Episode 163 Clash in the Lake

A young man less than thirty years old walked into the water pavilion, glanced at Xiaoqiang and Zheng Yuxuan, and said with a smile:

"Oh, hehe, General Xiang, Lord Leping, oh, all sit down."

Previously, for the two of them, Emperor Guangwu was just a symbol, just existing in newspaper photos and voices on the radio. And this symbol represents the bloody clan, the ferocious southern invasion, the terrifyingly huge "Thousand Divisions Army", the consistent international rogue behavior, the cruel labor camps, and the entire centralized, dark, and decaying Manchu Empire.

And now, the symbol suddenly changed to a living person before their eyes, a thin young man no more than thirty years old, still greeting them very kindly. The contrast is really significant. And it is precisely because the terrible symbol before has now become the person in front of him, whether it is Xiang Xiaoqiang or Zheng Yuxuan, they have quickly returned to their previous state.

The two of them smiled and nodded, and sat down on the other two chairs.

Emperor Guangwu on the opposite side took out his pocket watch and glanced at it, then turned his head and slapped his slap twice. Immediately a palace maid came in from outside, and Emperor Guangwu instructed her:

"Pass the meal."

The palace maid ordered the withdrawal.

Emperor Guangwu leaned back in his chair and looked at them with a smile, and then, his eyes were basically focused on Xiang Xiaoqiang.

Xiang Xiaoqiang also leaned back in his chair and looked at the legendary Guangwu Emperor in front of him with a smile.

After a while, Emperor Guangwu spoke first and smiled:

"General Xiang, it seems a little rude to invite you over for dinner like this, I hope you don't be surprised."

Xiang Xiaoqiang smiled:

"It doesn't matter, His Majesty the Emperor has a good climate and beautiful scenery here, what's so strange about eating in this kind of place."

Guangwu nodded and smiled, and didn't say anything more. After a while, he looked at the blue lake outside and sighed:

"Look, that's how interesting...... A few months ago, there was still artillery fire on the Yangtze River in Nanjing, but I really didn't expect that the two of us would sit down and eat together today......"

Xiang Xiaoqiang laughed in his heart, and said in his heart What is unexpected, in order to eat with me, you sent your own brother to Nanming as a hostage. As long as the price is big enough, let alone sit down with me to eat, what is impossible to sit down with our first minister.

But he knew that he couldn't say that. Now he is still in the hands of others, and he has long made up his mind that he came to Beiqing to pretend to be his grandson, as long as he can take back thousands of officers and soldiers of the Ming Dynasty.

Xiang Xiaoqiang also nodded and sighed:

"yes, yes...... I really didn't expect it...... Billowing red dust...... Creation makes people ......"

Emperor Guangwu nodded and said:

"General Xiang must have guessed that inviting the general to join the negotiation team to come to the Qing Dynasty is what I meant."

Xiang Xiaoqiang nodded and said:

"yes, I guessed it."

"But does General Xiang know why?"

"To tell you the truth," Xiang Xiaoqiang said, "Originally, when I first heard this request, everyone, including myself, thought that His Majesty the Emperor wanted me to come to Beiqing just to kill me and let out a bad breath. To be honest, I do do a lot of things that make people hate it. If I were you, I would definitely find a way to put this person to death. But...... Since His Majesty the Emperor was able to send his younger brother to Nanming as a guarantor, it shows that His Majesty has no malicious intent. This is the only reason why I dare to come to Beiqing. So why His Majesty strongly invited me to come to Beiqing, it's not easy to guess. But try to guess, maybe His Majesty the Emperor wants to discuss with me the gains and losses of the Battle of Nanjing? ”

Emperor Guangwu leaned back in his chair and laughed.

"General Xiang," Guangwu smiled for a while before retracting it, and said with a smile, "If I want to discuss the gains and losses of the war, naturally there will be a large group of real generals to discuss. To put it bluntly, General Xiang, although I call you a general, I don't think you are a real general. Suffice it to say that I just call you your rank. ”

Xiang Xiaoqiang looked at him coldly, and suddenly felt a panic on his face.

