Volume 1 Chushan Bandits Chapter 34: Breaking Out of the Calculation
"I've heard about this Chen Tong in Yuehonglou. He is a grain supervisor sent to Tangzhou by the Jingxi South Road Jinglüe Anfusi Division. I heard that he is a frequent visitor to Yuehonglou in Biyang City."
Liu Qiong'er was afraid that Xu Huai was not clear about the many details in the court, so she patiently explained,
"The General Manager and Pacifier Gu Fan left the capital as a scholar of Guanwen Palace, so he was not under the jurisdiction of the Privy Council. However, the General Manager Department was in charge of the affairs of the soldiers and civilians in the prefectures and counties in the southwest of the capital. It had many affairs and subordinates, as well as the generals and military officers of the stationed imperial guards, which had an inseparable relationship with the Privy Council. When it came to the prefectures and counties, the military supervisors were usually civil officials, but the inspectors and patrol inspectors under their control were military officials. The flow of people and the examination of merit were directly controlled by the Privy Council. This Chen Tong official rank It's not high, but it's a lucrative job that countless people yearn for to supervise the transfer of grain and fodder from Tangzhou for the imperial guards stationed in the southwest of Beijing. It's not a job that ordinary people can get. It's not surprising that he has a relationship with the Privy Councilor Cai Ying. The local elders and village heads are responsible for collecting grain and paying taxes and transporting them to designated locations. Compared with the long journey to Bianjing and the military fortress where the grain and fodder are transported, it is undoubtedly the most convenient and labor-saving to transport the grain and fodder directly to the imperial guards stationed in this route for consumption, so Chen Tong is also a person that the local clan gentry deliberately curry favor with! "
Those who are willing to spend a few taels of silver to go to Yuehonglou just to have tea with Liu Qiong'er are all people who can brag a few words and claim to be upright.
Liu Qiong'er dealt with these people and was much more familiar with the people, affairs and even the various unspoken rules of officialdom in the court and counties than Xu Huai imagined.
As a grain supervisor sent by the Ministry of Military Affairs to Tangzhou, it is not difficult to imagine that Chen Tong has connections with both local clans and the Privy Councilor Cai Ying.
Xu Huai could understand these rules, but he did not understand many specific details of the world.
Xu Wuliang sat on the doorstep as if he was listening to a divine book, and said in a muffled voice:
"When your father was alive, he said that Xu Wufu was not reliable. I just went to the mule and horse market and saw that except for a few hired guards from Huaiyuan Town, everyone else had returned to Yuhuangling early in the morning. Xu Wuqi and Xu Wukun were the bastards that your father carried back from the dead body pit, but they followed Xu Wufu like dogs. Their hearts have long been blind! It must be this guy named Chen Tong who instigated behind the scenes. That bastard Xu Wufu wanted to sell Xu Wujiang to the bandits. But what I can't understand is that if Xu Wujiang and the others were killed by the bandits, how could Wang Bing be implicated? They did all this just to kill Wang Bing, why did they go through such a big circle? Aren't they exhausted? Deng Gui didn't let them kill Wang Bing before, but when Xu Wujiang and the others died, Deng Gui let them go. It doesn't make sense."
Xu Huaidu saw the letter that Chen Tong wrote to Deng Gui with his own eyes. Liu Qiong'er could certainly figure out everything in it and explained it to Xu Wuliang:
"There is nothing unreasonable. From the letter Chen Tong sent to Deng Gui, Deng Gui was unwilling to bear the blame for Wang Bing's accidental death under his nose, so he arranged for Xu Wujiang's soldiers to die first, so that he could be transferred to another place for "ineffective suppression of bandits". The transfer of patrol inspectors is directly controlled by the Privy Council, but they will be controlled by the prefectures and counties after taking office. Once Deng Gui left, Cai Ying could directly intervene and arrange for a direct descendant to serve as the patrol inspector, and this person would eventually bear the blame for Wang Bing's "encountering bandits and dying". Cai Ying has his own assassins, so it is naturally easy to find someone to bear the blame. And everything happened in Huaiyuan Town, which has nothing to do with the prefectures and counties. Of course, the prefect Chen Shi, the county magistrate Cheng Lunying and others were happy to turn a deaf ear to it."
