Late at night on the fifth day of the third month of the lunar calendar, in the study of Fan's mansion, Fan Wucheng and his confidants were gathering together to discuss countermeasures. Although the study was brightly lit, the doors and windows around it were covered by thick curtains and curtains, so there was not a single ray of light that penetrated outside the study, making it no different from other places in Fan's Mansion where the lights had long since been extinguished.

The matter discussed by the master and servant of the Fan family was naturally two new instructions sent by Shi Ran through the secret contact point - to find out the reaction of the "Qingyuan" brothers of the Beiping Army to the gradual recovery of Emperor Chai Rong's body, and to seek a suitable candidate as a lower line within the Beiping Army as soon as possible. Speaking of which, Fan Wucheng had already received these two new directives ten days ago, but it was only today that he began to seriously consider how to implement them. The reason why this is the case, on the one hand, is naturally because Fan Wucheng has never regarded "Feiyantang" as an organization to which he belongs, and has never treated Zhang Yan as his boss. Regarding the instructions from "Feiyantang", he was perfunctory and prevaricated if he could, but he couldn't be perfunctory and prevaricated, so he made up some fake news at will and passed it on to deal with things. And because the manpower of "Feiyantang" in the Beiping Army is very limited, and the information that can be obtained is even more minimal, it is impossible to effectively distinguish the authenticity of the news sent by Fan Wucheng. So much so that until now, Zhang Yongde's attitude toward the "Qingyuan" brothers of the Beiping Army toward the situation in the DPRK, and his attitude toward the situation and possible actions in the capital once Chai Rong died, and there was no accurate judgment -- this was also one of the reasons why Zhang Yongde was in a hurry to send the second batch of spies north.

On the other hand, it was also the instruction that required him to develop the lower line within the Beiping Army, which made Fan Wucheng, who had always treated the instructions of "Feiyantang" with a perfunctory and prevaricating attitude, move in his heart and began to make his own calculations. Therefore, it takes a certain amount of time to consider and weigh whether this idea is feasible and what are the pros and cons.

After ten days of careful consideration, Fan Wucheng finally decided to take the plunge. After all, if this thing is done, it will not only be able to report to the "Feiyan Hall", but it will also be of great benefit to him to consolidate his position in the crossing team. Although there is a certain risk in doing so, if the matter is revealed, it is likely to attract the attention and investigation of the intelligence department. But it is not impossible to use your own identity to win over a few internal members and even your own brothers for your own use, as long as you are careful and cautious, you don't think it will arouse the suspicion of others. Second, even if this matter is discovered, the brothers will at most think that they are just forming a gang within the team and competing for interests, but they will not think that they are colluding with the enemy and developing downline. When the time comes, the brothers will inevitably teach themselves a lesson, reprimand them, and in more serious cases, the committee may cut them down, dismiss them, but at best. Such a penalty is much lower than the benefits that you may achieve if you succeed, and you can still take such a risk.

Besides, although the brothers didn't say it, anyone could see that there were actually factions and "mountains" within the crossing team today. Moreover, this phenomenon is not new now, but has been known since the two large crossing teams of "Dongshan" and "Xigu" met in Baojin Mountain. It's just that due to the rapid development of the crossing team, there are enough benefits for everyone to distribute, coupled with the coordination and full maintenance of Wang Kunjun and other committee members, as far as possible to be fair, just and open in the distribution of interests, and to maintain a balance between various small groups, so the various factions and "mountains" can still coexist peacefully and peacefully.

It's just that this kind of peaceful coexistence and peace of mind is superficial, and in private, everyone is developing in their respective fields and enlisting their henchmen and cronies - this can be seen from the fact that most of the brothers in the crossing team are like Fan Wucheng, and there are many loyal relatives under him. On the one hand, the reason why everyone does this is to be able to cultivate a few loyal, reliable and handy helpers in the field they are responsible for. On the other hand, it is not necessarily the intention of developing one's own team and shili so that he can fight for more benefits for himself in the crossing team in the future - especially when the "big cake" for everyone to distribute is likely to be the whole world.

In addition, at the beginning of last year, after the reorganization of the various functional departments of the team, the original talent-rich and powerful Ministry of Commerce and Trade was dismantled, except for Jia Run'an, who had just joined the team, and two female crossers with limited influence, the rest of the members were all adjusted to the newly established Ministry of Government Affairs to be administrative officials, which made the Ministry of Commerce and Trade, which was originally called the three pillar departments of the team with the Ministry of Military Affairs and the Ministry of Science and Technology, withered talents. The status quo of Liliang, which has a considerable say in the internal meeting of the team, is also an important factor that prompted Fan Wucheng to take the initiative to develop the Ministry of Commerce and Trade within the team and within the Beiping Army, or to develop his own Shili.

Now that the decision has been made, the next step is to start the action, and Fan Wucheng summoned his henchmen and cronies to the study late at night to discuss with them potential downline candidates and specific action plans. Although there is a certain risk in the matter that Fan Wucheng discussed with everyone, the confidants and cronies who have already been branded by the Fan family and have both glory and loss with Fan Wucheng, the head of the family, do not have any hesitation or hesitation. On the one hand, they expressed absolute support and approval for the master's decision, and on the other hand, they used their brains to select the appropriate person from the internal members they had contacted and interacted with, and provided it to their master to decide.

The seven confidants of the Fan Mansion plus Fan Wucheng himself, eight people put forward a total of nearly thirty candidates who may become offline candidates. After everyone's discussion, as well as his own analysis and consideration, Fan Wucheng finally drew out the five candidates who are most likely to be used by himself, and is ready to target these people and launch his own encirclement action.

Considering that this kind of work of wooing and persuading cannot be completed overnight, and the process of wooing and persuading must be very careful, it will definitely take longer. Therefore, in his reply to "Feiyantang", Fan Wucheng set the time taken to develop the offline line at three months. It was also emphasized that the three-month period was only a preliminary estimate because of the difficulty of the matter. At that time, if the progress is unfavorable, it is likely that the time to complete the task will need to be postponed, and I hope that the hall master Zhang will not rush and wait patiently.

Of course, while emphasizing the difficulties, making excuses for not being able to complete this matter in time in the future, and "fighting an ambush", Fan Wucheng also gave Zhang Yan some sweetness in his reply. When he explained the content of his reply to Fan Xiaowu, who was in charge of connecting with Shi Ran, in addition to the matter about the development of the offline line, he also instructed: "Xiao Wu, you go and tell that Shi Ran, just say that I have found out clearly, and the Beiping Junjiedu Mansion has learned that the Chai Guan's family is gradually getting sick and his body is gradually getting better." The brothers are very happy about this, and think that the situation in the DPRK is bound to be stable, and our Beiping army will no longer have any worries. Now, the fifth brother has ordered the border pass departments to step up the harassment and attack on the Khitans, and after the Chai Guan's family has completely recovered, he will move his army to the north, take the Khitan Zhongjing Road, and expand the territory for my Great Zhou. ”