The man turned around, only to see a middle-aged man in gray standing next to him, not amazing, with a smile on his face, presumably it was the hotel's proprietor Lu Xun, who hurriedly stood up, arched his hand, took out a letter from his arms and handed it over, and said with a smile: "This is the letter brought to you by Zhang Daguan!" ”

"Oh!" Lu Xun hurriedly took the letter, opened it and read it, and said with a smile: "It turned out to be Master Kong, and Zhang Daguan has already written it in the letter about you going up the mountain." Don't worry, the strongmen on Liangshan will come to my store every ten days and a half to buy something, and it's only these two days, you can wait for two days! ”

"Then it's hard work!" The man arched his hand and sat back down at the table to eat and drink. It turned out that this person's surname was Kong Yanzhou, the word was Juji, and he was from Lin Shu in Xiangzhou, and he was also one of the more than 20 people who came with Xue Liangchen this time. However, unlike others, this person has been poor since he was a child, and he is a scoundrel, and he often does some forbidden things on weekdays. After Zhou Ping returned from Tokyo, Han Xiaoxuan quickly prepared the paperwork for Zhao'an, but lacked a person who was willing to send the paperwork to Liangshan. It is said that this kind of thing will not be life-threatening, because it is very common for thieves in the Song Dynasty to accept the government's recruitment, and the thieves are not willing to kill the government's people to cut off their own back road, but the group of people brought by Xue Liangchen from Xiangzhou except for Li Cheng of Xiongxian County almost all participated in the battle to exterminate Yang Wu's gang of thieves, it can be said that they have a big enmity with Yang Wu, and sending them is almost equivalent to sending them to death, and the natives of Jeju Xue Liangchen and Zhou Ping can't believe it, and only this former scoundrel Kong Yanzhou is the most suitable, After all, he didn't participate in that battle at that time, Zhou Ping thought that it would take a lot of lips and tongues to get him to agree, but he didn't expect to agree as soon as he mentioned this person. So he first went to Zhang Jiahe to ask for a letter and went to Liangshanbo.

Kong Yanzhou used the wine and rice, and stayed in the store for one night, and at noon the next day, a minion from the cottage came to the store to buy salt tea. Lu Xun then told the little boss of the company that Kong Yanzhou brought to the government to listen to the Zhao'an documents, and the little boss didn't dare to be self-conscious, so he bought salt tea and returned to the cottage to report, and in the evening, a big boat came on the lake, knocking and beating on the trestle, and there was a black dwarf man standing on the bow deck, and he bowed down and said: "Sinner Yuncheng Song Sanlang, meet the angel of the court!" ”

Kong Yanzhou couldn't help but be stunned when he saw this, among the various possible situations he expected, there was definitely no such situation as now, and besides, he himself couldn't get involved with the "court angel". Just as he was thinking about it, the ship had already docked the case. Song Jiang jumped ashore, walked to Kong Yanzhou and sang a fat song, bowed down and said with a smile: "The angel came from afar, it must have been hard, the sinner has prepared thin wine in the cottage, and the angel is invited to laugh!" ”

Kong Yanzhou got on the boat, and the boat sailed to Liangshan, along the way Song Jiang couldn't stop flattering, that Kong Yanzhou was just a scoundrel on weekdays, where had he seen such a praising kung fu, the boat had not yet reached halfway, and the purpose of this trip had been set by Song Jiang. When Song Jiang heard that the government had sent someone to Caifu in Tokyo to intercept the hidden danger of the birth gang, he was overjoyed and hurriedly said: "The grace of the Xianggong is covered by heaven and earth, and it is rare for Song Jiang to repay the great favor of the Xianggong in case of emergency!" ”

"There's no need to smear the liver and brain!" Kong Yanzhou said with a smile: "If you burn down the cottage as soon as possible, you can disarm and surrender." There are many people in Jeju City who have suffered from you, and they have inspected Master Wu for 15 days, and the back of the spine cane is like a flower. ”

"Sinners deserve to die, sinners deserve to die!" Song Jiang's face suddenly turned like dirt, he was very sincere in accepting Zhao'an, but when he heard this, he shook again, after all, he made a fuss, and he didn't know how many people in the yamen had suffered from him, and now he was in Liangshanbo, if he was recruited, these people were afraid that they would come to find trouble for themselves, how could they resist the anger of the public at that time? It's better to continue to be your own thief in the mountains. Thinking of this, Song Jiang's face became gloomy.

"Leader Song, that's Liangshan over there!" Kong Yanzhou turned his back to Song Jiang and pointed to a hill in the lake and asked. Song Jiang was stunned for a moment, and hurriedly took two steps forward, his face full of smiles again.

"Yes, that's Liangshan. A banquet had been prepared in the hall, and all the brothers were waiting for the angels. ”

On the Juyi Hall, several tables of banquets had already been set up, and it was already dark. There were a few pine nuts in the four corners of the house, and a gust of wind blew in from outside the hall, causing the pine seeds to shake incessantly, leaving a few shaking shadows on the wall, which looked quite infiltrating. More than 20 leaders in the cottage sat in all directions, and the rest of the minions gathered around the campfire under the hall to drink.

