Just after the unitary time, Zhengde returned to the Qianqing Palace from the leopard room, because of the recent earth-shattering events in the court, from the courtiers to the harem queen mother and others kept an eye on Zhengde, Zhengde himself also understood that the behavior at this time should be slightly restrained, so he no longer spent the night in the leopard room, generally messing around in the afternoon, and going back to the palace to sleep before dark.

The palace maid of Shouning Palace found out the news of Zhengde's return to the palace and hurriedly reported to Song Nan, and Song Nan reluctantly left Kangning to go to Qianqing Palace to meet him.

Zhengde was slightly drunk, and was sitting blindfolded on the desk looking through the folds handed over during the day, which was the hypnotic method he found himself.

The little eunuch came to report that Song Nan had come to see him, and Zhengde was quite surprised, and ordered the little eunuch to let Song Nan go to the imperial study to wait. As soon as Song Nan sat down in the imperial study, the laughter of Zhengde outside the door came in.

"Song Nan, why did you enter the palace at this time? Didn't I want you to rest for a few days? ”

Song Nan hurriedly got up to pay homage and said with a smile: "The minister is hard and worried, and after a day of rest, his body is sore, and he really can't sit still." ”

Zhengde laughed and said: "You have to learn to be relaxed, you can't reach this point." ”

Song Nan said in his heart: You are not relaxed, you are always Chi, there is no time. But he said: "How can the minister compare with the emperor." ”

Zhengde sat down with a smile and motioned for Song Nan to sit down too, the little eunuch brought tea to serve, Song Nan asked tentatively, "Didn't Gonggong Liu serve the emperor?" ”

Zhengde said: "Xiao Jinzi accompanied me for a day, and I allowed him to go out of the palace and go back to the house to rest." ”

Song Nan secretly breathed a sigh of relief, as long as Liu Jin was not present, today's things would be much easier, and with the wisdom of Zhengde, he was not under much pressure.

"Song Nan, I am very grateful to you, if you hadn't come forward, Liu's rebellion would not have known what to do, I would know that you would not let me down, compared to the rest of the people in the court, I trust you unequaled. I can't say this in front of others, but I can say it openly when I'm alone with you. Zhengde looked at Song Nan with a smile.

Song Nan hurriedly got up and said, "Thank you for your kindness, this is the duty of the minister." ”

Zhengde waved his hand and said: "Sit down and talk, don't be polite, you and I are not monarchs and ministers at this moment, do you still remember what I told you after my father died?" I and you have to be friends in private, and there is the righteousness of a monarch and a friend between you and me. ”

Song Nan smiled and nodded, and Zhengde smiled: "If you don't come today, I also plan to summon you into the palace tomorrow to talk, because I have something to tell you." ”

Song Nan said: "It's just right, the minister also has something to say when he came to see the emperor today." ”

Zhengde said: "Then you say it first." ”

Song Nan said: "Obey the order, the minister has been suppressing the thief for two months this time, traveling thousands of miles, fortunately he lived up to the emperor's grace to exterminate the thief, but every time the minister thinks about the thief, he has a sense of fear, and the backbone is always cold after the midnight dream." The minister won a triumphant victory this time, and outsiders naturally said that the minister was brave and invincible, but the minister wanted to say what he wanted to say in front of the emperor, and this time the minister was terrified and walked on thin ice. ”

Zhengde opened his eyes wide and said, "Oh? How do you feel that? I saw that you swept through the thieves all the way, and it seemed that it would be effortless. ”

Song Nan shook his head and said: "Of course not, the minister is the first time to lead the troops to the battle, the number of thieves before and after the soldiers is as high as sixty or seventy thousand, which is comparable to the number of officers and soldiers, and several thieves are also cunning people, and the difficulties are not enough for outsiders; Among them, the hardships and dangers are known only to those who are on the verge of war. ”

Zhengde thought for a while and said: "Song Nan, I know that if you shoulder the heavy burden of Mount Tai this time, I will not treat you badly, I will reward you well, and teach the officials of the court to know that those who fight for the country will have great glory, you can rest assured." ”

Song Nan shook his head and said: "Your Majesty, you misunderstood the minister, the minister didn't come today to ask the emperor for a big reward, yesterday the emperor led people out of the city to greet him, which is already the greatest honor for the minister." What kind of person the minister is, the emperor should know very well, and the minister will never rely on some small merits this time to ask for this and that. ”

Zhengde nodded secretly, what Zhengde hated the most was the person who favored and coquettished people who invited rewards for merit, Song Nan is by no means this kind of person, if you want to talk about credit, is Song Nan's credit still small in the past few years? Not to mention that at the beginning of his ascension to the throne, he helped himself to establish his authority and the ministers, so that the ministers of the outer court no longer dared to wantonly criticize their own behavior; The First Battle of Xinpingbao saved him alive from the siege of tens of thousands of Tartar soldiers; Not long ago, it was he who stood up when the court was panicked and put down the thief. If you talk about merit, no one in the Manchu Dynasty has as much credit as Song Nan over the years, and these are obvious to all.

"Your Majesty, the minister knows that this morning is in the court, and the emperor is very embarrassed about the minister's reward. The main intention of the minister to enter the palace today is to ask the emperor not to bother, this time the reward minister does not intend to want, the minister does not want to be unhappy with the commanders of the regiment camp because of this matter. After all, although the ministers are meritorious, but they are not faulty, depriving them of their positions and rewarding the ministers, the ministers will be very uneasy. ”

Zhengde was stunned, he never thought that Song Nan entered the palace today to persuade himself not to give him a reward, Zhengde was a little suspicious, he suspected that Song Nan was talking back, Song Nan did not show his desire for official position, but he was not so indifferent to fame and fortune.

