Han Xuandao knelt a few steps behind the emperor very respectfully, did not raise his head, but said respectfully: "The Holy One is the Son of Heaven, long live the Son of Heaven, the same is true in ancient and modern times!" ”

The emperor slowly turned around, smiled faintly, raised his hand and said: "Tonight, there is no third person in the Imperial Garden, you and I don't treat you as monarchs and ministers, but only as chess friends, how about it?" ”

Han Xuandao said calmly: "The Holy Lord's will, dare the minister not obey the order? ”

"Let's get flat!" The emperor didn't say much, put his hands behind his back, walked slowly to the small pavilion, entered the pavilion, sat down on the chair, pointed to the chair opposite and smiled at Han Xuandao, who came with him: "Han Aiqing, sit down."

Han Xuandao bowed down and thanked him, and sat down opposite the emperor.

"I remember the first time we met, it was thirty years ago." The emperor said with a smile: "I was still King Chunren at that time, and one day I went out of the palace to relax in the city, passing by a chess hall, and the owner of the chess hall waved a flag, saying that he was invincible all over the world, and his tone was rampant. Hundreds of people gathered in front of the chess hall that day, although the owner of the chess hall was rampant, but he was indeed quite capable, at least under my nose, there were several chess masters who were killed and abandoned their armor and came out in embarrassment! ”

Han Xuandao also showed a hint of a smile and said, "Saint, there are many strange people among the people, and there is no shortage of masters of various sects. ”

The emperor nodded, "Not bad." It's just that I'm in the capital of Yanjing, if I let a chess player talk like this, it will be embarrassing after all. I wanted to go up and try it with him that day, but before I could make a move, you were the first to emerge from the crowd, and I remember that you were still a young and vigorous son of a family, full of blood! ”

Han Xuandao sighed: "The minister was just impulsive at that time. ”

"But you won that game." The emperor smiled and said: "I watched you play that game of chess with my own eyes, Han Aiqing was cautious, step by step, like an iron bucket when defending, but between shots, he was sharp and ruthless, and he was preemptive. In particular, there are a few chess pieces, when they fell at the beginning, many people thought they were waste chess, and only in the end did they know that those chess pieces were painstakingly buried by Han Aiqing, and it was related to the victory or loss of the whole game. After watching that game of chess that day, I admired it in my heart, and I just thought that one day I would be able to play a game with Han Aiqing and feel the changes on the chessboard! He sighed lightly: "It's just that in the past few decades, you and I have never had the opportunity to play on the chessboard, but today I let go of everything and concentrated on summoning Aiqing into the palace and conspiring for a game!" ”

Han Xuandao arched his hand and said: "The minister's chess path is really ordinary, but the hall master that day saw that the minister was careful at the beginning, so he gave birth to a contempt, otherwise the minister may not be able to win that game!" ”

The Emperor nodded, "There is some truth in this. Han Aiqing started low-key, and was cautious, but he was polite, showing weakness to the enemy, and he couldn't help but show contempt for the hall owner. It's just that although the hall owner has superb chess skills, his chess style is too arrogant and too pressing, and he seems to have the upper hand in momentum at first, but in fact, he is not as good as Han Aiqing, opening the chess surface little by little. ”

"The Holy One has praised it." Han Xuandao said calmly.

The emperor stroked his beard and said, "Han Aiqing doesn't have to be modest. He read out a white piece from the chess box and said with a smile: "Han Aiqing is good at making a late move, how about I start this game of chess?" ”

Han Xuandao arched his hand and said, "Please start the game!" ”

……

……

Every time at midnight, after the nobles of the palace rest, there will be a group of the most despicable servants in the palace doing the most despicable thing.

The nobles and servants in the palace add up to thousands, and there will naturally be a lot of flattering things every day, and the toilets of each palace will eventually gather in one place, and the most humble eunuchs in the palace will be transported out of the palace in the dead of night.

The three carriages left the palace from the small palace gate on the west side of the palace, and after the guards of the Imperial Forest Army covered their noses and let the three carriages out, more than a dozen eunuchs with black scarves around their noses immediately circled the carriage and went straight to the west.

Along the street that he had to pass every day, he turned into a small alley, and in the depths of the alley, several eunuchs who had been arranged in advance came out of the shadows, and instead of the eunuchs who had hidden from the convoy into the darkness, they became part of the convoy, and passed through this dim alley, and continued to their destination without any abnormality.

The eunuchs who withdrew from the convoy hid in the dim shadows, staring at the convoy that was gradually moving away, and soon they saw several ghostly figures following the convoy from a distance, monitoring the convoy's every move.

The corners of Yi Kongting's mouth, which was hidden in the shadows, sneered.

As the emperor expected, the people who came out of the palace were really targeted, especially this kind of people in the palace who came out late at night, and they became solid objects.

When the gang was far away, Yi Kongting and the others, who had already changed into night clothes as fast as possible, came out of the small alley, and after making sure that there was no one else on the street, they immediately let go of the speed and quickly leaned towards the west gate of Yanjing City.

If an emperor's cronie like Yi Kongting comes out of the palace openly, he will definitely become the focus of surveillance, and once he is targeted, he will definitely not be able to leave Yanjing City.

