Luoyang City

Zhang Cai escorted the owner of the tavern and told Ma Yongcheng the results of the search in the temple fair town, only to get a fierce reprimand from Ma Yongcheng.

In the end, Ma Yongcheng felt that it would be useless to kill such a few little people, and it would ruin the reputation of himself and others in the local area, so he beat the boss and his buddies and others for a meal, and let them go back.

After learning that the person pretending to be the emperor had run away, Ma Yongcheng also knew that this errand was a mess, so he had to withdraw the lockdown order, take his subordinates and Zhang Cai, and return to the Jinyi Wei Hundred Households to report to Liu Jin.

At this time, it was already dawn, Liu Jin had just woken up, and he heard the little eunuch below say that Ma Yongcheng and Zhang Cai wanted to meet, so he came to the lobby, and after sitting down, the two of them came in.

After Ma Yongcheng came in, he just bowed down and gave a salute.

Zhang Cai knew that he had done the errand by himself, and he was so frightened that he bent his legs, knelt directly on the ground, and said prostrately: "Gong Liu, the lower officials have done the errand badly, and they beg Gong Liu to punish him!"

"Oh, tell me!" Liu Jin didn't have the slightest expression, and didn't let Zhang Cai get up, and said lightly.

Zhang Cai immediately lay on the ground and slowly said the search of the temple fair town, and after Liu Jin listened, he said noncommittally: "Well!

"Huh?" Zhang Cai thought that he would be punished by Liu Jin, but Liu Jin let himself go gently, and couldn't help but hear it wrong, raised his head in amazement, and looked at Liu Jin.

"What's the matter? Didn't you hear the old man's order clearly?" Liu Jin frowned impatiently and said coldly.

"Ah! Xia Guan knows, Xia Guan will get out!" Zhang Cairu was amnestied, but he didn't dare to get up and walk out, so he rolled out of this hall like a rolling gourd on the ground.

Liu Jin was amused by Zhang Cai's knowledge, and said: "This Zhang Cai is really a living treasure!"

"Hey, hey! Yes! Liu Gong!" Ma Yongcheng saw that Liu Jin's expression really didn't look like he was angry, and he immediately breathed a sigh of relief and said, "Liu Gong really doesn't blame this incident?"

"What's there to blame!" Liu Jin smiled lightly and said, "Since that person has repeatedly pretended to be the emperor, I want to appear next time! And this kind of person is not what we should be in charge of now, what we should do now is to hold this martial arts alliance well, and use this group of martial arts people to control the Central Plains martial arts in our hands!"

"Liu Gong, Yongcheng has a sentence, I don't know if to say it or not?" Ma Yongcheng heard Liu Jin's words, let out a sigh of relief, and then asked again.

"You and I are both close attendants of the emperor's side, and we haven't known each other for a day or two, so if you have anything to say, but it's okay to say it!" Liu Jin said slowly.

"Liu Gong, I, Wugang Gong, Zhang Yong, Qiu Ju, Luo Xiang, Wei Bin, and Dayong are all serving in front of His Majesty, controlling the entire inner court, and there are also many wings in the outer court! The hundred officials in the capital all call us eight people eight tigers, and we are really unparalleled in power! Since we have reached this point, why does Liu Gong still think about dominating the martial arts? What is the use of this?" Ma Yongcheng pondered the words and asked the doubts that had been held in his heart for a long time, " Moreover, most of the reckless people in the rivers and lakes do not know a single big word, they are vulgar and unbearable, and they are really different from us, so what is the use of coming?"

"Hehe, this question must have been held in your heart for a long time, right?" Liu Jin did not answer Ma Yongcheng's question first, but raised his eyes to look at Ma Yongcheng and asked slowly.

"Yes!" Ma Yongcheng knew that his interests with Liu Jin were actually the same, so he was more comfortable with Liu Jin than Zhang Cai.

"Then let me ask you, where do you think our current power comes from?" Liu Jin nodded when he heard this, and continued to ask.

"Naturally, it's Your Majesty!" Ma Yongcheng arched his hand and said, "Although he is a little stubborn today, it is precisely because he is stubborn that everything depends on the eight of us, which has made the status of the eight of us today!"

"That's good!" Liu Jin couldn't help but say happily when he saw that Ma Yongcheng was not confused, "Since you know that our power comes from the emperor, do you think the emperor can always be loyal to us?"

"Why can't you?" Ma Yongcheng nodded when he heard this.

"Have you forgotten Wang Zhi's old story?" Liu Jin asked coldly.

Ma Yongcheng was shocked when he heard this, and immediately reacted! This old thing about Wang Zhi that Liu Jin said was actually during the Chenghua period, when Wang Zhi, the power supervisor, was first a saint and a nobleman, and later, because of his good ability, he took charge of the 12 regiments and battalions, which opened a precedent for the forbidden army of this dynasty to be in charge of the ministers.

Later, Wang Zhi became more and more convinced, and Wang Zhi even led soldiers to fight with the Tatars, and won the battle. Emperor Chenghua took credit for Wang Zhi's talent and allowed him to sit in Liaodong.

It's just that later he was in Liaodong for a long time, far away from the core of central power, and someone impeached him in front of Emperor Chenghua, so he was relegated to Nanjing and disappeared!

