Seeing that the person who came was already soaked, the robe was tightly wrapped around his body, shivering from the cold. Zhao Yu hurriedly ordered Tian Qi to take him to change into dry clothes, and then instructed Xiao Huangmen to cook some hot ginger soup to ward off the cold.

"Your Majesty Xie cares, but the lower officials have an order, so they don't dare to delay!" But the person who came gave a deep salute, and shivered to pick off the wooden fish tied to his waist, and threw it to the ground. The wooden fish shattered, revealing a small oilcloth bag, which he picked up and presented with both hands.

"Good, good! If your body is important, go and change your clothes first, don't freeze to death. Let the healer take a look at the wounds on his body and take care of the wounds on his body, and it will be too late later. Zhao Yu took the oilcloth bag, his hands trembled, and he felt that the small package seemed to weigh a thousand pounds, and he was a little excited.

"Retire!" The person who came completed the task, his spirit relaxed, and his body softened, and he didn't fall down because of Tian Qi's support, but he still insisted on giving a salute and retreating.

Tian Qi and the others retired, and Zhao Yu ordered Tan Fei to send the information sent to Chen Shishi to crack it, and send it back as soon as the decipherment was completed. Although he didn't know what news was in the intelligence, but now that his eyes were black, he was still excited, and the depression just now was swept away.

"Official, how come someone is a master?" Wang De arranged a matter of urgency, changed a cup of hot tea for His Majesty, and asked curiously.

"Wang De, you are known to the Imperial City Division, and the people in the Affairs Bureau are also your subordinates, but you don't know anything about them, do you want to cure you for dereliction of duty!" Zhao Yu sat down and took a sip of tea, and asked with a smile.

"The official family should not wronged the old slave, but the old slave of the affairs bureau has never asked, and he has no idea what they are doing." When Wang De heard this, he immediately complained. Although he is in charge of the Imperial City Division, he knows that the Secretariat is His Majesty's forbidden body, and he does extremely secret things, and he does not allow others to interfere, and he is a cover. And he knew that the less he knew about it, the better, so he never inquired or asked.

"You're very knowledgeable, but I've been using monks as spies for a long time, and it's nothing new." Zhao Hao explained with a smile.

"It's really the first time that the old slave has heard that the monks in the temple are all outsiders, how can they be willing to do such a secret thing for the imperial court!" Wang De nodded and asked again.

"Hehe, there is naturally a secret in it, I'll tell you about it!" Zhao Hao smiled again.

"If the old slave doesn't listen, don't hurt the old slave!" Wang De quickly covered his ears when he heard this, and said in a panic.

"Haha, you're getting better at acting!" Zhao Yu laughed when he saw this, he actually understood in his heart that Wang De saw that he was depressed for days, and deliberately relieved himself of his worries like this, so naturally he would not take it seriously.

However, the use of monks, officials, and merchants for espionage has long been practiced in ancient times, and in fact it is also the case in modern times. For example, the story of Master Jin's use of the beggar gang to spy on military intelligence needs to be verified, and it can also be regarded as a joke.

In fact, after the founding of the Song Dynasty, it faced the threat of Liao and Western Xia, and intelligence stations for the two countries were also launched, and the most important intelligence channels were Huiyi Trade and Rongchang. Both the Liao State and the Western Xia were in urgent need of silk tea from the Northern Song Dynasty, and an important source of wealth for the Western Xia government was the silk tea trade of the Northern Song Dynasty; The Liao State also absorbed the goods of the Northern Song Dynasty on the borders of Shanxi and Hebei, and the Khitan resale trade even made Central Asian merchants use the Khitan as a synonym for China.

Due to the needs of commerce, the generals of the Song Dynasty often presided over the Hui Yi caravans headed by themselves, on the one hand, to enrich the collective small treasury, and on the other hand, to collect intelligence on the enemy country. Western Xia and Liao knew about this matter, but they couldn't stop it, so they had to let it go. The border changer became a center for the exchange of information, a government-run trade center for enemy countries.

The Liao State established Yangcheng, Zhuozhou and other fields in Hebei, and the Song Dynasty also established Yizhou, Xiongzhou, Bazhou and other places-for-tat. There was a similar feud between the Song and Western Xia. The field was heavily managed, and the iron trade in the grasslands was strictly forbidden in the Liao State, and only merchants and magnates who were recognized by both sides could enter and leave freely.

In addition, there are many smuggling merchant groups on the border that are closely related to Jiangmen to collect intelligence, and the changes in the price of horses and iron tools on the border can make people deduce a lot of valuable information. The speed room of the Southern Song Dynasty also used overseas trade to collect intelligence.

Both the Liao and Western Xia were very Buddhists, and they often used monks as spies in their spy wars with the Song dynasty. The Liao State once sent people to forge the monks of the Song Dynasty, pretending to be monks to the Northern Song Dynasty to spy on intelligence, and Li Yun, an official of the Song Dynasty, also shaved the monks to the Liao State to return the color. The two Song Dynasty also often sent diplomats to act as intelligence collectors, and the well-known Bao Daren collected intelligence during his mission to Liao, and he also made great contributions to border counter-espionage activities.

