Chapter Seventy-Three: The Leopard Army

Empress Dowager Xu and Qian Hongzuo hugged each other for a long time. Although there is endless sadness in the heart of the Empress Dowager Xu, there is also a clear calmness. After a while, Empress Dowager Xu took Qian Hongzuo into the secret room in the dormitory, the secret room was hidden behind the bookshelf, opened by a special mechanism, only a little larger than the wall mezzanine of the room, from the appearance, it is difficult to find that there is a secret room in the dormitory.

When he came to the secret room, Qian Hongzuo saw the folds one by one, and the Empress Dowager Xu said to him: "These are the secret folds of the Leopard Army, and no one else can read them in the future except for the saint." The existence of the leopard army, the saint must keep this secret. On the surface, it is necessary to trust those courtiers very much, and trust can evolve into loyalty, or it can evolve into non-divisive thoughts. Dai Yun is an excellent example, he was originally a close confidant of your father, and he was the most confidant, and your father treated him with great kindness. But in the end, he became a rebel and a thief. He didn't know that there was a leopard army, so we were able to kill him by surprise. ”

Qian Hongzuo nodded solemnly.

Empress Dowager Xu opened an iron box with a portable key, handed the roster to Qian Hongzuo and said, "This is the roster of the Leopard Army's soldiers. Their identities must not be exposed unless absolutely necessary. ”

Qian Hongzuo opened this roster of the Leopard Army, which had been surprisingly successful in the annihilation of Dai Yun's party, and soon he found Ju Buyi's name, and there were several blue circles around Ju Buyi, and pointed to Ju Buyi's name with an arrow, Qian Hongzuo asked: "Why do you want to draw an arrow to point to Ju Buyi?" ”

Empress Dowager Xu said: "These people are all soldiers of the Leopard Army who are watching the unmoving. ”

Qian Hongzuo was stunned: "Surveillance? ”

Empress Dowager Xu said: "Exactly." The officers and men of the Leopard Army have completed special missions, and their loyalty is related to the success or failure of things. If they apostatize and give the wrong message to the Holy One, it will lead to a losing game. So the more important the Leopard soldiers, the more people will be watching. However, these people who monitor also have the duty to protect. When necessary, even at the expense of themselves, they want to protect the people they monitor. ”

Qian Hongzuo nodded.

After flipping through a few more pages, he saw that one page had been torn down, and Qian Hongzuo asked, "Who is recorded on this page?" Why did it tear off? ”

Empress Dowager Xu said: "When your father handed it over to me, this page had already been torn off. I guess it's probably a deceased Leopard soldier. ”

Empress Dowager Xu moved out of the palace and lived in Jinxiao Lane, almost at the same time as Qian Hongzuo promulgated the holy decree of releasing palace maids. All palace maids over the age of 25 are all released from the palace, except for some palace maids who have a lot of savings and have a good family background, who choose to join relatives and friends, most of them choose to live with the Empress Dowager Xu in Jinxiao Lane.

The houses in Jinxiao Lane were ready-made, and after they settled down, the palace maids who were good at spinning and embroidering began to work. In other part, they began to prepare for the construction of the Golden Thread Nunnery and asked the master to sculpt the Buddha statue. What Qian Hongzuo didn't expect was that the concubines who had no children in the palace, most of them were middle-aged, and they all moved out of the palace with Empress Dowager Xu and lived in Jinxiao Lane. In the past, a bunch of women fought for a man, but the final fate was to rely on each other and depend on each other. Fate played a joke on them, bizarre and profound.

Zhen Jinshu assisted Concubine Tian in dealing with some specific matters of the palace maids, and her steady, decent, and empathetic made many tricky things more smooth. After that, the palace maids outside the palace of Wuyue became a practice once every few years, and some palace maids who might have been lonely and old were able to marry women because of the virtue and politics of the outgoing.

Xie Xiangcun's implementation of the soldiers Tuntian, very smooth. When the border army took raising war horses as the main item of Tuntian, the soldiers and horses of the whole territory of Wu Yue were able to carry out Tuntian on a larger or smaller scale, and some garrison commanders were better at management and had their own ways to make money. Some garrisons, without special skills, can only serve as rice cooks (planting rice in spring) and wheat kes (harvesting wheat in autumn) for the surrounding people, and work that requires a lot of labor, such as building water conservancy and building bridges and paving roads, is also widely welcomed by the people.

