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At the end of noon, the sun hangs high in the sky. Although the light shines on the earth as usual, it still cannot stop the cold of winter.

Outside the Fucheng Gate of the Imperial Capital of the Ming Dynasty, there were crowds of people, traffic was constantly flowing, and there were chants of hawkers everywhere, mixed with the sound of bargaining, creating a lively scene.

In the middle is a straight avenue "Fuchengmen Outer Street". There are many shops along the street on both sides, with their own signboards and door fronts hanging high in front of the door, and there are strings of colorful lights. Did not ignite.

At the end of this avenue through the city is a tall and sturdy suspension bridge, which is firmly laid flat on the wide moat, showing that this place is still a peaceful and prosperous world.

The urn city of Fuchengmen is square, about 21 feet long from east to west, and nearly [-] feet wide from north to south. There is a gate on the south side of the urn, and a gate tower is built on top of the gate. The Guandi Temple was also built in the northeast corner of the temple.

Because the gate of the Wengcheng Gate is facing south, it is just like a curved ruler in the direction of the inner city gate. Window, this is the gate tower of Urn City.

Going further from here is the real inner city gate of the Ming capital—"Fucheng Gate".

Fuchengmen is actually a general term including the gate tower, door opening, archery tower, urn city, and urn city gate. All the buildings are made of extra-large city bricks fired in Linqing, Shandong.

The base of Fuchengmen's tower is about twelve feet wide, the top of the tower is eight feet deep, and the height of the tower is more than three feet. The left and right horse paths inside the tower are one and five feet wide.

The city tower is five rooms wide, and the corridors alone are nearly ten feet wide, three rooms deep, and the corridors are five feet deep.

The gate tower of Fucheng Gate is more than ten feet high. It is a three-storey Xieshan-style building with eaves. Its columns, doors and windows are all vermilion. It is a green glazed tile, decorated with hopeful beasts and ridge beasts.

In the center of the lower part of the gate tower of Fucheng Gate and perpendicular to the wall of the city wall, there is a coupon-shaped city gate hole, which is equipped with a city gate that opens inward, and is fixed with Fushan Shouhai five-bread ingot iron nails.

Right above the city gate is an archery tower with double eaves and a mountain top. There are 82 arrow windows on the west, south and north sides. It is "convex" when viewed from above.

Inside Fuchengmen is Fuchengmen Inner Street leading to the direction of Da Nei Imperial City. On the north side of the street are Xichengfang, Futianfang, Jiqingfang and other squares, as well as buildings such as Dasheng Shouwan'an Temple, while Fuchengmen On the south side of the inner street, there are Jinchengfang, Xianyifang, Anfufang and so on.

Fuchengmen and Chaoyangmen are facing each other far away from east to west, and almost all the coal carts of Zhaitang in Mentougou in the west of Beijing come in and out of this gate. Therefore, coal store merchants collected donations in the gate of Wengcheng, and there is a bouquet of plum blossoms engraved to remember it.

And because "plum" and "coal" are homophonic, and because whenever the north wind howls in winter, the sky is all white, but people around the oven all praise: "Fucheng plum blossoms herald the warm spring".

At this time, it has been a long time since the 11th year of Chongzhen's invasion of the Tartars, and the bustling outside the Fuchengmen Wengcheng has long since returned to its former prosperity. better than ever.

In the past year or so, Yuan Longchang Chariot and Horse Shop has also been greatly expanded under Niu Sheng's wholehearted management.

Yuan Longchang Chariot & Horse Shop has become the number one commercial empire in the west of Beijing, and its core business has completely transformed from a cart & horse shop and warehouse to a powerful bodyguard company.

Although his brand name is still Yuan Longchang Chariot and Horse Shop, it occupies as many as five locations in the western suburbs of the capital, and its chariot and horse shop is still located in Xiguan.

Because it is easy to get in touch with merchants from all over the place, it is an excellent place to inquire about internal and external information. Naturally, it cannot be easily discarded, and it remains in Xiguan together with the chariot and horse shop. There are also two warehouses for merchants to store groceries from the north and the south.

And there are two more spacious places outside Xiguan, which are a horse farm and a large warehouse.

The horse farm is ten miles southwest of Fuchengmen, and it is the most extensive place. It was originally an official horse farm, but it was destroyed by fire due to the invasion of the south by captive cavalry in 11 years.

Later, this place was found for Niu Sheng. After simple repairs, horse mules were bred here and used to train the team of knights under his command. At the same time, some strong young men were recruited by him and trained secretly here.

As Yuan Longchang's business became more and more complicated, the merchants from all over the country also gradually increased. In addition to inquiring about the news, it was more convenient, and because of the prevalence of bandits, merchants from all over the place were generally worried when they walked.

