1

A large living room, located on the first floor of a fancy small western-style building, outside the window, is the garden carefully trimmed flowers and trees, standing in the hall and looking out, there are always seasonal flowers and trees, the second brother is in full bloom, open the window, there is the fragrance of flowers and plants, enter the hall.

In addition to this clock, the other items in the house are all in Chinese style, with square brick floors, carved tables and chairs, landscape paintings on the walls, and old-fashioned Chinese Taishi chairs, all of which clearly reveal the antique flavor of Chinese tradition.

Wu Peifu put his hands behind his back and paced slowly on the ground.

Wu Peifu is slightly chubby, with a mustache common to old-fashioned soldiers, wearing a Chinese-style casual dress and round-mouth step shoes. He paced a few steps, stopped, turned to the person sitting on the chair in the room, and said slowly: "Brother Wan, I can understand what you said, but I will not send troops now. ”

The person in the chair was Professor Wan, and there was a person sitting next to him, Ding Changyou.

Professor Wan was a little surprised, he thought that the Hunan people's rebellion against Zhang Jingyao had almost won the support of the whole country, and there were many contradictions between Wu Peifu and the Anhui warlords, and now that there was a good opportunity for Zhang Jingyao's internal split, he could take the opportunity to attack the Anhui system, could he still hurry up? Professor Wan has been thinking about it repeatedly for several days, thinking that after explaining the situation, he will immediately get Wu's response, who knows, Wu Peifu took a long test, but rejected his proposal.

"Ziyu," Professor Wan stood up a little anxiously, "The Zhang brothers are in Hunan, notorious, full of complaints, all people of insight do not want to get rid of them quickly, if you can take this opportunity to expel the Zhang family from Hunan Province, not only to relieve the people from hanging upside down, but also to be widely supported and achieve a career." ”

Wu Peifu sat down and said slowly: "Brother Wan, originally, the territory of Hunan was won by me, but the government controlled by the Anhui system awarded the post of Hunan overseer to Zhang Jingyao. ”

"That's right."

Wu Peifu smiled, "Brother Wan, you are a learned person, you have words in ancient times, you do things based on loyalty and righteousness, rigid and plugged, strong and righteous, if you go to war with Zhang Jingyao head-on, I will have the courage to advance and go straight to the enemy's nest." Now, there is chaos inside him, someone is secretly plotting rebellion, and I am only watching the excitement from the sidelines. ”

"Why is that? Ziyu, the fighter plane is fleeting, and it will never come again. ”

"If I participate in it, others will think that I am secretly manipulating the civil strife of the Hunan army, originally, Sun Tzu has words, soldiers, treacherous ways, and the battlefield is full of wisdom and wisdom, all of which are normal, but instigating others to rebel, I Wu Ziyu will not do it."

Professor Wan understands that, in the final analysis, Wu Peifu is unwilling to do this kind of "sneaky" thing because of a kind of "foolish, loyal and filial piety" thinking.

Wu Peifu continued: "Brother Wan, as you said, now within the Zhang family, the people are not aligned, and the contradictions are intensifying, these are all good things for us, but if you think about it again, the current situation is far from reaching the point where they are falling apart and the rivers are declining. If I don't do it well, I will end up with the reputation of a treacherous villain stabbing in the back, and the laughing stock of the bereaved people, why should I come? ”

Professor Wan nodded silently, he had to admire Wu Peifu's shrewdness, his foresight was far beyond the reach of others.

"But, as you said, the warplanes are fleeting, and I will never close my eyes and not look at their civil strife, then it is not called foolishness, it is called stupidity. Brother Wan, let's do this, for their actions, you can give a suggestion, called 'accumulate energy, stand by and move', according to my observation, the people of Hunan, since ancient times, have a brave wind, will not be willing to the Zhang brothers ****, sooner or later a group of crusades. ”

"You're right," Professor Wan patted the table, "and you can see this very accurately. ”

Wu Peifu smiled, "Therefore, the matter of Hunan, there will be a day when the water comes to fruition, everything in the world must depend on the timing, the so-called timing, is the most appropriate point in the balance of yin and yang, no matter the timing, only by will, often nothing can be achieved." Those aspiring friends, just tell them that when the time comes, I won't lie down and sleep. ”

"Okay," Professor Wan was happy, "what you said makes sense, blindly attacking, it may be half the effort, the war is together, Li Shu suffers, but it is better to destroy the strength of all parties after the strength of the whole party, with the trend of destruction and decay, sweep away the overall situation, and the people will suffer less." ”

Wu Peifu smiled and nodded, "In this way, I will send someone to contact you to keep abreast of the situation at any time." He turned his head to Ding Changyou and said, "Chang You, this matter is up to you to arrange." ”

"Yes, Marshal." Ding Changyou stood up.

