After saving the Empress, I became the top scholar in the imperial examination.

…………

"Kill! Kill! Kill!"

Nanjing City.

East.

Above the towering Yaofang Gate.

A fierce wind blew from the front.

Two miles outside the city gate,

Banners fluttered, their cold light gleaming.

The Northern Dynasty army, stretching as far as the eye could see, was neatly arranged and imposing, raising their weapons and shouting in unison.

Such a roar terrified everyone in Nanjing.

In the past few days, the Brave Guard Battalion has beheaded more than a hundred local ruffians who broke military discipline and tried to take advantage of the chaos.

Hanging above each of the inner city gates, it intimidated all sides, thus suppressing the hearts of the people within the city.

Minister of War Luan Zongyuan, dressed in a scarlet robe, stood atop the city gate tower with a livid face, his right hand outstretched, pressing down on a blue brick on the city wall.

Since the war began in May, in just two months, this Minister of War, who was already in his fifties, had graying temples, sunken eyes, and looked more than ten years older.

"General Fan!"

Luan Zongyuan said in a cold tone:

"Have you ascertained how many of them there are?"

A bloody wound ran across Fan Shiwei's left cheek. He raised his hand to the hilt of the knife at his waist and said, looking down:

"My lord, this is only Yue Zhongqi's vanguard, eight thousand men and three thousand cavalry. Most of Yue Zhongqi's forces are tied down in Jiangpu City, but at least fifty thousand are currently crossing the river from Zhenjiang."

"The navy composed of Russians, Portuguese, and Dutch still entrenched in that area, and the Northern Dynasty's navy has also moved south from Yangzhou."

"wild ambition!"

Bang! Luan Zongyuan gritted his teeth and slammed his fist on the city wall!

"Have all the missionaries in the city been arrested?" Luan Zongyuan asked viciously.

Fan Shiwei nodded: "The missionaries and merchants have all been imprisoned."

"There are certainly innocent people among them, but there are also definitely those sent by the Portuguese and Dutch! Order the Imperial Guards to interrogate them immediately!"

Fan Shiwei nodded quickly.

Luan Zongyuan looked at him: "The Northern Dynasty will not dare to attack the city for at least five days. Is the Yongwei Battalion still capable of fighting?"

Fan Shiwei solemnly replied, "Of course! The entire Brave Guard is willing to die for His Majesty!"

An army is raised for a thousand days, but used for only one.

The Brave Guard Battalion is the most elite and powerful army of the Great Liang Dynasty. Ten days ago, it went out of the city to relieve the siege of Zhenjiang and defeated the five thousand Green Standard Army soldiers sent by the Northern Dynasty across the river. The army was almost completely wiped out.

How can we not fight now?

"good!"

Luan Zongyuan shouted:

"I will immediately issue a military order to General Fan, instructing the Ordnance Bureau, Weaponry Bureau, and New Weapon Bureau to provide him with the latest weapons and equipment. At noon, beat the drums! He shall march out of the city to meet the enemy!"

Fan Shiwei and the four deputy commanders behind him immediately clasped their hands in greeting:

"This subordinate obeys!"

Upon receiving Luan Zongyuan's military order, Fan Shiwei immediately dispatched his generals to the city gates and began mobilizing troops.

At noon, the 10,000-strong Yongwei Battalion will march out from the four gates on the east side: Guanyin Gate, Yaofang Gate, Xianhe Gate, and Qilin Gate, to meet the vanguard army of Yue Zhongqi, which has been constantly challenging them!

Although it was July, it was early morning, and the wind on the city wall seemed rather icy and biting.

On the city gate tower, archers, spearmen, and musketeers from the five armies responsible for defending the city took turns standing in formation.

Rows of mother-and-child cannons, crouching cannons, and many red-coated cannons of different weights were being pulled up onto the city wall under the arrangement of the Shenji Battalion.

They were deployed on the city walls, inside the ramparts, and in various gun ports hidden within the walls.

The commander guarding Yaofang Gate, clad in full armor, was shouting orders to the laborers below the gate to carry stones, logs, molten gold, and firewood up to the city tower.

However, the enemy had not yet attacked the city, so the broth had not yet been started.