At the same time, Niu Sheng also received orders from his general master Zhang Cheng to establish material transfer points in various major cities in southern Jinan, and cooperate with Liu Jinhai to establish his own strongholds in some key and dangerous places.

Therefore, Niu Shengdang even thought of forming a bodyguard team to serve as guards for merchants traveling from south to north, so that he could not only expand the business of his firm, but also travel all over the north and south with the flow of merchants.

In this way, you can understand the local conditions and customs of each place, and you can also take the opportunity to establish footholds for bodyguard teams in various places, and then form your own intelligence network.

Moreover, the footholds of the bodyguard teams in various big cities are all established corresponding to the semicolons of the Yuanlongchang Trading Company in the city. The firm is responsible for making money and collecting information, while the bodyguard firm is responsible for guarding and delivering information.

In this way, a large network was formed on the land of Gyeonggi, and even in many places in Shandong and Henan. This is an intelligence network and relationship network, and it is also a material support network and a military auxiliary network.

Up to now, the Yuanlongchang firm controlled by Niu Sheng has more than a thousand elite knights alone, and more than a hundred of them are loyal and brave soldiers selected from various battalions of the Xuanfu Army.

It was their joining that enabled Niu Sheng's bodyguards to grow rapidly. These sharp men from the Xuanfu Army were not only the backbone of the bodyguards, but also the leaders of various bodyguard teams, and they were also the leaders of the major cities. The steward of the foothold.

Moreover, these soldiers are also absolutely loyal to Zhang Cheng, and their family members all live in Xuanfu, so Zhang Cheng is not afraid that they will have dissent, and can even use them to control a grassroots dart team, so that the entire dart team Completely in their own hands.

Although Zhang Cheng has absolute trust in Niu Sheng, he knows too well the truth that "people's desires will continue to expand"!

Even if Niu Sheng has no dissatisfaction now, but this dart team was created by him, trained by him, and he pays everyone a monthly salary. After such a long time, the dart team may only know Niu Sheng, but not Yongning Bo.

Even if Zhang Cheng is not afraid that Niu Sheng will completely control this bodyguard team, after all, this force may already be very powerful in the eyes of others, but it is insignificant compared to the tens of thousands of strong troops in Zhang Cheng's hands.

But if you can prevent problems before they happen, why not do it?

…………

Not seeing him for more than half a year, Niu Sheng seems to be a little stronger than before, obviously he didn't spend this time leisurely.

Because he had already received a message from Zhang Mingyuan, the adjutant of the Chinese army, in order not to disturb the people in the surrounding villages and nearby warehouses, he was ordered to just wait in front of the racecourse gate and not to greet him far away.

At this moment, he saw more than a hundred riders galloping towards him from a distance, and the first one was wearing a brown suit and a red wool cape, riding on a chrysanthemum green war horse, walking slowly towards this side.

Niu Sheng took a closer look, and immediately recognized that it wasn't his grandfather, who else could it be?
He also saw that on both sides of Zhang Cheng's body, there were two warriors also dressed in vigorous attire, with bright red woolen cloaks behind them, and each of them had a tall horse on their laps.

Especially the general on Zhang Cheng's left. Although he was much older than Zhang Cheng, his clothes were brighter. There were a few conspicuous bright feathers on the cotton cap on his head. A pure white war horse.

If Yongningbo Zhang Cheng hadn't been firmly seated in the center, he might have been overwhelmed by this well-dressed general, and the one on the other side had a look of wind and frost on his face.

Although the clothes on his body can be seen at a glance with some traces of time, they are very neat and tidy. There is a vigorous blue horse under his crotch, which shows that he must be a veteran for many years.

Although Niu Sheng didn't know the two people who accompanied Zhang Cheng, he already thought that to be able to accompany his own general and lord, he must be someone who is not taken lightly.

Even though Zhang Mingyuan had sent him a message not to make too much noise, but when he saw Zhang Cheng coming from afar, his excitement was uncontrollable, and he hurried forward to meet him.

Behind him, Lv Dachun, the Prime Minister of Honglu Temple, Wang Zhaozheng, the treasurer of Tongchunlou, and others also followed closely. Behind them were some people dressed in fancy clothes, showing a trace of official appearance.

On both sides of the street, there are strong men, all of whom are dressed in strong blue clothes, with broad shoulders and round waists. They all hold spears in their right hands and put their left hands on the handles of their waist knives, standing guard.

Ten steps away from Zhang Cheng's arrival, Niu Sheng prostrated himself on the ground and couldn't get up. It was not until Zhang Cheng rode his horse up to him that he shouted loudly: "Little man Niu Sheng, see Uncle Yongning!"

Behind him, Lu Dachun, Wang Zhaozheng and others also quickly knelt down and said: "Your Majesty Lu Dachun, I pay my respects to Uncle Yongning."

"Xiaomin Wang Zhaozheng, I pay my respects to my lord."

"Your official Yu Shangyou, my respects..."

