The first volume of pearl curtains rolls up the western mountain rain at dusk Chapter 25: Doing My Best
Li Diudiu followed Xiahou Zhuo all the way forward. He looked at Xiahou Zhuo from time to time. Xiahou Zhuo was a little confused by his gaze and couldn't help asking: "Why do you keep looking at me?"
Li Diudiu said: "I think you must have a big secret."
Xiahou Zhuo crossed his arms and said, "Oh my god, you figured this out. I have two."
Li Diudiu was too young to understand how shameless Xiahou Zhuo's words were. Because he didn't understand, Xiahou Zhuo felt that they were meaningless. He lifted his chest and sighed, "Playing this kind of joke with you is like playing the lute to a cow."
Li Diudiu really didn’t understand, but that didn’t stop him from being eager to learn. After a moment he finally reacted and burst into laughter.
Xiahou Zhuo looked at him as if he were an idiot. It was like when you told someone a joke and they had no expression on their face. You thought your joke wasn't funny at all, but after a while she burst out laughing for no apparent reason and said you made her laugh to death...
Just kidding.
"Let's go to Fengming Mountain."
Xiahou Zhuo and Li Diudiu arrived at the door of the inn. Xiahou Zhuo said to Li Diudiu, "Go and call your master. I'll wait for you here. Let's go to Fengming Mountain later."
Li Diudiu played: "Is it fun?"
Xiahou Zhuo said: "It depends on what you are playing."
Li Diudiu felt that there must be some other meaning in Xiahou Zhuo's words.
When Li Diudiu entered the inn to find his master, Xiahou Zhuo turned around and went into the alley next to him. The two men who were beaten black and blue had not left yet. They were forced to kneel there. After seeing Xiahou Zhuo, their faces became even uglier.
"do you know me?"
Xiahou Zhuo squatted in front of the two men and asked a question. The two men nodded rapidly. There was nothing in their eyes except fear. It was unclear whether they had wet their pants because they were scared or had incontinence because they were beaten. They did look a bit embarrassed, and there was leakage from somewhere in their pants, dripping.
Xiahou Zhuo said, "Since you know me, it's easy to talk. Go back and tell Sun Biehe. If you keep staring at Li Diudiu and his master, I guarantee you will be thrown into the mass grave outside the city. There are many wild dogs there that eat dead human flesh."
When he stood up, he patted one of them on the shoulder and said, "I never joke with people like you. Do you know me, and do you know these people in green clothes?"
The two men shook their heads. No one dared to lie. They really didn't know each other.
"Do you know the knife behind them?"
As Xiahou Zhuo finished speaking, the men in green turned around. Each of them had a long sword hanging behind his back. The scabbards were exactly the same, with two words on them.
Array.
"Array sword!"
One of the guys who was beaten had his eyes wide open. Apparently the three words "liezhendao" were more frightening than the three words .
The blue-clad soldiers line up in formation, and anyone who offends them will be killed.
"Let's go."
Xiahou Zhuo waved his hand: "Don't forget what I said."
The two men got up and ran away as if they had been pardoned.
Xiahou Zhuo said, "You all should go back as well. I will go and accompany my little brother. He is a trustworthy person. From now on, one year from now, I will do my best to train him to be my successor."
"yes!"
Several men in blue bowed and without saying a word, they immediately turned around and left. It was obvious that they were well-trained.
When Xiahou Zhuo returned to the door of the inn, Li Diudiu and his master happened to come down from upstairs. When the Taoist with long eyebrows saw Xiahou Zhuo, he hurriedly saluted. Xiahou Zhuo felt that it was his fault that the old man saluted first, so he quickly returned the salute.
The three of them left the inn and headed towards Fengming Mountain. Xiahou Zhuo introduced Fengming Mountain to the master and disciple as they walked.
"You all know about the founding of the Great Chu, right?"
As they walked, Xiahou Zhuo said, "Our Great Chu royal family first started the rebellion in Jizhou. It is said that the Great Chu Emperor Taizu heard the guidance of the phoenix in that place, met the seven-colored divine phoenix in the mountains, and was taught the book of military strategy by the heavens, so he started the rebellion against Zhou."
