Wuchang.

After receiving Zhong Xiang's report, Zhang Changgeng didn't think too much about it and ordered his subordinates to prepare in advance, and the recital for the imperial court was also waved away. The content of the chapter is mainly as follows: King Andong of the Ming Dynasty heard that the emperor was martyred in Gaoyou, and thought that there was an opportunity to take advantage of it, so he personally supervised the siege of Wuchang by the Ming army in Hubei; Along with the Ming army in Hubei, there was also a giant Kou Deng Ming who had returned from the lower reaches, intending to seize Wuchang and burn the war to the middle reaches of the Yangtze River.

Zhang Changgeng confidently assured the imperial court in the recital that he had formulated a policy of fortifying the walls and clearing the wilderness, and planned to stick to Zhongxiang and other cities, open the road to attract the Ming army to the fortified cities of Wuchang and Hanyang.

Zhang Changgeng asked himself that he had been cooperating happily with Deng Ming in the past two years, and in this battle of Gaoyou Lake, Zhang Changgeng spared no effort to provide a large number of bows and arrows and equipment to the Ming army, and he was convinced that Deng Ming would work hard to maintain peace with himself. The governor of Huguang stationed a liaison envoy in the Ming army, and not long ago the envoy hurried back to Wuchang, and personally reported to Zhang Changgeng the importance of Wuchang's equipment to the victory of Gaoyou Lake, and also brought back Deng Ming's personal thanks - Deng Ming said to Zhang Changgeng's envoy: Wuchang's equipment played an incomparably huge role in the annihilation of the Praetorian Guard - Deng Ming also said to Lin Qilong, Jiang Guozhu and Zhang Chao's envoys, but the subject was changed to intelligence, grain and silver.

Previously, only Deng Ming adopted a win-win policy against Zhang Changgeng on the side of the Ming army, and the governor of Huguang, Hao Shaoqi and He Zhen had many fierce battles, and although Li Laiheng's side was slightly better, the atmosphere had been tense. But in recent months, the tense confrontation between the two armies on the Jingzhou front has been relaxing, and this time Hao Shaoqi and He Zhen also threw an olive branch to Zhang Changgeng, presumably after this cooperation, they can gain trust and trade along the Han River.

"Admiral Deng has really influenced a lot of people." Thinking of this, Zhang Changgeng couldn't help but feel a lot of emotion. Needless to say, Hao Shaoqi and them, even Zhang Changgeng himself gradually abandoned the thinking mode of being incompatible, except for surrendering and avoiding negotiations, but actively negotiated and tried to use the advantage of one qiē to win actual benefits; The former mode of thinking, Zhang Changgeng has been the golden rule for the past few decades, and has never moved the slightest suspicion, but now he is increasingly fascinated by the new mode of struggle.

Although Zhou Peigong left Wuchang, he always sent letters to the governor of Huguang regularly, and at first Zhang Changgeng did not pay much attention to it when he saw that Jiangxi gave this right-hand man the title of political envoy, in his opinion, this was just Nanchang showing favor to himself; When he heard that Jiang Guozhu opened the middle door to welcome Zhou Peigong and gave the Jiangnan political envoy the Great Seal, Zhang Changgeng only laughed and was complacent about the two rivers competing with him.

But then Zhou Peigong played an increasingly important role, and Zhou Peigong ran around before and after the First World War of Gaoyou Lake, becoming a bridge of communication between the governors, ensuring that there was no misunderstanding between them, so that several hesitant southeastern governors could unite tightly. After this battle, the entire Southeast Conspiracy Group recognized that Zhou Peigong was an expert on the Deng Ming issue and a well-deserved person to pass through Deng.

A few days ago, Zhou Peigong wrote a letter saying that he was going to help the governor of Jiangning and the governor of Jiangxi to hold some talks, and the better Zhou Peigong became, the more uneasy Zhang Changgeng became. He vaguely felt that the governor of Liangjiang wanted to dig into his corner, and Zhou Peigong's exploits did not seem to be enough for a Wuchang prefect. In the past two months, the Liangjiang Yamen was very happy when he paid Zhang Changgeng the rent, and Jiang Guozhu even said that he would pay two months' silver in advance, it seems that he didn't want to return Zhou Peigong to Huguang.

Although the current cooperation with Deng Ming is quite pleasant, Zhang Changgeng knows that peace cannot be maintained forever. Now he regards Huguang as his foundation, which is completely different from the previous mentality of expiring his term and leaving; At that time, Zhang Changgeng didn't care if Deng Ming would attack Huguang five years later, but now he didn't plan to give Huguang to others at all, and he knew that this position had become his life-saving talisman.

However, before Deng Ming unified Sichuan, the threat to Zhang Changgeng was still minimal, which can be seen from Deng Ming's help him restrain the generals in Yudong; Now compared with the Sichuan army far away in Chengdu, the greater threat to Zhang Changgeng is Wu Sangui in Guizhou, because the imperial court has been completely unable to support the southwest, Wu Sangui's resentment is getting worse day by day, after the news of the defeat at Gaoyou Lake spread all over the world, Wu Sangui more tentatively proposed to lead the army back to aid Jianyi in the south of the Yangtze River.

