As soon as the sky was dawn, Pu Gu Chengen had been busy for a while.

The saint held a grand court meeting today, and all civil and military officials and local officials in Qizhou attended. After the court meeting, the saint would also summon a considerable number of officials to ask questions. At this time, the meal should be provided, and all the food should be supervised by Pugu Chengen.

"Are you ready?" Pu Gu Chengen stepped into the temporary wooden house and asked as he looked at the meal being cooked.

"It's almost done, I will definitely finish before going to court." The palace servant replied.

Pu Gu Chengen nodded, but did not leave, but stood there, watching the palace servants, and the yellow gate was busy.

The saint is a martial artist who practices long-term practices of muscles and bones, long spears, bows, and heavy swords all year round. From time to time, he gathers to play polo or goes to the mountains to hunt.

In fact, Pu Gu Chengen was a little confused. He was the lord of the world, why did he still have to practice these things? Isn’t it tired? But he didn’t dare to ask, so he could only observe and guess by himself. In his opinion, his years of martial arts career has made the saints accustomed to these things. If he doesn’t often dance guns and sticks, he feels uncomfortable all over.

Duke Li Tangbin of Lu also had this problem. He practiced hard all the time early in the morning, and sometimes he practiced with his nephews, shouting and shouting, and his murderous aura was incomprehensible.

These martial artists can’t even enjoy themselves, they are born to work hard. Thinking about it darkly, there may be a strong desire to kill in their hearts. Once they are idle, this desire cannot be suppressed and they have to divert their attention through other ways.

But then again, it’s better to have nothing to do and cut human flesh into pieces with a knife and eat and play with it, right?

The palace servant uncovered the lid of the steamer and a plate of fish was steamed.

Pu Gu Chengen came to his senses and went up to take a look.

From the time of Lingxia, the saint's breakfast is made of pig, fish, chicken, and corn porridge. Sometimes it is replaced by sour sauce, cheese and other foods.

Today I practiced martial arts and held a grand court meeting. I consumed a lot of energy. Pu Gu Cheng En specially made a big cod steamer - this name was given by a saint.

In addition to cod, there are also stone-headed fish (big yellow croaker), which is prepared for court officials.

Pu Gu’s kindness is proven one by one. He mainly looks at the size of the fish, and he carefully selects them to ensure the size is consistent. The court officials who participated in the right question were not simple. Others gave large fish and small fish, and they would offend people inadvertently.

The sound of footsteps sounded outside the kitchen, and after a while, a small yellow door came over and came to Pu Gu Chengen's ear and reported softly.

"Okay, put the lunch box immediately and enter the palace." Pu Gu Chengen waved his hand and ordered.

The palace people quickly packed their meals, then carried the food boxes, followed Pu Gu Chengen and walked into the palace.

There are many houses outside the palace, all of which were built last month for civil and military officials to live in.

It takes not a day or two for the saint to go on a tour. The officials naturally need to live in a place, so wouldn’t they have to log wood and build a house? When it gets cold and if the saint hasn’t left yet, these houses will have to be renovated.

There was a stone staircase outside the main gate of Taishan Palace, full of palace guards who were following him. They carefully checked the food boxes of the palace servants before putting them in.

Pu Gu Chengen silently calculated the time and carefully controlled his pace. When he arrived at the gate of the side hall, the saints, prime ministers and Privy Councilors had just sat down.

Shanggong Jie nodded to him. Pu Gu did not dare to neglect his grace, so he ran away and led the palace people into the side hall.

"The Jin army had roughly two groups of troops. One was Li Keyong's army personally led by him, who went to Luzhou and entered Xingming and Mengci, and the offensive was very urgent. The other was from Youzhou. He was led by Li Cunzhang, the left-behind Youzhou, and according to Zang Zhao's envoy, the crowd reached tens of thousands of people and followed and pursued them all the way, with a high morale." An old but heavy voice sounded in the side hall. I didn't need to see that it was Chen Cheng, the Minister of the Secretariat.

