For the emperor

Cang Tiansu shrank his feet slightly, looked at the large group of generals who were arguing endlessly below, after a long time of deliberation, finally raised his head and yawned moderately.

For most people, after the long winter and the slightly cold early spring, the spring is warm and the flowers are blooming. The most beautiful season of the year should be the time when the mood is comfortable and self-sufficient.

But as far as the current situation is concerned, everyone belonging to the Northwest Army has a big mountain on their heads.The grain convoy that was supposed to arrive last month went to the Zangliang Mountains and suddenly disappeared.

Including the guards, a team of hundreds of people disappeared almost overnight.And just the day before, the barracks had received news that the leader said that everything was fine and that everything was on track.

"There are a lot of rogues in the Zangliang Mountains, maybe they were hijacked by them." Sitting at the head of Xu Shan was one of his most skilled generals, Zhu Erda.

Li Renqiang was at odds with him, and immediately snorted coldly without raising his head: "Yes, in this world, everyone has the courage to rob the mission sent by the emperor, and even seize the food delivered to the army. "

Cang Tiansu looked at the two people staring at each other with great interest, and didn't say anything to stop them.He always felt that Li Renqiang was a very special general.

Unlike Xu Shan who vaguely formed cliques and promoted cronies, Li Renqiang in the army, except for Duan De, hardly even had any friends who could talk to him.

He didn't even care much about his own soldiers. Over the past ten years, his prestige has become higher and higher, his military achievements have become greater and greater, but the number of soldiers in his hands has decreased.

When you need to go to the battlefield, you can simply pick a few thousand new recruits or surrendered soldiers, and improvise a team that can barely take a shot.

At the same time, this man was never afraid of offending others, he could quarrel with any general every few days, even Cang Tiansu, the chief general, he still dared to shake his face.

It is also because of this that Cang Tiansu thinks that this is a really smart person.Like what Xu Zhi did, there are many good buddies in the barracks, everyone responds to everyone, and he pays special attention to what he says. It seems that he is much more beautiful than Li Renqiang, who has not moved much in recent years, but it is actually very taboo.

No matter at what time, no matter where, those who form gangs, form factions in disguise, and win people's hearts are the most annoying type of subordinates of the top leaders.

Therefore, when Duan De was around, Xu Shan made a lot of military achievements, but his position was never raised.It wasn't until Cang Tiansu took over that he lacked available generals, which made his ten-year-old daughter-in-law become a mother-in-law, and finally had a bright future.

Cang Tiansu raised some secret points several times recently, General Xu seemed to have realized something, and finally restrained himself a little.

A fool is a fool after all, how can I still whisper in his ear every day?Psychologically, Cang Tiansu still prefers General Li who seems to be at odds with him.

The dozens of people below tossed and turned, and almost found the ideas that everyone could imagine, but still none of them made sense. How did the grain transportation group with hundreds of people come here with great fanfare in six hours? Evaporated.

The meeting lasted for an hour, and everyone was talking dryly, and then looked at the high-ranking prince of the Cang Kingdom, who was yawning for the fifth time, then raised his hand, and Shi Shiran wiped away the moisture from the corners of his eyes: "The discussion is over? "

Xu Comp received hints from many people, nodded his head and said: "It's over."

Cang Tiansu propped his chin, and lazily glanced around: "Is there a result?"

"...No." Seeing the question, Xu Comp wiped his sweat.

Cang Tiansu tilted his head and smiled at him, until he saw General Xu's face turned from pale to green, then he straightened his head and said seriously: "All generals are thoughtful and intelligent people, but the wisdom of a dozen people is limited after all. , this matter is not urgent, you might as well go back and ask your subordinates. Who can give me a reasonable reason tomorrow, and reward him with a cart of Xifeng wine."

He didn't mention gold, silver and jewelry.To arouse the interest of this group of elders, saying that money will not work, no one here is short of pocket money.