Guangwu smiled and continued:

"General Xiang, don't think about it too much, although my words are rude, I don't mean to offend you. I'm not saying that you are incapable, I'm just saying that your ability does not correspond to the rank on your shoulders. You're so young, only in your twenties, and you're a captain at most now if you have a normal rank in the army. Even if you count all your credit, you will be a major at best, and you will never be a general. I've read your resume, and you didn't go to any regular military school.

"You are from our northerners, you were developed into a full member of the East Factory when you were in college, and you have received some spy and agent training. In December last year, the Nanming Grasshopper was sunk in the Yangtze River, and you had a chance to come out and rescue all the crew and return to Nanming. Since then, you have been appreciated by the high-level of the Southern Ming Dynasty, and only then did you make a big fuss about my hinterland, set up the People's Guard to become a colonel, carried out a coup d'état for Zhu Yourong, prevented a coup d'état, and saved her throne twice, so you were deeply favored and became a general.

"General Xiang, am I right? The reason why your People's Guard is the strongest is because it is a political armed force, Zhu Yourong's private army, and you, the general, are also Zhu Yourong's general, not because you have high military talent and deep military attainments to Xiaoqiang, but because Zhu Yourong can't find someone more loyal and favored by her than you to be the commander. Am I right? ”

Xiang Xiaoqiang said coldly:

"Your Majesty the Emperor, you're really welcome to speak."

"Oh? Hehe, I'm used to talking to people like that. If it hurts General Xiang's self-esteem, then I will punish him with a glass of wine. ”

"Don't be busy punishing the wine first," Xiang Xiaoqiang sneered, "Your Majesty the Emperor, no matter what I say to Xiaoqiang, from a lowest-level ordinary person and a Northern Qing 'fart-people' to today's point, it is completely my own ability." Your Majesty, you may say that you are here today and entirely on your own. After all, you have the ability to stage a coup d'état and take the throne from your brother! It's certainly not easy.

"But don't forget, Your Majesty, no matter what, you were born with a father who became an emperor, and I didn't have that. Although you were not made a crown prince, after all, you were born in the emperor's family, and you are in the highest level and the most core power circle of the entire empire together, and there is naturally a group of teachers and staff around you, and there are your own mother concubines in the harem, and there are relatives in charge of your mother's family in the army, and there are also some ministers in the outer court who are greedy for support and secretly support you. Together, these are a considerable political force.

"These are things that you are born with. Although you have not been made a prince, you are still a prince and a prince, and you are only one step away from the throne. As for me, none of these are the same, everything has to rely on myself to work slowly from the bottom, and I have gone from a pariah in the Northern Qing Dynasty to a general in the Southern Ming, and the span is much larger than yours. …… Yes, maybe I'm a little luckier, but yours is also lucky. Your Majesty the Emperor, there is probably no riskier thing than a coup d'état and usurpation of the throne since ancient times. But His Majesty succeeded. I don't think the luck component in it is less than 50%. ”

Emperor Guangwu was stunned for a moment, and then burst into laughter. But after laughing this time, he didn't say anything, but picked up the wine jug, poured wine for Xiang Xiaoqiang and Zheng Yuxuan, and then poured a glass himself.

"Haha, well said!" He picked up his cup and said with a smile, "General Xiang, Lord Leping, please!" ”

……

After the first glass of wine, Xiang Xiaoqiang asked with a smile:

"His Majesty the Emperor just said that he didn't invite me to dinner to discuss the Battle of Nanjing with me, so why?"

Emperor Guangwu put the chopsticks on the porcelain chopsticks rest, leaned back in the chair, looked at the vast lake and mountains outside, and said:

"General Xiang, there are countless people who flee from the Yangtze River to Nanming every year in the Qing Dynasty. You can also count one of them. But the only person who escaped from the north and was in the core of the Southern Ming Dynasty was General Xiang. ”