"The person the King of Wei hates is Xiang Xian, not others..."
Seven days later, in the Manlu Hall of the Daliang Palace, Wei Wang Zhao Run stood at the window and opened the letter that the "pseudo-Song" Prime Minister Xiang Chen wrote before his death. The look on his face was quite complicated.
This letter was sent by Shen Yu, who was in the Huling navy, over several days and nights.
On the same day, Xiang Dian sent his confidants to deliver the letter to Huling Water Village of the Wei Army on the other side of Weishan Lake. After being discovered by the patrolling Wei soldiers, they immediately made their intention clear.
Afterwards, after Shen Yu got the letter, he glanced at it out of surprise - after all, he couldn't just send Xiang Ding's letter to Daliang - and found out that the letter seemed to be from Xiang Ding. After writing the last letter, he immediately stopped reading carefully and sent someone to deliver the letter to Daliang day and night, and delivered it to Zhao Hongrun.
Zhao Hongrun took a few steps slowly by the window. Zhao Hongrun read it very slowly, probably because the beginning of this final letter had a strong sense of sadness.
After a long time of burning incense and reading the letter twice, Zhao Hongrun finally raised his head, put his hands behind his back, and looked out the window.
After a long while, he sighed deeply.
The main idea of Xiang Xuan's last letter is that he took all the blame for the crime, expressed his surrender to the Wei State, and begged Wei King Zhao Run to forgive the Song people and not to implicate the Song people for his sins. His words were sincere and condescending, as if The strong man was forced to bend his knees, which made people sigh with regret.
"What a pity..."
Zhao Hongrun murmured to himself.
The "pity" he said was, on the one hand, due to the weakness of the Puppet Song Dynasty or the Beibo Army and their inability to resist fighting. It was clear that he had premeditatedly prepared to use the Beibo Army to train the Huling Navy Army in preparation for future confrontation with Chu, a potential powerful enemy. While making preparations, he did not expect that the Song Dynasty, which was at the end of its rope, surrendered before the Wei State could exert its strength, so that all his previous plans were in vain.
On the other hand, it was a pity for him to have loyal ministers like Xiang Dian.
To be fair, Zhao Hongrun did not hate Xiang Xiang, even though Xiang Xiang had always been hostile to Wei's interests.
Xiang Xuan is a Song Dynasty person, a hero of the Song Dynasty, and the youngest son of the scholar-bureaucrat Xiang Ju. His stance is firmly that of the Song Dynasty. Everything he does is based on the interests of the Song Dynasty. Such an enemy deserves respect. of.
Similarly, there is Han Wangran. He and Zhao Run are enemies, but they are also close friends - but the difference in their respective positions puts them in an enemy relationship.
Otherwise, they might become true friends.
However, compared to Han Wangran, the relationship between Zhao Run and Xiang Shen is even shallower. It seems that they have only heard of each other, but based on today's letter, Zhao Run can firmly believe that Xiang Shen is indeed a worthy person. Dear enemy!
In fact, if Xiang Ding was willing to surrender, Zhao Run might not use the leader of the Northern Bo Army, but Xiang Ding chose to die as a Song official rather than live as a Wei official. There was no words to express this in the letter, but Zhao Run knew very well that since such a loyal minister had sent this letter, he would never lick his face and continue to live in the world.
And this is the reason why Zhao Run immediately promoted Xiang Qian to the rank of "respectable enemy".
Of course, if Xiang Ding was really willing to surrender to Wei, then Zhao Run would not respect him and would feel sorry for Xiang Ding's death.
So, this is really a very contradictory thing.
Holding Xiang Xuan's letter, Zhao Hongrun stood by the window for a moment with his hands behind his back, then left the Ganlu Hall and walked towards the Chui Gong Hall.
When he arrived at the inner hall of Chui Gong Hall, the ministers who were still dealing with government affairs in the hall were all surprised. They watched Zhao Hongrun walk into the hall intently. They were so shocked that they forgot to say anything to His Majesty the King at the first moment.
salute.
"Huh? Why did your Majesty come to Chui Gong Hall today?"
"Based on the day, today is a day when His Majesty is lazy... no, he is ill."
"Could it be that His Majesty has finally made up his mind to get rid of his bad habit of laziness?"
All the ministers in the court were holding brushes in their hands and looking at Zhao Hongrun with surprised expressions, even the ink dripping from the tip of the brush was unknown.
Among them, Du You, the chief minister of the inner court, the Minister of Rites, was the most surprised. I saw that this veteran's face was rosy for no reason, his eyes were shining, and even his shoulders were trembling slightly, as if he was waiting for the majesty in front of him to apologize for his previous tiredness.