Wu Peifu said to Professor Wan again: "Brother Shengtao, you have to tell those friends that the most difficult thing to do in the way of using soldiers is the word 'urgent' and the word 'slow', and you must consider more when encountering problems, and you must not blindly rush forward and fall into self-chaos, if you want to defeat the enemy, you must first defeat your own buoyancy and arrogance, you must know that there is a cause and there must be an effect, there is a take, there must be a give-and-take, wishful thinking, never do it." ”

"Ziyu, you are more old and serious than before."

Wu Peifu stood up again, turned around and looked out the window, at this time in late autumn, the grass and trees in the garden outside the window were mostly withered, half withered and half yellow, looking a little bleak, he sighed softly, "Born in troubled times, everything is difficult, neither dare to have a moment of slackness, but also dare not have a trace of negligence, both for the husband, for the country and at home, you have to do your best." If you are Brother Shengtao, you come and go from afar, why is it for yourself? My generation has the responsibility to spur me all the time, so how dare I not be serious? ”

"Well said," Professor Wan said, "Ziyu, after a few years, you have been diligent and upright, even more than before. ”

Ding Changyou interjected: "Dashuai gets up every morning to practice swords, recites ancient books every day, and never stops." ”

"Brother Wan," Wu Peifu pointed out the window and said, "You stay for two days, let's taste the autumn breeze and discuss the history of the scriptures as before." ”

2

After Professor Wan and Wu Peifu said goodbye, Ding Changyou returned with them, he said: "I'm going to Tiehu Village, at the Tiehu Conference where those guys gather to make trouble, do you want to go and see the excitement?" ”

Shi Suo suddenly remembered, "Lao Ding, you pretended to be with that group of bandits at the beginning?" Is it to make trouble for them? ”

"That's right," Ding Changyou said with a smile, "I lied to them that I was also a pole leader, and I went to the conference together, and I also stole an iron medal, you see." As he spoke, he pulled out a palm-sized iron sign from his waist. The brand is made of white iron, very exquisite, chiseled with moire lace, and four small characters in the middle: Iron Lake Conference.

Professor Wan said: "Is this Tiehu Conference organized by the Anhui Department? ”

Ding Changyou said: "Nominally, it was spontaneous among the people, but in fact it was manipulated behind the scenes by Mr. Yu of the Anhui family, with the purpose of attracting bandits from various factions for their own use, and taking the opportunity to eradicate dissidents and unify the armed forces of the people." Originally, Wu Dashuai was disdainful of this kind of obscene behavior, but we pondered that since they came up with this topic, they simply went to add a fire, added some spice to their conference, and stinked them. ”

"Haha, interesting," Shi Suo smiled: "Professor Wan, let's go too, and see the excitement." ”

"yes, let's go too." Dafeng also said with interest.

Professor Wan thought about it, this move of the Anhui Department Office is not small, and it is likely to alarm the bandits from all walks of life in the three mountains and five mountains, this kind of thing, it is also beneficial to go to reconnaissance and understand, so he nodded, "Okay, let's go and have a look, but everything must be cautious and try not to cause trouble." ”

The four of them went together, although Dafeng didn't find her brother, but she was an open-minded optimist, she cried for a while, then put it down, and Shi Suo competed in martial arts along the way, chatting about heaven and earth, it was very agreeable, she said: "I won't go back, I can't sell it for a few dollars in the village, the money that Master Man gave me, I will give it to my aunt, and I will follow you in the future." ”

When he was in Manjiazhuang, Master Man took a lot of money for Dafeng, and gave her clothes and jewelry, Dafeng repeatedly excused himself, and finally received some, Master Man said: "Dafeng, this will be your second home in the future, when you are free, you must come to see me." ”

Professor Wan said to Dafeng: "I support your idea, come with us, we have a lot of young people there, and you can learn a lot more." ”

"Great, I'm reluctant to leave you."

On this day, when I came to a small county town, I heard the sound of gongs and drums in the street from afar, looking for prestige, in front of an empty field in the middle of the street, there was a colorful shed stage, Shi Suo and Dafeng, two young people, were so lively, and said happily together: "There are singers here, Professor Wan, let's stay and listen to the opera." ”

Ding Changyou was unwilling to delay the trip, so he said to Shi Suo: "That's it, if you listen to the play, I'll leave first, and let's meet again in Tiehu Village." ”

Professor Wan didn't want to frustrate the excitement of the two young people, so he agreed, so the four broke up, Ding Changyou went on the road alone, and the three of them went straight to the stage. Under the stage, around the cloth wall, in a circle, set aside the door to collect the money for the play, a guy wearing a clown hat shouted at the door: "The wonderful drama will start immediately, the flower drum play, the Huangmei play, the Luozi play, the Western trick, everything is there." ”

Professor Wan felt strange when he heard this, "What kind of drama is this, why is there any kind of play?" "According to the general situation, each opera troupe only sings one kind of play, the flower drum is the flower drum, and the yellow plum is the yellow plum, where is there a variety of plays to sing together? What kind of singing is that?