This time, Lu Haowen's sudden show of responsibility, which led to a lose-lose situation for both sides, made Zhao Jiu reflect on many things.

He realized that it was still too early to do as he pleased... and that bureaucratic group, which hadn't played a decisive role in Nanyang and had caused him some annoyance, was by no means his enemy.

In a word, everyone still had to make do with each other. They absolutely couldn't separate, or rather, separating was useless... They were already Adam and Eve, so why hurt each other?

In fact, the self-criticism turmoil in this court meeting and the previous peace negotiation turmoil, taken together, could be seen as mutual probing after both sides moved back to Tokyo from Nanyang, in order to find a new positioning for each other:

The first wave could be regarded as a victory for Zhao Jiu, so the authority of the Zhao Emperor undoubtedly increased greatly;

The second wave tested the bottom line. In the face of the serious issue of fundamental principles, both sides stopped at the appropriate time after a little probing.

However, having said that, after this court meeting, both sides entered a cooling-off period, and things actually began to progress – a very absurd thing was that Yue Fei actually succeeded in suppressing the rebellion directly. His victory report arrived together with Pan Fei's letter requesting to accompany the imperial carriage.

The Privy Council couldn't believe it!

The Jiangning military rebellion in the southeast, which had been a source of trouble for half a year and had caused serious political, military, and economic obstacles to the restoration of the Song Dynasty, ended on the fifth day after Yue Fei's troops crossed the river.

And Yue Fei's military report was also written extremely sincerely and honestly:

"On the day of crossing the river, we fought the enemy at Shibu Town, east of Jiangning Prefecture City along the river, and won; the next day, we fought a major battle at Jiangshan (that is, Zhongshan), and won again; after a day of rest, we attacked Jiangning at night and captured it; the next day, Zhang Xian, the commander of this department, pursued the enemy to Niutou Mountain southwest of the city, captured the bandit leader Wang Yi, and accepted the surrender of more than 10,000 rebel troops."

The Privy Council expressed a cautious skepticism towards this battle report.

The reason for the caution was that they also knew that the combat effectiveness of the Jiangning rebel army couldn't be too strong. As long as they honestly and step-by-step went to fight, this group of rabble could not be a match for the imperial guards of Yue Fei's troops who had fought bloody battles with the Jin army.

However, the problem was, in the more than a hundred years since the founding of the Great Song Dynasty, had there ever been a general and troops who did not make any extra moves, without any additional conditions, and honestly and step-by-step went to fight?

Di Qing?

When Di Qing was the Privy Councilor, he also engaged in political speculation! Wen Yanbo's words were certainly hateful, but General Di wasn't so innocent in the original circumstances that triggered these unpleasant words.

Han Shizhong?

This fellow had just forcibly conscripted soldiers in HuaiXi, almost causing a civil unrest.

So, wasn't it necessary to linger for a few more days in the wealthy land of the southeast? Didn't the Empress Dowager in Yangzhou need to send some rewards? Didn't Lu Yihao need to be in office to coordinate friendly troops and logistics?

Just cross the river, fight, attack the city, pursue the enemy, and it was pacified?

Not to mention the Privy Council, even Zhao Jiu, although he knew it must be true, felt absurd about this military report... Thinking about how he had rushed to Jin Gou in the night, determined to be willing to lose the country to chop off heads, and crossed the Huai River with the head in his arms, who was easy to serve? Which time didn't he risk his life to show off?

The so-called knowing it was real, but still feeling too unreal, wasn't that a sense of absurdity?

Not to mention, there was Qu Duan doing a strong comparison right now.

Therefore, the rarely refreshed Zhao Emperor, on the one hand, issued an edict to commend Yue Fei, and on the other hand, issued an edict to Lu Yihao to quickly clean up the situation in the southeast, and transfer the materials from Liangzhe and Fujian, which had been interrupted by the previous war, to Yue Fei's troops to escort them to Tokyo.

At the same time, while replying to allow Concubine Pan Xian to enter the capital, he also specially appointed Imperial Censor Hu Yin as a special envoy to go out of GuanXi to see Yuwen Xuzhong and the generals of GuanXi – this was both a kind of help from Zhao Jiu to Hu Yin, hoping that he would get out of the inappropriate state after the previous self-criticism edict, and also to make a thorough decision on the situation in GuanXi.

