Jingnan Hou's lunch was a little late, starting at almost two-thirty in the afternoon.

The dishes weren't lavish or extravagant, but they were considered exquisite, one meat, two vegetables, and a soup.

Zheng Boye split the chopsticks and sat with Jingnan Hou at the stone table by the pond to eat.

The previous conversation had gone too smoothly.

After a few words, it seemed that the matter of the Princess had already been settled. What seemed like a big deal to him was nothing more than a minor squabble between two juniors in Jingnan Hou's eyes.

Most importantly, Zheng Fan's methods were clean, leaving no trace. As long as there was no weakness to exploit, then sheltering or not sheltering was just a matter of a word, or even not saying anything at all.

"Wanting to condemn someone, one can always trump up a charge" wasn't applicable here. After all, Pingye Bo wasn't exactly a pushover now, and Jingnan Hou was standing behind him.

Zheng Fan ate two bowls of rice. When he was eating the second bowl, Tian Wujing proactively scooped his rice into the meat dish, stirred it casually a few times, and handed it back to Zheng Fan.

He himself poured the remaining rice into the soup bowl and scooped in some of the remaining vegetables.

The two men didn't lick the plates, but they ate very cleanly, leaving almost nothing.

After the meal, a personal guard came up to clear the dishes. Because Fengxin City looked like a city, and this residence looked like a Hou's mansion, it was actually more like a military camp and a command tent. It wasn't convenient for female servants to appear in the army, so there were no maids to bring basins and towels.

Tian Wujing took water from the pond, squatted down, and washed his hands and mouth.

Zheng Boye followed suit, squatting beside him, washing his hands.

He shook his hands.

Tian Wujing looked up at the sky,

and said:

"It's going to rain."

Zheng Fan nodded and said, "Yes."

Although it was likely to rain, Tian Wujing still walked out of the Hou's mansion, and Zheng Fan naturally followed.

Jingnan Hou walking in Fengxin City was like Zheng Boye walking in Xuehai Pass. The outer perimeter was all soldiers loyal to him, so there was no need to worry too much about safety.

At the same time, Jingnan Hou's own strength was also evident. For most assassins in this world, ninety-nine percent of their effort was spent on how to penetrate the outer perimeter of guards and defenses to reach the assassination target.

But for Tian Wujing, it was the other way around, because even if you tried your best and had great luck to avoid the patrols of the Jingnan Army and finally arrived in front of Tian Wujing, you would experience what real difficulty was.

Perhaps aware that his Lord wanted to take a walk alone, there were no armored soldiers following close by, but Zheng Fan still noticed that a team of personal guards moved on the outer perimeter, but they would only keep their distance and would not come forward unless there were special circumstances.

The armored soldier at the door gave Zheng Fan an umbrella.

Not far from the Hou's mansion, it began to rain. Zheng Fan opened the umbrella to shield himself and Tian Wujing together.

The summer rain would make people feel sticky, but the early winter rain made people feel cold. Moreover, Fengxin City had experienced several wars and had no lively atmosphere. Walking on such streets, it was really difficult to find any tranquility and flavor.

Zheng Fan didn't know where Tian Wujing was going, and he didn't need to know, just follow.

To put it another way,

it was rare to see Lao Tian once,

and it was right to simply accompany Lao Tian for a walk.

Half of Fengxin City was a military camp, and the other half seemed quite dilapidated, with few people.

Tian Wujing walked further and further away, and Zheng Fan said:

"Lord, Fengxin is actually a good place."

Although the Situ Yi brothers were driven out of Yuping City by the Chu people, their subsequent choice of Fengxin as a place was obviously well-considered. They would not go to a poor and remote place.

The implication was that it was a pity that Fengxin City was so desolate. In the current difficult situation, it was still necessary to vigorously develop production and save themselves.

Tian Wujing said calmly: "Once the Chu people launch a full-scale war, Fengxin will inevitably become the vanguard and will probably be besieged by the Chu army."

Tian Wujing also explained that the Chu State was like a centipede that would not fall even after death. Although the tens of thousands of Chu troops who were slaughtered in Yuping City were the elite of the Chu State, the Chu State was, after all, a large country. This loss was not enough to really hurt them. The next time they fought, the Chu people would definitely send more troops. The Yan State was good at cavalry warfare, and cavalry warfare also needed a strategic support point to rely on. Fengxin City would likely be used as a nail on the chessboard.

