Fang Guozhen was suspicious by nature and did not dare to live in Taizhou City. He built a huge water fort near the harbor. He had more than 70,000 men and horses, all of whom lived in the water fort.
The water village is divided into an outer perimeter, an inner perimeter and a boat. Only the thirty-odd old pirates with the highest status can freely enter Fang Guozhen's boat, and the rest can only enter with permission.
Zhang Mingjian had just joined the ship, so he was naturally not qualified to enter the ship. However, compared with others, he was already highly appreciated by Fang Guozhen, and he was arranged to live in the inner circle as soon as he joined the ship.
Also joining him were Liu Ju and Chang Yuchun.
When the three of them fled Jiangdu, they met on the way to Taizhou. Chang Yuchun wanted to kill Zhang Mingjian, but Liu Ju stopped him.
Liu Ju actually resented Zhang Mingjian, but since both of them were in such a situation, they felt sorry for each other, so he planned to team up with Zhang Mingjian and seek refuge with Zhang Jiusi.
Unexpectedly, Zhang Jiusi not only rejected the three, but also sent people to hunt them down. The three fled all the way to Tongzhou, mixed into a cargo ship heading south, and arrived in Taizhou.
Both Liu Ju and Zhang Mingjian had heard of Fang Guozhen for a long time, so they wanted to seek refuge with Fang Guozhen. Chang Yuchun had no choice but to follow him.
As a result, after the three of them joined the Fang Army, Fang Guozhen had a rule on the ship, and everyone on board had to try their skills.
After the first try, Liu Ju and Zhang Mingjian were fine. Chang Yuchun's martial arts was an eye-opener for Fang Jun. Among the dozen generals under Fang Guozhen, none of them could beat Chang Yuchun.
Fang Guozhen later personally fought against Chang Yuchun, but the result was not as good as it was. Overjoyed, he directly appointed Chang Yuchun as the governor, and also made Liu Ju and Zhang Mingjian captains of thousands.
Since then, the three of them have lived inside the water village.
Zhang Mingjian and Liu Ju were both ambitious people. After they became captains, they often developed personal relationships with other captains.
The two took full advantage of Chang Yuchun's position as governor and invited the captains to drink in Chang Yuchun's house.
After going back and forth, he quickly integrated into Fang Guozhen's army.
On this day, the two invited nine more captains to drink, while Chang Yuchun taught marksmanship outside the house.
I had just finished practicing a set of marksmanship when I suddenly heard the sound of footsteps and saw Li Desun coming with a group of soldiers, his face full of murderous intent.
Chang Yuchun was shocked and stepped forward and asked: "General Li, why did you bring so many people here?"
Li Desun glared at him and said, "I'm not here to find you!" He led the people past Chang Yuchun, came to the door, and kicked the door open with a bang.
Seeing the situation inside, Li Desun sneered and said: "You are in such a good mood that you are still drinking here! Zhang Mingjian, come out!"
Chang Yuchun followed them to the door and heard that they were heading towards Zhang Mingjian, so he did not intervene again.
When Zhang Mingjian saw Li Desun's eyes looking fierce and murderous, he felt cold in his heart and said: "General Li, I, Zhang Mingjian, have been loyal to the governor since I surrendered. You..."
"Stop talking nonsense, I'll say it again, let you come out!" Li Desun interrupted.
Zhang Mingjian thought: "I have no enmity with Li Desun. He has no reason to kill me. He could only come here on Fang Guozhen's order." He felt sad and said loudly: "If you want me to die, you must give me a reason!"<
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Li Desun said with a grim smile: "Unfortunately, the rule here is that whoever the governor wants to die must die without asking for a reason!"
Zhang Mingjian had a stern expression on his face and shouted to the other thousands of households: "Brothers, Fang Guozhen doesn't regard us as human beings at all. We killed Fang Guozhen together and took turns being the governor of water transportation. What do you think?"
Li Desun laughed, glanced at the thousands of captains, and said with a smile: "I think his proposal is good, do you want to consider it?"
All the officers changed their faces and rushed out of the house quickly, kneeling at Li Desun's feet and saying in unison: "We are loyal to the governor and have no different intentions!"
Li Desun shouted: "Everyone, get out!"
As if they had received amnesty, everyone left without looking back.
Now only Liu Ju was left in the house. Zhang Mingjian looked at him and sighed: "Brother Liu, I will definitely die today. You don't need to worry about me. Get out quickly."
Liu Ju didn't care about Zhang Mingjian's life or death, he was just confused about Fang Guozhen's reason for killing Zhang Mingjian.
If he and Zhang Mingjian come together, will it be his turn next?
Li Desun had no time to care about his thoughts and said coldly: "Liu Ju, do you want to go on the road with Zhang Mingjian?"
Liu Ju sighed, knowing that resisting would lead to death. He turned to look at Zhang Mingjian, wanting to say something, but finally shook his head and slowly left the room.
Zhang Mingjian pulled out the long knife from his waist and said sternly: "If you want to take my head, come and take it!"
Li Desun didn't look at him again, turned around and waved casually behind him, and a group of soldiers rushed in immediately.
There was a sound of tables and chairs overturning, followed by the sound of weapons clashing. Not long after, a soldier came out carrying Zhang Mingjian's head.
Li Desun took the head back to the boat and reported back to Fang Guozhen. Fang Guozhen said: "You take the head to Jiangdu immediately. If Zhang Yangquan offers any conditions, as long as they are not too excessive, I can agree to it!"
Li Desun accepted the order, put the head in a box, sprinkled it with lime powder, took four followers, and took a boat to go north along the sea route.
……
When Chen Ji and Fang Yuan arrived in Jiangdu, it was already the end of June.
