Chapter 596 Privy Council No. 10
Zhao Yulin asked Yang Xingyun to order the navy to prepare to go out to sea to support the Goryeo Kingdom in its war, at least to keep the Goryeo court from collapsing.
The two of them understood what he meant and immediately stood up and said goodbye.
After coming out, Yang Xingyun said with a smile that he wanted to go to the Privy Councilor's office to get acquainted with himself first.
Miao Gui proudly shouted, "Let's go. Turn right and you will find No. 10 Privy Council."
The two entered an exquisite small building where all the attendants were already there. The maid quickly served them tea and then turned to leave.
Miao Gui said with emotion: From now on I will have to rely on my brothers to run around. He and the young master have been running back and forth for these years and are really tired.
Yang Xingyun said to himself: I thought I would be in charge of governing the local area in Daming Prefecture, but I didn't expect that the third young master would entrust me with such an important task. He felt that the burden on his shoulders was even heavier.
Miao Gui told him not to worry too much and just go for it, as the Third Young Master and he would fully support him.
Dali in the south was also preparing to conquer Pagan and expand its territory.
At the beginning, the New Song Dynasty conquered the Nanyue Kingdom and established Thang Long Prefecture, and demanded that the Dali Kingdom directly open a post station and postal route. They themselves considered themselves to be surrendering to the New Song Dynasty. By opening a post station and postal route from Thang Long through Dali to Chengdu, their economy benefited from the rapid development of this golden channel, and a large amount of commodity trade increased their tax revenue.
After the young emperor tasted the sweetness of getting rich by building roads, he successively opened postal routes to Jianchang Prefecture and Guizhou Road to promote trade, and taxes increased at a visible rate. Dali State had money, and started a new round of conscription and expansion of the army to revive the glory of the southern country.
The young emperor asked Duan Xiaolin, the Prince of Zhennan, to go on a diplomatic mission to the New Song Dynasty to purchase weapons and arm the Dali Imperial Guards. This time, he will carry the silver directly to Chengdu on horseback. We will do the transaction in cash.
In Xinshi Town, the Emperor was drinking tea and basking in the sun with Zhao Feiyan. The Empress and the Imperial Concubine took turns holding their grandson and teasing him joyfully.
The emperor asked Feiyan with great concern: Now that the child is born, is it time for you to go back and take charge of the situation?
Zhao Feiyan happily said that there was no rush, as she had Brother Yulin in Chengdu so she didn't have to worry about anything else, and she still needed some time to recuperate.
The imperial concubine said with a smile: It doesn't matter whether the throne is in Feiyan's hands or Zhidi's hands, it is in the hands of our Zhao family, right?
Zhao Feiyan closed her eyes and nodded, then opened her eyes and sat up straight to tell them: The new Song Dynasty is a republic, not a hereditary throne as Er Niang thought. Brother Yulin said that this is because we have just implemented a republic, and many rules have just been established. We need to stick to it, otherwise Du Fan and Hua Yue would have been the rulers long ago, which is too tiring.
The emperor and his two women opened their mouths in surprise. What a fairy! He even thought that being the head of state was too tiring and wanted to push the job to others.
The emperor told his good daughter not to worry, saying that Old Mrs. Xie was just a lonely person and could not cause any big waves.
Zhao Feiyan said that she didn't take it to heart, but she felt uncomfortable being ridiculed every time she went to Huaxi, so she would not go there in the future.
The emperor was frustrated. He originally thought that the empress dowager was a small scallion, but in the eyes of his own daughter, she was just a fart that had disappeared without a trace.
Feiyan shouted happily: "Daddy, please give our baby a name. The little darling doesn't have a name yet."
The emperor immediately put his literary brain into searching, and after thinking for a long time, he named him Zhao Guangrui, which means rare and beloved baby.
Zhao Feiyan was so happy that she hugged her daughter Guangrui and called her "Guangrui". She was very happy.
The imperial concubine looked at Feiyan with a smile on her face as she teased the child, and thought of her own Lan'er. She tentatively asked Feiyan: When can you bring her sister Lanlan back?
Zhao Feiyan assured her that the strength of the New Song Kingdom and the Grassland Empire was increasing and decreasing, and was surpassing the Grassland Empire. Brother Yulin believed that the combat power of the Shenwei Army was also surpassing the Mongolian Army, and it would take five years at the longest and three years at the shortest to defeat the enemy.
When the time comes, we will ask them for the person. If they don’t give it to us, we will snatch the person back.
When the emperor saw his daughter's righteous look and decisive words, he felt that she was possessed by an imperial aura. She was indeed his daughter born into the royal family.
He stayed in Xinshi for three days and saw everything there was to see. He suggested to Feiyan that he wanted to travel east along the Yangtze River to Luzhou and Kuizhou to have a look.
Zhao Feiyan laughed and said that he was the father of the current king, so he could go wherever he wanted, and who would stop him? Just don't get tired.
The old emperor enjoyed listening to this and his face was full of smiles.
In Chengdu, the old queen in Huaxi Village was in a miserable situation.
She was first sanctioned financially. When the emperor went out, he ordered the empress to only give the empress dowager ten strings of coins for expenses , on the grounds that there was rice, salt and a live chicken in the villa that had not been eaten, and they only needed to buy some fresh vegetables, which would not cost much silver.
When Old Lady Xie found out, she was so angry that she cursed the emperor's parents for giving birth to a wicked boy without an anus.
However, despite the scolding, life still had to go on, and she told the two old maids to spend frugally and plan expenses according to a twenty-day period, estimating that in twenty days, the damn unfilial son should be back after seeing his lowly woman.