He was too lazy to repent, so he immediately left his seat, knelt on the ground, and shouted excitedly, "Your Majesty is wise."
However, under the gaze of all the ministers in the inner court, Zhao Hongrun just walked to the Dragon Case. After looking around at the ministers who seemed to be dumbfounded, he didn't realize why there was such a dead silence, and said in a deep voice: "
Xiang Ding is dead."
"..."
『???』
When the ministers in the inner court heard this, they said, "You look at me, I look at you," but they didn't react for a while.
After about a few breaths, Jie Ziyu reacted the fastest. Hearing this, he asked tentatively: "Xiang Ding? But Xiang Ding, the prime minister of the Puppet Song Dynasty and the leader of the Beibo Army?"
"Exactly!" Zhao Hongrun nodded, handed the letter in his hand to Gao He, the great eunuch behind him, and asked him to circulate the letter to the ministers. At the same time, he said: "Xiang Xiang is dead, I, the Wei Dynasty, treat Song County
Strategies also need to be changed."
"I see……"
"I asked why your Majesty appeared in this Chui Gong Hall today when he should have taken care of himself."
After looking at each other calmly, Xijie, Wen Qi, Li Liang, Xu Guan, Lin Yuyang, Yu Ziqi and others nodded secretly in their hearts and suddenly realized.
Although it is a bit strange to say this, the ministers still admire the principle of the majesty in front of them: laziness is laziness, but if it involves important matters, there is no ambiguity. No, even though he is "ill", he still insists on moving forward.
Come to Chui Gong Hall to tell them about this matter, and take the initiative to mention the issue of changing the strategy towards the Song Dynasty.
At this time, the veteran minister Du You, the Chief Minister of the Inner Dynasty and the Minister of Rites, had also calmed down. After taking a deep look at Zhao Run, a self-deprecating smile appeared on his face, and he shook his head slightly, vaguely still.
After hearing a few murmured sentences such as "I'm so stupid", the whole person looked a little listless.
However, when everyone was discussing their strategy for dealing with Song County, the old minister immediately cheered up. After seeing Xiang Ding's last letter, he said happily: "Xiang Ding took the initiative to take on all the sins and apologized for them with death, and now he has gone to the north.
The Bo army is leaderless and is no longer a threat to our great Wei..."
Having said this, he paused and frowned slightly. Maybe he suddenly remembered something: the Beibo Army was no longer a threat to his Wei State.
Not big.
Jie Ziyu saw the embarrassment of the old minister Du You, took over the conversation, and cleverly added: "Master Du is absolutely right. Xiang You is the pillar of the people of Song County. Now, this person is on his deathbed."
surrendered before
I, the Wei Dynasty, this will greatly help the court to win over people's hearts, but..." He paused and said with a bit of a wry smile: "Previously, the court slandered him as a "great good evil" and a "thieves who are disrupting the country." This is
…”
Including Zhao Run, everyone in the hall nodded slightly.
They all understood what Jie Ziu meant: Xiang Xiang was already dead anyway, and it was no big deal to flatter the dead. What's more, under the current circumstances, they elevated Xiang Xiang and praised Xiang Xiang's character, which was conducive to integrating the people of Song County.
But how to operate the specific operation requires long-term planning. We can't let the Wei court slap itself in the face, right? - After all, some time ago, the Wei court branded Xiang Ding as "a careerist who secretly plotted evil in the name of restoring the Song Dynasty." This will happen
It was too sudden for Er to suddenly change his attitude and praise Xiang Xiang.
At this time, Wen Qi was seen holding the letter in his left hand, flicking the paper with the fingers of his right hand, and said with a chuckle: "How about we start from the "grief and anger" in Xiang Dian's heart? ... I wonder if your majesty and your lords are paying attention.
To, the words used in Xiangqian’s letter are:
There is some anger, and there is a vague meaning of "death in silence" and "giving up on oneself". I think that something must have happened in the Pseudo-Song Dynasty that made Xiang Xiang feel desperate, and the cause of this despair did not come from me, the great Wei Dynasty.
, but within the pseudo-Song Dynasty..."
Among the ministers in the palace, Wen Qi was the best at poetry and poetry, and was very sensitive to the words and sentences between the lines.
After being reminded by him, Zhao Hongrun and other ministers carefully read the letter again. Sure enough, they gradually felt that Xiang Shen might indeed be in a state of agitation when he wrote this letter.
This also relieved Zhao Run from a confusion, because in his impression, Xiang Xiang was a very perseverant person. This was because after the Wei State defeated South Korea, Xiang Xiang still refused to surrender to the Wei State with the puppet Song Dynasty.
