtyard.

He simply said in a perfectly casual manner, "Xiangyun, serve the tea."

Xiangyun, the personal maid, walked out from the shadow of the side room, holding a tray with a teacup as smooth as jade on it.

Lin Zhen sat on the chair opposite Chu Xiling, took the teacup, sniffed it, and said with a smile: "Princess, you actually drink tea leaves?"

"Hahaha." Chu Xiling's laughter was as clear and sweet as a silver bell, with a hint of teasing. "It's a great honor to be able to drink tea leaves in the palace of your Qian Kingdom."

"Oh?" Lin Zhen slowly put down his teacup and said in a playful tone, "You mean Daqian is poor?"

Chu Xiling asked back: "Is he very rich?"

"In terms of overall national strength, Daqian is indeed not as wealthy as your Nanchu, but it's not so poor that we can't even afford tea."

"Since you know that your emperor is deliberately treating you harshly, why are you still pretending to ask me why?"

Chu Xiling's demeanor revealed an otherworldly calmness, without any of the usual pampering of a princess.

Take tea as an example. As the Princess of Nanchu in the past, she could naturally taste the finest tea produced in the country, so the tea she drank must be the best of the best.

But now he actually drank the tea leaves without any displeasure. This open-minded state of mind is really rare.

He is worthy of being the one who can lead the Chu delegation, and he has the style of a great general.

But Lin Zhen came today not to drink tea with her, nor to chat with him.

Although the two of them could not be considered enemies, they were definitely not friends either.

He came today just to confirm one thing.

Lin Zhen casually crossed his legs and looked directly at Chu Xiling.

Seeing his action, Chu Xiling said with amusement, "Your country's etiquette is truly unique."

"Princess Qingqiu, you know I'm not here to chat with you today."

"That's right." Chu Xiling nodded slightly.

This is what she thought of, but there are also things she didn't think of.

"But I really can't guess your purpose, so please come straight to the point. After all, your country is in such chaos. If some rumors are spread without reason, it will probably be bad for both of your reputations, hehe."

Chu Xiling smiled with a bit of coquettishness.

But this was by no means a temptation to Lin Zhen, but rather a ridicule and mockery of him.

On the other hand, Lin Zhen did not have those thoughts, and he suddenly discovered that when Chu Xiling smiled, there was a small canine tooth on the left side of her red lips, which was very playful and beautiful, adding a bit of unpretentious refinement and charm to her.

The collar of her white dress was slightly open, revealing a hint of emerald green bodice and a line of skin as white as snow, perfectly displaying her unique charm.

This is a woman who knows how to show off her beauty. No wonder Gu Beichen raped her as soon as he came here.

Lin Zhen doesn't plan to follow Gu Beichen's path. He needs to make good use of this woman.

"You are planning to attack Qinghe County in a month and a half, right?" Lin Zhen said while staring at Chu Xiling's face.

Sure enough, the mockery and teasing on her face seemed to be blown away by a gust of wind, replaced by an imperceptible stiffness, and the light in her eyes dimmed a little.

Lin Zhen continued, "The general leading your troops is called Xiang Ying. He followed Gu Beichen's advice and adopted a siege strategy, cutting off Lin Zhenxian's food supplies and defeating him without a fight. Am I right?"

"You..." Chu Xiling was interrupted by Lin Zhen before she could say anything.

"I don't know how you got in touch with the Gu family. I can only tell you that a lot of things happened during the time you were in the palace. The Gu family no longer has the status they once had. His Majesty has also begun to cooperate with my Lin family. Therefore, your evil plan in Nanchu is doomed to fail."

Chu Xiling unconsciously sat up straight, her face alert.

"Did Gu Beichen tell you all this?"

Lin Zhen sneered, "Hahaha, I guessed you would say that. Do you think that His Majesty is afraid of the Lin family's military power, so he will choose to cooperate with the Gu family, thus causing the Lin family to be defeated and destroyed? I tell you, this is impossible. Gu Beichen lied to you."

Chu Xiling was speechless for a moment when she heard this. She just sat there quietly, feeling mixed emotions.

In war, the biggest taboo is to let the enemy see through your plan.

