Yu Desheng lay on the boat and looked back, but he could no longer see the city of Chongqing.
Chongqing must have been lost.
It's incredibly fast.
It can only be said that he was really lucky. Last night, because he missed the prosperity of Lin'an, he was not accommodated in the back office of the government office arranged by Ma Qian, so he went to the city alone to find a restaurant.
When he heard the noise in the city, he rushed to the government office and saw Zhang Jue leading a group of soldiers hurriedly past.
There were also people carrying Ma Qian’s head…
That scene gave Yu Desheng an extremely unreal feeling.
It's as if Zhang Jue is the guard general of Chongqing City.
And Ma Qian seems to be a fake Kuizhou Road pacifier. He controls the Ningjiang Army and Chongqing Prefecture. His prestige and power in the army are all exposed like lies.
Ridiculous.
The defense line that Ma Qian painstakingly built seemed to be a fortress built on quicksand. It was strong and beautiful. However, Li Xia and Zhang Jue did not attack it at all. They only dug the foundation and the fortress collapsed.
Why is the foundation missing?
"Because these warriors are rotten to the core!"
Yu Desheng felt angry.
He used to be angry that the Song Dynasty civil servants were greedy for money, so he vowed to devote his whole life to helping Jia Sidao implement public land laws.
Now I am angry that the general of the Song Dynasty is afraid of death. The rebels are coming to kill him, but everyone only knows how to protect themselves and wait for the wind to fall. Only few dare to rise up and resist.
Unexpectedly, the Sichuan and Sichuan soldiers were so rotten that the foundation was rotten and the fortress would naturally collapse as soon as it was dug.
After this great defeat, it was already more difficult to check and balance Li Xia in the military affairs.
Even Ma Qian and his son couldn't deal with Li Xia. Now, who can challenge this Shu general in terms of talent and prestige?
It can only be said that there are no heroes who made Shuzi famous...
With these thoughts in mind, Yu Desheng knew that he was unable to restore the situation in Shu. After much deliberation, it was better to return to Lin'an to ask Jia Sidao for a decision.
Suddenly, a horn sounded from behind.
Yu Desheng looked back and was shocked.
I saw more than ten large and small warships coming along the river.
"Zhang Jue actually sent so many people to hunt me down?!"
He secretly groaned inwardly and quickly asked the boatman to paddle towards the south bank.
This situation and scene seem familiar.
It was actually the same as when I was fleeing in Chengdu, only more embarrassed...
Shi Zheng stood on the bow of the boat holding his knife, feeling majestic. He turned around and looked around, as if he was looking after Zixiong.
I couldn't help but feel proud when I thought that I was only fifteen years old, but I had already followed Zhang Jue to put down the Ma Qian Rebellion.
"Uncle, are we going to recapture Fuzhou?"
Shi Jin was looking at the boats moving out of the way on the river, and responded casually: "Don't say 'recover', it sounds like the rebels have captured Fuzhou. We are just going to suppress Fuzhou to see if there are any blind people." I want to follow Ma Qian in rebellion."
"Oh." Shi Zheng said: "By the way, Deputy Commander Zhang interrogated several of Ma Qian's men and said that there was a gentleman from Lin'an who was following Ma Qian these days. Why didn't Deputy Commander Zhang give the order to arrest that gentleman? ?”
"What are you catching for? We are fighting, not government servants."
"Of course we want to find out who instigated Ma Qian's rebellion." Shi Zheng said matter-of-factly: "This is a big deal."
Shi Jin was too lazy to pay attention to this innocent boy.
Even he knew some things well.
Big shit.
Who directed Ma Qian's rebellion? What's there to find out?
Of course, he is the foolish king who forced Commander Yu to death and wrongfully accused Commander Pu... No, it was the new king who was even more foolish.
As for Deputy Commander Zhang, how can he have time to search for a scholar?
When we arrive in Lin'an, won't we catch a lot of those traitorous officials?
"uncle?"
"Why do you keep making noises to me?"
"You haven't said yet why Deputy Commander Zhang doesn't do this big deal."
Shi Jin slapped Shi Zheng's helmet and cursed: "Since I agreed to join the army, I will call you 'general'. There is no uncle of yours in the army."
"yes!"
"If you have nothing to do, don't listen to some storytelling. Big eucalyptus, big eucalyptus, there are so many big eucalyptus. Spring plowing is about to begin, and Deputy Commander Zhang is busy..."
That day, the west wind was strong, and more than ten warships were fully loaded with sails. They took advantage of the power of the river and headed straight to Fuzhou at a very fast speed.