Therefore, even if they were to develop it now, it would inevitably be in vain when the Chu army besieged the city. Even absorbing too many non-military personnel would become an extra burden.

"Yes, this subordinate understands."

"Your Xuehai Pass can continue to be well-managed. The Chu people now control Zhennan Pass. Once the war starts, the initiative will inevitably be with the Chu people, but with me sitting in Fengxin, the Chu people will not dare to send troops to attack your Xuehai Pass."

These words were said with great confidence, however, Jingnan Hou indeed had the capital to say these words.

As long as the Chu army commander on the opposite side hadn't been kicked in the head by a donkey, they wouldn't dare to send troops to attack Xuehai Pass while playing against Jingnan Hou. The Chu people and the Qian people had a similar problem, that was, the Chu people didn't have many cavalry either, and Xuehai Pass was a large pass, especially after the renovation. According to the existing military strength, population, and war mobilization in Xuehai Pass, the Chu people couldn't bite it without 100,000 troops.

"Yes, this subordinate understands."

"The situation is not good, but it is not bad. Anyway, the eastern half of the Situ family has already been destroyed. Continuing to fight will not cause too much loss.

It's just that the Qian and Chu countries are working together, and we need to find a way to break the situation after all."

"It would be great if we could take Zhennan Pass." Zheng Fan said.

Taking Zhennan Pass and completely restoring the border line of the Situ family against the Chu State in those years, isolating the threat of the Chu people outside, defending a point and defending a face, obviously the former was less costly and difficult.

"If you don't have enough confidence, don't act like this. After all, attacking a city is different from cavalry maneuvering. The former involves more and easily puts chips on the table. It will be difficult to get down easily."

Speaking of this, Tian Wujing said again:

"Besides, it's good to have the Chu people shouting in our ears from time to time, so as not to be bored and lonely."

The corners of Zheng Fan's mouth twitched unconsciously. He could hear the meaning of raising bandits to build self-respect from these words.

He didn't know if this was intentional by Tian Wujing, or if it was just a kind of self-comfort because he was limited by the situation.

Tian Wujing came to the entrance of a shrine and stopped.

The plaque of the shrine had fallen to the ground and split into many pieces. It was obviously deliberately destroyed. Through the dilapidated threshold, one could also see the mess inside.

"This was originally a shrine of an official family in Fengxin City. Later, the Situ Yi brothers came here and pushed all the spiritual tablets in this shrine, and changed it into his Situ family's ancestral temple."

"Ancestral temple? It's small, but it has all the necessary organs." Zheng Fan joked.

"I thought you would say this is retribution." Tian Wujing said.

"Lord, this subordinate doesn't believe in this."

Tian Wujing nodded and stepped inside.

Zheng Fan didn't know that Jingnan Hou wanted to take him to visit here. He originally thought that Jingnan Hou would take him to the Princess, even if he didn't solve it for her, but he would go through the motions and say that he was temporarily unable to do anything.

But obviously, once he decided what to do or not to do, Jingnan Hou didn't even have the interest to cover it up, otherwise two imperial eunuchs wouldn't have crashed to their deaths in front of the Hou's mansion in Litian City.

The shrine was very messy. A Buddha statue in the main hall had fallen from the offering table and leaned against the corner.

The Buddha statue was carved out of wood, but it was now cracked, and some places showed obvious signs of mold.

Buddha statues also need people to serve them, and they will "age" quickly if no one takes care of them for a long time.

Tian Wujing pointed to the wooden Buddha statue,

and said to Zheng Fan:

"What do you think of him?"

Zheng Fan pondered for a moment,

and said:

"In the eyes of believers, he is a Buddha, in the eyes of craftsmen, he is alive, in the eyes of merchants, he is a commodity;

In my eyes, he is now just a piece of rotten wood."

"Wonderful, wonderful!"

As soon as Zheng Fan finished speaking, an old man actually walked out from behind the shrine. Behind the old man, a strong man followed.

This strong man's height could be compared with Fan Li's. Two rings were pierced through his nostrils, and he was as strong as an ox.

The old man seemed much shorter. Old people tend to shrink back, and he was not even a head taller than Xue San.

"Your Lordship, is this Pingye Bo?" The old man pointed at Zheng Fan and asked Tian Wujing.

"It's him."

"Oh, a country bumpkin, I have met Pingye Bo, may Pingye Bo have good fortune."

The old man saluted Zheng Fan, Zheng Fan's eyes narrowed, and he did not return the salute.

