Just wanted to try his luck, but he didn't expect that by chance, Li Xiucheng really returned the military power to himself, and things went so smoothly that Wu Jianying couldn't believe it at all, so that when he was summoned to Li Xiucheng to re-receive the bronze medal of the military talisman, Wu Jianying couldn't help but pinch his thighs a few times, and then asked Li Xiucheng with great surprise: "King Zhong, Chitose, do you really let your subordinates lead the troops again?" ”

"It's the reward you deserve." Li Xiucheng smiled and said: "Do a good job, guard the Shence Gate for this king, and when you repel the attack of the demon soldiers, and thwart the attempt to surpass the little demon to take the initiative in the northwest city of Tianjing, this king will personally go to the table to ask for merit for you, and ask the king of heaven to long live you as Tianyi." ”

Wu Jianying was overjoyed, and hurriedly knelt down to Li Xiucheng and kowtowed to thank him, patted his chest and promised that he would definitely guard the Shence Gate for Li Xiucheng and never let Wu Jun step into the city gate for half a step. However, at this time, the overseer Mo Shixuan suddenly spoke, and said with a smile: "Shi Tianan, by the way, I have carefully discussed it with Zhongwang Chitose, and I feel that although the discipline of your old army is quite strict, there are still a small number of soldiers who are a little lax in terms of law and discipline, so we decided to send General Song Tianfu Chen Defeng Chen to your army as a supervisor to help you discipline the soldiers and strictly enforce military law, do you have no opinion?" ”

"Songtianfu Chen Defeng?" Wu Jianying, who didn't know Chen Defeng before, first took a look, and then immediately understood, knowing that Mo Shixuan was suspicious of himself, and deliberately planted eyeliner around him to facilitate surveillance. However, of course Mo Shixuan did not dare to object to Wu Jianying's arrangement, so he could only quickly kowtow and said: "Xie Zhong Wang Chitose, Xie Moqiu official, your subordinates are busy with military affairs, and they don't have much time to care about military discipline, and the army needs an important minister of the Celestial Empire to supervise it." This is the trust and love of King Chung Chitose and Mo Qiuguan to their subordinates, what opinions will your subordinates have? ”

"That's great, Song Tianfu, please come out of the queue, get to know Shi Tian'an, you have to get along well in the future, and together you will guard the important land of God for the Kingdom of Heaven."

Mo Shixuan applauded, and immediately asked Chen Defeng, the prison soldier he personally selected for Wu Jianying, to come out of the ranks, so that Chen and Wu could get to know each other. As a result, what made Wu Jianying secretly complain was that Chen Defeng, who stood up from the Taiping Army's civil and military affairs, spoke with an authentic Guangxi accent, and turned out to be an old man of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom who had joined the Taiping Army since the Jintian Uprising, and there was absolutely no possibility of wavering and rebellion, so Wu Jianying suddenly felt a little up and down in his heart, and said secretly: "It's troublesome, it seems that it is not necessary to directly open the city gate to welcome the army of the King of Zhennan into the city, just to get in touch with the King of Zhennan, and you have to be careful to guard against this old thief in Guangxi." ”

The matter was not over, and after acquiescing to Mo Shixuan and giving Wu Jianying a prison army, Li Xiucheng said to Wu Jianying again: "Shi Tianan, your army station remains the same, and it is still on Hongmiao Street." Your backup is led by Li Rongfa of the Second Hall of Zhong, stationed in Liuxiang, you also have to get along with him, when the front line is in an emergency, he will immediately lead troops to the city to help you meet the demon soldiers. ”

Glancing at Li Rongfa, who had a grudge against him when he was behind Suzhou and Hangzhou, Wu Jianying reluctantly squeezed out a little smile, and said to Li Rongfa: "Second Highness, we have joined forces again, please take care of me." ”