Li Diudiu asked curiously: "Is it true?"
Xiahou Zhuo said: "Bullshit, who has ever seen a phoenix?"
Taoist Changmei was startled and said quickly, "Don't talk nonsense. Taizu raised his army with the guidance of the heavenly voice. The people of Dachu firmly believe this. It's not good to talk nonsense."
"Master, do you really think that the people of Da Chu believe it without a doubt? As a... forget it."
Xiahou Zhuo shook his head and sighed, "It's better not to say anything."
Today, the people of Great Chu are filled with resentment. His Majesty the Emperor trusts treacherous officials, especially the eunuchs in the harem, and their power overrides that of the court.
When the officials from the six ministries and nine government offices saw the eunuch Liu Chongxin, they had to kneel down and kowtow, shouting "five thousand years old!" What kind of shitty world is this?
Not to mention the officials of the six ministries and nine ministries, even the princes of the Chu royal family had to come forward and salute and greet Liu Chongxin when they saw him, and the princes did the same when they saw him. The moral principles between the monarch and his subjects had already been disrupted.
Those favored eunuchs were frantically enclosing land all over . Liu Chongxin was also from Jizhou, Laihu County, Jizhou, and had a poor background. Who would have thought that he, who entered the palace at a young age and became a eunuch, would get along so well with the current emperor.
At that time, the current Majesty was only in his teens, and Liu Chongxin was of the same age as him. The two were so close that they were almost inseparable. When the current Majesty inherited the throne at the age of 21, Liu Chongxin was appointed as the Cabinet's Writer, and his power was actually the same as that of the Cabinet's Prime Minister.
Later on, if the chief minister of the cabinet wanted to hand over any memorial to the emperor, it had to go through Liu Chongxin's hands first. If Liu Chongxin said it was okay to give it, then it was okay. If Liu Chongxin said it was not okay, no matter how important the matter was, it would be put on the back burner.
His Majesty is now 46 years old. He has stopped taking care of state affairs five or six years ago, and all state affairs were handled by Liu Chongxin.
So five or six years ago, the entire Laihu County was designated as his private land. In his hometown of Laihu County, there was a troop of more than 10,000 soldiers stationed there. These soldiers were only responsible for guarding his ancestral home and were not allowed to interfere in other matters.
As a result, except for Laihu County, which has not experienced any civil unrest, other counties have been attacked by bandits countless times. At the beginning, the bandits did not dare to be too presumptuous, but later they found that as long as they did not attack Laihu County, the government troops would not care where they attacked.
Your Majesty is long live the emperor, Liu Chongxin is five thousand live the emperor, and the prince is a thousand live the emperor, so the prince also has to salute when he sees Liu Chongxin.
When they arrived at the foot of Fengming Mountain and were about to go up , a few Taoists who were sitting and chatting at the entrance of the mountain road immediately made way for them after seeing them. Originally, they were sitting there blocking the mountain road.
Xiahou Zhuo sighed and pointed at the hospital uniform on Li Diudiu: "See? This is the way the world is."
Fengming Mountain is just a small hill. How big can the mountain inside the city be? The city is not on the mountain, but the mountain is inside the city. Just because of the legend that Taizu started his rebellion, ordinary people who want to go up this place have to pay the Taoist temple.
There is a Jintian Temple on the mountain. Legend has it that Emperor Taizu of the Great Chu received divine revelation in the Jintian Temple, so now the whole mountain is Jintian Temple.
This was the first time that Li Diudiu felt a little disgusted with the hospital uniform he was wearing.
As they climbed up the stone steps in the mountains, Xiahou Zhuo said as he walked, "Great Chu is already ill, and it is very ill. Laihu County has more than 10,000 elite soldiers. With the combat power of the Great Chu soldiers, all the rebellions under the jurisdiction of Jizhou can be suppressed. But without Liu Chongxin's order, no one can mobilize that army."
This scared the Taoist priest Changmei enough, and he said quickly, "Master Xiahou, please don't say any more. If you say any more, you will be beheaded."
