First, at night, the southeast wind rose.

Just after Hai, it rained heavily, and in the midst of the wind and rain, Wu Haogu, Ximen Qing, and Zhang Zeduan got off the boat under the arrangement of Ma Zhi and Tong Guan and entered the Qingzhou Yongchang.

In the night rain, the streets of Cheongju are hazy and dark, and there is only the sound of rushing water. People who fight more fire prevention don't know where to hide from the rain and wind. The whole field seemed empty and quiet. Not far away, the water of the Yellow River also made waves, repeatedly beating the unreliable embankment in the dark, making a gurgling sound.

Not very far from the wharf, there is a crude medicine shop with the Ximentang sign. Naturally, it is an industry of the Simon family. On this stormy night, there were still lights coming from the hall, the door panel of the crude medicine shop was only half up, half of the door was open, and a man who looked like a man carried a lantern and kept looking under the eaves. Seeing a group of vague figures marching in the rain, he hurriedly waved the lantern in his hand, three times on the left and three times on the right.

"It's from my family."

Ximen Qing's role in this secret envoy operation was obviously more important than what she gave to Wu Haogu. Coming down from the dock, she was leading the way with a paper umbrella. For this large and broken field, Ximen seems to be very familiar with it, and he turns left and right with a heavy person, and arrives in front of Ximen Hall in the field.

"But the eldest sister?"

The man from Simon's family asked.

"It's me." Ximen Qing replied loudly.

"Come in, come in."

This person from the Ximen family was a middle-aged man in his thirties, and Wu Haogu used the light to light up this person and found that he was actually a bald head.

"Eldest sister, is the person at the door a pretending monk?" Entering the hall, Wu Haogu asked Ximen Qing in a low voice.

"He's not a pretending monk, he's just a monk." Ximen Qing replied in a low voice, "His name is the monk who blows the lantern, and he is a monk of Yanjing Huayan Temple." ”

Westgate blowing the lamp? Wu Haogu thought to himself: I don't know if there is any Ximen blowing snow? But how could someone from the Ximen family become a monk in a temple in Liao? Could it be that he is doing underground work under the cover of being a monk?

With a bang, the door of the West Gate Hall was closed. There was no one in the lobby of the pharmacy, and it turned out that the only person waiting here to answer was the monk who blew the lamp.

"Ladies and gentlemen, blow the lamp at the lower west gate." As soon as Monk Ximen opened his mouth, there was a thick swallow cavity. "I was ordered by the presiding monk of Huayan Temple in Xijin Prefecture to burn the lamp, and I am waiting here."

Lighting the lamp?

Wu Haogu sounded a little ignorant, what kind of person is this? Shouldn't it be someone sent by Centaur Wang and Centaur Jie?

Ma Zhi opened his mouth at this time to explain: "The Taishi of the Burning Lamp is an uncle under him, a well-known horse talent, who was ordained as a monk after the crown, and is now the presiding monk of Huayan Temple in Yanjing. This time, we entered the Liao Kingdom as painters of the Southern Dynasties, nominally to make murals for Huayan Temple.

We will rest here tonight, and all the documents needed to enter Liao have been prepared, and we will be able to cross the river and go north tomorrow. ”

In fact, Ma Renwang and Ma Renjie sent Ma Zhinan to find Wu Haogu to paint, so as to shoot the sycophants of Yelu Hongji and Yelu Yanxi...... As for the rest of the things, Ma Zhi is making his own decisions!

That's right, the Doctor Witch Lushan Ma family does have their own little abacus. All the big families have small abacus. When the Ma family saw that the rule of the Khitans was crumbling, it was normal for them to want to step on two or three boats.

But that's a long-term plan, and it doesn't mean to be implemented right away. And Ma Zhi, in the words of later generations, is a little Han nationalist, young and hot-headed, so he is a little radical in his work.

However, the two heads of the Ma family, Ma Renwang and Ma Renjie, as well as this Ma monk and Ma talent, are all foxes who have been refined for many years. They would not be reckless and go to contact the secret envoy from the south in the name of the Doctor Wu Lu Shan Ma family.

So after getting the secret letter sent by Ma Zhi, the three bigwigs of the Ma family discussed in Yanjing for ten days.

In the end, it was decided that Huayan Temple would come forward to entertain the southern envoys. Because the status of the temple in the Liao State is transcendent, and the Yanjing Huayan Temple is a first-class temple in the Liao State. Many of the big monks in it are royal families who came out of the third father's room in the horizontal tent, and they can survive even if something goes wrong.

Moreover, the status of the Ma University monk Ma is not low, and he has an empty official title of the prince and the prince of the school. Although it's useless, it's still very bluffing to say it - the emperor of Liao likes to give the great monk this kind of secular official, what Taishi, Taibao, Sikong A lot of them, it sounds quite big, but in fact it's useless, it's still a monk who eats fasting and recites Buddha.

However, it is quite suitable to deal with the secret envoys of the Great Song Dynasty, anyway, the Great Song Dynasty did not send any important figures, just a eunuch and two nine-rank sesame officials. It is interesting enough for the Ma family to have a great monk.

As for what to talk about, it doesn't matter, the important thing is to get the murals of Huayan Temple done first, and it is better to still have some oil painting. After the mural is painted, you can go to shoot Yelu Hongji and Yelu Yanxi's fart, and when the farts are in place, the Ma family will be able to go to the next level.

