While the banks of the Yangtze River were in full swing preparing for a decisive battle, Xuchang City was surprisingly quiet.

Cao Cao is the king of Wei, and the capital is set in Yecheng, and he has not settled in Xuchang City for a long time; But Cao Cao naturally knows the meaning of Xuchang City, and he will run there if he has nothing to do, but the main defender is Cao Cao's confidant Xiahoudun.

Since the first battle of Mount Tai, Xiahoudun has lost his sight in both eyes, and he is destined to be unable to go to the battlefield again; But this person has a tenacity in his temper, and he would rather die than be idle at home, and he has to ask Cao Cao to find him something.

A few years ago, Xiahoudun found Cao Cao, threw a sword in front of him, and shouted: "Mengde, if you want to use my Xiahoudun, even if you raise horses, I can bear it; If you don't use me, kill me with this sword, I can't stand the days of being raised! ”

There was no way, Cao Cao could only let him be the chief bookkeeper of the army, and later promoted to the chief bookkeeper of the Prime Minister's Mansion. You say that Xiahoudun is blind in both eyes, how to deal with affairs? This Xiahoudun specially found two people, one to report to him, and the other to ghostwrite for him; He completely changed from a manual worker to a mental worker.

Xiahoudun's mind is not bad, and his brain path is clearer after losing his blindness, but he handles Cao Cao's affairs in an orderly manner. Cao Cao couldn't help but shed tears of emotion when he saw his old friend so powerful, so this southern expedition asked Xiahoudun to guard Xuchang and deal with everything in Xuchang.

Guo Jia was also assigned to Xiahou Xuan, not that Cao Cao was unwilling to take him, but he still had to deal with Xun Gang's affairs before this southern expedition; Xun Gang is Guo Jia's old master after all, and Cao Cao is still afraid that Guo Jia wants Xun Gang to leak some news.

However, these two people have to manage not only Xuchang's security, agriculture and commerce, and the surrounding rebellion, but also to monitor one person.

That's when today.

As we all know, Xun Gang and Liu Xie have become friends of Xinglin and have had more than ten years of brotherhood, although they are now much more estranged. But Cao Cao is suspicious by nature, even if you look like you are on the same page, Cao Cao will still feel that you have a lot of relationship.

The main reason for dealing with Xun Gang is that his relationship with the Son of Heaven is not trivial. Now that Cao Cao is the king, he has suffered from gains and losses, and seems to be very afraid that the disaster will arise from within, and the source of this disaster is the Son of Heaven.

Han Gaozu once said that those who are not surnamed Liu cannot be called kings, although now the fortune is different, Cao Cao will not have so many people to say irresponsible things, but Cao Cao is afraid! The older a person gets, the more afraid he is of death, just as the bigger you are, the more afraid you are of others against you.

Therefore, Cao Cao gave Xiahoudun and the others a death order, all the surrounding territory can be lost, but the Son of Heaven must not lose it!

If you let people with ulterior motives get the Son of Heaven and crusade against yourself in the name of the Son of Heaven like yourself, then you will have a reputation for disloyalty no matter whether you advance or retreat. At that time, even if you don't have the image of being the emperor, then others will think that you Cao Cao is a traitor of the Han family.

He is afraid of other people's criticism of him, he has already achieved fame, and he does not want such an incident to happen again.

In the Xuchang Palace, a small eunuch walked through the heavily guarded corridor and walked towards the deepest part of the palace. When you go to the barricade, you have to show the token to the Cao soldiers who are guarding the place; If others don't let it go, then it's only a matter of money.

No matter how much big corruption you have dealt with at any time, you will not be able to punish so many small ones. Even if he is as strong as Emperor Hongwu, he may not completely clean up the vices in the officialdom.

The little eunuch trembled through the layers of encirclement nets, and finally came to the rearmost palace - this was the sleeping palace of the Son of Heaven, which was arranged in the innermost layer of the Xuchang Palace to prevent him from escaping.

But Liu Xie scoffed at this matter and ran away? I didn't escape, I was almost starved to death at that time, and then it fell into Cao Cao's hands; Besides, it's ridiculous that you don't guard Xuchang City to prevent gangsters, but you come to prevent me from escaping!

"Your Majesty, Your Majesty!"

After entering the palace, the little eunuch hurriedly walked towards the inner palace, but the guards around him only sneered and ignored it.

"Your Majesty, Your Majesty! Big deal! ”

The little eunuch didn't know how many falls on the smooth floor, so he ran to Liu Xie with a wounded face, but he startled Liu Xie, who was reading a book, and just wanted to ask, he heard the little eunuch say: "Your Majesty, someone in the city has responded!" ”

Hearing this, Liu Xie's face instantly made a frightened expression, he looked around, and only breathed a sigh of relief after finding that there were no outsiders, and blamed the little eunuch for being too unvigilant, while saying, "Who responded?" ”

"Shaofu Geng Ji and Prime Minister's Mansion Si Zhi Wei Huang heard that the Son of Heaven was in prison, so they intended to take advantage of the Cao thief's southern expedition to send troops to attack Xuchang and rescue the Son of Heaven!"