"My next official, Yuan Pengnian..."

"Xiaguan Wang tunes the tripod..."

"The next official, Ma Jiazhi..."

"My subordinate Liang Yuming..."

"Sir..."

Zhang Chengce was on his "Bi Cong Horse", looking down at the people kneeling in front of him, he couldn't help feeling the importance of status.

Niu Sheng, Lu Dachun, and Wang Zhaozheng were originally under his command, so there is no need to say much, but Yu Shangyou still had a haughty expression when he first met him.

At that time, he was already the censor of the court, but he was just a small guerrilla general. Although Yu Shangyou was not a court official with real power, he still could only look up to him.

However, as time flies, as he gradually rises step by step, he first uses the benefits of gold and silver to make him a helper, and then as his strength expands, he completely helps him on the chariot of the Xuanfu army .

But now, after half a year, people such as Yu Shangyou, Yuan Pengnian, Wang Diaoding, Ma Jiazhi, Liang Yuming, etc., when they saw me again, they knelt down and greeted me.

It can be seen that the world is changing, and with the continuous improvement of his status and strength, there will inevitably be a group of "minded people" who pursue progress and come to join him and become Yongning Bo's guests.

"You are all old friends of Ben Bo, so why be polite, get up quickly!" Zhang Cheng didn't get off the horse immediately, but Ce said this lightly on the Bi Cong horse.

There is a lot of knowledge in this sentence. First of all, he is still riding on the horse. Although he seems to have lost the enthusiasm he used to treat everyone, he declares that everyone is "Ben's old friend".

This shows what?
This shows that Zhang Cheng already regards them as his confidants, his old acquaintances before he became "Bo Yongning", and they are not just ordinary acquaintances, they are close friends.

We are all smart people, who can fight to reach the rank of general soldier in the troubled times of the late Ming Dynasty, or be able to leave a name among thousands of court officials, which one will be a fuel-efficient lamp?
Zhang Cheng didn't dismount immediately, so Wang Pu and Li Fuming naturally couldn't dismount, so they just followed behind Zhang Cheng, riding their horses forward slowly.

The big men standing on both sides of the street knelt down on one knee one by one and shouted loudly: "Bo Wansheng, Yongning!"

They originally stood in twos on the left and right, but now they knelt down to salute in twos. Although the sound of the two shouting together was not as powerful as the shouting of thousands of people, it was very solemn under this situation.

It wasn't until he came to the gate that Zhang Mingyuan rushed forward and grabbed the reins of Zhang Cheng's war horse. Zhang Cheng got off the horse and let Zhang Mingyuan lead his bicong horse to the stable.

Zhang Cheng looked at Niu Sheng and the others who came up on foot, and said in a deep voice, "Niu Sheng, come here to pay respects to Datong Wang Zongbing and Shanxi Li Zongbing."

It was only at this moment that Niu Sheng suddenly realized: No wonder he looked very kind, but it turned out to be Wang Pu, the General Soldier of Datong whom he had met when he went to Beijing together in 11.

At that time, he was just a soldier in Zhang Cheng's cavalry headquarters. Although he had seen Wang Pu, the chief soldier of Datong, he was looking at each other from a distance. In fact, he had never had the opportunity to take a closer look.

But Wang Pu's attire and the temperament he displayed were unforgettable, so he felt a little familiar from a distance.

Later, Zhang Cheng introduced Yu Shangyou, Yu Shi, Yuan Pengnian, head of the Ministry of Rites, Wang Diaoding, head of the Staff Department of the Ministry of War, Ma Jiazhi, head of the Henan Qing Officials Department of the Ministry of Households, and Liang Yuming, experience of the General Administration Department, to Wang Pu and Li Fuming. official.

After Zhang Cheng's introduction, both civil and military parties saluted one after another, and they were somewhat shocked in each other's hearts.

Although Zhang Cheng was already a dignified Yongning Bo at this moment, Wang Pu and Wang Pu were shocked that they had placed their confidantes in all the ministries of the court. They couldn't help but admire Zhang Cheng even more, and at the same time they felt a little fear in their hearts.

Yu Shangyou, Yuan Pengnian and others also had the same mentality. They only knew that Zhang Cheng was very favored by his own soldiers and the current emperor, and that his powerful troops were also brave and good at fighting.

What's even more rare is that he also likes to spend money very much, and his spending is unusually generous. Everyone has gained a lot of benefits from Zhang Cheng, so naturally they are completely devoted to him.

However, at this time, he saw that he was the honor of the commander-in-chief of Datong and Shanxi towns, and he respected Zhang Cheng very much, as if he was Yongning Bo's subordinate.

How could they not be shocked, and they couldn't help wondering secretly what the future of Yongning Bo Zhang Cheng would be. Is he the god of war who descended from the sky to save Ming, or a demon to destroy Ming?