(a)

The royal hunting garden in Qingliang Mountain, a suburb of Yunjing.

Since the previous dynasty, this place has always been the place where the king's autumn hunting and military exercises are located. Although it is located on the outskirts of a bustling city, the feng shui here is exceptional, and as soon as you enter the arena, you can feel a strong royal spirit.

The towering Qingliang Mountain is undulating and majestic, with snow on the top of the mountain all year round, covered by glaciers accumulated for hundreds of millions of years, and the thick ice tongue extends to the cool stream with flowing water below the mountain. The primeval forest on the slopes on both sides is tall and dense, the vegetation is abundant, the varieties are numerous, they are distributed layer by layer with the change of topography, they are scattered, the spring is stacked with thousands of layers, the autumn is ten thousand points of gold, the wind blows the pine waves, the moon shines and flies, it is really an otherworldly fairyland.

Qingliangshan hunting ground is one of Liu Shen's favorite places in his life, every time he hunts in autumn, he will stay here for more than ten days, relax the perennial early greedy dark, busy with national politics and tired body and mind, feel the greatness and magnificence of nature here, and experience the pride of fighting with you in the north and south when you were young, galloping the field.

For the annual royal autumn hunt and military exercises, a garrison of the Royal Forest Army is stationed here all year round. At present, the general of this army, Zhou Daiyue, is Yang Biao's old subordinate, because of his outstanding military achievements, he fought bloody battles against Beji Hankel's troops, and was wounded many times and pursued the enemy more than once, and was respected by Liu Shen, and was promoted to this important position. Originally, he was also loyal to Liu Shen, but Liu Shen's disarmament order made him very dissatisfied.

Zhou Daiyue believes that after so many years of baptism and tempering of war, the Han army is now prestigious, invincible in the world, Liu Shen should make good use of this force, open up territory, wantonly annex and conquer the barbarians of all ethnic groups in Central and Western Asia and South Asia, and establish a huge empire with a wider territory, so that all soldiers can give full play to their talents, enjoy the glory of victory in the war, and obtain a large amount of spoils.

However, after the establishment of Liu Shen's new dynasty, he inherited your war-cherishing proposition of insisting on not rashly starting a war with the Rongxian and Tubo tribes, paid attention to the people's livelihood, cherished the people's strength, vigorously developed peaceful trade relations with the tribes of neighboring countries, carried out a large number of cultural exchanges, and never took the initiative to launch invasion and annexation wars to the surrounding areas, resulting in the Han army having no major battles to fight for a long time, and many outstanding military talents wasted the most precious youth of their lives in the peaceful years.

Because of the lack of continuous support from outstanding military exploits, the generals of the Han army were promoted slowly, their status in the DPRK and China gradually declined, and they were gradually marginalized in many domestic affairs, and the right to speak was gradually lost, and the influence of the civilian class on state affairs began to far exceed that of the military attache group. This general believes that this is all caused by Liu Shen's small wealth and peace, and he has no ambition to dominate the world, and the Liu family has always been jealous of the army.

Now, Liu Shen is bent on going his own way, wanting to be completely disarmed, seeing that many brothers have been struggling in the army for so many years, and finally just came out, a little progress, and has not yet survived to the high title, after this disarmament, his career was suspended, and he could only receive severance pay and return to his hometown to farm, mixing well, at most, he was a local rich landlord and aristocratic gentleman, and lived comfortably. If you want to participate in political affairs again, you must study again, take the road of taking the imperial examination, or be promoted by local officials to be virtuous and filial, change to the route of civil officials, start from scratch, and work hard all the way to accumulate promotions again.

Zhou Daiyue felt that this kind of disarmament was a very heavy blow to the generals with great ambitions, and he felt that Liu Shen was a typical example of crossing the river and demolishing bridges, unloading mills and killing donkeys, and lived up to the support and dedication of the Han army officers and soldiers for many years. Although in the early controversy, as an important general of the Imperial Forest Army, he did not say a word in order to maintain absolute obedience to the king, but in his heart, he understood and agreed with Yang Biao's views very much.

This time, Yang Biao sent someone over to hook up, and it was in Zhou Daiyue's arms. He immediately decided to support Yang Biao, and together with Yang Biao, he launched a military admonition and changed the king, hoping to assist and educate the new monarch from an early age, establish the dream of the empire, and embark on the iron-blooded road of military statehood.

(b)

According to the plan agreed with Yang Biao in advance, on the night after Liu Shen and his entourage arrived at the paddock, he and Yang Biao's henchmen joined forces inside and outside to control the defense of Liu Shen's palace. After Liu Shen and the accompanying officials fell asleep, they suddenly attacked the Imperial Forest Guards brought by Liu Shen from Yunjing, and by virtue of their surprise and numerical advantage, after a short period of time, they solved the guards without making a big movement, stepped on the corpses of the guards soldiers, held torches, and rushed all the way into Liu Shen's dormitory.

Liu Shen woke up from his sleep, but saw the fire flickering outside the window, and the sound of human voices and weapons colliding, when he got up and wanted to open the door to look, a row of sharp arrows broke through the window, and shot on the pillars, tables and chairs, and window lattices, and a few directly hit the couch where Liu Shen was lying just now. Liu Shen immediately broke out in a cold sweat. Subsequently, from time to time, there were random arrows flying into the room, the situation was very dangerous, after Liu Shen grabbed his sword, he could only hide behind the pillars to avoid the attack of arrows, and could not rush out to join the war group to organize the guards to resist.