"Brothers!" Song Jiang, who was on the first seat, stood up, raised the wine glass in his hand and said with a smile: "Brother Fool has a big matter today, and I have to explain it to everyone!" Speaking of this, he walked behind the screen, stretched out his hand and pulled out a person, it was Kong Yanzhou, and said with a smile: "This is Master Kong of Jeju Mansion, he brought Han Xianggong's Zhao'an documents, and he wants to recruit me and wait!" ”

"What?"

"Really?"

There was a sudden discussion in the crowd, and dozens of suspicious eyes gathered on Kong Yanzhou's body, and he also puffed up his belly and responded to these gazes with a smile that was as befitting as his noble status as possible. Suddenly, Kong Yanzhou's face changed slightly, he saw a familiar face, and the words of Zhou Ping's advice before parting suddenly echoed in his mind: "Brother Li Cheng has already gone up the mountain in advance, he will naturally answer you, don't panic!" ”

"Zhao'an, Zhao'an, Zhao'an!" There was an abrupt scolding sound on the table, and everyone's eyes suddenly gathered, only to see a man with a blue face sitting on the table on the right, it was Ruan Xiaoqi on his table and the other two men with similar faces and figures, but they were his fellow brothers Ruan Xiaoer and Ruan Xiaowu.

"Little Seventh Brother, don't worry!" Song Jiang's face remained unchanged: "Everyone is a righteous brother, it makes sense to put it away, don't be so foul-mouthed, make people laugh at us that there is no law on Liangshan!" At the end, his tone suddenly became stern.

"Boss Song!" Ruan Xiaoer hurriedly got up and persuaded him: "My Xiaoqi didn't mean to be embarrassed, it's just that how many heroes were recruited by the government, but they were killed, and they just said it and let the brothers of the family discuss it!" ”

"Not bad!"

"Yes!"

There was a sudden sound of harmony in the Juyi Hall, and it was no wonder that everyone was worried. Although the Song Dynasty generally adopted a policy of differentiation for peasant uprisings, recruiting the strong and strong into the army and scattering the old and weak as peasants, as a state machine, if the common phenomenon of "killing people and setting fire to the golden belt, building bridges and paving roads without burying them" appeared in the area of rule, wouldn't it encourage all the people to rise up and rebel? Therefore, for this kind of recruiting, strongmen generally look at it differently and add all kinds of unspoken rules. In the eyes of those bandits, this means that the court is a trick to trick them into recruiting peace, and then find an opportunity to assassinate them. This kind of thing was not uncommon at the time.

"Envoy Kong!" Song Jiang turned his head and said with a smile: "It's not that I don't want to recruit An, it's just that my brothers have concerns!" ”

Kong Yanzhou had already been told by Zhou Ping before he came, but he was not flustered at this time, he stood up with a smile and made a group gesture to everyone: "Rank, empty words, I am here for the imperial court's recruitment documents and blank confessions, as long as you are willing to recruit security, report your name and place of origin, and fill it in as an official body!" Speaking of this, he took out a small yellow silk package from the package he was carrying, opened it and took out the paperwork and the blank to open it to everyone. The hall suddenly fell silent, and the heavy breathing of everyone could be heard, as Zhou Ping had expected before leaving, these blank bodies did have a very effective effect.

"Are you telling you all this?" A man stood up at the same table, but it was Liu Tang, who stretched out his hand and was about to grab it, but Kong Yanzhou stretched out his hand to separate him, pushed him hard, and shouted: "You guy, you are not rude, if it is true or not, you can see if it is true or not, how can you reach out and grab it?" ”

Song Jiang hurriedly stepped forward and persuaded with a smile: "Envoy Kong, forgive me, my brother is a mountain and wild Ruhan, and he is very reckless, I will let him make amends to you, don't blame him!" Speaking of this, he turned to Liu Tang and shouted: "Okay, you Liu Tang, you haven't come to make amends to Kong Envoy!" ”

"The kid is just reckless, please forgive me!" Liu Tang sang a fat song and put it aside. Song Jiang said with a smile: "However, most of the cottages are mountain and wild horsemen, and I have never seen the court sue me, can the Confucian envoy let me wait to open my eyes?" ”

Kong Yanzhou was quite happy to be slapped by Song Jiang for a while, and said with a smile: "It's okay, anyway, this blank confession is useless if it is not filed in the official mansion, and it doesn't hurt for you to take a look." Song Jiang hurriedly took it with respectful hands, unfolded it, and saw that the name and grade of the official position were written in a correct font on the flower silk, only the official's name and place of origin were still blank, waiting to be filled in, and the end was stamped with the seal of "The Seal of the Ministry of Scholars". Song Jiang couldn't help but feel a sour feeling in his heart, his hands trembled slightly, and he almost fell to the ground. He was a person with a great sense of fame, but he had no achievements in the imperial examination, and could only be a clerk in the government. The bureaucracy and imperial examination system in ancient China were already very mature in the middle and late Northern Song Dynasty, and one of its important symbols was the "separation of officials", that is, the state recruited elites from scholars to serve as officials through the imperial examinations, while the officials who were responsible for specific law enforcement tasks were only ordinary people. The two have different statuses, different roles, and very different treatments and powers in government.