Northern Dynasties

Chapter 1334 Ready to go

"Please spare my life, please spare my life! Please spare my life for the friendship we had when we went to Chang'an together last year. I have lived in the capital for a long time and have not been home for a long time. I don't know what my brother and his family have done!"

Chen Xu was a prince of the royal family. Although he was sentenced to death, he was not taken directly to the execution ground. Instead, he was led to the Western Province government office in the Taicheng Palace to be secretly executed. Chen Xu was naturally unwilling to die like this, and he collapsed in the courtyard with tears on his face, crying and begging for mercy.

The Western Province of the Inner Palace is also known as the Yongfu Province. During the Hou Jing Rebellion in the old years, Emperor Jianwen of Liang and his family were imprisoned here, and many members of the Southern Liang royal family, including Emperor Jianwen himself, were killed here.

After the establishment of the Southern Chen Dynasty, the Western Province was closed because people were tired of the ominous sign of this office and the Southern Chen Dynasty had always had a simple staff. It was not until the time when the prince was to be executed and it was inconvenient to carry out the execution in the outer court that a palace maid from the previous dynasty suggested that the execution could be carried out here, and it was reopened.

Just as Chen Xu was crying and begging for mercy, in the emperor's bedroom, after repeated requests from Empress Li, Chen Chang had the empress put into the bedroom. However, his face was full of impatience, and he said angrily: "The empress can stay in the bedroom. You are about to give birth, so don't wander around like usual!"

Queen Li was pregnant and about to give birth. Upon hearing what Chen Chang said, she bowed with some difficulty and said, "Since Your Majesty knows this, I beg Your Majesty not to kill lightly and to do good deeds and pray for my child."

"I have already said that there is no need to report matters outside the court to the Queen. Who is going to gossip in the palace?"

After hearing this, Chen Chang immediately looked at the palace maids around the queen with an angry face and shouted angrily. After hearing this, Queen Li hurriedly said, "It was not the palace maids who told me, but I found out accidentally. I beg you not to act on impulse. The clan has a weak bloodline, and Prince Shixing's crime does not deserve death..."

"You noticed it accidentally? You have sharp eyes and ears, but did you know that your clan leader used his power to humiliate me and led an army south?"

Chen Chang's face suddenly became even more displeased after hearing this, and he said bitterly: "I know your uncle is a hero in the world, and I also rely on him deeply. When I said goodbye to Chang'an, I repeatedly gave him respectful and kind advice. But now he is greedy and doesn't even want to give me a place to live in Jiangdong! Your brother lives upstream and has been pretending to be friendly for a long time, but now he is threatening me with weapons on his ship!"

"I am the wife of the Chen family. I have not heard about family affairs for a long time. I don't know what my parents are doing..."

After hearing this, tears suddenly welled up in Li's eyes and she covered her face and said sadly.

After seeing this, Chen Chang's expression was not as irritable as before. He wanted to go forward to comfort her, but stopped. His tone was no longer as fierce as before: "Of course you don't know, why should a hero tell a woman about his ambitions? I didn't want to see you today because I didn't want to quarrel with you and make you sad, but you just didn't want to leave!

Even if I am powerless to build a country, I will not blame my powerlessness on a woman. Don't ask about the affairs of the first king. The fact that the Tang State bullies me has nothing to do with you! Go back to bed quickly and take care of your baby. My authority is hard to show now because of my past weakness. If I continue to accept it, I will be even more powerless to protect my wife and children! Whoever betrays me, I will punish him!"

As he spoke, he raised his hand and ordered the palace servants to quickly lead the queen back to the bedroom. After a pause, another servant came and ordered: "Tell the executioner, there is no need to use weapons, just poison her to death and bury her south of the Wuguan Temple."

  Chen Chang killed his cousin to establish his authority, but it did not frighten Chen Qian who was far away in Wuxing. Chen Qian not only did not order the division stationed in front of Songjiang to retreat, but even sent another team to the north to reinforce the defense line, and once again sent a message to the court, saying that if the emperor continued to order the government troops to advance southward and disturb the Chen family ancestral tombs in Changcheng Township, then he would directly raise troops to fight against the government troops!

Chen Chang was already dissatisfied with the Tang army's violation of the agreement and crossing the river, so of course he would not send the official army as the vanguard of the Tang army to trample on the land of the Three Wus. The conflict between him and Chen Qian mainly focused on Chen Qian's refusal to obey the court and even his repeated and openly provocative actions.

At present, the Tang army had not yet launched an offensive against the Three Wus, so when Chen Qian brought up the excuse of the Chen family's ancestral tombs, he took the opportunity to endure it and ordered Wu Mingche to stay in the area and recalled some of the divisions that had been sent to quell the rebellion. This move was not only to supplement the defense force in Jiankang, but also to test the limits of the Tang army on him.

When he saw that the Tang army did not oppose or stop this, Chen Chang secretly breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed that the Tang army had no intention of directly interfering in the military and political affairs of Jiankang. Of course, this was just his self-deception. Now that the knife was on his neck, he was still glad that the opponent did not chop it down directly. This was nothing more than a little self-consolation for a weak person in a desperate situation.

