When I woke up, it was still early morning. I walked out of the room into the courtyard. Sparse stars hung in the pre-dawn night sky, and the air was cold and still. An orange light shone from the guardhouse outside the courtyard. Search: \(¨Complete¨Book¨God¨Station¨) to read high-quality literature for free.

Fastening my clothes, Ning Yi walked into the quiet living room and poured himself a cup of hot water. He yawned a few times while drinking, then rubbed his face to wake himself up.

He had a few dreams during the night, but he couldn't remember them clearly after waking up. There was still some time before the morning exercise. Jin'er was sleeping soundly beside him, holding little Ning Ke. Seeing them sleeping so peacefully, Ning Yi's heart calmed down. He dressed and got out of bed as quietly as possible.

Without lighting the oil lamp, Ning Yi sat in the dark living room for a while. The starlight shone through the window lattice, reflecting a crescent-shaped white light. After a while, a figure came in: "Can't sleep?"

It was Hong Ti.

"It's okay, did I wake you?"

Hong Ti just smiled, walked to his side and stroked his forehead, but Ning Yi hugged her and sat her on his lap. "I had a few dreams and woke up thinking about things. Seeing Jin'er and Xiao Ke sleeping comfortably, I didn't want to wake them. You went to sleep late, you can actually go back to sleep for a while."

"Mm," Hong Ti replied, but didn't leave. She put her arms around Ning Yi's neck and closed her eyes. In her early years, she traveled the Jianghu, exposed to the wind and rain. Her temperament was somewhat similar to the simplicity of a country girl. In recent years, her heart had settled down, and she had just followed Ning Yi, giving her a bit of soft and charming feeling.

The couple sat hugging for a while, then Ning Yi got up. Hong Ti was naturally not sleepy, so she went to the kitchen to get water for washing her face. During this time, Ning Yi walked to the courtyard outside the door and piled up the snow he had shoveled into a corner of the courtyard a few days ago. After a few days, the unmelted snow had become hard. After Hong Ti brought the wash water, Ning Yi kept making a snowman with a small shovel. She called out softly a couple of times, then had to wring out a towel to wipe Ning Yi's face, then washed herself, poured away the hot water, and came over to help.

Two snowballs, one large and one small, were stacked to form the snowman's body. Ning Yi made eyes out of stones, branches for hands, and then used two snowballs to make a gourd, placing it on the snowman's head. He stuck a withered leaf behind the gourd, stepped back, and put his hands on his hips to look. Imagining what the child would look like when they came out, Ning Yi patted his hands with satisfaction, then gave a high-five to the helpless Hong Ti in celebration.

The two walked towards the outside of the courtyard. Under the black sky, there were still sparse lights in Zhang Village. The outline of the streets, the outline of the houses, the outline of the workshops and waterwheels by the river, and the outline of the military camp in the distance were vaguely visible, adorned with sparse lights. Patroling soldiers walked past from afar, and there were slogans written in white lime on the walls of the courtyard. Ning Yi avoided the river and went around the small hillside on the side of Zhang Village. Crossing this village, the Chengdu Plain stretched into the distance.

Ning Yi looked into the distance, Hong Ti stood beside him, not disturbing him.

The light spots gradually increased in the night sky, and the movement of figures gradually appeared in the field of vision. Dogs barked occasionally, and after a while, the chickens began to crow. White smoke rose from the houses below the field of vision. The stars fell, and the sky revealed a fish-belly white color as if it were shaking.

The time was the twenty-eighth day of the twelfth month of the tenth year of Wu Jianshuo. The old year was about to pass. Having been here for more than ten years, the antique charm of the original deep mansion seemed to be still close at hand, but at this moment, every detail of Zhang Village seemed more like a rural village in another world in his memory, with relatively tidy dirt roads, courtyard walls, lime characters on the courtyard walls, and the crowing of chickens and barking of dogs in the morning. Vaguely, this world seemed to be connected to something.

But this was naturally an illusion.

Outside this place was still the Wu Dynasty. After the tenth year of Jianshuo was the eleventh year of Jianshuo. The Jurchens were attacking cities and killing people, and they had not stopped for a moment. And even this small village, which looked novel and solid in front of him, would probably only take a blink of an eye to return to rubble if it fell into the flames of war. Before the torrent of history, everything was as fragile as a sandcastle on the beach.

After staying for a while, Ning Yi jogged slowly forward around the hillside. In the distance, the field of vision gradually became clear. A warhorse galloped from the road in the distance and turned into a courtyard in the village below.

"It should be news from the east," Hong Ti said.

