Late at night, the angel rushed to Aobai's house and told him that the emperor had urgently summoned him to the palace to ask for the right thing.

"It's probably Deng Ming's trick again, right?" Ao Bai rubbed his sleepy eyes, muttered quietly in his mouth, hurriedly got dressed, and hurriedly followed the angel.

Before arriving at the Forbidden City, Ao Bai happened to be awakened from his sleep, Ao Bai took a step forward, saluted the old-timers, and when the two entered the palace side by side, he asked: "The emperor called us to come, I don't know why?" ”

"What else could it do?" Sony said angrily, yesterday Shunzhi showed them the report of Hezhou submitted by the Caoyun Governor Yamen, and after seeing Deng Ming winning one after another, Sony and Ao Bai were also stunned. Seeing the two henchmen behaving like this, Shunzhi, who was already suspicious, was even more uneasy, and immediately sent an order, if there is any more military situation in Jiangnan, he doesn't have to worry about the time, and immediately sent it to the emperor: "It must be Deng Ming who has been tricked again!" ”

"Slave respectfully pleases St. Ann." The two walked into the hall and knelt down at the same time to greet the emperor. Hundreds of huge candles illuminated the entire hall, and many eunuchs and imperial guards stood on both sides, all of them did not move, and no one even dared to pant loudly.

"Get up." Shunzhi said impatiently, just now he also lost some of his usual composure, before Sonny and Aobai arrived, he couldn't even sit on the dragon chair for a while, pacing back and forth in the hall in front of many guards.

After the two henchmen got up, Shunzhi threw a report on the imperial case to the two, and Sony took it and saw that it was indeed a submission from the Yamen, the governor of Caoyun.

"As I expected, Deng Ming really fell for the trick again." Shunzhi shouted: "What the hell is going on in Jiangnan? ”

Just now, Shunzhi took out his elite roster again, but instead of adding the names of Hezhou officials, he crossed out the last two in the queue with two strokes.

Sony thought for a while, considered the words and said, "If you don't take the small, you must have a big picture." In the opinion of a minion, most of the thieves Deng are not dead to Jiangning or Yangzhou. ”

Ao Bai pondered for a while, and nodded in agreement, he had a more terrible thought, but he didn't say it.

"Huh, huh?" Shunzhi didn't seem to be very satisfied with Sony's answer, he paused for two seconds, and suddenly shouted: "I'm a little suspicious, did they have an affair with Deng Ming, and reached some agreement?" That's why Deng Mingcai didn't fight their city? ”

"It must not be so!" Shunzhi's words were exactly what Ao Bai had guessed, but after thinking about it, he thought that this kind of thing was not very likely: "If this is the case, then Jiang Guozhu will definitely hear about this matter and report it to the imperial court to know, they are all under Jiang Guozhu's nose, can they still hide it?" ”

"What if Jiang Guozhu also plans to bully the king?" Shunzhi asked.

"This matter is even more unlikely, if this matter is presided over by Jiang Guozhu, will he let his subordinates send these ridiculous concerts?" Ao Bai said and pointed to the report in Sony's hand: "Jiang Guozhu must not know about this matter, otherwise he would have done it too stupidly." ”

Shunzhi frowned and savored it, his brows gradually loosened a little, his expression improved a lot, and he nodded and smiled at Aobai: "What Aiqing said is reasonable." ”

Since it was determined that the prefecture and county were deceived by Deng Ming, the purpose behind Deng Ming was worth worrying, Shunzhi thought about it along Aobai's line of thought, and found that Jiangning and Yangzhou were indeed in danger, so he immediately issued an order to Jiang Ning, asking Jiang Guozhu to make every effort to ensure Jiangning and Yangzhou.

"These prefectures and counties want to resist without soldiers, so they want to deceive Deng Ming, and Deng Thief is not trying to plan these prefectures and counties, but coveting Jiangning and Yangzhou, which are key places, so he will deceive them. In my opinion, maybe Deng Ming will also deliberately hint at them, saying, 'You don't want to learn from Lang Tingzuo and manage allegiance, do you?' Or something like that, to lure them into thinking about it. The more Shunzhi said, the more he felt justified, and Deng Ming obviously had the intention of killing people with a knife: "Maybe Deng Ming just wanted me to find out how stupid these fools were, and in a fit of anger, he cleaned them all up, making Jiangnan even more chaotic." Hmph, I know these are stupid people, but I'm not! I just want to clean them up, and I won't rush at this time. ”

Don't say that these officials are just incompetent, even if they really fornicate with Deng Ming, Shunzhi does not plan to liquidate them when Deng Ming stays in Jiangnan, and he must wait for Deng Ming to leave first. And in Shunzhi, I have already thought about it, since these people did not have a clear banner to turn to Deng Ming, then they are probably simply greedy for life and afraid of death, and they may have bribed Deng Ming - isn't that Mu Tan under Deng Ming a famous big embezzler?