"Damn it, killing a person with so many tricks is much more complicated than forging iron." Xu Wuliang spat out in the corridor.
"Because the people they want to kill are not ordinary people - they want to kill people, and they also want to shut up the people of the world. How can it be easy?" Liu Qiong'er sighed.
"So what should we do now?"
Xu Wuliang had been a bandit and had served in the army before, so he certainly knew that military orders were as heavy as mountains. If Xu Wujiang lost the support of his clan, he would lose his greatest support for disobeying orders.
It would have been better if Xu Wuliang didn't listen to Liu Qiong'er's analysis. After hearing what Liu Qiong'er said, he was overwhelmed and had no idea what to do.
"I heard that Xu Wujiang is quite heroic. He won't just sit there and wait for death, right?" Liu Qiong'er stared at Xu Huai and asked.
"No matter how heroic you are, what can you do if you suddenly encounter such a thing?" Xu Huai said with a sigh.
"You've dragged me into the fire pit, so don't hide it from me." Even a rabbit bites when it's angry. Liu Qiong'er didn't believe that Xu Wujiang would surrender, and she was sure that Xu Huai was hiding something from her.
"Would you like to go back to Yuhuangling with us?" Xu Huai asked Liu Qiong'er.
"Are you going back to Yuhuangling? What are you going back for?" Liu Qiong'er asked.
"If Uncle Seventeen did not stay in Qingxi Village honestly, but acted rashly, and was eventually ambushed and killed by bandits outside Qingxi Village, with his body never found, do you think Mr. Deng would believe it or not, Miss Liu?" Xu Huai asked.
"What? Xu Wujiang and the others are going to become bandits?" Xu Wuliang stood up in shock and asked.
"In Deng Gui's chessboard, you are doomed to die. The only way to survive is to jump out," said Xu Huai.
"Will other people follow Xu Wujiang and become bandits? Aren't they afraid of dragging down their wives and children who are left in Yuhuangling?" Liu Qiong'er asked in disbelief.
Xu Wujiang led more than 20 soldiers to guard Qingxi Village. Most of them were from the Xu family or farmers of other surnames who surrendered to the Xu family. In the Inspection Office, they followed Xu Wujiang's orders. But if Xu Wujiang really wanted to take these people to become bandits, Liu Qiong'er suspected that the soldiers would more likely scatter in a hurry, or arrest Xu Wujiang and take him back to the Inspection Office to be punished.
Becoming a bandit, do you really think you can live a carefree life drinking and eating meat?
Since ancient times, who hasn't had to risk their lives to lick blood from the knife?
There is also a very important point, that is, except for Xu Wujiang's second wife Su Di, Xu Wujiang's own parents, brothers, nephews and many families of Xu's Wuzu were still in the village near Yuhuangling.
The government of that time did not have the principle of "one person is responsible for one's own actions". As long as they had suspicion, they had the power to arrest Xu Wujiang and others, his wife, children and parents, and put them in jail for questioning.
Even using family members as hostages to force bandits to come out and surrender is a normal practice.
Every year, two to three out of ten prisoners awaiting trial or other prisoners in county jails die from torture, hunger, cold, or disease. Since ancient times, this has been called "starvation to death", and officials will not be held accountable.
It would be fine if the vicious criminals were cold-blooded and ruthless, but most of the soldiers under Xu Wujiang were ordinary people. They were also familiar with the affairs of the yamen. How many of them dared to sit and watch their children being taken to the yamen for interrogation?
"My father hid his identity and became a bandit. The villagers only started to suspect him after he and Uncle Wu Liang returned from the Jingsheng Army. It didn't affect my family, let alone the clan," Xu Huai said. "Another reason why we are going to Yuhuangling is that Uncle Seventeen will convince everyone that their wives and children in Yuhuangling will be secretly taken care of by Uncle Wu Liang and many other people, so there is no need to worry."
"Even if you can deceive for a while, can you deceive for a lifetime?" Liu Qiong'er expressed deep doubt.
Even if Deng Gui had no secret connection with the assassins, Xu Wujiang and more than 20 soldiers were abducted or killed by the bandits in Hutouzhai, and no one even saw their bodies. Would Deng Gui and the prefectures and counties believe it?