In addition, it is to establish an informal channel of contact between the Ma family and the Great Song Dynasty, and the relationship is maintained first, and if you can get some benefits from the Great Song Dynasty, it will be even more ideal. If it is really the time of the great chaos in the Liao Kingdom, the Ma family may be able to rely on the support of the Great Song Dynasty to sit in the position of the envoy of a big town, and divide one side, and it will also be glorious for a while.

If the times are not good, there is also a way out.

……

When the morning came, Yanjing City, that is, the city of Xijin Mansion in Nanjing, the Great Liao Kingdom, was also shrouded in a spring rain.

The rain fell on the dripping eaves in front of the Nanjing police patrol envoy in Daliao, weaving a rain wall. The scenery in the courtyard has become blurry.

The future of Da Liao, just like this rainy world, can be seen when it is close, but it is not clear from afar......

How good would it be if the current Great Liao Kingdom could be sustained for thousands of generations? Although the Khitan and Xi people are so-called nations, there are really few people surnamed Yelu and Xiao who can manage their finances and govern the people.

These people are either hunting and having fun all day long, or they are fascinated by fasting and chanting Buddha, and it is rare that a few people with clear brains have to deal with a large number of clans and internal battles within the Yelu family.

The yamen that really made money and water, such as the Shangjing Salt and Iron Division, the Tokyo Household Envoy Division, the Zhongjing Degree Envoy Division, the Nanjing Third Division, the Nanjing Transit Envoy Division, and the Xijing Planning Division (these six yamen are collectively known as the Wujing Accounting Division, which is the key department in charge of the economy of the Liao State), are all under the control of the Han people. What coinage, trade, salt and iron, official handicrafts, as well as the taxes of the southern state armies (the money and silk divisions of the state armies), and the police patrol courts of the various Beijing provinces in charge of justice, are all in the hands of the Han people.

For example, Ma Renwang himself served as the judge of the salt and iron branch of the Zhongjing branch and the judge of the third division of Nanjing. Now that he is a police patrol in Nanjing, he is also lacking.

He made a lot of money, and then took out a part of it to honor the big man surnamed Yelu and the big man surnamed Xiao, so the old foolish emperor Yelu Hongji and Yelu Yanxi, the privy envoy of the south and north who didn't know what he was doing all day long, all thought that he was a great good official.

In fact, the southern officials of the Liao State are very good, as long as they can settle the families in the district, everything will be fine. The Liao State is not like the Great Song Dynasty, there are a lot of people who are all kinds of people, and those who are officials have to take care of the lives and deaths of the people...... In addition to the two surnames of Yelu and Xiao, the first class is the "Yan four clans", which is the four families of Han, Zhao, Ma and Liu, followed by the Li family, the Gao family, the Shi family, the Zhang family, the Liang family and so on more than a dozen second-class Han families, and then the following is Gao, Zhang, Yang, Dou, Wu, and Li, the six "Bohai right surnames".

The affairs of these more than 30 families are settled, and the amount of taxes supplied to the emperor of Liao is not too small, and the rest is just sycophancy.

Moreover, the important officials of the Liao State are all selected by the world, that is, they can become big officials by reincarnation by ability. Therefore, if the horse man from the "Yan Four Family" wants this official not to be too happy!

In addition, the Liao State, like the Great Song Dynasty, did not inhibit land annexation. And a big family like the Ma family is really open to annexing the land population, which family is not millions of acres of land and tens of thousands of tenants?

Also, the merchants of the Liao State really have no status. Unlike the Song Dynasty, the Song Dynasty did not have any gate valve power, so the class of "scholars" bubbled, and the three people of agriculture, industry and commerce had nothing up and down.

And Liao is the world! The three people of agriculture and commerce are also relatively equal, and they are all slaves of the family. Therefore, the commerce of the Liao State was basically controlled by the Han family, and the handicraft industry was mainly government-run, which was naturally under the control of the Han family.

For the Yiwu Lushan Ma family, one of the "Four Yan Families", is there a better motherland than Da Liao?

However, the current Great Liao Kingdom is really stormy, and a Mogus Rebellion has been fought for many years, and it has not been settled. The female straight people in the east are also ready to move, and the Bohai people, who have a blood feud with the Khitans, are not very stable. Even the Great Song Kingdom, which had always been weak in the south, actually flourished under the leadership of the traitorous ministers of the faint monarch, and beat the Western Xia to a loss......

Ma Renwang, who was a loyal minister of the Great Liao State, was just silent, and he was stupid for a while. The footsteps behind him sounded softly, and the voice of his son Ma Ying came: "Daddy, the second brother has sent someone to report that they have boarded the Gang boat from Liaodong and are coming to Xijin Mansion." ”

Ma Renwang's mind drifted far away, and he casually ordered: "These days, how is the hometown of Yiwu Lushan?" Are the Bohai Nu there still honest? The big sword, the traitor, can you catch it? And what is the name of that kid from the Zhao family, Brother Zhong, what the hell is going on? If a good family doesn't do it, how can you become a thief? You can send someone to contact Ze and see if you can recruit you. It's really getting more and more chaotic now, and the world is going to be chaotic......"