Xu Fengnian stood up and put down his brush. He had only finished writing half of the letter he was going to send to the military town of Phoenix when he told Yang Shenxing to leave the writing desk empty for now. The Deputy Jiedushi, who had a profound state of cultivation not inferior to Li Gongde's, naturally agreed calmly.
Hsu Fengnian let the head spy of the Dushui Chamber return to the torture chamber first while he led the woman in the veil hat to the study next to the signing room of the Second Hall. When he personally closed the door gently, the woman took off the veil hat, revealing a face that could be described as beautiful. She, who could bring light to a simple study, was indeed a stunning beauty. In this North Jiebei City, only the beautiful Jiang Ni could completely suppress her. When Hsu Fengnian saw the lips of the spy of the Dushui Chamber, the words that came to his mind were not the more natural two words of Dongyue, but the relatively rare Dongyue. This was the real reason why Hsu Fengnian was so cautious. It could even be said that this was a long and unknown wait. Before Hsu Fengnian inherited the throne, he had been waiting for the day when the truth would come to light. Back then, when he went to Beimang alone as His Royal Highness, it was like a chess piece at the end of the first stage. Even if the first soul-stirring battle of Beimang had ended and the second battle was in full swing, it could only be considered the middle game of the Spring and Autumn chess game. It could only be considered the real end of the game when he waited for this woman.
Everyone knew that Nalan Youci, who was more like a vassal king than Zhao Bing, the King of Yan, was the only surviving strategist of the Spring and Autumn Period. He was often followed by five beautiful personal maids with strange nicknames: Fengdu, Dongyue, Xishu, Three Corpses, and Cheng Lu.
She was one of Nalan Youci's maids, Dongyue. Facing the young king with the most military power in the Liyang Dynasty, she was calm and composed. She smiled and said, "Since Your Highness is so nervous, you must already know about the plan of my master and his old friends. This is even better. It saves me from wasting my breath."
Hsu Fengnian did not sit down. He just stood near the ordinary boxwood desk and did not bring a chair for her. The two of them stood facing each other like this. He went straight to the point and said, "The pawns chosen by my master, including the king of the old North Courtyard, Xu Huainan, are all dead now. Who is left on your master's side?"
Dongyue smiled and said, "Why don't you guess, Your Highness?"
Xu Fengnian narrowed his almond-shaped eyes and his face darkened.
She turned a blind eye to this and clicked her tongue. "Right now, it is widely known in the Central Plains that it took ten years to cultivate Song Yushu, a hundred years to cultivate Xu Fengnian, and a thousand years to cultivate Lu Dongxuan. Your Highness, your current performance is somewhat unworthy of the name."
The Nine Kingdoms of Spring and Autumn was a game of chess. Hong Jia's journey to the north was the curtain of the war of Spring and Autumn. It was not only the ending, but also the first move. The four scholars from the Central Plains, who originally belonged to different camps, worked together to set up the trap. Huang Longshi of the Spring and Autumn Three, Li Yishan of the Tide-listening Pavilion, Li Yishan of the Southern Border, and Li Yishan of the Liyang Emperor, Shi Yuan Benxi. Ever since the founding of the Great Qin Dynasty, the northern grassland cavalry had invaded the south countless times, causing chaos in the Central Plains. The Central Plains' commoners and commoners sought refuge and migrated, retreating from the north to the south time after time. Later generations were used to calling them "Crossing the South in Clothes". For example, during the last years of the Yongxi Dynasty, the "Liu Family Blessed China" and the "Sweet Dew Crossing the South" after the fall of the Great Feng Dynasty. The Jiang family of Da Chu, the most powerful family in China during the Nine Kingdoms of Spring and Autumn, was regarded as the rightful successor of the Great Feng Dynasty. However, roughly half a year later, an even greater scale of escape erupted. The most unyielding West Chu, the Southern Tang, the Southern Tang, the Western Shu, and the Western Shu, who were used to living a debauched and extravagant lifestyle, and the most sentimental Western Shu, in addition to a small number of Northern Han and Great Wei adherents, all headed north one after another. In the end, they mostly converged at the present-day Liangyou Province of the Northern Liang Path and the River Province of the Two Huai Path. Almost the moment before Xu Xiao was slaughtered and enfeoffed as a prince, they successfully fled to the Northern Mang and Southern Dynasties' Gusai Province and Longyao Province. Almost immediately before Xu Xiao was slaughtered and enfeoffed as a prince, they successfully fled to the Northern Mang and Southern Dynasties' Gusai Province and Longyao Province.
Among them, there were many well-hidden key players. One was Xu Xiao, who had been enfeoffed as Prince of Another Surname by the old Liyang Emperor Zhao Li, suddenly declaring that he would kill all the scholars of West Chu and have their corpses block the estuary of the Guangling River. Because the Battle of the Western Wall was too bitter, regardless of whether it was the defeated Da Chu Jiangshi or the victorious Xu Xiao, both sides were filled with resentment. As a result, when Xu Xiao, who was at the peak of his power, publicly announced these words in the imperial court of Great Peace City, not only was the court shaken, it also caused the remnants of West Chu, whose mountains and rivers had been shattered, to despair. That Lame Xu clearly did not even give them the opportunity to be peaceful dogs. Other than fleeing, what else could they do?