Ning Yi nodded: "No rush."

After jogging around the hillside for a while, the bugle call was also sounding in the military camp, and the soldiers began to drill. Several figures came from the front, it was Chen Fan and Qin Shaoqian who had also gotten up early. Although the weather was cold, Chen Fan was wearing a single layer of clothing and did not look cold at all. Qin Shaoqian was wearing a neat military uniform, probably training with the soldiers around him, and met Chen Fan here. The two were talking to each other, and when they saw Ning Yi coming up, they smiled and greeted him.

"Liheng is here," Qin Shaoqian nodded.

Chen Fan smiled: "You got up so late, what did you do at night?"

"Adults should have a little sophistication, asking what I did at night as soon as you open your mouth, looking at your thirsty look..." Ning Yi ridiculed Chen Fan with a smile, "What are you talking about?"

"Saying that you're a black-hearted boss, it's the twenty-eighth day of the twelfth month, and you still don't give your subordinates a holiday."

"Your opponents don't take a holiday, and your pig teammates are courting death, if I give you a holiday, will you be able to sleep?"

The two bickered with each other, and Qin Shaoqian smiled over there: "I was just talking to Chen Fan about how to deal with what Zhou Yong has done... At first, I didn't expect this Emperor to be so reckless, I wanted to laugh, but today, everyone can't guess how serious the consequences will be. Wushu is aiming his sword at Lin'an, the hearts of the Wu Dynasty are not united, and Zhou Yong has no responsibility. If it really collapses, the consequences will be unimaginable."

A smile appeared on the corner of Ning Yi's mouth, then he became serious: "I told him at the beginning that these things should be discussed with his children, who knew that Zhou Yong, this lunatic, would directly pick them in the court, his brain is broken..." He laughed here, "It's funny to say, I thought the emperor was in the way and stabbed him to rebel, now I'm a rebel, and I'm still being blocked by this emperor, he really has the ability..."

He said here, and several people couldn't help but laugh. Chen Fan laughed for a while: "Everyone can see it now, Zhou Yong proposed to reconcile with us, on the one hand to test the tone of the ministers and put pressure on them, and on the other hand, it's our turn to make a choice. I was just talking to Lao Qin, if we come out to take the blame at this time, maybe we can help stabilize the situation a little. The general staff has also been discussing these two days, what do you think?"

He looked at Ning Yi, Ning Yi shook his head, his eyes serious: "Don't take it."

Hearing him say this sentence, Chen Fan's eyes clearly relaxed, and Qin Shaoqian on the other side also smiled slightly: "What are Liheng's considerations?"

"You guys are testing me on this kind of thing too." Ning Yi laughed, "Royal dignity is the foundation of rule, I killed Zhou Zhe, and Zhou Yong can still admit defeat, who else would be afraid of this emperor? The people in the court can understand it. Even if I were in the same position, I wouldn't let the emperor do such a stupid thing, but Zhou Yong is too naive..."

He sighed: "When he does this kind of thing, the ministers will stop him, and Hou Shao's death remonstrance is a small matter. The biggest problem is that when the Crown Prince decided to resist the Jin, the hearts of the Wu Dynasty were basically aligned, even if there were other intentions, they didn't dare to move in the open. Zhou Yong took this step, and those guys who secretly wanted to surrender, rebel, or at least leave a way out for themselves would move. In the past ten years, those guys that the Jin Kingdom secretly contacted can't hold back their claws now. In addition, the people from Xi Yin's side have already started to move..."

Ning Yi paused slightly here: "I have already notified the intelligence personnel of the Wu Dynasty to move, but in these years, the focus of intelligence work has been in the Central Plains and the north. The Wu Dynasty direction mostly takes the route of commercial affairs. To capture the personnel on Wanyan Xi Yin's line, it may not be easy in a short time... In addition, although Wushu may have used Xi Yin's plan and premeditated it, five thousand cavalry crossed the Yangtze River three times before being caught by the tail. No one believes that there is no Xi Yin mole in the Jiangyin military. At this critical moment, Zhou Yong is still courting death like this. I estimate that Xi Yin in Xiangyang will be frightened by Zhou Yong's stupidity after hearing this news..."

"Zhou Yong wants to reconcile with us, any scholar in the Wu Dynasty with a little common sense will stop him. If we stand up at this time, saying that it is to boost the morale of the people, in reality, the resistance will be greater. Zhou Yong's position will only become more unstable, and our team is thousands of miles away... Chen Fan, dare your more than ten thousand people to intersperse more than a thousand miles to Lin'an?"

