After hearing Shi Hao's words, Zhao Xing's expression changed and he sighed heavily.

"Teacher, do you still want me to surrender? The battle has not yet been decided, and the Song Dynasty has not been helpless, so you let me surrender? I can't do such a thing!"

Shi Hao sighed.

"Your Majesty, Liu Qi was defeated, Wang Quan was defeated, and the imperial guards were also defeated. The three troops in the Jianghuai land were defeated by the Ming army. The Ming army marched straight into Lin'an, only more than 300 miles away. If you continue, how can you fight this battle?"

"The king's power has not been confirmed to fail! Maybe there is an army that can cut off the Ming army's food route! As long as we resist the Ming army's offensive in Huzhou, it will be enough to turn the situation around and let the Ming army suffer its own consequences!"

Zhao Xing waved his hand: "Anyway, I will never admit defeat in this battle, nor will I lose! Although my first battle since becoming an emperor is not what I want to happen, now I have no choice but to fight!"

Zhao Xing's expression was very firm, and his words were full of uncontroversial determination.

Shi Hao still wanted to continue persuading, but Zhao Xing refused to accept it.

"Teacher, I have made it clear. It seems that it is my destiny to face such a thing as soon as I ascend the throne, but I will never believe that I am destined to achieve nothing. I can only be an incompetent emperor who surrenders as soon as I ascend the throne! I will never believe it!

If God destined me to be an incompetent emperor who accomplished nothing, then let the Ming army break through Lin'an, humiliate me and even kill me, but it is impossible to ask me to surrender and ask me to bend my knees! I am a descendant of Taizu, and the descendants of Taizu will never bend my knees!"

Zhao Xing was very determined to resist and would never surrender.

As a descendant of Zhao Kuangyin, he decided to use practical actions to show the differences between him and Zhao Guangyi's descendants.

Seeing that persuasion was useless, Shi Hao had no choice but to take his leave and think about what to do after the defeat of the Song Dynasty.

The Ming Dynasty affirmed that the lion's words would definitely make the Song Dynasty very uncomfortable, but how to mediate through diplomatic means to strive for diplomatic victory for the Song Dynasty is a technology.

Weak diplomacy may not be without a chance of victory, which is certain.

Although it's just a relative victory.

Since Shi Hao's persuasion was meaningless, the other ministers who wanted to persuade Zhao Sheng to surrender naturally gave up and no longer tried to persuade Zhao Sheng to give up this battle.

However, the gathering of more and more bad news has caused the court to be turbulent and Lin'an City has also caused turbulence.

News from Jiaxing Prefecture said that the navy sent troops to land on Jiaxing Prefecture and destroyed several very important salt fields.

They killed the salt officer, plundered all the salt dips, destroyed all the salt making tools, and sent people to stay in the local area, making the salt field unable to operate and produce salt.

Jiaxing Prefecture is now in a state of turmoil, and many people choose to take their families to escape to a safer place further north. The order of Jiaxing Prefecture is very chaotic and the armed forces are seriously insufficient. As long as the Ming army launches an attack, Jiaxing Prefecture will definitely not be able to hold on.

The salt tax was a very important fiscal revenue of the Southern Song Dynasty and a material that people must need for survival. Officials did not expect that the Ming army navy began to attack the salt field.

Moreover, since they attacked the salt fields in Jiaxing Prefecture, it is hard to say that they would not attack the salt fields in other areas. If the main salt fields in the coastal areas were attacked and controlled by the Ming army, then the Southern Song Dynasty would face extremely serious salt panic.

Although there is well salt in Sichuan, far-flung water cannot quench near thirst!

This is not the only bad news, there is also bad news.

The Ming army navy blocked Suzhou Ocean and completely intercepted ships traveling to Lin'an from all over the world, seized the ships, and drove all the people on the ship to the shore, triggering a wave of refugees.

They lost their livelihood and suffered heavy losses. They asked for help from the local Southern Song government. The government was as big as a fight and didn't know what to do, so they could only throw the blame to Lin'an.

But Lin'an himself is in great difficulty.

Since the Ming army controlled Suzhou Ocean, for many days, no ship carrying supplies could arrive in Lin'an from Suzhou Ocean. Lin'an City is facing a serious shortage of materials and no solution can be seen in a short period of time.

The direct consequence of this situation is that many things in Lin'an City have begun to increase their prices.

Because of this wave of price increases, some unscrupulous merchants tried to seize the opportunity to make money from the national crisis. They obviously did not lack sources, but they followed the price increase.

The first thing that rose was the grain price.

For feudal dynasties, no matter whenever there is turmoil or any restless factor, the price of grain will always rise first, just like a precursor to a bad era. As long as the price of grain rises, the turmoil will immediately occur.

