"You...how did you know?" Jiang Quan was surprised.
"Bao'er, is that Hu Shuren?" Hu Shanwei said, "I slept with you that night, and you talked in your sleep, saying that you couldn't find your Bao'er. I have never understood why someone like you insisted on entering the palace, why Hu Shuren could easily abandon the head eunuch who had served her for many years, but was so kind to you, why the criminals wanted to chop off your head, and why Linchuan Hou Hu Mei would exterminate three clans for the palace chaos case... Moreover, your expression and reaction have verified my answer."
Jiang Quan rubbed the copper basin with his palms. He began to hear hallucinations, as if he could hear the cry of a baby. "I thought mother and daughter were reunited, but it turned out to be a death warrant."
Hu Shanwei asked: "If you could do it again, would you choose to live in anonymity outside the palace for the rest of your life?"
Jiang Quan thought for a long time and said, "No, even if I had to do it again a hundred times, I would still be admitted to the palace. Asking a mother whether she would give up looking for her daughter is like asking a moth whether it would fly into a flame."
Hu Shanwei said, "In that case, please cheer up and take good care of yourself. Don't sit there all the time and worry about it. What can a not-so-young eighth-rank female historian do for the little princess? No one wants her to be a wet nurse or a nanny. Concubine Cao has no relatives or friends with the little princess, but Concubine Li Xian invited her to preside over the little princess' hair-cutting ceremony. Don't you want to be able to stop those plots and oppressions for the little princess one day, so that she can grow up happily and not become a pawn at the mercy of others?"
Hu Shanwei sympathized with Jiang Quan, but in the palace, helping him to regain his fighting spirit as soon as possible was more important than sympathy. For this reason, Hu Shanwei would rather be a bad guy and tell the truth.
Jiang Quan was naturally unwilling, and his eyes were burning with desire.
Hu Shanwei sighed and took out a box of Korean ginseng from the second layer of the food box. This was something Mu Chun asked Chen Ermei from the Shangshi Bureau to pass on to her before she left. Hu Shanwei only suffered mental trauma and was not seriously injured physically, so he gave the ginseng to Jiang Quan, who needed more nourishment.
Now that Hu Shuren has fallen, Jiang Quan, who used to be a famous figure in the Yanx Palace, is bound to be abused by those palace servants who are accustomed to flattering the powerful and bullying the weak.
Fortunately, the female officials who entered the palace together were relatively united. Hu Shanwei was rejected by the six bureaus and one department together. When he was down and out, he was secretly taken care of by Jiang Quan and others. He had no worries about three meals a day and could even drink iced mung bean soup. Now that Jiang Quan has lost power, it is still this group of people who come to help.
It is useful to stick together for warmth. If you don't believe me, look at the old people from the Yanxi Palace who were punished for ringing the bell in the middle of the night on Dongchang Street. Compared to them, Jiang Quan is in heaven.
Hu Shanwei comforted Jiang Quan and watched her finish drinking the ginseng soup, go to bed and breathe evenly before he blew out the candle, closed the door and went back.
Before blowing out the candles, Hu Shanwei glanced at Jiang Quan's room. The gorgeous furnishings in the Duobao Pavilion, the large Western clock that told time in the corner, and other rare items had all been moved away - all the things given by Hu Shuren were stored in the palace storehouse.
Hu Shanwei went out carrying the empty lunch box. East Chang Street was still brightly lit by the street lights on both sides. The evening breeze brought the sounds of music from the three-day banquet celebrating the little princess's third baptism to his ears.
"Peace on earth!"
The former palace servants of the Yanx Palace lined up in a long queue and rang bells to be punished. They passed by Hu Shanwei who was carrying a food box. Every few steps they took, they rang the bells and shouted in unison that the world was at peace.
It's another summer night like a hundred demons parading at night.
A black moth flew onto the copper wire mesh on the street lamp, which was already covered with insect corpses, giving off a burnt smell.
Hu Shanwei stopped and next to him was the sealed Yanxi Palace. He recalled the night he met Jiang Quan here, when Emperor Hongwu visited Concubine Hu, and outside the Yanxi Palace, the ceremonial guards of the "Weimen's Bedroom" that only the three main palaces had were set up.
“Asking a mother if she will give up looking for her daughter is like asking a moth if it will fly into a flame.”
Jiang Quan's sad but firm answer echoed in his ears. Hu Shanwei looked at the charred body of the moth on the street lamp outside the Yanxi Palace and couldn't help but sigh. It turned out that the ending was already determined...
As he was thinking, the patrolling Jinyiwei came over, and Hu Shanwei's mind suddenly appeared Mu Chun's face. When this naughty kid went to the battle for the first time, she was still in a coma and did not say goodbye to him. She also didn't know how the battle was going when he was fighting bandits in Guaishiling, Jiangxi.