"Hmm...... This can't be done, if you have merit, you will be rewarded, you have made such a meritorious service, if I don't reward it, who will want to share my worries in the future? Song Nan, aren't you caught up in injustice? I have made up my mind, don't think about it too much, you have the talent to lead the troops, and it is logical for the commander to be in the regimental camp after the knighthood, as for what other people think, you don't have to care too much, I know it in my heart. ”

Song Nan said: "Your Majesty, the minister is not hypocritical, the minister's move is also for the sake of the overall situation, the Beijing camp is the foundation of the stability of the Beijing division, and the minister never wants to make everyone unhappy with this matter; The stability of the defense of the capital is the overall situation, and the minister does not dare to say what others will think and do, but if the capital camp is unstable, the Beijing division will be unstable, and if there is an incident, is it not the minister's fault? ”

Zhengde pinched his chin and frowned, "Do they dare to disobey my will?" Every one of them was given by me, so what's wrong with me taking it back to others? ”

Song Nan said: "The emperor is naturally the emperor in the world, but the wise king will not go back on his word, and he will not give his courtiers something but take it back for no reason, and the minister does not want the emperor to leave a handle on others." ”

Zhengde said: "But the wise king will not be rewarded for his merits, so I can't live with you." ”

Song Nan smiled secretly in his heart, things are going in the direction he designed, and now he is not asking for an official position, but he is desperately resigning, but Zhengde is desperate to give it.

This is completely in line with Zhengde's character, this is Zhengde, an emperor with a good nature, a little clever, but a big fool in politics. Liu Jin used this very well, and he will use it himself today.

"What the emperor said is also reasonable, how can there be a best of both worlds, not only to make the marquis in Beijing unhappy, but also to protect the emperor's courtiers with a clear meaning of rewards and punishments." Song Nan frowned and thought.

Zhengde said: "I am afraid that there is no two things in this matter, I have made up my mind, you don't have to think about it." ”

Song Nan shook his head slowly and said: "There may be a way, the minister came here today and actually has an important thing to build the emperor." ”

"Oh? What's the matter? ”

"Your Majesty, this rebellion of Liu Liu and Liu Qi was very powerful, and the strength of the thieves once reached 670,000, which affected millions of people; Chen Shicai said that the midnight dream was cold on his spine, not because he was worried that the thief would not be able to be destroyed, but because things did not develop in another direction, otherwise the consequences would be unimaginable. ”

Zhengde said: "How do you say this? ”

Song Nan said: "When Dingguo Gong was appointed as the governor of the thief capital, Xu Yande led the army to suppress the thief in Shandong and failed for a time, and it was at this time that the thief soldiers were in full swing, and Liu Liu on the East Road quickly developed to 60,000 people; When the minister took office, he was busy mobilizing the border troops of Xuanfu Datong to come to suppress the thieves, which had a gap of more than ten days; Liu Liu was in a hurry to go south at this time, and did not choose to go north to kill the horse gun, which can be said to be a strategic mistake. ”

Zhengde understood what Song Nan meant no matter how stupid he was, and exclaimed: "You mean they will turn their heads and go north to the capital?" ”

Song Nan nodded and said: "Although there are not many troops in the south of the Yellow River, but the big river is blocked, how can it be so easy to cross the river; During this time, I was able to calmly mobilize my forces to encircle. If the thieves changed their thinking and looked back to attack the capital, the guards and horses of Zhongtun in front of Yingzhou were mobilized by Xu Yande to Shandong, and were defeated by the thieves, and the remnants of the soldiers retreated to several state capitals east of Shandong to protect themselves. The south of the capital can be described as a flat river, if the thieves go all the way north, and they can't wait for the Xuanfu soldiers and horses to arrive, they can go straight outside the capital, and the consequences will be unimaginable at that time. ”

Zhengde was so shocked that he woke up most of the wine, and said in amazement: "Isn't there a regimental camp in the capital?" The 12th Regiment and Battalion have more than 100,000 troops, plus 3,000 battalions and other Beijing divisions, how can the thieves succeed? ”

Song Nan nodded and said: "What the emperor said is that the strength of the Beijing division is enough to protect itself, but the emperor should not forget that the thief soldiers at that time were in full swing, and it is not estimated how many troops can be increased along the way, but the emperor does not know the means of the thief soldiers, and the thieves are coke everywhere they go, even if the thieves can't capture the capital, a large area south of the Beijing division will be reduced to scorched earth." The regimental battalion is rooted in the Beijing Division, and it is impossible to go out of the capital to fight with it unless it is to save the driver, isn't that watching the thieves spread wild in the capital on the outskirts of Beijing? ”

Zhengde's eyebrows beat and he didn't say a word.

Song Nan continued: "Besides, no one dares to guarantee that the thieves will not be able to break the capital, after all, it is sixty or seventy thousand thieves, I dare not say what the combat power of the Beijing camp is, but the thieves known to the minister are not a rabble, the minister killed and injured nearly 10,000 soldiers and horses this time, this is still after the imperial court issued the law of abolishing the Shiwu Liansit, abolishing the policy of forced cultivation of land and other measures to calm the people, but also in the case that the thieves had to divide their troops to guard the back road because they tried their best to cross the Yellow River. The thieves on the west road guarded the Taihang Mountain, and the minister almost fell into the hands of the thieves and lost his life. ”

Zhengde licked his lips and said, "Then what do you mean......?" ”

Song Nan said: "The minister has thought for a long time, the safety of the capital is a big deal, the safety of the emperor is a big thing, the minister thinks that it is necessary to strengthen the strength of the capital, in addition to the twelve regiments and battalions, it is also necessary to increase the mobile force, if there is chaos in Gyeonggi, this force can not only defend the city, but also move out of the city to resist the enemy, so that the troops of the local capital can buy enough time to help." ”