Chapter 1064: Secret Struggle

"His Majesty is wise!"

After Liu Fu shouted this loudly, the civil and military officials all shouted out as well.

Clearly, they were all very satisfied with this result; even the officials of the Jinling faction, who had originally been anxious in their hearts, smoothed their brows.

Setting aside the Yang Family and the Mi Family, who were imperial relatives, the New Emperor had allowed Ma Yuan to enter the Cabinet.

This put the minds of the War Faction officials, who had once stood with Ma Yuan, Yang Feng, and the others, at ease.

At the very least, this indicated that after the New Emperor ascended the throne, he had not completely abandoned them.

Having selected the candidates for the Cabinet, Zhao Xu decided to dismiss the court.

What remained were merely matters of execution.

Thus, he nodded to Xiao Guizi.

"If you have matters to report, present them; if not, withdraw from court!" Xiao Guizi shouted with his neck stretched straight.

"Long live our Emperor, long, long live." The civil and military officials understood and began to chant in unison.

Zhao Xu rose amidst the loud chanting of the officials and headed toward the sleeping quarters.

Once Zhao Xu had departed, the ministers also dispersed happily.

Before Yan Wang ascended the throne, they were Zhao Heng's subjects; now, they were the New Emperor's legitimate subjects.

From now on, they would act with even greater justification.

However, as they left, they vaguely formed into four groups.

Liu Fu, Chang Wei, and the other civil and military officials of the Yanzhou faction were one group, the Yang Family was one group, and the Mi Family was one group.

There were many officials surrounding Liu Fu and Chang Wei, Yang Feng, and Mi Yan.

The last one was Ma Yuan, but the area around him was cold and desolate; he was all alone.

Regarding this, he did not care in the slightest, a smile merely playing on the corners of his mouth.

This smile was one of joy for Zhao Heng's abdication and Yan Wang's ascension to the throne.

While everyone was leaving, Zhao Xu arrived at the sleeping quarters.

The Abdication Ceremony had already concluded, and Zhao Heng and Mi Huanghou had moved to his former prince's mansion.

Now, the entire Wuji Palace belonged solely to him, this Emperor of the Great Song.

While the Abdication Ceremony was taking place, the actions of the Great Song military and various forces were also unfolding at different times throughout the day.

On the front line of the standoff at the border between Tianzhu and the Piaoman Kingdom, under the instructions of Western Lands officers, a unit composed of three thousand soldiers bypassed the trench front line and entered the dense forest on the left, preparing to launch a surprise attack on the Great Song military from the flank before immediately withdrawing.

But they had just reached the halfway point when they suddenly heard dense cannon fire from the right, followed immediately by intense explosions.

They then received orders to withdraw, because the Great Song military had launched an attack on the high ground to the right.

When they returned to the trench fortifications, the sound of artillery had already ceased, and a Colonel looked utterly dejected.

"The Great Song military has already occupied the high ground under the cover of artillery fire; they have been planning this for a long time." The Colonel looked defeated.

The artillery bombardment just now was truly terrifying; the entire hilltop was covered by fire, as if they intended to blow the mountain top away.

Without a doubt, it was difficult for their soldiers guarding the hilltop to survive.

And after the bombardment, the Great Song military immediately charged up; the transition was extremely skillful.

However, they had been scared to death at first, thinking that the Great Song was about to launch a full-scale offensive.

Unexpectedly, the Great Song military only occupied the high ground on the right.

But even so, it left them quite depressed.

"Damn it, we cannot let them take advantage of us for nothing; we should continue to execute our sneak attack plan," said the officer in charge of the raid.

Upon hearing this, the Colonel gave a bitter smile, "Better not take this risk. The high ground is no longer ours; once you are exposed, the Great Song military on the high ground can cut off your retreat, and by then, not a single one of you will return."

If they sacrificed two men to trade for one, this business could still be done.

But risking the total annihilation of the entire force, with the possibility of not achieving any results at all, there was no need to do such a thing.

Immediately, he added, "I will report this to General Wesley; he will understand us. Right now, we need to preserve our effective strength."

Songyang Pass.

Just as dawn was breaking, after a burst of gunfire and artillery, the soldiers of the Ashuer Tribe, leaving behind over a thousand corpses, fled back into the deep mountains in a sorry state.

They had intended to launch a sneak attack at dawn, but they did not expect the Songyang Pass garrison to be as alert as they were before the war, even setting up bells outside the city, which caused their sneak attack to fail and resulted in many deaths for nothing.

As the remaining remnants returned to the valley, Ashuer immediately gnashed his teeth.

He gnashed his teeth as if he had swallowed a fly.

Just as he was fuming, soldiers suddenly came to report that the Gun Cavalry of Songyang Pass had left the city to pursue them.

Ashuer was so frightened that he immediately mounted his Warhorse and fled deep into Tibet.

While Ashuer was suffering a setback, a troop of cavalry from the Western Regions Protectorate was escorting over eight thousand Beidi herdsmen and tens of thousands of cattle and sheep back to Tongguan.

Behind them, the camp of a Beidi tribe was engulfed in raging flames.

Near the camp lay the corpses of over five hundred Beidi cavalrymen.

They were the Western Regions Protectorate cavalry who had been ordered to wipe out this Beidi tribe and present a gift to Yan Wang.

Looking back at his spoils of war, the leading cavalry commander wore a look of joy.

To him, this operation was certainly a gift, but it was also the beginning of the Western Regions Protectorate wiping out the Beidi.

As the Army achieved results one after another or thwarted the enemy's schemes, Gong Ying also breathed a sigh of relief.

Under the strict defense of the Great Song Navy, the Sam Country Warships did not break through the blockade of the island chain.

And the fleet he dispatched instead successfully captured a freshwater supply point of the Sam Country.

These pieces of news were delivered one after another in the ten days following Zhao Xu's ascension to the throne.

Seeing these battle reports, Zhao Xu only felt it was laughable.

Clearly, his enemies had reached a state of obsession in their attempts to cause him trouble.

But this also showed just how much his enemies hated him.

However, the more the enemies hated him, the more it proved he was doing the right thing.

At the same time, he also received intelligence that the second batch of reinforcements from the Western Lands had arrived.

Over the next month or two, this batch of reinforcements would arrive in several successive waves.

For him, this was exactly what he wanted.

The airships and the remaining Ironclad Warships also needed time to be commissioned one after another.

Once all the reinforcements of the Westerners had arrived, the preparations of the Great Song army would also be complete.

By then, he would let the Westerners understand what a living hell truly was.

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