"Shi Tian'an doesn't have to be polite." Li Rongfa's voice was very cold, and he said: "Liuxiang is behind the Shence Gate, and the garrisons of your and our two armies are adjacent to each other, so there will definitely be a lot of contact, and I also ask Shi Tianan to work hard to restrain the soldiers, and don't fight like when I was in Zhejiang." ”

"Definitely, definitely." Wu Jianying agreed repeatedly, but he secretly complained in his heart, and scolded in his heart: "Raised by a bitch, it seems that I am still not at ease with Lao Tzu, in addition to stuffing Lao Tzu with a prison army, I also deliberately let Li Rongfa, who has a grudge against Lao Tzu, be stationed behind me to monitor me, as long as I am a little careless, my head may fall to the ground at any time." ”

muttering and muttering, Wu Jianying soon found that he still misunderstood Li Xiucheng a little, because Mo Shixuan did not just place a prison army in Wu Jianying's army, but arranged a prison army in every team of the Taiping Army in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, including Ji Qingyuan and Li Rongfa and other Li Xiucheng's absolute cronies, Li Xiucheng has never said a word about Mo Shiying's arrangements, and seems to be a little dissatisfied. At the same time, behind Ji Qingyuan's army station, there was also a notoriously stubborn Taiping Army general Wu Ruxiao led the army to station, and the mutual containment of the armies was not only aimed at Wu Jianying's people.

"It seems that Hong Xiuquan is not very relieved of Li Xiucheng, but fortunately, as long as Lao Tzu opens the Shence Gate and invites the army of the King of Zhennan into the city, he can ignore the dog-eat-dog between these long-haired people, and enjoy the glory and wealth that the King of Zhennan rewarded me with peace of mind."

After vaguely understanding Hong Xiuquan's suspicion and precautions against Li Xiucheng, Wu Jianying, who had already secretly defected to the enemy, was of course even more disheartened, and felt that there was no future for him to follow the Taiping Army again, and he was even more determined to open the door and surrender. However, after leading the prison army Chen Defeng back to his old camp, when he began to secretly prepare for surrender, Wu Jianying found that it was not as simple as he imagined to open the city gate to welcome Wu Jun into the city, and it was even ten times more difficult than he had feared before.

First of all, in terms of the army, although the two armies of Liu Yulin and Fang Youcai are Wu Jianying's old troops, many people in these two armies have been completely brainwashed by the cult and fanatically loyal to the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. At the same time, after Wu Jianying returned to the helm of the army, there was no way to quickly restore his influence and control over the old army for a while, and the army was actually still in the hands of Liu Yulin and Fang Youcai, so if Wu Jianying could not rebel against these two people for his own use, as long as he made a slight move, he might immediately invite death.

The second trouble came from the supervisor Chen Defeng, after Wu Jianying took office, the first thing Chen Defeng did was to plant eyeliner in Wu Jianying's battalions under the banner of supervising military discipline, and closely monitor the generals and commanders of Wu Army's battalions, which greatly increased the difficulty of Wu Jianying's secret contact and rebellion against the generals of each battalion. At the same time, Chen Defeng also installed his own personal soldiers on the city wall to monitor, so that it was difficult for Wu Jianying to send people out of the city to contact Wu Chaoyue.

The third trouble is the control of the city gate, Wu Jianying has already obtained the power to lead the army to guard the wall section of the Shence Gate, but like other Nanjing city gates, the city gate of the Shence Gate is controlled by the Nanjing Taiping Army under the command of Meng Shiyong, and the city gate key and jack gate are in the hands of Xu Lianfang, the general of Meng Shiyong, without the permission and consent of Meng Shiyong, that is, Li Xiucheng has no power to order Xu Lianfang to open the city gate, let alone Wu Jianying, whose power position is far less than that of Li Xiucheng. Therefore, if Wu Jianying wants to open the Shence Gate, there are only two ways, one is to rebel against Xu Lianfang, and the other is to quickly kill Xu Lianfang with an army and open the city gate by force.