Therefore, the money gang of the Shangguan gang leader in the ancient master should be a good source of information, they are the richest gang in the world, and naturally have the capital to carry out this kind of big business. And the members of the beggar gang are precisely the most unsuitable candidates, they can't enter the official field at all, and it is difficult to get food by calling Huazi in the Liao and Western Xia countries, where food and population are scarce, and it is the most abnormal phenomenon that there are many Huazi in the hinterland of these two countries.

In addition, several capitals of the Liao State and Western Xia were not their power centers at all, and even if the members of the beggar gang begged for food there every day, they could not get effective information. And the beggar gang had a bad reputation in ancient times, even if the limitations of intelligence collection were very large, but if the Shaolin Temple had a heart, it could also become a golden supporting role in the intelligence war.

The same is true of the Bureau, where the spies in the field have a legal identity to the outside world, and this identity may not be prominent, but they all have a stable occupation, so that they can hide their true identities and use the cover of their profession to lurk in the shadows to gather intelligence. For example, the spies in the army, they will be as a general, a marquis, a city guard at the gate, or an ordinary scribe in the baggage battalion, in short, inconspicuous, but easy to access secrets. A low-grade official and cabinet member in the various ministries of the imperial court, and a small official who runs errands are also suitable identities.

Of course, the information that Zhao Yu needs is not all top secret, and it may only be ordinary information about the local harvest this autumn, how much pork costs a pound, and how much rain it is. For example, the post stations all over the country are also important channels for intelligence sources, and the composition of the people who stay in the lodging is complex, including officials, merchants, scholars, and peddlers and pawns, who have different identities and come from different classes, as long as they are careful and only from small talk, they can get the information they need.

And the so-called all-round masters who are like zero-zero-seven, relying on the means of fighting, killing and killing to obtain intelligence, are actually considered alternative among spies, and they are also acts of death. Because of his handsome face, his seemingly handsome behavior is very easy to attract the attention of his opponent. And once he is watched, then he does nothing, and his value is not as good as that of a cleaner. And if the identity is dug up, it is not far from death.

As violent agencies, the use of force must also exist, just like the operational teams of the Bureau, they generally do not participate in intelligence gathering, but cooperate with intelligence officers. Forcibly seize information by force, or eliminate a predetermined target, and then leave with one blow, whether it succeeds or not. If the guard battalion is compared to a shield, then the action team is a spear, and this is also the reason why Zheng Huchen wants to transfer an action team to Zhao Yu's side, because the killer is the most familiar with the killer's methods.

As he spoke, Chen Shishi sent the translated information over, and Zhao Yu, who was eager to understand the battle situation in Jingxiang, couldn't wait to read it. The article writes that after Jiang Cheng led his troops to Xiangyang, he first cleared the outlying strongholds, and the process was not much different from the battle report. However, Jiang Cheng's battle report did not mention that after the capture of Fancheng, the various ministries had disagreements on how to attack Xiangyang.

Pan Nian, the commander of the Sixth Army, thought that Xiangyang had strong troops, and the city was high and deep, and the Mongolian army used tens of thousands of troops to break through Xiangyang, with tens of thousands of casualties and horses, and besieged the city for seven years before it was forced to land Lu Wenhuan. At present, although the Mongol army is numerous, due to the sudden rise of our army, the food and material reserves in the city are insufficient, in order to avoid heavy casualties, we should adopt the strategy of long-term siege, and wait for the enemy's food to run out before attacking the city.

The commander of the Seventh Army, Wu Long, thought that he should follow the order and quickly descend to Xiangyang, and concentrate all his forces to storm the city. Zhang Ba, the commander of the Eighth Army, did not oppose the attack, but he had a tactical disagreement with Wu Longqi, thinking that the siege should be launched from the south, which is also the direction of attack in the past. However, Wu Longqi believed that the terrain of Xiangyang was special, and pressing all forces in one direction would allow the enemy to concentrate his forces to defend it, and he should launch a surprise attack from multiple directions.

The three of them argued, and Jiang Cheng could not make a decision, so he personally inspected the terrain in order to choose the direction of the main attack. However, in the process of reconnaissance, it was detected by the enemy, so he set up an ambush in the middle of the river, used a giant wood as a raft, and lowered it from the upstream to ram the warship on which it was riding. Jiang Cheng was unprepared, and the ship was rammed and sunk, and he was also seriously injured, resulting in the siege temporarily running aground.

Jiang Cheng then asked for another commander to preside over the Jingxiang War, while stationing the three armies in Fancheng, west of Xiangyang and in the mountains in the south to escape the scorching heat, and forming a siege to prevent the enemy from reinforcing the city. However, due to the heavy rainfall, the water level of the Han River and several tributaries rose, and Zhang Ba, the defender of Fancheng, was worried that the enemy army would build a dam to cut off the flow of water and flood the city, so he wanted to withdraw from Fancheng.

Jiang Cheng then mobilized Wu Longqi's troops stationed in the west of Xiangyang to attack Gucheng, and Zhang Ba's troops moved to Dengcheng to maintain the siege situation. However, Wu Long's attack on Gucheng was frustrated, so he transferred Zhang Ba's troops to reinforce, and Xiangyang took advantage of the empty force of Fancheng to cross the river to reoccupy Fancheng, and opened up the road to Nanyang, so that the enemy reinforcements entered Xiangyang......

()