"It's ridiculous to reuse such a notorious guy, it can be seen that you are nothing more than that, and you still dare to compete with me for the world." Shunzhi couldn't help but ridicule Deng Ming again, although it turned out that he could not far surpass Deng Ming in intelligence, but through the simple matter of Guò Mu Tan, Shunzhi could find that Deng Ming had a huge gap with himself in terms of employment level.

If these officials really bribed Deng Ming to keep the city, Shunzhi felt that they were not too bad, but the bullying was intolerable, and they must all be dismissed from office in the future - now it seems that they are just too stupid, and they were deceived by the other party instead of Deng Ming, which has little to do with it, it doesn't matter if people are stupid, loyalty is the most important, so continue to use them as officials in Jiangnan; Besides, it's not good if the Han people are too smart and too capable of fighting, such as that Zhou Peigong, who shocked Huguang at a young age, it was too dangerous, and now Huguang can't do without him, so he has to tolerate him first, and even continue to promote him, but after pacifying Deng Ming, such a person must be summoned to Beijing, perhaps, it is not a bad idea to send him to Manchuria to serve.

After the decree was issued, Sonny and Aobai retired to Shunzhi, and the emperor did not do much to keep them, so the two of them went.

"What the emperor said may not be unreasonable," after going out, Sony took the initiative to say to Aobai: "Jiangnan is full of strange things. ”

Ao Bai disagreed, because he had already said just now, if Jiang Guozhu was involved in this matter, it would not have been done so badly; If Jiang Guozhu hadn't participated, then he would have sent a report, could it be that if he talked about the acting governor of Liangjiang, would he still gamble on his future and cover up for some subordinates who did their own thing? Since these subordinates are doing their own thing, it is enough to say that they are not Jiang Guozhu's henchmen.

"Hmm." Sony nodded lightly and said no more.

Soon the two left the palace, broke up and went home.

When he got home, the unconscious third child was waiting for his father in front of the door.

Although this son is frizzy and self-righteous, he is the smartest of Sonny's sons, and if taught well, he can continue the family's wealth; Otherwise, it may bring disaster to the whole clan.

Therefore, Sonny still called Suo Etu to the study, gave his son a detailed account of today's recital, and then asked his opinion.

"My son thinks what Lord Ao Bai said is very reasonable." As Sony expected, after thinking about it carefully, Suo Etu really agreed with Aobai.

"Hmph, he is very wrong, not to mention that he thinks he is smarter than the emperor, and refuting the emperor in public, even if he guessed, it is probably wrong." Sonny sneered, he had laid the foreshadowing today anyway, if he finally proved that Shunzhi's intuition was correct, he could add a sentence in the imperial meeting lightly, saying that he felt that the emperor was holy at that time, and he was worried about it when he left the palace, and he once reminded Ao Bai to pay attention.

"My son doesn't understand." Suo Etu's eyes widened.

"If it is the legitimate governor of Liangjiang, there is no way to rise, it is indeed impossible to take a big risk to help his subordinates cover up, but Jiang Guozhu is the acting governor of the yamen, not the real governor of Liangjiang, he still wants to climb up, that is, his subordinates stabbed the big basket, his first thought is to cover up, not to report to the court, otherwise to leave a bad impression on the emperor, how can he become the governor? Besides, Jiang Guozhu may not have been unaware of this matter in advance, and he probably gave a vague hint to the prefectures and counties below, such as what Jiangning could not reinforce and asked them to defend the territory on their own, but he didn't want to take responsibility, so he didn't specifically preside over it; But those prefectures and counties were already frightened, and with Jiang Guozhu's order, they thought that they had a reason to shirk their responsibilities in the future, so they went to fornicate with Deng Ming regardless of it, and because no one presided over it, it became this chaotic scene. "What Ao Bai thought of, Sony had already thought of, at that time he was not on the premise of the emperor, because he knew that Shunzhi would definitely settle accounts after the autumn, and when the time came, a large area of black yarn in the south of the Yangtze River would land, and many of them were still related to the Eight Banners magnates in Beijing, and they had sent a large amount of rich gifts. In such an upheaval in officialdom, Sony doesn't want to be the initiator, he remembers his duty as a minion, doesn't want to be in the limelight, and just wants to be a low-key executor.

