My God, I am the emperor, the lord of mankind.

Chapter 261 Yan Song
However, the Jiubian Ming Army was not good at water. Seeing these sea beasts huddled in the river in front of them, they could only stare at the ocean and sigh on the shore, not daring to step forward.

"Let the Shenji Battalion come out to help my soldiers from Jiubian——"

After hearing the decree from Yu Huzhong, Yan Song, the son of the state, could only put down the ancient book he had just dug out.

After instructing the surrounding attendants to rearrange them and put them back properly, he thanked his father and hurried eastward to deliver the order.

"General Qi! Your Majesty has an order to have Shenji Camp's firearms fire into the river and drive the sharks in the river to the shore, so as to assist the soldiers on the nine sides of the river north of the river to make meritorious deeds——"

"I accept my order——"

The general Qi who took the command in front of him was already over forty years old. In the first half of his life, he was just a small commander of the capital on Daning Road in the north.

Its responsibilities are probably to oversee the military affairs of the vast area connected to Baoding of HEB Province, Chaoyang of LN Province, and Chifeng of Inner Mongolia.
Even as a side general, his status is only average.

However, on the day of the Emperor's Eastern Expedition, he was appointed as the commander of the Shenji Battalion. He was always by his side and received great honor overnight.

I don't know how many northern generals are secretly speculating on what kind of achievements General Qi has done behind the scenes to make the emperor Shengde treat him so differently.

Even Qi Jingtong himself was a little suspicious as to why the emperor trusted him so much. The moment he received the edict, he thought the court had made a mistake.

Firstly, he has no meritorious service that would make him famous in the world, and secondly, he seems not to have given gifts to the high officials in the imperial court.

Why did this pie from the sky suddenly and inexplicably hit me on the head?

Although full of doubts in my heart.

However, at the urging of the eunuch summoned from the palace, he still went to the capital with him carrying his own soldier's seal.

When I arrived at the Jinluan Hall, I saw the emperor on the golden platform, and heard the imperial court announcing in front of all civil and military officials the reconstruction of the three major camps of Hongwu, and appointed himself the commander of the Shenji Battalion, with jurisdiction over all the battalions under his command.

Just then I woke up like a dream, knowing that everything was true, and quickly thanked God for his grace.

In order to allow him to settle his family in Beijing, the imperial court granted him a mansion in Beijing and silk fabrics.

"General, is there anything else?"

Yan Song looked at Qi Jingtong, who was only seven years older than him, but was now a second-grade military minister, and served in both the Fifth Army Governor's Mansion and the Beijing Army. He had a bright future.

I couldn't help but sigh secretly in my heart.

This time the emperor specially named him to accompany the army on the Eastern Expedition. At first, he thought that his talent was appreciated by his father, and that he would be promoted to an official position and rise to the top.

Therefore, before leaving, many of his colleagues in the Hanlin Academy and the Imperial Academy deliberately made trouble in front of him because they felt unhappy.

It caused a lot of trouble.

I felt very uncomfortable about this for a while.

However, as the Eastern Expedition army set out.

When he went on an expedition with his father, he didn't need to pay attention to his colleagues in the Hanlin Academy in Beijing who had nothing to do all day long because their lives were too empty and their mental state was too abstract.

pity--

Although he temporarily escaped the inexplicable criticism from his colleagues in Beijing.

But after getting along with each other in recent months, Jun's father seemed to just regard himself as a ruthless work machine.

Meeting recorder and data collector.

Although he was able to accompany the emperor to participate in many important and secret military meetings in the army.

But most of them only serve as data reviewers and clerks, without any chance to speak.

This made Yan Song, who had originally planned to take advantage of the opportunity of the Eastern Expedition to show off his talents in front of the emperor, feel a little aggrieved.

However, the name of the emperor's personal attendant is still a bit deceptive.

Even Chaozhongge Lao was quite polite when he saw me.