Besides, Cang Tiansu has been receiving a monthly salary as a minor prince in the past few years, and it is only in these few months that he has spent money from official generals. He has to fill the black hole of the huge intelligence network in Zhao Liu's hands, and he calculates it by himself On the contrary, it is the poorest one.

Sure enough, when these words came out, many people's eyes lit up.

Li Renqiang glanced at him thoughtfully, but didn't say anything.

General Li is now a little worried about the only son of General Duan. Duan Yu lost his mother when he was young. Caring is also two concepts.

So Duan Yu had a sense of crisis very early on, and decided to find the most gentle and beautiful mother for his child. Unexpectedly, after thousands of choices, he picked the Cang family in the end. , and the subject is still a man.

Li Renqiang has seen it in his eyes for the past few years, and he is anxious, but it is difficult to go past his father. Duan De himself didn't say anything about his son, so he couldn't speak, he could only keep his words in his heart.

Cang Tiansu spoke and acted, but he kept watching with cold eyes, and found that this man had a deep scheming, every step he said and did had a special purpose.

Just like today, in order to find out the reason for the disappearance of the mission, it is simply to use the mouth of a group of generals to spread the news of the disappearance of the grain transportation group among ordinary soldiers.

Having figured this out, Li Renqiang even believed that the inexplicable disappearance of the mission was caused by this half-year-old boy who seemed harmless to humans and animals.As for the purpose of doing this, General Li thought for a long time, but still couldn't find out the answer.

This person and Duan Yu are fundamentally two extremes, and their personalities are so different that no matter what method is used, it is impossible to really bond the two people together, achieve intimacy, and bond with each other.

Li Renqiang was immersed in his own thoughts, and raised his eyes inadvertently. Cang Tiansu, who was sitting across from Duan Yu, happened to look at him from a distance, his eyes were dark, and he smiled.

Li Renqiang shivered, and he came back to his senses in an instant, gathered his energy, and returned a perfunctory smile to the other party.

When the meeting was over, he was the first to stand up, turned his head hastily, and avoided the seemingly indifferent gaze that had been looking over him.Li Renqiang held his right hand with his left hand, only to realize that, before he knew it, his hands were covered in cold sweat.

After everyone left, Cang Tiansu turned his head and smiled at Duan Yu, "That's all right, a dozen coolies will start working tomorrow."

Cang Tiansu admitted that he had miscalculated. He really did not expect that Li Renqiang could withstand the pressure of all parties and abruptly delayed the strike that he thought was only a few days for half a year.

He counted the days, and he couldn't remember the last time he took off his clothes and went to bed in a serious manner.Most nights, I drink cups of strong tea, and only when I am too sleepy, I close my eyes and rest on my forehead for a while, often lying on the ground for less than an hour, there are already early-rising soldiers shouting outside during morning exercises Voice.

Really day and night, exhausted.A day is full of work and calculations, and the time to close your eyes is not even two hours.Splitting headaches have become commonplace.

Li Renqiang was the smartest person Cang Tiansu had ever met, so he had reason to believe that after today's trouble, the hard days that had tortured him for more than half a year should finally come to an end.

Cang Tiansu casually flipped through the battle report on the verdict table, the Northwest Army is now advancing smoothly, and has not encountered any bottlenecks.The land where the army is now galloping is desolate and arid, and the residential areas are extremely scattered, and usually there is no human habitation within a hundred miles.

Qi Guo would probably defend the periphery of this plain with heavy troops, instead of traveling thousands of miles to the center of the desolate area to fight to the death with Cang Guo's army.

Under such circumstances, it is unlikely that a large-scale melee will cause heavy casualties.Cang Tiansu seized the time before, and hurriedly rushed, but arrived at this land boundary more than ten days later than originally scheduled.

However, it can be regarded as arriving barely as planned.

At the beginning of today's meeting, Cang Tiansu had already ordered that from tomorrow onwards, the soldiers would reduce the two and a half scoops of rice porridge to two scoops per meal.

No one knows when the mission will emerge from the ground inexplicably like when it disappeared, and the food is clearly there, and no one can make more.

