"Auntie, what's wrong?" A young servant asked, scratching the back of his head. The older one looked at Yun Niang's back, nodded thoughtfully, turned back to the young man and scolded: "The kid asks so much, it's serious to work honestly, and the kindness of the master family doesn't make you lazy!" ”

"I love to teach! I'm also sixteen, and I still say I'm small! The young servant grumbled quietly and went on with his work.

In the room, Zhou Ping's mood was very comfortable, the arrival of his wife made his body and mind completely relaxed, lying on the bed and soon fell into a deep sleep, this is a rare thing after he came to Jeju, whether it is training soldiers or suppressing bandits, it consumes too much of his energy, and disrupts his original life rules, just like a machine that has not been well maintained, although it can still operate, but many parts have made dangerous creaks.

By the time Zhou Ping woke up, it was already evening, he put on his robe and walked out into the corridor outside, where the house he lived in was located behind the Juyi Hall, just halfway up the mountain of Liangshan. At a glance, there was a wisp of remnant sun above the 800-mile water pool, and it was reflected like blood. When Zhou Ping saw it, he couldn't help but whisper: "The remnant sun is like blood!" Hey, I don't know whose blood it was that dyed this Liangshanbo red after a few years! ”

"Lord General, there is a messenger from Jeju Han Xianggong here!"

A voice interrupted Zhou Ping's emotion, and he turned around to see a soldier standing next to Luo She'er, his face panicked. The soldier saw Zhou Ping turn around, saluted with his crossed hands, took out a letter from his arms, presented it with both hands, and said respectfully: "Tell Zhou to be detained, the minister has an urgent letter!" ”

Zhou Ping took the letter and said casually: "Take him down, so that he will be entertained!" He opened the letter and looked at it, only to see a line of familiar regular script on the paper: "See the letter and bring the boat and return to Jeju quickly!" ”

Jeju Fortress. The weather at the end of the year was very cold, although it was the beginning of the afternoon, but there was no warmth on the people, the north wind was like a knife, and half of the snow on the sunny slopes outside the city had not melted, and the shade was even white.

At noon, the old owl between the branches clenched its wings coldly and bent its neck. Seven or eight horsemen galloped along the official road in the northeast direction, sweat on their horses, and white gas was constantly spewing from their nostrils. This group of knights are all elite men, although they do not wear armor, but judging from the robes and dresses on his body, they are all soldiers who eat food, and the men led by him are about twenty-seven or eighteen years old, with a face full of wind and dust, and a sheepskin jacket on the upper body, from time to time revealing the saber and curved bow at the waist. In the blink of an eye, the group was only thirty or forty paces away from the city gate, and suddenly, someone at the city gate shouted: "Where did you come from, dismount quickly?" Do you have any paperwork to enter the city? ”

Zhou Ping was napping on horseback, and after he got the letter, he immediately took Xue Liangyu and Kong Yanzhou and seven or eight guards to hurry on horseback, leaving Yang Wu and others to collect ships and soldiers in the cottage, and they would arrive in Jeju in three days. This shout woke him up from his daze, and he just heard Xue Liangyu's high-pitched voice: "It's the Zhou prisoner of Liangshanzhai, who came all the way, let us enter the city quickly!" ”

"No paperwork is not good, the prime minister has already issued a strict order, no one can enter the city without documents!"

Zhou Ping stepped forward and pulled Xue Liangyu, who was a little annoyed, he had carefully observed the situation around him just now, and sure enough, the situation in Jeju City was very different from the last time he came, the city gate was only half open, and even this half of the gate was blocked by barricades, leaving only a small road, and the little envoy guarding the door was also wearing armor, and the archers holding bows and arrows could be vaguely seen on the city wall. But Jeju is still hundreds of miles away from Liao and a Yellow River, not so fast, right?

"This brother, I don't have a document to open the door here, but I have a handwritten letter from Han Xianggong here, which can prove your identity!" Zhou Ping took out the letter from his arms and handed it over, the officer took the letter and looked at the words and seals on the cover, hurriedly returned it to Zhou Ping, bowed and saluted: "It turned out to be Zhou Prisoner, please forgive the villain!" At this point, he turned back to the guards and shouted, "Quickly remove the barricades and let the prisoner enter the city!" ”

Zhou Ping looked at these officers and said with a smile: "Dare to ask, why is Jeju so heavily guarded today, isn't something big wrong?" ”

The officer looked left and right, and said in a low voice: "Zhou Jian is not an outsider, and a certain family will not hide it, the demon thieves in western Zhejiang rose a month ago, and Jiangnan has already rebelled at this time." The imperial court took Tong Shuai as the envoy of Jianghuai Jingzhejiang Xuanfu and led the army to conquer! ”

"Zhexi demon thief? Jiangnan is all against it? Hearing this, Zhou Ping's face suddenly changed greatly, he looked at the outfit and appearance of the officer in front of him, and suddenly asked respectfully: "A certain family has also been on duty in Jeju for more than a year, and I have never seen you, dare to ask Brother Tai where he used to work?" ”

"A certain family was originally on an errand in the Shengjie army, and they were rushed to Jeju by the order of the general!" The officer laughed.