He ordered the palace servants to take out the meals and place them one by one in front of each person's desk. Then he did not dare to stay. After the ceremony, he retreated.

"This is the handsome taste of the East China Sea and the food is so wonderful. It is better to take a break for a while, otherwise the fish will be eaten by our monarch and ministers." Shao Shude joked.

Chen Cheng also smiled and said, "Stone-headed croaker is a good thing."

The word xiǎng is said to be invented by King Helu of Wu. It is beautiful and fish on the top and lower. It can be seen that Helu also likes to eat big yellow croaker. Of course, as a kind of sea fish with a large production along China's coastal areas, it is normal for big yellow croaker to be sought after.

In the Song Dynasty, Fan Chengda still recorded: "Fishing with ice is undefeated." Some people insisted on eating fresh fish, so after fishermen caught it, they could only sprinkle ice cubes and deliver them all the way to "Wujun".

To be honest, this is a bit extravagant. I don’t know who was an official in Suzhou at that time, and the requirements were so high. Normal wealthy families could only eat the kind of "coarse salt-pickled" and air-dried stone-headed horns hanging on the mast.

Shao Shude focused on dealing with the cod in front of him. The cod cut into pieces was steamed just right, and he ate happily.

Because this kind of fish lives in deeper waters, it was difficult to catch nets in ancient times. The area of ​​Europe started with the Vikings and fished on the sea. There were more than a dozen fishing rods on a boat, which was also a wonder from a distance.

The cod caught is often about one meter long, with a big and round belly and tender flesh. Europeans have been catching it for about hundreds of years and have lost all the world-class Newfoundland fishing grounds and used all the terrible nets, completely ignoring the interests of future generations. It is reported that billions of catching were captured, creating the famous era of "protein dividend".

During the Industrial Revolution, the height of Europeans increased by ten centimeters every hundred years, which was inseparable from the large intake of protein. In comparison, the population of the Qing Dynasty surged, far exceeding that of Europe, but everyone only had sweet potatoes to eat, and their height decreased and they were too thin. This low-quality population growth was really meaningless and was not qualified to be a soldier.

"It's a pity that it's not fresh fish." Shao Shude sighed: "I really want to get on the ships of the Ping Navy and go out to sea with them."

"Your Majesty, no!" Pei Zhi immediately advised.

Shao Shude laughed and said, "I joke."

Pei Zhi was relieved and said, "The situation on the sea is unpredictable. The Chishui Army can have an accident, but Your Majesty must not happen."

The Chishui Army General boarded the ship in batches from Denglaiqing and attacked Youzhou across the sea, which was not a secret for the important officials. Pei Zhi was really afraid that the saint would be interested and wanted to board the ship. Isn't that a nonsense? If something happened on the way, the new dynasty would be over, and no one could control the situation. Even if everyone was still thinking about Shaw's kindness and barely guaranteed a certain prince to ascend the throne, judging by the current trend, there would inevitably be chaos, and the possibility of death in the second lifetime was very high.

"Your Majesty, when talking about going to sea, the Chishui Army has been waiting for a long time. I don't know when it can set off?" asked the Privy Councilor Yang.

"I will not interfere in this matter," said Shao Shude: "Ge Congzhou is on the front line, and he knows the situation of the Jin army best. If we intervene rashly, it may not be beautiful."

The Chishui Army's goal is very clear, it is Youzhou.

According to the information he heard at this time, the main force of the Jin army in Youzhou had already moved south and rushed straight to Cangzhou. Shao Shude felt that he should praise Xia Zang Dubao. The commander, who made his fortune by becoming the first warriors when attacking Lingzhou, was very clear-headed. After learning that the Jin army had reached the Lutai Army, he sent the capital Youyi envoy Wang Jian and lured the enemy, fought and retreated, heading south, making him farther and farther away from Youzhou.