It must be known that not only was the southeast settled, but recently, Zhang Jun, who was stationed in BaShu, also sent a good news. According to him, the financial reform adopted by Zhao Kai, which had been recognized by the court before, had achieved miraculous effects... Zhao Jiu could now understand this reform a little bit. It was probably saying that although the Great Song Dynasty had a developed economy in the past, it emphasized control in the state-owned economy. At the very least, the revenue from special directions such as tea, salt, wine, alum, copper, and iron had to be ensured to be a national monopoly. However, because control had to be ensured, the actual market size demand in remote places such as BaShu was far greater than the official quota. Zhao Kai's reform was to completely open up the market in the current situation of extreme central government money shortage, so as to obtain the financial benefits of these exclusive economies as much as possible.

As a result, in just one year, the entire BaShu area obtained nearly one million strings of extra revenue from tea alone (one string refers to a string of money. Due to copper prices, the actual exchange rate is far less than one thousand coins, and the amount is uncertain, but it is more representative of purchasing power).

In short, one million strings is insignificant compared to the Great Song Dynasty's total fiscal revenue of over 100 million before the war, and it doesn't seem to be a large number compared to the current fiscal revenue of nearly 10 million each in BaShu and the southeast. Moreover, the final benefits of Zhao Kai's financial reform still need time to complete the fiscal cycle...

But the key thing is that, after Zhao Kai's reform and Zhang Jun's unified pressure, BaShu and other places exchanged more than 10,000 horses from the Hengduan Mountains and the Northwest snow area through encouraging tea merchants to conduct tea-horse trade in the first year alone!

In that case, not to mention the efficiency of transferring money after the large-scale improvement of BaShu's finances... It must be the most efficient to use it directly in GuanXi... Just the transportation and distribution of warhorses alone made the solution of the mess in GuanXi imminent.

Hu Yin wasn't a fool. Although he was overly upright, he knew very well that this trip to the west was the Emperor's care for him, and it was also a serious national affair. Therefore, early in the morning of the second day after receiving the decree, as soon as the city gate opened, he took Wan Qixie, the deputy of this trip, plus three or five clerks from the Department of State Affairs, ten or so attendants, and twenty soldiers transferred from the Central Army of the Imperial Guards, and set off west.

Along the way west, the scenery in the first half was ordinary.

The so-called ordinary is actually not ordinary, but just the scenes that Hu Yin and others were accustomed to seeing around Tokyo... nothing more than military farms, fortresses built along the Yellow River, soldiers and their families crowded everywhere, and refugees coming from Hebei in a steady stream.

As for the local Henan people who had already moved south, and even the Hebei refugees who had moved south to the Central Plains in the previous years, they were simply unwilling to return to the front line to make a living.

Therefore, the entire road for the first hundred miles or so was filled with the special atmosphere of military control and the specific desolate characteristics of the post-war period.

And these were too similar to Tokyo City, and while Hu Yin and his party sighed, they couldn't help but feel worried.

However, this worry quickly disappeared, because after crossing the SiShui Pass and entering the territory of the Western Capital, Hu Yin and others became completely silent – the Western Capital Luoyang also suffered from war and was also desolate, but unlike the desolation east of the SiShui Pass, which retained the atmosphere of human activity and could see a trace of recovery as a whole, the desolation here had a terrifying gray atmosphere that made people completely unable to see hope.

The ancient capital of a thousand years ago had already attracted the Jin army's retaliatory burning and massacre in the late Jingkang and early Jianyan periods, along with the strong resistance of Da Zhai and other righteous armies in the Western Capital.

The core of the Great Song's prosperity was burned to the ground early.

After that, the Jin army's two major invasions both involved the main force passing back and forth through this place, and several tragic large-scale battles broke out. It could even be imagined that if war broke out again in the future, the Western Capital, a key place that had lost its complete city system, would probably suffer a large-scale war again.

Therefore, not only were the original fleeing people of the Western Capital unwilling to return, but even the Hebei refugees bypassed this place, and the local garrison troops focused on building fortresses in the mountains around the Luoyang Plain to prepare for the future.

And the Luoyang Plain, the center of the world in the past, inevitably fell into an untimely state of dead silence.

What Hu Yin and others saw along the way was that the fields had been abandoned for several years, and most of the ridges could no longer be distinguished. The cities were empty, with almost no signs of people's livelihood except for a few garrison troops. The pigs and sheep raised by the garrison troops directly entered and exited the county schools and temples. When they came to the city of Luoyang itself, they saw that the palaces and famous places of the past were completely dilapidated, without even pigs and sheep. Only wild animals entered and exited the streets, completely unlike the human world.