Therefore, he can't leave the palace during the day, but he can send his cronies and eunuchs out of the palace to arrange certain things.

In the palace, there are naturally people coming in and out every day, and arranging some inconspicuous eunuchs to do some inconspicuous things, although they still need to be careful, but they are not impossible.

Yi Kongting followed the emperor, and his purpose was to protect the safety of his master with his powerful martial arts.

As the chief eunuch of Yan Palace, he is not willing and does not have so much energy to take care of many idle things in the palace, for him, the most important thing is to follow the emperor every day, to ensure that the emperor is not harmed in any way, anyone close to the emperor, any food eaten by the emperor, must be strictly inspected by him.

In addition, in his career of following the emperor for more than ten years, he had to strictly select a group of extremely loyal figures among the eunuchs in the palace, the number was not large, but each of them was carefully trained by him to become another force that secretly protected the emperor in addition to the palace guards.

These people were all arranged near the emperor, ready to die for the emperor, and ready to deal with sudden assassinations.

But this time, the emperor sent several of his most elite masters to Yi Kongting, just to ensure that they could avoid the surveillance of many eyes, avoid possible interceptions, go out of the city smoothly, and smoothly send the four secret letters to those four people.

Like a breeze blowing across the earth, Yi Kongting and the others also came to the West City Gate like a gust of wind.

……

In the Imperial Garden, the monarch and the minister had already fallen more than 20 pieces, the chess game had begun, the emperor looked indifferent, and Han Xuandao also looked calm.

"I heard that those students in Beijing are making trouble in the Yamen of the Imperial History Tower!" The emperor twisted the chess pieces in his hand, and did not look at Han Xuandao, just stared at the chessboard, hesitated slightly, and gently put down the chess pieces, "Han Aiqing, what is going on?" ”

Han Xuandao saw that the emperor had fallen into the army, and did not hesitate, followed by the next child, and replied: "Returning to the saint, he is just a pawn used by others, doing slanderous things!" ”

"Oh?" The emperor smiled and said, "What slander? ”

Han Xuandao said calmly: "Those people don't know who they are bewitched by to slander the powerful ministers in the DPRK and the central government, and abuse power and chaos the country!" ”

The emperor finally raised his head, looked into Han Xuandao's eyes, and said, "The powerful minister is in charge?" ”

Han Xuandao also looked at the emperor's eyes, nodded and said, "Yes!" ”

"Who is the minister?" The emperor said lightly.

"Yes Chen!" Han Xuandao smiled faintly and said: "They say that the minister is the first powerful minister of this dynasty, and they say that the minister is arbitrary and disorderly, and wants to harm Dayan." They made trouble in front of the Imperial Historical Tower, so that the officials of the Imperial Historical Observatory would go to the Holy Throne and ask the Holy Generals to drive them out of the court! ”

"I see." The emperor smiled, leaned back in his chair slightly, stared at Han Xuandao, and asked, "Han Aiqing, do you think my move is okay?" ”

Han Xuandao remained silent and said respectfully: "What did the Holy Lord say?" ”

"I gave up three seeds, but it seems to have won a situation!" The emperor smiled and said: "The death of Su Ziwen and the others, you know better than me, that it was caused by me, but now everyone in the city thinks that you secretly made people take revenge, do you feel very uncomfortable?" ”

Han Xuandao finally laughed and said, "The minister thinks that this move of the saint is indeed very exquisite. The minister was indeed a little messed up by this move...... It's just that the minister has always only looked at the wins and losses of the whole game of chess, and he doesn't care too much about the gains and losses of one move. ”

The emperor nodded and said, "Yes, this is your Han Aiqing's ability." I had been obsessed with this move for a long time, thinking that I could use this move to reverse the whole game, but in the end, I realized that the victory or loss of the whole game seemed to be a foregone conclusion, and since the victory or loss of a game of chess was already doomed, even if I made a few clever moves, it seemed that it had nothing to do with the overall situation! ”

The night is quiet, and at the turn of spring and summer, the night breeze caresses the face, making people always feel a sense of tiredness.

It's just that the pair of monarchs and ministers in the imperial garden, although they were blown by the warm spring breeze, the coolness in the words was diffused in the air.

After a moment of silence, the emperor picked up another chess piece, landed on the chessboard, and asked, "Han Aiqing, I have always had a question, but it is difficult for me to give an answer myself. Today, I want to ask you, I ...... Is it considered a good emperor? If it weren't for your family's chaos, would you be able to create a prosperous generation? ”

"I don't know if there will be a prosperous era." Han Xuandao was silent for a while before he said slowly: "But the minister knows that if the Holy Lord is in power and there is no constraint, then the world is very likely to be unified in the hands of the Holy One." ”

"I like to hear that." The emperor sighed lightly: "Actually, I sometimes feel regretful, my Great Yan Kingdom is also full of talents, Xiao Taishi, Su Guanya, and you Han Xuandao, are all far-sighted and resourceful, Ximen Lei Zang, Su Yuting, and Ye Tianmeng are all Great Yan generals, if these people don't fight, they can all assist me, and I can dominate the country and win the title of China!" ”

Han Xuandao smiled indifferently, shook his head and said, "The Holy Lord forgot, there are some games, either you die or I die." ”