stubborn thief

When Liu Chengzong saw Yang Qi, he almost didn't recognize him.

This commander-in-chief, who had commanded thousands of households in the frontier, looked almost unrecognizable after changing horses and marching over a thousand miles in three days.

His whole body looked like a ball of dirt. The wrinkles on his face were so wrinkled that they could crack. His legs were rubbed bloody by the saddle and he couldn't even walk. In the end, he was carried into the Prince of Qin's Palace by the Yulin Lang.

Although Yang Qi repeatedly claimed that he was fine and wanted to meet the Grand Marshal directly, when the news was reported to Liu Chengzong, he still asked Yu Lin Lang to take him to the side room first, and the military doctor from the Huben Camp washed his wounds and applied medicine to him. Only then did Liu Chengzong go in to visit him.

"You traveled 1,500 miles just for these two gold nuggets? I thought Mo Nan was gone."

Liu Chengzong held two golden camel seals in his hand. He felt something was wrong, so he weighed them and looked at one of them with disdain: "One of them is fake."

Yang Qi had been half asleep and half awake on horseback for three days and three nights, suffering from the bumpy ride. Now that he saw Liu Chengzong, he finally felt relieved. He just said with a weak breath: "General, the sun and the moon can testify that I have no second thoughts."

After saying this, he could no longer hold on and fell asleep with his eyes closed.

Liu Shizi grinned unhappily.

He asked the army doctor about Yang Qi's physical condition and learned that the guy was fine. He ordered his men to take good care of him and turned to leave the room.

Liu Chengzong stood under the eaves of the corridor of the Prince of Qin's Palace, breathing the cool air, folding his arms and looking up at the sky, staring for a while at the vulture squatting on the eaves of the hall, imitating a ridge beast.

As the Marshal's troops were mobilized everywhere, there were not many vultures left in Xi'an Prefecture. Even if they stayed here, most of them flew to the Qinling Mountains in the south to find food. There were only a dozen lazy guys left in the entire Xi'an city.

They are very lazy, so they often squat on the eaves of halls and government offices to act as ridge beasts.

Because those places are relatively high but not too high, they can take off without any effort. Just by flapping their wings a few times, they can fly to higher city gate towers, and then glide with the air flow just like they are on the mountains.

After observing for a long time, Liu Chengzong finally understood why vultures are handsome in the air but ugly on land: their wings are too big.

The vulture's wings, unlike those of other birds, are folded only once and placed on either side of the body.

They have to be folded twice, which is equivalent to a person tucking in his elbow and then folding his wrist and tucking it under his armpit.

So much so that when they squat on the ground, they always hunch their shoulders and hunch their backs.

After a long while, Liu Shizi sighed softly: "Your Majesty, you have become smarter."

The reason why Yang Qi was so anxious on the road was because the Ming Dynasty made him a king.

King of Shunyi, the title used by Tumed Altan Khan before.

This made Liu Chengzong sigh that there was a god-like person around the emperor.

  What the hell is this psychopath? Your emperor's ancestral tomb is about to be overturned by the rebels, and you still have time to try to sow discord between you and me?

How can my presence in the northwest cause you any trouble? If you have the ability, you can confer the title of King Haoge Jin.

  However, this very simple strategy of sowing discord was very effective. Didn't it make Yang Qi run back like a fool?

In fact, Liu Chengzong knew that Yang Qi did not come back to show his loyalty to him, and that the three-day rush on the road was just Yang Qi adding drama to himself.

The governor of Mo Nan was made a king, and the people who really wanted to kill him were all in Mo Nan.

The title of king of the Ming Dynasty was given to Yang Qi, and he could not stay in Mo Nan for even a day.

Well, how should I put it, Liu Shizi felt that Chongzhen wanted to confer the title of King of Shunyi on Mo Nan. It would be very simple to make this happen. As long as Yang Qi was not conferred the title, as long as anyone under Yang Qi was conferred the title, there would be a high probability that internal strife would occur in Mo Nan and the country would become alienated from the Marshal's Office.

Only conferring a title on Yang Qi is useless.

Let’s take a look at what kind of materials he has.

Wang Chengen, the best performer among the Northwest Army during the Ming Dynasty's Ji Si Rebellion, had always looked down on others.

When fighting Liu Chengzong, he spoke wildly in the military tent and gave the other four generals derogatory nicknames of four words.

