Fenghou

Chapter 479 Underground Palace
When Chen Qing arrived at the general manager's mansion, the battle in the general manager's mansion was over, but Ren Dejing disappeared mysteriously. The soldiers searched the mansion three times but failed to find Ren Dejing.

"Will there be a tunnel to escape from the General Manager's Mansion?" Chen Qing asked.

Yang Zaixing hurriedly said: "Xiaozhi is searching, but so far no tunnel leading to the outside has been found."

"What about the underground palace?"

Chen Qing thought of the underground palace where the silver was stored, "Could he hide in the underground palace?"

"Reporting to Dutong, the entrance of the underground palace is under the rockery. The entrance of the underground palace will only be exposed when the rockery is moved away. But the rockery has not been moved, so it is obvious that Ren Dejing did not enter the underground palace."

At this time, the soldiers brought in a little maid and reported: "I told you, Dutong, this little maid said she might know!"

Seeing that the little maid was a little scared, Chen Qing squatted in front of her and said with a smile, "If you can tell me the exact news, I will reward you ten taels of silver and send you home immediately!"

The little maid's eyes lit up, and she said timidly: "At that time, I was hiding in a cabinet in the inner study room, leaving a gap to look out, and I saw the chief executive also escaped into the inner study room, and then went underground."

Chen Qing asked again: "Is there a secret passage in the inner study?"

The little maid nodded.

Yang Zaixing frowned and said, "The inner study is the key place to search. I searched it myself, and found nothing unusual!"

"You must not have searched his bed."

Yang Zaixing was startled, "The bed has also been checked, and there is nothing abnormal."

Chen Qing quickly asked the soldier to take out a silver coin, smiled and handed it to the little maid, "Take us to see it."

The little maid nodded obediently and led the way. After a short while, she led everyone to the inner study. The inner study has two rooms inside and outside. When entering the inner room, Chen Qing immediately realized that something was wrong. There was no window in the room. There was only a large bed alone, occupying half of the room, and there were quilts, mats and pillows on the bed.

Chen Qing searched around, but found nothing unusual about the bed, so Yang Zaixing suggested, "Either move the bed away!"

Chen Qing waved his hand, "The bed probably has an mechanism, it's best not to force it!"

He looked expectantly at the little maid.

The little maid pointed to the center of the bed and said, "The Chief Manager was lying on the bed at that time!"

A tall and fat soldier lay down in the middle of the bed. After a while, Chen Qing heard a low 'click! ', and immediately searched around, but did not find where the sound came from?

The little maid touched the wall at the head of the bed for a while, and pressed it hard, and a hole appeared in the wall. Inside the hole was a copper ring, embedded in the wall. Everyone was refreshed. Everyone was attracted by the bed. On the wall, it will not appear until you lie on the bed, it really took great pains.

"It seems to be twisting this ring!" The little maid pointed to the copper ring.

Chen Qing reached in and twisted it hard, only to hear 'click! With a sound, the soldier on the bed he was lying on just now let out an exclamation, and fell down. The bed turned into a movable board. Everyone hurriedly opened the movable board, and a big hole appeared, about one foot deep, with a thick mattress underneath.

The soldier shouted from below: "Dutong, there is nothing wrong down there, there is still a door here!"

Sun Jiandao, who was standing aside, said, "I also heard that there are two underground palaces in the General Manager's Mansion. One is real and the other is fake. This should be the entrance to the real underground palace. The fake underground palace is under the rockery outside."

"Let the humble staff go and have a look first!"

Yang Zaixing pulled out his sword and jumped down, followed by several soldiers holding torches.

Everyone walked in through an open door, only to hear everyone exclaim, and after a while, they heard Yang Zaixing shouting and cursing and the sound of swords clashing, followed by someone shouting: "Forgive! Forgive!"

The little maid was a little scared and said, "It's the voice of the steward, general, can you let me go?"

Chen Qing nodded, and said to the two soldiers: "Escort her home, don't frighten her!"

The two soldiers left with the little maid, and soon, Yang Zaixing took a ladder and walked up, stretched out his hand and dragged up a tall and fat middle-aged man who was tied up like a rice dumpling. The middle-aged man fell to the ground, his face pale with fright. , limp as mud, unable to speak a word.

Sun Jian said in a low voice: "Dutong, he is Ren Dejing!"

"Sun Jian, you bastard, I treated you well, how dare you betray me!" Ren Dejing cursed.

Chen Qing waved his hand, "Take him out and wait for disposal!"

The soldiers gagged Ren Dejing's mouth with rags and dragged him out like a dead pig. Then, holding a torch, Chen Qing led Yang Zaixing and a dozen others into the underground palace.

The so-called underground palace is actually a wider and higher tunnel, which is built around a circle with bricks. The underground palace is very long, with twists and turns at least tens of feet in length, with large boxes piled up on both sides. Soldiers pried open a large From the box, a heavy black cube came out. Chen Qing tried it, and it weighed at least fifty catties.

