Li Lu, commander of the Nancheng Soldiers and Horses Command Division, is now retired due to injury and illness.

As soon as Li Lu received the news that Wu Shigong would visit him in the afternoon, he arranged for his family to carry him to the main hall on a soft couch early and waited for Wu Shigong's arrival. Although the doctor has confessed that he was seriously injured and his legs were broken, and his legs will inevitably be disabled in the future, Li Lu is very unwilling and does not want to lose the official position of commander of the Nancheng Soldiers and Horses Command Division (the Ming Dynasty stipulated that people with disabilities are not allowed to be officials). What if the doctor misdiagnoses it? What if you are still able to recover? Although he knew that there was little hope, Li Lu still held on to it. Therefore, he didn't want Wu Shigong to see him lying on the bed.

What a curse! A few days ago, Li Lu hooked up with a good family. Although in the usual days, Li Lu Fengyue ran a lot, but at this time, how can the wild flowers have the fragrance of flowers?

That morning, hearing that there was no one at Naliang's house, Li Lu changed into civilian clothes in a hurry, and went straight to Naliang's house with a few personal soldiers. It was also a coincidence that Wang Baihu of the pro-soldier team arranged for Li Lu to do errands and escaped this catastrophe.

Naliang's family lived outside Xuanwu Gate, and when Li Lu was about to arrive, it happened that he was the deputy commander of Qian who managed this area. Deputy Commander Qian Yujian took his boss and hurriedly stepped forward to pat himself on the back. Hearing Li Lu's ostentatious remarks, Deputy Commander Qian volunteered to escort his boss to pick family flowers. Li Lu thought about it, it would be good for more people to show his prestige in front of the good family, so he agreed. Deputy Commander Qian followed with one of his 100 households and dozens of soldiers. I didn't think of sending myself into the ghost gate at all.

After arriving at the Naliang family's house, Li Lu arranged for Deputy Qian to wait at the teahouse opposite the door, and entered the Naliang family's house alone. As soon as they entered the door, Li Lu and the Naliang family saw each other shirtless like firewood, and the two of them were using thunder and rain and dew on their hands and feet, and suddenly, the sky outside fell apart.

The teahouse on the other side of the door collapsed in front of the blast wave, and Deputy Qian, who was sitting inside, commanded them to be wiped out. The house of the Naliang family was stalled by the teahouse, and although it still collapsed, at least there was a buffer. At this time, a few of the little minions standing on the street who were not qualified to sit in the teahouse survived, and together they worked hard to pull their commander out of the rubble naked. Li Lu was fateful, but he only broke his legs. The miserable situation of the Naliang family will not be mentioned.

This is the situation anyway, and it's useless to think about regrets, so let's think about how to face reality. Li Lu knew in his heart that in fact, as soon as he was injured, he would not be able to keep his position as the commander of the Nancheng Soldiers and Horses Command Division, and the reason why he was able to drag it out until now was nothing more than that Xue Lian, the Marquis of Yangwu, was waiting to give his position to his son-in-law. And when he arrived in Zuihou, he was still in command, but Wu Shigong acted as the commander with the rank of deputy commander, and the main reason for this situation was that Wu Shigong was too young and needed to temporarily occupy this official position by himself, and when the time was ripe, let Wu Shigong take the position naturally.

Therefore, Li Lu's heart is very conflicted, on the one hand, he needs to keep the status quo unchanged and let Wu Shigong act as the command. At the very least, he should delay until his injuries are healed, and no one else will rob him of his official position. On the other hand, he didn't want Wu Shigong to do too well, because of this, that is, the conditions for Wu Shigong's official position to become a regular were ripe, and he should give way.

Li Lu was sitting on the soft couch thinking nonsense, when he suddenly heard the concierge announce: "Commander Wu is visiting." Li Lu hurriedly explained to the housekeeper who was serving on the side, and asked him to invite Wu Shigong in on his behalf.

Wu Shigong handed over the gifts of two bottles of tiger bone wine and fifty taels of silver to the butler who came out to greet him, and then entered the main hall and greeted and cared for Li Lu and Li Li, who was sitting on the soft couch and was in good spirits. Li Lu also expressed his gratitude to Wu Shigong with a smile in his eyes, as well as his appreciation for Wu Shigong's young and promising achievements. The hypocrisy and coarse appearance of the two can make any onlooker sick.

After a period of greetings, Li Lu's words vaguely revealed some meaning, nothing more than that his body was very healthy and his injuries were recovering well; and how high his prestige is in the Nancheng Soldiers and Horses Command Division, and how many cronies he has. After hearing these words, Wu Shigong pretended to be stupid and pretended not to understand, and continued to have a cordial and hypocritical conversation with Li Lu with a smile. Wu Shigong thought in his heart: Now that the official seals are all here, how high will you, the person who is going to participate in the Paralympics, jump high?

After Li Lu got bored again and again, the two finally ended this pleasant meeting. Before saying goodbye, Li Lu asked Wu Shigong for something. It turned out that it wasn't the deputy commander Qian who died in the explosion? Li Lu always had to give an explanation to the family members of his cronies, so he asked Wu Shigong to recruit the two adult sons of Deputy Commander Qian into the Soldiers and Horses Division. With Li Lu's relationship, if he just let those two young men go to the Terracotta Division to be a small soldier, he didn't need to go through Wu Shigong at all, the meaning of his words was to take care of them for a small official position. Of course, Wu Shigong wanted to give this face, Wu Shigong agreed to give one of the two brothers the position of Xiaoqi, and the future road will depend on how the two brothers mix. However, Wu Shigong promised that if there are other opportunities for promotion in the future, under the same conditions, the two brothers will always be given priority. This answer basically satisfied Li Lu, and also gave Deputy Commander Qian's family an explanation. But he didn't notice that the meaning expressed in Wu Shigong's words was: Among the two brothers, whoever I see is pleasing to the eye will be given the position of this small flag. And Li Lu took it for granted that according to the convention at that time, it was always the eldest son of Deputy Commander Qian who won the position of Xiaoqi.

