Chen Qiao's meaning of protecting Sun Yanxiang is quite obvious. Li Congyi thought about it for a while, and guessed that it might be Chen Qiao and other Wenchen who were defensive against the Divine Guard family in Jinling City.

After a while, a guard cleared a courtyard nearby. At this time, Yin Zhangshao of Jinling Mansion also arrived, and the four of them were convenient to sit down in the hall. In today's situation, some people have already made it clear that the cause and effect are clear, so there is no need to ask, but only to discuss how to solve this matter.

Today's matter is mainly to dissipate Jiang Guogong's anger, as long as Jiang Guogong does not pursue it, this matter will naturally end here.

"The dog is stubborn, drunk and messing around, and collided with the nobles of the Guogong Mansion, I have no way to teach my son, and I am very ashamed. I am willing to dedicate a good courtyard near the west gate of the city to the Lord of the Kingdom, so that the nobles of the Guogong Mansion can recuperate here and recover. "Sun Yanxiang came up and sent a big house, which is not insufficient.

Li Congyi doesn't want a house, he wants silver even more. But now that the state affairs are difficult, and under the public, a group of bureaucrats will never admit that they have a lot of silver taels, except for the royal family like Li Congyi, whose family and country are inseparable.

Li Congyi nodded and accepted the house, but he didn't want to end the matter like this, and said: "Today's incident is definitely because of Sun Yongning, but what Zhang Bin did at the scene is also suspicious." ”

Zhang Shao didn't have to come, but Zhang Bin was also at the scene, and he was detained by Li Congyi and didn't let him go, so he had to come. But he made up his mind that as long as this matter could not burn Zhang Bin's head today, he would pretend to be dead. Seeing Li Congyi burning the fire, he was about to open his mouth, but he heard Chen Qiao say, "Zhang Bin failed to stop Sun Yongning's evil servant from beating people for no reason, but this is not his duty, and the Lord Guogong is a large number of adults, so he doesn't stick to this section." ”

Chen Qiao's level of turning big things into small things and small things is also very powerful. Li Congyi had no law, so he gave up.

Everyone dispersed, but Chen Qiao said: "If Lord Guogong is free, this hospital wants to disturb Guogong and taste the food of Jinling Hotel." ”

Although the food is delicious, Chen Qiao has no appetite.

"To tell you the truth, Your Majesty has plans to select another person who can know the affairs of the Privy Council." Chen Qiao sighed.

Li Congyi was taken aback. When the Southern Tang Dynasty fell, Chen Qiao died in the country, but what was his official position before his death, and Li Congyi was not a doctor who studied the history of the Five Dynasties, so he naturally did not know. But Chen Qiao told him these secret things, but he didn't know what he wanted to say, and his influence on Li Yu's brother really didn't have much to say.

But Li Congyi thought about it.

"Now that the persecution of the Song Kingdom is getting worse, Your Majesty has been concentrating on strengthening its military armament. The only concerns of this court are: first, the more supplies are sent to the Song State, the more unusable the treasury will be; Second, the whole country can only rely on the Divine Guard, one in Jinling, one in Hukou, and then thousands of miles along the Yangtze River, only these two fulcrums can be covered; The third is that the military generals of Jinling are alienated, the military generals only need to ask for money for military training, and the taxes of the civil ministers are already too heavy, which is not right or wrong, but if they do not understand each other, how can they find a balance. ”

Li Congyi understood Chen Qiao's suffering. It is said that Li Hongzhang is the paster of the Qing Dynasty, and this Chen Qiao is the paster of the Southern Tang Dynasty. It's just that Li Hongzhang has the support of the Huai Army and the territory of Beizhili to engage in foreign affairs, and Chen Qiao has nothing.

"Lord Chen is dedicated to the country and has a far-sighted plan, which is admired by the younger generations." Li Congyi patted a little fart.

"After Sun Yanxiang was appointed as the commander of the city guards, the city guards have changed greatly compared to the past. Sun Yanxiang and Zhang Shao are at odds, but they are both loyal to His Majesty. Today, this court asked the Lord Guogong not to delve into it, because it was also worried that the contradiction between the civil and military generals would become more and more intense. ”

"I'm thinking about personal grievances today, and this pattern is smaller. Please don't blame Mr. Chen. Although Li Congyi felt that Chen Qiao's appeasement idea was not advisable, he still admired Chen Qiao's mentality of doing everything for the country.