Another thing was her life safety. Even though Xie Wuhui had explained it to her twelve times, she was still worried. Ever since the emperor left, the old woman had been suspicious all day, thinking that Zhao Yulin and the emperor had agreed to deal with her, and that he had intentionally taken only the queen and the imperial concubine away, just to humiliate and torture her in front of the palace maids in the other garden.
The old woman stayed in her backyard for three days without leaving the house, which made the servants feel a lot more relaxed.
But trouble came. Old Mrs. Xie was extremely nervous all day long. She dreamed that she was being chased by a group of constables in the wilderness. Her clothes were tattered and her hair was disheveled. She lost her shoes and fell into a pond. She escaped only by hiding under the grass.
After waking up, she screamed and yelled like a mad woman.
When Old Lady Xie woke up, she had a nightmare and was sweating all over. She cursed Zhao Yulin while taking a bath and changing clothes with the help of her maid. When she went to bed, she asked the maid and the eunuch to take turns to guard the bed and not to take a nap.
This makes life difficult for the people around her.
The two old servants didn't dare to say it out loud, but in their hearts they cursed her ancestors for generations and swore that when the emperor came back, they would go to work in the front yard and never serve this old witch again.
The emperor traveled for a month and returned home. The empress dowager had already spent all the money she had to buy vegetables, and had to live on pickles and salt water all day long.
Old Mrs. Xie cursed the emperor's son in a hoarse voice for being unfilial, but the emperor was extremely happy in his heart.
A group of palace servants surrounded the queen and said that they had had enough and wanted to work in the front yard, begging the queen to accept them.
The emperor kept saying "this is great" and agreed. He said that the front yard was short of staff and everyone should come over. He also asked the empress to report to the Ministry of Rites for the issuance of salaries.
The Queen Mother was so angry that she spat out a mouthful of blood and was about to fall down. Fortunately, two old maids supported her in time and hurried back to the house.
The queen asked the emperor somewhat worriedly, this is not a good idea, we should let the imperial physician take a look.
The emperor winked at the imperial concubine, who immediately went to do it. He told the queen: He won't die, he's a very good actor, there's no need to worry.
The Queen knew a little bit about the Queen Mother's tricks. In the past, the two had fought many times. She just felt that outsiders would laugh at her public quarrels and conflicts.
The emperor's life now was better than when he was sitting on the dragon throne, so he didn't care about these things. He just wanted to thank the old lady for her good looks. He thought that everyone was in the other garden behind closed doors, so who would dare to tell anyone?
Zhao Yulin was drinking and chatting happily with Duan Xiaolin, so how could he know that his father-in-law was just amusing himself.
Duan Xiaolin came to ask for military equipment. He said he had some, but they were all old. The old rules still apply: you can take away as much military equipment as you pay.
Xiao Linzi was not pleased with his third uncle's straightforwardness and told him that he had brought cash with him.
He said: We two brothers just need to eat and drink. If you need any work, go find General Cao Yong, the logistics officer.
During this period, the former logistics envoy Tan Yousan could no longer bear his illness and passed away. The Ministry of War buried Yousan with great ceremony and promoted Deputy Envoy Cao Yong to take over.
This man was an uprising general of the Wanggu tribe in Gongzhou. He followed Li Yunqing in the battle against Tubo and made great contributions. Considering his health, Zhao Yulin transferred him back to Chengdu to be the deputy envoy of logistics. Now he has taken over Yousan's shift as the chief envoy.
Later, Cao Yong arrived and Zhao Yulin invited him to have a drink and asked him to open the warehouses in Chengdu, Yazhou and Jiading and sell as much as he had to the Dali Kingdom.
Cao Yong followed the order and Duan Xiaolin happily followed Cao Yong.
Looking back, Shunzhidi asked him worriedly: Brother, you are selling military equipment to Dali in such a high-profile manner, aren't you afraid that the hungry wolves in the north will find out?
Yangjin said with a smile: Brother Yulin just wants to let the grassland empire know and let them relax their vigilance so that the border guards will have time and energy to concentrate on military training.
Shunzhidi has a simple mind and knows what she means by what she says. It was only after listening to Yangjin's explanation that she suddenly understood.
Miao Gui of the Privy Council and Yang Xingyun, the Minister of War, smiled at each other. Miao Gui told him: We should not be careless. The Ministry of War should remind Shunfeng Division to pay close attention to the whereabouts of this batch of military equipment. He was worried that the Grassland Empire was short of iron and silver and was planning to attack Dali. It was not impossible for them to buy our military equipment from Dali.
Yang Xingyun immediately became alert and nodded to drink tea.
Miao Gui said: "Brother, this is called repairing the plank road in the open, but secretly crossing Chencang. At present, we have some old weapons in stock, but we are not yet rich. Young master sells them in large quantities to let Dali see that we are a family, and also to let the grassland empire see that we are calmly reorganizing the army and stabilizing the border."
Yang Xingyun naturally understood and nodded continuously, telling Miao Gui not to worry, that he would take on the responsibilities of the Ministry of War and do a good job.
In recent years, the Shenwei Army's weapons have been constantly updated, and the quality has also been greatly improved with the continuous improvement of machinery. After the troops replaced their new weapons, they gradually stockpiled some old weapons. Zhao Yulin felt that there was no need to keep them in the warehouse to rot. He could take them out and sell them for cash to support Chen Xian's technological innovation.
The next day, Zhao Yulin took Miao Gui to the Ministry of War to preside over a meeting to discuss major changes to the Shenwei Army.
He handed the manuscript he had drafted to Miao Gui for circulation, and told everyone: As the quality of new weapons developed by the country has stabilized and production has been guaranteed, the Shenwei Army's tactics have undergone a huge change. It is no longer a team that relied on numbers to fight desperately, holding swords, guns, and shields.
