"Don't bother, I'll let you write three articles today!" the middle-aged scribe shouted loudly. Strangely enough, he was speaking with great energy at this moment, which swept away the tiredness of reading the newspaper, "You must open your eyes and see clearly.
Come on, these three coins are a big coin with a gold back, and the fineness of the four-fire brass is much better than your crappy tea soup!" After saying that, he threw the copper coins on the table, picked up the bookcase and hat, and walked away with his head held high.
.
About half an hour later, the young Gongsheng finished copying the newspaper, paid for the tea, and left the tea shop. The snow stopped now, and the afternoon sun revealed a few beams of light from the dense lead-colored clouds. He untied it and tied it beside the shop door.
I rode on the mule and walked along the muddy streets to the book market outside Daming Gate. After wandering around in the many bookstores, I turned to Nancheng and walked all the way to Damochang Street. I stopped from time to time to browse various bookstores and
Antique shops, and finally stopped at a paper shop called "Songzhuzhai", tied the mule in front of the door, and walked in.
This paper shop is small, and its windows imitate some of the latest wealthy households and large business houses in the capital. They use wooden panes sandwiched with small pieces of glass. The natural light that penetrates reflects the calligraphy and paintings hanging on the four walls. The glass
The papers, books, and toys displayed in the counter were quite elegant. A waiter had already come forward to greet him: "Does this husband want to use paper? I don't know whether it is Shandanqing or Linchi. The shop has some Kaihua rattan paper. Jingxian County
Lian Si, Songjiang Tan Jian, if you use letter writing, there is also Xue Tao's Jian, Suzhou Jin Jian, if you want to write scriptures, our shop has self-made porcelain blue paper, although it is not as good as Xuande's sheep brain paper, it is not far away...
"
"A month ago, a painting was sent to Guizhai for framing," the young man asked, "has it been finished?"
"Oh, it turns out to be Mr. Li. Please forgive me for being ignorant and disrespectful." The clerk raised the back curtain, "The painting has been framed, of course. Please move to the back hall to take a look."
The back room of the store is a flower hall for entertaining distinguished guests. It is also equipped with glass panes and looks bright and elegant. The waiter did not stop here and led "Mr. Li" through the verandah near the side wall and walked straight back. The second entrance to the courtyard was already occupied.
Transformed into a workshop, work such as mounting calligraphy and paintings, binding ancient books, printing and dyeing paper, etc. are all done here. Craftsmen come and go, and it is very lively. But as soon as you enter the courtyard, it becomes deserted. Different from the buildings in the front yard, everything in this courtyard
The windows of the house were all taped tightly with black felt paper, so no light could shine through. There were two guards standing in front of the door leading from the verandah to the third courtyard. The shop assistant stopped here and said, "Here comes Li Ya."
A guard turned in to report, and soon led "Mr. Li" into a study room in the back room. There was an Australian-style cast iron fireplace placed against the wall in the room, and the light from the coal fire in the furnace was added to the study.
The kerosene lamp on the upper desk illuminated a man wearing a three-spindle fine preacher's robe and a net scarf, who was sitting at the desk reading a volume of documents.
Even if Lin Baiguang came to this room, it would be difficult for him to recognize his founding disciple immediately. His long-term hidden life in the Ming Dynasty made Gao Di "Ming-oriented" at least in his clothes, appearance and gestures. Leng Ningyun's incident caused
Delong's identity as the cover of the Beijing Intelligence Station was completely exposed, and the Liansheng Escort Bureau was also partially exposed. Seeing that the intelligence work in the capital was in danger of being completely paralyzed, the Foreign Intelligence Bureau made major adjustments to the intelligence work network in the capital.
Heliansheng, Delong and other brands have completely withdrawn from the intelligence work sequence and are only responsible for "making money" and providing "support" when necessary. All intelligence collection work will be taken over by a specialized intelligence network.
The backup capital intelligence point in this network was urgently activated, namely the "Songzhuzhai" paper shop. After the Leng Ningyun incident, the Senate decided that sending senators to Beijing, which is extremely dangerous, was not worth the gain. However, the capital's intelligence was crucial, and at least it had to be
A senior naturalized civilian cadre was in charge. Therefore, Gao Di was transferred to Beijing to take charge of Songzhuzhai and became the general person in charge of the entire underground network in the capital.
Although Gao Di is from Cantonese, he has worked for the intelligence department for a long time, received professional training, and can speak quite standard Mandarin. As for a slight Cantonese accent, it is not a big problem. The capital itself is a place where all directions are mixed. Guangdong
There are also not a few people who work as officials, study and do business locally.
The New Capital Station uses two channels to collect intelligence. In addition to continuing to develop underground informants; the other is to use the paper shop business of "Songzhuzhai" to try to hook up with the eunuchs of the inner court to purchase waste paper from the Forbidden City. There are a lot of questions in it.
For copies and transcripts of imperial edicts, intelligence personnel have to dig out the "gold" from this pile of "sand". What Gao Di is looking at are two copies of the "gold" that he just took out, one of which is the edict.
Transcript: The imperial edict was issued to build a thousand households with brocade clothes and guards, and Zheng Hongkui (Zheng Zhifeng), a Jinshi of Dingchou Kewu, came to the palace to report the matter; the other copy was sent to the ministers of the six ministries and the six subjects in early February to prepare for a court meeting on the matter of sending troops to challenge Kun.
