Whitewater City! County Yamen!

Yushi Wu Fu sat in the study with a heavy heart, and the county commander Cao Baoxiang sat next to him, and there was a letter from Chengcheng in front of the two, which was written by Xin Lancheng, the county commander of Chengcheng...... In order to reward the villagers and the people who performed well in this siege, Chengcheng decided to postpone the collection of this year's agricultural tax, allowing the people to be in arrears, and only collecting commercial taxes for the time being......"

Wu Fu took the letter and looked left and right, before and after, and didn't find fault with it for a long time, the letter was indeed Xin Lancheng's handwriting, and Xin Lancheng's official seal was stamped at the end. But...... Why do you think this letter is weird when you look left and right?

"What is this guy surnamed Xin doing?" Wu Fu frowned and said, "Allow the people to default on this year's agricultural tax?" He can figure it out, he can't collect taxes, he can't pay to the top, does he plan to let his evaluation be rated inferior? ”

"My lord, the lower official thinks that there must be something strange about this matter!" Cao Baoxiang leaned his head over, shook his head and wanted to express his high opinions.

Wu Fu snorted coldly and said, "Get out, Ben Qin Cha didn't ask your opinion!" He stretched his neck and shouted loudly outside the house: "Someone, please ask Deputy Chief Zhang Fushun to come and talk!" ”

Zhang Fushun, the deputy chief soldier of Tingsui, is the second in command after Du Wenhuan in the army that came to Baishui this time. But this person and Du Wenhuan are not grasshoppers on the same rope, he is a pawn laid by the Donglin Party members to reach out to the army system. This time, among the 5,000 elite soldiers brought by Du Wenhuan, 2,000 were controlled by this guy named Zhang Fushun.

When Du Wenhuan led his troops to attack Huanglong Cottage, Zhang Fushun deliberately stayed in Baishui City with his descendants in accordance with the requirements of the Donglin Party, reducing Du Wenhuan's troops and dragging him back. As it turned out, they succeeded! Du Wenhuan failed to take the Huanglong Cottage, and at this time, Wu Fu's impeachment recital had already arrived in the imperial study of the emperor in Beijing.

This Zhang Fushun is from the Donglin Party, and naturally there are many advantages and faults of the Donglin Party, from the bones, he has more literati than soldiers, so in terms of strategic command, he is more than an order of magnitude worse than Du Wenhuan, but in terms of cultivation, he can throw Du Wenhuan a few streets. A scholar like Wu Fu likes to deal with this kind of "Confucian general" the most.

After a while, the servant invited Zhang Fushun, and Wu Fu handed the letter from Chengcheng to Zhang Fushun's hand: "Lord Zhang, please take a look at this letter first." Although this Zhang Fushun is a general soldier, he doesn't like others to call him a general, but likes others to call him an adult, which makes it seem more literati and less martial, which can be regarded as an interesting thing in the army.

Zhang Fushun finished reading the letter, and frowned slightly: "There are many untruths about the things described in this letter. ”

Wu Fu waved his hand and said, "Please ask Lord Zhang for advice." ”

Zhang Fushun picked up a pen and drew a circle on the "1,000 people" on the letterhead: "According to our scouts, the troops brought out of the mountain by Baishui Zhu Ba should be 2,000, why are there only 1,000 people to attack Chengcheng?" This is the first place to go wrong! ”

Then he drew a circle on "unable to break through the city": "Hmph, with the guards of Chengcheng City and some village warriors, they want to defend the city under the hands of Baishui Zhuba, isn't it a fool's dream?" The first is the second problematic area. ”

He couldn't help but sneer: "Such a letter full of nonsense is a fake at all, and it may be a trick of thieves." ”

Wu Fu shook his head and said, "Definitely! This letter is definitely Xin Lancheng's handwritten letter, and the letter paper and seal are no problem, it is indeed sent by Chengcheng. ”

"Oh? Is it true? Zhang Fushun touched his chin with his hand and thought for a long time: "Could it be that Xin Lancheng was caught and coerced to write this letter?" ”

"It's possible! But what is the purpose of writing this letter? Wu Fu shook his head and said: "If Zhu Ba breaks through Chengcheng, kills all the officials inside, and robs all the property and returns to the mountains, why do these tricks?" Can't figure it out. ”

I really couldn't figure it out, and Zhang Fushun couldn't figure it out either, and he suddenly had a flash of inspiration in his mind: "Then we can only think about this problem from the other direction...... Perhaps, Zhu Ba just robbed the villages and towns in Chengcheng, and retreated to the mountains without attacking the city at all, Xinlan became an invitation, and the story falsely reported the military situation...... He couldn't even see the shadow of the thief soldiers, otherwise how could he even write the total strength of the thief soldiers wrongly? ”

"That's right, this one may be the biggest!" Wu Fu and Zhang Fushun both looked at each other, thinking that they had guessed the real inside story behind the fake letter.

Wu Fu snorted coldly and said: "This damn Xin Lancheng actually panicked to report the military situation to fool me, and wanted to use the procrastination of 'exempt from agricultural tax' to deceive Shangguan, I guess he wants to swallow this year's taxes privately, I have to go to Chengcheng to take a walk, on the one hand, to inspect the situation after Chengcheng was robbed by thieves, and on the other hand, to teach this damn corrupt official a lesson!" ”

Zhang Fushun was taken aback: "Lord Qincha, it's not appropriate to go out of the city at this time, in case Zhu Ba hasn't left yet......"