Even if they knew that the morale of the soldiers would be low, the generals couldn't come up with any good solution, so they could only bow their heads and acquiesced to Cang Tiansu's arrangement.

This is the biggest problem encountered in long-term expeditions deep behind enemy lines.The three armies have not moved, and the food and grass go first. This is easy to do in a battle of several months, but once the battle line is stretched and the time is widened, it will be difficult to ensure the timely supply of food.

It is impossible to get enough food and grass from the conquered cities alone.Every general defending the city is aware that before and during the battle, he must deploy three floors inside and three floors outside to guard the grain storage areas. Once the defeat is confirmed, the first thing to do is to burn down the granaries.

Although such problems would not occur in small villages, the little grain collected was simply not enough to support the mighty locust-like soldiers.

Low morale, repeated defeats, heavy casualties, and even mutiny, once people have no food, anything can happen.If food shortages occur in places where there are no villages or shops, the situation will be even worse.

But now, the Northwest Army's battle field is precisely such a place where the shortage of food is the most serious.

Cang Tiansu tilted his head slightly, staring at the black ink on the spread paper in a daze.In fact, Li Renqiang wrongly blamed him. He really wasn't responsible for the disappearance of the mission this time.

He may have had this plan at first, but at the end of the day, in any case, he did not have the courage to play a dirty political game with the lives of 10 people.Pingye City had no choice but to choose the only way out.

If the food supply line is cut off, the Liu family who is in charge of transporting the food this time will suffer a lot, but the Northwest Army will also be destroyed.Cang Tiansu calculated the gains and losses, and naturally gave up the plan.

He can accept the result of injuring one thousand enemies and self-injury eight hundred, but let alone the matter of injuring one thousand enemies and self-injury one thousand. Hurting others and oneself is not worth the loss.

But it can't be said that this matter has nothing to do with him.Cang Tiansu lowered his eyes, and his long eyelashes slid down, covering the annoyance inside.

There was news from Zhao Liu that the head of the envoy, Liu Yansi, was walking, and suddenly ordered everyone to stop, broke up into pieces, and divided five or six hundred people into more than a dozen teams to sneak into the Zangliang Mountains to investigate the situation of the rogues. , I stood in front of the grain cart, no matter how urged by my subordinates, I didn't move a step.

Zhao Liu also added a sentence by the way, saying that the Liu family's tricks are really not beautiful, let him transport food and grass, and actually play the trick of a dog and a mouse, for fear that others will not know that the Liu family is wearing small shoes for the Northwest Army of.

Without Cang Tiansu's instructions, Zhao Liu has already arranged for someone to spread the news. I believe that with his ability, it will be known to everyone in the entire Cang Kingdom.

Cang Tiansu read his letter over and over several times, no matter how he read it, he felt something was wrong.

The Liu family really wanted to take this opportunity to make themselves feel better, but at most it would delay for a few days, let the Northwest Army lose two or three times, and rub off their prestige. The little braids were sent up for him to pull.

No matter how stupid Liu Yansi was, the people in charge of the Liu family had bright eyes. They almost covered the sky with one hand in the court, and even their eyelashes were empty, so it was impossible for them to make such a low-level mistake.

Cang Tiansu had a vague feeling that this matter was by no means as simple as Zhao Liu thought, and there might be a strong intervention from a third party.

- This is really the worst case scenario.

Who has the ability to let Liu Yansi bear the serious crime of dereliction of duty, and do such a misleading thing at a critical moment?Who can make Liu Yansi take the risk of beheading and do bad things so confidently?

Except for the man he should call "Father Emperor", Cang Tiansu couldn't find a second answer.

Out of a thousand possibilities, he ruled out nine hundred and ninety-nine, and the remaining one, no matter how outrageous, can only be the only correct answer.

He blinked, trying to suppress the strange emotions surging in his heart.

Could it be that you would rather lose the reputation of the [-] ever-victorious army in the Northwest and the first emperor, are you still so impatient to play me to death?

