"The emperor has an order. Zhao Xingde, the southeast camp, was deployed to cross the river to attack the enemy on the day he was ordered. He was brave enough to win the loyalty and righteousness, and he was rewarded with fifty silver ingots." Deng Su finished reading the imperial edict with a long voice and said with a smile, "Brother Yuanzhi, Your Majesty has a great trust in you."

Xuan Zhi was originally a mission of eunuchs in the palace, but after Bianliang fell and the emperor was captured, almost all the eunuchs in the palace were left in the Liao Kingdom. Zhao Qi succeeded to the throne and originally wanted to use eunuchs, but Deng Su must not be disabled or lost the hearts of the people when the country was in chaos. Therefore, he gave up temporarily. Now there are almost no eunuchs around Zhao Qi, and slaves can do all the affairs in the palace properly. Deng Su is also planning to join forces with the members of the society in the future, and from then on, the system of eunuchs in the palace will be abolished. The superiors are in a favorable way to live, and the disaster of eunuchs in the palace will be dethroned.

"Thank you, Master, thank you Brother Deng." Zhao Xingde bowed to express his orders and said with a smile: "You can only perform military salutes when you are in your arms."

"The qualifications are natural. It's easy to say, it's easy to say." Deng Su smiled and bowed back. How could he treat Zhao Xingde as an ordinary general? He waved his hand, and the five imperial guards walked forward with heavy trays and uncovered the red cloth. Each of them contained ten ten-two silver ingots. Many Hanyang generals stood behind Zhao Xingde. Seeing this, they couldn't help but jealous and said secretly: "I just granted military power and received additional rewards immediately. It seems that the emperor relied on General Zhao and such kindness are rare in this dynasty."

"Zhao has a heartless request, and I would like to ask Brother Deng to report to the emperor." He looked back at the soldiers behind him and discussed, "Expel the Northern Barbarians and protect the country and the people, but Zhao could do it alone. He once heard that all the rewards of ancient generals were distributed to their subordinates. Zhao wanted to imitate the emperor and his subordinates. He did not dare to ask the emperor to increase the rewards. He only wanted to exchange 500 taels of silver for 500 stag copper coins so that tens of thousands of soldiers in the southeast camp could keep a memorial. In the future, one day, the world will be peaceful, and the soldiers will be discharged and return to the fields. With this token, the elders of the hometown knew that they had once attacked the country with their hands and arrows, sprinkled their blood, and fought hard." He paused, with a firm look in his eyes, and bowed again, and said loudly, "Please Lord Deng fulfill it."

"Since General Zhao has this intention," Deng Su's eyes showed a little emotion, "How can Deng not be a man of beauty and leave a good story for future generations." He immediately ordered to put away the silver he gave, and returned home, and persuaded the emperor to fold the silver into copper coins to reward him.

It is common in the army to share wine, food, money and silk to reward soldiers. However, it is different for the gold, silver and ingots given by Your Majesty. Because ten taels of gold, silver and ingots are not needed for ordinary people, the court usually uses kuping, and the ones cast particularly exquisitely are specially used for rewards. The gold, silver and ingots given by the emperor are not just wealth, but a rare honor. Zhao Xingde gently shirked it, and offended the officials and asked for an extremely unparalleled five hundred slogans, or 50,000 copper coins, which was enough for him to reward every soldier who followed him across the river.

The generals were moved, but Zhao Xingde was not concerned. The Liao army was about to move south, and the defenses of Hanyang and Yangluo Fort in Jiangbei continued to be rectified. In the fourth year of Xuanhe, Hanyang City was flooded by floods and was abandoned for several years. After Chen Dong advocated respecting the emperor in Ezhou and refused to obey orders, because Hanyang City was extremely important for Ezhou's defense, he quickly recruited strong men to rebuild Hanyang City. However, due to insufficient manpower and food, it was difficult for Hanyang City to restore the old view. In just a few months, Hanyang City could not restore the old view, so he could only build a small city based on the highest Fenghuang Mountain in the city. Zhao Xingde also participated in the construction of the new Hanyang City. He tried his best to prevent the Ministry of War from expanding the new city wall to its original position. He advocated the construction of a small and sturdy city, and built eight enemy platforms suitable for artillery shooting around the city wall.

