Flowers bloom richly, no more than peonies, but once the spring passes, it is difficult to escape withering and falling into the dust. In front of the once busy Sushun Suzhongtang Mansion, there is no longer the former gathering of hundreds of officials, the head is like an ant, the alley of Nuoda is empty, cold and deserted, in it, even if the spring sun is shining, it also makes people feel that the whole body is cool.

Squatting on the steps wrapped in a broken dogskin fur, the former Sufu Menzi Hu was holding a rusty ash knife in his second hand, and was carefully shoveling the weeds that had just sprouted in the cracks of the steps. Hu Er's loose braids were a little white, and the steps under his feet were a little tattered, but the steps were cleaned, and the bluestone was even a little shiny, but the gatekeeper took good care of it.

The door of the vermilion lacquer barge suddenly opened a crack, and a man dressed as a servant poked his head out sneakily, and saw Hu Er squatting on the steps to weed, and the man dressed as a servant hurriedly carried a half-new Taishi chair out of the door, and cautiously slipped to the side. However, it is a pity that the shaking of the figure caused by the sunlight made Hu Er immediately discover the existence of the servant, and when he looked up, he only glanced at it, and Hu Er immediately pounced on it like crazy, grabbed the servant and beat him, scolding while beating......

"Chen Lao Wu, you son of a bitch with no conscience, you don't pay attention to Lao Tzu, and you want to steal things from the master's house to sell them for money?! You give Lao Tzu back! Come back! This is something from our master's house, something that the master left to the young master! You give Lao Tzu back! Lao Tzu beat you to death, beat you to death! ”

After being punched a little by Hu Er's Wang Ba, and after being cut out of a bloody mark on his face by the gray knife in Hu Er's second-hand, the servant couldn't help but fight back, knocked the thin Hu Er to the ground in three or two strokes, kicked Hu Er and roared: "The surname is Hu, you don't give Lao Tzu to rely on the old and sell the old!" You treat you like a green onion, who takes you for dipping sauce? Master? The old man has been dead for more than three years, and there has been no news of his son going to Ningguta, so the things in his house should be ours! If you owe us wages, you should pay for it with what is in his house! ”

kicked Hu Er's nose out of blood, and the servant carried the half-new Taishi chair and walked away, leaving Hu Er on the ground wiping his nose and crying and scolding, "Chen Lao Wu, you brute with no conscience!" You can't die well, you can't die well! The master has never treated us badly before, so you repay him like this? You're going to go to eighteen layers of hell! Your whole family is going to go to the pan! ”

There were already some men and women watching the excitement next to them, and after inquiring about each other and knowing what had happened, the neighbors and passers-by who came up around inevitably sighed, sighing at the once incomparably beautiful Suzhongtang Mansion to the point where it is today, but some people said to Hu Er: "Hu Er, don't be too stupid, your Suzhongtang has been dead for so long, and his son has been sent to Ningguta and there has been no news, why do you have to watch the door so tightly?" Your master's housekeeper has long since run out, what is left in this house now? You still have a sick daughter-in-law to raise, why don't you think about it for yourself? ”

"I'm not so unconscionable!" Hu Er shouted with a crying voice, "The master used to treat me like a mountain, I want to repay his kindness, as long as I still have a breath of air, I will take care of the family for him, and wait for the young master to come back to inherit his family business!" ”

Hu Er, who couldn't persuade the stubborn, had no choice but to shake his head and shut up, but Hu Er, who was full of grievances, became more and more sad the more he cried, squatting on the ground and burying his face in his knees and crying loudly.

At this time, surrounded by several entourages, a thin and ordinary-dressed man walked into the alley, first looked at the dilapidated but cleanly cleaned gate of Sufu in surprise, and looked up and down strangely Hu Er, who was crying to death, and then curiously asked the people who were watching the excitement in official dialect: "Brothers, what's wrong, why is he crying like this?" ”

"The faithful caretaker has been beaten."

The people of the capital just like to play tricks, and the neighbors of Sufu who had kindly persuaded Hu Er to consider for themselves rushed to answer, first about what happened just now, and then about the situation of the Sufu family after Su Shun's death, and finally introduced that the entire Sushun Mansion was a loyal and starving family keeper of Hu Er, a slave, and waited for Su Shun's son who was sent to Ningguta to come back to inherit the family business. The thin man kept nodding his head when he heard this, and then suddenly asked, "If I'm not mistaken, the person who cried should be called Hu Er, right?" ”

"It's called Hu Er." The neighbor nodded, and then asked curiously, "What?" Do you know him? ”

"I've met twice." The thin man smiled and nodded, then turned to Hu Er, who was still sobbing, raised his voice and said, "Hu Er, don't cry, raise your head and see who I am?" Do you remember that I don't? ”

The thin man repeated the words twice, and Hu Er sobbed and slowly raised his head, but he only glanced at the thin man with hazy teary eyes, and Hu Er's sobbing stopped abruptly, and his face and nosebleeds stained with tears and nosebleeds opened widely, full of unbelievable shock. And then, Hu Er pinched his thigh again, wiped his eyes with his sleeve and looked at it again......