Could it be that what is bubbling in my veins does not come from your blood?

Obviously, in this world, you are my only blood relative.

Cang Tiansu's wrist trembled unconsciously, and happened to hit the teacup on the edge of the desk to the ground. The sound of "cracking" porcelain shattered pulled him out of his chaotic thoughts.

He raised his head and smiled at Xiaosi who heard the sound and came in to check: "Find a place to sit down, I think we need to have a good talk."

"...I'm the one who leaked to Qi Guo the location of grain storage in the mountain range." Xiaosi froze for a while, rubbed her fingers against the light pattern on the corner of her clothes, lowered her head, and her voice was as thin as a gossamer.

Cang Tiansu looked at her and smiled: "Compared to this, I want to know why he asked you to do such a thing?"

Xiaosi was taken aback for a moment, then raised her head in a daze, and looked at him blankly: "What do you mean? I am a native of Qi State, and I was also sent by Qi State to infiltrate Cang Kingdom Palace. Naturally, I want to serve them. You Tell me why would I do this?"

"Are you really sent by Qi Guo?" Cang Tiansu's smile widened, slightly adjusted his sitting posture, leaned against the back of the chair, and looked at her leisurely, "Xiaosi, you are different from Jingtian. Until now, we both There is no fundamental opposition to this one, and I really don't want to deal with you the same way I dealt with him."

He carefully looked at the expression of the person opposite, and after seeing that she understood his hint, he continued: "After following me for so many years, you can be said to be the one who understands me best. If you are not sure, I will not follow you." Speak up."

Xiaosi's face was pale and she didn't make a sound for a long time.

Cang Tiansu didn't care about her reaction, and said to himself: "He is really a complete lunatic."

Xiaosi's face turned even paler.

"Xiaosi, you have to understand that in my opinion, there are no people in the world who can really keep secrets, there are only unqualified interrogators." Cang Tiansu clapped his hands, and a dozen burly men came in outside. Duan Yu has been the most trustworthy person in the past few years.

Cang Tiansu had a pleasant expression and a light smile: "You are a woman, no matter how determined you are, there will always be obstacles in your heart. Torturing you is far easier than dealing with a man."

He has never observed the life of a low-level soldier at close range, and he has never stepped into a low-level military camp, so he knows very little about the camp prostitutes.

However, two years ago, Xiaosi had dragged a disheveled and bruised woman to kneel in front of him and cried, saying that she was the sister of her husband's family who had been convicted after she got married, and begged him to rescue her from prostitution. I've seen that scene before.

Xiaosi looked up at him with difficulty, then looked at several men with stern expressions, and understood his deeper meaning, but she could only shake her head with a wry smile: "What I know is only the most superficial things, and you yourself If you can guess it, why force me so much?"

She has never doubted Cang Tiansu's ability to say and do it, and she also understands that according to the usual practice, she should be beheaded at this time and hang on the military flag to show the public. To be honest, give each other a step down.

Whether a spy who has seen the light will be killed or not depends on the master's words.More or less, this young prince still cared about the companionship he had had for eight years.

Cang Tiansu was silent for a while, then whispered: "Forget it, give her a good time."

What Cang Tiansu thought of at this time was not the eight years of companionship at all, he just recalled, when he was the most helpless in his life, he huddled in a corner in the Zhaori Hall, watching with cold eyes. Among the people who went in and out to pack their things, among the cold and blurred faces, only Xiaosi hugged him tightly, repeating over and over again with tears in her eyes: "Cry a little, please, don't hold it in."

Cang Tiansu closed his eyes, a dozen people agreed in unison, and finally a man came out, pinched Xiaosi's shoulder, pulled her up from the chair, and dragged her out.

From a hundred thoughts to the way of the emperor, I missed that man by 01:30.Cang Tiansu imitated Duan Yu's usual appearance in annoyance, pulling black hair all over his head.

