"This, this, this...this is the Eastern Thief!"

Zhao Huan, the official of the Song Dynasty, looked at the large brigade of Republican troops from afar, and passed through the official road more than ten miles outside Nanxun Gate, muttering to himself with a look of horror.

He is Zhao Ji's biological son! Naturally, he also has the incurable disease of hereditary timidity. When he was bewitched by the retro party, his mind was full of wise lords, turning the tide and other things. He forgot to be afraid...

Of course, the ability of the Great Zhou Republican Army to scare the Old Zhao family cannot be compared with that of the Jurchen brothers.

Wu Yijiu and Wu Yiyong were both Zhao Huan's brother-in-law. They did not detain his sister as concubines, but were the eldest wife who was married by the Ming Dynasty. Moreover, they had a good relationship with the two brothers of the Wu family. They were both rare beauties, with noble backgrounds, many dowry, and good education. They didn't even care about the two brothers of the Wu family making mistresses or fountains. Where can I find such a good wife?

So Wu Yijiu and Wu Yiyong have a very good relationship with the two emperors.

With two emperors protecting him, Zhao Huan doesn't have to worry about being arrested and going to Wuguo City to watch the snow.

But now when Zhao Huan saw the invincible Republican army reaching Kaifeng Prefecture, he still felt weak in his calves. If the two little yellow gates around him were trying hard to support him, he would have sat on the ground.

"Your Majesty," Zhang Jun, who has been promoted to the Secretariat of the Central Secretariat and the Minister of War, said loudly, "The Eastern thieves are just like this, with only 20,000 to 30,000 people. How can they be the opponent of the 100,000 heavenly soldiers of Kaifeng Prefecture? Moreover, the soldiers who serve the kings from all directions are on the way and will soon arrive, and they will be gathered and annihilated!"

"Yes!" Li Guang, the Right Secretary, said, "Hebei, Hedong people are available, and there are still many cities that are fighting to the death. Han Xiaozhou, Zong Ze, and Du Chong have 200,000 elite soldiers. Although there are many soldiers and horses in the East, they are already tired troops. They have insufficient food and grass, and the offensive has slowed down. They are already at the end of their strength."

The Hanlin scholar Qin Hui also said: "The Eastern thief held troops outside Kaifeng Prefecture, but he was just bluffing and intimidating the court. The purpose was to ask for peace! If you ask for annual tribute, you might as well go with it. The land must not be ceded."

Several retro party members were cheering Zhao Huan up, and they also knew about the Zhao family's cartilage disease. However, Zhao Huan responded softly when Qin Hui mentioned peace talks, as if he was talking to himself: "It's not impossible to cut a little land..."

Is this too embarrassing?

The retro party members present were very disappointed. Although everyone knew that they could not defeat the East thieves, Hebei, Hedong, and Jingdong East Road, and most of them would have to be thrown away Kaifeng Prefecture, but as long as Kaifeng Prefecture was not lost for a while, their big words could continue.

Even if you lose Kaifeng Mansion, you don’t have to give in… As long as you can run to Guanzhong, you can still hold up the banner of “Returning My Rivers and Mountains”!

Zhao Huan sighed softly: "I have seen the Eastern thief today... I am a little tired, so I will go back to the palace to rest first, and then discuss the battle tomorrow."

The matter of war and defense has been discussed for many times!

On the day when Wu Yiyong's army crossed the river, Zhao Huan issued an order to establish the "Four Wall Guarding Office" to uniformly command Kaifeng's defense city battles. He also appointed Geng Nanzhong, the chief minister of the Privy Council, as the Sibi Guarding Envoy, with Yang Keshi as the deputy envoy of the Four Wall Guarding Envoy. Seven of the nine generals originally arranged in Moutuogang were transferred to Kaifeng Prefecture (the other two generals went to Xingyang and Xuzhou respectively).

In addition, when Zhao Ji ran away, he only took one general from Yue He. Later, Gao Yaofu and Zhou Yunqing took two camps away, protecting Zhao Ji's woman and some of his property to Xiangyang.

So now there are about 35,000 new troops withdrawing into Kaifeng Prefecture, plus more than 10,000 old imperial guards, and there are less than 50,000 reliable troops in total.

"Recruiting soldiers with houses" has also started, but it is not about dividing houses when they become soldiers. Instead, they need to make contributions. Killing a thief and rewarding a "real estate certificate" is much lower than that of Gao Qiu who issued a house slave soldier and warriors back then.

However, since the number of thieves in the East is much larger than that in the Western thieves in the past, there are about 1 million. Therefore, we can only adopt the "first cut first served" method, and the 50,000 cut is gone... and there will be no more after the 50,000 cut.

Of course, Kaifeng Prefecture's real estate has now seen the big head of 888. Prices have been declining since the war between Song and Zhou dynasties, and have fallen by one quarter within a few months. The market situation is not optimistic in the future!

However, the policy of "recruiting troops with houses" is still effective. It is not only the idle Kaifeng man who has no houses or wives that he has fooled him into joining the army, which has led to the number of Zhao Huan's "book army" reaching 100,000.

The 100,000 army looked a lot. It was several times more than the Wu Yiyong troops who showed off their power outside the city. However, no new army general dared to ask for orders to go out of the city to compete with Wu Yiyong.

Even the retro party members who advocated the call of the gate were very high, they only dared to defend the city and did not dare to go out to fight.

But now if Wu Yiyong is not defeated, and the "million-million-east thieves" in Hebei come south, isn't the 100,000 troops in Kaifeng Prefecture still waiting for death?