Taking shelter in a small boat by the river, Yu Desheng lowered his head and turned his back to the center of the river. He waited until the boats had gone far before letting the boatman set off again.
He was very happy in his heart, and said that thanks to his quick wit and good luck, he had been able to escape the pursuit and arrests sent by Zhang Jue one after another.
Presumably Li Xia returned from spying in the North, and that was nothing more than that.
The boat continued to sail to the south of the Yangtze River.
Just go with the flow.
"In the seven hundred miles from the Three Gorges, there are mountains on both sides, with no gaps... Sometimes I will go to Baidi in the morning, and I will go to Jiangling in the evening. During this period of one thousand two hundred miles, I can ride on the wind and ride on it, but I will not be sick."
Yu Desheng's journey from Chongqing to Ezhou was smooth and smooth. It took him eight days and finally arrived in Ezhou on February 23.
The Ezhou wharf was busy, and people could be seen everywhere loading grain, grass, and weapons onto warships, making preparations for dispatching troops.
Yu Desheng walked through the busy and lively streets and finally felt the urban atmosphere that he had not seen for a long time.
Different from the wasteland of Sichuan and Sichuan, in the city on the south bank of the river, the people can live a life. Businessmen, workers, and civilians in the city walk on the long streets, entertain and play, and are separated from the fields.
Yu Desheng likes this kind of people. They are not as numb as the Shu people, and their faces are more vivid.
All the way into the government office, I met Lu Wende.
After describing everything that happened in Chongqing Mansion, Yu Desheng closed his eyes and was ready to listen to Lu Wende's foul language and curses.
One can imagine how furious Lu Wende would be.
His son-in-law Fan Wenhu was beaten to death by Li Xia just above the main hall, which was really a shame for him in his life.
How can it be done without revenge?
However, the hall was quiet for a long time.
"Shuai Lu?" Yu Desheng finally couldn't hold it back and repeated it again, "Chongqing Mansion is lost."
"What do you want me to say?"
Lu Wende gritted his teeth and squeezed out the words almost word by word.
His face was already flushed.
Where Yu Desheng looked, he saw veins popping out on Lu Wende's hands, so he had no choice but to lower his head and look at the big feet like a boat.
"I planned to leave for Shu in the next two days... Before I could raise my troops, Ma Qian had already lost Chongqing... What more could I say?"
"This... is indeed too fast." Yu Desheng responded, "If Commander Lu can march to Wanzhou in a hurry..."
"Wanzhou is a piece of shit!"
Lu Wende didn't want to speak at first, but he was finally angered by Yu Desheng.
"The pacifiers on Kuizhou Road have been dead for ten days. How can I go up the Yangtze River and march to the Three Gorges? I will give you an army of 300,000. You go and try to fight! If you can't fight, I will tear you apart.
How are you?!"
The saliva splashed all over Yu Desheng's face.
He still felt his heart trembling when he thought about the steep terrain along the way and passing through the Badong Three Gorges with "overlapping rocks and mountains, hiding the sky and blocking out the sun".
The Three Gorges suddenly became a natural chasm between the imperial court and the rebels...
In late spring in March, the orioles in the south of the Yangtze River are flying and the grass is growing.
Lin'an.
Jia Pingzhanggong, who had just been given the title of "Pingzhang's Military and State Affairs", was sitting on the Grand Master's chair, his expression unchanged from the beginning to the end.
After Yu Desheng spoke, he gradually felt a cold feeling on his back.
He hoped that Mr. Ping Zhang would stop staring at him with that look.
If Lu Wende's anger was like the scorching sun, today Ping Zhanggong's anger was like thousand-year-old ice, which made Yu Desheng shiver.
"Tell me, on what day did Li Xia capture Chongqing?"
Yu Desheng did not dare to say, but he still responded: "The student only knows that Zhang Jue killed Ma Qian the night after Li Xia entered Hezhou. Calculating this, it only took two days... As for Kuizhou after that,
How was it going in various places along the way? The student was already...already...by the way, when the student passed through Fuzhou, Fuzhou had already fallen into the hands of Li Xia."
"Have you met Lu Wende?"
"Yes, Lu Shuai said...the Three Gorges is so dangerous that he really has no way to get over it."
In fact, Yu Desheng believed that if Lu Wende could send troops as soon as possible, regardless of whether Li Xia had control of the entire Kuizhou Road when he arrived at the Badong Three Gorges, the situation would be better than later.
