August 26.

Uncle Xie Fang led Qian Long, Zhou Mi, and officials of all sizes to Shunji Palace to hold the ceremony of 'praying for the wind and sacrificing the sea'.

Shunji Palace, that is, Mazu Temple, Shunji is the temple number given by Emperor Daojun, taking the meaning of the wind to help.

At this time, the local governor of Quanzhou and the officials of the city of Quanzhou held sacrifices in spring and autumn every year to pray for calm and safe navigation to encourage the development of maritime trade.

Earlier, the sea sacrifice was in the Jinwu Temple by the Jinjiang River, and the wind prayer was in the Jiuri Mountain in Nan'an County, and after the repair of Quanzhou Silla City, it was changed to the Shunji Palace to pray for unity.

Perhaps in order to wrap Sunje Palace into the city, this section of Silla City was deliberately built into a protruding corner, and opposite the mountain gate of Sunji Palace is Dejeemun.

Shunji Palace was later renamed 'Tianfei Palace, Tianhou Palace', and was preserved to later generations together with Deji Gate.

After the ceremony, Uncle Xie Fang and others climbed the Deji Gate Tower to see off the left wing army water camp.

Although there seems to be no banditry in the vicinity of Quanzhou City, a state of combat readiness is still implemented, and only the outer gate of Dejimen is open for a limited time, and the search is very strict.

As a vassal, Uncle Xie Fang can't easily leave the city at this time, but the major affairs of the country are in the ceremony, and the expedition ceremony must not be sloppy.

Fortunately, about 100 zhang south of Deji Gate, it is Nanguan Port, so you can barely see off the soldiers on the city tower.

Quanzhou Port is a general name, in fact, there are more than a dozen ports inside and outside the cluster.

Nanguan Port is one of the inner harbors, because of its annex city, can directly traffic the city, so it has become the most prosperous port in Quanzhou.

'A city of important land, Mo Sheng in Nanguan, the four seas of merchants, all the tribute, all so set. ’

However, due to the influence of banditry, the three inner ports of Nanguan Port, Fashi Port and Wuyu Port in the lower reaches of the Jinjiang River were relatively unsafe, so most of the merchant ships moved to Anping Port, Dongshi Port and other outer ports where they could flee at any time.

So at this time, the bustling Nanguan Port in the past seemed a little empty, and there were more than 30 large and small military ships docked ready to go.

Compared with ordinary merchant ships, these warships are significantly smaller, basically only five or six hundred materials, and the flagship is one thousand.

The lookout on the flagship saw that Dejimen had raised the flag of appeasement, so he reported to Chen Lei, who was standing at the bow of the ship, "Commander, Xianggong Xie has arrived." ”

"Ask for instructions." Chen Lei waved his hand casually, and the corners of his mouth showed a sneer, "It's a good show, I hope we can surprise Xie Xianggong......"

At this time, Qian Long was looking here with a telescope, and happened to capture this fleeting strange expression, and he couldn't help but feel that something was wrong.

But when I looked at it again, I didn't find anything else abnormal, and I just thought I was suspicious and didn't talk about it to others.

After the head of the city saw the flagship raised, Uncle Xie Fang symbolically read out a speech, and after the ceremony, he ordered the drum to be beaten.

In the sound of drums, the warships began to raise their sails, sailed away from the dock one by one, and went down the Jinjiang River against the rising sun.

It didn't take long for the fleet to leave Quanzhou Bay, enter the sea, and continue to sail southeast for almost an hour, and it was about a hundred miles away from Quanzhou City.

At this time, a dense sail shadow appeared in front of the route.

Seeing this situation, the deputy commander of the water battalion from which the class came from was shocked.

"How can there be such a large fleet in this direction!? It seems to be coming directly at us...... Commander Chen, I'm afraid this is not good, please quickly order the whole army to fight! ”

It's just that Chen Lei, who was standing opposite him, had a mocking look on his face, and said calmly, "It's time to give the order, let's do it." ”

Such an abnormal performance made Yi Mingcheng's scalp tingle, and there was a warning in his heart, and he subconsciously pressed the handle of the knife.

But immediately I felt a sharp pain in my heart, and when I looked down, a bloody knife tip appeared in my chest.

"For... Why ......"

Full of incredulous questions, accompanied by crimson thick blood, it was difficult to spit out from Yi Mingcheng's mouth.

Chen Lei smiled indifferently, reached out to the Qianniu knife that Yi Mingcheng was wearing, broke his hand, held the handle of the knife, and slowly pulled it out.

"Because, Quanzhou can only be ours, and the Left Wing Army is even more ours!"

This sentence was more piercing than the sound of the blade rubbing against the scabbard, piercing Yi Mingcheng's eardrum.

Looking at the slender blade like a seedling, Chen Lei couldn't put it down, "It's really a good knife." ”

Immediately, Chen Lei swung his knife and slashed at Yi Mingcheng, who was still holding his last breath, and cut off his death-blind head as easily as mowing grass.

Using Yi Mingcheng's corpse to rub away the blood stains on the body of the knife, and unsheathing the knife, and hanging the knife into the sheath on his waist, Chen Lei ordered casually with satisfaction.

"Find something to put up the head, and give the body to the Sea Dragon King......

Almost at the same time, a similar scene occurred on other ships, and more than a dozen officers loyal to the court died tragically at the hands of their 'colleagues'.

