It was almost June and it was already very hot. Mosquitoes were buzzing around the lantern, thinking endlessly. A Bao was lying on the desk and fast asleep. Guo Wei, wearing a small silk coat, was lying on the desk with his eyes squinted as he read the memorial. Even though Li Tingfang She was fanning him gently on the side, still sweating all over her head.

After finishing reviewing the last memorial, Guo Wei threw the brush in his hand on the table, sighed and slumped down on the chair, "It's done. My eyesight is not good and my energy is low. I'm really old!"

Guo Wei's words are absolutely true. Perhaps due to excessive sadness, his body is aging rapidly, his hair and beard have turned more than half gray, his eyes have begun to blur, and his mental state is not a little worse than before."

Li Tingfang said: "If your Majesty is tired, you should go back to the harem to rest early. Concubine De has already sent people to urge you twice."

Concubine Dong was Guo Wei's fourth wife, but she did not marry him after he ascended the throne. After Liu Zhiyuan raised troops in Taiyuan and entered Henan, he sent Guo Wei to capture Luoyang Shina's concubine. Interestingly, this Dong was also a widow.

During the Qianyou Incident, the Dong family was able to escape disaster by serving Guo Wei in Yedu with the army. After Guo Wei proclaimed himself emperor, he named her a virtuous concubine. Without any new concubines, she was regarded as the master of the harem.

"It's too late. Concubine De should be sleeping at this time. I won't disturb her. She will rest in the back room tonight. Go and make me a cup of tea!"

Li Tingfang took the white porcelain jar on the table and used a small spoon to scoop the last bit of tea leaves together with the foam into the tea bowl, "Your Majesty, this is the only tea left, why don't you change it to the old one."

"If you don't want to change it, just put in less water!"

Looking at the half cup of tea soup handed by Li Tingfang, Guo Wei took a sip gently and said, "This still tastes better!" Suddenly he heard Abao squeaking twice under the table, and he said with a smile: "You guys are stupid. Zhu'er is talking in his sleep! Well, his goods haven't arrived yet?"

"Probably not, otherwise Baba would have sent it to His Majesty a long time ago. He wouldn't dare to pay attention to what you ordered."

"Sigh... I should have known that I wouldn't have given it to Old Ghost Feng. This old man drinks his own at home and comes to rub mine every day after going to court. Fortunately, I really thought he was here to discuss scriptures and Taoism with me. , it’s really shameless.”

"It is difficult to deal with people who have become masters in life, Master Feng!"

"By the way, what did that guy Xu Xian do today?"

He knew about the fight between Xu Xian and Li Chongjin, because he was the referee appointed by Xu Xian. Guo Wei was very interested in this and had been paying close attention to him recently.

Li Tingfang took out the small bag she carried with her and opened it to find unopened wax pills. These were sent by Guo Wei's eyeliner in Beijing. Liu Chengyou, a second-rate emperor, knew how to arrange eyeliners. Guo Wei was a hundred times wiser than him. How could there not be.

"Team Xu is number nine!" Li Tingfang picked out a wax pill from the bag, rubbed it open, turned her head aside, and handed the note to Guo Wei.

"Oh, what a mess I made all day long. Not long ago, I led my men around Kaifeng, catching mice and eating bugs. I even had a six-foot-old man put on makeup and powder and change into women's clothes to talk to people. Today I climbed the city wall again. Yes, I have been in the military for thirty years, so why can’t I understand what he is doing?”

Li Tingfang chuckled and said, "Your Majesty doesn't even understand, let alone a eunuch. He is probably afraid of Li Dianzhi and wants to make excuses for losing."

"It doesn't seem like it. If he doesn't have to pay for his subordinates to eat human flesh for this reason, there must be something fishy that I don't understand."

"Your Majesty, you don't need to think so much. It will become clear when he competes with Li Dianzhi in a few days."

Guo Wei nodded and said: "Well, I am still the judge. Ignore him, you can open the other wax pills and read them to me." As he spoke, he took another sip of tea and shrank his body into the dragon chair.

Li Tingfang gently rubbed open the wax pill, "This belongs to Prime Minister Wang. Prime Minister Wang did not go to the office today. He took in a new concubine and held a banquet early in the morning. Master Feng gave him a set of words and kept them at his home.

meal, but I quit the show midway.”