Of course, it was impossible for the imperial court to allow the Han vassal king to enter Jiangnan, and Zhang Changgeng concluded that Wu Sangui also knew this, so Wu Sangui's mention was just a bargaining gesture, from which Zhang Changgeng saw Wu Sangui's ambition for Huguang. Even if Wu Sangui couldn't get his hands on Hunan's territory, he might force the imperial court to agree to let Huguang give Guizhou a large amount of co-pay - a money that Zhang Changgeng would rather use to strengthen his own strength than to raise the tigers around him.

Looking around, Zhang Changgeng found that he seemed to be able to count on Deng Ming's assistance, if Deng Ming could support Li Dingguo in Yunnan and contain Wu Sangui's main forces, Zhang Changgeng would be more sure to deal with Wu Sangui's blackmail and threats.

"I need Deng Ming to deal with Li Guoying, and I also need him to help Li Dingguo contain Wu Sangui, but if he does these things, he will inevitably be blackmailed by him; If Deng Ming quickly unifies Sichuan, it will not be good for me, he has a strong sailor and will inevitably start to march into Huguang. Alas, what a dilemma. At this time, Zhang Changgeng felt more and more the importance of Zhou Peigong, he read and looked at the letter in his hand, and finally made up his mind: "I will send it to the imperial court tomorrow." ”

In this recital, Zhang Changgeng promoted Zhou Peigong as the political envoy of Hubei and the title of political envoy of Hunan, and was fully responsible for raising grain and grass, consolidating the defense of the river, and encircling and suppressing the Hubei thieves: "Isn't it the political envoy?" I can also take it, and there are still two, and I can also take out the post of governor in the future. ”

The governor is the biggest bargaining chip that Zhang Changgeng can get, and he doesn't plan to give it to Zhou Peigong for the time being, lest the other party lose his motivation.

……

Beijing.

With the outbreak of the "Kangxi" incident, the previous suspicion of Jiangnan officialdom suddenly disappeared, and now everyone believes that there is a collaborator of Deng Ming in the upper echelons of the imperial court, and it is this person who betrayed the emperor's whereabouts to Deng Ming and single-handedly directed the battle of Gaoyou Lake. The object of suspicion was directed at several auxiliary ministers, and Sonny and Aobai withstood the most suspicion.

Although Ao Bai was the victim of this rumor, he himself is now convinced that some of the important officials of the imperial court did have an affair with Deng Ming, because otherwise it is not enough to explain why Deng Ming knew the name "Kangxi".

At first, Ao Bai was most suspicious of Sony, because those Hanchen who participated in the meeting were only honorable, they had no right to speak, and Deng Ming didn't need to make efforts to collude with those useless "ornaments". As for Sukh Hassa, the outside world may think that this person with two white flags is suspicious and has a motive to collude with Deng Ming to betray Huang Taiji's son, but Aobai, as an important minister who knows the inside story, is fully aware that this person is a wall-header, and unconditionally supports Sony in the council.

However, Ao Bai had a headache and couldn't think of Sony's motive for betraying the emperor, even if the rumors that Deng Ming was Bogol were true, Sony couldn't get more benefits from Deng Ming, he had already gotten the highest status that a slave could get from Shunzhi. In this way, Ao Bai has more reason than Sonny to collude with Deng Ming - maybe Bogol will trust him and promote him from Fulin's second henchman to Bogol's first henchman, but Ao Bai is not stupid enough to do so.

After the initial shock, Ao Bai couldn't help but start thinking about why Deng Ming had revealed the news to the Praetorian Guard's captives. Obviously, if Deng Ming really had an internal response among the auxiliary ministers, then he would definitely try his best to protect him and not deliberately expose him. On the other hand, Deng Ming was deliberately misleading the imperial court, trying to convince the imperial court that the traitor was one of the auxiliary ministers, so as to cover the real internal response.

Like Aobai, Sony now has a similar speculation, and he even further speculates that Deng Ming may have obtained the emperor's whereabouts and the new emperor's era name from different sources. In addition to the traitor who betrayed the emperor, Deng Mingtong Guò also implemented the era name "Kangxi" in other ways, such as a certain master of Sonny and Aobai, who played a large role in the determination of the era name of Kangxi, and the Han ministers who participated in the discussion also exerted some influence to a greater or lesser extent.

Although this speculation sounds reasonable, it still can't explain why Deng Ming wants to release this rumor, if one of Sonny's or Aobai's staff is Deng Ming's person, it is definitely Deng Ming's precious wealth, and he has no reason to risk showing off his ability to the Praetorian Guard - it is too child's joke to waste such a precious source of information on the issue of the year name.

These days, Ao Bai and Sonny are thinking hard about Deng Ming's intentions, trying to find out his hidden earth-shattering conspiracy, and they don't even dare to discuss it with their staff, so as not to be misled by that "fine work". If they knew that Deng Ming was just a whim, they would definitely blow up their lungs.

Although he was suspicious of his staff, Ao Bai still did not carry out any purges lightly, because purging his staff was tantamount to announcing to everyone that he had the responsibility to leak secrets and was bound to be responsible for the death of the former emperor, which was a responsibility that Ao Bai absolutely did not want to bear and could not afford at all.

Today there will be another Imperial Council, and several auxiliary ministers will stand at a distance, vigilantly keeping their distance, each thinking about his own thoughts, and no one will go up to the others and whisper as before. The Han courtiers hid farther away, also alone, until they were summoned by the imperial guards sent by the Empress Dowager. (To be continued)