Luo Bingran is the second governor of Jiangnan who took over from Ma Cheng, and he is still one of the four general soldiers under Ma Cheng before, and it is only fitting for him to carry this black cauldron.

Ma Cheng's face immediately turned cloudy after hearing Wang Xian's words, and he stepped forward to pull Ruan Dacheng, who had already walked to the door, and persuaded: "Father-in-law, father-in-law is angry!" The son-in-law is not a person just now, and the father-in-law treats the son-in-law as a fart, don't take it to heart! ”

Ruan Dacheng was red by Ma Cheng's anger, but his strength was not as great as Ma Cheng's, so he could only be pulled into the house by Ma Cheng again and sat down.

Ma Cheng pressed Ruan Dacheng back into the seat, then knelt in front of Ruan Dacheng with a grunt, hugged Ruan Dacheng's leg and begged: "Father-in-law, please see Ruan's face, and the unborn child in Lizhen's womb, forgive the son-in-law!" ”

In the past few months, Ma Cheng has been fine, and he hooked up with Ruan Lizhen again, and now Ruan Lizhen is also broken and broken, and she doesn't care if Cao Taiwang is not at home, and openly flies with Ma Cheng.

Ruan Dacheng didn't know that his daughter was pregnant again, and when he heard Ma Cheng say this, he hurriedly asked, "What?" Lizhen is pregnant again? ”

"Yes, please rest assured, if it is a kid and the surname of the father-in-law this time, the son-in-law promises to let the father-in-law bare the lintel!"

Ruan Dacheng sighed when he heard Ma Cheng say this, and said: "Get up, the old man really doesn't know if he owes you anything in his previous life, so he has to take care of these bad things for you!" ”

Ma Cheng hurriedly stood up, called Wang Xian, and asked him to explain in detail how to frame Luo Bingran.

Luo Bingran used to be a general under Zhang Guozhu, and he was also one of the murderers of Wang Xian's family. It's just that Ma Cheng strictly forbade Wang Xian to announce personal vendetta before, so although Wang Xian hated Luo Bingran, he was helpless. Now that Luo Bingran has taken refuge in Zhu Lunkui, with this opportunity, Wang Xian naturally cannot let it go.

"Master Hou, Elder Ge! Since Luo Bingran has taken refuge in His Majesty the Emperor, this black cauldron will naturally let him carry it appropriately, and an improper measure to provoke a mutiny will be enough for him to cut off his head and raid his family! ”

Ma Cheng waited for Wang Xian to finish speaking, and said to Ruan Dacheng: "Father-in-law, what do you think of this?" ”

Whether Luo Bingran is dead or alive has nothing to do with Ruan Dacheng, after listening to Wang Xian, Ruan Dacheng nodded and said: "Yes, wait until the old man goes back to inherit the emperor!" ”

Found for the dead ghost, Ruan Dacheng left Ma Cheng here and returned to the palace to report to Emperor Zhu Lunkui.

Zhu Lunkui couldn't bear to let Luo Bingran be a substitute for the dead ghost, after all, Luo Bingran had just taken refuge in him, and it was really a bit unauthentic to unload the mill and kill the donkey now.

Ruan Dacheng saw Zhu Lunkui hesitate, and persuaded on the side: "Your Majesty, for today's plan, you must appease Ma Cheng first, and as for Luo Bingran, don't think about it!" Ma Cheng appeased him and asked him to quell the rebellion, and the minister heard that King Lu was also in charge of the country in eastern Zhejiang, as well as the Tang King of Fujian and the King of Gui of Guangxi, these vassal kings were not stable, so why not use Ma Cheng's hand to sweep them away? ”

Zhu Lunkui also knows the strategy of killing people with a knife, but he is afraid that this knife will kill him in the future, so it will not be fun.

"Aiqing, you can do it now, but what about the future? If Ma Cheng's power grows, how can I control him? ”

"Your Majesty, if you don't care about Ma Cheng, what future is there? Only when Ma Cheng is pacified can His Majesty have time to recruit soldiers and train new troops loyal to His Majesty. When the time comes, His Majesty will hold the majesty of the monarch, and the minister believes that Ma Cheng will definitely not be able to compete with His Majesty! ”

Ruan Dacheng said very tactfully, your emperor is not stable at the moment, what else do you want

Come? Only by pacifying Ma Cheng and letting him suppress the other rebellious vassal kings, the emperor can take this opportunity to develop his own armament, and then what to do.