"Well, keep going!"

"This place belongs to Mr. Li. At noon, Grand Master Feng made a host and invited him to a place called Changle House for a drink. Mr. Li didn't drink. Grand Master Feng was drunk. In the end, it was Mr. Li who settled the bill."

"Um!"

"Here belongs to Bachelor Fan. He went to Changle Building for a drink with Grand Master Feng after leaving the office in the evening. The waiter accidentally broke his long fingernail. The morale of Master Fan was so bad that he didn't want to pay the bill. He saw the female shopkeeper carrying a rolling pin. This is what he said.

Gave money."

"Haha... There is Taishi Feng in every one of them. Your Majesty can send less spies in the future and just keep an eye on Taishi Feng. Your Majesty?"

Not hearing Guo Wei's response, Li Tingfang raised her head and saw that Guo Wei had fallen asleep with his head tilted and snoring lightly...

The fifth day of the sixth lunar month was the day Xu Xian and Li Chongjin agreed to compete. To be more precise, it started at Zi Shizheng. The battlefield was not at the racecourse but outside Bianliang City. The area was a bit large.

, a radius of twenty miles outside Bianliang City.

Before dark, the two sides set up camp outside Zhuque Gate. They faced off across the official road from a distance. Li Chongjin looked at the dotted torches two or three miles away with an impatient expression. He carefully selected one hundred and five soldiers.

, everyone stood behind him with wooden guns in hand, eager to try.

Ordinary battles would not involve life-and-death battles with real weapons, which would in vain increase the casualties. Guo Wei refused, and the soldiers were even less skilled. All they used were wooden guns. To be precise, it was just a gun barrel with one end covered with quicklime.

linen cloth, even the arrows.

A young man of twenty-three or fourteen years old sat aside, holding a wine bag in his hand and taking a few sips from time to time. Seeing Li Zhongjin walking back and forth, he said: "Brother Zhongjin, why can't you keep calm?

Come over here and drink two glasses of wine as compensation. This is Yangmei wine from the south of the Yangtze River. It’s sour, sweet and refreshing.”

One of Xu Xian's conditions was to let Guo Wei be the referee, but Guo Wei did not have the ability to supervise the two armies at the same time, and it was impossible for him as an emperor to run out of Bianliang City at night to watch the two groups of recruits fight.

So Guo Wei sent two more deputy referees, mainly to monitor whether there were cheating or violations on both sides. The one assigned to Xu Xian was a Dian Ye from Kaifeng Mansion, and the one assigned to Li Chongjin was this young man.

Li Chongjin's identity was somewhat special. An ordinary official might be afraid of Li Chongjin's power and would be biased, but this one would not, because his identity was also very special. He was Guo Wei's son-in-law, Captain Zhang Yongde.

Although his son-in-law Guo Wei was also very interested in him, Zhang Yongde has been serving under him. When Guo Wei's family was killed, he was sending birthday gifts to Chang Yu, the military governor of Zhaoyi in Luzhou. Chang Yu had the imperial decree to go against him, so Zhang Yongde

Simply make it clear, "I know you want to kill me, but my father-in-law is not someone to be trifled with. You will know the consequences when he succeeds in slandering me."

Zhang Yongde fooled Chang Yu and saved his life. Because of this calmness and his relationship with his father-in-law, Guo Wei granted him the title of "inner palace" until he was emperor, and granted him the title of general and governor.

.

The so-called Xiaodi refers to young sergeants, and Xiaodi from the inner hall is the reserve force of the fourth squad in front of the palace. Originally, the three to four hundred newly recruited soldiers in front of the palace should be under his control, but Li Chongjin snatched them away in order to deal with Xu Xian.

Li Chongjin said angrily: "How can you keep me calm? I can't wait to rush over now and make him lose face!"

"The time has not come yet. If you rush over, you will lose. Your Majesty has told me to be fair. I will not help you cheat."

"There's no need to cheat when you're dealing with a young boy and a bunch of newcomers. You only gave me a cup of tea and I'll take care of them. I'll come back and drink with you later."

"Why do you insist on getting angry with a young boy? I can't sleep with you in the middle of the night. Why does this boy insist on starting a fight at night?" As soon as he finished speaking, he heard the faint sound of gongs coming from the top of the city.
Chapter completed!