While Hu Yin and others were shocked, they still decided to go to the Eight Imperial Tombs of the Zhao Song Dynasty to pay their respects, but they were dissuaded by the local veteran sent by Niu Gao, who had been told in advance. The reason was that after the Jin army invaded, according to the feudal superstitions of this era, they naturally dug up the Zhao family's tombs. Moreover, Lü Qiong, who had tried so hard to protect the imperial tombs in the past, had repeatedly fought with the Jin army, tomb robbers, and righteous armies who tried to rob the tombs around the Zhao family's imperial tombs. There were piles of corpses there, and it had become a fierce place.

Moreover, the Zhao Emperor and the central government had issued several clear edicts, specifically telling the officers and soldiers not to pay attention to the imperial tombs during the previous battles. After HeYin, they again urged the garrison troops in the Western Capital to pay attention to their own fortress defense construction first, and temporarily not to clean up the imperial tombs... So the place was already unbearable to look at, and was temporarily blocked by the Song army.

Not to mention that Hu Yin burst into tears when he heard these words, even Wan Qixie was greatly shocked by this trip. However, the two could only grit their teeth and continue west in a hurried manner as if they were running away.

Thanks to this escape-like speed of travel, in late April, Imperial Censor Hu Yin crossed the Tongguan Pass, entered GuanXi, and came to Chang'an to see another Privy Councilor, Yuwen Xuzhong.

But at this time, the situation changed again, and Yuwen Xuzhong's attitude was already very clear:

"Imperial Censor Hu doesn't need to investigate everywhere. Qu Duan has been arrogant for a long time and cannot be used! You might as well return to Tokyo and report back!"

"What do you mean, Councilor Yuwen?" Hu Yin was dumbfounded.

Of course, he was dumbfounded, and even Wan Qixie found it incredible.

It must be known that the reason why GuanXi had been lingering was that on the one hand, the main force of the Jin army's western route army was extremely strong, which led to GuanXi always being defeated, and the situation had been deteriorating, making it impossible to carry out work; on the other hand, it was because Yuwen Xuzhong had been emphasizing that power and tolerance should be given to the frontline generals after he came to GuanXi, which was quite contrary to the central government's idea of dealing with Qu Duan.

In other words, Yuwen Xuzhong had always been Qu Duan's actual protector.

And now, Hu Yin and others had traveled all the way from the Western Capital, and had personally witnessed the war-torn scene of 'abandoned ponds and tall trees, still hating to talk about soldiers', and they increasingly felt that they should not care about the frontline generals' slight arrogance and annoying personality, but should pay more attention to the actual military effect... In a word, Hu Yin and others, as envoys of the court, were gradually changing their views along the way, and they gradually understood Yuwen Xuzhong's ideas.

Therefore, now that they met, Councilor Yuwen suddenly completely changed his attitude, which couldn't help but make Hu Yin and others puzzled.

"After this battle, Qu Duan took the opportunity to annex the troops of various departments in GuanXi..." In the official hall in Chang'an, Yuwen Xuzhong, with a haggard face, stroked his beard and sighed. "These are all right. He did this after the battle last year. It can only be said that it is an old custom in the army. When encountering a troubled world, he will have ambitions. Moreover, this time he did report and send documents to me, and Wang Shu, the Rightful Commissioner Wang, has been in his army since his defeat in this battle..."

"In that case, it doesn't count as violating the rules." Wan Qixie, sitting at the bottom, carefully interjected. "Could it be that there is a story of coercing Commissioner Wang in private?"

"It would be all right if that was the only thing." Yuwen Xuzhong shook his head repeatedly. "Actually, everyone in the court knows that I have always thought that the attitude of our dynasty using civil officials to control military officials is indeed a bit excessive. At this time of national crisis, it is even more inappropriate. We should delegate power to generals who know the military, and then civil officials who do not know the military can take the initiative to sit in the rear to take care of the affairs... Wang Shu was defeated, and Qu Duan humiliated him a little, which can only be regarded as this person's odious temperament."

"That is..."

"Just a few days ago, my staff returned from Qu Duan's army and told me one thing... Commissioner Wang Shu seems to be under house arrest by Qu Duan!"

"How do you know?" Hu Yin asked eagerly.

"Because after my staff arrived in Qu Duan's army in the capacity of my envoy, Qu Duan directly suggested that Commissioner Wang lost the army and humiliated the country, so it would be better to kill him to thank the world." Yuwen Xuzhong's face was livid.

"..." Hu Yin was momentarily stunned.

"This is not arrogance, this is treason!" Wan Qixie was also stunned, but immediately blurted out. "How can a commander or a prefect kill a Commissioner?"