Xiaosi has been with him since he moved to Zhaori Temple when he was eight years old. At that time, he was still an unfavorable prince with a low reputation.Although Cang Tiansu thinks he is sure to train a subordinate like Xiaosi, he will never waste such a person on a baby who is not very eye-catching at all.

He unconsciously began to think, could it be that Emperor Cang Jing's subordinates, who were randomly selected, were all at this level?Then if I fight against him, do I have any chance of winning?

When the emperor of Cang Kingdom was in battle with his country's army, he sent someone to inform the enemy country, and the report was what Xiaosi believed to be correct at the time. Even if he said it, no one would believe it.

What on earth was that man thinking?

Not long after, a bloody soldier walked in.

Cang Tiansu took another look at him, and asked with a smile, "What's his name?"

"Report to the general, the humble name is Zhang Kun!" The other party clenched his fists and stood straight in front of the general chair, with his head held high and his chest high, full of arrogance.

It really looks like a subordinate trained by Duan Yu. From a glance at him, it is a virtue, and one intestine leads to the end.Cang Tiansu squinted his eyes, tilted his head and looked at him in a good mood: "Is there anything else?"

Zhang Kun seemed a little hesitant, peeking at the general's face at this time, he still said: "Report to the general, before that woman died, let me ask the general, and said that she had never passed on news to that person for eight years, until recently before she acted." We only communicated once, and she is confident that she has not shown her footsteps in this matter, and I would like to know how you found out."

You really should hesitate, people have already been killed, there is no point in asking this again.Cang Tiansu waved his hand to signal him to go down.

When was it discovered?Cang Tiansu calmed down and thought about it, and found that he didn't remember either.

The reason is that when Liu Guangliang took advantage of the cold palace and no one was molesting him, Xiaosi went to Cangtianci to report the news, and there were many doubts in it.

If she was really loyal to protect the lord, she could have directly called the guards of Zhaori Palace and entered the cold palace to find someone, instead of staying outside with the so-called "the eldest prince ordered that no one else be allowed to enter the cold palace".To become the leader of the maids in Zhaori Palace, one will not be able to distinguish priorities and what should be truly insisted on.

Xiaosi will go to Cang Tianci, and the suspicion that she is the Queen's person has already been ruled out.And if the concubines of other palaces had placed the manpower, the first thing to do would be to make trouble with the emperor.

The fact that a foreign relative tried to seduce the prince is too disgraceful.Even if Emperor Cang Jing didn't wait to see his eldest son again, with his character that couldn't tolerate sand in his eyes, it was absolutely impossible for him to swallow this breath.When the time comes, it will be unlucky for the Liu family who are behind the empress, and the direct beneficiaries will be those noble concubines and concubines.

However, Xiaosi chose to find the second prince of Cang Kingdom who could hardly play any role in this matter. One was to test whether the two older princes were just pretending or real brothers and sisters. Well, if Liu Guangliang can really be stopped at the last moment, it will definitely arouse the gratitude of the first prince and the favor of the second prince, which will facilitate future actions.

It was the first time in his life that he had killed someone, and he felt irritated and panicked. In addition, he hadn't developed the habit of looking for suspicious points in the clues. Cang Tiansu didn't even think of the nine turns and eighteen turns in it.

It wasn't until he saw a lot at the border in the past few years that Cang Tiansu gradually came to his senses, and knew how to turn his head and examine the strange layers of this incident carefully.

When the fog was gradually cleared and the original appearance of the matter was restored, Cang Tiansu was stunned for a long time, but he couldn't find any joy and sense of accomplishment in his heart.

He believed that deep down in his heart, he hated Cang Jinglan.But there seems to be something else besides hate.It was the first time for him to feel so many churning emotions in his chest, mixed together, twisted into a hemp, cut constantly, and still confused.

He couldn't untangle this entanglement, but he didn't have enough courage to cut off the chaos with a knife.

Cang Tiansu faintly felt that once everything was settled once everything was settled, it would be a kind of relief and also a kind of regret when the dust settled.