Emperor Zhu Cihong of Chongxing finally decided to plan to kill Li Xiao and take the head of this benefactor to pave the way for himself to regain the supreme power.

There was no turning back from the bow, and Zhu Cihong, who had a fixed mind, immediately contacted Gao Hongtu, and the two quickly made relevant preparations, secretly contacted some low-level officials who were loyal to Zhu Cihong and escaped from the Beijing Division, and installed many dead soldiers into the palace to become sword and axe hands.

These things, together with Gao Hongtu, were arranged in an orderly manner.

More than half a month later, everything was ready, and it seemed that it was going very well.

Zhu Cihong, who was determined to fight and was carried away by the yearning to regain power in the future, couldn't wait to immediately write a personal letter and issue an edict, ordering Li Xiao to return to Jinan to meet him in the name of Li Xiao's long-term and hard work abroad, so as to reward his relatives.

Five days later, Zhu Cihong's holy decree and the secret report of the Security Department went to Li Xiao's desk in the Qianqing Palace.

Huang Bao, director of the General Department of Security, the head of the Tang Army's secret spies, who had always been elusive, was standing in front of Li Xiao with a respectful face, occasionally raising his head and carefully watching Li Xiao's expression.

At this time, the late autumn has passed, and the early winter has just arrived, and the weather in Nanjing is already full of chill, and there is an indescribable cold. Li Xiao, the king of the Tang Dynasty, wearing a thick mink fur that was extremely luxurious, sat on the tiger head chair, and read this holy decree and a secret report with an expressionless face.

With a shake of his right hand at the sound of his heavy breathing, the two letters, like two flickering leaves, fell silently from his hands and burrowed under the royal table.

Li Xiao's face was very ugly, he was speechless for a long time, and sat like a puppet. Finally, with a long sigh, he stood up and paced back and forth behind the tiger head chair in the Qianqing Palace.

Huang Bao, director of the General Security Department below, didn't dare to say a word, but nervously saw Li Xiao walking back and forth without saying a word.

In the end, Li Xiao slowly stood still, and the gaze that fell on Huang Bao was like two sharp swords, poking his heart trembling.

"Huang Bao, this king asked you, have you really investigated clearly?" Li Xiao's face was expressionless, and his voice was light.

"King Tang, the investigation is indeed clear." Huang Bao hurriedly said: "Your subordinates, as early as that Gao Hongtu landed from Jiaozhou, he found out that something was wrong. Because these ships, although they look like merchant ships, they are not in a hurry to transport or purchase goods like other ships, but only stay in the port of Jiaozhou, without any movement at all, and look like they are not in a hurry to leave. The personnel of our security department became suspicious and determined to find out more about these ships. ”

"Soon, our subordinates, pretending to be fruit and vegetable sellers, went on board the ship for a secret visit, and soon found that most of the sailors on the ship were people from Fujian, especially from Pengxia, and these personnel were strong and strong, and they all had calluses formed by holding weapons for a long time. It can be seen that these people are by no means ordinary merchant sailors, they should all be pretended to be the elites of Zheng Zhilong's subordinates. Therefore, our security department dared to conclude that the purpose of their visit was to plan the next action, so that when the worst situation was worst, they could smoothly pick up Emperor Chongxing and prevent him from fleeing to Fuzhou. ”

Seeing Li Xiao staring at himself without saying a word, Huang Bao said again: "This is the case with merchant ships. According to our investigation, that Gao Hongguo has been secretly conspiring with Emperor Chongxing for a period of time, and has installed people loyal to his subordinates to secretly enter the palace, pretending to be miscellaneous servants in the palace, but in fact he is ready to be a sword and axe maker when the time comes. This information has been corroborated by our security department in many ways to ensure that it is correct. ”

"So, after all these arrangements are in place, the Emperor Chongxing thinks that he is foolproof and can finally do it to King Tang. Therefore, I personally wrote a letter to lure the Tang King to return to Jinan. He has such a poisonous plan, as long as King Tang returns to Jinan and enters the palace, the sword and axe hands who are lying behind the palace will all rush out and harm King Tang together, intending to ......"

Speaking of this, Huang Bao realized that his words were wrong, and he hurriedly kept silent.

Li Xiao's face was as cold as iron, but he still didn't say anything.

His gaze went over Huang Bao in front of him and cast it far away from the window, no one knew what he was looking at, and no one knew what he was thinking.

In the end, Li Xiao waved his hand and asked Huang Bao to retreat first.