People just can't stand being worried about something.
At the same time, thousands of miles away, in Nanchang, Jiangxi, at the foot of Strange Rock Ridge.
Mu Chun sneezed three times in a row. Ji Gang asked, "Who missed General Mu?"
Muchun muttered, "Anyway, he's not my father."
It couldn't be his mother either, because she had been gone for seventeen years.
Mu Chun led 300 Jinyiwei to Nanchang, Jiangxi to suppress bandits. He was just a small soldier of Jinyiwei and could not command the support of the people. Fortunately, he had the support of Emperor Hongwu. The emperor gave him an honorary title of guerrilla general, which was used exclusively during the expedition. When he returned from the battle, the honorary title would automatically disappear.
Muchun's background is so good that his starting point is the end point that an ordinary soldier would find difficult to reach even if he struggles all his life.
Mu Chun was very excited to lead a battle for the first time. After all, he had the excellent blood of his mother and father, so he was self-taught and could cheat at the very beginning:
First, in order to avoid alerting the enemy, he ordered the Jinyiwei to disembark in Jiujiang County, Jiangxi Province, disguise themselves as merchants, and split into three groups to meet in Nanchang.
At midnight, the three armies successfully joined forces, and Mu Chun began the second step of the plan. Mu Chun gave Ji Gang a set of bridal gowns and a dressing box filled with rouge and powder.
Ji Gang held the wedding dress in his hands, wondering if General Mu was blind: "Why are you giving me these? I have fair skin, long legs, and a beautiful face, but I am a real man."
Muchun: "I know, but in this army, you are the most like a woman."
Muchun told his plan:
First, one hundred soldiers disguised themselves as a wedding procession, hid weapons in the sedan chair and dowry boxes, beat drums and gongs, and passed by the foot of the Guaishiling Mountain in a high-profile manner, luring the people from the Guaishiling village to come and rob the bride.
Beautiful bride, generous dowry.
In order to take the fat and tender bait, the bandits would definitely send almost half of them down the mountain to surround the huge wedding procession. According to the criminals in the imperial prison, there were nearly a thousand bandits in Guaishiling, and they had become a powerful force.
It was a five-to-one situation, and they also needed manpower to carry the dowry, steal mules and horses and the bride, kidnap the groom as a hostage, etc.
When five hundred bandits emerged from their hiding place and surrounded the wedding procession, they wanted to rob the bride and dowry. Mu Chun, who was disguised as the groom, used a bamboo whistle as a signal, and the wedding procession opened the dowry boxes and took out weapons to fight back. Two hundred Jinyiwei and one hundred reinforcements hiding in the dark surrounded the bandits. The two sides worked together from inside and outside to kill some of the most vicious and vicious people first and intimidate the bandits.
Then, Mu Chun announced that those who surrendered would not be killed, and if anyone took the initiative to help the court go up the mountain to suppress the bandits, he would be given an official position and money according to his final merits.
Anyone who kills a mountain king will be granted the title of a hundred households.
Anyone who refuses to surrender will be killed without mercy.
This is the method personally taught by Emperor Hongwu on “how to annihilate bandits”: first beat them into submission, then persuade them, and finally break through from the inside, so that the bandits commit suicide and rise up on their own, thus achieving a great victory.
The plan went smoothly. The grand wedding procession made the entire village excited, and half of the bandits went down the mountain to rob.
The bandits forced the wedding procession to stop. The bride in the sedan screamed in fear. A hand with distinct joints and white as jade lifted the curtain of the sedan door, revealing a corner of her veil that looked like a zongzi.
Her oval face and chin look like porcelain just out of the kiln in Jingdezhen.
The bride uttered a delicate, soft, and timid voice: "Chun Lang, who is coming?"
When the bandits saw the bride holding the lute and half covering her face, their eyes turned green with excitement and they wanted to grab her and make her their wife right away.
The groom Mu Chun on horseback: "My lady, they are bandits."
"Ouch!" The bride let out a soft and tender cry and lowered the curtain.
Upon hearing the sound, the bandits were so excited that their eyes were spitting fire.
Mu Chun thought it was a pity that Ji Gang didn't get to sing the role of Guimendan, so he blew the bamboo whistle.
The officers and soldiers acted according to the plan, opened the boxes to get weapons and killed the bandits. Everything went smoothly. The Jinyiwei were all brave and vowed to avenge the nine Jinyiwei. The army of sympathy will win, and they will become braver and braver as the battle goes on.
The one hundred reinforcements given by my great uncle were all veterans who had been on the battlefield for a long time, enough to fight one against five. Some of the bandits were killed in battle, while others surrendered.
Mu Chun saw that the time was right, so he ordered a ceasefire and read out the court's conditions for amnesty.