Fortunately, it is difficult to return, but Wu Jianying is not helpless, after tasting the sweetness of bribing Li Shuxiang and Ji Qingyuan before, Wu Jianying quickly made up his mind and decided to repeat his old tricks, and prepared a table of sumptuous banquets and several heavy gifts out of his own pocket, under the pretext of discussing and joining forces to resist the enemy, invited Chen Defeng, Xu Lianfang, Liu Yulin and Fang Youcai to have a banquet, ready to use gifts to contact these colleagues and subordinates first, so as to facilitate future actions, and also take the opportunity to touch their positions and attitudes to see if there is an opportunity to buy and plot against them.

The military situation is like fire, Wu Chaoyue has already moved the Wu army headquarters to the Xiaguan area not far away, Wu Jianying is still a little worried that he will not be able to invite Chen Defeng and Xu Lianfang and others, but to Wu Jianying's surprise, he just sent an invitation to Chen Defeng, Chen Defeng immediately agreed, and ran to the back hall of Wu Jianying's headquarters early to wait for drinking; Then Xu Lianfang actually came quickly, and while smiling and thanking Wu Jianying, he couldn't wait to sit opposite Chen Defeng and wait for the banquet to open. On the contrary, Wu Jianying's two important deputies, Liu Yulin and Fang Youcai, came the latest, and carefully arranged the army's defense before they were invited to the banquet.

After the banquet officially began, at the beginning, of course, it was all non-nutritious nonsense such as serving Hong Xiuquan and Li Xiucheng loyally, or after three rounds of drinking, the topic of the banquet turned to the current battle situation under the intentional guidance of Wu Jianying, but what made Wu Jianying very disappointed was that whether it was Chen Defeng and Xu Lianfang, two outsiders, or Liu Yulin and Fang Youcai, the deputy, they were very cautious in their speeches and speeches, even if they were already drunk and their faces were red and their necks were thick, they were all cautious in their words when it came to the battle situation. Open and close your mouth are all long live the king of heaven, the loyal king is a thousand years old, the demon soldiers can be broken with a snap of their fingers, and the defense of Tianjing City is impregnable, and they don't even dare to say a word of complaint.

Of course, Wu Jianying didn't get nothing, at least from the occasional vigilant gaze when Chen Defeng, Xu Lianfang and others spoke, Wu Jianying dared to conclude that they had scruples, all of them were not right, Wu Jianying gradually knew that if he had the opportunity to talk alone, he was not hopeless to find out the hearts of these colleagues and subordinates. However, just when Wu Jianying was about to give up the temptation, a personal soldier suddenly came to report outside the door, saying that Li Rongfa and Shuntianyi Li Chunfa were visiting, and asked Wu Jianying to meet immediately.

Li Rongfa is Li Xiucheng's most powerful son, Wu Jianying, Liu Yulin, and Fang Youcai, of course, the three loyal courtiers did not dare to offend easily; Shuntianyi Li Chunfa is Hong Xiuquan's cronies, the former Taiping Army's important minister Meng Deen's deputy in government affairs, and also Mo Shixuan's supervisor who inserted Hong Xiuquan into Li Rongfa's army, Chen Defeng and Xu Lianfang, the two generals of the Nanjing Taiping Army, also did not dare to offend him. So after hearing the report of the soldiers, Wu Jianying, Chen Defeng and others hurriedly put down their wine glasses and got up together, ready to go out to greet them, never thought that Wu Jianying and the other five people just stood up, the door was rudely pushed open, Li Rongfa rushed into the room like a gust of wind, and opened his mouth and shouted: "Wu Jianying, you are so bold!" At the moment of the great enemy, the loyal king Chitose asked you to guard the gate of the gods, and you still dare to throw away the city defense and gather people to drink, do you know what kind of crime this is? And how many of you, not defending the city, not waiting in the army to listen to orders, and running here to drink? ”

"How did Li Rongfa know that I was drinking here?"