Not sending troops will only allow Li Xia to gain a stronger foothold in Badong.
However, as a staff member, he did not have the power to issue orders to Lu Wende.
It's the left prime minister, oh, Pingzhang Gong. It's Pingzhang Gong who holds the world's military and political power. He has the power to mobilize troops, but the power to command the troops still lies with the local generals. If Lu Wende really doesn't want to take the risk to attack the Three Gorges, he can't.
Can't force each other.
Yu Desheng did not think that he was to blame for these things.
He was ordered to enter Shu, and his duty was only to persuade Ma Qian to deal with Li Xia and provide information about Chengdu, but now it was too involved and he had to defend himself.
"The reason why Li Xia was able to surrender the Chongqing soldiers so quickly was because the imperial court did not declare that he had conspired to rebel. If the imperial court issued an imperial edict, I think..."
"Go." Jia Sidao suddenly said, "Go to the Procuratorate and have a listen."
Yu Desheng didn't know what to listen to.
He followed the two minor officials into the procuratorate. From a distance, he heard someone in the hall making a speech.
"Today, there are many generals who are fearful, guarding wealth, and greedy for their own enrichment! But Commander Li Jie is not like that. He is clean and honest in his daily life. He serves himself to the utmost, shares the joys and sorrows with his subordinates, and maintains the strictest discipline in the army. No one dares to commit any crime in the autumn.
. When approaching a battle, you risk losing a stone, and you lead the way for the soldiers, destroying the elite and attacking the sharp ones. If you are victorious, you don’t know who you are, and you are loyal and loyal to the country. Since you are in charge of the country’s laws, how can you harm your loyal ministers?!”
"..."
Yu Desheng had already walked into the hall and looked at the person who was speaking. He saw that he was a middle-aged official with a square face that was extremely square. He must be Jiang Chun.
He had heard Jiang Chun's name mentioned by a minor official and knew that he came to An'an to seek an official position for Li Xia.
As for what Jiang Chun said just now, about "sharing the joys and sorrows with the highest regard for oneself", as military generals like to win over the morale of the military, isn't this the ironclad evidence that Li Xia wants to rebel?
Jiang Chun did it on purpose. The words he said were exactly what people at the time said about Yue Fei, and they were also one of the causes of Yue Fei's death.
The principle of self-destruction and self-defense was taught to military generals in the world by Wang Jian more than a thousand years ago. When Wang Jian went to conquer Chu, he kept asking the King of Qin for fertile land, beautiful houses and gardens.
Yue Fei doesn't understand?
He understands.
However, he relies on his talent and refuses to hide himself.
Li Xia doesn’t understand?
He understands.
However, his bones are too hard and he has to challenge the imperial court.
There is no taboo to avoid.
…
"Cheng Yuanfeng falsely accuses Commander-in-Chief of treason. This is the injustice of this hero. And Ma Qian..."
"Jiang Zaiyang! Are you finished yet?!"
"Today I just ask you, since Cheng Yuanfeng has taken the blame, why does the court still not punish Ma Qian? Why doesn't the court clear up Li Jieshuai's innocent name?!"
"clean?"
Someone among the officials who were arguing with Jiang Chun stepped forward and shouted: "Li Xia doesn't want to rebel? Remember that he was in Qingfu County, Wei, and raised private soldiers? Remember that he married a wife from a different race and forged his place of origin? Remember that he had no edicts?"
Is it reasonable to send troops to Longxi? Do you remember that he sneaked through the Mongolian nobles in the pass?"
"That's right! If so, wouldn't it be counterproductive?!"
"Cheng Yuanfeng takes the blame because he is authoritarian and good at governing, not because he wrongly accused Li Xia..."
At this time, Jiang Chun discovered that Jia Sidao had sent someone, and suddenly laughed loudly, shook his sleeves, raised his head with his hands behind his hands, and said proudly: "Then you will ask the officials to issue an edict to convict Li Jieshuai."
.”
"When I dare not wait..."
The clerk who had just brought Yu Desheng here suddenly came up to those officials and whispered a few times.
Occasionally, a few words came out faintly.
"...Chongqing...not for the time being...but long-term planning..."
The expressions of everyone in the hall suddenly changed.
The officer's unfinished words were swallowed hard.
"Since you dare, then declare an edict to the world and convict Li Jieshuai." Jiang Chun sneered.
He had obviously received the news from Chongqing, but when no one responded, he became even more proud.
The square face looks higher and higher.
"It's useless to talk more. If you don't convict me, then let's discuss it. Why should you not reward meritorious service?!"