"I'm not afraid, and you don't need to be afraid either. There are not many people on this mountain."
Xiahou Zhuo didn't care about that. He just kept talking to himself, "Do you know why the civil unrest in Jizhou is so serious, but there is no rebellion in Youzhou, which is not far away?"
Taoist Changmei naturally knew something, but he didn't dare to say it. Li Diudiu was still young, so he asked, "Why?"
As soon as he finished asking, the master tapped him on the head: "What nonsense are you asking!"
As they walked, Xiahou Zhuo said, "Because Youzhou has the Yanyun cavalry, and to the north of Youzhou is the border, where there are the unparalleled Chu frontier troops. Moreover, Youzhou General Luo Geng has a murderous heart , so who dares to provoke him?"
"Jizhou is different. Our Jizhou Jiedushi is still counting on the leaders of the civil rebellion to give him money. Li Chi, you don't really think that Jizhou can't suppress the rebellion, do you? The Jizhou Jiedushi has 60,000 elite troops under his command, and the total number of soldiers including the garrison troops of various counties is 100,000."
"Our Jiedushi deliberately turned a blind eye. The leaders of the civil riots gave him money, so he let them do whatever they wanted. Anyway, those people didn't dare to attack Jizhou."
Li Diudiu asked: "What if they dare?"
After hearing this, Xiahou Zhuo was silent for a long time, shook his head and said: "The Great Chu is not terminally ill, but dying."
These words frightened the Taoist Changmei so much that his face turned pale. He almost went over to cover Xiahou Zhuo's mouth. If these words had been said by Li Diudiu, he would have kicked Li Diudiu out.
"See how scared you are, I won't say anything more."
Xiahou Zhuo sighed when he saw Changmei was so scared: "This world is becoming more and more chaotic because there are not many people who dare to speak up."
But in today's Chu, if you dare to speak, you will have to pay the price.
Five years ago, Lord Lai, the Chief Censor of the Censorate, knelt outside the palace gate of Your Majesty and refused to leave. He enumerated Liu Chongxin's 72 capital crimes, each of which was enough to execute Liu Chongxin's entire clan. Lord Lai kowtowed until his head bled outside the palace gate and begged Your Majesty to see him, but Your Majesty let Liu Chongxin deal with it himself.
As a result, Mr. Lai's family was convicted of treason. A chivalrous man rescued Mr. Lai's children, but more than 40 members of Mr. Lai's family were still executed by slow slicing.
The hero who rescued Lord Lai's children has been wanted for a long time. Now there are arrest warrants posted at the gates of various provincial capitals, but he cannot be caught.
The knight called himself the second idler in the world. He said his surname was Li and his ancestor was the famous first idler in the world.
In addition to Lord Lai, there was also the case of Lord Yuan, the Minister of Works, three years ago. At that time, Liu Chongxin embezzled more than one million taels of river management funds from the Ministry of Works to repair his old house in Laihu County, which resulted in the Jiangnan Canal falling into disrepair and bursting its banks, flooding the people of four counties.
Lord Yuan did not want to take the blame, so he stopped the emperor when he was out, kowtowed in front of the emperor's carriage and told him the truth. However, the emperor did not believe him at all and handed him over to Liu Chongxin for disposal.
The fate of this Mr. Yuan can be imagined. He was sentenced to the extermination of his three clans for embezzling funds from the Ministry of Works for his own benefit.
But in fact, only more than 20 taels of silver were found in Lord Yuan's house. Even the Jinting Guards who went to search the house could not bear to see it.
The three of them walked to the top of Fengming Mountain, and sitting there they could see the entire Jizhou City.
"Li Chi, look."
Xiahou Zhuo pointed to the peaceful scene in the city and said, "A big city like Jizhou is just a piece of clothing that Da Chu uses to cover up its shame. If you take off these clothes, you will only see a thousand holes."
The Taoist with long eyebrows burped in his throat and almost fainted from fright.
"But I am still a Chu person."
Xiahou Zhuo's face looked so painful.
“So I want to go to the frontier and do my best.”
