In the dead of night, the sound of galloping horses' hooves is like spring thunder rolling in Sweet Water Lane. The rider jumps off the horse, ties the reins to the hitching post randomly, walks up the steps, grabs the big copper ring and knocks "bang bang bang bang".
The doorkeeper heard the sound of horse hooves in the inner hall and got up to check. At this time, he asked: "Who is it?"
"An urgent letter from Jinhai, has the Prime Minister gone to bed? The President has ordered that the Prime Minister be awakened..."
The vermilion gate opened "silently", and the old gatekeeper Zhang Cheng poked his head out. His white stubble beard was a bit messy. They said that the seventh-rank official in front of the prime minister's gate, Zhang Cheng, was really a scholar of rank.
The angry wind lantern stuck out from the eaves made him see the face of the visitor clearly and said, "It's Geng Lantou. The prime minister is waiting for a letter from Jin Hai..." He ordered the boy to bring the horse in to feed him and take the visitor with him.
Go to the inner palace.
Zhang Xie is the right servant and the minister of Zhongshu, and is nominally the second prime minister. However, because Chen Xinbo only appoints the left servant and not the minister, he has the title of prime minister but no power of prime minister. He cannot enter or leave the palace unless called upon, and he hardly participates in political affairs--
-- Truong Hiech Tsai was the prime minister who held the sole power in the Dai Viet Dynasty at this time.
It was only the first month of the year, and the weather was still cold. The charcoal fire in the large copper basin with a beast's head ring in the middle of the west room was burning brightly. Zhang Xie, who was fifty-seven years old at the time, was sitting at the sandalwood table next to the brazier, writing a memorial.
, he heard the sound of horse hooves outside the stacked building in the courtyard, and the pen in his hand stopped for a moment. Standing aside respectfully to wait on him to write the memorial was his second son Zhang Ximin...
Unlike Tang Haoxin, who was both unworthy, Zhang Xie's two sons, Zhang Xitong and Zhang Ximin, were both Jinshis. They had the reputation of "three Jinshis in a family, and the father is the number one scholar and the son is the best" in the current dynasty. The eldest son, Zhang Xitong, followed King Ning south to join the vassal state.
The second son, Zhang Ximin, passed the Jinshi examination a little later and had not yet had the opportunity to serve as an imperial scholar. He was actually an important assistant to Zhang Xie in Beijing.
Zhang Xie's face looked tired and thin, slightly narrow and long, with a sparse beard under his chin. He was wearing a lake green jacket. When he heard footsteps entering the courtyard, he calmly put down his pen and sighed to himself.
I thought I had seen through Tang Haoxin, that both his favorite students and his loyal monarch wanted him to die, so he should resign in despair, even if he just hid and watched the good show here.
But I didn't expect that he would save lives. This crisis is far from over!
Zhang Cheng came in with the messenger. Zhang Xie saw that the seal was correct under the candlelight, and then told Zhang Cheng: "Colonel Geng came all the way to deliver the letter. I'm afraid he is hungry and tired. Call Chen Lan and give it to Colonel Geng."
The official cooked two delicious dishes and warmed a pot of wine. After I wrote a reply, I still have to trouble Colonel Geng to rush to Jinhai."
When people from Jinhai met the Prime Minister, they still remembered him and asked his private cook to get up in the middle of the night to cook for him. They kowtowed gratefully and then followed the doorman Zhang Cheng out first.
Zhang Ximing then took the letter from his father and cursed: "This pigherder really dares to speak. How can the Ministry of Revenue squeeze another one million taels of silver into him! After the Liang family took over Shandong, it may not be possible
He’s just a non-meat eater!”
"No matter how the ship of the imperial court is broken, Liang will not be able to jump out, and Lin Fu will not be able to jump out. What the imperial court can give him, the She family can't give. Is it possible that he can still imitate Cao Cao while occupying a place as big as Chongzhou's?
Can't we make a family?" Zhang Xie took the letter and threw it into the brazier...
"Should your Majesty not know about this?" Zhang Ximing asked.
"What do you know? Do you know that the group of businessmen in Jinhai threatened the imperial court to increase the fee, or do you know that Lin Fu secretly sneaked into Jinhai under the pretense of keeping filial piety and had evil intentions?" Zhang Xie asked back, looking at his second son Zhang Ximin for a while, and shook his head.
He shook his head and said, "Let the Holy One know, then we can only send the Beijing camp to Jinhai to arrest Lin Fu and bring him to justice for the crime of deceiving the emperor and being disobedient. Lin Fu will not easily join the She family, but it does not mean that he will be forced to join."
Even if we are in a desperate situation, we will never join the She family. If Tang Haoxin dies, he will die, but it makes it difficult for us to sleep and eat well."
"Are you going to fulfill his wishes?" Zhang Ximin asked in surprise.
"I'll write a letter and you can take it to Jizhou to meet Li Zhuo..." Zhang Xie said.
