1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 3824

The so-called "zuoshi" was a respectful title given by scholars who participated in the imperial examinations to the chief examiners of the provincial and metropolitan examinations. Some chief examiners would take advantage of the opportunity of presiding over the examinations to recruit young talents they favored as their apprentices and provide convenience and protection for their entry into officialdom, thus giving rise to the phenomenon of cliques in the name of master-apprentice relationships.

It has been more than ten years since Yue Shizong took part in the imperial examination. Therefore, when the Security Department was collecting Yue Shizong's personal information, they did not pay attention to who the chief examiner was at that time. It was only at this time that Qu Shengfeng learned about this.

The source of this information was obtained by Shi Chengwu by chance.

A Ming official who defected to Nanjing provided Shi Chengwu with a lot of information about the Jiangxi officialdom. One piece of information about Zhao Mingyu, the left governor of Jiangxi, caught Shi Chengwu's attention.

According to the resume of this left governor, he had presided over the imperial examination in the 20th year of Chongzhen as a scholar of the Hanlin Academy. Among the students admitted under his guidance that year, more than ten were accepted as his disciples, including Yue Shizong.

Shi Chengwu was of course familiar with this name. He made further investigations and confirmed that this was no coincidence. This person was none other than Yue Shizong, the Langzhong of the Ministry of Rites who is currently the Ming Dynasty's ambassador to Hai Han in Hangzhou.

Shi Chengwu had no idea about the personal relationship between Yue Shizong and Zhao Mingyu, but he knew that the Security Department had been trying to persuade Yue Shizong to defect. If this master-disciple relationship could be used, it might help the action he was planning.

Shi Chengwu was no longer satisfied with being a garrison commander in Nanjing. He hoped to lead the next round of expansion against the Ming Dynasty, and clearly wanted to focus on the Yangtze River Basin. Jiangxi, located in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, was the first target.

So Shi Chengwu, who had returned to Hangzhou to visit his relatives a few days ago, told the news to Shi Diwen, who had just returned from an overseas inspection, and asked him to step up the efforts to instigate Yue Shizong's rebellion in Hangzhou.

Although Shi Diwen felt that his son's plan was a bit radical and that the coordination in Nanjing officialdom had not yet been completed, and now was not a good time to launch a new round of expansion, this matter involved Shi Chengwu's future development, so as a father he still had to do his best to pave the way for his son.

When Shi Diwen gave the order to Qu Shengfeng, he did not explain the reason in detail. This was to avoid the risk of Shi Chengwu's plan being leaked in case the attempt to instigate Yue Shizong's rebellion failed.

It was not until this time that Qu Shengfeng reported that the special operation to incite Yue Shizong to rebel was only one step away. Shi Diwen then told Qu Shengfeng the reason.

After hearing this, Qu Shengfeng secretly sighed that the chessboard operated by his boss was beyond his imagination. At the same time, he also realized that his department still had omissions in collecting intelligence and had not thoroughly investigated Yue Shizong's personal connections.

Although Shi Diwen did not question him about this, Qu Shengfeng could not help but take it seriously. Fortunately, he had Yue Shizong under his control quite well. As long as he could succeed in persuading him to rebel in the end, it would be considered as making up for his mistake.

Nothing happened that night, but Yue Shizong did not sleep at all. He was worried that Huo Jingxing, who had escaped capture, would take risks, so he was too nervous to sleep. He stayed up until dawn, and seeing that his martial artists were exhausted, he had to let them go and rest.

After breakfast, Yue Shizong originally wanted to take advantage of the peace during the day to catch up on some sleep, but he did not expect that several groups of visitors would arrive in the morning. They were all Ming Dynasty merchants who came to Hangzhou to do business and came to the embassy specifically to pay their respects.

Yue Shizong didn't want to meet these businessmen at first, but when he saw the visiting cards handed in by the doorman, he realized that each of these people had high-ranking officials backing them, so he had no choice but to ask his servants to make ginseng tea for him and force himself to meet the visitors.

By noon, Yue Shizong was too tired to even eat lunch. He had been in a state of high mental tension for two or three days without enough rest, and his body was already exhausted.

Yue Shizong felt that he could not hold on any longer, so he could only tell his family again not to go out, and asked several martial arts masters to keep an eye on the entrances and exits of the embassy, ​​and then he went back to his room to sleep. When he woke up, he opened his eyes and looked out the window, and saw that it was already dark outside. He quickly got up, but saw his wife sitting in front of the window, embroidering a silk handkerchief by candlelight.

Yue Shizong felt relieved and stood up and asked, "Madam, have you had dinner?"

Madam Yue put down her sewing and replied softly, "No, the whole family hasn't eaten yet. We'll wait until you wake up."

Yue Shizong said: "You must be starving, let's quickly serve the meal!"

Mrs. Yue got up and left the room. After a while, she was heard calling her two children outside: "Qi'er, Xiaohuan, come out to eat!"

Yue Shizong had a son and a daughter, aged seven and five respectively. His son Yue Qi had already moved to a separate room, living next to Yue Shizong and his wife. Although his daughter Yue Xiaohuan still lived with her parents, she was sent to Yue Qi's room when Yue Shizong was resting in his room.

Yue Shizong heard his wife calling several times but there was no response from his children. He suddenly had a bad feeling and quickly walked out of the room. He pushed open the door of the next room, but found that no one was inside.

Mrs. Yue hadn't realized anything yet and was about to look for it somewhere else, but Yue Shizong smelled a strange fragrance in the room, which was not the smell of his children.

Yue Shizong caught a glimpse of a piece of letter on the table in the room, pressed down by his daughter's cow horn comb. He hurried over to grab the letter and read it. He almost fainted when he saw it.

There were only two lines of words on the letter: "If you want your children to live, follow me back to the country to confess your crime." Although there was no signature, Yue Shizong already knew who the other party was.

Who else could be the person who has such means and has a grudge against him, other than Huo Jingxing who had come to his house to demand an explanation?

It seems that after Huo Jingxing escaped, he believed that he had been betrayed by himself, so he sneaked into the embassy and kidnapped his two children.

While Yue Shizong was still pondering the details, he heard a thud behind him. Turning back, he saw that his wife had fainted on the ground. It was obvious that she had also seen the contents of the letter and was furious.

Yue Shizong quickly called the servants, and together they helped his wife lie down on the bed, and then ordered all the embassy personnel to be gathered.

Soon everyone from the embassy arrived, but only four of the five martial arts masters who were supposed to guard the embassy showed up. Yue Shizong remembered that this martial arts master was in charge of guarding the back door, and thought to himself that something was not right. He quickly took people to look for him, and found that the back door was only ajar.

Soon after, someone found the martial artist's body in a flower bed not far from the back door. His broken neck was probably the cause of his death.

It seems that Huo Jingxing broke in from the back door, killed the martial artist who was guarding there, then went to the room where his children were, poured incense into it, kidnapped them and left through the back door.