Chapter four hundred and seventy-ninth underground palace
When Chen Qing rushed to the General Manager's Mansion, the battle in the General Manager's Mansion was over, but Ren Dejing disappeared mysteriously. The soldiers searched the mansion three times but failed to find Ren Dejing.
"Is there a tunnel to escape from the General Manager's Mansion?" Chen Qing asked.
Yang Zaixing hurriedly said: "I am searching, but so far no tunnel leading to the outside has been found."
"Where's the underground palace?"
Chen Qing thought of the underground palace where silver bullion was stored, "Could he be hiding in the underground palace?"
"Reporting to the capital, the entrance to the underground palace is under the rockery. The rockery needs to be moved away to expose the entrance to the underground palace. However, the rockery has not been moved. It is obvious that Ren Dejing did not enter the underground palace."
At this time, the soldiers brought in a little maid and reported: "To the commander-in-chief, this little maid said she may know something about it!"
Chen Qing saw that the little maid was a little scared, so he squatted in front of her and said with a smile: "If you can tell me the exact news, I will reward you with ten taels of silver and send you home immediately!"
The little maid's eyes lit up and she said timidly: "At that time, I was hiding in a cabinet in the inner study, leaving a crack to look outside. I saw the chief steward also fleeing into the inner study, and then got into the ground."
Chen Qing asked again: "Is there a secret passage in the inner study?"
The little maid nodded.
Yang Zaixing frowned and said: "The inner study is the key place to search. I searched it myself and found nothing unusual!"
"You must not have searched his bed."
Yang Zaixing was startled, "I also checked the bed and found nothing abnormal."
Chen Qing quickly asked the soldier to take out a piece of silver, smiled and gave it to the little maid and said, "Take us to see it."
The little maid nodded obediently and led the way. After a while, she led everyone to the inner study. The inner study had two rooms, inside and outside. When entering the inner room, Chen Qing immediately realized that something was wrong. There was no window in the room.
There was only a large bed alone, occupying half of the room. There were quilts, mats and pillows on the bed.
Chen Qing searched around and found nothing unusual about the bed. Yang Zaixing suggested: "Or move the bed away!"
Chen Qing waved his hand, "There is probably a mechanism on the bed, so it's best not to force it!"
He looked expectantly at the little maid.
The little maid pointed to the center of the bed and said: "The chief steward was lying on the bed at that time!"
A tall and fat soldier lay down in the middle of the bed. After a moment, Chen Qing heard a low "click!" and immediately looked around, but did not find where the sound came from?
The little maid touched the wall beside the bed for a moment, then pressed hard, and a hole appeared on the wall. Inside the hole was a copper ring, embedded in the wall. Everyone's spirits were lifted, and everyone was attracted to the bed. It turned out that the mechanism was there.
On the wall, you have to lie on the bed for it to appear, which is really a lot of painstaking work.
"It seems like I need to twist this ring!" the little maid pointed at the copper ring and said.
Chen Qing reached in and twisted hard, only to hear a 'click!' sound. The soldier who was lying on the bed just now screamed and fell down. The bed turned into a movable board. Everyone quickly opened the movable board, and a big hole appeared.
It is about one foot deep, with thick mattresses underneath.
The soldier shouted from below: "Du Tong, everything is okay down there, there is a door over here!"
Standing aside, Sun Jiandao said: "I also heard that there are two underground palaces in the General Manager's Mansion, one is real and the other is fake. This should be the entrance to the real underground palace, and the one under the rockery outside is the fake underground palace."
"Let me go take a look first!"
Yang Zaixing pulled out his sword and jumped down, followed by several soldiers who also jumped down with torches.
Everyone walked in through an ajar door, and only heard a cry of exclamation from everyone. Not long after, they heard Yang Zaixing yelling and scolding and the sound of swords clashing, and then someone shouted: "Spare your life! Spare your life!"
The little maid was a little scared and said: "It's the steward's voice. General, can you let me go?"
Chen Qing nodded and said to the two soldiers: "Escort her home and don't scare her!"
The two soldiers left with the little maid. Soon, Yang Zaixing took a ladder and walked up. He reached out and pulled up a tall, fat middle-aged man who was bundled like a rice dumpling. The middle-aged man fell to the ground, his face turned pale with fear.
, paralyzed as mud, unable to speak a word.
Sun Jian whispered: "Du Tong, he is Ren Dejing!"
"Sun Jian, you bastard, I treat you badly, how dare you betray me!" Ren Dejing cursed.
Chen Qing waved his hand and said, "Take him out and wait for disposal!"
The soldiers blocked Ren Dejing's mouth with rags and dragged him out like a dead pig. Then Chen Qing held a torch and led Yang Zaixing and more than a dozen people into the underground palace.
The so-called underground palace is actually a wider and higher tunnel, built in a circle with bricks. The underground palace is very long, winding and winding for at least dozens of feet. There are large boxes piled on both sides. The soldiers pry open a large box.
The box brought out a heavy black cube. Chen Qing tried it and found that it weighed at least fifty kilograms.