This should be a rough silver ingot, the surface was oxidized and blackened, but it must be confirmed. He and the soldiers moved more than a dozen black squares and returned to the study.

Chen Qing paid much more attention to this batch of rough silver than Ren Dejing. One hundred thousand catties of rough silver ingots were converted into one hundred and sixty taels of silver. One and a half million coins, equivalent to one-twentieth of the annual tax revenue of the Northern Song Dynasty.

With this money, the soldiers' military salaries, the input of materials, and the development of the Hehuang Valley and Taohe Valley have greatly promoted, laying a solid foundation for him to continue to recover Shaanxi Road.

In the yard, Chen Qing confirmed that this batch of rough silver was exactly the silver that had disappeared from the Guichuan Silver Mine, and there were clear storage records. It totaled [-] catties and [-] large boxes.

But there are more than [-] catties of silver in the underground palace, as well as a large amount of gold, silver and jewelry, as well as jade, bronze and other items.

This is only part of the wealth, and there are also grains, copper coins, cloth, porcelain, silk, and tea cakes stored in several warehouses, and the amount is very large.

The reason why Ren Dejing wanted to separate himself and proclaim himself emperor, following the example of Xue Ju, the overlord of the Western Qin Dynasty, was because he had accumulated a large amount of wealth and had the confidence to proclaim himself emperor.

As the sky gradually dawned, the city of Huangzhou was completely occupied, eight thousand soldiers became prisoners of war, and twenty-three members of the Ren family, including Ren Dejing, were all arrested.

But Chen Qing was not in a hurry to deal with them. Ren Dejing's three sons and elder brother Ren Zhongqun were still outside.

In the morning, Chen Qing got the news that a [-]-strong army was approaching Huangzhou City from the west, about forty miles away from Huangzhou City.

This should be the [-] Xi'an Army led by Ren Dejing's eldest son, Ren Hua, who came to support Huangzhou.

Chen Qing immediately ordered Yang Zaixing and Gao Ding to lead [-] cavalry each to fight.

Ren Dejing's [-] troops are basically Han Chinese, which is fundamentally different from the Xixia foreign army. Chen Qing, the Xixia army, asks for ransom at most, and it is impossible to collect it for his own use.

But Ren Dejing's [-] troops can be incorporated for his own use, which will play a decisive role in the rapid expansion of Chen Qing's army.

All of Chen Qing's orders to Yang Zaixing and Gao Ding were to accept surrender as much as possible.

Chen Qing handed over the [-] soldiers to Niu Gao for reorganization. Niu Gao took eight deputy commanders, eight capitals, and five civil officials to reorganize the soldiers, and another [-] troops were in charge of assisting.

The Xihe Army has formed a complete set of procedures for the reorganization and surrender of soldiers, mainly to break up all [-] soldiers, reorganize battalions, departments, teams, and corps, appoint new commanders and deputy commanders, and then promote outstanding sergeants to serve as commanders. Dutou, escort team, corps leader, Yuhou, ten generals and other festival-level officers.

Three days after the formation of the new army, physical strength training and confrontation training began, especially confrontation training and various competitions, which played an important role in enhancing the sense of group identity.

Sajinping, about [-] miles west of Huangzhou City, is a forest and grassland area with a radius of tens of miles, also known as Xilieyuan, where Ren Dejing trained cavalry. Here the soldiers were flanked by [-] Song cavalry.

The army of Xi'an Prefecture was defeated, and [-] cavalry troops of the Song Army surrounded and intercepted. Ren Hua was shot off the horse by Gao Ding and killed on the spot. The enemy troops who wanted to break through were killed by Yang Zaixing's order, and the remaining [-] enemy troops all surrendered.

At the same moment when the siege of Xilieyuan broke out, Chen Qing came to the Xu family and visited Xu Hongtu, the old man of the Xu family.

It was Hu Yanlei who told him that the mother of the old man of the Xu family was the daughter of Dong Zhan, the second-generation Tubo suzerain of the Qingtang Dynasty. Xu Hongtu had lived in Tubo for fifteen years and had close ties with the leaders of Tubo tribes.

If Chen Qing wants to continue to collect Jishi Prefecture and Taozhou, and to stabilize the frontier in the future, he will inevitably get along well with the Tubo and Qiang people.

Xu Hongtu welcomed Chen Qing into the hall of honor, and the two sat down separately.

Chen Qing said with a smile: "Thanks to the Xu family's great assistance in capturing Huangzhou this time, I have appointed Xu Pei as the governor of Huangzhou. I believe he can restore order as soon as possible and get rid of Ren Dejing's abuse of Huangzhou."

Xu Hongtu bowed and saluted, "Thank you Jiedu Envoy for trusting my son, and I believe he will not disappoint Jiedu Envoy."

Chen Qing pondered for a moment and asked, "What good advice does Senior Xu have for governing the land of Hehuang?"

(End of this chapter)