"Chengdu has only just stabilized. The 15,000 people recruited during the New Year sports meeting have not yet started training, and help from afar can't quench the immediate thirst. If we take Zhou Yong's call, the Wu Dynasty will collapse faster, and we can face Zong Wang earlier." Ning Yi smiled, "Besides, we came out to rebel because of unity. Now that the place has just expanded, the hearts of the people have not yet stabilized. Suddenly saying that we want to help the emperor fight, the brothers who followed us earlier will be disappointed, and the newcomers will misunderstand. This will also stab ourselves in the back..."

He stopped talking here, Chen Fan smiled: "Thinking so clearly, there's nothing to say. Alas, I was still thinking, if we come out to answer, wouldn't the faces of those scholars in the Wu Dynasty be flowery and green, haha... Uh, what are you thinking?"

He saw Ning Yi's eyes flickering, lost in thought, and asked. Ning Yi turned his eyes to him and remained silent for a long time.

"...I was just thinking, if I were Wanyan Xi Yin, I could pretend to be the Hua Xia Army and take the blame..."

"Uh..." Chen Fan blinked and was stunned.

****************

Lin'an, the moment before dawn, in an antique courtyard, there were lights moving.

In Lin'an City, which was approaching the end of the year, the atmosphere of the New Year came along with tension and killing. As the news of Wushu's southward advance came day by day, the city's defending army had begun to mobilize on a large scale. Some people chose to abandon the city and flee far away, but most of the people still stayed in the city. The atmosphere of the New Year and the tension of the war were strangely fused together, causing people to feel a mix of emotions and anxiety every day.

The scene in the Princess's mansion was also like this.

The stewards and servants in charge of life were decorating with lanterns and streamers to create a festive atmosphere, but as another working group in the Princess's mansion, whether it was the many people involved in intelligence or in politics, logistics, or military affairs, they had been highly nervous in dealing with various situations these days, just as Ning Yi said, the opponent had not rested.

The two working groups were strangely intertwined, both containing each other and not interfering with each other, forming an extremely wonderful and special scene.

For the personnel of the Princess's mansion, the so-called pig teammate also included the current head of the court: the Princess's father, the current Emperor Zhou Yong.

If it was just Jin Wushu's sudden crossing of the Yellow River to the south, the situation faced by the Princess's mansion would definitely not be as worrying and anxious as it is now. As for the present - especially after Hou Shao died by hitting the pillar - every day is a huge torment. The court of the Wu Dynasty seemed to have suddenly changed. The various families and forces that made up the entire Southern Wu system all seemed to be turning into resistance to the Zhou family, and problems could arise or even turn against each other at any time.

Advice from all parties continued to pour in, students from the Imperial Academy took to the streets to sit in silence, demanding that the emperor issue a decree of self-condemnation, rectify the name of the deceased Hou Shao, posthumously honor him, and grant him titles. Jin spies were constantly making moves in the dark, lobbying and persuading to surrender everywhere. In just the past ten days, Jiangning had suffered two defeats, both due to demoralization and defeat by the enemy.

The Wu Dynasty's business of more than two hundred years, of course, not many would really show up at this time to surrender to Jin, but under the washing of this wave of morale, the anti-Jin situation that the Wu Dynasty had been struggling to manage became even more precarious. What might happen next is not surprising.

In the court, the huge wave had subsided. After Hou Shao crashed to death in the Golden Palace, Zhou Yong began to become depressed. He hid in the harem and no longer attended court. Zhou Pei originally thought that her father still didn't see the situation clearly and wanted to enter the palace to continue to state the stakes, but when she entered the palace, Zhou Yong's attitude towards her also became stiff. She knew that her father had already admitted defeat.

Zhou Pei urgently met with Zhao Ding, Qin Hui, and others to confirm with each other that the most important thing at the moment was to quell the influence and resist the Jurchens together. But at this time, the Jurchen spies were already active in the dark. On the other hand, even if everyone avoided talking about Zhou Yong's affairs, no Confucian scholar would quietly shut up about Hou Shao's heroic act of dying by remonstrance.

For top officials such as Zhao Ding, Qin Hui, and Lu Yihao, it was certainly no problem to keep silent about the entire situation caused by Zhou Yong this time. But for the lower-level officials and even the Confucian scholars who were about to take office, the right and wrong of the emperor, as well as the solution after doing such a thing, and even the issue of praising and defining Hou Shao's heroic act, had to be made clear.

And even if it was just talking about Hou Shao, it was bound to involve Zhou Yong.