This can be seen from the fact that Wei Shan Lake still has to rely on its strategic location to block the Wei army.
On the same day, Zhao Hongrun called Gao Kuo and ordered him to investigate the matter thoroughly.
However, within two days, Zhao Run received another letter from Shen Yu. In the letter, Shen Yu pointed out the reason why Xiang Yu wrote the last letter to commit suicide - Song Zixin once wanted to abandon the country and run away because he was overwhelmed.
But he was accidentally intercepted by Tengcheng's guards.
Thinking about it, Shen Yu was also aware of Xiang Ding's death wish, and felt that Xiang Ding's death was a bit strange, so he sent someone to Tengcheng to inquire about it.
After reading Shen Yu's letter, Zhao Hongrun initially burst into laughter, laughing at Yu Zixin, the king of Song Dynasty, for abandoning his country and his subjects and running away, which was a disgrace to the royal family in the world.
Then, Zhao Hongrun felt a deep sense of regret in his heart, feeling deeply unworthy of Xiang Xuan's loyalty to the Song royal family.
In the inner court meeting held again in Chui Gong Hall, Zhao Run said with emotion: "Xiang Chen has fulfilled his duties and obligations as a minister of the Song Dynasty. There is no more loyal minister than him. He can be said to be the most benevolent and righteous. The Song Dynasty owes him a debt of gratitude."
It is the courageous monarch... who finally led him to such a miserable ending, which is really saddening."
The ministers in the inner court nodded in agreement with His Majesty's remarks. Then Lin Yuyang stroked his beard and said, "How about using this 'Zixin' as a scapegoat?"
The so-called scapegoat is to shift the responsibility for Xiang Ding's death to the irresponsible Song Zixin, in order to divert the hatred and grief caused by Xiang Ding's death among the Song people. As long as the court operates properly and praises Xiang Ding vigorously,
, discrediting Zixin can smoothly transfer the conflict to Zixin.
If the Wei court had been more ruthless and sacrificed Zixin in the end, maybe the Song people and the soldiers of the Beibo Army would still accept his favor from Wei.
Upon hearing this suggestion, all the ministers in the inner court nodded, saying that this was a good idea, but Zhao Hongrun remained silent and did not express his position.
Seeing this, all the ministers in the court looked at Zhao Run in confusion, but saw his majesty saying in a deep voice: "Perhaps Xiang Shen's death was probably because of Zixin, but Xiang Shen asked for my protection in his letter.
A descendant of the Song royal family, I respected him as a human being at that time, and I had already agreed in my heart, and...I was unwilling to go back on it."
After hearing this, all the ministers looked at each other with surprise and were also moved by it.
"Your Majesty is a benevolent king." Du You, the Minister of Rites, was the first to express his attitude.
As a minister of Wei, of course he cares about the interests of his country, but as the Minister of Rites, what he cares more about is the character of his country's monarch and prince.
The young monarch in front of him showed a character that made Du You extremely gratified, or in other words, a king's ability.
But...if Song Zixin is ‘forgiven’, who will take the blame?
Do you really want the imperial court to take the blame?
Just as the ministers were thinking hard, Zhao Run smiled and said: "Why do you need to think hard? Just think that I mistakenly looked at Xiang Ding in the past. Wen Qi, write a letter to commemorate Xiang Ding for me.
Message..."
"this……"
All the courtiers were shocked: Whoever takes the blame can't be you!
However, just when the ministers were about to persuade them, they saw Zhao Hongrun raising his hand to interrupt them and saying with a smile: "How can you predict everything in your life? Wen Qi, just do as I say.
!”
"……yes."
Wen Qi looked around and then agreed.
All the ministers in the palace looked at each other, and no one tried to persuade them. They all knew that as long as it was decided by the majesty in front of them, they would never change it.
After a while, after Zhao Hongrun left Chui Gong Hall, the ministers gathered together to discuss.
In their view, no one should take the blame but the monarch of Wei State. Although it is said that no one can make mistakes without being a sage, in this era, the monarch is the son of destiny. How can there be any reason to admit mistakes easily?
This time even Du You had objections.
However, His Majesty had already made up his mind, and it was useless for them to persuade him. They could only ask Wen Qi to downplay their Wei monarch as much as possible when writing this letter, and praise Xiang Xiang more. Maybe the people of Song Dynasty would see the flattery.
After the words and phrases, the matter "King Zhao Run of Wei admitted that he had made a mistake earlier" would be ignored.