At that moment, he invited Xu Meilan to come over and toast Chen Qiao.

Today's troubles made half of Jinling City know that Jiang Guogong was raising people outside. But this matter, as long as Jiang Guogong's wife, Huangfu, doesn't make trouble, it will be a beautiful conversation.

Xu Meilan came over with a blushing face. Chen Qiao didn't care at first, but when he took a look, he only felt a little familiar, and after taking a closer look, he blurted out: "Your surname is Lin?" ”

Xu Meilan was slightly stunned before she and Chen Qiao really looked at each other, and then remembered that more than three years ago, when her father Lin Renzhao was transferred from Xuanzhou to Nanchang, he was waiting for the emperor to meet him in Jinling, and Chen Qiao came to Lin Renzhao's house as a guest. At that time, Lin Qianlan was already at the age of marriage, so Lin Renzhao wanted Chen Qiao to help be a matchmaker, and specially let Lin Qianlan meet Chen Qiao. Unexpectedly, Chen Qiao's memory was so amazing, and he couldn't help but think of his father, Lin Qianlan's eyes were red at that time.

When Chen Qiao saw Xu Meilan's expression, he was already very sure in his heart, and he was only slightly surprised when he looked at Li Congyi again, but obviously he was surprised by his own problem, not the problem itself.

Seeing Chen Qiao staring at him, Li Congyi said: "General Lin had a guard that day, and he replaced him with his sister, so Miss Qianlan was able to escape. By chance, I went to the Guogong Mansion to be a maid, but I never regarded Miss Qianlan as an ordinary maid. ”

After Li Congyi's confirmation, Chen Qiao was also embarrassed, and said: "If Lin Renzhao is here, how can my dynasty be as unavailable as now!" At this time, Lin Qianlan was already in tears.

Chen Qiao drank two more glasses of wine, and then he wanted to accept Lin Qianlan as his goddaughter. "It's okay to call Xu Meilan, don't be ungrateful, I will be called Xu Meilan in the future." Chen Qiaodang wanted to take Xu Meilan back to the house, "This matter of admitting her daughter, my old woman has to admit it, this matter is not to be delayed, I will do it today." ”

Xu Meilan also understood what Chen Qiao meant, without the support of her mother's family, it would not be easy for Li Congyi to accept Xu Meilan as a concubine. But Chen Qiao recognized Xu Meilan as his goddaughter, and the Huangfu family had not yet given birth to a son, so it was difficult to stop Li Congyi from accepting Xu Meilan as a concubine.

However, Li Congyi felt that according to Huangfu Yunying's attitude in the past few days, it was estimated that he would not prevent himself from accepting Xu Meilan as a concubine. But Chen Qiao's heart, he still has to receive it.

It wasn't until after dark that Xu Meilan came back from Chen's mansion.

Seeing that Li Congyi was still waiting, he couldn't help but plunge into Li Congyi's arms and cry happily again.

It turned out that Chen Qiao sent 100,000 taels of silver and pulled it over with two heavy-duty carriages. Chen Qiao's eldest son, Chen Xinran, also followed, "My father said that the 100,000 taels of silver will be included in the shares of Jiangnan Bank, of which 50,000 taels will be the dowry for my godsister, and the other 50,000 taels will be hung in the name of me, an unsuccessful boy, and I will ask Lord Guogong to discipline it on my behalf." ”

As he spoke, he pushed a half-sized boy over, this kid looked like a newborn calf who was not afraid of tigers, but he just looked at Li Congyi with black eyes. Chen Xinran pushed him, and then reluctantly said: "Kid Chen Dong, I will follow Lord Guogong in the future." ”

It made Li Congyi laugh dumbly.

————

Chen Qiao asked Li Congyi to take care of the overall situation, not to trouble Yin Zhangshao of Jinling Mansion, and to suffer this secret loss, but Li Congyi didn't think so.

It's not that Li Congyi is narrow-minded, it's really that before Li Congyi served as the assassin of Xuanzhou, although he was a prince, he had no authority, and he couldn't make friends with courtiers, and he didn't have a network, so he naturally lacked influence.

This time when he came to Jinling, if it weren't for Sun Yongning's matter, Li Congyi could only concentrate on thinking about his cheap father-in-law; Even Chen Qiao only had a general support for him on the surface.