"Although there are not many people in the city, they will all move to the other side within two days." He pointed to the houses around the new city and frowned, "This will be the battlefield for the two armies to confront each other. After the people moved out, they set a torch to burn the woods and houses to white ground to avoid blocking the gunner's sight. As for the broken walls in the distance, they can be kept." He pointed to some broken walls a little further away. This was half the walls prepared by the Ministry of War to build. Later, the vanguard of the Xiangyang army entered and built some more. Because the terrain was too low, the Xincheng Fortress was clear at a glance and shelled these places from a high point. The broken walls not only could not resist heavy artillery shells, but the broken stone chips could also increase the lethal power of the artillery shells.

"Do you want all the outer city?" Ouyang Shan asked in confusion. The Hanyang Army City rebuilt in Ezhou is very small, with a circumference of only three miles, and it has only surrounded the Phoenix Mountain. Since the Xiangyang Army entered Hanyang, it has also ridiculed it and spent a lot of effort to renovate the outer city, hoping to reach the Dabie Mountains in the north and the south to the river bank. It was just that the city was built under the shelling and harassment of enemy ships on the river, and the progress of building the city was slow. Now the two families are in harmony, Ouyang Shan is preparing to speed up the progress of building the city, but Zhao Xingde would give up the outer city.

"The ancients built cities, and the city wanted to be strong but not big, so the city was hard to overcome." Zhao Xingde pondered, "The descendants built cities, and the city was large but not strong. When they moved, tens of thousands of households and hundreds of thousands of households lived in them, but in fact they were not strong. It was called protecting the people. After the city was broken, the killings were even worse than in ancient times. Now there are many soldiers in the Liao army, and our army can fight few soldiers. If the city is large, it will benefit the Liao bandits but not our army."

His fingers slowly slid on the mountain map. This city wall line is the life and death line between the Song army and the Liao army in the future. Zhao Xingde wished that it would be as short as possible. Due to the limitation of the terrain, even though Yelu Dashi had a large army of 300,000, he could only line up to exchange his life with the Song army to see who could last breath first. In Ezhou, due to the limited money and grain manpower, the Privy Council and the Ministry of War also had a dispute over raising troops and building cities. Now, Yue Fei and other commanding generals have the upper hand. Most of the money and grain raised by the Prime Minister's Office are used to support the Baoyi Army, the Henghai Army and the three elite troops in the Zhen**, and the rectification of the city wall was all handed over to the local governments to bear. From the perspective of reducing the burden, Zhao Xingde's saying that "the city is not big, but small but strong" is still very popular in various prefectures and counties.

"If the city does not extend to the riverside, if the Liao bandits set foot in the camp, wouldn't Hanyang become an isolated city?" Ouyang Shan asked. The southernmost end of the new city is still a distance from the riverside wharf, which is enough for the Liao army to have a deep ditch barrier and cut off the connection between Hanyang and Ezhou.

"It's okay," Zhao Xingde smiled and said, "Is it not good for Liao thieves to bully me?"

His eyes fell on a slope from Hanyang to the riverside. If the enemy really tried to occupy this place and even set up a camp, under the bombardment of the heavy artillery of Hanyang City and the gunships on the river, I wonder how many lives the Liao bandits prepared to fill it. The only concern is that it is reported that the Liao army also carried giant cannons to attack the city, and I wonder if the Hanyang wall could stand the test. What made Zhao Xingde feel a little relieved was that because of the lack of money and food, the city walls rebuilt in Ezhou were all rammed earth, and they were relatively low. With the accurate head of the Liao army's stone bullets, they might not be able to be destroyed in one shot.

"Really?" Ouyang Shan was skeptical. He was just the commander of the musket battalion, and he had only deeply understood the power of the cannons in the past few days. Since he made up his mind to follow Zhao Xingde, he did not continue to question and said secretly: "Even if he guards, the outer city may not be able to defend. After fighting with the water, at the last moment, he sacrificed his life to the country and followed Zhao Dutong to a reputation for loyalty."

