In a mountain temple in the eastern mountains of Nanyang Prefecture, the carnival of many horse bandits is coming to an end. Some horse bandits are drunk and talking nonsense; some are holding some prostitutes in their hands.
Song Xiang was sitting on the Grand Master's chair in the main seat of the Juyi Hall that was converted from the mountain temple. He looked at his subordinates reveling in the carnival with a smile on his face. But if a careful person looks at Song Xiang's expression carefully, he might find that Song Xiang's smile
It was just an act, his brows were still furrowed unconsciously.
Seeing that it was getting late, Song Xiang stood up from the Taishi chair. He shouted: "Brothers, have fun!" After that, he pushed away the prostitute who was accompanying him, turned around and went to his house behind the mountain temple.
Go.
But none of the horse bandits who were still reveling noticed that when Song Xiang turned around, he winked at his cronies, and those cronies followed Song Xiang into his house with understanding.
As soon as he entered the house, one of Song Xiang's cronies shouted: "Brother Song, why don't you have a good time today? What's the point of calling the brothers in?"
Song Xiang's eyes widened immediately, and he first cursed the word "fuck" to the confidant, and then cursed: "I told you a long time ago, don't call me Brother Song."
Maybe the name Song Xiang looks familiar to some readers. Indeed, you remember correctly. This Song Xiang was the one who escaped with seven or eight Wu Shigong's cavalry when Wu Shigong went to Qinwang.
After Song Xiang escaped from Wu Shigong's army, he knew that he could no longer stay in Guide Mansion, so he took these seven or eight men to Nanyang Mansion in the west of Henan, and became a horse bandit again.
OK.
Of course, after becoming deserters, Song Xiang and the others no longer dared to use their real names. They all had nicknames like "Optimus Prime" or "Decepticon", so after Wu Shigong's death order was issued after returning,
, Xue Zhinong couldn't find people like Song Xiang.
But Song Xiang's subsequent struggle can be called a legend. He gathered the scattered horse bandits, then occupied a mining area, and after twice defeating the armed forces organized by the private mine bosses, he completely destroyed the mountainous area.
The mining area was taken over as his own.
And after all, Song Xiang had been in the army for a long time, and he went to Wu Shigong to receive strict military training, so he did learn some of the essence of Wu Shigong's army. Therefore, he organized the miners and trained some superficial skills, and those miners actually became
It can defeat the armed forces of private mine bosses and even Li Lu's Ming Dynasty regular army.
But unlike his subordinates, with these two victories and the expansion of his own strength, Song Xiang felt the pressure and danger of being a big tree and attracting the wind. Therefore, today Song Xiang took advantage of those who were deserters with him.
The cronies gathered together to discuss and find a way out.
But when Song Xiang expressed his thoughts, one of his confidants said nonchalantly: "Master of the Mountain, some of us in this mountain have knives and iron ore in exchange for silver. Isn't this a happy life?"
ah."
"With your thoughts, how long can we live freely?" Song Xiang reprimanded, "Don't look at how well we trained those miners, but look at those miners who worked with us under Demon King Wu.
Compared with those soldiers at that time, it was simply a thousand miles away. I originally thought that Demon King Wu was in Guide Mansion, which was far away from our Nanyang Mansion. But I didn't expect that Demon King Wu came to Runing Mansion to serve as a guard, far away from us.
The current place is only two or three hundred miles away."
"A few days ago, Demon King Wu even sent people to buy iron materials from me. After that, it was only a matter of time before he found out about us. I thought, isn't this what the book said? Killing people and setting fires to seek help, and we still
We have to take advantage of the fact that we have some strength now and find a government official to recruit us. As long as we have official status, then Demon King Wu will not do anything to us."
After hearing Song Xiang mention Wu Shigong, Song Xiang's cronies also fell silent. After a while, one of his cronies came up with an idea and said: "The mountain master will kill the people sent by Demon King Wu, and he will not fight with Demon King Wu in the future."
To do business, Demon King Wu will not come to our Nanyang Mansion for no reason. As long as he can't find us, can't we still live such a comfortable life? "
"You are stupid and you still don't believe it. As long as we take action, Demon King Wu can find us as long as he sends people to investigate. Besides, we are just deserters and we don't have any deep grudge against Demon King Wu, so we don't necessarily
There is no room for relaxation. But as long as you kill Demon King Wu’s people, you will not stop fighting. Demon King Wu is not called the Demon King for nothing!"
"Then what should we do? Anyway, the little ones will obey the big mountain master's idea."
Song Xiang thought for a while and then said: "Let's maintain it for the time being. Don't make the relationship with Demon King Wu so tense. If he wants iron materials, he can sell them cheaper."