It is worth mentioning that only half an hour later, Zhang Qigong, the right captain of Tiance Mansion, learned about this matter. When he learned that the ministers in the inner court did not know how to deal with this matter, he smiled contemptuously -
—In his opinion, it couldn’t be simpler!
Therefore, without getting through with the Ministry of Rites, Zhang Qigong took it upon himself to ask his subordinates in the Youdu Lieutenant's Office to spread the news in the Song Dynasty, and secretly spread the news that "the fault of Xiang Dian's death lies with Song Zixin"
, and related the matter of "Wei Wang Zhao Run admitted that he had made a mistake before"
, was changed to "Wei Wang Zhao Run agreed to protect Zixin because of his respect for Xiang Ding, so he took over this matter." This made it possible that after the message spread, Wei Wang Zhao Run not only did not suffer any damage to his reputation because of this incident.
, on the contrary, people have greatly changed their view of him, especially people from the Song Dynasty.
Only Zhao Run was dissatisfied with Zhang Qigong's self-assertive behavior and deducted Zhang Qigong's salary for three months as punishment.
As for the Puppet Song Dynasty, the Wei court once again sent "Zheng Xi", an official from the Ministry of Rites, as an envoy to Tengcheng to negotiate with the Beibo Army.
At this time in the Song Dynasty, the lord Zixin had already escaped, and the Prime Minister Xiang Ding also committed suicide by taking poison a month ago. It is no exaggeration to say that the entire Song Dynasty in Tengcheng at this time was a piece of loose sand, no matter where it was.
The people of Tengdi, as well as the soldiers and generals of the Beibo Army, have all fled in large numbers in the past month.
It's no wonder that if only Song Wangzixin had escaped, the Song country wouldn't be in such chaos. But Xiang Xiang, who was the spiritual pillar, took poison and committed suicide. What's the point of resisting?
Fearing that the Huling navy would take the opportunity to attack, the people of Tengdi and the soldiers of the Beibo Army fled to Xuedi in large numbers. However, some still chose to stay in Tengdi, such as Xiang's right-hand man during his lifetime, Li Huo, Chen Si and other Beibo troops.
General of the Bo army.
However, even though they chose to stay in Tengdi, generals such as Li Huo and Chen Si had no intention of fighting at this moment. They drank alcohol all day to numb themselves and were at a loss. Maybe they were just waiting for the Huling Wei army to kill Weishan.
Lake, come and chop off their heads.
But unexpectedly, they did not wait for the Huling Navy in the end, but instead waited for Wei's envoy "Zheng Xi".
I still remember that Zheng Xi was on a mission to Song County a few years ago. His duty at that time was to persuade Xiang Ding, the leader of the Beibo Army, to surrender to the imperial court. However, because he could not reach an agreement on the issue of "Song County Autonomy", in the end,
Xiang Ding gave up the official position of "Song County Governor" granted by the Wei court and resolutely led the Beibo Army to fight against Wei, thus starting the feud between Song County and Wei.
At that time, Zheng Xi had met Li Huo before, and Li Huo also recognized him. Neither of them were strangers.
Even since Zheng Xi and Xiang Xiang were getting along well at that time, Li Huo's attitude was quite respectful when he saw Zheng Xi again.
It's just Li Huo's appearance today that surprised Zheng Xi.
Li Huo was seen in front of Zheng Xi. His hair was disheveled, his clothes were disheveled, his eye sockets were sunken, his eyes were bloodshot, and he had a strong smell of lees all over his body. It was obviously caused by repeated hangovers.
"General Li Huo, you are fine."
After calming down, Zheng Xi, who was led here by the soldiers from Beibo, smiled and said, cupping his hands.
"Master Zheng."
Li Huo was stunned for a moment, and then invited Zheng Xi into his residence - it was just an ordinary house.
After entering the house, Zheng Xi saw that the ground was covered with broken wine jars, and there was almost no place to stand on.
Seeing this, Li Huo, who had sobered up a little, felt inexplicably embarrassed. He quickly swept away the debris on the ground with his feet and invited Zheng Xi to sit down at the wooden table in the room. Of course, the empty wine jars on the table were also taken by him.
They put them on the ground one by one calmly.
After sitting down on the stool, Zheng Xi prepared his tone for a while, and then sighed and said: "The matter about General Xiang Shen... is really disappointing. Please forgive me and accept the change."
Li Huo nodded silently. He also knew that Xiang Xuan wrote a letter before committing suicide and sent his confidants to escort him across Weishan Lake and sent it to the Huling Navy.
Although he didn't know the specific content of the letter, Li Huo could roughly guess that he had met Zheng Xi, the envoy from Daliang of Wei State today - it was nothing more than Xiang Ding's death in exchange for Wei King Zhao Run's North to them.