He Huchen who was hiding in the city, Yang Dashuai who was the leader of the peasant soldiers, You Shilu who was old and sick, and Wang Xingshan who was poisoned by smallpox.

A very talented military commander, he regarded friendly troops as village chickens and clay dogs. The village chickens were made commanders, and were above them.

He Huchen is a very honest military commander. He has cooperated with Yang Qi the most times, but was betrayed every time they cooperated. He hates this clever guy very much.

The only time Yang Qi was honest was when he promised Liu Chengzong that if there was any problem in Mo Nan, he would let He Huchen bring his head back.

As for Taiji Xuantu, there is no need to say anything. In terms of bloodline, origin, timing of surrender, and political influence, he should be the King of Shunyi in the Marshal's Office.

Then, it was bad enough that Tumed Wanhu Omubu and Yang Qi lived in someone else's Guihua City and commanded their tribe. Now, even their ancestral title of Shunyi King of the Jin Dynasty of the Ming Dynasty was taken away.

Not to mention the group of peasants from the south of the desert who wanted to bring Yang Qi's head to see the Grand Marshal.

The only noble on the grassland who had no feelings towards King Shunyi was the Ordos Wanhu, the former Mongolian Jinong Elinchen.

But Yang Qi came here not entirely because of Daming.

This is exactly what made Liu Chengzong most emotional, although Emperor Chongzhen seemed to be much smarter in the decision to make Yang Qi a king.

But his luck was still so bad.

The newly born Dai Qing Gulun also conferred the title of king on Yang Qi.

Moreover, Huang Taiji gave Yang Qi the same title, but in reverse, called King Yishun.

The most dramatic thing is that Dai Qing Gulun’s envoy arrived earlier than the Ming envoy. He was meeting Yang Qi at the Governor’s Mansion in Guihua City when the Ming envoy arrived.

The Ming envoy was named Ma Shaoyou, a Sichuanese fellow of Chen Xinjia, the governor of Xuanfu, and a juren from Suining.

Dai Qing's messenger was called Ma Mingpei, a student from Liaoyang. His father had been the instructor of Liaoyang, but he was killed when Nurhaci captured Liaoyang. Now he was doing a good job in Huang Taiji's Wenguan.

As soon as the two envoys met, while they were still bowing, Ma Shaoyou pounced on them with the Shunyi royal seal in his hand. The two literati smashed each other's heads with the royal seal in their hands.

When they were stopped and pinned down by Yang Qi's guards, Ma Shaoyou was fine because he took the initiative, but Ma Mingpei was breathing more than he was exhaling, and was simply crushed to death.

Liu Shizi felt that it was difficult to comment on this matter.

Either Yang Qi wanted to kill someone on purpose, or Yang Qi is stupid.

Otherwise, it would be impossible for two groups of messengers with the same mission to meet.

The messenger is the messenger, and his only mission is to accomplish the mission.

The two people have the same mission, and it is destined that only one person can complete the task assigned by the monarch.

If we think about it from the perspective of a normal intellectual, the answer is very simple: physically eliminate the competitor.

Isn’t this what our ancestor Ban Chao did? It’s a diplomatic tradition.

This wave of attacks was purely due to Ma Mingpei's status. It was like Liu Chengzong's envoy to the Ming Dynasty. Unless his mission was to cause trouble, he would most likely not take the initiative to provoke conflicts and attack.

Because he certainly wanted to show the Ming emperor and his ministers etiquette and civilization that did not exist among the Dunta barbarians.

The Ming envoy had no such concerns, so despite being at a disadvantage in terms of the weight of their weapons, they managed to kill Ma Mingpei by surprise attack.

Finally, Ma Shaoyou was placed under house arrest by Yang Qi. Two imperial edicts of ennobling the king and two golden seals of the king fell into Yang Qi's hands, which were so hot that he hurriedly took the things and rushed to Xi'an.

The funniest thing is that the golden seal given to King Shunyi by the Ming Dynasty was a fake.

Although it looked golden, Liu Chengzong knew the weight was wrong as soon as he picked it up.

The gold seal of Daiqing weighs sixteen kilograms, while the one of Daming weighs only seven or eight kilograms. It is probably a gold-plated copper seal.

It was this seal that made Liu Chengzong wonder what Chongzhen was trying to do.