Because the magic pill was not on his body, and the demon kings were not around, Zheng Boye was instinctively a little nervous when one or two strangers suddenly appeared.

But soon, Zheng Fan's mood calmed down. No matter what, Jingnan Hou was standing beside him.

The old man didn't think Zheng Fan's behavior was impolite, but smiled apologetically:

"Allow the little old man to introduce himself. My surname is Zeng, my name is Shulang, and I am the head of the Tianji Pavilion." (Mystic Pavilion)

"Tianji Pavilion?"

"Oh, it seems that Pingye Bo has heard of us, hehe."

"Your people once assassinated me."

"..." Zeng Shulang.

Back then, in the post station outside Yincheng, Zheng Fan had been attacked by the spider woman from the Tianji Pavilion in Jin, and Xu Wenzu was also there at that time.

However, this head of the Tianji Pavilion was also a man who had seen the wind and waves. After a slight embarrassment, he said:

"As the saying goes, we don't know each other without a fight. Pingye Bo, please forgive the past mistakes. Now my Tianji Pavilion has also been battered by wind and rain, and there are not many people left."

In the war to destroy Jin, the Tianji Pavilion, a sect that had stood in Jin for hundreds of years, finally suffered great devastation in the midst of the war. Now, it was just eking out a living.

But what Zheng Fan didn't quite understand was why Jingnan Hou brought himself to see this old man.

Tian Wujing found a place and sat down, seemingly not intending to participate in the conversation.

Zheng Fan's mind began to spin quickly,

I have to say,

Every time he stood beside Jingnan Hou, Zheng Boye's brain could often perform beyond its normal level, one was because he was under great pressure beside Jingnan Hou, and the second was that he was indeed Jingnan Hou's student.

Therefore,

Zheng Fan pointed at himself,

and then pointed at the old man Zeng,

and said:

"You want to come and rely on me... Great Yan?"

"The Jin dynasty is over, the Ji family will flourish in place of Yu, this is the way of heaven, how dare my Tianji Pavilion go against the trend?"

"Hey, you old man speaks nicely."

It was similar to the parallelism he had used on the rotten wood before.

It was clearly a simple nonsense, but he had to deliberately create a bit of style.

The old man Zeng was a little surprised to see that Zheng Fan dared to speak so relaxedly in front of Tian Wujing, but soon smiled and said:

"I made the Earl laugh."

Zheng Fan also had a clue in his mind, and said to the old man:

"Wait a minute, come back to Xuehai Pass with me."

The old man immediately knelt down,

and kowtowed to Zheng Fan:

"Thank you, Pingye Bo, for taking me in!"

"How many people are there under your command?" Zheng Fan asked.

"In response to the Earl's words, there are still dozens of people."

"Can they all be like that spider woman?"

The last time that spider woman left an extremely deep impression on Zheng Boye.

"Earl, that is my pavilion's protector, but because of the changes in the past two years, my pavilion's protectors have basically been lost and consumed. Now there are only some craftsmen and inheritances left."

"That's fine, take your time, and you can always recover in the future."

"Thank you, Earl."

Zheng Fan hesitated for a moment, wanting to find something on his body as a token. He had jade pendants on his body, but these things were just for playing with. He didn't usually pay attention to them, and even the demon kings wouldn't care about them.

Simply, Zheng Fan took out his Zhonghua brand iron box, took out a "Soft Zhonghua" cigarette from it, and handed it to the old man Zeng.

The old man Zeng took the cigarette, smelled it in front of his nose, and asked with some doubt:

"Tobacco?"

"Take this as a token. You can gather your subordinates, either wait for me outside the city to come over when I leave, or you can take people to Xuehai Pass first."

The old man Zeng solemnly took the cigarette, cupped his hands and said:

"This humble one understands."

At this time,

Tian Wujing said:

"That's enough."

"Yes, Your Lordship, this humble one will take his leave."

The old man Zeng turned and left, and the tall man also followed. Zheng Fan noticed some subtle things and guessed that this tall man should not be a living person but a puppet.

To say something that would increase the ambition of others and destroy one's own prestige, if he was in the wild, it would be really hard to say whether he could survive from this old man Zeng's hands;

But in front of Tian Wujing, he was a complete grandson, with as low a posture as possible.

After the old man Zeng left the shrine with the puppet,

Zheng Fan bowed very solemnly to Tian Wujing,

"Alright, don't bother."