This is just like playing chess. If you make a mistake, all the steps will go wrong, and you will eventually lose the whole game.

From Lin Zhen's tone, it can be seen that Nan Chu is bound to lose this time. After all, Chu Xiling can't spread any news at all now.

Lin Zhen slowly stood up and looked down at her with an almost kingly attitude.

"If you're willing to do me a favor, I'll spare your parents' lives when the Chu State is destroyed."

Chu Xiling sneered: "Oh, with the strength of your country Qian, you want to annex the Great Chu? It's a foolish dream."

Lin Zhen looked up at the sky, as if nothing in the world caught his attention, and his attitude was carefree.

"If you don't agree, that's fine. It doesn't matter. I just pity beautiful women and can't bear to see them cry."

After saying this, he left.

He already got the answer he wanted.

That is, the original trajectory of this world is still continuing, and his appearance has not disrupted the Chu State's offensive plan.

In this way, Lin Zhen was confident that he could defeat the State of Chu in this war without any chance of fighting back.

Chu Xiling's voice came to my ears.

"Wait! Can you tell me why you know so much? Why were you able to defeat our Great Chu at the Emperor's birthday banquet?!"

"Hey!"

"stop!"

thump—

The red gate is closed.

Lin Zhen didn't look back.

......

After returning to the palace, Lin Zhen received a letter.

It's fat.

This is really strange. The guy who even has trouble writing his own name actually wrote a letter.

Lin Zhen smiled faintly and shook his head. After opening it, he saw the beautiful small regular script on it. Every stroke had the style of a master. He became even more certain that this was definitely not written by him. He probably kidnapped the daughter of a wealthy family and forced the other person to write it.

The letter explained that he had successfully arrived in Xuantu with his troops and killed a group of disobedient local nobles.

His so-called disobedience was because these wealthy families refused to pay him protection fees.

What he asked for was indeed a bit too much. No matter how many people there were in the family, each person would receive 5,000 taels of silver. If they didn't have money, they could use valuable items as collateral.

How could these wealthy families agree to such unreasonable demands? They can't even pay enough taxes to the court every year.

As a result, the fat man was so angry that he personally took up arms and led his troops to rob. No matter whether it was gold and silver jewelry or antique vases, anything that could be exchanged for silver was looted by him, and finally he killed the whole family.

The fat man confessed that he had robbed twelve houses and killed thousands of people in three days.

The other major families, after witnessing the fat man's brutal behavior, were all terrified and chose to spend money to avoid disaster, and obediently offered gold, silver and treasures.

However, in order to eliminate the root of the problem once and for all, the fat man did not even spare these families that had surrendered, and killed them all regardless of gender, age or status.

Good boy, I knew it. Sending Fatty to Xuantu wasn't a punishment at all, but a reward.

In ancient times, Sun Ce slaughtered the noble families without eradicating the roots, and was killed in return; today, Fatty Wang follows the example of punishing ten clans and kills all the wealthy families, leaving no one alive.

From this perspective, it seems that the fat man is stronger than Sun Ce?

At the end of the letter, the fat man described the scenes he saw when he passed through Liaodong.

The people were displaced and starving, and each of them fled along the river to Shanhaiguan with only a dog-beating stick.

Especially in the hardest-hit areas, the grass roots and tree barks have been eaten up. Although people are not yet eating their own children, life is very hard.

From this we can see that the relief grain from the imperial court never reached the hands of the people, but all became copper coins in the pockets of some people.

I guess this is also the reason why Lin Zhenxian went to Liaodong in person.

Lin Zhen called Huanbi to grind ink and wrote a reply to the fat man, telling him what to do next and how to attack the Xianbei.

The production of the Eight Ox Crossbows is in full swing. Almost every five produced will be sent to Fatty. Judging from the time, the first batch should have arrived.

With these powerful weapons, the unification of Outer Northeast China is just around the corner.

Lin Zhen put down his pen and examined the letter with wet ink with satisfaction. He then handed it to Huanbi and asked him to deliver it to the soldiers of Longxiang Camp.

At this time, Hou Chun came back.

And it brought some very bad news.