"To be honest, even if I want to recruit people, I still want to go to Demon King Wu. Otherwise, serving as a soldier elsewhere would be the same as being a beggar. Wouldn't this harm the brothers? But we don't know whether Demon King Wu can
Accept us again. But I estimate that we can pull out more than 4,000 troops now, and Demon King Wu is a person who likes to expand his military force, which is why we rely on him."
"Even if Demon King Wu doesn't want to, we can still dominate here. Then Demon King Wu is an official of Runing Mansion, and the general manager cannot come to Nanyang Mansion."
After hearing this, Song Xiang's cronies felt that there was no better way, so they all agreed with Song Xiang's view and decided to take a look first.
Zhou Yanru was a little worried now, because now another great scholar, Wen Tiren, was at odds with Zhou Yanru, the first assistant, in everything.
But what is even more worrying is that Emperor Chongzhen also vaguely favored Wen Tiren's side in every argument between the two sides. Zhou Yanru also had eyes and ears in the inner court, and he knew that the eunuch beside Emperor Chongzhen - Cao Huachun
, always telling bad things in Emperor Chongzhen’s ears about him wooing Fushe and forming cliques for personal gain.
Zhou Yanru knew that he was not clean, so he wanted to do some beautiful things while he was still favored by Emperor Chongzhen to relieve Emperor Chongzhen's worries.
However, the house leaked and it rained all night. The city of Daling, which was originally thought to be safe and sound, was tightly besieged by the Hou Jin Army. The several rescue attempts by the Ming Army in Liaodong were also stopped by the besieged Hou Jin Army.
There was a huge defeat. Sun Chengzong, the governor of Liaodong, also submitted a memorial to the court asking for reinforcements to be sent from the pass.
As the first assistant, Zhou Yanru could not sit back and watch at this time, because Wen Tiren was waiting for his fault to oust him from the throne of the first assistant.
At critical moments, you can still rely on your own people. So today Zhou Yanru personally wrote a private letter to some of his cronies, asking them to send their strongest troops.
After being busy for a while, Zhou Yanru finally finished writing all the letters. He suddenly remembered a letter written by his confidant Guan Yin, the Yangzhou salt transport envoy, to him a few days ago, asking him to send a man named Wu Shigong from Henan to him.
The garrison was transferred out of Henan.
Zhou Yanru also found out that the grudge between Guan Yin and the young guard was just that Guan Yin's son and the young guard robbed a famous prostitute. But after all, Guan Yin was Zhou Yanru's man, and he paid Zhou Yanru more filial piety every year.
It was very rich, so Zhou Yanru probably followed Guan Yin's wishes on such a small matter.
Zhou Yanru didn't know that the origin of this letter was not entirely Guan Yin's idea. More than a month ago, Qi Chun'an, the head of the Qi family in Yangzhou, sent 10,000 taels of silver to the Salt Transport Envoy Guan Mansion and asked for it.
Wu Shigong was transferred out of Henan.
And if it succeeds, the Qi family can take back some of the land for selling salt products from Guide Mansion and Runing Mansion, and can also cut off one of Wu Shigong's financial resources and take revenge on Wu Shigong in disguise.
So Zhou Yanru wrote another letter to the Governor of Henan, in which he asked Runing Mansion to guard Wu Shigong and join in the rescue operation outside the customs. However, as a deal, Zhou Yanru also hinted to the Governor of Henan that the current
In the imperial court, there is a vacancy for the Minister of Justice.
When Zhou Yanru finally finished writing the letter and placed it on the thick stack of private letters, Zhou Yanru couldn't help but stretch a lot.
But what Zhou Yanru didn't know was that among his stack of private letters, there were several letters that completely affected the history of the late Ming Dynasty.
After Hou Xun, a member of the old Donglin Party, received Zhou Yanru's letter, he immediately promoted his bedmate Zuo Liangyu to an official, and asked Zuo Liangyu to lead an army to Liaodong to rescue Daling River City.
But this move freed Zuo Liangyu, who was regarded as a pillar by the imperial court and a beast by the people in the late Ming Dynasty.
After Zhou Yanru's cronies, Sun Yuanhua, the governor of Denglai, received this private letter, he immediately sent his cronies, general Kong Youde and other generals brought from Dongjiang Town, and asked them to lead the Liaodong Dongjiang soldiers stationed in Denglai to assist outside the customs.
Liaodong Ming Army.
And what disgusting performances did Kong Youde and the others perform? This will be described later.
When the Governor of Henan received Zhou Yanru's letter, he immediately agreed to send Wu Shigong out without giving it any thought. In the eyes of the Governor of Henan, weren't those military attaches just tools for his own civil servants to get promoted and make money?
But what will happen after Wu Shigong, the guard of Runing Mansion, is released?