The laborers, sweating profusely, carried the logs up the ramp from the horse trail to the city wall, and stacked them up according to the soldiers' instructions.

"Damn it! Hurry, hurry, hurry!"

"Don't slow down!"

"What are you looking at! Don't look at the Tartars!"

"We'll kill them in a minute!"

"The Tartars have entered the city! Think of your wife and daughters!"

"Sir... Ouch... Sir..."

"Legs weak? Even if your legs are weak, get up now!"

"..."

Footsteps, panting, curses, whipping, pleas for mercy, the clanging of armor... a series of sounds accompanied by shadows running across the city walls.

Luan Zongyuan turned around, leaving all these voices behind. After giving the military order to "guard the city defenses carefully" to the censor in charge of supervising the troops here and a centurion of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, he quickly walked down the city wall under the protection of more than a dozen Embroidered Uniform Guards.

At each gate of the outer city of Nanjing, in addition to the general and soldiers, a civil official in charge of supervising the army and a hereditary commander of the Embroidered Uniform Guard were assigned to oversee the defense. This was to prevent the Northern Dynasty's secret police from bribing officials to issue orders that would destroy the entire city of Nanjing.

Luan Zongyuan, who was appointed Grand Secretary of the Wuying Hall by the Empress, entered the cabinet, and still served as Minister of War, ordered the guards to raise smoke signals after leaving the city gate to notify the four armies that came to the aid of the emperor.

Stepping into the stirrups, mounting the horse, and galloping back to the imperial city.

The city of Nanjing, which is currently in the midst of a catastrophe, is now eerily silent.

Luan Zongyuan incorporated almost everyone in the city into the local militia and strictly controlled the city's grain, placing it all under the care of the militia's guards.

Previously, some court officials submitted a memorial opposing this, saying:

"Luan Zongyuan's actions have only hurt the people's feelings and are suspected of being an attempt to amass wealth! The natural defenses are still in place; how has our dynasty come to this? Your Majesty, I implore you to thoroughly investigate this villain!"

Among those who submitted similar memorials were a seventh-rank censor, a sixth-rank director of the Imperial Academy, the right director of the Court of Judicial Review, and even a dignified fourth-rank left vice censor.

The Empress demoted all the officials who had submitted memorials, banishing them to the lowest ranks and stripping them of their official titles, preventing their families from taking the imperial examinations for three generations!

They were all demoted, not one was spared.

The government and the public were immediately in an uproar.

Many civil officials, clerks, and scholars began to secretly curse Luan Zongyuan in the streets and alleys, calling him a treacherous minister and a sycophant who, under the guise of the Northern Dynasty's southward advance, disregarded and intimidated the emperor in order to seize private power.

"The natural barrier of the Yangtze River remains! At most, we'll lose the two northern cities!"

"The Second Northern City should have been lost long ago; who knows how much money has been wasted over the years."

"Perhaps it was because of the two northern cities that the Northern Dynasty moved south!"

There were all sorts of opinions, but under the increasingly powerful methods of the Empress, the Cabinet, and the Six Ministries, the officials, the people, and even the soldiers in Nanjing only dared to complain in secret and dared not disobey.

In mid-June, a shocking piece of news spread.

"Liuhe City... has been breached by Yue Zhongqi of the Northern Dynasty..."

The various complaints within the city subsided considerably in an instant.

All the officials in the court turned pale.

What made Nanjing feel as if it had fallen into an ice cellar was...

A few days later, news came that the Northern Dynasty and the Rakshasa navy had broken through the river defenses of Songjiang Prefecture, entered the Yangtze River, and were sailing upstream to attack Nanjing.

The entire court was immediately thrown into an uproar, and some people were terrified.

When Liuhe City fell, some people secretly spread rumors that if Jiangpu City fell as well, the Northern Dynasty would withdraw its troops once it had taken back the two northern cities.

Some officials even began submitting memorials, saying, "Should we abandon Jiangpu City and take Governor Shangguan and the Jiangpu Army across the river?"

The implied meaning here is to remind the Empress that we can negotiate peace with the Northern Dynasty by ceding the two northern cities.