Soon after, the two fleets met at sea.

The other party has more than 40 ships, basically all of them are merchant ship style, most of them are one or two thousand materials, but they are not all Song ship style, and they look relatively shabby, they don't look like merchants, but pirates.

In fact, the sea in this era is a place outside the law, and the boundary between maritime merchants and pirates is not so clear.

However, this fleet is indeed a relatively 'professional' pirate, to be precise, it is a 'pirate group' formed by seven or eight pirates temporarily, and the biggest leader is surnamed Zou, and he is nicknamed 'Baiyan Jiao'.

After the convergence, Chen Lei handed over all the ships of the water camp to the pirates, along with the ordnance and materials they loaded, and he took the soldiers of the water battalion of the left wing army to transfer to a large ship of 5,000 materials, and turned to the north.

And the huge 'fleet' formed by more than 70 ships, under the command of the white-eyed Jiao, marched at full speed in the direction of Quanzhou, with a fierce momentum!

At this time, a small group of cavalry from Fuzhou spent two days and six interceptions, and finally arrived at the north gate of Quanzhou City, and tossed for a long time before they were able to enter the city.

They handed over King Yan's secret letter to Uncle Xie Fang, and Uncle Xie Fang took it out and looked at it, but he was a little dumbfounded, "Why are there all new digital ...... on it?"

"Xie Xiang, this is the password, you need a codebook to decipher the contents of it, so as to prevent being robbed, this password is here in Xiaguan."

After explaining carefully, he took the letter and began to decipher, and the interpreted words still need to be rearranged according to special rules in order to form the correct information.

This rule is naturally only known to certain personnel in charge of secrecy, so even if the codebook is obtained by the enemy, it will still be difficult to read the secret letter.

The process was inevitably cumbersome and time-consuming, so half an hour later, Uncle Xie Fang saw the 'cracked version' of the secret letter, and his expression became more and more solemn.

It turned out that when Qianlong and the others set off, Li Zhi had not been found out by the Military Intelligence Department, and then Zhao Mengqi, in order not to startle the snake, waited until Zhou Lian, Zheng Taiqing and others were arrested before letting people send this letter, and the content of the letter was the situation that Li Zhi confessed.

After Uncle Xie Fang finished reading it, Zhou Mi asked, "Xie Xiang, what should we do now?" Do you directly arrest the Liujia and Pu families? ”

Uncle Xie Fang shook his head, "The family tree has deep roots, and the influence of the Pu family in the merchants is not trivial, plus there are so many powerful families, not to mention that there is no conclusive evidence at present, even if there is, with our current strength, we can't move them, maybe this order is issued, and the whole Quanzhou will have to be turned upside down, His Royal Highness also said in the letter, just let us be vigilant, don't act rashly, and wait for the army to arrive before making plans." ”

"Then why didn't His Highness directly transfer the first batch of troops to Quanzhou?" Zhou Mi was a little puzzled.

Uncle Xie explained, "First of all, from the perspective of the overall situation, we must give priority to ensuring that the chaos does not spread to the two provinces, otherwise the entire society will be shaken. ”

"Secondly, although it was the powerful who ignited the chaos, the bandits were not completely controlled by them, even if all the powerful people reformed now, the chaos would not be quelled, and troops still needed to be sent to quell the rebellion."

"Third, His Highness's goal is not just to calm the situation, but to take the opportunity to carry out a more profound reform of Fujian Road, so it is necessary to completely control the situation."

"Fourth, there are still a large number of people in the court staring at His Highness, just waiting for His Highness to make a mistake, so His Highness has to act with a defensible reason, and a huge family like Liujia cannot be easily moved without full charges."

"Maybe Your Highness has other considerations, all in all, steady and steady is the best strategy at the moment."

Zhou Mi suddenly realized, "If it weren't for Xie Xiang's guidance, Xia Guan wouldn't have imagined that there were so many doorways among them...... It's just that those people probably won't sit still. ”

"Yes..."Uncle Xie Fang sighed and said with a heavy expression, "Your Highness is not waiting for them to make more crazy moves, but I don't know if we can handle it." ”

After speaking, Uncle Xie Fang put the secret letter in the brazier and lit it.

Before the fire was extinguished, Qian Long ran in sweating, "There is an urgent report from Tong'an, tens of thousands of bandits appeared outside the county this morning, and it is estimated that most of them will come to Quanzhou." ”

Fortunately, he was already mentally prepared, Uncle Xie Fang did not panic, "It seems that they are in a hurry......"

He immediately summoned officials at all levels to begin arranging, "Decree that martial law should be imposed on the whole city immediately, all city gates should be closed, and all soldiers and soldiers should be ordered to guard their positions without slackening...... All the people should return to their homes immediately, and they should not stay in the market without permission...... Inform the Shoji of the Nanwai Sect and ask all the clans to take refuge in the sub-castle......"

One after another orders were issued, and Quanzhou City instantly began to be busy.

But most of the people were not too frightened, thinking that it would probably be as dangerous as a few days ago, after all, the walls of Quanzhou are high and strong, and it is not so easy to be breached, not to mention that the bandits basically have no ability to attack the city.

Not only the common people thought so, but even the commanders of the three garrisoned forbidden troops stationed on the walls of Silla Fortress also thought the same way.

Until they saw the fleet of ships that covered the sky and the sun coming against the current, and went straight down to the city.