"Then why didn't Ama remind the emperor?" Suo Etu obviously did not have the foresight of his old man, and shouted anxiously.

"Because my guess is not necessarily right, the emperor is sage, and this matter has been clear for a long time. What if the Jiangnan officials were really not at fault, but just because I guessed blindly and let the emperor give birth to their gaps? Sonny said angrily, obviously having a headache for Suo Etu's political understanding.

"Besides, maybe this matter won't wait for the future, and if a few more documents come up, how can the emperor see that there is a problem, and there are so many coincidences?" Sonny pondered in his heart, and after sending his son away, he called his henchman and the housekeeper and explained to him: "If Jiang Guozhu's subordinates come to visit me recently, I will refuse them on my behalf, and I will not accept any gifts from the officials of Liangjiang." ”

……

Nanjing, Yamen, Governor of Liangjiang.

The governor of Yangzhou Caoyun, Yamen, sent a messenger, Jiang Guozhu was discussing with Liang Huafeng, and a series of seven or eight sets of nonsense recitals in the west were handed over, and they all felt that the incident in the east window was a sure thing, and they were still at a loss after discussing it for a long time. What I am most afraid of is to pull up the radish and bring up the mud, and the court is furious to thoroughly investigate Jiangnan, and the old case of Lang Tingzuo is also out, so that the two of them have no second way to go except to vote for Deng Zhen.

After hearing that the Governor of Caoyun Yamen had sent an envoy again, Jiang Guozhu and Liang Huafeng looked at each other and smiled bitterly, knowing that the other party had come to Jiangning to ask for reinforcements again, but now that the two of them crossed the river, it was difficult to protect themselves, so they still had the heart to care about the life and death of the Governor of Caoyun? However, the other party was also the governor of one side, and his official rank was still above that of Governor Chiang, so he had no choice but to ask the guards to invite the envoy in—in any case, the scene still had to say a few words.

After entering the door, this envoy was the standard battalion officer of the governor of Caoyun, he respectfully called a thousand, and then said to Jiang Guozhu: "Your Excellency the Governor of Caoyun recently wrote a letter, intending to report the current crisis to the emperor and the court in detail, but for fear of peeping at the leopard in the tube, there is a deviation in the writing, so I asked the standard to send it to the governor to take a look at it first, to see if there is anything to add." ”

said that it was a piece of music, but what was sent was a thick stack of documents, Jiang Guozhu felt strange in his heart, and casually opened the top one, which was the report that the Taiping Mansion boasted of using a fraudulent plan, and a large number of similar stupid reports were also in the back. Jiang Guozhu had already seen these reports, and the content was the same as the one sent to Jiangning, that is, the three earliest Anqing Mansions, Chizhou Mansions, and Hezhou Mansions were missing.

Jiang Guozhu flipped through many reports, struggling to find the missing three, and Liang Huafeng on the side couldn't sit still at this time, so he came up to help Jiang Guozhu find it. Seeing this, the envoy hurriedly apologized for the governor of Caoyun, saying that he was in a hurry and sent the first three copies to Beijing, and did not have time to discuss with the governor of Liangjiang, Yamen.

The bottom one is the recital that the governor of Caoyun wants to send to Beijing, and Jiang Guozhu saw that this recital was basically a blank piece of paper, except for the letterhead of the letter and the signature at the end, the content was nothing.

"Your Excellency the Governor has said that this recital must be signed with the Governor." The messenger said with a smile on his face.

"Thank you, thank you." Jiang Guozhu stood up from his seat and asked the envoy: "When you come this time, do you still want to ask Jiangning for reinforcements here?" ”

"Ahh Hearing Jiang Guozhu's question, the envoy seemed to remember such a thing: "The Governor just wants to send a letter, but when he was leaving, the Governor said that if the Governor is free, let the Governor casually ask when the reinforcements will arrive." ”

"This official has already ordered the soldiers and horses, and he will set off for Yangzhou today." Jiang Guozhu stretched out his hand and pointed at Liang Huafeng beside him: "Admiral Liang can testify." ”

"Exactly," Liang Huafeng was extremely interested, and immediately nodded: "Before you come in, Lord Governor and Ben will say goodbye, Ben will go home and prepare, and leave before dark today." ”

The governor of Caoyun sat in this position for only half a year, and the governor of Caoyun committed suicide by throwing himself into the water after learning that Zheng Chenggong had invaded the Yangtze River, leaving his last words: not to die of thieves, but also to the law.