As soon as Huang Bao left, Li Xiao slowly walked back to the tiger head chair, sighed softly, and sat down.

He suddenly felt an indescribable feeling of exhaustion all over his body, and even the scene in front of him had a hazy and unreal feeling. He silently recalled that when he first went to meet Emperor Chongzhen, he saw Zhu Cihong, who was still a child.

On that sunny morning, in the square in front of the East Palace, a child wearing a cyan cashmere tartar hat decorated with Dongzhu, a azure cardigan jacket embroidered with a three-clawed dragon and blue pants, and cloth shoes with mille-feuille soles on his feet, was dressed neatly and crisply, revealing a high-spirited child, who was playing happily with a group of little eunuchs in the open space.

This eight- or nine-year-old child is the current Emperor Zhu Cihong.

At that time, when he accepted the little golden lion he gave him, his expression was so happy, and his eyes were so pure.

Li Xiao smiled bitterly, and soon thought of the scene when he led his troops to break into the Beijing division at the risk of death that day, and went to bring the prince Zhu Cihong and his party out of the capital desperately.

At that time, Zhu Cihong, who was only sixteen years old, was about to be surrounded and killed by rogue soldiers on the streets of the capital, but fortunately Li Xiao led troops to rescue him, and he was seriously injured before he had to save his life.

And this sixteen-year-old boy, when he saw the corpse of Emperor Chongzhen on Li Xiao's back and on his back, he was overwhelmed with grief and cried repeatedly.

This prince Zhu Cihong, like a seriously injured wolf, let out a wail and rushed towards Li Xiao's horse quickly. The wound on his shoulder, which was seriously injured, was pulled hard, making him faint in pain all of a sudden.

At this moment, another prince, Yongwang Zhu Cizhi, a ten-year-old child, stared at Li Xiao with a stern face with a vigilant and cringing look. For Li Xiao's soldiers, he was inexplicably afraid, but he subconsciously retreated and shrank into a ball.

In the end, it was Li Xiao who arranged his soldiers, tied the two of them to horses, and brought a group of fleeing eunuchs and officials to protect them all the way. After paying a great sacrifice, he desperately took this group of people and others to escape from the city of Beijing, which can be regarded as hell on earth.

The past is like a dream, Li Xiao thought of this, and couldn't help but sigh, the taste in his heart was indescribably bitter.

I really didn't expect that this young man, who was desperately rescued and supported God's throne with one hand, would be so resentful of himself, and he would kill the benefactor who saved his life, this, this is simply an absurd black joke.

Could it be that his own life-saving grace can't resist his yearning for so-called power? Couldn't his own merits of support be worth his impulse to act recklessly and recklessly?

Zhu Cihong, Zhu Cihong, do you really think that this king, who was killed all the way from the mountain of corpses and the sea of blood, would be so easy to be eliminated by you with such child's play?

Do you really think that after getting rid of this king, you will be able to smoothly take power, dominate the whole country in one fell swoop, and let the Hongguang Prison State in the south and Zheng Zhilong, the Marquis of Zhennan, obediently bow down to you?

What a joke!

Alas, if the first emperor had a spirit in the sky and saw your childish behavior, I am afraid that he would be so angry that he would come back to life from the grave.

Could it be that this is the so-called grace and revenge, and this is the so-called doumi enne's promotion of the rice enemy?

Li Xiao was extremely depressed and struggling in his heart, and after a long time, he regained his rational state of thinking.

Isn't it, can I ask myself in turn, does he, the king of the Tang Dynasty of the Ming Dynasty, really regard Zhu Cihong as the successor of the Ming Empire, so as to assist him wholeheartedly and loyally?

Li Xiao couldn't convince himself of this question.

In such a troubled era, only a very capable ruler can control the situation, turn the crisis into peace, restore this chaotic situation to normal, and reunify the disintegrated land of China with tranquility.

Such a thing that requires extremely high ability, the young emperor Zhu Cihong, who has no political experience, has no way to deal with it.

Therefore, in the current state, obediently becoming an obedient rubber stamp and becoming a puppet emperor who sits back and enjoys his success should be Zhu Cihong's best choice.

Sadly, this young man with strong blood and strength does not understand his own strength, does not know how to advance and retreat and measure, and does not understand that everything he has now is actually how hard-won it is, but he is easily bewitched and used by others, and he actually wants to blackhand his own benefactor and the hero who single-handedly pushed him to become the emperor, which is really speechless and sad.