"Will Li Zhuo come forward? Will Li Zhuo come forward and be useful?" Zhang Ximing asked two questions in a row.
"You'll know when you go there. Your Majesty doesn't understand Tang Haoxin, but I don't understand it? Your Majesty doesn't understand Li Zhuo, but I don't understand it yet? Li Zhuo can hide his tricks from others, but he wants to hide them from me, too?" Zhang Xiexiao
He smiled, sat down, took out a piece of paper from the purple gold box, put down a pen and ink and wrote a letter to Li Zhuo first. He felt that a piece of flesh was about to be lost this time, and he felt very heartbroken. After finishing the letter, he said, "Oh,
After getting through this period, we can clean up this mess!" He asked his second son, Xi Min, to take a carriage to Jizhou immediately, and then write a letter to Huang Jinnian, asking the people coming from Jinhai to rest for a while, and then prepare horses to return to Jinhai.
***********
Li Zhuo set up his camp in Jizhou.
Since Zhang Xie set up the General Department in Jinhai, which was fully responsible for the transportation of grain and grass in the towns and the Beijing camp, the Jibei army withdrew from Jinhai and assembled in the north. There was no direct connection between the Jibei army headquarters and Jinhai.
Gao Zongting only learned of the news that Lin Fu might arrive in Jinhai secretly late at night, but he didn't rush to report it. He didn't report it until dawn after Li Zhuo got up to work.
"It's not too late for him to come, cough..." Li Zhuo was not surprised that Lin Fu sneaked into Jinhai. He was forced by the cold air in the room, coughed violently, and held on to his clothes.
"Tang Gong's death is too humiliating. It's not in his temper to bother him." Gao Zongting squatted down and started to stir up the charcoal fire in the brazier. "How does Li Shuai think Huang Jinnian and Zhang Association will react?"
"What kind of reaction can there be? They dared to pick holes in the holes they dug?" Li Zhuo said angrily. Tang Haoxin's death made him heartbroken, and he hated Zhang Xie who had secretly occupied the position. But the emperor trusted him.
He even asked his son Zhang Xitong to serve as the chief historian of Prince Ning's palace. "Zhang Xie did not dare to make the matter a big deal. Instead, he would do everything possible to cover it up. Lin Fu couldn't see through this and could he easily come to Jinhai? Let them do whatever they want!"
Gao Zongting also sighed slightly. The imperial court sent Liang and his son out of Shandong, which not only aroused conflicts, but also risked poisoning and quenching thirst. Tang and Gu Ruo might become a trouble in bed, and the ambition of Liang and his son was even more obvious.
People in the palace, people in the palace, they have to believe lies even if they are told a hundred times. With Tang Haoxin's experience, Gao Zongting couldn't help but worry about Li Zhuo's future fate.
No matter how solid the loyalty and trust are, they cannot withstand the slander accumulated by villains over time. Perhaps when the situation in Yanbei improves slightly, Li Shuai will be persuaded to retire.
As the sun climbed onto the treetops, Zhang Xie's second son Zhang Ximin left the capital and entered the Jizhou camp with a letter. Gao Zongting took him to see Li Zhuo.
After reading Zhang Xie's private letter written in the middle of the night, Li Zhuo pondered for a moment - he had no good impression of Zhang Xie. Leading the army in Jibei, he always felt Zhang Xie stretching out an invisible hand to pinch his neck.
In the end, he handed the letter to Gao Zongting and said: "Go to Jinhai. Since Prime Minister Zhang agreed to increase the foot fee by two cents, it will not be unprofitable for the businessmen who want to come to Jinhai..."
After being separated for more than half a year, Gao Zongting also wanted to see Lin Fu, so he agreed without hesitation, and went south from Jizhou directly to Jinhai with Zhang Ximing.
*************
I fell asleep to the sound of waves and woke up to the sound of waves, but it was more comfortable than living on a boat for several days in a row.
Knowing that Huang Jinnian wanted to negotiate, Lin Fu didn't worry. He had Lin Xuwen on the shore and Sun Shangwang could handle it. Even if he was observing filial piety in Chongzhou, he naturally couldn't appear in public directly. The last layer of skin must be reserved for the court. He got up and practiced
After practicing sword skills for half an hour, it took another half an hour to drag Xunniang to breakfast. After wandering around the island for half the night, she was ready to have lunch. Someone was sent from the shore to inform Gao Zongting and Zhang Ximing that they had just arrived in Tianjin.
Hai wants to see him.
Others can refuse to see him, but Gao Zongting cannot turn him away.
"Mr. Gao is not a particular person, so just prepare a casual lunch," Lin Fu told Sun Shangwang, "Send our boat to pick him up and see if Zhang Ximing has the courage to come... If he doesn't have the courage, there is nothing.
Easy to talk about."
Huang Jinnian and Lin Xuwen did not show up, but Gao Zongting and Zhang Ximin came by boat across the waves.
After landing on the island, Gao Shouting thought to himself: Jinwei Island is the Yongye Field granted by Lin Fu, and it is regarded as private property under Lin Fu's name. How to build the manor? The court cannot interfere. It only has the dock and fortress on the island.