After the current governor of Caoyun took over, he couldn't help but feel sad when he learned about it, and he didn't want his position to be hot, so he encountered the same situation as his predecessor: if Caoyun was cut off, he might not be able to get rid of the crime if he stuck to Yangzhou, and his duty was to fight with Deng Ming to ensure the smooth flow of Caoyun. But only with the standard camp under his hands, not to mention the protection of Caoyun, it is enough to stick to Yangzhou, if you don't want your family to be implicated, learning from your predecessor's suicide is an effective way, at least your family can get a pension.

At first, when he saw the good news of Anqing, the governor of Caoyun thought that things had taken a turn for the better, and he was overjoyed to relay the contents of the report to Beijing; After the reports from Chizhou and Hezhou arrived one after another, the governor of Caoyun, although frightened, still honestly informed Beijing.

But when more good news followed, the governor of Caoyun was no longer frightened, but cursed, and he could guess with his heels that these magistrates had fornicated with Deng Ming. Since Deng Ming continued to advance eastward unhindered, and now Jiangning refused to send reinforcements, the governor of Caoyun had no choice but to start writing a suicide note.

After the testament was written, the governor of Caoyun gritted his teeth and began to write a recital to impeach Jiang Guozhu, but he did not send it after it was written. Although this recital will almost certainly kill Jiang Guozhu, the governor of Caoyun will definitely not see this day, he knows very well that the imperial court will definitely not remove Jiang Guozhu before Deng Ming retreats, and after the other party knows about his recital, not only will he not relieve the siege of Yangzhou, but it may forcibly transfer the soldiers and horses around Yangzhou. Long before Jiang Guozhu surrendered to the law, the governor of Caoyun had to hang himself with hatred, and who dares to say that Jiang Guozhu must not get away with his guilt in the end?

Therefore, the governor of Caoyun did not rush to issue an impeachment note, but first sent this standard camp guard to Nanjing to send a big gift to Jiang Guozhu.

After receiving the "great gift" from the governor of Caoyun, Jiang Guozhu and Liang Huafeng jumped up and down, and with amazing efficiency, they pieced together a reinforcement in just a few hours and set off for Yangzhou.

Jiang Guozhu has been sending Liang Huafeng, who commanded the reinforcements, out of Nanjing, before parting, Jiang Guozhu whispered to Liang Huafeng in private: "When you arrive in Yangzhou, let the governor understand that it is not me who can save Yangzhou, nor is it Liang Governor You, but——"

Now Jiang Guozhu's mentality is very similar to that of MLM personnel in later generations, and the development of downline is the only meaningful thing in his life.

"Do you want to throw Lao Tzu down and feed the tigers? Good! Inspired by the governor of Caoyun, Jiang Guozhu came up with a binding strategy, and he thought hatefully in his heart: "I will be tied to you to the death, if you don't drag Lao Tzu to run, then everyone don't want to run, stay and feed Deng Laohu together!" ”

Jiang Guozhu did not say who was the savior of Yangzhou, but pursed his lips and pointed his finger in the direction of the upper reaches of the Yangtze River in the west.

Liang Huafeng comprehended: "Don't worry, Lord Governor, the last general will definitely do it properly." ”

Although Jiang Guozhu didn't say it in words, a simple gesture of Tong Guò's hand made Liang Huafeng fully comprehend his binding strategy - didn't he say that we Tong Deng? Okay, if you want to get through it together, no one should think about not getting your hands wet, and when the time comes, you will die and live together.

Seeing Liang Huafeng go away, Jiang Guozhu was still very worried in his heart: "A governor, a governor, this weight is not enough." Well, there is also Jiangxi, Zhang Chao and Dong Weiguo must also be through Deng, that is, a governor, two governors, a political envoy, and more than a dozen prefects. ”

Jiang Guozhu frowned, looking towards the west, suddenly, another inspiration was born suddenly, at that moment, Jiang Guozhu felt that his deep gaze seemed to pierce thousands of mountains and rivers, and shot all the way to Wuchang: "No! The assassination of Governor Hu by Deng Ming may not be true, just as Governor Lang is not really a traitor, this matter must be investigated! ”

His heart was beating violently, and Jiang Guozhu was stimulated by the inspiration that burst out of his body: "When I become the governor, there will be three governors, a group of governors, and countless prefects and counties. And Chongqing can't guarantee that there are no flowers, and you have to send capable people to go around...... These are the four governors. Come on, isn't it Tong Deng, is this still a thing? Isn't that a problem...... It's a pity that the governor of Fujian and Zhejiang doesn't rely on the Yangtze River, and Deng Ming can't go without a sea boat, so he has to think of a way to let him also get through Deng. ”