Zhou Ping entered the city, but his mind was churning. He had been mixed in the bureaucratic system of the Great Song Dynasty for several years, and he naturally knew that the Shengjie Army was the personal guard of the hot Wen Xiang Tong Guan Tong Gonggong at that time, if he remembered correctly, this Tong Gonggong's original dispatch was the Xuanfu envoy of Shaanxi, Hedong, and Hebei, and the commander of the upcoming Battle of Yan. In a blink of an eye, it became the Jianghuai Jingzhejiang Xuanfu envoy, so that the battle of the Liao was naturally lost, how large should the "demon thief uprising" be, so that the battle of the Liao invasion related to the national fortune of the Great Song Dynasty was postponed and changed to the south? In this way, there is nothing difficult to understand in the letter that I want to collect as many boats as possible, there are many waterways in the south of the country, ships are better than horses, and Jeju is one of the few places in the north where there are many boats, so it is naturally the focus of the collection. This father-in-law Tong sent a team of his own pro-army over, obviously afraid that after the monster thieves in the south of the Yangtze River revolted, Jeju, which is located at the waterway hub on the canal, was also unstable, and the water thieves who had just been extinguished had resurged, and he had stabilized his rear before sending troops.

Zhou Ping and his entourage arrived at the yamen, and just dismounted, a thought suddenly flashed in his mind, is that the Jiangnan demon thief not Fang La's uprising? The more Zhou Ping thought about it, the more he felt that he was right, and he couldn't help but secretly regret why he didn't prepare earlier, maybe he could erase this disaster in advance. But after thinking about it, most of my knowledge of the history of the late Northern Song Dynasty comes from "Water Margin" and "Shuo Yue Quanchuan", and the difference between this kind of market romance novel and historical truth can only be said to be almost far from the same as the name of the person; Besides, Fang La was able to organize this kind of large-scale peasant uprising, either a local tyrant or a sect leader, and he was definitely a local snake, and he was an unfamiliar outsider who ran to other people's land, and who was not necessarily settled, and Fang La was able to raise his arms and shout, and Jiangnan was all against it, a big reason was that the "Huashi Gang" had a long history of folk grievances at that time, although he had never been to Jiangnan, but there were many things on both sides of the canal that went bankrupt because of the program, even if he could kill Fang La, Can you still prevent "Li La" and "Wang La"? Thinking of this, Zhou Ping was relieved.

Zhou Ping entered the yamen, and a familiar scribe stepped forward to greet him, and said in a low voice: "The minister is in the back hall, saying that as long as Zhou Prison arrives, he will go directly to the back hall to see him, and there is no need to pass it on!" ”

Zhou Ping thanked him, and let Xue Liangyu and Kong Yanzhou, who accompanied him, take the sergeants to eat and rest under the yaxia, and walked quickly to the back hall, only to see three steps and one post and five steps and one sentry along the way, all of which were neatly dressed armor soldiers, turning the state guard and the rear ya, which was relaxed and feasting, into a disciplined festival hall shogunate. Zhou Ping couldn't help but be secretly frightened, he used to be in Hebei Shandong team to be quite disdainful of those laxly disciplined garrison forbidden troops, but these hurried Shengjie troops were completely different, it seems that he still has to make a new estimate of the upcoming war.

Zhou Ping was thinking that he had arrived in the back hall, and just happened to bump into Wen Cheng who came out of it, Wen Cheng hurriedly stepped forward and grabbed Zhou Ping's arm and pulled him inside, and said urgently: "Juncheng, you have finally arrived, go in quickly, Xiangcheng wants to see you!" Speaking of this, Wen Cheng lowered his voice: "Today is different from the past, the military master under Youtong's appeasement has arrived, you have to be careful, don't violate military law!" ”

Zhou Ping nodded, and came up, only to see Han Xiaoxuan sitting in the middle, accompanied by the general judge Chen Antian, Xue Liangchen stood aside, and there was a red-faced man sitting at the top, with long hands and big feet, a scar on his face, full of murderous atmosphere, presumably a military envoy from Tong Guan, Zhou Ping came in just to hear the big man say loudly to Han Xiaoxuan: "The lower official is ordered by Tong Privy Counsel to come to Jeju to do 100 big boats and 300 small boats, and the sailors and miscellaneous servants say yes, and they will be sent to Chuzhou within ten days, and please ask Han Xianggong to be considerate!" ”

Hearing the military envoy's request, Han Xiaoxuan's face showed embarrassment, and he happened to see Zhou Ping coming up, and said with a smile: "Prison Zhou has arrived, come and see Chen Zhe, the commander of the Shengjie Army!" ”

"Xiaguan see Chen Zhongshi!" Zhou Ping couldn't help but be taken aback when he heard this, and hurriedly bowed and saluted, it turned out that the commander of the Shengjie Army that Han Xiaoxuan said in his mouth was the dispatch of this Chen Zhe, and the middle attendant was the abbreviation of his scattered rank of the middle servant doctor, and it had entered the sequence of "rampant", this "rampant" official was the title of a military attache in the Northern Song Dynasty, also known as "Hengban", because it was named after the horizontal line arrangement when it saw the Son of Heaven, and was located above the ambassador and the small envoy. The purpose of establishing this kind of rank is to prevent ordinary mediocre talents from pressing on the heads of meritorious people at the border pass through seniority, so the military attachés who can enter the "horizontal class" sequence are either people who are deeply favored by the Son of Heaven or people who have made special achievements at the border pass. This Chen Zhe is only in his early thirties, and he is already a middle-aged doctor from the fifth grade, either his ancestors are ministers, or he is a military minister who has made great contributions in the northwest under Tong Guan. It is no wonder that he, a commander, dared to speak loudly in front of a scholar like Han Xiaoxuan, who was born as an attendant. (To be continued.) )