Three or two branches of peach blossoms outside the bamboo, the prophet of the plumbing duck in the spring river, the two banks of the Xiangjiang River in early March are full of vitality, the night boat goes down the river, starting from Chenzhou at the southernmost point of Huguang, passing Hengyang, going down to Xiangtan, this morning has arrived near Changsha.

The early morning air was like a pleasant fragrance of tea, refreshing, passengers came to the deck, looking at the scenery on both sides of the strait, two four or five-year-old children ran around excitedly, giggling and laughing, but they were immediately caught by a middle-aged woman, scared with a black face.

"Rest assured! Wake up those officials and masters, and arrest the two of you to go to the black prison! ”

"Why is the official sleeping lazy?" The two little ones didn't understand it, and the milky voice was very loud.

"I drank too much last night...... Hey, the little ghost cares so much, who can tell the affairs of the official family. The woman glanced back uneasily, but fortunately, there was no movement in the direction of the cabin, and the officials should not have heard her chewing on the root of her tongue.

Inside the cabin, Mo Yuangen stopped in front of the cabin door, a wry smile appeared on the corner of his mouth, and he hesitated for a moment and sat back on the bed, not daring to go out to face the strange eyes of those passengers.

He was a scholar from Nanning, Guangxi, and he was awarded the second-class jinshi in the just-concluded Enkeli, and he was released to Huguang with several others in the same year, and rushed to Changsha on a night sailing boat. Last night, a few of them drank and wrote poems, talked loudly, and tossed until the second half of the night, so noisy that the whole ship could not sleep, and the other passengers came to interfere angrily, but they suddenly changed into official uniforms, and threw the body almost in the face of the other party, so frightened that the other party's soul was scattered, and fiercely satisfied a handful of vanity.

"It's really a teenager's arrogance. I'm acting too much! ”

Mo Yuangen felt very enjoyable at the time, but after he woke up, he regretted it very much, he was from a poor family. There are also half of the Zhuang blood, and it is not easy to become an official in the gold list, but he caused trouble on the way to the post, which is not a good thing for the development of his career.

has arrived in Changsha, the governor of Huguang and the three divisions of the yamen are here, and the high-grade generals are like carp crossing the river, and a seven-rank county that has not yet taken office is really nothing. Although this matter is not big, it is very strict for a newcomer to officialdom, and it is inevitable that he will be bullied when it spreads. There are misdeeds in the wind.

"It's all because Du Ping was indulged for a while, and I was also confused, why didn't I persuade him!" Mo Yuangen was a little angry with himself, and turned his head to look at Du Ping, who was sleeping soundly on another bed.

Du Pin was the same year as this Enko. Act steadily. Knowledgeable, and a few years older than everyone, he has quite prestige among several people in his peers, and always takes care of Mo Yuangen like a brother. On the way from Guangzhou to Huguang, every time Du Ping talked about his ambition, he wanted to go to the front line in Hubei to resist the Qing Dynasty and kill the enemy, save the people from fire and water, and turn the tide from the past. It always makes Mo Yuangen respect and admiration, and he is also full of yearning for the future.

What I didn't expect was. When they stayed in Chenzhou, they suddenly received a notice from the imperial court that Du Ping was changed from the commander of Tongshan County, Hubei to the commander of Chenxi County, Hunan.

The hatch suddenly snapped a few times, and someone knocked on the door outside: "Brothers, Changsha Mansion is about to arrive, come out and have a look!" ”

Mo Yuangen hurriedly stood up, stepped forward to push Du Ping, and then pushed Chen Shangwen on the other bed: "Brother Du, Brother Chen, get up, Changsha has arrived!" ”

"Oh, okay, let's wash up." Chen Shangwen sat up and nodded with a smile. He was born in a wealthy merchant family in Guangzhou, and it was also the same year of Enke this time, and I heard that there was also a younger brother Chen Shangwu who served in the Huguang army.

After Mo Yuangen went out, Chen Shangwen smiled slightly: "Little Mo is simple, is he really worried about you, he is a good friend (Ming Dynasty scholars and scholars often call each other friends.) ”

"I know, so I plan to recommend it to Wang Junmen and let him go to the Grain Dao Yamen to give it a try." Du Ping nodded.

"He's too cautious, he supervises the grain and goes down the road, and the gods and ghosts have to deal with each other, can Xiao Mo do it?" Chen Shangwen frowned slightly.

"Cautious people tend to be thorough, and the affairs of the grain road are cumbersome, and a talent like him is needed, and he is not allowed to be a Taoist platform, with the support of the military gate, who dares to underestimate him?" Du Ping said with a smile: "Fu Ge Lao drove the ducks to the shelves, so he forced me to supervise the grain road, but fortunately, Wang Junmen saw that I was not the material, so he sent me to Chenxi County, so as not to make a fool of myself in the future." ”

After Wang Kefan's Admiral Caojiang Yamen was listed, subordinate institutions were also established one after another, and the Governor of the Grain Road was one of them, in a sense, it and the Logistics Department of the Chu Army were a set of teams and two brands, or those people were doing those jobs, but for the convenience of contact, it was called the Logistics Department within the Chu Army, and the Ming Dynasty was called the Admiral Caojiang Grain Road Yamen.