Thinking from another perspective, it was very wise and reasonable for the emperor to confer the title of Emperor Yang Qi at this time, which at least achieved the effect of killing two birds with one stone. It could not only create an enemy for the Later Jin, but also reduce an enemy for himself, and it might even disgust Liu Chengzong so much that he cut off his own arm.

Of course, the third effect is difficult to achieve, but this is not Chongzhen’s fault. The main reason is that the Ming Dynasty could not figure out Yang Qi’s military strength and power composition.

The governor of Mo Nan rebelled against Liu Chengzong because of an illusory kingship, which was no different from suicide.

But if you want to confer the title of king, you should do it properly. Forget about the camel button. If you want to use copper, just make it real copper and deliberately plate it with a layer of gold.

The imperial court is just short of those two thousand taels of silver, right?

On the other hand, although the casting craftsmanship of Huang Taiji’s King Yishun’s golden seal was average, one could tell it weighed more than ten pounds when he weighed it, indicating that the material was of high quality.

That's really good!

But this was because Liu Chengzong didn't know the whole story.

When Altan Khan was enthroned, he was not given a seal at first. Later, in the early years of the Wanli period, Altan Khan asked for a seal, and the court then gave the King of Shunyi a golden seal in accordance with the system of princes.

According to the ceremonial system, the prince should be given a gold-plated and silver-plated tortoise-shaped seal, but the court discussed giving a gold-plated jade seal. However, for some reason, the seal that finally fell into Altan Khan's hands was a gold-plated and copper-plated camel-shaped seal.

Altan Khan made trouble several times, and the Ming Dynasty governor didn't know what was going on with the seal. Knowing that he was in the wrong, he was afraid that Altan Khan would use the seal to cause trouble, so he just fooled them.

In other words, the gold-plated copper camel-button seal is the true Shunyi King seal that has been passed down from the Wanli period to this day.

Both families were absolutely sincere in conferring the title on Yang Qi.

Chongzhen of the Ming Dynasty took out the real seal of the King of Shunyi, abandoned the weakened Tumed, and recognized the traitor Yang Qi as the lord of the south of the desert.

Dai Qinghuang Taiji was also very sincere and offered a throne of the same caliber as a prince to win over Yang Qi.

But this kind of kindness is obviously a hidden treasure.

"Yuanheng, take this and melt it, and keep that first, and give it to Yang Qi later."

Liu Chengzong first threw the Yishun seal to Zhang Yuanheng, then gave him the Shunyi seal after a moment's thought, and said as he walked away, "Call Zhao Jifang over and ask him to draft two documents. The first one will be sent to E'linchen, the Wanhu of Mo Nan, and the three generals He Huchen, Wang Chengen, and Quntu, asking them to discuss Mo Nan affairs for the time being."

"By the way, send someone to bring Ma Shaoyou to me."

"The second one is a letter for Yang Qi, thanking His Majesty for conferring him the title of King of Shunyi, expressing his loyalty and determination to resist the Later Jin, asking for 10,000 dan of rice per year, asking for the opening of the market to sell horses, and other miscellaneous things. Don't be petty and ask for too much. The emperor has money."

The two men were walking towards the military government office with Yulin Lang when they saw two people coming together from Duanli Gate.

A bearded man wearing red and green, with a sword and a bow and arrow on his waist; a young man wearing a big hat with a red tassel and glasses, with a pistol and an abacus on his waist.

Needless to say, they were Zhang Xianzhong, the Minister of Rites of the Marshal's Office, and Liu Chengyun, the Minister of Revenue.

After walking a few steps, Zhang Xianzhong said in surprise with a gloating look on his face: "General, I heard that Yang Qi was shot by more than ten arrows and fled back to the interior of the country. He was covered in blood and was dying. I will go to prepare for the funeral and ask someone to make a nanmu coffin?"

What is this word?

Liu Shizi looked at him with disdain.

Cheng Yun also came forward and asked worriedly, "Brother, how is Governor Yang doing?"

"Look, this is what people say."

Liu Chengzong said something to Zhang Xianzhong, and then said to Cheng Yun: "Yang Qi is as strong as an ox. He has not dismounted for three days and three nights, so his legs are rubbed. Other than that, he is a little dirty, but there is nothing serious."

After that, he added: "But he was frightened and exhausted. I think he will have a fever for two days."

"That's really... scary?"

Zhang Xianzhong was just feeling sorry for the fact that Yang Qi did not die, when he suddenly heard that he was frightened. He was extremely surprised and wondered what had happened that could have frightened the governor of Mo Nan to the point of peeing his pants.