It’s just Bo’s army and generals, as well as their forgiveness and kindness to the people of Song Dynasty.
Sure enough, Zheng Xi straightened his posture and expressed his intention of coming with a serious face: "My Majesty, I came here this time on the order of our monarch to discuss your army... well, surrender to me, the Wei Dynasty."
Li Huo was silent for a moment, and then asked: "Master Zheng, Li knows that the Prime Minister wrote a letter to the King of Wei before his death, but he doesn't know the details. Can you tell me?"
Zheng Xi seemed to have guessed that Li Huo would ask this question, so he took out a letter from his arms and handed it to Li Huo. It was the letter from Xiang Huo.
"Our monarch guessed that the generals would have some questions, so he ordered me to take a letter to General Xian with me..."
Li Huo picked up the letter with slightly trembling hands, spread it out and looked at it carefully.
Just as he guessed, Xiang Ding took all the blame on himself and used his own death to plead with Wei King Zhao Run to forgive the Song people and the Beibo army generals.
Perhaps because he saw Li Huo staring at the letter for a long time without responding, Zheng Xi coughed and asked: "General Li Huo, do you agree to surrender?"
Hearing this, Li Huo raised his head, glanced at Zheng Xi, and suddenly asked: "What does the King of Wei want to do with the Prime Minister?"
Of course Zheng Xi knew what Li Huo was talking about, that is, how the Wei court defined Xiang Xiang's character and behavior, whether to classify him as a rebellious official or a traitor, or to restore his reputation.
Zheng Xi did not disappoint Li Huo. He took out the message written by Wen Qi from his arms and gave it to Li Huo to see.
Li Huo took it with a puzzled expression and frowned as he read the appeal. When he saw that every sentence in the appeal was praising Xiang Xuan, he couldn't help but be stunned for a moment.
At this time, Zheng Xi said from the side: "When I learned that General Xiang Dian died, our monarch also sighed with regret. Your Majesty said, although General Xiang Dian was our enemy of the Wei Dynasty, this does not prevent us from respecting him as a person.
, and said, it is a pity that there is another benevolent and righteous hero missing in this world..."
Li Huo looked at Zheng Xi, then at the message in his hand. After a while, he sighed softly and asked, "King Wei, what will you do with our Beibo Army?"
Zheng Xi smiled and said: "As far as Zheng knows, most of your troops will be incorporated into the Huling Navy..."
Hearing this, Li Huo looked at Zheng Xi in surprise, as if he felt a little incredible.
At this time, I saw Zheng Xi explaining again: "The matter has come to this, so there is no harm in speaking directly... The original intention of our monarch is to use your army to sharpen our Huling navy, but... God's will is unpredictable, and now this
I'm afraid it won't work out. Your Majesty feels that your army has been in the Weishan Lake area for many years and is good at water warfare. It would be a pity if it were to be disbanded. Therefore, I hope that the Beibo Army will be incorporated into the Huling Navy... Our Majesty promises
, out of respect for General Xiang Ding, he will treat your army equally. Although your army cannot retain its army number, among the latest warships of the Wei Dynasty, there must be a giant ship named "Bei Bo"...
…This promise remains unchanged from generation to generation!”
Li Huo nodded. He really could not ask for more from King Zhao Run of Wei.
"Then...how will the King of Wei treat me, the Song people?"
"Like the people of Wei, treat everyone equally." Zheng Xi said seriously.
Li Huo nodded again, and then he said abruptly: "Okay, I am willing to obey the Prime Minister's will and lead the army to surrender to your country. However, I hope that "my man from the Song Dynasty" will be able to save the Prime Minister's death."
And pay the price!”
"This is not possible!" Zheng Xi flatly refused: "General Xiang Xian implored our monarch in his letter to protect the one in your country, and our Majesty, feeling General Xiang Xian's loyalty to the Song Dynasty, agreed to this request...
Anyone who dares to do anything to harm that person will not be spared by me, the Great Wei."
"..." Li Huo said nothing, just stared at Zheng Xi.
Zheng Xi moved his sitting position with some discomfort and asked: "Will this matter affect the general's final decision?"
"No, I'm just asking casually."
Li Huo snorted lightly, and then said in a low and inexplicable tone: "Please report back to the King of Wei, our Beibo Army... is willing to surrender."
About ten days later, the Wei army from Huling Water Village crossed Weishan Lake by boat and took over Tengdi Water Village, as well as the remaining Beibo Army.
The Puppet Song Dynasty was destroyed, and the Wei State completely pacified Song County.