Li Xiao even thought that such a suspicious and jealous king, even if he handed over his authority and army to him after pacifying the world, then it was certain that in order to maintain his authority and ensure that the supreme power was not touched by others, he would definitely kill himself mercilessly to prevent future troubles.

Therefore, no matter how loyal and obedient he is, how much he maintains the so-called royal majesty, in fact, in the end, he will inevitably die.

Li Xiao thought sadly that the reason why the ancient ministers basically went to the step of competing for the throne was actually that there were many things that could not be done, and they even just wanted to protect themselves.

After all, such a high-ranking and powerful person with heavy troops, no matter which dynasty he is in, is an existence that makes emperors feel like thorns in their backs. In this way, the powerful ministers who can threaten the throne and the country at any time, if they are not eliminated quickly, they are allowed to sleep soundly next to the couch, unless the emperor is an idiot.

Therefore, these powerful ministers, who are extremely beautiful on the surface, but in fact have no way out, will eventually find out helplessly that if they want to save their own lives and the lives of their family members, there is actually only one way to rebel, which is really a wonderful irony.

From ancient times to the present, the struggle and killing between the emperor and the powerful ministers have been written endlessly, and there are as many as cow hairs, which is simply an endless painful song on the land of China.

And now, this cruel and cold choice is finally its turn......

Thinking of this, Li Xiao only felt that his mind was confused, and in his heart, it was even more astringent.

So, since Emperor Zhu Cihong of the Restoration Plan plans to do something to himself, how should he solve this matter?

Li Xiao frowned deeply.

The easiest way to deal with it is to kill the king.

If he immediately exposed the conspiracy to revive the emperor, and then executed him with the force of thunder, and then either stood on his own or appointed his younger brother Yongwang Zhu Cizhi as emperor, would this be feasible?

Li Xiao shook his head.

Such a simple and rude handling of this matter will bring considerable trouble to oneself in domestic and foreign affairs.

First of all, even if Zhu Cihong was at fault first, if Li Xiao really wanted to kill the king, it would definitely stigmatize himself, and it would greatly reduce his status and prestige among his subordinates, and it would also create a slander for enemy countries such as Dashun and Manchu Qing Dynasty.

And at a time when the situation is unsettled and the world is unstable, he can't wait to kill the monarch and stand on his own, such a political event is too cruel and bloody, and this appearance is too ugly.

Li Xiao is a smart person, of course he doesn't want to get such a rather bad result.

And what if only the Emperor Zhu Cihong of Chongxing is imprisoned?

It's also inappropriate.

After all, his identity is the emperor, the so-called monarch is the minister, the monarch wants the minister to die, the minister has to die, in this world, there is no reason for the courtier to put the emperor in prison in turn, what is the difference between this and rebellion.

So, can I just let this matter go?

Or in other words, do you have to tear your face with Emperor Zhu Cihong before he really makes a move, turn against each other, and become enemies of each other?

Li Xiao sighed softly, got up from his chair again, and paced back and forth in the room.

He paced back and forth for a while, and then slowly came to the window, staring silently at the empty scenery outside the window.

After a long silence, he shook his head gently.

No, before this time, it will be to the point of completely turning against you.

This young man, who desperately rescued him and helped him ascend the throne, should have room for redemption if he can personally understand the benefits and harms of him, so that he does not become the object of use by others because of impulse.

Li Xiao pondered for a long time, and finally made up his mind.

He returned to his desk, took out a pen and paper, and wrote a letter himself.

In this letter, which was sprinkled with several pages, Li Xiao analyzed the current situation and his own thoughts in detail to Emperor Zhu Cihong, the emperor of Huangxing, and tactfully advised the emperor not to continue to fall into the puzzle of being bewitched and used by others.

In this letter, Li Xiao did not mention the conspiracy of Zhu Cihong, Gao Hongtu and others to frame and kill him, but in the content of the letter, Zhu Cihong's thoughts were mentioned to Dragonfly with a little bit.

Li Xiao's intentions can be described as good.

After Li Xiao wrote this letter, he personally sealed it, and then handed it over to his cronies and servants, ordering him to immediately return north with the letter and personally hand it over to Emperor Zhu Cihong of Chongxing.

Looking at the back of this person in the distance, Li Xiao sighed softly again.

He sincerely hoped that this letter of his own would make Emperor Chongxing realize that he had lost his way, and that he would wake up completely, so that he could go to his own hands and restore the previous state of harmony with Li Xiao.

It's just, can all this really be as he wants?

Li Xiao has no bottom in his heart.