Wu Jianying was stunned, and he didn't know how to answer Li Rongfa's reproach for a while, but Li Chunfa, whom Wu Jianying had already seen before, also strode into the room, and asked Chen Defeng and Xu Lianfang with a gloomy face: "Song Tianfu, what did Mo Qiuguan ask you to do here?" And Xu Lianfang, as the guard of the Shence Gate, you are not on duty on the tower of the Shence Gate, what are you doing here? ”

Chen Defeng was very unrighteous and silent, and Xu Lianfang, who was a humble lord, spoke stubbornly and said: "Shun Tianyi forgives the sin, Shi Tian'an is reinstated today, and he came to guard the Shence Gate with the last general, he asked me to discuss the specific details of the alliance, and the last general saw that it was still early, so he came." ”

"And what's the matter with this wine?" Li Chunfa pointed to the messy wine table and shouted angrily: "The enemy is currently a heavy responsibility, do you still dare to drink?" ”

Xu Lianfang didn't dare to say anything, but Li Chunfa refused to give up, and shouted at Chen Defeng, whose position was below him: "Song Tianfu, as a prison soldier, not only did you not stop them from drinking in front of the battle, but also accompanied them to drink, how did you become a prison soldier?" ”

Chen Defeng hung his head and didn't say a word, but there was a vicious cold glow flickering in the corners of his eyes. And although Wu Jianying didn't find this, he also knew that today's pass was difficult, and the bigger the trouble, the more unlucky he was, so he could only hurriedly give up his hand and say: "Shuntian forgives sins, His Royal Highness Zhonger forgives sins, this matter has nothing to do with Song Tianfu and Xu Lianfang, and it has nothing to do with Brother Liu and Brother Fang. ”

Li Rongfa, who had a holiday with Wu Jianying, was waiting for this sentence, and immediately yelled at Wu Jianying, wanting to force Wu Jianying to immediately follow him to Li Xiucheng to plead guilty, Wu Jianying, who was held by Li Rongfa, wanted to give in, but never thought that Chen Defeng would open his mouth and say: "Your Royal Highness Zhonger, Shun Tianyi, it's not too early, Shi Tian'an is the guard of the Shence Gate, and he can't leave at will." Or let me go to the superintendent Meng Qiuguan first to plead guilty, explain the matter to Meng Qiuguan, and ask him to send it down. ”

Strictly speaking, Chen Defeng is also a descendant of Hong Xiuquan, and at the same time, Chen Defeng is an old man during the Jintian Uprising of the Taiping Army. And Li Chunfa didn't have any holidays with Wu Jianying and Chen Defeng, and he had to take into account the face of Chen Defeng, an old man in Jintian, so he nodded and said, "Okay, just do it according to Song Tianfu's wishes." But Song Tianfu, let me remind you, in this situation, you'd better be strict with Shi Tianan's army, don't be too indulgent. ”

Chen Defeng agreed in a low voice, and Li Chunfa and Li Rongfa also walked away in a big way, but after Er Li completely walked away, Chen Defeng, Xu Lianfang, Liu Yulin and Fang Youcai quietly quenched at their backs and vented their anger in their hearts. Then, Chen Defeng patted Wu Jianying's shoulder again and said, "Shi Tian'an, don't worry, when I see Meng Qiuguan in a while, I will try my best to help you intercede." ”

Wu Jianying hurriedly thanked him, but he was worried that Li Xiucheng would deprive himself of his military rights again. However, at this time, Liu Yulin next to him said something in a ghostly manner, and said in a low voice: "It's strange, we are drinking here, how did they know about the Second Hall of Zhong?" ”

Liu Yulin reminded Wu Jianying of the question he had just discovered, and Fang Youcai and Xu Lianfang next to him were also puzzled, but Chen Defeng hesitated, and suddenly lowered his voice and said: "Be careful of the people around you, here in the Shence Gate, it is not only my eyes and ears. ”