For the sake of reality, a lot of bait was indeed placed along the way. Once, the fraudulent defeat turned into a real defeat, and a lot of manpower was lost.

On July 25, news came from the city of Cangzhou that the Jin army had captured the lives of Jingsai and Lu Long had already set up camp twenty miles north of the city and sent cavalry south to harass the Xia army in the siege.

Zang Dubao, the Eastern Road recruitment envoy, had ordered the troops to shrink and rectify and strengthen camps to prepare for the Jin army. However, the siege operations still did not stop. Wei Bo, Luoyang, Huaihai Master, various servants and even imperial guards took turns to fight and attack endlessly.

After the defenders knew that reinforcements were approaching, their morale was greatly boosted. Lu Yanwei's son Lu Jun dispersed all his wealth and rewarded the troops to inspire morale. As for the effect, it looked good, and he defended the city even harder.

From a military perspective, it is most taboo to defend the city. If there are no reinforcements outside, as time goes by, the defenders will gradually become depressed and their morale will continue to decline. After reaching the critical point, they will easily collapse. If there are reinforcements, they will have hope and can maintain a relatively good morale, which will be difficult to fight.

Cangzhou and Dezhou are now two typical examples.

The former had a strong morale, and the Xia army seemed to have almost no hope of breaking the city. The latter had a increasingly low morale. The Xia army even adopted the method of encirclement from all sides. The defenders could not access external information at all. They were under tremendous mental pressure and gradually could not hold on. It was just a sign now, but if they continued to defend, it would be a matter of time before they collapsed.

As for Nanpi, who was defending by Lu Yanwei, Ge Congzhou was insufficient in military force and did not adopt a frontal attack. The two sides are currently mainly confrontation, and the cavalry of Dingnan Army even went deep into Chengde to plunder and attack the enemy's aura. For this reason, they fought repeatedly with the Chengde cavalry, and both sides suffered heavy casualties.

In such a situation of the Northern Expedition, the Xia army could only say that it had the upper hand, and the Cangjing army was not at risk of collapse in a short period of time. Perhaps it was this perception that made the Jin army increase its bargaining chips and decide to make a desperate rescue.

In Shao Shude's opinion, it is not time to execute cross-sea attack commands.

Li Cunzhang's troops had not yet all assembled to Cangzhou, and the troops who arrived first were still cautious. They set foot in twenty miles north of the city, and their morale remained in a strong state and had to be further ground.

"Your Majesty, Li Keyong has defeated Wu'an and is in charge of command. Should we remind the two generals Cai and Lu?" Chen Cheng asked.

Li Keyong brought a lot of troops when he went out of Luzhou in the east, but in terms of strength, he was still not as good as Tiande and Wuwei's two armies. Logically, there was no need to worry. However, Shao Shude also understood what Chen Cheng meant. He was worried about Cai Songyang, and Lu Huaizhong relied on his strength and gathered the main force to fight Li Ke for a decisive battle.

Compared with the three-game two-game winning system and five-game three-game winning system, fools know which one is more accidental. Li Keyong should be asking for a battle to decide the world. Even if he loses a lot, he also wants to do a one-time deal and take advantage of his luck. What if the wind direction is beneficial to them that day, or if there are other accidents?

Therefore, everything he did now was to force the Tiande Army and the Wuwei Army to fight him. If it were usual, this would be fine, because Shao Shude could afford to lose. But now he has a bigger goal, so Chen Cheng would not recommend doing this.

"Mr. Chen's words are reasonable, but now what we compare is patience." Shao Shude put down his chopsticks and said, "In the past, Li Shimin's army was strong and strong. Qianshuiyuan was against Xue Ju, Hulao Pass was against Dou Jiande, and Mingshui was against Liu Heita. They still fought for dozens of days, and the walls were not out, and the most favorable fighter appeared. I also have this patience, but-"
Chapter completed!