"Lord Wang! Lord Zhennan! Little Hu Er, please say hello to the prince of Zhennan!! ”

Hu Er's sudden shout startled all the people watching the excitement next to him, and his action startled Wu Chaoyue's personal soldiers - the people whose braids were already gray, squatted on the ground and jumped a few feet in the air at once, and pounced on Wu Chaoyue like a big peng spreading his wings - although Hu Er's last action was to kneel on his knees in front of Wu Chaoyue and shout for peace, but Wu Chaoyue's personal soldiers were still so frightened that they all pulled out their pistols and aimed them at his head!

Waving his hand to make the overly nervous pro-soldier put down the pistol, Wu Chaoyue smiled at Hu Er, who was very excited, and said: "Hu Er, I really misjudged you before, I didn't expect you to be so loyal to Su Zhongtang." Yes, if Su Zhongtang has a spirit in the sky and knows that there is still a loyal servant like you who is taking care of the family for him, and when his son comes back to inherit the family business, he must be able to turn a blind eye. ”

Hearing Wu Chaoyue's heartfelt approval, Hu Er couldn't help but cry loudly again, kowtowing to Wu Chaoyue again and again, Wu Chaoyue personally stretched out his hand to stop him, and said: "Okay, no need to kowtow, there must be a spiritual position in this house, right?" Take me in and put incense on him, don't keep it like this in the future, go to my Zhennan Wangfu on an errand, Suzhongtang owes you wages, and I will make it up for you. ”

"Xie ......, Xie Zhennan, Wang ......, ......."

Hu Eryi couldn't cry silently, and none of the neighbors and passers-by who were already kneeling on the ground next to him didn't look at him with envy, and the neighbors who persuaded him to think about himself before also said sincerely: "Master Hu, good people have good rewards, and you are developed again." ”

The realist Wu Chaoyue did this, but it was not entirely because of the old feelings, as Wu Chaoyue expected, after the matter spread, not only Wu Chaoyue's old reputation of Zhi'en Tubao was praised, but the people of the capital banner had a good impression of Wu Chaoyue, and the situation quickly evolved into multiple versions in the folk oral tradition, such as the entry of Zhennan Wang into the capital and the private interview of Zhennan Wang Weifu, etc., which provided a lot of material for the literary creation of later generations, and further beautified Wu Chaoyue's image in the folk not to mention.

…………

Wu Chaoyue came to the capital by land on the first day of February in the fourth year of Qixiang, but he did not put on a grand show of honor guards, nor did he rush to live in the city, and chose to live in the Fengtai camp temporarily, so the ordinary people in the capital almost did not know that Wu Chaoyue had come to Beijing for the third time. There are two reasons why Wu Chaoyue came to the capital in person, the first is to facilitate the command of the war in the northeast and Mongolia, and the second is to investigate the situation in Beijing on the spot to see if Beijing is suitable to continue to serve as the national capital.

There were not many troops who came to Beijing with Wu Chaoyue, including Wu Chaoyue's personal military camp, but before that, there were already more than 40,000 Wu troops who had been transferred to the vicinity of Beijing to assemble, and when the time was ripe, they would send troops to the northeast and Mongolia to launch the final blow to the Manchu court, which had been branded with the banner of the puppet Manchu state. On the wharf of Tianjin, as well as in the area of Shanhaiguan and Qinhuangdao, all kinds of grain, grass and military supplies have long been piled up, ready to be used in the Northern Expedition.

On the fifth day of the first month of February, good news came from the battlefield of western Liaoning, after a long period of siege and hard fighting, Wu Junjiang Zhongji finally broke through the important town of Ningyuan City in the corridor of western Liaoning, and the commander of the Qing army who was renamed the governor of western Liaoxi by the puppet Manchurian State hanged himself, nearly half of the Qing army in Ningyuan was annihilated, and all the rest surrendered, and the road of the main force of the Wu army from the capital to the front line of Jinzhou was already a smooth road. Therefore, Wu Chaoyue did not hesitate to rejoice, and immediately decided to convene a military meeting the next day to officially start arranging the Northern Expedition plan.

In addition to Feng Sanbao, who stayed in the southeast of the town, and Liu Kunyi, who was preparing to march into Mongolia from Shanxi, Cao Yanzhong, Huang Yuanhu, Qian Wei, Wang Fu, Zeng Guoquan, Nie Shicheng, Deng Siyuan, and other important generals of the Wu army were all present, and civilian officials such as Zhou Tenghu, Shen Baozhen, Guo Songtao, and Zhang Zhidong, who had been transferred from Shanghai, also attended the meeting, and the lineup was unprecedented.