.However, the gold rush in Shali was too accidental after all. The records of the memorial, the process of court discussions and the conclusion could not be found in the waste paper. Just when Gaudi was hesitating about this, Li Ya came.
He took the "Beijing News" from Li Ya's hand, flipped through it briefly and took out a few pages sandwiched in it. He was not in a hurry to open it and read it, but asked: "You saw Qingcheng, what happened?
"
Li Ya's Fujian Mandarin now turned into authentic Australian Newspeak, and he briefly talked about the morning's discussions: "'Qingcheng' finally hinted to me, asking for an increase in subsidies."
"How much does he want?"
"If I add another ten taels every month, I'll need Shanxi bills."
Gao Di raised his eyebrows slightly, this guy is really a big talker! The salary of a clerk in the Sixth Department is only three or four taels of silver for processing and food. As soon as he opens his mouth, he will add ten cars!
"That's a good idea. Let's see how much information this guy provides."
Li Ya hesitated for a while and then told his boss what he thought: "According to my observation, 'Qingcheng' seems to be drinking some kind of medicinal wine. The smell and color of the wine are similar to the energy I saw during the joint training of the Political Security Bureau."
The potion is very similar. No matter how he got it, he must have spent a lot of money. I think his sudden request for more subsidies is probably related to this thing."
"This possibility exists," Gao Di said: "Do you know the identity of 'Qingcheng'? This person was a candidate for Shuntian Prefecture, but he failed to pass the exam for many years, and was later recruited as a member of Zhongshushe. Although he was a member of the Qing Dynasty,
It is an expensive position, but there is no money to be made, and it is not a Jinshi who has no hope of transfer, so he often feels depressed. Such people will tend to seek novel enjoyment to numb themselves. Next time, you can see if the time is right.
You can inquire about the medicinal wine, but be careful not to appear too deliberate or arouse his alertness."
After seeing off Li Ya, Gao Di opened the page and saw that it was densely written in small regular script. He could not help but read out softly under the kerosene lamp light: "Cheng Guoxiang, the Minister of the Ministry of Revenue, and others would like to write the title for the meeting of the Ministry of War to suppress Kun."
The matter of raising wages..." He read it several times, then picked up another piece of paper and read: "You are the censor of Qiandu, and Xie Wenjin, the minister of the Ministry of War, is here to discuss the matter of suppressing Kun..."
As he read, he twirled the mustache that he had gradually grown in recent years, and gradually fell into deep thought.
Since "Hearthstone Taoist" and "Mushi Taoist" were arrested successively, Shi Weng Group suffered a heavy blow. Although Gao Di didn't know how much useful information the Political Security Bureau could get from them, Wang Yehao would no longer be a member of the Senate in the future.
The number one enemy.
However, Wang Yehao himself did not seem to have suffered a big blow. From the information sent through various channels, although Wang Yehao was confused and depressed after the incident, he soon became active again.
However, the main scope of his activities now has nothing to do with "Kun Thief". Instead, he is actively seeking transfer.
It is not uncommon for officials in the capital to seek foreign posts, but the place he sought was Shandong.
Although the governor of Shandong is a "big official", he is not really a "good or bad" at the moment. Not to mention that Shandong is not a wealthy place. At the moment, it can't even be called "peace". There are large and small bandits in the territory.
Drought locusts are coming one after another, and folk sects such as the White Lotus Sect are ready to move... There is also the task of cooperating with Denglai to support Liaodong, which can be said to be complicated, difficult, tiring, and rushed. Gaudi can't help but suspect that his intention is to do something in the Denglai area.
Shandong Railway Station.
Speaking of which, judging from the recent trend of court discussions, it seems that there is indeed the possibility of "challenging Kun". Once the expedition starts, Sun Yuanhua, the governor of Denglai, organizes and trains. The new army that has made many military exploits recently will definitely be the target of being transferred south. Wang Yehao will
It’s not impossible for him to “step in” with his rich experience in anti-Knee surgery.
However, there are many contradictions in the information collected by the intelligence network. From the information collected by the inner court, it can be seen that the emperor is quite interested in negotiating peace, but the outer court is a "suppression" with shouts of beatings and killings, and the imperial court has successively issued
There are many edicts to prepare for war, and they all have the intention of "suppression".
Combined with the recent secret fight between Fushe and Wen Tiren, the entire court situation is quite chaotic.
Finally, the bell was rang to ask the guard outside the door to call the nominal proprietress of Songzhu Zhai, He Chun, a cadre seconded by the Foreign Intelligence Bureau to the Political Security Bureau.
Gao Di picked up the information sent by Li Ya: "These materials will be sent to Lingao today."
"Send the full text?" He Chun flipped through the pages, "There is a lot of content, and it will take a lot of time to decode it. How about this, I will go and help the translator Xiao Wang, and try to finish sending it all before early morning."
"Thank you for your hard work. In addition, starting from next month, the subsidy for Qingcheng will be increased to fifty taels. This must be recorded in the account."
"The outside work is up to you," He Chun said.
"There is one more important thing. Go check the amount of energy potions in the warehouse and the anesthetics in the infirmary." Seeing He Chun's eyes widening, Gao Di waved his hand to indicate that she shouldn't be surprised: "Of course I believe in myself.
Comrade, but now there are several different sources of information pointing out that there are various narcotics circulating in the capital, some of which may be closer to the controlled drugs produced by the Senate. Combined with the current military trends of the Ming Dynasty, I suspect that someone is planning to
Provide medicine to the Ming army to counter the Senate's superiority in firearms. In short, a war is about to begin."