The Affairs Bureau is a secret agent set up by Zhao Bing. It has developed from a small department that monitors political enemies for himself and spys on internal intelligence of the court. It is now a huge organization with a hundred core personnel, thousands of backbone personnel, thousands of basic personnel, and tens of thousands of peripheral personnel. They are not only spread throughout the ruling areas of the Song Dynasty, but also spread their tentacles to the surrounding enemy countries or the sphere of hostile forces.

The functions of the Bureau of Affairs also changed from the initial monitoring of political enemies, collecting domestic political and economic intelligence, and eliminating rebels to the outside world engaged in subverting the enemy's regime, destroying the enemy's economy, inciting, creating unrest, instigating and assassinating senior officials of the enemy's country; internally, in order to eliminate enemy's spies, collecting domestic political and economic, civil public information, and monitoring those with different political views, secretly investigating officials' corruption and surrendering to the enemy, the army's mobilization and ideological dynamics of senior officers. In addition, the Bureau of Affairs also has another function to secretly protect the safety of the emperor and his family, monitor the royal family and eliminate safety hazards.

Therefore, the Affairs Bureau played an immeasurable role in Zhao Bing's successful stabilization of the regime, and repeatedly defeated the coup against him and the victory of foreign wars. This is also a double-edged sword. Their terrifying strength is enough to control the political situation. If they are not used well, they will threaten their rule, making Zhao Bing firmly take the Affairs Bureau into his own hands from the beginning, and he has to personally inquire about the appointment of officials and the action plan of the officials.

In addition, Zhao Bing also restricted their powers and never delegated the decision-making and execution power. He only gave them the power to investigate and supervise, and did not have the power to arrest and trial. Even if he secretly dealt with an ordinary official, he had to obtain his authorization to execute it. He knew that this would affect efficiency and execution, but he also understood that once this shackle was released, there would inevitably be a problem of abuse of power, which would not only threaten the stability of the regime, but also cause new corruption and even participate in the battle for power.

Of course, Zhao Bing also knew that even modern governments could not tolerate the implementation of "spy politics", and was very disgusted with them. Because no one knew whether the people around him could trust, and his every move was exposed to others, and he did not know which words or actions he would be guilty of. Therefore, once he felt that he was threatened, he would not give any effort to attack him until he cleaned them up or put them in a cage of power.

Therefore, in order to avoid trouble, everything in the Affairs Bureau was covered up. Even if the court was strict, important officials like Lu Xiufu and Wen Tianxiang only knew that the emperor had a secret force in his own hands, but they were not clear about the department, organization, personnel situation and how to operate, and no one else could know. The people in the palace only knew that there was such a department under the Imperial City Department that was responsible for purchasing and collecting items for His Majesty, and had seen them sending some messy things, but they rarely saw the Deputy Envoy of the Imperial City Department who was also the head of the Affairs Bureau.

Zhao Bing could not do everything himself with such a huge organization, and needed some people to upload and issue work, so naturally he could not hide it from everyone. However, those who knew the situation were limited to a few close friends. Ni Liang, Chen Dun and Lin Zhiwu had all served as liaison officers of the Bureau of Affairs, and Tan Fei currently also played this role. In addition to Wang De, only Su Lan knew some of the inside story, but she understood that this was His Majesty's absolute secret and never asked about it, and would not take the initiative to contact the Bureau of Affairs.

Now that someone in the palace contacted him through the channels of the Affairs Bureau, Zhao Bing became alert. But when he opened the familiar fly head calligraphy, he immediately came into his eyes. Su Lan's letter was indeed not much, and he quickly finished reading it in a glance. In addition to the routine greetings, it was mainly because Empress Dowager Yan heard that the Mongolian Yuan army invaded the hinterland of Jiangdong, and was worried that the tragedy of the enemy's besieged in the past would be forced to surrender again, so he arranged for the retreat of the concubines in advance and evacuated Lin'an when necessary to avoid the entire army being wiped out.

In order to ensure that everything is foolproof, the Empress Dowager secretly ordered Su Lan to contact Zheng Huchen, the head of the Bureau of Liaison Affairs, to send a team of people to escort everyone secretly to Lin'an, and to protect their safety on the way. She knew that it was not in line with the rules for contacting her, but because of the request of the Empress Dowager, she felt that the situation was urgent, so she took the initiative to contact Zheng Huchen to secretly meet the Empress Dowager. Zheng Huchen was ordered to formulate an evacuation plan, arrange manpower, arrange transportation, and plan the route. Once the situation is critical, the evacuation plan will be immediately activated.

Another letter was Zheng Huchen's apology. He also understood that he was ordered by the Empress Dowager, which was equivalent to be executed first and then reporting. It had violated the iron laws set by the emperor and even touched His Majesty's rebellion. While asking for punishment, he repeatedly explained that his actions were not to be trying to cling to the Empress Dowager and seek another support. He was still loyal to His Majesty as before, and he had no other intentions. However, when something unexpected happened, he did not know the inside story at the time, so he could only bite the bullet and accept the imperial edict.

