Become a feudal king from today

"Your Highness, this means that we have gained nothing. This business matter was originally set up by the powerful clans. Now even if they no longer make things difficult for us, they have not lost anything. We still let them buy artillery for nothing. We still have nothing to lose." Must sell."

The royal study room.

Zhao Xu showed Zhao Heng's handwriting to Liu Fu, and he immediately complained.

Zhao Xu had a stern look on his face.

Regarding the Yuan family's affairs, he was originally dissatisfied.

It is suspected that Zhao Heng is collaborating with the powerful clan and using the Yuan family to restrain him.

Now Zhao Heng has rejected his request for sea trade rights and is trying to balance the issue of artillery.

Overall, he still suffered a loss.

This made him feel evil in his heart.

Liu Fu did not answer.

He tore open the letter sent by Dong An and just glanced at it. The hand holding the letter was shaking with anger.

Slapping the desk hard, Zhao Xu cursed: "Zhao Heng, you ignorant and ignorant king!"

When Liu Fu heard this, he was frightened and panicked. He wanted to cover Zhao Xu's mouth, but he didn't dare. He said tremblingly, "Insulting the emperor is a serious crime. Your Highness, please keep your voice down. Be careful that there are ears through the wall."

"Take it and read it yourself!" Zhao Xu threw the letter to Liu Fu.

Liu Fu took it and glanced briefly. His face turned from white to red, then from red to yellow. He came to the door of the study, and after confirming that no one was there, he stamped his foot, "Foolish king, traitorous minister, this court is really full of people, ridiculous. , It’s ridiculous. If it weren’t for the artillery, they would have dared to trick His Highness into going to Jinling and sending him to Beidi as a hostage.”

Zhao Xu felt as if a piece of ice had been placed in his heart, and the blood rushing to his body was filled with chills.

Dong An wrote down exactly what happened in the court in the letter.

In order to maintain peace for the time being, Zhao Heng and other powerful people considered sending him to Beidi under the threat of Beidi envoys.

As Liu Fu said, if they weren't thinking about their artillery.

I'm afraid they agreed.

"Your Highness, just rebel. Such a powerful family and such a foolish king are not worthy of our life and death for them." Liu Fu's eyes were red, and he shed tears immediately, "Your Highness has been crazy for three years, and it's just that he was driven to King Yan. Now that I have recovered and achieved some success, they are doing this shameless thing of burning bridges.”

Wiping his tears, he gritted his teeth and said, "No matter what Your Highness does next, I will follow you to the death."

Just now, Zhao Xu really had the urge to rebel.

But looking at Liu Fu who was crying, he immediately calmed down again.

"Hahaha..." Zhao Xu laughed out loud.

This laughter contained great anger, great helplessness, and at the same time, great disappointment.

After laughing for a while, he suddenly patted Liu Fu on the shoulder, "I won't rebel, and I can't rebel now."

"Why!" Liu Fuding looked at Zhao Xu.

"This time Beidi was afraid of killing two birds with one stone. The imperial court agreed, and my king would certainly die. But the imperial court did not agree. They exposed the ugly behavior of the powerful people in the court and the emperor, motivating me to rebel. Once I rebelled, I The king has become the common enemy of Da Song and Beidi, and will face the joint strangulation of the two," Zhao Xu said.

It's calmer than ever before.

He was completely disappointed with Zhao Heng and the powerful clan.

From now on, the only thing he can rely on is his fiefdom and the people in it.

All he cares about is the land under his feet, and the subordinates and people who are loyal to him.

As for the court, as for the powerful people, when friends come, they have good wine; when wolves come, they are greeted only by shotguns!

In order to defend his territory, in addition to the 120,000 soldiers and horses given to him by the court.

He will also officially launch his own armed caravan plan.

Of course, he would not admit his relationship with the armed caravan.

But the escorts of the secretly armed caravan are his soldiers, and the warships of the caravan are his ships.

What bullshit sea trade rights! Can't restrain him.

"It's Meng Lang who is the next official." Liu Fu thought for a while and sighed.