Zhu Lunkui pondered for a long time, then sighed and said: "It can only be like this, Lu Daban drafted a decree to restore Hou Ma Cheng of Guiyang, the town of Zhenguo, as the governor of the Chinese army, and through the military affairs and government affairs of Luonan Zhili, Fujian and Zhejiang, Liangguang, Jiangxi and other places, the civil officials below the fifth rank and the military generals below the second rank under the jurisdiction will be self-determined by Ma Cheng!" Chin this! ”

At this point, the mutiny that began in June of the second year of Shaowu and ended in August was completely over, because August of the second year of Shaowu was a leap August, so it was called the leap month mutiny in history. Although there are not many records of this mutiny in later history, there are many descriptions of the mutiny at that time in the history of the past dynasties.

In the Battle of Nanjing, the Manchu Qing Dynasty has not effectively controlled the city gate, although it occupied the Taiping Gate for a short time, but it was soon driven out by the Ming army, so the loss in Nanjing was not too large. However, in the Leap Moon Mutiny, nearly 100,000 ordinary citizens of Nanjing City were killed and wounded, and the prosperous Qinhuai River was the most seriously damaged because it was located on the main battlefield.

In later history, Ma Cheng's descendants blamed the cause and effect of this incident on Zhu Lunkui's incompetence and Luo Bingran's mishandling. But no matter how the descendants of later generations cover up Ma Cheng, the facts are the facts, and the casualties of nearly 100,000 people in Nanjing City must be counted on Ma Cheng's head.

Hundreds of years later, those historians who had eaten enough and had nothing to do gave Ma Cheng an objective and fair evaluation: Ma Cheng, jackal tiger!

The word jackal comes from the seven mourning poems of Wang Cang in the Han Dynasty: "Xijing is chaotic, and the jackal and tiger are in trouble." The jackal here refers to Dong Zhuo, who caused chaos in the government, and it can be seen from this point that later historians compared Ma Cheng to the tyrannical Dong Zhuo.

Ma Cheng in August of the second year of Shaowu, he didn't know that later generations would compare him to the white-faced traitor Dong Zhuo, Ma Cheng was very happy after receiving the emperor's holy decree, and his more than two years of preparation finally paid off.

Outsiders don't know why Ma Cheng is happy, but Ma Cheng himself knows that as long as he has this holy decree, Ma Cheng has finally been promoted from a chess piece to a chess player, and has the initial qualification to compete in the world, although Ma Cheng is now the weakest of the forces.

Although Ma Cheng had the light of the undefeated god of war before, he was politically subordinate to Ma Shiying, and there was no place for Ma Cheng in the small court of Nanjing. When outsiders mention Ma Cheng, they can only say that they are Ma Shiying's son, or Zhu Lunkui's general. Although Ma Cheng has more than 100,000 powerful troops in his hands, he has to rely on these two people to have a political status.

But now it's different, with this holy decree, Ma Cheng has become a legitimate warlord, and has become a prince of one side, although he is still nominally subject to Zhu Lunkui's control, but whether he listens to it or not is Ma Cheng's own business.

With a justifiable will, Ma Cheng immediately began to prepare for the Eastern Crusade. Ma Cheng scraped away the weapons and armor of the Ordnance Bureau, and at the same time, he also transferred the autumn grain that had just been collected in the household warehouse.

The 150,000 troops outside Nanjing were to take 100,000 and leave 50,000. Although Ma Cheng was ready to go out to stand on his own, after all, his family was still in Nanjing, and in order to ensure the safety of his family, Ma Cheng left 50,000 people to be handed over to Commander Ma Xi. Although Ma Cheng looks down on Ma Xi very much, after all, he is his younger brother, and with blood guarantees, Ma Xi is the person Ma Cheng should trust the most.