It was too impregnable. I thought that nearly half of the money Lin Fu had obtained from Jinhai Liangdao in the past six months had been invested in this small island that was no more than 1,400 steps away.
This matter involves secrets, and even the Holy Emperor does not want to hear the news about their secret deal with Lin Fu. Zhang Ximin came to Jinhai to cover up the public. Except for Huang Jinnian, Zhang Wendeng and two or three others, no one knew that he came to Jinhai with Gao Zongting.
ocean.
Zhang Ximing has been to Jinhai twice in the past six months and recognized Sun Shangwang. When he saw the young man in green shirt standing next to Sun Shangwang and Gao Zongting smiling at each other, he knew that he was Lin Fu. He thought that his father was not wrong.
Li Zhuo and Tang Gu had been flirting with each other for a long time. Unexpectedly, Gu Wuchen actually hid his confrontation with Li Zhuo in Jiangning from many people, which relieved Li Zhuo's pressure to go north to town in Jibei.
"I can't pick up Mr. Gao to the island in person, Lin Fu is rude," Lin Fu bowed and glanced at Zhang Ximin. He had no manners towards the Zhang family and his son who forced Tang Haoxin to death. Seeing that he and Zhang Ximin looked the same.
Xiangxiao just raised his eyebrows and said, "There are only thin banquets on the island, and Mr. Xiang doesn't care about it. But you can take a look at the scenery on the island. Mr. Gao and I will talk about things after dinner."
"
Zhang Ximin endured a growling empty stomach and said proudly: "Please do it." He stayed on the pier, shivering and looking at the scenery, secretly greeting the ancestors of the Lin family.
Gao Zongting smiled slightly, and went straight into the fort with Lin Fu, regardless of where Zhang Ximin was drinking the northwest wind.
After cooking the famous donkey meat in Hejian Prefecture, he prepared six plates and a bowl of soup, and warmed a pot of wine. Lin Fu and Gao Zongting sat down to drink and talk, with Sun Shangwang accompanying them.
"How is the situation in the north?" Lin Fu asked.
"Every day, there are reports submitted to the Holy One to urge the Commander-in-Chief to send troops," Gao Zongting shook his head and sighed, "The Holy Master would not give any reply, and would send these documents to Jizhou Camp every once in a while. The Commander-in-Chief is under a lot of pressure.
Looking at this situation, the Holy Spirit doesn’t have much patience left.”
"In the battle of Chentangyi, the Donglu people mobilized 150,000 troops. Yanguan in the court thought that after five years, the Donglu people could only mobilize 150,000 troops, and they all gathered on the western front to encircle Datong.
Lin Fu sighed slightly, "Five years have passed, and the situation has been very different. In the past, the Donghu people had no ability to organize a war on the western front. Now that they can encircle Datong, they are afraid that the five Hus and 780,000 people in the north of Yan will join the Donglu."
…”
"The case of Marquis of Jingbei resulted in the loss of eastern Liaoning; the defeat of Chentangyi resulted in the loss of western Liaoning. Liaodong and western Liaoning failed to move nearly one million Dingkou back to the pass. Last year, another three to four hundred thousand Dingkou were taken away," Gao Zongting said
, "The officials thought that as long as the governor led his troops north out of western Liaoning, the abandoned people who had been left behind would welcome them and cooperate with each other inside and outside. The governor argued that the hearts of the people of the two Liaos may not be available, but they were slandered as having ulterior motives. Some people said
Even worse..."
"The last time the bandits broke through the border, there were many Liao people who returned after looting and looting. This year, a considerable number of Liao people joined the army to besiege Datong because of greed for money or seeking redemption, not to mention those rebel generals who surrendered.
Damn it—some officials in the imperial court are always blind to these facts, so there is nothing to make a fuss about. If they could see clearly, the situation would be like this!" Lin Fu said in a suppressed voice.
"You can't come to Tianjin just for shipping expenses..." Gao Zongting asked, "The commander-in-chief believes that you will not be a thief who harms the people, so he asked me to come."
"If Zhang Xie and the Liang family interfere in the Jinhai grain road, it is destined to be a mess. Don't believe it. You will know after you look at it in two or three months. At the critical moment, I must ensure that the Northern Army does not get into chaos because of grain. Who will be the emperor of the Yuan family?"
, I don’t care whether I support King Ning or not, but I can’t let the Donglu people come in and ride on the heads of the Han people,” Lin Fu said, “I want to build a long-sea fleet from Chongzhou, bypassing Shandong and reaching Tianjin Sea.
We are short of money. Zhang Xie and Huang Jinnian transferred a large amount of rice grains to the grain merchants' private warehouses for huge profits, but we cannot let them spit out any blood."
"Zhang Xie's private letter to the governor stated that the base price was two cents of silver. I think there shouldn't be any big problem if you offer him three cents of silver." Gao Zongting said.