Li Congyi wrote a letter to Tang Puze about the situation in Jinling, and Tang Puze replied, but said a secret thing.

Although Zhang Bin is Zhang Shao's eldest son, he is not a son-in-law.

However, Zhang Bin has been very smart and has ideas since he was a child. When he was half an adult, he was able to give advice to Zhang Shao, and was called "little master" by Zhang's subordinates. Three years ago, there was a great drought in the south of the Yangtze River, and Zhang Bin single-handedly planned a cruel business war in Jinling Rice Industry, which made the Zhang family famous.

The drought in 970 made the people of the Southern Tang Dynasty seriously hurt again, and Zhang Bin went to Shezhou, Raozhou, Xinzhou and other places to buy tea, and was keenly aware that the drought was not ordinary. Immediately, grain was transported from Wuyue, Nanchang and other places to Jinling for storage, and the Runzhou Township Party was also mobilized to store grain together. At this time, the price of rice in Jinling was really rising, and Zhang Bin and the Runzhou Township Party made a lot of money because of the grain storage in advance. When the autumn grain was put on the market, and other rice merchants bought rice and grain from the vicinity of Poyang Lake, and just after it arrived in Jinling, Zhang Bin sold a large amount of grain and launched a price war, which caused the price to plummet rapidly, and it fell to the price of the previous year in more than ten days. And Zhang Bin quietly bought new grain, and took the opportunity to complete the replacement of new rice for old grain. In this business war, a large number of small and medium-sized grain merchants in Jinling suffered heavy losses, and many of them went bankrupt, while Zhang Bin became a business wizard in the Runzhou Township Party.

Not only that, but as a side result of this business war in Jinling Rice, the center of Jinling Rice Industry was transferred from Shiqiao Town, which was originally controlled by Sun Yanxiang's family, to Shangyuan Town, which was controlled by Zhangjia and Runzhou Township Party.

This is the conflict of interest between Sun Yanxiang and Zhang Shao. In addition, the year before last, Sun Yanxiang and Zhang Shao competed for Jinling Mansion Yin, and Zhang Shao was the first, but Sun Yanxiang, under Chen Qiao's planning, engaged a Wenchen to lead the army and served as the commander of the city guards.

No wonder the city guards are so thin. It's no wonder that when chatting with Chen Qiao for the first time, Chen Qiao didn't pay attention to what Li Congyi said. In Chen Qiao's concept, fighting a war is to find a few generals who are not afraid of death and can fight, and then recruit a group of soldiers who are not afraid of death and can fight, then OK. So why can't Wenchen lead the troops? As long as Wenchen can recognize and employ people, and select some generals who are not afraid of death and can fight.

That's not the secret that Tang Puze said.

But it involved the two envoys of the Southern Tang Dynasty, Xu Xian and Xu Kai, two brothers, known as "Jiangdong Erxu".

Xu Xian and Xu Kai are from Yangzhou, when they were young, they entered Beijing to catch the exam, passed through Runzhou, and Zhang Shao met together, the three of them cherished each other, smelled like, when they arrived in Jinling, the Xu brothers invariably fell in love with the same courtesan, and when the list was released, the Xu brothers were in high school, and Zhang Shao was not in it. Unexpectedly, the courtesan was pregnant, and the two Xu brothers were the title of the gold list, how could they cause such a dirty thing. Zhang Shao ransomed the courtesan and brought it back to Runzhou as a concubine, it was Zhang Bin. It is said that Zhang Bin is not Xiao Zhang Shao, but looks like Xu Kai.

It's just that this kind of thing must be exposed by the parties involved, otherwise how can others know. However, Zhang Shao participated in the scientific examination three years later, and met Sun Yanxiang, the son of the former prime minister, and the two were both in high school, so they walked quite close. is Sun Yongning and Zhang Bin, who used to be fox friends who played Red Mansion together. It's just that Sun Yongning, the son-in-law, is always missing a string in his head, and one day somehow shook out the fact that Zhang Bin was not Zhang Shao's biological son, and this time he became a mortal enemy.

No wonder Chen Qiao did not hesitate to let go of Zhang Shao and Zhang Bin father and son that day, and Sun Yanxiang also had nothing to say, it turned out that the roots were here. It is no wonder that Sun Yanxiang, as the son of the former prime minister, has a lot of difficulties in his career, and it turns out that half of the "credit" falls on Sun Yongning's son.