The southern suburbs of Jingyang City, the capital of the Dayu Emperor, the general rudder of the Loyal and Righteous League.

The afternoon sun was bright and warm, and Xue Youyou sat alone in the hall, slowly sipping tea, while looking at the green bamboo by the courtyard wall through the half-open window, which was slightly swayed by the cold winter wind.

And at this moment, her thoughts are like those bamboo branches swaying in the wind, chaotic.

This morning, she had been discussing with several hall masters of the Loyalty League a piece of news she had just received.

The main rudder and the deputy rudder master of Quanzhou fell out of harmony for some reason, so that they fought hard. As a result, the helmsman was seriously injured, and the injured deputy helmsman saw that the situation was not good, so he fled and disappeared.

As a matter of fact, there have been several similar incidents in the southern parts of the rudder recently. The main reason for this is that the fundamental interests of some people in the alliance have been damaged, and as a result, people's minds are unstable and they have different aspirations.

Because in the past, when Haoxing Xiaoqi was the emperor, the Dayu court could be said to spare no effort to persecute the Yin people. And the Loyal Alliance, as its most effective accomplice and thug, has actually gained a lot of benefits from this evil government.

At that time, if you capture or kill a hermit alive and hand it over to the government, you will receive a rich reward. But the real money came from the vast amount of looting from the slain hermits.

At that time, when the imperial court first began to expel and massacre the hermits, it naturally started from the north where the capital and the Zhongyi League were entrenched, so many hermits fled to the south in order to avoid trouble.

After that, the black hand of the imperial court extended further to the south, and specially sent a hermit envoy to supervise the local government to track down and kill the hermit.

At the same time, the power of the Loyal Alliance gradually expanded to the south. With the cooperation of the two, the ruthless killing and plundering of the southern hermits began.

This went on for decades, but suddenly, Dayu had changed the world.

Haoxing Xiaoqi announced his abdication, and the new monarch Leng Yiqing ascended the throne, and immediately issued an edict to completely prohibit any persecution of the hermits.

Now that the bad government has been abolished, the government is just missing a rather headache errand, and of course they are secretly glad to be happy.

But as a result, the people in the southern part of the League have lost a major source of income and have to find another way to make money.

However, all along, these people who split the rudder in the south, from top to bottom, have long been accustomed to living by absorbing the blood of the Yin people. Now that the road is not working, they cannot find a better way to earn large sums of money so easily.

What's more, the leader of the alliance, Xue Youyou, has issued a strict order, if anyone in the Loyal Alliance violates the gang rules such as doing evil and bullying the weak, they will be severely punished.

In this way, those who have crooked thoughts and want to find another way feel constrained and dare not act rashly.

Seeing that life is getting worse and worse, everyone's resentment is naturally accumulating deeper and deeper.

In the midst of these southern divisions, various internal strife began to arise, and some people simply broke away from the Loyalty League and set up separate doors.

After realizing the seriousness of the situation, the helmsman of the Loyal League has sent people to solve and pacify him, and negotiated with the local government to try to provide more opportunities for the rudders to run legitimate business. However, in the short term, it may be difficult to see the effectiveness of these measures.

At the same time, there are many differences of opinion among the hall masters as to how to completely solve this increasingly serious problem.

Xiubo, the director of Liushuitang, who is in charge of the money and grain of the Zhongyi League, believes that the reason why this situation is currently happening is that on the surface it seems to be a problem of money, but the root cause is still a problem of people.

Most of the state capitals in the south were originally land of fish and rice, and they were relatively wealthy. It is only because of the many bad governments of the previous dynasty that the land is barren and the people are not able to make a living.

Today, the new monarch has ascended the throne and implemented new policies to encourage farming and reduce taxes. After a period of recuperation, the south should gradually regain its vitality and prosperity.

And some of the people in the south, especially those in power, have long been accustomed to making money from the hermits.

One by one, they do not want to make progress, and they have no intention of engaging in other legitimate businesses that require great effort and effort, but they fight with each other for a small profit, which causes all kinds of chaos.

Therefore, in order to solve this problem once and for all, the chief rudder can, on the one hand, send people to supervise and assist the southern rudder in developing some legitimate business, and on the other hand, it should start to adjust the principal and deputy rudder owners of each rudder one by one, and eliminate those black sheep among them.

Compared with Guan Xiubo's slightly more radical idea, Wan Hengjiang's proposal to enforce the law in the Criminal Hall is more extreme.

