Lin'an, the capital city

Even if Xu Yunchen's letter was fast, it would have arrived five days later in the evening.

The messenger took out the pass token with the letter in his hand and walked through the layers of palace gates, and hurriedly walked to the imperial study.

"Report!"

"A secret letter came from Jingzhou."

Cheng Shengquan, the emperor of the Dayan Dynasty, was correcting the folds inside, and when he heard this, he immediately said in a deep voice: "Pass."

It was dark outside, and the messenger dressed in light brown immediately stepped into the candlelighted imperial study.

The chief eunuch Lan Gonggong next to Cheng Sheng's body took the secret letter and handed it to Cheng Shengquan. Cheng Shengquan sat on the big chair, looking at the letter, the green tendons on the back of his hand couldn't help but jump suddenly.

"Smack."

He slapped the letter on the table, the middle-aged emperor who had passed the age of confusion was full of the coercion of his high position.

"What a Qiyuan mountain bandit, good Han Zhi is a bully!"

Cheng Shengquan snorted coldly, looked at the messenger and said, "You go down first."

The messenger retired, and Gonggong Lan looked at the angry emperor from the side, so he went to pour a cup of tea and put it in front of him, and said with relief: "Your Majesty is angry, and it is not worth it to be angry."

Hearing this, Cheng Shengquan calmed down a lot, and he said coldly: "The Qiyuan Mountain bandits must be eliminated."

The next day, the Golden Luang Palace.

Cheng Shengquan announced the news to the government and the opposition, and the court was shocked.

"What?! Han Zhi dared to mine private mines! ”

"Where did he come from, where did he come from, the bear's heart, the leopard guts, and the Qiyuan Mountain bandits colluded to harm the people!"

"Your Majesty, the minister feels that this person's sin is unforgivable, and he should be beheaded all over the house to set an example,"

The ministers were discussing with each other, and Cheng Sheng, who was sitting on the dragon chair, coughed lightly, and the following was quiet.

Cheng Shengquan looked at it from left to right, and finally his eyes fell on the crown prince Cheng Yu who was standing at the front.

"Prince, what do you think about this?"

Cheng Yu came out of the ranks, he was wearing a light golden court dress, a gold crown on his head, his black hair hung down softly behind him, his slanted sword eyebrows, slender and sharp eyes, thin and lightly pursed lips, angular outlines, slender and tall but not rough figure, dragon and phoenix posture, natural nature, and his own strength to look down on everything.

He bowed slightly and said, "Erchen thinks that the imperial court will send someone with a thousand troops to exterminate the mountain bandits, and restore peace to Qiyuan."

Cheng Shengquan took his eyes off him and asked loudly, "Do you have any different opinions?"

After the ministers below whispered and discussed for a while, Prime Minister Zuo Rong stood up and said: "The minister thinks that what the prince said is extremely true, and once again send troops to exterminate the mountain bandits and recapture the iron mines."

"Hmph, it's not easy to recapture with a thousand troops! Have you forgotten Shen Shizi, who is still missing? ”

Pingyang Hou Ye Anbang snorted coldly and stabbed back, and Prime Minister Zuo glared at him fiercely.

"Oh?" Cheng Shengquan's tone was a little interesting, "What is Pingyang Hou's opinion?" ”

Ye Anbang hugged his fists and said: "Your Majesty, the minister thinks that if we want to completely eradicate the bandits, we should send a general to go, on the one hand, the elimination of the mountain bandits is a sure thing, and on the other hand, it can also reflect the importance that Your Majesty attaches to Qi Yuan."

Zuo Rong stood up and retorted: "Now most of the generals in the DPRK and China are stationed at the border passes, and the rest of the generals stationed in the imperial city can't leave, where are the extra generals rushing to Qiyuan to suppress bandits?"

The courtiers started to discuss again, and there were indeed no superfluous generals rushing to Qiyuan.

Ye Anbang smiled loudly when he saw this, then looked at Cheng Shengquan and said, "Your Majesty, there is really someone here to recommend it."