Wang Zhi's talent and ability, among the Eight Tigers, can be compared, in fact, there are really few people!

And Wang Zhi's favor from Emperor Chenghua is also much more stable than that of the Eight Tigers from Emperor Zhengde.

However, in the end, because they were far away from the imperial court, they were gradually marginalized, and then lost their positions of power and ended bleakly. The lessons of the past, the teachers of the future, and the affairs of Wang Zhi, how can we not let the eight tigers who are now in full swing take it as a lesson?

"But the eight of us usually have someone who stays with His Majesty, and it is expected that it will not affect the Holy Family!" Ma Yongcheng thought for a long time, and then said again.

"You're too naïve! Yongcheng!" Liu Jin raised his eyebrows and said, "First of all, among the eight of us, there are people with ulterior motives, and it is impossible to have one heart from beginning to end!"

"Ah, how is it possible?" Ma Yongcheng asked, looking at Liu Jin in disbelief when he heard this.

"How is it impossible?" Liu Jin did not dwell on this question, but continued, "Besides, now that the emperor is young and is not greedy for power, he will naturally allow us to act! But when he grows up in the future and knows the wonderful use of power, do you think the emperor will still allow us to point fingers?"

"But with Your Majesty's temperament, it won't do anything to us!" Ma Yongcheng defended himself.

"But we will lose our rights!" Liu Jin's eyes flashed with a terrifying essence, and he said, "The emperor has grown up, and he needs power, so he will let the eight of us get out of the game and hand over the rights! But since the eight of us have been in trouble, we have already offended countless civil and military officials, and now that we are powerful, they can only bow down and pretend to be well-behaved! But when we lose power, hehe, Wang Zhi's old affairs will come! When the time comes, Wang Zhi can still go to Nanjing to retire, and the eight of us, but how many of us can keep the whole corpse, not necessarily!"

"No......" Ma Yongcheng, who was still a little unconvinced, turned pale with fright when he heard the consequences of losing power by himself and others, and his tone was no longer as firm as before.

"How could it not?" Liu Jin snorted coldly and said, "Those civil officials have a honey-bellied sword, one in front of them and one behind their backs, don't you have a lesson? When we lose our momentum, they will definitely besiege us in groups, and they will not give us the slightest way to live!"

"But even so, what does this matter of the court have to do with Liu Gong's control of the martial arts?" Ma Yongcheng asked suspiciously.

"The court and the martial arts are actually related!" Liu Jin said, "What's more, if we want to get a good death, if we want to continue to grasp the power, even the emperor can't take away our rights at will, we need to consolidate our current rights! Everything we have now is actually based on the emperor's trust, but even so, we can't insert many people in the civil official part, and we don't have a reliable army in the honorable military attaché part! When the holy family weakens, how do you think we can settle down?"

"This is the reason why Liu Gong proposed to take over as the general of the Hetao because of the wind?" The Yu Feng in Ma Yongcheng's mouth is the guerrilla Yu who participated in the last Chonggang defensive battle, this person is Liu Jin's cronies, and he can be regarded as the highest person in Liu Jin's family.

Although there were also some other generals who befriended Liu Jin, Liu Jin knew that those were just grass on the wall, and they were not obedient at all.

"That's right!" Liu Jin nodded with a smile and said, "The location of the Hetao is critical, and it is not very far from the capital! It was originally under the rule of the Heavenly King Sect, and the water could not be splashed in! Unexpectedly, Xu Zilong had such great ability, not only destroyed the Heavenly King Sect, but also controlled the Hetao Male Division! But this person's weakness is also obvious, that is, he must be loyal to the imperial court, hehe! As long as we make Yu Feng take over as the Hetao general in the name of the imperial court and master the Hetao Male Division, we will have an army to protect our lives!"

"That's right!" Ma Yongcheng nodded, although among the Eight Tigers, Wei Bin, Zhang Yong, and others were all commanders of the Beijing army! But whether it was Liu Jin or Ma Yongcheng, they all knew that most of the Beijing army was the sons of nobles serving as generals, and if the emperor gave the order, Wei Bin and Zhang Yong could not even control a single soldier, so this Beijing army could not be relied on.

At this time, when he heard that Liu Jin was plotting against the Hetao, it was actually to find an army for the Eight Tigers to echo the Eight Tigers outside, Ma Yongcheng couldn't help but admire Liu Jin very much.

"What about Wulin?" Ma Yongcheng thought about this question again, there is a large army in Hetao, and it is indeed a good move to send Yu Feng to control it.

However, the martial arts side is all scattered sects, even the beggar gangs that claim to have millions of gangs are distributed all over the country, and there are less than a thousand people at most in one place, what is the use of such forces?

"Chivalry violates the prohibition with martial arts, and Confucianism uses literature to mess with the law!" This has existed since ancient times!" Liu Jin proudly said his plan, "Although these so-called chivalrous warriors are all unruly and vulgar people, these people are more or less martial arts and extremely brave! If we can twist these people into a rope, I don't think it will be difficult to build a strong army! Since we can't get in on the side of the noble military attaché, then we will simply build up our own arms! As long as we have an army in hand, even the emperor will not easily move us in the future!"