It was late at night, a half moon hung in the night sky, and the moonlight was as cool as water.
Guo Shao went back to his bedroom to rest. Yang was lying on the bed, and when she heard the door open, she turned around and met Guo Shao's eyes. She blushed and turned her head away.
She said very little, after all, they had only known each other for a few days, and she was raped. Guo Shao also kept silent and prepared to go to bed.
At this moment, a voice suddenly came from outside the door: General Luo rushed over from Shouzhou overnight and said that he had important matters to report to Envoy Guo.
Which General Luo is this? Guo Shao asked.
Luo Yanhuan. The guard outside the door said.
It was already dark, and it might not be easy for Luo Yanhuan to enter Xiacai Town. It must be something important. Guo Shao had no choice but to say to Yang: "Wait for me, I'll be back soon."
Yang didn't answer and continued sleeping on her side.
Guo Shao picked up the robe he had just taken off and put it on. When he opened the door, he saw Luo Yanhuan pacing anxiously in the yard. This mansion only has one yard, and there is only this area after entering the gate.
When Luo Yanhuan saw Guo Shao coming out, he hurried forward and said, "I have something important to do." Guo Shao said, "I know."
Luo Yanhuan said: "Today, the scouts caught a spy, but two others escaped on horseback. The captured horse was shot dead by our scouts, and an arrow was also shot in the leg before we caught him. After I caught him, I ordered him to be beaten, and then he confessed, saying that Lu Mengjun, the right guard general of the Southern Tang Kingdom, sent them to see Li Chongjin, and came from Haozhou; I ordered him to be tortured again, and he really didn't know why he met Li Chongjin. However, the fact that the general of the Southern Tang Kingdom had contact with our guard Sima Bu Duzhishi was very serious, so I quickly went to find the lord.
It's a bit serious. Guo Shao paced for two steps and said, "Let your personal soldiers arrange a room for you to rest for a night. I will assign you something tomorrow morning. Let me think about it." Guo Shao said in a deep voice, "Don't call me lord in the future. You and I are both generals of the imperial army, and you are not my family general."
Luo Yanhuan nodded.
Guo Shao turned around and pushed open the door to go in, but suddenly saw Yang standing at the door, wearing a plain white middle-length dress and with her hair loose, which scared Guo Shao. He said angrily: "Why are you standing here? My general and I are talking about military affairs, which has nothing to do with you."
Yang looked unhappy and asked blankly: Are you talking about Lu Mengjun
It seems to be this name. Do you know General Youwei of Southern Tang Kingdom, Guo Shao asked, because the Yang family originally came from Southern Tang Kingdom.
Unexpectedly, a big tear fell silently from the corner of Yang's eye. Guo Shao didn't know why.
Yang suddenly knelt on the ground, choking with sobs, and said: General Guo, please help me kill Lu Mengjun. He is my sworn enemy. He was a Chu citizen before he surrendered to the Southern Tang Kingdom. When he replaced him with Ma Xichong, the King of Chu, he slaughtered the entire Yang family. Only my late father, Yang Zhaoyun, the governor of Shuzhou, and all the hundreds of people in the Yang family were left. He slaughtered them all. Lu Mengjun is a heinous butcher with blood on his hands.
Guo Shao hurriedly supported her and comforted her with kind words: I heard that he has arrived in Haozhou. I am going to Haozhou on this expedition. If I can win, I will capture him for you.
If General Guo can help me get revenge, I will work like a slave to repay you. Yang burst into tears.
Guo Shao sighed and waited for her to cry enough. She cried for a while and then said: I won’t go to Tokyo. I will wait for Lu Mengjun to die in Huainan.
After Guo Shao consoled her, he did not care about Yang anymore. After thinking it over, he simply wrote a letter of denunciation and prepared to send his confidant to Yangzhou to report to the emperor the next morning. He thought: It is not polite to not reciprocate. It is time for me to report.
Li Chongjin was on his way to Zhengyang, where part of the Imperial Guard's Longjie Army was stationed. The rest of the Longjie Army was in Hebei to guard against the Khitan; Han Tong's navy was also in Zhengyang.
When the group walked to the evening, they found that there was no posthouse nearby, so they had to set up a camp and pitched tents to spend the night. At this time, they met the envoy of the Southern Tang Kingdom. The spies actually knew that he was rushing back to Huaishui from Yangzhou, and they might have spies in Yangzhou; the envoy was waiting for him on the road.
Li Chongjin dismissed his attendants and called the messenger in for questioning. The messenger took out a wax ball, cracked it open, and found a secret letter inside, which he presented to Li Chongjin for review.
The letter claimed to be from the Southern Tang Emperor, and he sent Lu Mengjun to find a way to deliver it to Li Chongjin. The content was not concealed, but it advised Li Chongjin to surrender to the Southern Tang, and the Southern Tang Emperor would certainly use him, and promised to grant him a high position and wealth; and he also assured that those who surrendered to the Southern Tang lived well, and Lu Mengjun, who was in contact with Li Chongjin, was a good example, etc.