Not all of the 100,000 troops taken by Ma Cheng went to fight King Lu, and in Ma Cheng's heart, the Manchu threat in the north was far greater than that of King Lu. So Ma Cheng handed over 40,000 troops to Ma Bao of Taiping Mansion and asked him to guard against the Qing in Jiangxi

At the same time, he ordered Ma Bao to seize Jiangxi by chance, and if Jiujiang could not be defeated, he must occupy Anqing and push the defense line upstream of Nanjing to the west for hundreds of miles.

There is no problem here in Jiangxi, but there is no one to guard in Yangzhou. Originally, Ma Cheng's four general soldiers, although Ma Xi was not bullshit, Luo Bingran was okay, and it was still good to defend the city if he couldn't attack. Therefore, Ma Cheng originally wanted to take Zhang Guozhu with him, and Luo Bingran guarded Zhenjiang to guard against the threat of the Qing army from Yangzhou.

But Luo Bingran, this guy is so desperate that he has to hug the emperor's thigh, and now the whole family has been killed, not to mention, there is a loophole in Ma Cheng's strategic deployment.

Ma Cheng thought about it and thought that there were no generals under him who commanded the party, not because Xu Dahu and Gu Changwei were not capable enough, but because their backgrounds were too low. In the army that pays attention to their background, let Xu Dahu and Gu Changwei, who were still 100 households a year ago, command those deputy generals and generals, can those people be convinced?

There was no way for Ma Cheng to give up, Zhenjiang, a strategic place to defend Yangzhou, could only be put aside first, and then talk about it when it arrived in Zhenjiang, maybe there were talents in the local army.

After all the preparations, Ma Cheng set the day of the expedition on the third day of the first month, after all, he didn't know when he would come back from this expedition, and it would be good to let his subordinates spend a reunion Spring Festival at home.

Ma Cheng also returned to the Ma Mansion in Chaotian Palace, and he was leaving, and he still had a lot of things to tell Ma Shiying.

Ma Shiying's attitude in this mutiny was very strange, and he did not help either Ma Cheng or Zhu Lunkui. At first, Ma Cheng was worried that Ma Shiying had foolish and loyal thoughts, and stood on the emperor's side to deal with his son. But I didn't expect Ma Shiying to have this attitude, so before leaving this time, Ma Cheng wanted to talk to Ma Shiying openly and honestly.

Ma Cheng took his wife and concubines and children back to the house, and asked his wife Gu Miaoyin to lead the other concubines and children back to the backyard, and went to see Ma Shiying alone.

When he came to Ma Shiying's study, Ma Cheng knelt down on his knees and said, "My son meets my father!" ”

Ma Shiying looked at Ma Cheng, sighed and said, "Get up, are you ready?" When to go? ”

"Back to my father, the third son of junior high school is leaving!"

Ma Shiying nodded and said, "Do you have something to ask your father when you come back this time?" You ask! ”

Hearing Ma Shiying say this, Ma Cheng didn't hesitate, opened his mouth and asked, "Dad, aren't you afraid that your son will bring the Ma family to a dead end?" ”

Hearing her son say this, Ma Shiying smiled bitterly and said, "Of course I'm afraid, but what's the use of being afraid?" Cheng'er, you only saw Cao Cao and Sima Yi succeed, but you didn't see what happened to Huo Guang and Wang Mang! ”

"Dad, of course my son knows! But what else can we do now? If his son doesn't fight hard this time, will the emperor be able to let our Ma family go next? None of the powerful ministers in history ended well? Back then, Zhang Juzheng had a great contribution to Zhongxing Daming, but what about his son? Not all starved to death by the little emperor of Wanli? ”

Ma Shiying didn't want to refute when she heard her son say this, Zhang Juzheng's eldest son Zhang Jingxiu did not starve to death, but committed suicide. But what Ma Cheng said was also right, whether he starved to death or not, it is a fact that his entire family was liquidated after Zhang Juzheng's death.

Ma Shiying stood up and came to Ma Cheng's side, patted Ma Cheng's shoulder and said, "Cheng'er, you are older, if you have your own ideas, then do it, and your father will back you up!" As for what the future holds, let's talk about it in the future! ”

Ma Shiying left the study after speaking, leaving Ma Cheng alone in the study in a daze, and he didn't know what Ma Cheng was thinking.