Zuihou, Wu Shigong told Li Lu that in order to let him recuperate with peace of mind and have money to supplement nutrition, so every month in the future, every 100 households will take out 10% of the money paid to the commander and send it to Command Li. In each month, the 11 100 households under the management of the deputy commander handed over a total of 550 taels of silver, plus the two 100 households guarding the city gates under the direct command of the command (excluding the 100 households of the pro-soldiers and the 100 households of the water dragon team), a total of more than 200 taels, a total of 750 taels. An achievement is seventy-five taels. And now, because Wu Shigong, the deputy commander, still directly governs the three hundred households on the Xuanwu Gate, those three must be handed over to Wu Shigong for 7 or 80 taels per month, that is, according to 70 taels, Wu Shigong will only suffer a loss of 15 taels of silver at most, which can be ignored. But this behavior gave Wu Shigong a reason. Li Lu had already reminded him just now, so Wu Shigong took precautions almost instinctively. Now, if any of Li Lu's cronies jumped out against him, he could completely ignore Li Lu's face and clean up those who jumped out. Because, Wu Shigong has already given those people's backstage - Li Lu's face.

Actually, this reaction is a bit wrong. Because Wu Shigong didn't know that his father-in-law Xue Lian had put Li Lu in the position of a puppet, and was ready to let Wu Shigong take over the official position of Li Lu's command at any time. If Wu Shigong knew this, he could have saved seventy-five taels of silver. This is also the result of Wu Shigong taking office in a hurry and not communicating with his father-in-law Xue Lian.

After coming out of Li Lu's house, Wu Shigong finally ended this tiring day and went home to enjoy the warmth of his family with satisfaction. He asked all his subordinates to return to the Terracotta Division, and only let the dozen or so guards around him go home with Shumo, who had already arrived to meet them. However, Wu Baihu of the water dragon team resolutely took thirty people under his command and asked to escort Wu Shigong back to his home. Wu Shigong agreed with a smile, thinking in his heart: This kid has a future.

Wu Baihu's name is Wu Mian, forty-one years old. He was known for his hard work in the Terracotta Division. He really relied on his hard work in a down-to-earth manner, from a small soldier to the position of 100 households. Of course, he also seized some opportunities. The 100 households of the Water Dragon Team are the most unpopular of all the 100 households in the Terracotta Division. This 100 households was the largest of all the 100 households, with 350 people. Of course, the number of soldiers in these 100 households is the same as that in the other 100 households, but there are still more than 250 helpers (that is, the current assistant managers). Because, Nancheng is so big, it is definitely impossible to rely on more than 100 people to extinguish the fire.

In good conscience, the water dragon team is not without extra money, and its extra money is mainly from the red envelopes given to them by the shop chief and the chief of the shop when they go to fight the fire after the fire. In particular, when there are people trapped by the fire in the burning house, the fire must be stuffed with red envelopes. Also, if the fire is too fierce, the neighbors near the house that caught fire, afraid that the fire will spread to them, will also stuff red envelopes in order to prevent their own losses. Therefore, unlike the current fire brigade, the water dragon team is looking forward to a fire somewhere every day. But if there are more people, there will be less money. And because, unlike now, there are fire trucks, and the siren can be pulled to the scene of the fire. Often after the fire, when the water dragon team arrived, those fires with relatively small fires were extinguished by the neighbors who helped. As a result, the total incoming is not very much.

According to the rules of the Terracotta Division, the 100 households of the water dragon team should be rotated every three years, and everyone should take turns to get rich. But because of Wu Mian's reputation for hard work, the most important thing is that there are other hundred households, and at least there are deputy commanders as backers, so for more than eight years, Wu Mian is still rooted in the position of 100 households in the water dragon team.

If it is just a little less money, the problem is that the work of the water dragon team is still very hard, and Wu Mian is also old (unlike modern times, the age of people in the Ming Dynasty at that time was already very big as long as they were in their forties), and the body could not bear it. In the capital, the streets of the capital are managed by the Terracotta Division during the day, but a curfew is required at night, and it is transferred to the management of the patrol battalion. In modern plain terms, it is managed by the police during the day and by the armed police at night. But the water dragon team, as a professional firefighting team, also had to be on duty that night. Because fire and water are merciless, it doesn't matter if it's day or night. Therefore, Wu Mian and the two general flags of the water dragon team had to take turns on duty at night. It's hard work.

And today, when Wu Shigong showed some kindness to Wu Mian, Wu Mian didn't hurry up and put it up. Wu Mian is relatively practical, but he doesn't know how to drill camps, otherwise he wouldn't have been promoted to the position of 100 households without any background. Wu Mian's approach is also quite good for Wu Shigong. Now, when he first arrived at the Terracotta Division, there was a hundred households who came to join him, regardless of whether that Wu Mian was the most deserted water dragon team hundred households, but after all, it was also a hundred households, so Wu Shigong absolutely welcomed this behavior.

So, while returning home, Wu Shigong talked with Wu Mian cordially.