After a short fight, the sound of slashing outside gradually thinned out, and finally fell silent. Liu Shen knew that the guards were finished, and he fell into the hands of the rebels. As he was thinking this, the door to the bedroom was slammed open from the outside, and the carved door slammed to the ground, smashing into dust. Many torches appeared in the doorway.

Zhou Daiyue led his troops to appear at the door of the bedroom. He held a sharp knife and shouted to Liu Shen, claiming that the mutiny was not a rebellion, but a military admonition to the king, wanting the king to change his erroneous idea of disarmament, and that he had no intention of killing the king, and implored Liu Shen to take the initiative to come out to meet him, and not to force the ministers to offend the king's authority.

Liu Shen held a sword in his hand and slowly came out from behind the pillars to face this group of renegade soldiers.

Liu Shen looked at Zhou Daiyue and said, "You have done this, look at the arrows all over this room, and say that you don't dare to offend the monarch?" ”

He said: "Zhou Daiyue, back then, I cherished your bravery, promoted you to be the commander of the Imperial Forest Army, and entrusted my life to you, but I didn't expect that one day, you would use your courage to rebel against the king. Do you remember the oath you made before me that day? ”

Zhou Daiyue sneered: "This time, that time." At that time, His Majesty regarded the soldiers as brothers and sisters, and the ministers naturally regarded His Majesty as a generation of heroes. Now that His Majesty has lived a peaceful life, he has forgotten the bloody sacrifices of his brothers, and regards the soldiers as a burden, and the ministers will naturally no longer be able to serve His Majesty as the Ming Emperor. Your Majesty, have you fulfilled all the vows of your life? Isn't it the same as the time to change and act expediently? Your Majesty has experienced vicissitudes for a long time and has insight into people's hearts, so why use these naïve words to accuse your ministers! Although the ministers are brought out by the late general, they do not have the selfless elegance of the late general, and have the merit of pacifying the world, but they always depreciate themselves and are not rewarded. The ministers only know that the establishment and prosperity of this dynasty depends on the heroism and invincibility of the Han army, and His Majesty cannot cross the river and tear down the bridge, and the brothers of the Han army will be put aside after the world is peaceful! How can you be so ungrateful, how can you reign over the world! ”

Liu Shen said: "What do you want? ”

Zhou Daiyue said: "On the order of General Yang, the minister advises His Majesty to take care of his body, abdicate at the right time, return to the hot spring palace, and recuperate for the rest of his life. ”

Liu Shen said: "Let me abdicate? So, in this world, who do you want to worry about? ”

Zhou Daiyue said: "Of course, it is passed on to His Majesty's good son to continue to be the emperor of this country." ”

Liu Shen said, "Which of my good sons have you chosen to ascend to the throne?" ”

Zhou Daiyue said: "The ninth son of the emperor, King Luling. ”

Liu Shen said: "Although the ninth son of the emperor is crowned king, he is young, where does he know how to deal with court politics? ”

Zhou Daiyue said: "He doesn't understand, let's understand, isn't there still Wenchen and military generals to assist?" Moreover, the queen can also stay alone in the palace and continue to take care of the new monarch and teach him how to be a good emperor who is grateful and grateful. Your Majesty, you can rest assured that you don't have to worry about so many things. ”

Liu Shen said: "So, the current crown prince, how are you going to treat it?" ”

Zhou Daiyue said: "The current crown prince has the same political views and propositions as His Majesty, and his enthusiasm for disarmament is even greater than that of His Majesty. Of course, he is not suitable to be the future emperor of this country. Now that His Majesty has issued an edict to pass on the throne to the new emperor, the position of the crown prince will naturally be deposed along with it. Your Majesty, rest assured, we have no personal enmity with the Crown Prince, and just as we do not intend to harm Your Majesty, we do not intend to harm the Crown Prince. After the crown prince was removed from the throne, he would move out of the capital and return to Anlin County, the fief of the late general, where we would not let him know any news from the court, and he could transcend the world, be pure-hearted, enjoy the mountains and rivers, and spend a romantic and elegant life. Unless he himself wants to be our enemy and bring about his own destruction. ”

Zhou Daiyue said: "Your Majesty, you see, although we have worked so hard to enter the palace and have lost many good brothers in casualties, we have done our best to Your Majesty's father and son, not only do not abuse and kill, but also pay respect, we have given everything that should be given to Your Majesty and the crown prince, and there is no shortage at all." Has Your Majesty seen such rebellions and mutinies? ”

Zhou Daiyue said: "Therefore, we are not a rebellion, nor a mutiny, but just a genuine military advice. Because His Majesty insisted on going his own way and refused to listen to the voices of many Han soldiers, we were forced to adopt this method. Our devotion to this dynasty has never changed. I hope that Your Majesty will cherish our loyalty to the country, conform to the will of the soldiers, write an abdication edict as soon as possible, and order the crown prince of Yunjing to open the city to receive the decree and carry out the decree, so that General Yang's army can enter the city smoothly, support the new monarch, establish the people's hearts and stability, and return the government to peace. (To be continued.) )