After the whole family was swept away, I lay down flat

Chapter 684 Secret Message
"So Brother Jin really told you the contact information?"

After Haitang learned from her brother Haijiao about the content of his conversation with Jin Jiashu, she couldn't help but be surprised: "I thought he always had a stable and fast way to communicate with the palace, and he didn't need to use you to deliver the letter. When you arrived in the capital, you contacted the person he told you about. Isn't that person also from the palace? What's the difference between him delivering the letter to the palace through Mammy and others now?"

Haijiao raised his index finger and shook it a few times. "It's different. He sent the letter to the palace through Ma Shangyi and Lin Shiwei. The letter might fall into the hands of others and pass through their hands first. Or although Madam Xu was the first person to see the letter, the empress dowager and the emperor in the palace knew that she had received the letter and might come to ask her what was written in the letter. Sending a letter to the palace through this channel cannot be hidden from others. If Xiao Jin wants to whisper something to Madam Xu, he will have to be restrained. In the past, he could only hint with words, but that required Madam Xu to guess what he was hinting at. If he guessed wrong, it would cause misunderstandings and inconvenience. Although he has always been very lucky, the mother and son have not spent much time together, but Madam Xu can always guess what he wants to say. However, in the past few years, it is not that there have been times when he guessed wrong, but it just didn't interfere with the business. Now that the emperor intends to prevent Xiao Jin from entering the capital, Xiao Jin naturally wants to ask Madam Xu if she knows about it and what she thinks, but it is not easy to say it in the letter."

If Jin Jiashu asked Concubine Xu openly in the letter, the letter might not reach Concubine Xu at all, and the emperor would know that he was dissatisfied. Even if Concubine Xu and the Eighth Prince took power after the emperor passed away, no one would be able to stop Jin Jiashu from going to Beijing. He would also have to be wary of the emperor leaving a will for the Eighth Prince, saying that he was not allowed to use "cousin" or something like that. The Eighth Prince was reluctant to disobey the order out of filial piety, so wouldn't Jin Jiashu be the one who was wronged?

Ma Shangyi now advised Jin Jiashu to be patient and wait for the future, which was very biased towards his statement. After all, the master behind her was Queen Mother Zhou, not the emperor, and naturally she was more on the side of the Queen Mother and Concubine Xu. But Jin Jiashu did not dare to trust others completely, he had to find out what Concubine Xu was thinking. Avoiding the Queen Mother and the Emperor's men and contacting Concubine Xu privately became what he wanted to do most at the moment.

As for whether this line of communication will be discovered by the Queen Mother and the Emperor...

Haijiao told Haitang: "Xiao Jin seems to be quite confident about this. Although Concubine Xu doesn't have many people under her, and almost all of her work is done by the Emperor and the Empress Dowager, it's not that she has no connections at all, but these people can't act outside the capital. I went to the capital to help them make up for this shortcoming."

The person Jin Jiashu controlled was revealed to him by Concubine Xu Xian in the past. He was an old eunuch who used to work in the Qianqing Palace. However, he was not a respectable eunuch who could be used by the emperor, but just a rough eunuch who did the cleaning. He was almost severely punished by the emperor because of someone else's frame-up. It was Concubine Xu Xian, who was living in the Qianqing Palace at the time and had not yet been named a concubine but was just a concubine of Xu Palace, who pleaded for him and saved his life. From then on, he regarded Concubine Xu Xian as his benefactor and was more loyal to her than to the emperor.

This eunuch Pu is not young anymore, and he has been working hard for many years, and he is suffering from old illnesses. A few years ago, Concubine Xu Xian showed him grace and let him go out of the palace. Because he had no relatives, she arranged for him to guard the tomb near a temple in the suburbs of Beijing. The tomb he guarded was the tomb of Jin Jiashu's biological mother, "Jin Xu" - actually Liu Dainian. Concubine Xu Xian gave her "deceased sister" a grand funeral, and bought a house and land near the tomb, and specially arranged for Eunuch Pu to guard the tomb. If anyone came to touch the tomb of his "deceased sister", Eunuch Pu would report to the palace. Eunuch Pu has a house to live in, and income from the land to support his life. He can also receive rewards from the palace all year round and during festivals, so he lives a stable and affluent life. He now has enough money to adopt a few orphans, and even the problem of future retirement has been solved.

In this way, Eunuch Park was even more loyal and grateful to Concubine Xu. When necessary, he would help Concubine Xu conceal the news from the emperor and the empress dowager. If he needed someone to run errands to inquire about things, the orphans he adopted could also come in handy.

Haijiao told Haitang: "Xiao Jin will write two letters and ask me to take them to this eunuch Pu. There should be no important news in the first letter, just a casual greeting, introducing me to this eunuch Pu, and reminding Madam Xu. If this letter is successfully delivered to Madam Xu and there is a reply, I will give the second letter to Eunuch Pu and ask him to deliver it to the palace."

After being reminded, Concubine Xu would naturally arrange the timing to ensure that the second letter would not be noticed by the emperor. And the content of this letter was what Jin Jiashu really wanted to say to Concubine Xu.

Haijiao sighed, "Xiao Jin is not having an easy time now. It seems that there are many people around him helping him, but in fact, few of them really care about him. Most of them are loyal to the emperor and the empress dowager, and a few are working for Madam Xu. He is just a by-product. Everyone expects him to be well-behaved and obedient, and doesn't want him to have his own ideas. No wonder he is so cautious." Haitang pursed her lips and asked Haijiao, "This way of sending a letter sounds quite cautious, but what about the reply? You are going to take the military examination. After the examination, if you fail, you can still come back. If you pass, you will be directly appointed as an official. If you don't come back to Chang'an, it is impossible to send the letter in person. How will Brother Jin receive Madam Xu's reply? If you still follow the path of Mammy Ma and Guard Lin, won't it be exposed that you have sent letters privately before? Or does Madam Xu intend to use code words in the letter to tell Brother Jin what she thinks?"

Haijiao hesitated for a moment: "Xiao Jin plans to use our help... I will write a letter to my family and put the reply inside the letter and send it back. I will write your name on the envelope of one of the letters and pretend that it is a letter from me to you. Others will not open it and read it casually. In this way, when you receive the letter and see the letter inside, you will know that it is for Xiao Jin, and it does not need to pass through other people's hands."

But this is not 100% safe.

Haitang looked at her brother and lowered her voice: "Brother, since you haven't set off yet, why don't we discuss how to write a coded letter?"

"A coded letter?"

Haitang nodded: "We need to find a book with many words, a printed one that can be sold in Chang'an or the capital, and it must be produced by the same printing workshop and the same batch, and use it as a code book. You and I will each get a copy, and use the number of pages, lines and word rankings to encode and write a secret letter. Even if outsiders open the letter and find that the content is not coherent and know that there is a secret, as long as they can't get the book that serves as the code book, they will not be able to guess what we wrote in the letter."

Family letters can be written separately, but truly secret communications should be carried out in the form of coded letters. Even if the letter is checked by others, no one will know what is really written in the letter.

For them at present, this is the simplest, most economical and most convenient way to write secret letters.

After all, the several secret communication methods that are popular in the world today are too familiar to the court and the army, and the secrets may be discovered at any time. It is better to keep it simple and use the code directly!

(End of this chapter)