Chenxi County is located in the southwest of Hunan Chenzhou Mansion, behind the heavy mountains of Xiangxi, the center of gravity of the Huguang Battle is shifting to the south, Wang Kefan arranged for Du Ping to go to Chenxi County, obviously also has a deep meaning, but it involves military secrets, Chen Shangwen did not ask in detail, only smiled and said: "Brother Du went to Chenxi County to take office, it is a document issued by the Ministry of Officials, He Dufu no longer wants the court to interfere in Huguang, and he will not openly turn you away, and why should he splash sewage when he comes to Changsha Mansion, causing Xiao Mo to worry about you." ”

Du Ping has always acted steadily, but he suddenly drank all night on the boat, and put on a disgusting face that I am an official and no one can control, obviously wanting to smear himself, and deliberately do it for He Tengjiao and other Huguang officials.

"Hey, it's just a small thing that doesn't cost anything, at least there is no harm, so you might as well give it a try. The battle situation in Huguang was tense day by day, and I rushed to Chenxi County in a hurry, hoping to have as few constraints as possible and concentrate on my work. Du Ping said: "In fact, with Brother Chen's great talent, going to Chenxi County must be better than me, but Ningzhou urgently needs a shrewd and capable county order, so Wang Junmen chose Brother Chen." ”

Du Ping had received an order from Wang Kefan to be funded by the Chu army, so that he could raise grain in Chenxi County for two months, repair the city wall, and make various deployments around the capital city of Chenzhou...... Time is tight and the task is heavy, and Du Ping has no time to deal with Hunan officialdom, so he pretends to be reckless and public, so as to act freely in the future.

"Hehe, the Ningzhou County Order was begged by myself, I heard my brother say that it was easy for the military gate to lay a foundation in Mufu Mountain, but Xiong Lichun made a mess there, I want to meet him!" Chen Shangwen is Chen Shangwu's sibling, with this relationship, it is inconvenient for him to serve in Hunan, as a famous maritime merchant family in Guangdong, Chen Shangwen has an adventurous spirit in his bones, and heard that the shape of Ningzhou is very complicated, so he took the initiative to ask Ying to go there to serve as the county commander......

When the ship arrived in Changsha, everyone boarded the shore and entered the city together, and went to the governor's yamen and the political envoy yamen to ask for a meeting, whether Mo Yuangen or Du Ping

and Chen Shangwen are both local officials in Huguang, and they are nominally controlled by He Tengjiao, so when they arrive in Huguang, they have to meet Shangguan first, and as for He Tengjiao not seeing them, of course it is another matter.

Soon after returning to the Yin Hotel, they received a reply from the Governor Yamen, and they were collectively summoned about three days later, after all, the imperial court had not held the imperial examination for several years, and as the governor of Huguang who had all the opportunities, He Tengjiao did this to give these new scholars a lot of face.

Everyone lived in Changsha Mansion and waited to meet He Tengjiao, but in just three days, the air in Changsha Mansion suddenly became very tense, and all kinds of rumors flew all over the sky, all saying that the Tartar army had crossed the Miluo River and had invaded Hunan.

Du Ping wanted to leave but couldn't go, so he had to wait until the third day, and rushed to the governor's yamen early in the morning to ask to see He Tengjiao, but he had a closed door, and a master of the governor's yamen came out to receive him, claiming that He Dufu was busy with military affairs and could not summon everyone, so that they could go to their respective posts, and it would not be too late to see the governor and assistant in the future.

The official level crushed people to death, not to mention that He Tengjiao's official was several levels bigger, everyone waited for three days in vain but didn't dare to complain, so they could only say goodbye in a hurry and go their separate ways.

Mo Yuangen inquired and heard that Wang Kefan's army was fighting fiercely with the Tatar army in the east of Xiangyin and west of Tongcheng, so he crossed the Miluo River with Chen Shangwen and rushed to the camp of the Chu army.

Two days later, Chen Shangwen left the Chu army and traveled a long way over the Mufu Mountains to Ningzhou to take office......

……

Before the Chu army left Mufu Mountain, Xiong Lichun led the Ningzhou volunteers to launch a feint attack on Xingguo Prefecture.

The Tianyou soldiers are not easy to mess with, the Tianyou soldiers plus the Wuzhen Chaoha soldiers are even more difficult to mess with, Xiong Lichun has more or less discounted Wang Kefan's orders, and the feints of the Ningzhou volunteers are thunderous and rainy.

He led thousands of men and horses to clean up the small strongholds of the Qing army on the periphery of the Makufu Mountain, opened roads and filled bridges in the mountains, disguised as a vanguard army, and it seemed that tens of thousands of troops were about to come out of the mountains from here to confuse Geng Zhongming, but he always adhered to a principle, and never left the Makufu Mountain.

Geng Zhongming is cunning and suspicious with his troops, and if he is suspicious, he will inevitably be suspicious, although he feels that Xiong Lichun is pretending, he still concentrates his troops in Xingguo Prefecture, just in case. Seeing the Qing army swarming in, Xiong Lichun suddenly killed a horse pistol, turned to the southwest of Jiugong Mountain, and broke through the two stockades of the Qing army, preparing to retreat into Mufu Mountain, and was finished.

On the periphery of Jiugong Mountain, the Ningzhou volunteers accidentally caught a spy of the Qing army, and wanted to cut off his head with a knife, but he didn't look like an ordinary fine work, and it seemed that he was not a small figure, so he reported this matter to Xiong Lichun.

"What's your name? What for? Xiong Lichun was eating, and glanced at the spy casually, this person is in his thirties, although his clothes are tattered, and he looks very wolf, but his face and hands are thin and tender, and he has not suffered at a glance.

"In the Xia Wang Shuang, the people of Huangzhou Mansion, in order to avoid the military disaster, it is difficult to escape alone, and please take the general in!"

Niu Yan was hungry, looking at the rice bowl in Xiong Lichun's hand, he couldn't help but swallow a mouthful of saliva. (To be continued......)