This should be a rough silver ingot. The surface was oxidized and turned black, but it had to be confirmed. He and the soldiers moved more than a dozen black cubes back to the study.
Chen Qing attaches much greater importance to this batch of crude silver than Ren Dejing. One hundred thousand kilograms of crude silver ingots can be converted into 160 taels of silver. Even if there is loss after refining, there will be at least 1.5 million taels of silver, worth 7
One and a half million yuan was equivalent to one-twentieth of the annual tax revenue of the Northern Song Dynasty.
With this money, the soldiers' military salaries, the import of materials, and the development of the Hehuang Valley and Tao River Valley will greatly promote, laying a solid foundation for him to continue to recover the Shaanxi Road.
In the yard, Chen Qing confirmed that this batch of crude silver was the missing silver from the Guichuan Silver Mine. There was a clear storage record, totaling 100,000 kilograms and 500 large boxes.
But there are more than 100,000 catties of silver in the underground palace, and there are also a large amount of gold and silver jewelry, as well as jade, bronze and other items.
This is only part of the wealth, there is also a huge amount of grain, copper coins, cloth, porcelain, silk and tea cakes stored in several warehouses.
Why Ren Dejing wanted to separate himself and become emperor and imitate Xue Ju, the overlord of the Western Qin Dynasty, was because he had accumulated a lot of wealth and had the confidence to become emperor.
It was getting daylight, Huangzhou City had been completely occupied, eight thousand soldiers had become prisoners of war, and all twenty-three members of the Ren family, including Ren Dejing, were captured.
But Chen Qing was not in a hurry to deal with them. Ren Dejing's three sons and his brother Ren Zhongqun were still outside.
In the morning, Chen Qing received news that an army of three thousand people was approaching Huangzhou City from the west, about forty miles away from Huangzhou City.
This should be the 3,000 Xi'an troops led by Ren Dejing's eldest son, Ren Hua, who came to support Huangzhou.
Chen Qingdang immediately ordered Yang Zaixing and Gao Ding to lead 5,000 cavalry each to fight.
Ren Dejing's 20,000 troops are basically Han Chinese, and are fundamentally different from the Xixia foreign troops. The Xixia army, Chen Qing's most demanding ransom, cannot be used for his own use.
However, Ren Dejing's 20,000 troops can be collected for his own use, which will play a decisive role in the rapid expansion of Chen Qing's army.
All Chen Qing's orders to Yang Zaixing and Gao Ding were to accept surrender as much as possible.
Chen Qing handed over 8,000 reduced soldiers to Niu Gao for reorganization. Niu Gao led eight deputy commanders, eight heads of command, and five civilian officials to reorganize and reduce soldiers. In addition, there were 1,000 troops to assist.
The Xihe Army's reorganization and reduction of soldiers has formed a complete set of procedures, which mainly involves disbanding all eight thousand soldiers, reorganizing battalions, departments, teams, and teams, appointing new commanders and deputy commanders, and then promoting outstanding sergeants to serve as
Dutou, escort team, corps commander, Yuhou, ten generals and other section-level officers.
Three days after the formation of the new army, physical strength training and confrontation training began, especially confrontation training and various competitions, which played an important role in enhancing group identity.
Sajinping, about thirty miles west of Huangzhou City, is a forest and grassland area with a radius of dozens of miles, also called Xilieyuan. It is where Ren Dejing trained cavalry. Three thousand troops led by Ren Hua, the military envoy of Xi'an Prefecture,
Here the soldiers were attacked from the front and back by 10,000 Song Army cavalry.
The Xi'an Prefecture army was defeated. Twenty Song Army cavalry detachments surrounded and intercepted Ren Hua. Gao Ding shot him off his horse and killed him on the spot. Gao Ding used Ren Hua's head to recruit the soldiers. They watched and surrendered all the way, except for more than 300 people.
The enemy troops who wanted to break out desperately were killed by Yang Zaixing's order, and the remaining 2,650 enemy troops surrendered.
At the same moment when the siege of Xilieyuan broke out, Chen Qing came to the Xu family and visited Xu Hongtu, the old man of the Xu family.
This is when Hu Yanlei told him that the mother of the old man of the Xu family was the daughter of Dong Fei, the second generation leader of the Tubo clan in the Qingtang Dynasty. Xu Hongtu had lived in Tubo for fifteen years and had close relations with the leaders of the various Tubo tribes.
If Chen Qing wants to continue to capture Jishi Prefecture and Tao Prefecture, and to stabilize the border areas in the future, he will inevitably have to get along harmoniously with the Tubo and Qiang people.
Xu Hongtu welcomed Chen Qing into the distinguished guest hall, and the two of them took their seats respectively.
Chen Qing said with a smile: "Thanks to the Xu family's strong assistance in capturing Huangzhou this time, I have appointed Xu Pei to know the affairs of Huangzhou. I believe that he can restore order as soon as possible and eliminate Ren Dejing's poison to Huangzhou."
Xu Hongtu bowed and saluted: "Thank you for your trust in my son. I also believe that he will not let him down."
Chen Qing pondered for a moment and asked: "Does Senior Xu have any good suggestions for managing the Hehuang land?"