1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 3822

"Master Yue, there are two pieces of news now, one good news and one bad news. Which one do you want to hear first?"

Yue Shizong couldn't help feeling unhappy when he heard the other party's almost teasing tone, but now the safety of the whole family depended on the other party's help, so he didn't dare to show any dissatisfaction, and could only smile and say: "Master Zhang Wu, how about telling me the good news first?"

Master Zhang Wu nodded and said, "Then let me tell you the good news first. Today's arrest operation went smoothly. Before the sun set, we had successfully destroyed the three bases of the Jinyiwei in and outside the city, arrested more than a dozen criminals, and also found the bandit leader Huo Jingxing."

Yue Shizong was delighted and said, "Sure enough, Lord Qu did a good job. He arrested these people in just one day! What's the bad news?"

Master Zhang Wu said, "Bad news... Huo Jingxing is very cunning. He let his subordinates take the blame and ran away!"

"Ah? Huo Jingxing ran away? This...what should I do!" Upon hearing this bad news, Yue Shizong felt as if he had fallen into an ice cellar and his heart suddenly turned cold.

Huo Jingxing must have thought of the reason why he was arrested by Hai Han, and this account must have been put on Yue Shizong.

If he was still in Hangzhou, he would definitely try to take revenge on Yue Shizong; if he escaped back to the Ming Dynasty, he would have to file a complaint in front of the emperor, and Yue Shizong's official career would end there, and he would most likely be recorded in the history of the Ming Dynasty as a "traitor."

No matter which situation it was, it was not an outcome that Yue Shizong could accept. He could only beg Master Zhang Wu to tell Qu Shengfeng to capture Huo Jingxing.

"Don't worry, Lord Yue. Lord Qu has spoken. We will definitely do our best to capture this man. We cannot let him continue to cause chaos in our country. But..."

Master Zhang paused here deliberately, and seeing Yue Shizong's face full of anticipation and anxiety, he continued, "Lord Qu said that we still have too little information about the Jinyiwei. If Lord Yue can provide more information, it will definitely be helpful for the subsequent arrest operations."

Yue Shizong asked, "What does Lord Qu want to know?"

Master Zhang Wu said: "It would be best if we had the detailed deployment of the Jinyiwei in the Yangtze River Basin, so that Lord Qu could determine the direction of Huo Jingxing's escape and arrange the next move."

Yue Shizong was alert when he heard this and immediately shirked his responsibility, saying, "The agreement between Master Qu and I was that it would not involve military affairs. It's been less than a day and Master Qu is going to go back on his word? Besides, the Jinyiwei only reports to the emperor and will not report to me, a doctor from the Ministry of Rites. How can I know the deployment of the Jinyiwei?"

Master Zhang Wu waved his hand and said, "Master Yue is wrong. Master Qu is not here to inquire about the military situation of the Ming Dynasty. He just wants to help Master Yue solve this problem. Master Qu also said that if Master Yue is unwilling to cooperate, then don't force him. But the consequences that may follow will be borne by Master Yue himself."

This was not a threat, but it was more like a threat. Yue Shizong began to sweat. He believed that his bottom line was that he could not sell out Ming military intelligence to Hai Han. Once he lost even this bottom line, his behavior would be no different from selling out his country.

But Yue Shizong couldn't bear to reject the threat outright. He was still worried that Huo Jingxing, who had escaped, would retaliate against him in some unexpected way. The shelter provided by Hai Han was only temporary and could not last too long.

Seeing that he was hesitant, Master Zhang Wu simply said something harsh: "Master Yue, we are not begging you to do anything now. If you feel that this cooperation is inappropriate, you can stop it at any time. Master Qu and his brothers have been busy outside all day, and they don't have that much time to accompany you. Since you can't make up your mind, I will reply to Master Qu and tell him that you are not in a hurry." Yue Shizong was stunned and said, "This won't work! Master Zhang Wu, listen to me, let me think about this matter again..."

Master Zhang Wu had already stood up and clasped his fists to say goodbye: "Master Yue, take your time to think about it. When you have thought it through, come back to me. I will go back and report first!"

Seeing that he could not keep him, Yue Shizong had to respectfully send him out of the embassy, ​​and then continued to worry about how to deal with the other party's further threats.

After leaving the embassy, ​​Master Zhang Wu quickly got on a carriage at the corner of the street, then drove around the city for a while, and got off at the house where Yue Shizong and Qu Shengfeng went today.

Master Zhang Wu revealed his identity to the gatekeeper and entered the yard. He came to the study room with ease, tidied his clothes a little, and then asked for a meeting.

Qu Shengfeng's voice rang out in the room: "Come in and talk."

Master Zhang Wu gently pushed open the door, and immediately turned around to close the door again after entering. Then he told Qu Shengfeng, who was sitting behind the desk, about what happened during his visit to the embassy. He also repeated his conversation with Yue Shizong word for word.

After listening to this, Qu Shengfeng said with a slightly unhappy expression: "This Yue Shizong is unwilling to give in. It seems that our preliminary preparations are not in place!"

Another person standing next to Qu Shengfeng responded, "I failed to do my job well. Please punish me, sir."

Qu Shengfeng waved his hand and said, "You were just following orders, this matter cannot be blamed on you. I didn't expect that Yue Shizong was so stubborn and refused to surrender even at this point. For now, we should think about how to add some weight to Yue Shizong's head!"

The man next to him responded, "Why not let me go out again, so that the guy named Yue will know how powerful I am!"

Qu Shengfeng said, "Don't be so hasty. Let me think about this matter and figure out how to arrange it so that we can achieve the desired results."

If Yue Shizong was present at this moment and saw the person next to Qu Shengfeng, he would definitely scream out in surprise, because this person was none other than Huo Jingxing, a captain of the Embroidered Uniform Guard who had come to cause trouble for him before.

Huo Jingxing should obviously be being pursued by the Hai Han Security Department at this time, so how could he be taking orders from Qu Shengfeng?

In fact, this was not the first time that Huo Jingxing was hunted by the Hai Han Security Department. To be precise, he had been hunted by the Security Department once in Yangzhou half a year ago. And that time he failed to "escape" successfully like this time. He was really caught by Qu Shengfeng, who was supervising the case.

Huo Jingxing's situation was not complicated. After he was captured by the Security Department while lurking in Yangzhou, he chose to defect in order to save his life. At the same time, at the instruction of Qu Shengfeng, he continued to retain the identity of Jinyiwei and secretly transmitted intelligence to Hai Han.

Huo Jingxing, as a captain of the Jinyiwei Northern Pacification Division, had provided some valuable intelligence to Hai Han in the past few months. However, Qu Shengfeng wanted to make the best use of his talents, and Shi Diwen had recently assigned him a new task, so he transferred Huo Jingxing to Hangzhou to cooperate with him.