At present, there are only 30,000 veterans and 30,000 new soldiers in the four northern counties. The remaining 60,000 soldiers and horses are being recruited, but there is still a long way to go.

To rebel with such a force is simply to hit an egg with a stone.

"Don't sigh. From now on, I will work with you to build the four northern counties and make them the most prosperous places in Dasong. When we are strong enough, we will no longer have to look at anyone's face, and our enemies will also be in front of us. My feet are shaking." Zhao Xu said slowly, his eyes twinkling like stars.

Liu Fu looked at Zhao Xu. At this moment, he felt that the King of Yan, who was younger than himself, was so dazzling.

"Your Highness, as long as I, Liu Fu, live for one day, I will work hard for Your Highness." Liu Fu bowed deeply.

Zhao Xu nodded and helped him up.

He appreciates a saying - anger without strength is meaningless.

A three-month-old puppy, even if it shows its teeth and claws, will only add to the laughter.

After the Yanzhou Incident, the Yuan family was revived. This time the Beidi envoys came, and the monarchs and ministers in the court behaved uglyly.

He responded to them only by continuing to expand his own strength.

There will be a day when the word King Yan will make it impossible for them to sleep peacefully at night.

The two have a tacit understanding.

Zhao Xu also talked to Liu Fu about some defense projects that were urgently needed.

The first one is the five bastions under construction.

If Beidi's threat fails this time, war will inevitably break out.

After the snow in Yanshan melts, Beidi will definitely continue to harass Yanzhou.

Therefore, the bastion must continue to be repaired, and the progress must be accelerated.

At the same time, he also had an idea, which was to transform the northern city wall of Yanguan.

During this city defense battle, he realized that the straight-line city wall at Yanguan was not very defensive.

Therefore, he wanted to build several protruding sharp-angled walls on the outside of the Yanguan City Wall like a bastion.

In this way, the northern wall has a bastion shape.

Not only can more artillery be placed on it, but it also expands the area of ​​defense.

At the same time, it can also provide all-round defense without blind spots, making it more difficult for the enemy to attack the city.

He couldn't be careless.

The artillery is indeed very powerful, but the fact that it has such a good effect this time is entirely due to the miraculous effect of its first use.

During the war, Beidi soldiers behaved fiercely.

And in an era of alternating hot and cold weapons, it cannot be said that everything will be safe with firearms.

After all, cavalry gradually withdrew from the stage of history after the emergence of machine guns and tanks.

Previously, highly mobile cavalry had always been a formidable force on the battlefield.

Therefore, currently, for him, guarding Yan Pass is still the first choice.

Just transforming Yanguan is a huge expense.

This once again highlights the importance of commerce to King Yan, which can almost be said to be the lifeblood.

After all, the four northern counties were withered due to war.

Even if he levied heavy taxes on the people, the money collected could not support the huge expenses in his fiefdom.

Building bastions, repairing Yan Pass, building warships, paying and equipping the soldiers of the palace, every sum is not a small amount.

Fortunately, Zhao Heng gave Yanjun Trading Company the status of royal merchant.

The powerful clan no longer made things difficult for him in business.

And the price he paid was artillery.

But to him, it didn't seem to be much of a price.

He originally planned to sell artillery and make money from the arms trade.

In this letter, Dong An also revealed that the Liang family also owned artillery.

Although he was surprised, he felt it was reasonable.

The Liang family presented matchlock guns to the court, but it makes no sense that the Liang family had never seen artillery.

This time the Liang family no longer concealed anything. In addition to using it as a bargaining chip to stop him in the sea trade, there was also another artillery that they used as competition to suppress him.

He dismissed the matter.

He is still confident in his artillery.

However, he originally planned to launch two types of artillery.

The lowest grade white iron cannon, and the higher grade gray iron cannon.

The white mouth is given to the powerful clan, and the gray mouth is given to the court, in order to strengthen the royal family and suppress the powerful clan.

But now Zhao Heng is no different from a powerful clan in his eyes and is not worthy of his gray iron cannon.

It would be merciful to sell them the lowest grade of iron cannon.