He believed that a special envoy should be sent to all the rudders in the south to conduct a serious inventory, and that if a problematic rudder was discovered, all the main and deputy rudder owners should be recalled to the chief rudder and subjected to strict interrogation and questioning. Once the problem is verified, they will be dealt with immediately in accordance with the gang rules.

Regarding the opinions of Guan Xiubo and Wan Hengjiang, Jing Yuanshu, the head of the Chuying Hall, who was in charge of the appointment, dismissal and transfer of personnel in the Zhongyi League, disagreed.

He believes that the Loyal Alliance has suffered a series of major blows recently, from the assassination of the left deputy alliance leader, to the escape of Shen Qingluo, the head of Shunfeng Hall, after being confirmed to be a spy of the northerners, and then to the serious injury of the new deputy alliance leader Gu Ning in Beirong, and it is not known whether he will be able to recover in the end.

Therefore, at this time, it should be normal for people to be unstable in the alliance.

In the face of this grave situation, it is really not advisable for the chief rudder to take any more drastic measures, so as to cause panic among the rudders below and further aggravate the situation.

In the opinion of the alliance leader Xue Youyou, Guan Xiubo's view is more practical, and Wan Hengjiang's approach is more effective, but Jing Yuanshu's ideas must not be ignored. Because once the situation gets out of control, it is likely that the Loyalty Alliance will fall apart.

All the issues involved in this must be carefully weighed by she, the leader of the Loyalty Alliance. In a short period of time, it is difficult to find a very practical and effective solution.

So at this moment, although he has returned to the quiet courtyard where he lives alone, Xueyu's heart is still difficult to really calm down.

Just as she was sitting alone, drinking the tea that had become cold without knowing the taste, and her heart was still troubled by the chaos in the alliance, a plain-clothed woman quietly walked in from outside the door.

She went straight to the front of Xue Youyou, bent her knees, and knelt down with a "plop".

It wasn't until this moment that Xue Youyou suddenly came back to her senses.

After being slightly stunned, she hurriedly stretched out her hand to help Shui Xinying, who was kneeling in front of her, up from the ground.

But Shui Xinying shook her head lightly, still stubbornly kneeling there.

"Xinying, what's wrong with you? If you have something to say to your teacher, you should get up and say it again, you don't have to be so formal!"

Hearing Master's voice was extremely gentle, and there was a sense of concern between the words, Shui Xinying's heart couldn't help but feel a sourness.

She lowered her head slightly and said in a low voice, "Master——, disciple came today to ask Master for your guilt!"

Xue Youyou was silent for a moment before she sighed: "Xinying, you and Haoxing Mingrui have been in love for many years, but they have been suffering from separation. Among them, there are unshirkable responsibilities and mistakes for teachers!

That obsession not only makes you regret being a teacher for life, but also causes you to miss several years of beauty. You kept all this from me at the beginning, and it was really a last resort. How can I blame you for being a teacher?"

"Master!"

Tears finally welled up in Shui Xinying's eyes, she grabbed one of her master's hands, choked up, and said, "No matter what, the disciple has done a lot of things behind your back. This is really against the oath that the disciple made to the master at the beginning of his entry, and it is even more worthy of the trust and love that you have given to the disciple over the years!"

"Silly girl!"

Xue Youyou patted Shui Xinying's hand lightly, and a slightly bitter smile appeared on her face, "If it weren't for you who once carried me behind my back and did so many things, I'm afraid that I would feel more regret and anxiety for my teacher today!"

Hearing that the master actually called each other with the affectionate nickname she had when she first entered the master's door many years ago, the tears in Shui Xinying's eyes couldn't help but flow more urgently, she held the master's hand tightly, choking and couldn't make a sound.

"After Prince Ding told me everything about you and Mingrui, while being ashamed of himself, he was happy for the two of you!

I thought that I couldn't let you go on like this again, and I should let Mingrui hurry up to the door to propose. But now that the new monarch has just been established, and the situation is not stable, presumably he, the hypothetical prince, will continue to pretend to be for a while, and I am afraid that he will not have time to be distracted to take care of your own affairs for the time being.

Therefore, it is not good for me, as a master, to act too anxious, to urge him to hurry up and marry my favorite apprentice of Xue Youyou!"

As soon as the master said this kind of half-joking, half-spoiled words, Shui Xinying couldn't help blushing, hanging her head and not daring to let the master see it.

Xue Youyou patted her hand lightly again, and asked with a smile, "Xinying, are you going to kneel here like this all the time today, talking to the teacher?"

Shui Xinying heard this, but couldn't help but be slightly shocked, and finally raised her head with tears.

"Master, the disciple is here today, not only to ask you for sin, but also to bid you farewell!"