There were also sufficient reasons for persuading him to surrender. First, Li Chongjin and Zhang Yongde were at odds. I don't know where the King of Southern Tang got the news from. Zhang Yongde once reminded Chai Rong that Li Chongjin had two minds and must be guarded against.
Li Chongjin had also heard of this incident, and it was not a fabrication by the people of Southern Tang.
Li Jing, the ruler of Southern Tang, had some more words to say, which roughly meant: Chai Rong, the ruler of Zhou Dynasty, had long wanted to kill you, but he had not done anything for the time being because of his relationship with his relatives and because he could not convince his soldiers. But he would find a way to punish you sooner or later. I heard that the ruler instigated Wang Pu to force you to offer fried fish to your subordinates. This humiliation has spread to the foreign Southern Tang. Where is General Li's face and prestige? Doesn't General Li understand this? Come as soon as possible. The powerful Southern Tang welcomes you.
Li Chongjin was ashamed and angry, so he held back his anger and looked at the man coldly. Suddenly he saw blood on his legs, so he asked: "Did you encounter any trouble on the road?"
The messenger had no choice but to tell the truth: he accidentally ran into the Zhou army's cavalry.
Someone was arrested, Li Chongjin asked.
The messenger hurriedly shook his head: He is dead, and he doesn't know what happened. I am the only one who knows this letter.
Hum! Li Chongjin sneered, already knowing the general process, and immediately shouted, "Come here, take down the spy!"
You come to make things very urgent.
Li Chongjin said: Send these two people to take the wax ball and the secret letter and send them to Yangzhou to the emperor.
However, Chai Rong had already learned about this matter, but he kept silent. When Li Chongjin sent the secret letter, Chai Rong finally appreciated it and sent people to comfort and reward Li Chongjin for his loyalty.
However, Chai Rong was still very angry and scolded Li Jing in front of several important officials: "How dare you be so mean, little Li Jing!"
Wang Pu hurriedly advised: "You want to use a strategy of sowing discord to sow discord between our king, ministers and generals? This is too crude. Your Majesty is wise, how can you be fooled?"
Wang Pu basically doesn't flatter, even if it's the emperor, it's very difficult for him to flatter; in this respect, he is more upright than Feng Dao. Last year, Feng Dao directly advised the emperor not to personally attack Hedong, and bluntly said that Chai Rong was not as good as Emperor Taizong of Tang; later Chai Rong realized that Feng Dao was just flattering in disguise, and pretended to be very upright. Wang Pu would not say that.
Chai Rong thought about it and understood what Wang Pu meant. He felt that he and Wang Pu were becoming more and more compatible as a monarch and minister.
Chai Rong then showed the secret letter to Zhang Yongde.
Zhang Yongde said: General Li Chongjin and I are both generals of the Zhou army. If the generals are not in harmony, it will affect the morale of the army. My advice last year was ill-considered.
So when Chai Rong, Zhang Yongde and Zhao Kuangyin led the inner palace guards and part of the cavalry to leave Yangzhou, Zhang Yongde asked for permission to go ahead and went to Zhengyang first.
Zhang Yongde rode into Li Chongjin's camp alone, and then went into his central army tent to chat. Li Chongjin did not show his displeasure this time, and the conversation was very harmonious. Then he invited Zhang Yongde to have dinner and drink, and they had a good chat. Zhang Yongde took the initiative to mention last year's incident not out of personal grudges, so the two said that they had let go of their past grudges and started anew.
However, after Li Chongjin got drunk, he suddenly mentioned: Guo Shao, the commander-in-chief of the Infantry Division, had made great contributions in Gaoping last year, and it seemed that Zhang Jiandian had said some good things about him.
Zhang Yongde said: "Guo Dushi had military merits last year. I just treated him equally out of fairness and had no personal relationship with him. Apart from meeting him a few times on official occasions, I have never met or spoken to him privately."
So that's how it is. Li Chongjin nodded.
Zhang Yongde advised: "Guo Dushi is General Li's subordinate, I don't think he wants to humiliate you. General Li, think about what happened in Yangzhou a few days ago, it's not that Guo Dushi wants to make things difficult for you; I think, let it go, General Li, this is just a small matter, don't take it to heart."
Li Chongjin was reminded and recalled it. Then he could hear the delicious sound of Guo Shao chewing. The boy took a bite and wanted to take it a second time. Is the fried fish really that delicious
Li Chongjin's face turned red and white, and he spoke less and less.
After Zhang Yongde left, Li Chongjin summoned his generals to ask which army the scouts wandering on the road that night belonged to. The generals did not know, so they sent people to investigate for a long time before they found out: the First Army of the Left Wing of the Hujie Army.
Li Chongjin became more cautious. The First and Second Armies of the Tiger Jie Army and Guo Shao had been to Qinfeng, and no one cared about them there. No one would trust anyone who was not in the group.