After seeing it, Zhao Bing was mixed and didn't know how to deal with it for a while, so he found a more comfortable position and unconsciously knocked on the desk. He didn't understand how the empress dowager knew that he would have a secret force in his hand, but thinking about living with him for many years, he might have accidentally revealed clues; and he often had huge incomes and expenses for unknown reasons. Although he did secrets, it was not easy to hide from the empress dowager who was in charge of the Danei.

In addition, the empress dowager's decision on the small yellow sect and the palace maids who entered the palace in the past were decided by the empress dowager, so it was not surprising to put a spy around him. Even Wang De was also the manager of the empress dowager at that time, monitoring his words and deeds. But Zhao Bing believed that Wang De would not betray him. After all, he had already reached the top of an eunuch, and no one could give him more. What surprised him was that the empress dowager had never mentioned any matters about the affairs bureau to him, and he thought he had successfully concealed it. But now it seems that the empress dowager was not as strict as imagined, and the empress dowager was not as simple as he thought, but just hidden it.

However, Zhao Bing believed that the Empress Dowager had no malicious intentions, otherwise he would not have been silent for so many years, and he would not have been so ignorant that he would have operated the Affairs Bureau so much. Moreover, he used the power of the Affairs Bureau to not directly issue an order, but instead contacted Zheng Huchen with Su Lan. He thought that this seemed to be extravagant, but was actually the Empress Dowager's cleverness. If the Empress Dowager did not understand the specific functions and operating procedures of the Affairs Bureau, or he did not want to arouse suspicion between the mother and son, which would cause rift and cause internal ceremonies to be lost.

But the Queen Mother's plan made Su Lan and Zheng Huchen very frightened. Su Lan is not an ordinary palace maid now, but the Emperor Huipin. He cannot interfere in the government affairs according to the rules, and it is related to the secrets of the young emperor. She does this to expose His Majesty's secrets to the Queen Mother, at least from tacit in the past to a matter of the table. This will also arouse the fear of other concubines. After all, her status is the lowest among the many concubines, but she has the power to control the political situation, and will inevitably be excluded and secretly suppressed.

Zheng Huchen's status was even more embarrassing. He wanted to be loyal to the little emperor and could not offend the empress dowager. After all, they were mother and son, and the relationship was very harmonious, which made him feel embarrassed. In addition, what the empress dowager asked for at this time was not a private matter, but a major matter related to the life and death of the royal family, which made him unable to refuse.

Zheng Huchen knew in his heart that he had done it, which violated the rules set by the emperor and failed his trust. He was afraid that his Majesty would lose his favor in the future. If he disobeyed and was worried that the empress dowager would be dissatisfied, he would be blamed by the emperor if he really had an accident in the future. Anyway, it was not appropriate to do it or not. Even if the two turned against each other, no matter how the emperor and the empress dowager had a dispute, they would be mother and son, and His Majesty would not break up with him publicly. Then he was the only one who was unlucky.

Zhao Bing estimated that Zheng Huchen had followed the Queen Mother's decree on this psychological basis, so he turned around and sold the Queen Mother, reported the story of the two meetings in detail, and repeatedly asked for punishment for the crime of "not suing for good deeds". This showed his helplessness and fear, and indirectly expressed his loyalty to him. In order to prove that what he said was true, he also sent his memorials and Su Lan's letters to his case to prove each other.

The three of them tried to prove that they had done well, but Zhao Bing was difficult to do, and no one could do it. But he also figured it out. Since everyone was right, he would be a good person. He took a letter paper and wrote, "The Queen Mother is righteous and cares about the country, and I feel very relieved." On another letter paper, he wrote, "The law cannot be forgiven, but the love is forgiven." After writing, Wang De was sealed separately and handed over to the messenger to distribute it to the palace and the affairs bureau.

After handling emergency official duties, Zhao Bing's eyes focused on the war in front of him. Xuyi City has always been a major military town during the period of separation of north and south, guarding the intersection of the Huai River and Bian River. Especially the Song Dynasty moved south and became a border guard town with heavy troops. The Song and Jin sides fought many times around Sizhou on the opposite side, and many wars broke out.

However, after the Mongol Yuan captured Jiangnan, the north and south were unified, Xuyi became an inland city, and its military status declined. However, it was an important hub on the canal. The Mongol Yuan was renamed Linhuai Prefecture and also stationed troops here, with about a thousand soldiers. After learning that the Song army conquered Yangzhou and marched north, Xuyi's military status was highlighted again. He mobilized the township soldiers from the surrounding counties and asked for help from the nearby Sizhou garrison, and the strength in the city increased to 4,000. At the same time, he asked the province to urgently call the province and requested reinforcements.
Chapter completed!