You want to disappear without a trace of your body, do you really think the government is just a decoration?
As long as they have any suspicion about Xu Wujiang and his men's actions, they have the power to arrest his family members and put them in jail for questioning. How will Xu Wujiang appease those soldiers then?
"I'm not lying, I just have to do it!" Xu Huai said, "Is Miss Liu still willing to go to Yuhuangling with us?"
"… …" Liu Qiong'er asked in shock, "Why do you two want to fight Xu Wufu?"
"Xu Wufu would never dare to admit that he colluded with Deng Gui to arrange Xu Wujiang and others to die, so no matter how the government questioned him, he had to insist that Xu Wujiang and others were killed by bandits and their bodies were never found. He had the responsibility to protect everyone's family from being harassed by the government, and even helped to ask for compensation from the government!"
Xu Huai said,
"Whenever the clan encounters banditry, the clan members are asked to donate grain. In addition to autumn training, the clan members also bear more of the burden of paying grain and taxes on weekdays. When bandits attack the village, the clan members also fight in the battlefield. Whenever there are casualties in clan fights, it is always the clan members who are killed and injured. If the government wants to arrest people, Xu Wufu, as the clan leader, does nothing and allows the government to arrest innocent people, how can he win the support of the people?"
"What if the government sends a large group of people into Yuhuangling to arrest people? Can't Xu Wufu just put the blame on the government?" Liu Qiong'er asked.
"Yes, the other Xu clan members are reasonable. As long as Xu Wufu tries his best, they will not demand too much from him, and no one will dare to stand up against the officials," Xu Huai said with a smile, "but don't we have a fool like me who doesn't understand reason?"
Liu Qiong'er understood what Xu Huai meant. Xu Huai continued to play dumb, but in fact he was threatening Xu Wufu not to openly hand over Xu Wujiang and the others' "sharp blade". She secretly felt that even though this was dangerous, it could not be said to be impossible.
Liu Qiong'er asked again: "What about Mr. Wang? Does he agree with this arrangement?"
"We did this without telling Mr. Wang, but now that things have come to this, we can't care too much!" Xu Huai said.
He had told Liu Qiong'er before that Wang Bing's position was not exactly the same as theirs. He had not even made it clear to Lu Xiong. All of this was a solution that he, Xu Wujiang, and Xu Xin'an came up with after racking their brains all night after Lu Xiong left last night...
"I think this will work. If Xu Wufu is so shameless as to hand over Xu Wujiang and his family, I will stab him in the ass with a bare knife!" Xu Wuliang said fiercely, "Let's not talk about anything else. Let's go to Yuhuangling right away!"
"We can't leave now. The plan was made too hastily yesterday and we didn't have time to prepare. There are still too many uncertainties here. First of all, we can't confirm whether everyone has been convinced by Uncle Seventeen. We need to wait for clear information before we can set off." Xu Huai said.
"Once clear information is transmitted to the military camp, how could Deng Gui let you and Di Niang go?" Xu Wuliang asked anxiously.
"We have agreed that if Uncle Seventeen hasn't sent anyone back to the military camp with an excuse after nightfall, it means they have already escaped and hid in the mountains," Xu Huai said. "At that time, Aunt Seventeen and I will sneak out of the military camp, and after we meet up, we will rush back to Yuhuangling overnight. We don't need to worry about Deng Gui sending fast horses to hunt them down!"
"Someone saw you entering Deng Gui's residence. Would it be too dangerous for you to return to the military camp at this time?" Liu Qiong'er asked worriedly.
"If I don't go back, Deng Gui will get suspicious and Aunt Seventeen will have a hard time getting away; if I go back directly later, how can Deng Gui look down on a fool like me?" Xu Huai said with a smile.
The "him" in the eyes of others is the best disguise, not to mention that he has played a double act in front of the officials and shifted the attention to Tang Tiande.
Even if Tang Tiande went to Deng Gui's room to steal silver, it sounds unlikely, but it is more convincing than Xu Wujiang arranging for him, a "fool", to go to Deng Gui's room to steal the secret letter!