The militia generals of the Marshal's Office and the surrendered Ming army generals had always disliked each other.

The militia thought that the Ming army was all defeated, and the Ming army thought that the militia were all problematic young people with bad habits.

However, these two factions are marginalized in the Marshal's Office. There are not many people who can get along with them, and people tend to dislike and sympathize with each other.

The only ones in the Marshal's Office that could truly be called a faction were Liu Chengzong's rebel soldiers.

Although he looked down on him, Zhang Xianzhong knew Yang Qi after all. They had all crawled out of a pile of dead bodies, so they wouldn't be easily frightened.

Just when he was confused, he heard Liu Chengzong say: "Da Ming appointed him as the King of Shunyi, and Dai Qing appointed him as the King of Yishun. With two royal seals in hand, do you think he is afraid?"

"hiss!"

Zhang Xianzhong took a breath of cold air.

Daming didn't know the situation in Mo Nan, so didn't he know it? Yang Qi was a commander without troops. Any of the thousand households in Mo Nan could rebel, but Yang Qi was the only one who couldn't.

Not to mention others, just Bai Wenxuan, the lieutenant general under Yang Qibiao, who used to be Zhang Xianzhong's man, and he was familiar with him.

Yang Qi announced the change of flag the day before, and at night Bai Wenxuan came to Liu Chengzong with his head in his hand to claim the reward.

At this moment, Zhang Xianzhong saw the eunuch Zhang Yuanheng holding two golden royal seals. His eyes widened: "General, are those two the royal seals?"

Liu Chengzong looked at him and said to Zhang Yuanheng with a smile, "Yuanheng, let Zhang Butang take a look at the two stones."

Zhang Xianzhong took one of the pieces in his hand and, like Liu Chengzong, he immediately knew that one of them was copper. He looked at it again and again and said, "Why is this evil blue seal engraved with Tartar characters? Even if you are the commander-in-chief, should our seal also be engraved with Tartar characters?"

"It's not necessary."

Liu Chengzong shook his head. They, the frontier soldiers, had all learned some Mongolian Uighur phonetic alphabets, so he said, "They have sounds but no characters, so they borrow characters to spell the characters. Since we already have characters, why should we do this again?"

As Liu Shizi was talking, he saw Zhang Xianzhong couldn't let go of the golden seal and said with a smile, "Prince Daiqing Yishun, do you want it?"

"No no no no no."

Zhang Xianzhong shook his head quickly, and the joy on his face just now disappeared instantly. He raised his hand as if it was burned, and threw the golden seal back to Zhang Yuanheng: "Give it to your husband, this turtle seal is ugly."

"Hahaha!"

When Liu Chengzong heard Zhang Xianzhong call Bixi a turtle, he immediately laughed and said, "It's okay. I'll make you one later. Whatever button you want, I'll make you one."

"Are you serious, Marshal?"

Liu Chengzong nodded seriously and said, "Sixth Minister, there should be a seal."

"Then..." Zhang Xianzhong pursed his lips, raised his face, and looked at Zhang Yuanheng and Liu Chengyun with a happy face. He thought for a while and said, "In my early years, I was called Huang Hu. In the future, the Marshal will grant me a seal with a tiger button."

When Liu Chengzong agreed, Zhang Xianzhong was very excited, as if he had already got the tiger seal in his hands.

Then his eyes moved quickly, and Liu Chengzong asked: "What have you thought of?"

"Well, Marshal, this seal looks quite valuable. Although Yang Qi's life is safe, he can't manage things for a short time. How about sending me to Mo Nan to ask them for two more seals?"

This young man!

Liu Chengzong pointed at Zhang Xianzhong with a look of amusement and said, "You are treating the Mo Nan Governor's Office as a copy."

  After taking office for a period of time, he was eventually rewarded with a gilded copper seal of the Great Ming Shunyi King and a gold seal of the Daiqing Yishun King, right?

"Okay, let's stop talking nonsense. Huang Taiji is not too rich to spend. He bestowed the golden seal on Yang Qi to relieve the pressure on his flank. This year, he will definitely attack the Ming Dynasty from the south of the desert."

Liu Chengzong's smile disappeared completely, he raised his arm towards the military government office, took the lead and said: "It just so happens that Chengyun is here, let's go and see our grain road!" (End of this chapter)