When the bandits heard that the one who killed the mountain king was a captain, their eyes lit up again. This was much more tempting than the wife of a bandit leader - if you become an official, would you still worry about not having beautiful women
A bandit asked: "How high is the rank of centurion?"
Mu Chun: "As a sixth-rank military officer, I can also ask for your mother to be conferred the title of Madam of Imperial Concubine, bringing honor to the family."
The bandits all expressed their willingness to defect.
Mu Chun began to implement the third wave of the plan: Ji Gang continued to pretend to be the bride, he pretended to be the kidnapped hostage groom, and his elite men changed into bandits' clothes and mixed in with the surrendered bandits, making up a group of 500 people, carrying boxes of looted "dowry" to present to the mountain king.
The bride was carried in front of the mountain king by eight strong bandits. She screamed and struggled, making her slender waist look as soft and flexible as a long snake.
"Your Majesty, we present to you a new wife."
The mountain king stroked his beard, his eyes as obscene and dirty as a fly, buzzing around the bride, saying that everything was fine except that her breasts were a little small, and they needed to be nourished with papaya and pig's trotters.
The groom Muchun cried, "Don't touch my wife. You can give me as much money as you want. My family has plenty of money."
The mountain king said, "Since your family is so rich, write to them and ask them to pay the ransom and marry you another one. Bring the new wife closer so I can see her face."
Of course the bride struggled, her slender waist was twisted to the point of breaking, the mountain king's eyes were fixed on the twisting of her waist, he did not notice the cold light from the sharp blade hidden in the sleeve of his bandit.
“Ahem!”
The eight bandits attacked almost at the same time and poked eight bloody holes in the mountain king's chest.
To catch a thief, first catch the leader. Mu Chun yelled, "Go!"
Muchun still followed the experience taught by Emperor Hongwu, first conquering them, then persuading them, and finally recruiting them to surrender. By dusk, the bandit stronghold that had been entrenched in Guaishiling for nearly ten years was razed to the ground by the officers and soldiers.
Defeating a thousand bandits with three hundred Jinyiwei and a hundred reinforcements was considered a great victory.
Mu Chun sat on the mountain king's chair and set out wine to celebrate. Because the mountain king was stabbed to death by eight bandits, Mu Chun waved his hand and made each of them a hundred households!
Ji Gang looked at the eight bandit centurions who had just been announced, and was a little worried. "General Mu, it's not fun to confer titles. We have given eight bandits the title of sixth-rank military officer. I guess the court won't recognize it when they return to the capital."
Mu Chun drank with a smile, "This is something the court should worry about. My mission is to win the battle. When I return to the capital after the battle, I will no longer have the title of guerrilla general. I will just be a small soldier, with a lower official rank than you, so I can't take care of so many things."
Ji Gang thought, who did you inherit this ability of passing the buck from
Not only Ji Gang, but the eight new centurions also began to worry and came forward to ask Mu Chun: "Officials have official robes, official seals, and money every month to support our families. Is this true? Is the court really
Do you think you can recognize us bandits as officials? I feel like you imperial officers and soldiers look down on us."
Especially the 100 brave and skilled reinforcements sent by Song Guogong Feng Sheng, in their eyes, these bandits who were recruited were just a bunch of trash. They even ignored the bandits' toasts to them.
Mu Chun took a look and felt that the atmosphere was not right. Now was the time to unite and not to become divided - even if they wanted to become divided, they had to wait until they reached the capital.
He got so drunk that he simply jumped onto the mountain king's tiger-skin chair and stood up, saying loudly: "Everyone, don't look down on yourself just because you were once a bandit. What's wrong with being a bandit? My grandfather, Feng Guoyong, Duke of Ying, and my great-uncle, Feng Sheng, Duke of Song, were both well-known figures, first-rank dukes, hereditary. Do you know what they have in common?"
The court officials and soldiers all rolled their eyes at their own guerrilla general.
The bandits began to raise their hands to answer:
"They are all from the same mother!"
"They are all born from the same father!"
“They all have the same ancestor!”
"Correct answer!" Mu Chun led the applause and said, "However, they have one thing in common, that is, they have all been bandits!"
The court officials and soldiers were in an uproar: Family disgrace should not be made public! The guerrilla general must have been drunk!
The bandits all looked admiring, "How did they go from being bandits to becoming dukes?"
Mu Chun talked freely: "My maternal grandfather, the Feng brothers, were born in Fengyang, a place where dragons rise. Fengyang was in chaos for nine years. The Feng brothers built a stronghold in Miaoshan, Fengyang, killing the rich and helping the poor. The emperor built a stronghold in Jiushan, Fengyang. When the two bandits met, there was bound to be a fight, and everyone wanted to fight for territory..."