Wu Fu snorted: "Since the letters from Xinlan City have been sent, Zhu Ba must have led the thieves back to Huanglong Mountain, otherwise how could he be in the mood to write such a fake letter inviting merit?" ”

Zhang Fushun thought about it and made sense: "Then let the lower official accompany Lord Qincha to Chengcheng." ”

Therefore, people are most afraid of being smart, and Wu Fu would not have thought that Zhang Fushun's guess that "the thief hijacked Xin Lancheng to write a letter" was actually the correct answer, but he naively thought that the thief did not have the need to hold officials hostage to write such a fake letter...... It was Xin Lan who wrote this kind of fake letter because of the invitation.

Why is there such a mistake of self-inflicted cleverness? The reason is that the overall quality of officials in the late Ming Dynasty was too poor, and the situation of inviting merit has become a norm, and once a matter becomes the norm, it is easy to affect the judgment of those who do not know.

For example, in later generations, it has become a norm to fake milk powder. If you go to the street to buy milk powder, as long as you see that domestic milk powder is being reduced in price and promoted, twice as cheap as other milk powder, no matter whether it is fake or not, you will think that it is adulterated with some kind of chemical drug called ammonia.

As soon as Wu Fu saw the fake letter, he thought about it, and he felt that the reason was that Xin Lancheng wanted to ask for credit, and he had the same mentality!

The Donglin Party, a species of self-proclaimed and high-minded, once they decide that someone is a bad official, they must bite the other party down to count, Wu Fu hurriedly ordered: "Send troops, Ben Qin will go to Chengcheng to inspect!" ”

－－－－

At the same time that Wu Fu sent troops to Chengcheng, in a small village at the junction of Chengcheng and Baishui, Yang Hong and Wang Er led a thousand thieves and were arranging. It turned out that after Zhu Yuanzhang left Huanglong Mountain, he only brought 1,000 troops to Chengcheng, and the other 1,000 troops were stationed at the junction of Baishui and Chengcheng under the leadership of Yang Hong and Wang Er.

This army is nominally led by Wang Er, the second leader of Huanglong Cottage, but in fact, Wang Er was secretly ordered by Zhu Yuanzhang, and everything was under Yang Hong's orders, and the real leader was Yang Hong.

Yang Hong, as a newcomer to the leader, and also defected from the officers and soldiers, even if he has strong strength, it is impossible to convince the public, this Zhu Yuanzhang knows this, in order to let him effectively obtain the command, Zhu Yuanzhang pretended to hand over this unit to Wang Er, but in fact it was ordered by Yang Hong, and this matter can only be done by Wang Er, who has never been cautious and knows Zhu Yuanzhang best.

At this time, according to Yang Hong's instructions, Wang Erzheng sent soldiers to invite all the dozens of people in the village out of the village, and let them temporarily go to the city to hide for a few days. After all the people in the village were moved, Wang Er sent dozens of the most clever soldiers, changed into the clothes of ordinary people, and disguised themselves as residents of the village.

These thieves were originally from peasants, and of course they didn't need to work hard to disguise themselves as peasants.

After everything was arranged, Wang Er walked back to Yang Hong's side, and said with a smile: "Brother Leng Feng, according to what you said, everything is arranged...... What are we arranging this for? ”

There was no smile on Yang Hong's face, only a deep hatred: "In order to ambush Wu Fu's birdman." ”

"Do you really think that coward Wu Fu dares to come?" Wang Er was a little curious.

"It's coming!" A wicked smile flashed at the corner of Yang Hong's mouth: "After Brother Zhu's letter falls into Wu Fu's hand, that birdman will definitely come...... In other words, I saw the letter in Whitewater, and I would have been fooled as well. ”

"I don't understand." Wang Er snorted: "If I change it, I can definitely see that the letter was forced to be written." ”

"That's because you don't read that letter with the idea of an official!" Yang Hong spread his hands and said: "Nine out of ten officials read the letter, and they will think that Xin Lan has invited merit, and Zhu Ba has returned to the mountain. ”

Speaking of this, Yang Hong sighed lightly: "Sometimes I really can't see through Brother Zhu, he is obviously from a cow herding baby, and he actually understands the psychology of officials so well, it really makes me creepy." ”

Wang Er shook his head, so that he would not be entangled in this kind of problem, he only focused his eyes on the places where he could see and touch: "What are we doing to replace the people in the village with our own brothers?" ”

"Hehe, this is to ambush the scouts of the officers and soldiers and paralyze their intelligence network!" Yang Hong said seriously: "It is almost impossible to put down the scouts in a place where the horses are flat, because the scouts are very alert, and they will avoid when they see people from a distance, and it is impossible to plot against them." However, the terrain of a place like a village is complicated, the field of vision is not wide, and the scouts are also wary of ordinary villagers, so it is very likely that they will come close to ask for information, and then our people can take down the scouts of the officers and soldiers. ”

Wang Er sighed: "No wonder Zhu Buggy asked me to transfer the command to you, your brain is really better than mine." ”