Liu Xie asked with some disappointment: "It's just these two people?" ”

The little eunuch said distressedly: "Your Majesty, now that Cao Thief is arrogating as the king, everyone in the world is afraid, and it is rare to have such a loyal courtier; Although there were only two of them, they had already gathered 5,000 soldiers and horses, and when Cao Thief and Sun Ce started a war, they raised troops to come to the rescue! ”

Liu Xie thought to himself that although these people were a drop in the bucket for saving drivers, they were better than nothing. What's more, now that Cao Cao has transgressed, he has long since stopped taking him as the son of heaven in his eyes, and he is not afraid that this matter will be discovered by Cao Cao, is it possible that Cao Cao dares to kill the king?

Liu Xie still understands this, Cao Cao is not Dong Zhuo, Li Dao and Guo Yan, he still retains respect for himself, the Son of Heaven, and it is impossible to kill the monarch.

"The Emperor...... Can someone contact Xun Gang over there? Liu Xie suddenly asked.

Liu Xie is no longer intimate with Xun Gang, does not call him the emperor's brother, nor does he call him his cousin, but only mentions his name lightly, and seems to have long distanced him. He may have made up his mind that Xun Gang was already Cao Cao's lackey.

But even so, he still has a trace of illusion about this sworn brother who has been worshipping for more than ten years, in case ...... I mean, what if, what if, all the time, he has been succumbing to Cao Cao, just to accumulate a lot of money?

Even though the possibility of dormancy for more than ten years is very small, he still has such a glimmer of illusion.

"Your Majesty, Xuchang City is closely monitored, how can you find someone to report outside the city? What's more, it's far away in Jingzhou? Now there are two people who are willing to contribute to Your Majesty, please don't hesitate more, after the Cao thief starts the war, I will immediately take Xuchang and reproduce the power of the Han Dynasty! ”

Liu Xie smiled bitterly: "It's difficult! It's hard! Although Cao Thief raised the army of the country, there are still thousands of soldiers and horses in Xuchang City, or veterans who have been on the battlefield for a long time, and there are no more Qinwang troops, how can those two people be their opponents? ”

"This ...... So what is Your Majesty's plan? ”

Liu Xie thought for a while, but sighed and ordered: "Take a pen and paper!" ”

"I have heard that the people are great, and the father and son come first; The difference between respect and humility is important to monarchs and ministers. Recently, thieves have seized power and oppressed their father; Forming up the party and destroying the government; Reward and punishment are not up to me. I have been worrying all night, and I am afraid that the world will be in danger. Qing is the minister of the country, my closest relative, when I remember the difficulties of Emperor Gao's entrepreneurship, entangled the martyrs of both loyalty and righteousness, annihilated the traitorous party, and restored the society, the ancestors are very fortunate! Today's edict to Fu Qing, and then be cautious, don't live up to my intentions! ”

The edict written by Liu Xie is completely the same blood belt edict as Dong Cheng at the beginning (in fact, the author is too lazy to think about it); He sealed the letter in a letter and handed it to the little eunuch and said: "You give this thing to your cronies, and order him to hurry up and deliver it to Xun Gang; If it can't be handed over to Xun Gang, come and see you! ”

"Slave and maid command!"

After the eunuch left, Liu Xie looked out the window speechlessly, only feeling extremely lonely, I was the son of today, but I never felt the majesty of the Son of Heaven, but I was constrained everywhere, for the sake of those ministers, one accidentally led to his own death.

"Son of Heaven...... Emperor! It's better to give it to someone else's house! ”

Because of Cao Cao's southern expedition, Xuchang's guards were much lax, and what was even more coincidental was that the captain of the city was Xu Chu. The person instructed by the little eunuch was clearly a young chick who had never seen the world, and when he saw that he couldn't walk the way of the strict inspection at the door, he was directly arrested by Xu Chu.

However, Xu Chu has been away from Xun Gang for a long time, and he has become much more cautious; Seeing that this person was so flustered, it was very likely that the Son of Heaven was the messenger who sent a message to the outside world, so he asked people to search for it, and indeed found the secret letter. But he didn't want the purpose of the secret letter to be Xun Gang, Xu Chu couldn't help but be stunned.

In the end, Xu Chu still remembered the friendship of the old master, pretended not to see anything, and let the man go.

Ten years later, the letter reached Xun Gang's hands.

And Xun Gang only said one sentence:

"Son of Heaven? I'll save him when I'm free! ”