Another time, Zhao Li's son, Zhao Bing, who was supposed to be the ruler of Western Chu territory by virtue of his military exploits, who later became the King of Yan Chi in Nanjiang, not only did he not go to the richest Guangling Circuit, he did not even go to Jingan Circuit and Qingzhou, which dominated the hinterland of the Central Plains. At that time, Zhao Li only intended to let this son, who was "most like me," go to Huainan Circuit, probably because he wanted to let Zhao Bing, who was good at war, and Xu Xiao, the only King of Liyang with a different surname, be neighbors when Xu Xiao's title as King of Northern Liang Circuit was a foregone conclusion. But in the end, Zhao Bing, who had wanted to go to the Liangliao Pass, went to the most unexpected Southern Border, a place that was vast but full of miasma. Unofficial history said that before the bloodthirsty Zhao Bing left the capital, he chopped down a thousand-year-old cypress tree in the prince's mansion and swore to kill all the young men of Southern Tang who were taller than a wheel to vent his anger. Coincidentally, when Zhao Bing was on his way south, Southern Tang, who definitely did not resist tenaciously in the late Spring and Autumn period, actually rebelled and killed thousands of Gu Jiantang's soldiers who stayed behind. Zhao Bing originally wanted to deliberately wrestle with the new Prince of Guangling, Zhao Yi, in Guangling Circuit for fun. He had no choice but to suddenly speed up his horse's hooves and head south.
The third time was when Xu Xiao was enfeoffed as Prince of Liyang the earliest and Prince of Liyang the latest.
The key point that people did not think deeply about the first two times, Yuan Benxi, who was half an inch away from the Emperor of Liyang, watched coldly from the sidelines because he was happy to see it happen. The Zhao family that he was loyal to wanted to truly let the fire of peace spread across the world. They had to let those "hundred years of country, thousand years of family" noble families "move the tree and die". They wanted to let them obediently move to the Liyang capital under the eyes of the Emperor under the threat and intimidation of the two Prince of Liyang, which was very likely to come true. Like the scholars of the imperial examinations, "all the heroes of the world will enter the Zhao family's jar", at the same time, to prevent future troubles. It could prevent the remnants of the countries that had lost their foundations from rebelling and could also ensure that when Liyang went north to conquer the grasslands, there would be no worries in the south. It was a pity that at this time, unforeseen events occurred. Xu Xiao's army traveled west very slowly. They enjoyed the scenery along the way and even stopped in Jizhou for a full month. When Yuan Benxi and the Liyang imperial court realized that the situation was not right, they let Cai Nan, who was the Minister of War and the number one fierce general under Gu Jiantang, who was stationed in Gangnam-do, lead the army all the way to try to stop the flood of remnants that suddenly gathered in the northwest direction and force them to turn east and enter Taian City. Because the scale of Cai Nan's army was not large and they were extremely unfamiliar with the northwest terrain, in the end, they were still unable to stop that vast and mighty group of Spring and Autumn remnants.
At the time, Jizhou's Han Family, who had defended the border pass against the grassland horse hooves for generations, did not make a move that time, leading to the tragedy of their family's destruction. As Zhang Julu's teacher and father-in-law, the old Grand Secretary of Liyang, even though he indeed had personal grudges with Jizhou's Han Family, to say that the old Grand Secretary alone caused the destruction of an enormous family that had been loyal for generations was overestimating the weight of that scholar in name in the imperial court and also underestimating the old Grand Secretary's scholarly character. In reality, the truth was that the Liyang imperial court did not dare to openly take their anger out on the Beiliang Frontier Army, so they could only make an example out of the Jizhou Han Family. Apart from this, they also had Yang Shenxing, who was also a meritorious official of the Spring and Autumn Period, lead troops into Jizhou. In addition, Cai Nan stationed troops at the Beiliang border border, doing his best to reduce the space for retreat for the Beiliang cavalry.
In this game of chess, four strategists sat on the four sides of the Central Plains, acting as national players. They rolled up their sleeves and placed a piece together.
In the end, the person who needed to pick up a piece from the chessboard was His Royal Highness of Beiliang, who had inexplicably gone to Beimang.
In the study, only the scent of books was faint. A man and a woman fell into a long silence.
Hsu Fengnian suppressed the impetuousness in his heart and tried to be as calm as possible. "Is Wang Sui, the Consort of Eastern Yue, a chess piece of Nalan Youci?"
The woman's eyes widened. The stunned expression on her face was not fake. She asked curiously, "Did Mr. Li not mention it to Your Highness?"
Hsu Fengnian's heart trembled, but he said expressionlessly, "No."
Nalan Youci's servant girl was very intelligent. She immediately saw through the mystery and suddenly realized. "So when Mr. Li passed away, he already regretted it."
She tilted her head. "Since Mr. Li changed his mind before his death and didn't want you to carry this heavy burden, Your Highness, why are you so persistent?"
Hsu Fengnian said bluntly in a deep voice, "People are dying everywhere in Beiliang, I don't have time to talk nonsense with you!"
She glanced at the young king who was holding the sword with his left hand and raised her eyebrows. She was full of eagerness. "Beiliang's sword has always been called Grand Xu Style by the military of the Central Plains. The implication is that all the swords in the world imitate Xu Style. Your Highness, can you let me have a look?"
Hsu Fengnian sneered, "Can a dead person lift a sword?"
She pretended to touch her chest in horror. "This is not the posture of asking for help. No wonder my husband said that the northwest is beyond the Great Wall …"
There was a sudden loud bang.
This beautiful young woman had her back against the door. Her smooth and white forehead was pressed down by a hand.
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