Zheng Fan hadn't said his words of thanks yet, so he could only smile awkwardly.

Earlier, when he came, he was thinking of offering the dwarf craftsman master from his side to Jingnan Hou, but who would have thought that Jingnan Hou had already prepared a group of craftsman masters to send back to him.

There was also a consideration for why they had to go to such a remote place for the handover. The Tianji Pavilion and other sects, even if they had declined, were not to be taken lightly as a once prominent sect in Jin.

Logically speaking, if they wanted to rely on the imperial court, they should also rely on the Yan Emperor and be absorbed by the Secret Spy Division.

Therefore, these things could only be handed over in the dark. Once they saw the light, it would be difficult to take them over in a justifiable way.

Even if they were to submit a memorial to the imperial court to apply for use, would it still be the original flavor after going through the Secret Spy Division or the Ministry of Industry?

Tian Wujing didn't want to hear Zheng Fan's good words,

He just pointed to the Buddha statue again,

and said:

"Qian and Chu are actually like this Buddha statue, seemingly solemn, but in fact decayed. It's just a pity that my Great Yan's iron cavalry is blocked by the Three Borderlands of the Qian Kingdom and the Zhennan Pass of the Chu Kingdom.

You have always studied the method of attacking cities, so you can use this group of people with confidence. Prepare first, and then take them out when the war really starts.

My Great Yan is indeed exhausted, but it is not that we cannot fight, nor is it that we cannot afford to fight. If we can take Zhennan Pass in one fell swoop and drive the army into the Chu territory, there is no such thing as national exhaustion."

The shorter the duration of the war, the smaller the loss to logistics and national strength. The Yan Kingdom was not that it couldn't fight, but that it couldn't afford to consume.

"This subordinate understands."

"When there are no outsiders, don't call yourself this subordinate."

"Yes, brother."

"..."

Even Jingnan Hou was stunned for a moment.

Immediately,

Jingnan Hou nodded.

Zheng Fan was explaining what it meant to be all-pervasive.

"Hehe."

Zheng Fan laughed first and sat down facing Jingnan Hou.

"On the Zhennan Pass line, Xue Rang's troops, including the Chu's royal guards, add up to 200,000."

Hearing this, Zheng Fan echoed: "What a big and tough dish."

"Zhennan Pass cannot be taken down in a short time, and I don't intend to order other troops to be transferred to Fengxin City this year."

"Huh?" Zheng Fan heard the meaning in Jingnan Hou's words.

"But we can't just keep watching the Chu people make such a fuss. Courtesy demands reciprocity. I was planning to call you over to talk about this matter because you didn't bring Qian丫tou (Qian yatou - A nickname for a girl) this time."

"Lord, please give your orders."

"Wangjiang River flows south from the Tianduan Mountains, divides into streams in the Chu territory, extends along the mountains, and finally flows into the Chu's great marsh.

In fact, entering Chu does not necessarily have to go through Zhennan Pass."

"But other places are not suitable for large armies to enter." Zheng Fan said.

The entire Jin territory was actually like a large basin, and the plains that connected to the outside world were guarded by majestic passes.

"Take a small group of troops and infiltrate them to show the Chu people some color." Tian Wujing said.

Zheng Boye immediately reacted,

and immediately said:

"This subordinate thinks that General Ren Juan uses his troops like a god and can be entrusted with this task!"

Tian Wujing looked at Zheng Fan.

"No, I mean, Lord, this..."

"Back then, you, Zheng Boye, dared to attack Mianzhou City with 300 barbarian soldiers. Why are you suddenly so inexperienced now?"

"Lord, back then I was bare-footed and not afraid of wearing shoes, but now I am..."

"Successful and famous?"

"I..."

"Try it out. It's okay to lead a thousand riders in, and you don't necessarily have to do anything. Even if you just go in for a stroll and let the Chu people calm down, that's enough. It's still the same as last time. I won't give you specific military orders. Just adapt to the situation."

"Lord, I think this matter needs to be considered carefully. Give this subordinate some more time. If it doesn't work this year, it will be next year. If it doesn't work next year, it will be the year after that. At the latest the year after that, this subordinate will definitely be able to help you take down Zhennan Pass."

Tian Wujing nodded.

Zheng Fan breathed a sigh of relief.

"Depart in the first month, and just happen to pay a New Year's greeting to that Chu regent on behalf of this Lord."

"..." Zheng Fan.