It was the end of the year, and the victory of the West Chu rebel army at Yaoyou Pass meant that the already thin encirclement was now wide open. For the Liyang imperial court, it was one disaster after another. The former could happily say goodbye to the old and welcome the new, while the latter, after Yan Zhenchun died in battle, the capital was once again shrouded in a thick layer of haze. Luckily, after Yan Zhenchun and Yang Shenxing, there was another veteran general who was famous during the Spring and Autumn Period. After a long and honest conversation with Lu Shengxiang, he led his troops down south. Thirty thousand troops headed straight for Qingyang Basin. They did not seek to defeat West Chu, but to save the forty thousand Ji Nan infantry that were trapped by Yang Shenxing.
Great General Lu Shengxiang, who had been stagnant at Yulu Pass, finally made a move under the gazes of tens of thousands of people. He led his troops down the Yu East Plains toward the south.
However, the thing that calmed the hearts of the people the most was not the movement of close to a hundred thousand troops, but the appearance of two people in Great Peace City.
One was the Emperor who was imprisoned by the Grand Secretary after returning from patrolling the borders. The other was the Great General Gu Jiantang who accompanied the Emperor.
The Emperor who had once punished the Duke of Huainan because of a small matter only gave two edicts after returning to Great Peace City. The first one was for Zhang Julu to die miserably without a posthumous title. The second one was for King Zhao Ying to die with great honor, with a posthumous title and the words, "If I lose my right-hand man."
The end of the year was not easy, but they had to get through it.
In Great Peace City, firecrackers celebrated the new year. However, compared to the past, it lacked the festive atmosphere.
Just like this, the Liyang imperial court welcomed the auspicious second year.
It was the first morning court session of the new year.
Emperor Zhao Dun sat on the dragon throne. This was the umpteenth time this monarch had sat in the north facing the south since he ascended the throne. Through the wide palace doors, he looked straight at the imperial path that he could see with one glance.
The Emperor naturally had to listen to the world from the south and rule from the light.
Perhaps because he sensed the Emperor's absent-mindedness, Eunuch Song Tanglu of the Ceremony Directorate did not call out, "If there is something to report, court is dismissed."
The civil and military officials in the Imperial Court and the officials outside the hall all lowered their heads respectfully, retracted their gazes, and waited quietly with bated breath. The old officials who had suffered greatly from the morning court session all began to doze off without leaving a trace.
The Emperor slowly pulled back his gaze from the seemingly endless imperial road to the southern border to the palace gates. The Emperor could still clearly remember the two generals he had summoned to first destroy the Chu and then pacify Xi Shu. The older one was a cripple. His steps were neither fast nor slow. It was not slow because he was limping. Instead, it was a kind of sloppiness as he walked on a path that an official should take seriously, but he did not take it seriously. This person wore the Xu family's knife that shocked the world. As he walked closer step by step, it made the Emperor, as the Emperor, feel a sense of humiliation and suffocation.
The young man behind the cripple had a dignified appearance and was dressed in white. He was really young, making people feel close to him. This was especially true for the new Emperor who sat on the throne. He wished he could lower himself and hold his arm and chat with him. In his heart, the new Emperor thought that if the previous Emperor could have the cripple fight for him in the south and north, then he should also have an even better white-clothed War Saint. He could also be like the previous Emperor, boldly giving a young general the greatest authority and the greatest number of troops to lead his horse and send him off. He could let him freely go beyond the Great Wall and work together with his officials to establish an unprecedented military service.
However, the young man in white had refused. The Emperor was disappointed, but he was not angry.
Later, the Emperor looked at the young scholars who would shine brightly in the future. In the morning light, they walked step by step into his line of sight with unconcealable restraint and excitement.
Yin Maochun, Zhao Youling, Bai Guo, Wang Xionggui, Zheng Zhenxian, Qian Youjian …
A dazzling lineup.
Together, they created the Eternal Hui Spring of the Liyang Dynasty.
And they are destined to go down in history with me for all eternity.
In the last court meeting of the Eternal Hui Dynasty, the two unruly and unruly vassal kings, Xu Xiao and Zhao Bing, were not in the court. However, there were meritorious generals like Gu Jiantang, Yang Shenxing, and Yan Zhenchun, as well as young and strong generals like Lu Sheng and Lu Baijie, who had enough years to accumulate military service. There were civil officials like Zhang Julu, Huan Wen, and Yao Baifeng, who were gradually getting old. There were famous scholars like Yin Maochun, who were in the prime of their lives. There were also those top three scholars who seemed to be inexhaustible.
The previous Emperor had deeply regretted that when he first aspired to rule the world, there were too few people to make ends meet.
However, he, Zhao Dun, was different. He truly felt the heroic spirit of sitting on the throne.
The Emperor retracted his gaze and looked at the door of the hall.
That threshold was a very important dragon gate that all the officials in the world wanted to cross.
He had seen with his own eyes the old civil officials and generals with embroidered white herons or bears kneeling in the square outside the hall year after year. They looked eagerly at the Golden Imperial Hall that the common people spoke of. They knelt until they were lying in their coffins, but they were still unable to enter.
He had also seen many people who wanted to laugh but forced themselves to hold back. Some people fainted from hunger and the sun and were carried away by eunuchs. Some people couldn't hold back their urge to pee and were found to be reprimanded and given demerits. There were even colleagues who had shed all pretense of cordiality one day and secretly elbowed each other the next day. There were also people who quietly yawned and were discovered by the Emperor's sharp eyes. He jokingly called them into the hall to be lectured. He remembered that the guy didn't wait for him to speak. He was so scared that he fell to the ground with a thump. He was a man of seven feet. He kept kowtowing and crying. He asked him warmly and found out that he had been on duty at the Ministry of Revenue the night before and hadn't slept at all. He allowed him to take a day off. He even smiled and asked the head official of the Ministry of Revenue in the hall if he could approve. At that time, Wang Xionggui and Bai Guo weren't sitting in the position of Minister of Revenue. The old Minister, who had always been known for his strictness, joked along, "Once Your Majesty says so, this official has to approve even if I don't want to." Six years later, that official of the Ministry of Revenue went to Huainan Province and was promoted to a county governor. The old Minister had long retired and returned to his hometown.
The Emperor retracted his gaze again and looked inside the hall.
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