Cheng Shengquan's face turned slightly pale and asked, "Who?"

Ye Anbang glanced at Zuo Rong's not very good face, and said with a straight face: "General Chi Guanglei."

"Your Majesty, you didn't let him return to Beijing from Beidi Border Pass a month ago, and now if nothing else, he should have arrived in Jingzhou by now."

Cheng Shengquan's eyes lit up, yes, he almost forgot Chi Guanglei, "Yes, then let General Chi go to help Qi Yuan this time." ”

So Cheng Shengquan called an attendant, wrote a secret letter and handed it to him, "I want you to hand over this secret letter to General Chi in a day." ”

"Our family is commanded."

After the chamberlain withdrew, Cheng Shengquan wrote another holy decree and handed it over to the imperial doctor, "This holy decree, you send someone to hand it over to Xu Yunchen, the sooner the better." ”

"Yes, Weichen takes the order."

Seeing that the matter was almost discussed, Cheng Shengquan retreated.

……

A day later, north of Jingzhou.

A group of troops rested here, and a man quickly rushed into the makeshift tent, holding a sharp-tailed swift in his hand with a note tied to the swift's foot.

"General, the emperor has sent a secret letter."

Chi Guanglei's tall body stood from the tiger skin chair, "Quick, get it quickly." ”

He took the swift with his big hand, and as soon as he let go of the note, the swift flew away, he twisted his eyebrows and opened it, and quickly finished reading the contents.

"Dad, what's the matter? I also want the emperor to send a secret letter. ”

Chi Guanglei looked at the source of the sound, it was his proudest eldest daughter Chi Wu, she was wearing a red riding suit, her hair was as high as a man, revealing her beautiful face, her thick eyebrows were slightly raised to show her heroic spirit, her eyes were cut water, her lips were not dotted and Zhu, she was as bright as the autumn moon, and she was as bright as a spring flower.

Chi Guanglei said with a solemn face: "The emperor said in a secret letter that he wanted me to rush to Qiyuan, Jingzhou to support Lord Xu in eliminating the mountain bandits, and also to find the whereabouts of Shen Shizi."

"Shen Mingnan?" Chi Wu was slightly stunned for a moment, and then smiled: "Instead of caring about him, you should care more about the mountain bandits, that dead boy will be fine."

Chi Guanglei glared slightly, "What a dead boy, he is the son of the world, you should be polite to Lao Tzu, otherwise when you return to Beijing and you are impeached by that group of imperial historians, Lao Tzu will not protect you." ”

"Cut." Chi Wu pursed her lips slightly, stretched her waist and walked outside the tent, she smiled brightly at Chi Guanglei, "Let's go, Dad, I'll call Chi Xianyu that kid, let's leave early." ”

Chi Guanglei looked at Chi Ao, who said that the wind is the rain, with a sad face, just such a man, when will he bring a son-in-law back?

……

Qiyuan County, Han Mansion, Shen Mingnan's bedroom.

In front of him was an open iron box, which contained the letters that had been opened, and on the chair opposite him, Xu Yunchen was looking through the letters.

There are private messages between Han Zhi and his eldest daughter Han Hui'er, as well as a letter between him and Qiu Chenghe, the counselor of the Political Department of Beijing, it is conceivable that the people in Beijing have already stretched out their hands to Qi Yuan.

Xu Yunchen's face was solemn, there were not many people in it except for these two people, and on the surface, it could only be seen that this was the case, but Han Hui'er was a palace concubine, how could she be involved with court officials?

The problem is that the Han family and the Qiu family have an incompatible relationship, how could these two reach a consensus on the iron mine?

Shen Mingnan seemed to see his doubts, pointed to the letter on the table and said: "Qiu Chenghe is the proud protégé of the general political envoy Si Tengxin, and he can sit in this position thanks to Teng Xin's promotion."

How could Xu Yunchen not know this? Just because I knew, I realized that Qi Yuan's matter was introduced to the capital because he couldn't control it three years later, and it was these people who were controlling it behind it.