Right now the situation in the entire Jiangdong is tense, and any slight disturbance will cause people to be terrified. Everyone is secretly wondering when the Tang army will take action, and how many troops will be sent to Wuzhong at that time?

In this extremely tense atmosphere, the days passed by, and people speculated about the time when the Tang army would send troops south. Before they knew it, the New Year was approaching. As the New Year approached, Chen Qian in Wuxing became more and more depressed. When discussing military affairs with his confidants in private, he said in a heavy tone: "The Tang army now has all the advantages, but it has been waiting for the opportunity to attack. It wants to wear down our army's morale with time, and when people become lazy and their minds are slack, they will attack with thunder.

You must be diligent in warning the troops not to indulge their laziness. Especially around the New Year, it is the most dangerous time. Now we are not strong enough to go north to meet the enemy, so we can only defend our homeland. Tell the camps not to be homesick and leave the camp without permission. The situation is critical now, and we can only return home after defeating the invading enemy! "

Chen Qian's worries were not without reason. Now that all the folks from Wuzhong had gathered here, they seemed to be numerous and powerful, but most of them were ordinary folks who had not undergone professional military training. The few military experiences they had were from the time when they occupied their hometowns and built strongholds to defend themselves during the Hou Jing Rebellion.

The Hou Jing Rebellion was ultimately a civil war in Jiangdong, especially the rebels who invaded the Three Wus, most of whom were rioters from Danyang, Yixing and other places. Although they were aggressive, they were essentially a group of rabble with low combat effectiveness. The combat experience accumulated from fighting against them would inevitably be inadequate once they fought against the elite Tang army.

Take the present for example, although these villagers were full of passion to defend their homeland when they first gathered together, even if the Tang army arrived in an instant, they would still fight fiercely with them with all their passion, which can be said to be ready for battle at any time.

However, as time went by, my passion gradually cooled. After the excitement of defending my country faded away, all kinds of distracting thoughts came to my mind one after another, and my mood began to become hesitant and worried about gains and losses.

Although Chen Qian had made serious instructions, the phenomenon of soldiers leaving the camp without permission became more and more frequent in the following period, so that Chen Qian had to issue strict orders and the punishment for soldiers leaving the camp became more and more severe, from flogging and caning in the beginning to corporal punishment and even beheading in public, which slightly curbed this phenomenon.

However, the Tang army's delay in launching an attack made people increasingly suspicious. The soldiers were confined to various camps, and various speculations and discussions became more frequent.

These speculations include both optimistic ones, such as the Tang army retreated because they were afraid of the united efforts of the people of Wuzhong, and pessimistic ones, which speculated that the Tang army in the north was just attracting the attention of the people of Wuzhong, and the real killer move was to send elite troops on ships from Qingxu, heading straight for Kuaiji, and then heading north to attack Wuxing and other places.

Among this series of discussions, there are also a few rumors that sound absurd but are actually somewhat strange. One of them is that the northerners who came south could not stand the damp and cold weather in Jiangdong, and they stopped in Jingkou and other places for fear of frostbite. They were secretly and urgently purchasing hemp fabrics from Jiangdong to make military uniforms for their soldiers.

This statement is said in a serious manner, as if it were true, but anyone with a little common sense can feel how stupid this statement is after a little analysis.

How could the Tang army not make thorough preparations for such a significant event as crossing the river? Even if there was a shortage of cloth, the most efficient way was to collect it in the rear and transport it to the front, or to directly raid and plunder in Wuzhong. After all, hemp cloth was not a scarce item in Jiangdong, and there was a backlog of it before.

How could the Tang army urgently buy these things when the Wuzhong people were struggling to sell them, and even stalled their progress and missed the opportunity to fight? It sounds like the clumsy fantasy of some country folk who had too much inventory at home and were frightened by the invasion of the Tang army.

However, just as some people were laughing at this, in the Linchuan Palace, Chen Qian saw several countrymen being dragged into the hall, and the Northern Dynasty copper coins found on their bodies. His face turned pale and he asked angrily: "Don't you know that we are fighting the Tang army? You dare to secretly sell goods to the Tang army. Do you know that this is a capital crime of treason?"

"Your Majesty, spare me, Your Majesty... We also know that the two countries are hostile, and we really dare not cooperate with the enemy, but our people still need food to survive. Selling to the Tang army is just old hemp, rotten hemp, useless and cheap, but in exchange we get good money from the Tang country, and we make a lot of money. The Tang people are stupid for a short time, and they didn't know how to endure the damp and cold until they crossed the river. We sold the rotten hemp to squeeze out their money, not to cooperate with the enemy!"

  Several locals bowed their heads and knelt on the ground, begging for mercy. Although they were secretly trading with the Tang army, they did not think they were doing anything wrong. They just thought the Tang army was too stupid to use the good money from Jiangbei, which was extremely precious in Jiangdong, to buy cheap goods like kudzu and hemp. They were exchanging inferior goods for good ones, which was a good thing in itself to help fight the enemy!

"Shut up! I think you are stupid. Knowing that hemp is as cheap as dirt and easy to get, why would the Tang army buy it? They are here to invade your land, seize your homeland, and enslave your parents, wife, and children. How can you fools believe that they are fair in their transactions? It's really ridiculous!"

After hearing this explanation, Chen Qian became even angrier and continued to scold these people while pointing at them.