In the city of Jinling, the scorching sun hangs high, scorching the land of the ancient capital of the Six Dynasties. The stagnant water left by the rain a few days ago has long been evaporated, and there are no traces of the rain on the ground.

Jinling in the middle of summer is so hot that even the most naughty half-sized child can't lazily lift his spirits. Adults gather in groups of three or five, hiding in the shade to escape the heat, and there are few pedestrians on the busy road in the past. The big willow trees lined up neatly on both sides of the road, the willow branches hung down weakly, and only the ones lying on the trees knew that they were still desperately noisy.

At this moment, the gate of Jinling City slowly opened, and a few soldiers holding flags opened the way from a distance. Slowly, getting closer and closer, there were more and more people, and the people who were hiding in the shade of the trees poked their heads out of the shade and looked at this Qing army curiously,

"It's a war, I don't know where it's going to be a war again!"

The old farmer under the willow tree on the side of the road grabbed the reins of the buffalo in his hand, lowered his head and ran away from the roadside. Over the years, Jinling has not been very peaceful, if it is in the way of the soldier, there is no good fruit to eat.

This group of men and horses formed a long snake formation, starting from Jinling and heading south. By the time the rear army had completely walked out of Jinling, it was already approaching dusk.

Now Jiangxi is the main battlefield of the Ming and Qing dynasties, where people from all walks of life are fighting hotly, and in addition, the local Qing soldiers have been transferred by Hong Chengchou.

He left Ke Yongsheng, the commander-in-chief of Shandong, and his 4,000 soldiers and horses to guard Jinling, and the others went south with the army.

Hong Chengchou came to Jiangnan and was appointed by Dolgon after the public opinion, and in the Manchu court, there was a lot of opposition. In this way, the pressure on Dolgon also increased, and the loss of Suzhou and Hangzhou, and the death of Bolo in battle, all of which needed to be covered by a victory. However, the soldiers and horses of Azig and Duoduo withdrew to the north, and the Qing court in the south was overstretched.

During this period, Dolgon and his court were really stupid, and few decisions were right. But the strange thing is that the luck of the Qing court is really good. They caught up with the infighting of King Lu and King Tang, and swept Jiangnan almost effortlessly.

But this time, because there was one more Hou Xuanyan who flapped his wings, their luck ended here.

In the city of Suzhou, Gu Youde, the richest man in Suzhou, held a banquet for his son-in-law and invited officials from Shaoxing. Although the Gu family is rich and rivals the country, they are not qualified to be the east, so all the civil and military officials in Suzhou are present to accompany them. But since Hou Xuanyan announced to the public that he was the son-in-law of the Gu family, the status of this businessman's family has changed dramatically.

Gu Youde and the others are all dressed up, which is more grand than worshipping their ancestors, except for Gu Shouzheng, who was accompanying Hou Xuanyan, the other male relatives were waiting at the door early to welcome guests.

Although Shaoxing is full of traitors, it is after all a group of rebels who spontaneously rebelled against the Manchu Qing Dynasty's hair-shaving order. In King Lu's small regime, there is actually no shortage of talents. These are the people who are going to feast today.

Zheng Zunqian, Qian Sule, and Sun Jiaji are all leaders of the righteous army, and Xiong Rulin, who was actually hung at the head of the city, is also one of them. However, this person strongly opposed Guishun Longwu, and even advocated a counterattack on Fuzhou. His little merit can be ignored compared to this crime.

Xiong Rulin has been a gentry in eastern Zhejiang for generations, and after becoming an official, he loves the people like a son, and he has not committed any crimes in autumn. If he was a good official, he might be able to shelter thousands of people, but provoking civil strife and allowing the Manchus to take advantage of the situation would kill tens of millions of people.

I don't know how much financial and human resources were consumed by the civil strife, so that the Tartars could enjoy their success and enslave the entire Central Plains for two hundred years. With a national crisis at hand, now is not the time to look at a person's character. In Hou Xuanyan's heart, you are the reincarnation of a saint and a moral model, as long as you do something that will benefit the Manchus, you deserve death. Xiong Rulin has no loss in his personal morality, and he is a good person who is known far and wide, but Hou Xuanyan never minds, and uses the most vicious means to kill a "good person".

is the opposite of Xiong Rulin, another figure on the table today, Zhu Dadian.

Zhu Dadian's ancestors were all poor peasants, and in that turbulent era, he was the best group of people with the best political component. When he was a child, his family was poor, and after he grew up and became a big official, Zhu Dadian devoted his life to corruption. The first half of his life can be summed up in one sentence, "mud legs go to the stage to get a handful".

is this corrupt official who hates ghosts, if there is no Hou Xuanyan who was born out of nowhere, his life trajectory is like this:

The Qing soldiers crossed the river to break through Shaoxing, and Zhu Dadian, who was ordered to guard Jinhua, scattered all his wealth, recruited village soldiers, and led the army to hold Wucheng, so that the Qing soldiers attacked the city for nearly three months without gain. In the end, there was no food and grass inside, no reinforcements outside, and after a section of the newly built city wall was broken by the artillery fire concentrated by the Qing soldiers, the Qing soldiers burned and killed into the city, but Zhu Dadian still resisted stubbornly. It was not until most of the soldiers died in the battle that Zhu Dadian calmly gathered his family and 32 staff members, sat around the powder magazine of the military headquarters - Jinhua Bayong Building, lit all the explosives and died in the country.

This is not counting, even if a corrupt official's patriotism is rare, it cannot be said that it is unique. But the whole family of this corrupt official is patriotic, and it is a matter of family style.

Zhu Dadian was martyred along with his five sons and one grandson. Prior to this, his eldest grandson Zhu Yu was killed on the way to break through the siege and ask for help, Zhu Dadian's eldest daughter-in-law Zhang was breached in Jinhua City The day before the breach, the farewell family first hanged herself, Zhu Dadian's wife and concubine He and others and the second daughter-in-law Chen, the third daughter-in-law Jiang, the fourth daughter-in-law Lai, and the fifth daughter-in-law Wang also committed suicide by throwing their children and grandchildren into the well when Jinhua City was breached; Even Zhu Dadian's daughter, who had already married Ni Ruxue in Shimen Village, Jinhua, hanged herself after seeing the smoke billowing from Jinhua City and hearing the news of her father's martyrdom. Zhu Dadian's family of 22 people, three generations of grandparents and grandchildren were all martyred in the defense of Jinhua.

The martyrdom of the death in eastern Zhejiang is not as good as the great ceremony.

Gu Youde welcomed them into the Gu family one by one, and Hou Xuanyan had already sat at the top, and he would have a long talk when he came to meet one another.

This time he broke Shaoxing, and the whole territory of eastern Zhejiang was included in his hands, and he has changed from an empty governor of Jiangsu and Zhejiang to a real governor.

At this time, his father-in-law Gu Shouye led a pot-bellied official in, and routinely introduced: "This is Zhu Dadian, the left attendant of the military department." ”

The left squire of the military department is the official position of Zhu Dadian when he was the emperor of Xiaofu Wang Hongguang, because the regime of King Lu is not recognized, so most of the people who come today are commensurate with the official position at that time.

Hou Xuanyan hurriedly stood up and looked at the humble fat man in front of him, he was already more than six-year-old, and sixty-five years old was considered an old age in the Ming Dynasty. It looks well maintained and in good spirits.

"Haha, please take a seat."