Yiqiē is developing in the direction hoped by Wu Yue's monarchs and ministers and the people, but unfortunately "things are unsatisfactory in the world, often eight or nine", just when Wu Yue needed peace the most, the civil war in Fujian broke out.

What made Qian Hongzuo even more troublesome was that both sides of the war were members of the royal family, and both claimed to be the legitimate heirs to the throne. As an ally, if Fujian is invaded by other countries, Qian Hongzuo can send troops and Fujian troops to unite against the enemy, but the fratricidal fighting within the Fujian royal family, if Wu Yueguo expresses his support for either side, it will become interference in the internal affairs of Fujian. After fierce court debates, Wu Yueguo adopted a wait-and-see attitude towards the civil war in Fujian. As the saying goes, "the tree wants to be quiet but the wind does not stop", just when Wu Yueguo remained silent, the Southern Tang Dynasty had seized the opportunity to take advantage of the civil strife in Fujian to invade Fujian on a large scale.

On this day, Qian Hongzuo's grandfather, General Xu, the former general of the Fujian Kingdom, hurried all night and came to Hangzhou to see Qian Hongzuo. Due to the internal fighting of the king of Fujian, General Xu, who had already resigned and returned to seclusion, brought a letter of salvation from Fujian this time, hoping that Wu Yue would send troops into Fujian to prevent the invasion of the Southern Tang Dynasty. What is unbelievable is that the letter of salvation brought by General Xu turned out to be two letters of state with similar content, but from the two kings of Min who were at war.

In the protocol hall, facing his dusty grandfather, Qian Hongzuo read the two copies of King Min's national letters two or three times alternately. At this moment, Qian Hongzuo knew what a prescient thing it was for Empress Dowager Xu to leave the dynasty. He is the bloodline of King Wu Yue, and in the face of these two letters for help, he doesn't know what to do, not to mention that his mother is from Fujian, no matter what she says, it is wrong. To save Fujian, Wu Yueguo people will say that she is pretending to be public and private, and uses Wu Yueguo's soldiers to protect her motherland; If she doesn't save Fujian, the people of Fujian will say that she is ruthless and unrighteous and betrays her parents.

Qian Hongzuo looked at the two letters for help, looked at them for a long time, and finally raised his eyes and asked his grandfather: "Grandfather, are we Xu clansmen ready to evacuate Fujian?" ”

General Xu said: "They have all arrived at the border of Fujian near Wu Yue. ”

Qian Hongzuo was pleased: "The lonely king will pass on a decree to take them all to Wu Yueguo so that they can be settled down." ”

General Xu asked worriedly: "Holy Monarch, I am the envoy of King Min, the two lords, and I am still waiting for me to go back and restore my life." Are you not going to send troops to save the country? ”

Qian Hongzuo asked rhetorically: "Grandfather, you have been in Fujian for a long time, and you are more familiar with the government and politics of Fujian than me, you tell me the truth, can this Fujian royal family still be saved?" ”

General Xu said without hesitation: "There is no salvation anymore." Now that the Tang State is invading, they do not resist the invasion of foreign enemies, but they are still in the civil war, such a royal family has long been lost in the hearts of the people, where can there be salvation? If I am saved, as a general of Fujian, I will not resign and go into hiding. ”

Qian Hongzuo said: "In this case, why do you want to go back to Fujian, just stay in Wuyue Kingdom." ”

General Xu said: "I came to beg you, not for the sake of the Fujian royal family, but for the common people and soldiers of the Fujian country." ”

Qian Hongzuo was silent, waiting for his grandfather to continue.

General Xu said: "Since the invasion of the Tang Kingdom, because of the resistance of the guards, in order to deter the soldiers and civilians of the Fujian State, they actually set fire to and slaughtered the city after attacking the dangerous 'Baishi City'. ”

Qian Hongzuo was stunned and said, "Slaughter the city? Are you saying that they, like the Khitan Kingdom, killed all the men in the city when they invaded the Central Plains? ”

General Xu said: "Not all the men, but all the men, women, and children in the city." The Southern Tang troops issued an ultimatum, unless the cities surrendered immediately, as long as they resisted, even where the cities could not be defended, they would not be left behind. They said that the Min people were barbarians, who were not worthy to live in the world in the first place, and occupied a large area of land for nothing. So if you don't surrender, you will kill them all. ”