This time, the same is true. The news of Suzhou Ocean being blocked came, and Lin'an's grain prices rose accordingly.

It is obvious that most of the grain in Lin'an did not arrive by sea, and land and water transportation is the big one, but it doesn't matter. The profitable businessmen who smelled the business opportunities still raised their grain prices at the first time and began to panic in the market, thinking of making money in the national crisis while taking advantage of the chaos.

These grain merchants often have their own channels, knowing that the Ming army cannot truly threaten Lin'an City for the time being, and knowing that Lin'an City is still safe, but Lin'an people will definitely panic. If they don't take this opportunity to make a fortune, when will they have to wait?

Grain traders began to act, the market began to fluctuate, the people began to become unstable, and a wave of rushing to buy grain began to appear.

Seeing that the grain merchants were getting rich, other merchants were naturally not willing to be outdone and immediately began a price increase.

For example, oil prices, cloth prices, and carbon prices, the prices in the Lin'an market are like racers who hear the starting gunshots. They rise across the board with a call, and they are scrambling to get ahead, fearing that they will suffer losses.

Many daily necessities are only a few cents a pound in the morning, but in the afternoon, they become more than ten cents a pound. The price increase is so ecstasy.

Prices have risen, and Lin'an residents have suffered.

Lin'an residents can earn an average of 100 cents a day, which seems to be a lot, but they are basically the moonlight people. They earn as much money as they spend, and they have no savings, and they can't save money. In the era of stable prices, they can still get food and clothing. Once prices fluctuate, their lives will be unsustainable.

So the people complained about this and were very dissatisfied with it. They also cursed and beat up at the entrances of major shops, causing one private dispute after another, which also caused a headache for the Lin'an County Government, which was responsible for the management.

The Lin'an County Magistrate reported that if this situation continues, it may affect the stability and people's hearts of the entire Lin'an City.

Zhao Xing was very upset about this. On the one hand, he issued a government order to strictly prohibit the price increase of materials needed by the people in daily life. He sent people to arrest a group of unscrupulous merchants who wanted to raise prices, suppressed a wave of prices, and then sent people to Jiaxing Prefecture and the coastal areas to learn about the situation and conduct further investigations.

Once these things happen, they are not easy to solve and will be very difficult.

Zhao Xing had just become the emperor and lacked experience in this, so he could only help the ministers to constantly consider it, think about it, and think about ways to break the situation. He spent a lot of time, but he didn't think of a few methods, and he had a pretty bad style.

Prices were forcibly controlled by administrative means, but merchants were dissatisfied and began to reduce the sales scale, and sold them in a regular quantity every day, and they stopped selling them all, so that people could not buy things on the market with money.

So the underground black market in Lin'an City suddenly became lively.

It is precisely because many merchants have policies and countermeasures. No matter how much Zhao Xing orders, he cannot solve practical difficulties.

The Southern Song government then put aside the chaos, and the Ming army's actions were not vague. On April 22, the Ming army's vanguard arrived in Changxing County and directly attacked Changxing County. Changxing County was in an instant.

The next goal is Huzhou.

At the sunset on the 23rd, the vanguard of the Ming army arrived at Huzhou Prefecture City.

Huzhou Prefecture City was Wucheng County earlier. In the Northern Song Dynasty, in order to celebrate the surrender of the King of Wuyue, the fifteen townships in the southeast of Wucheng County were divided into Gui'an County. The two counties were governed in the same city and were also the capital of Huzhou. It has a abundant population and abundant resources.

When the Ming army arrived in Huzhou, Zhao Mi, the commander of the Palace Front Office, had already led his troops to station in the prefecture for a while, and had also spent a lot of effort to arrange the city defense. He installed many military facilities for defense of the Ming army outside the city, and made sufficient preparations.

However, the Song army had no fighting will. The military facilities outside the city on hilly and high ground could have protected the safety of Huzhou Prefecture City well, but when the Ming army lined up to launch an attack, the Song army always collapsed quickly.

The Ming army's attack routines have not changed, including large rockets and Thor cannons, plus ordinary stone bombardment, and then infantry attacks in an array.

When the Song army attacked from a long range, they could often insist on fighting back, posing a certain threat to the Ming army. Then when the Ming army launched an infantry attack, the Song army could not resist and quickly retreated.

In this way, in less than a day, on April 25, the vanguard of the Ming army advanced to the city of Fucheng. Looking at the panicked Song army on the city, he launched a siege without saying a word.

Yangzhou did not attack, mainly to speed up the progress of the war and reduce food loss.

Huzhou must attack, in order to use the waterway controlled by Huzhou to go south to Lin'an. Moreover, the Song army in Huzhou far exceeded Yangzhou's strength. If this army was not removed, Zhou Zhi would be unable to sleep or eat.
Chapter completed!