There is a lot of coaxing between words.

Compared with Yan Song's inner lament for his current situation.Qi Jingtong in front of him looked at the "emperor's close minister" in front of him. Recently, no matter what the emperor did, he had to have such a person by his side. In his heart, he felt sorry for this secretary who was less than ten years younger than him and had just turned forty this year. The official was full of envy.

Regardless of his high official position, it is the last word to be close to the emperor and many governors.

Maybe one day there will be an opportunity, and the court will be happy and prosperous.

Even though a foreign general like himself came to Beijing and seemed to have a high and powerful position, he was still somewhat separated from the imperial court.

Maybe one day he will be inexplicably involved in the whirlpool of party disputes between North Korea and China, and be used as a gunman, and then he will be exploited and expropriated, and his whole family will be exiled...

Thinking about it this way, it is better to be a close servant of the emperor. Even if something happens and he is involved in the disputes between many forces in the court——

The emperor will probably miss some old feelings, and even if he can't let himself go, he probably won't involve his family.

In this way, two civil and military officials of the imperial court who each envied the other's life were in an atmosphere where the river was surging and the shouts of killing shook the sky.

Silently carrying out his mission in the court.

After hearing Yan Song's words, Qi Jingtong was silent for a moment.

Answered with cupped hands.

"The firearms of the Shenji Battalion are already in place and can be fired at any time. The only worry is that I don't know when the fleet will arrive, so that I can order the artillery team to retreat in time to avoid accidental damage-"

Qi Jingtong said this sincerely.

Although the court had received news half a month ago, the Ministry of Industry was ordered to build the first batch of warships in the south together with Frankie craftsmen.

But where to recruit experienced sailors who can go to sea and fight has always been a big problem.

After all, the Ming Dynasty had abandoned the ocean for many years after Yongle, and now it was not an easy task to reorganize an ocean-going fleet that could travel across the oceans and explore the world's borders.

Who knows when those bureaucrats who squat in the yamen and eat empty wages every day will be more efficient and gather an entire army to support the imperial court's Eastern Expedition.

"This--"

Hearing this question, Yan Song was a little confused for a moment.

After all, I had been ordered by His Majesty to issue edicts to the provinces upstream that were supervising the construction of warships, but the answers I received were all "It's almost, it's soon", "Let's start the ship as soon as possible", "If the imperial court can't believe it, others can't believe me?" "We are in Zhejiang. He is famously fast, he will definitely arrive on time and catch up with the final battle."

Such nonsense——

Although I have already scolded these local officials who knew how to do the opposite to the court all day long in my heart countless times.

However, as someone who stayed by the emperor's side to sort out the documents, he had to personally check and examine every edict and imperial newspaper, and record it deeply in his mind. Whenever the emperor checked it, he could quickly find it from the file box and submit it. It was handed over to the emperor's bachelor of the Hanlin Academy.

Of course, Yan Song preferred the name the emperor called him on weekdays.

Clerk.

The official who wrote the record is indeed somewhat appropriate when I think about it.

Sometimes Yan Song thought about it as if he was having fun while sorting through the mountains of documents from all over the empire.

But now, I heard Qi Jingtong's inquiry.

Yan Song was really in trouble for a while.

Officials from various places responsible for supervising the construction of warships kept saying that the warships would arrive on time.

But whether they can catch up with the decisive battle, Yan Song saw that the medium-sized ship's establishment of 650 people was short of 500 people——

These are the provinces along the Yangtze River with developed water transportation.

Under the premise that there are many groups of sailors and fishermen with excellent water skills.

It can be seen that in the past few decades, because the imperial court abandoned the ocean, it caused great harm to the shipbuilding and ocean-going industries of the Ming Dynasty.

Is it possible that we can only follow the ideas of some people in the DPRK and directly recruit people from the fleets of the southeastern gentry for ocean smuggling trade to fill the vacancies?

(End of this chapter)