After Zhao Xingde comforted Hanyang, the artillery battalions in Ezhou had already crossed the river one after another. In addition to replacing the artillery that had been removed from Hanyang back to the artillery position, they also installed heavy iron barrel cannons to the artillery positions in the city as much as possible according to Zhao Xingde's instructions. Although this kind of iron barrel cannon is bulky, Hanyang City is condescending. In the future, if it is attacked with heavy artillery from the Liao army, it will also be advantageous to take advantage of the territory. Although there are artillery battalions, the gunners in Ezhou are incredibly lacking. Before the Baoyi Army Artillery Battalion arrived in Ezhou, Zhao Xingde could only use the artillery gunners from the southeast camp who crossed the river and the Ezhou gunners who were drawn to unify the commands and firing actions of the artillery battalion. The artillery needs extremely skillful cooperation and practice. Fortunately, the gunners on both sides are of the same lineage, and the artillery standards used are similar. Moreover, Zhao Xingde himself is very skilled in this way, so he barely pinched them together.

Since Zhao Xingde's general flag was erected in Hanyang, the former Southeast Camp's troops crossed the river and came to surrender, which greatly increased confidence. The Southeast Camp originally recruited elite troops from all over the world to sweep Fang La. Although it has been a little abandoned over the years, its combat power should not be underestimated. Zhao Xingde has the status of the deployment of the Southeast Camp. Cao Di did not know whether he intended to help or did not want to secretly help, but still detained the generals of the army. The battalion commanded the head of the head to pull teams out of the camp and search for boats to ferry on the riverside. The docks on both sides of the river had just stopped for a while and were crowded with people again.

Before leaving Ezhou, Zhao Xingde had already told Chen Dong that he was powerful. If he defended the river, he would have to defend Huai. If he defended Ezhou, he would have to defend Hanyang. Otherwise, the benefits of the river would be shared with the enemy. If Hanyang was not taken down, Yelu Dashi would definitely not dare to make a desperate attempt. Like Cao Di, the whole army crossed the river and besieged Ezhou. If there was no Hanyang, the Song army could only defend but not cross the river and attack the enemy, but the Liao bandits could be besieged Ezhou at any time and then attack it. The situation was extremely unfavorable. As long as Hanyang could support Yue Fei's reinforcements and the southeast prefectures and counties would have a steady stream of military supplies, the situation in Ezhou would stabilize. Chen Dong had always relied on Zhao Xingde in military affairs, so with his approval, Ezhou also transported a large amount of food, grass, artillery and ammunition that had been stockpiled in the city to the opposite side of the river.

Outside Ezhou City, Zhao Qi suddenly stood up after hearing Deng Su's report and said excitedly: "I have a good general, why worry about reviving?"

Deng Suhan stood aside with a smile, and Zhao Qi walked around the tent for a few times, and suddenly said, "Since you want to reward the entire army, why use copper coins so stingy?" He looked back at his close servant and ordered, "How many of the gold and silver rewards are there in the process? Report it quickly."

After a close servant hurriedly checked the number, he reported that there were still thirty silos of gold and forty silos of silver and coins, all of which were rewarded with the imperial pen "Sheng Song Tongbao" carved mold. When Zhao Qi escaped from Bianliang, he was originally penniless. However, the emperor required gold and silver coins to reward the ministers, so he cast a batch of gold and silver rewards in the imperial pen carved mold. Zhao Qi also brought a lot of money to prepare for the imperial pen.

Zhao Qi pondered for a while and said, "Then reward Zhao Xingde with ten coins of gold and forty coins of silver and four hundred coins, and he will reward the soldiers." He paused, suddenly remembered something, and said, "Also, tell Zhao Yuanzhi that if he made contributions again, I will not hesitate to the title of Jiedushi. In addition, I will trouble Deng Qing's family to send a jade to Cao Gong and Chen Dong each to take it."
Chapter completed!