The two of them had traveled to and from Jiangdu many times before, but they always came and went in a hurry and never paid close attention to the scenery of Jiangdu.
When they returned this time, their mentality was different. Jiangdu had become their own base camp. The two of them walked around on the way back, as if they were wanderers who had not returned home for a long time, and they both felt a little shy about being close to home.
Looking around, the fields are full of working people, there are an endless stream of people and horses on the official road, and there are also young ladies from wealthy families going out for an outing. It is a prosperous scene.
Both of them were quite emotional. They both heard about the capture of Jiangdu from Qian Luzi, and they all knew that it was not easy to get Jiangdu City.
Especially Fang Yuan, with joy mixed with regret, if he had not gone to Haozhou to buy weapons, he would have contributed to this great foundation now!
Before dark, the two of them rushed to the east gate and entered the city gate. The street was full of people and lively.
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When entering the city gate, Fang Yuan heard someone calling Qian Luzi Qian Hu, he laughed, patted Qian Luzi on the shoulder and said: "What a good boy, you are already a Qian Hu!"
Qian Luzi was very proud and said: "I'm not doing very well, like Brother Boar and Brother Monkey, they are already the Commander-in-Chief and Deputy Commander-in-Chief!"
Chen Ji asked: "How many troops are there in the village now?"
Qian Luzi said: "When I left, there were more than 30,000 people, and now there should be more! I'll go and ask!"
After holding on to a city gate soldier and asking for a long time, he learned that Jiangdu's army had nearly 40,000 soldiers and had recently captured Taixing and Tongzhou.
After hearing this, Fang Yuan felt scratchy in his heart and wished he could immediately lead the army to fight and make some contributions to the village.
The two of them walked eastward along the street and soon arrived at the Governor's Mansion, where they ordered someone to go in and report.
In the deputy general manager's office, Guo Niansheng was discussing matters with Guo Huan. He was overjoyed to learn that the two had returned, and was about to go out to greet them, but was stopped by Guo Huan.
"Uncle, the return of Uncle Fang and Uncle Chen is a big event. Even though the general manager and the head of the village are not here, we should summon the officials of the general manager's office to go out to greet them."
Guo Niansheng slapped his forehead and said with a smile: "Not bad, not bad, I almost overlooked it." Then he summoned all the civil servants in the General Manager's Mansion and went out to greet him.
Seeing Chen Ji and Fang Yuan outside the door, Guo Niansheng felt a sore nose and rushed over quickly.
"Brother Chen! Lao Fang! You are finally back, I'm so looking forward to it!" He hugged Fang Yuan tightly.
The civil servants had never seen Guo Niansheng lose his temper like this before, whispering to each other, but no one knew the origins of these two people.
Ma Yulin snorted and said: "It's office time now, but the deputy general manager asked us to greet these two people, who are probably the elders of Longtan Village."
Guo Huan glanced at him and said with a smile: "Ma Tuiguan hit the mark. One of them is the leader of the third village of Longtan Village, and the other one..."
Luo Guanzhong said: "It should be the famous Mr. Chen Ji."
Ma Yulin said with emotion: "It turns out to be him."
Chen Ji has traveled all over the country for many years and has a good reputation in the south and north of the Yangtze River. Otherwise, he would not have friends with Li Er, Guo Zixing and others.
At this moment, Guo Niansheng led the two of them over and introduced the officials to them respectively.
Fang Yuan only recognized Guo Huan. In the past, this boy couldn't speak clearly when he saw Qin Lingjun. Now he has become the county magistrate, and he is very energetic and completely different from before.
Chen Ji was well-informed and saw that there were many Yangzhou celebrities holding important positions in the governor's office. He couldn't help but be overjoyed and greeted Wang Meng, Ma Yulin and other celebrities.
After Guo Niansheng led the two people into the lobby of the general manager's office, Chen Ji asked: "Where are the military advisor and the leader of the village?"
Ma Yulin corrected him: "Mr. Chen, we should now call him the general manager and the chief instructor."
Fang Yuan felt that Ma Yulin was a little rude and glared at him.
Chen Ji didn't care, and laughed and said: "Yes, it's time to change the name."
Guo Niansheng smoothed things over and said: "The general manager and the chief instructor have gone to the countryside to inspect. The people are planting late rice. You should have seen it."
Fang Yuan asked happily: "Are they the rice seeds that the military advisor mentioned?"
Guo Niansheng smiled and said: "Exactly."
Ma Yulin suddenly stood up and said: "Deputy Manager Guo, Mr. Chen, I still have cases to deal with, so I won't accompany you."
He bowed his hands to several people and strode out of the lobby.
Luo Guanzhong is currently in charge of formulating commercial taxes in the city. He is extremely busy and has long wanted to leave. He is also afraid of being too rude and offending Guo Niansheng.
Now that Ma Yulin was taking the lead, he followed suit and said, "I'm leaving, too."
After the two of them left, other officials also left, including Wang Meng, Sun Hong and others. Only Guo Huan stayed.
Fang Yuan snorted and said: "Old Guo, where did you find such a scholar with his nostrils turned upward?"
Guo Niansheng smiled and said: "Don't think too much. This man's name is Ma Yulin, and he is a famous scholar in Yangzhou. He treats everyone like this. But this man is really capable. After we took over the General Manager's Office, there were countless backlogged cases in the office.
, everyone would have a headache after watching it, but he solved it in half a month!"
Chen Ji smiled and said: "This person has been called a strange boy since he was a child. He took part in the imperial examination at the age of twenty-one and won first place in the provincial examination, first place in the provincial examination, and third place in the imperial examination!"
Fang Yuan laughed and cursed: "His grandma turned out to be a prostitute, no wonder he has such a bad temper!"