However, the atmosphere of the meeting was very relaxed, Wu Chaoyue personally took the lead in joking, leading the discussion and arrangement of all the civil and military to talk and laugh, and soon decided to launch the Northern Expedition from three roads at the same time, one was launched from Shanxi, and Liu Kunyi led the army to the north to crusade against the Ordos banners that refused to submit to the Wu army; One route was led by Zeng Guoquan and Nie Shicheng, who were responsible for the recovery of Chengde and Chifeng; On the most important road in the northeast, the commander's throne was handed over by Wu Chaoyue to Cao Yanzhong, the general of the Wu army, Jiang Zhongji, Qian Wei and Deng Siyuan each led their headquarters to obey Cao Yanzhong's command, and Wang Fu and Xu Lai led the sailors to protect the grain ships going north and supply the front line of the Northern Expedition. Wu Chaoyue led the Huang Yuanhu Corps to sit in the capital and serve as the strategic general reserve.

For the Mongolian banners, Wu Chaoyue's requirement is that as long as the Mongolian princes who surrendered voluntarily, they will retain their original titles, titles and grasslands, and they are allowed to continue to stay in Mongolia, and those who surrender after being captured will also retain their titles, but they must move to the Central Plains, and those who refuse to surrender will be resolutely executed, and they will never show mercy. At the same time, the monk Glinbi, who still retained the title of the king of Korbi County, was also arranged by Wu Chaoyue to go north with Zeng Guoquan and Nie Shicheng, and was responsible for contacting and recruiting the noble princes of the Mongolian banners.

The most important side of the northeast, Wu Chaoyue explained the most carefully, first of all, the first point is to emphasize the heart, for the puppet Manchurian soldiers and civilians who took the initiative to surrender, all keep their property and land, and give a certain reward according to the situation; Those who surrendered after being captured could also keep their property and land, but there was no reward, and for the puppet Manchurian generals and soldiers who died in battle, all their property and land would be confiscated, and all their families would be distributed to the side. At the same time, Wu Chaoyue also explained that this policy should be written and published in plain text, so that all the officers and soldiers of the puppet Manchurian State would know the fate of their courage to resist the Wu army.

The bureaucratic system of the puppet Manchukuo is also about the same, except for a few hardcore separatists who need to be investigated for their crimes, except for a few hardcore separatists who need to be investigated for their crimes, the other puppet Manchukuo states will retain their land and property as long as they surrender voluntarily, and return their original land in Guannai, and those who surrender after being captured will not return their original land in Guannai, and all those who die in the stubborn war of resistance will have all their land and property confiscated. It also aimed at the selfishness of the civil and military officials of the puppet Manchurian State and weakened their will to resist.

It was Ci'an and Cixi's turn, to everyone's surprise, Wu Chaoyue, who has always been selfless, was rarely partial this time, and even made it clear that he would never investigate all the mistakes of his eldest niece Cixi, and even if he was captured, he would retain the title of Queen Mother, and at the same time issued a strict order, saying that Ci'an's separatist crimes would be investigated and severely punished, including death. As a result, even Cao Yanzhong, the commander of the Northern Expedition of the Wu Army, couldn't listen to it, and couldn't help but ask curiously: "King Zhennan, they are all splitting my Chinese land, why do you treat the two queen mothers of the rebellious party so differently?" ”

"Because I want to publicize it to the outside world, saying that the Western Empress Dowager Cixi was forced by the Eastern Empress Dowager Ci'an to agree to split the Chinese land." Wu Chaoyue explained with a smile: "Ci'an has an edict in his hand that can give Cixi to death, I want to say to the outside world that Cixi does not agree to split China, and it was the Empress Dowager Dong who forced her with the edict of the first emperor, so she had to sign the edict with a seal." ”

"I understand, the king of Zhennan wants to separate the queen mother of the chaotic party, so that they will be completely divided, and there is no way to unite with the outside world."

Cao Yanzhong finally understood what Wu Chaoyue meant, Wu Chaoyue also nodded frankly, and said: "I know very well the person of the Empress Dowager Cixi, she is indeed very capable, if you don't give her some eye medicine, let Ci'an and Prince Pseudo-Gong beware of her suspicion of her, with her talent and ability, it will definitely cause great trouble to our Northern Expedition." So I can't help it, I can only buckle the basin on her body first, and let her grow a hundred mouths can't tell. ”

Cao Yanzhong and other generals of the Wu army nodded and smiled fiercely, and after the cruel smile, Cao Yanzhong asked Wu Chaoyue again: "King Zhennan, what about the Rakshasa soldiers on the battlefield in the northeast?" How to treat it? ”

"Kill! Try to kill! Wu Chaoyue replied categorically, and said: "Even if they are captured and surrendered, they will all be imprisoned in prisoner of war camps to do hard labor, until the Rakshasa Lao Maozi takes money to redeem them!" ”

"In addition, if you announce it again, as long as you surrender to us with the head of a Rakshasa soldier, no matter who it is, a Rakshasa soldier will be rewarded with ten taels of silver, and it will be cashed out immediately!"

The fierce god announced the policy against the Tsarist army, Wu Chaoyue changed his kind tone again, and said to Cao Yanzhong with a smile: "Yan Zhong, I forgot to say that Wu Dadao will also take his battalion to the northeast with you and obey your command, but in order to surprise the Rakshasa people, how to use his army, I will explain to you alone." ”