If you don't want to wait for death, then you can only leave or ask for peace and mercy...

Let's go, now is not the time. Zhao Kai's Donghai Kingdom has not been removed, and Xuzhou's gold and silver mountains have not been moved away. How could he run away to Guanzhong?

Without gold and silver mountains, how could Zhao Huan go to Guanzhong to make retro? Will those bully landlords in Guanzhong give him the land? Don’t surrender to the Great Zhou Republic at that time.

If you have to delay time in Kaifeng Prefecture until you complete the two major tasks of withdrawing the vassal states in the East China Sea and transporting the gold medal in Xuzhou, Zhao Huan will have to use some delaying strategy.

Shortly after Zhao Huan returned to Chongzheng Palace dejectedly, his teacher Geng Nanzhong brought good news.

"Your Majesty, the Empress Dowager's nephew Zheng Yinian was released back to Kaifeng Prefecture by Wu Yiyong."

"Oh." Zhao Huan responded, "He has something to do with Wu Yiyong, and it's not surprising that Wu Yiyong doesn't kill him."

"Your Majesty," Geng Nanzhong suppressed his voice, "He returned to Kaifeng Prefecture with Wu Yiyong's instructions!"

"Instructions?" Zhao Huan was stunned and immediately raised his head from a policy statement, looking at Geng Nanzhong. The policy statement he was reading was written by Shen Huiyuan, the Yuan of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Zhao Huan had no intention of presiding over the palace examination. So he wanted to directly make Huiyuan the top scholar, so he sent Shen Hui's article to read.

"Your Majesty," said Geng Nanzhong, "Zheng Yinian was entrusted by Wu Yigong and wanted to explore our terms of peace talks."

"What?" Zhao Huan looked at Geng Nanzhong, "Wu Yiyong wants to make peace?"

"Yes!" Geng Nanzhong nodded, "Your Majesty, it's a rare opportunity!"

"No, no..." Zhao Huan shook his head, "There are still millions of Eastern thieves on the north bank of the Yellow River. Why are the Eastern thieves eager to negotiate peace?"

"It's not that the East thief is eager to negotiate peace," Geng Nanzhong said, "but that Wu Yiyong wants to negotiate peace."

"Why is Wu Yiyong anxious?" Zhao Huan asked.

"Of course I'm eager to get the first prize!" Geng Nanzhong analyzed, "Wu Yiyong is Wu Haogu's eldest son. It is said that he joined the army to kill people at the age of thirteen. He has been in the military for more than ten years and has made great contributions. For example, the current head of state Wu Yi has become much stronger..."

"He wants to compete with Wu Yi for the throne for a long time?" Zhao Huan took a breath, as if he had seen some great opportunity. "Will the fight start?"

Zhao Song has been looking forward to the good things that the two martial arts are fighting each other for a while, but Zhao Huan is still not giving up.

"Your Majesty," Geng Nanzhong shook his head, "Wu Haogu is not dead..."

"What a pity!" Zhao Huan sighed, "What's the chance?"

"Your Majesty, the head of the Eastern thief has a term of office... Wu Yijiu was elected by-election and made up for the remaining two years of Wu Haogu's second head of office. In other words, at the end of this year, the Eastern thief will be elected again. If Wu Yiyong can make extraordinary contributions, he is likely to be elected as the head of office!"

In fact, the Zhou State's Senate and the election of the head of state did not talk about the merits of rewarding martial arts and righteousness. They could win themselves the rank of general and the highest-ranking prince citizen. They might also receive a large piece of land as a reward (private land), but it has nothing to do with being a senator, the head of state.

Moreover, Wu Yiyong is still young now and will not choose to retire from the army to select veterans and veterans in Zhou State. He cannot run for veterans and chiefs!

For Wu Yiyong, the dean of the Knight Academy and the Du Junji Envoy were the positions he wanted to seek next. Then he was elected as a veteran step by step, and then served as one or two ministers of the Ministry of War. Then he would challenge the position of the chief veteran... It was no matter what happened ten years later.

By then, Wu Yijiu had two and a half terms last night, and the head of state should have replaced him.

Therefore, Wu Yiyong is not in a hurry to negotiate peace at all, and he does not have the authority to formally negotiate peace with the Song Dynasty court. He is just a military commander, nor is he the Minister of Rites who is in charge of the Republic's government.

However, he has the right to negotiate with the enemy to achieve military goals, such as persuading surrender and using negotiations as an excuse to deceive the enemy are both "military purposes".

The negotiations with the Kaifeng Prefecture court were actually a means of deception.

Wu Yiyong needs to use this method to create conditions for seizing and consolidating Chenliu!

He only had more than 7,000 people, which was enough to defeat Chenliu, but it was not easy to attack by Kaifeng defenders during the siege.

Therefore, the best strategy is to deceive Zhao Huan with peace talks and let him remain unmoved.

After defeating Chenliu, Wu Yiyong still had to make long-term preparations in Chenliu. It took quite time to repair cities and collect military rations.

During this process, it would be ideal that the Song army in Kaifeng Prefecture could remain unmoved.

"Geng Qing," Zhao Huan asked thoughtfully, "What benefits should we give Dongzi?"

"Hebei is afraid it will be cut off!" Geng Nanzhong said, "Dengzhou, Laizhou, Weizhou, Qingzhou and eastern Mizhou on Jingdong East Road are afraid of being unable to save... But Hedong's territory should be kept as much as possible. Even if you give more annual monies, otherwise Guanzhong will lose its barrier."

"Do you want to cut so much land?" Zhao Huan looked painful, "It's too much, right?"
Chapter completed!