As soon as these words were spoken, the court officials and soldiers quickly split into three factions. One faction was composed of 300 Jinyiwei. They were deeply worried for Mu Chun. It was true that the emperor had been a bandit, and it was also written in history books. But you brought it up as a topic of conversation at the dinner table and boasted about it. Aren't you afraid that the emperor would be angry
The other faction was the one hundred reinforcements sent by Feng Sheng, Duke of Song. They were all old subordinates who had followed the Feng brothers into battle. When they saw that Mu Chun, the prodigal son, had actually exposed the Feng family's "scandal", they wished they could rush up and shut his mouth!
If Mu Chun was not the Feng family's grandson, he would have been beaten to death by them long ago.
The third group consisted of ten guards sent by his biological father, Mu Ying, Marquis of Xiping.
Guard A: "Those old veterans seem to want to rush over and beat up our young master. Be alert."
Guard B: "I see—I want to beat him, too."
Guard C: "Is he really our Marquis' biological son?"
Mu Chun continued to stand on the tiger-skin chair and tell the story of the Feng brothers, "My grandfather thought, let's fight, who's afraid of who? So he took his brother Feng Sheng out of the mountain stronghold to fight the emperor. But when he saw the emperor's face, my grandfather surrendered. Guess why?"
Bandit: "Why? Keep talking, don't stop!"
Mu Chun: "My grandfather saw a huge dragon so long and thick hovering above the emperor's head! How could he not surrender when he met the true dragon emperor?"
The court officials and soldiers looked at each other: Fortunately, we are not completely stupid.
Mu Chun was sitting on a chair, telling the legendary stories of the Feng brothers with saliva flying everywhere, such as how his grandfather Feng Guoyong led 500 soldiers to capture the city of Jiqing, and how he rescued Xu Da, the Duke of Wei, from danger in the Battle of Shaoxing.
The bandits applauded, thinking it was better than anything the storyteller had told, and regarded Muchun's grandfather as their life goal.
Just as they were talking excitedly, Ji Gang winked at Mu Chun, who understood what he meant and said, "I've had too much wine and meat. I'm going to the toilet and will be back soon."
The bandits continued to applaud and cheer, thinking that this honest General Mu was humble, approachable, and did not discriminate against them because of their bandit background, and that they could be trusted.
Ji Gang pulled Mu Chun to the observation deck and said, "The spies ahead reported that our Guaishiling stronghold was surrounded by Hu Mei's rebels. They claimed that they would kill all the Jinyiwei to avenge Hu Mei."
In the past, Hu Mei, the prime minister of the Han Dynasty, surrendered to Zhu Yuanzhang and betrayed Han King Chen Youliang on the condition that he was allowed to retain the military power of his troops.
Zhu Yuanzhang was a little hesitant at the time, but his aide Liu Ji behind the scenes kicked the wooden table hard, asking him to agree first, and to talk about the future later. The most important thing was to deal with Chen Youliang.
Zhu Yuanzhang agreed.
So Hu Mei kept this army of about 30,000 people and made it the Hu family's private army. The Hu family was exterminated, Hu Mei was sentenced to death, and this private army was forcibly disbanded by the court.
However, this group of private soldiers obeyed the court's arrangement on the surface and returned to the countryside, but the core members secretly gathered together and formed an army of about 10,000 people. After the Jinyiwei pacified the Guaishiling stronghold, they surrounded the place, determined to kill all the Jinyiwei and capture Mu Chun alive as a hostage, in order to avenge their lord Hu Mei!
"Ten thousand people?" Mu Chun was sobered up by the shock and asked Ji Gang, "How many people are we now?"
Ji Gang: "Including the bandits who surrendered, there are almost a thousand."
A tenfold difference!
"We definitely can't win." Mu Chun whispered, "There are tunnels in the mountain village, let's run quickly."
Ji Gang said: "The tunnel was just blown down by the Humei rebels. You are a general and you come from a noble family. You must lead us to fight a battle where the minority defeats the majority, just like your father and grandfather did, so as not to disgrace your family name."
The author has something to say: Today's chapter is substantial and updated ahead of schedule. I have kept my promise. Please give me some praise! ! ! !
Today we routinely send 100 red envelopes~
"History of Ming Dynasty" (Volume 126): "Chun, courtesy name Jingchun, was a man of martial talent and inherited his father's style. At the age of seventeen... he was always the first to ascend the mountain when he pacified the bandits in Jiangxi."
Don't worry too much about Chunchun. Even the history books say that Chunchun, at the age of 17, went to Jiangxi to suppress bandits and won. Tomorrow you will see how Chunchun survives.
In addition, tomorrow Zhou has to write a big chapter of 6000+ words, finishing the virgin conquest and explaining Hu Shanwei's debut in the workplace in one go. Because it is very long, the update time will be postponed to between 10:30 and 11:00 pm. Please wait a moment, Zhou will definitely not break his promise.