During this period of time, Zhou Pei often woke up at night, sat in the small attic, and stared blankly at the situation in the mansion. She often had to read every new piece of information at the first time. She had already woken up at dawn on the 28th. When it was about to dawn, she gradually felt a little sleepy, but a messenger came from outside the mansion, bringing new news about the Jurchens.

This was news about Wushu.

Starting on December 14th, Wushu led 50,000 cavalry soldiers to march south with light equipment in the form of abandoning most of their supplies, burning, killing, and looting along the way, and eating from the people. The distance from the Yangtze River to Lin'an was originally a rich land in the south of the Yangtze River. Although there were crisscrossing waterways, it was also densely populated. Although Jun Wu urgently mobilized 170,000 troops to the south in an attempt to block Wushu, Wushu not only twice defeated the attacking troops along the way, but also killed and looted countless villages in half a month. Wherever the cavalry went, prosperous villages became white land, women were raped, and men were killed and driven away... After eight years, the tragic scene of the Jurchens searching the mountains and seas at the beginning was faintly descending again.

Wushu's army was still rampant on the west side of Taihu Lake, 200 miles away from Lin'an. The urgently sent intelligence counted the names of the villages burned and killed by it and the slightly estimated population. After reading it, Zhou Pei carefully marked the positions on the large map in the room - this was of no help, and her eyes no longer had the tears that she had when she first saw this type of intelligence, she just quietly kept these in her heart.

The sound of the rooster crowing came from afar, and the sky outside was slightly brighter. Zhou Pei walked to the terrace outside the attic and looked at the fish-belly white on the eastern horizon. The maids in the Princess's mansion were cleaning the courtyard. She watched for a while and unintentionally thought of the scene when the Jurchens came, and subconsciously hugged her arms tightly.

Suddenly, alarms and curfews sounded in the city. Zhou Pei was stunned for a moment and quickly went downstairs. After a while, someone ran wildly into the courtyard outside.

"What's the matter!?"

"Report, villains are causing chaos in the city, General Yu has ordered a curfew to arrest people..."

For the garrison work in Lin'an City at this time, several imperial guards had fully taken over, and there were contingency plans for various matters. On this morning, a dozen or so bandits launched simultaneously in the city. They chose densely populated places in Lin'an City, chose high places, and threw leaflets with rebellious characters on the crowds in the streets. The patrol soldiers found something wrong and immediately reported it, and the imperial guards issued a curfew alarm based on the order.

Zhou Pei left the Princess's mansion in a carriage. At this time, Lin'an City had already begun to implement a curfew. Soldiers took to the streets to pursue and arrest the villains involved. However, due to the sudden incident, small-scale chaos occurred along the way. Not far after leaving, Cheng Zhouhai rode over on horseback. His face was ashen, with some blood on his body. He held several leaflets in his hand. Zhou Pei thought he was injured. Cheng Zhouhai explained briefly, and she realized that the blood was not Cheng Zhouhai's.

"...The villains in front could not escape and were killed by the patrol guards. The scene was bloody, Your Highness, please don't go there. But the things written on this, their hearts can be killed. Your Highness may wish to take a look." He handed the leaflets to Zhou Pei and lowered his voice, "A large number of such messages have also been thrown into the Imperial College and the Imperial Academy on the Qiantang Gate. It should be the Jurchens who did it. Things are troublesome..."

Zhou Pei picked up the leaflet and looked at it, and suddenly closed her eyes, bit her teeth, and then opened them again. On the leaflet was a declaration written in the style of the Black Flag Army.

The article stated that the former Jinghan Emperor Zhou Zhe was incompetent and immoral, indulged the six tigers, and caused chaos in the Wu Dynasty, and acted perversely and killed the loyal minister Qin Siyuan. Now, the wise Emperor Zhou Yong is benevolent and virtuous. Facing the great disaster of the collapse of the world and the demise of the nation, he does not care about the past and is willing to reconcile with the Hua Xia Army. The Hua Xia Army and his men are also grateful and willing to return to the Wu Dynasty. Who knows that the treacherous prime minister Zhao Ding, Princess Zhou Pei and others disregard the great righteousness of the world and, in order to control the government, act like a hen crowing at dawn. They have actually placed the current emperor under house arrest in the palace.

The article then called on the loyal and righteous men of Lin'an and the Wu Dynasty to rescue Zhou Yong, to eliminate the treacherous prime minister and rectify the court, so as to resist the Jurchens together and restore the world to a bright future.

After reading the leaflet, Zhou Pei raised her head. Cheng Zhouhai saw that there was only blood red in those eyes.