The Qing Dynasty is about to end

Chapter 133 Zuo Zongtang: I am just a commoner from Xiangyin! (asking for monthly tickets)
The Eight Banners soldier captured by Li Shoucheng was a cripple, limping over with a walking stick. When he saw Luo Yaoguo, he fell to the ground, kowtowed, and kept shouting, "My lord, spare my life! My lord, spare my life!"

Luo Yaoguo was so surprised that he couldn't help asking, "Hey, the Eight Banners are so short of soldiers now that they even want cripples?"

The Eight Banners soldier said, "Your Majesty, you may not know that I am not a cripple. I broke my leg when I jumped off a building early this morning."

"Jump off the building?" Luo Yaoguo looked at the Eight Banners soldier with a sad face and asked, "Why do you want to jump off the building? Is there something you can't get over?"

"I have nothing to worry about. Today, I followed the orders of my superiors and ambushed the shop on Huangdao Street. I killed the captain with thunder and bird guns. It was a crime to harm the lives of the holy soldiers of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. Amen, Amen."

This Jin Aduo can even say "Amen", it seems he is a man with "destiny", no wonder he was caught by Li Shoucheng.

He recited two "curses" from God, glanced at the angel with a bandage on his ear with a flattering look, and said, "I didn't want to provoke a Bull Demon King, who rushed into the shop. I and the other five Eight Banners soldiers were no match for him, so I had to jump off the building to escape. I didn't expect to break my leg, so I had to crawl to the side and pretend to be dead, but I didn't escape and was captured by the Taiping Army, woo woo."

It turned out that this guy was Jin Aduo, who was scared by Zhu Ba and jumped off the building. Although he jumped off the building to escape Zhu Ba's clutches, he was ultimately unable to escape and became a prisoner of the Taiping Army. When talking about the sad part, Jin Aduo shed tears.

Su Sanniang, who was standing by, saw that this man was cowardly, so she complained to Li Shoucheng, "Why did you find such a cowardly cripple?"

Li Shoucheng smiled bitterly and said, "Deputy General Manager, you don't know that most of the captured Eight Banner soldiers are smokers. Only this one doesn't seem to smoke foreign cigarettes. The other few people I picked are now addicted to smoking and rolling on the ground. How can they be envoys?"

"Be, be an envoy?" When Jin Aduo heard that he could be an envoy, he stopped crying immediately and said with tears, "Your Majesty, my legs and feet are not seriously injured. I can walk with crutches."

"Then let's go with him!" Luo Yaoguo glanced at the fat white man and asked with a smile, "What's your name?"

"The younger one is called Jin Aduo."

"Jin Aduo? Isn't Jin your old surname? What's your old surname?" Luo Yaoguo asked.

"My last name is Aisin-Gioro."

"Aisin-Gioro? You are still a royal relative!" Luo Yaoguo rolled his eyes.

Jin Aduo panicked immediately: "I, I am Shu Zong. It's Shu Zong!"

"Okay, okay, okay," Luo Yaoguo waved his hands hastily, "I don't care if you are unfamiliar with me or not, just run an errand for me and go see Zuo Jigao from Xiangyin."

"You're going to Xiangyin?"

Jin Aduo was stunned and thought to himself: "My legs and feet are not convenient now. It's not easy to limp to Xiangyin!"

"No need to run so far," Luo Yaoguo said with a smile, "The man is probably at Chao Zongmen. Do you have paper and pen? I will write a letter to him now, and you can raise a white flag and take the trouble to deliver it to Chao Zongmen. If Zuo Jigao has a reply, take it back. Don't worry, you have done the job for me, I will not detain you anymore, and I will definitely set you free."

"Yes!"

Jin Aduo answered honestly.

But he thought to himself, "I'm coming back? Am I stupid? When your grandfather leaves, it's like a dragon flying in the sky and a fish entering the sea!"

Luo Yaoguo had learned calligraphy since he was young. His writing was mediocre but not ugly. He wrote a letter to Zuo Zongtang stroke by stroke. His writing was not bad because he had read many ancient books. His writing had some ancient flavor, but it was still based on vernacular Chinese. This style was the same as the style of writing "Anti-Classic".

As for the content of the letter, it was simple. It stated that the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom had long heard of Zuo Zongtang's name, and knew that he was still a commoner and had no monarch-subject relationship with the Qing emperor, so they wanted to invite him to be an official of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

If Zuo Zongtang is interested, the Taiping Angel can guarantee Zuo Zongtang a prefecture of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom! And it must be the prefect of Hunan Province, except for Changsha, Hengzhou, Chenzhou, and Yongzhou!
If Zuo Zongtang could bring Huang Shijie, Chen Qishu, Jiang Zhongyuan and Luo Zenan over to him, Luo Yaoguo would also be willing to protect them as the rulers of a prefecture and a state in Hunan.

In addition, regardless of whether Zuo Zongtang was willing to be the prefect of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom or not, Luo Yaoguo hoped to meet him on the white land of Chaozongmen Rice Market after the fire - to discuss the exchange of prisoners of war for Hong Daquan. In fact, it didn't matter whether Hong Daquan was exchanged or not. What was important was to meet Zuo Zongtang!
After Luo Yaoguo finished writing the letter, he asked Jin Aduo to take it and limped to deliver it to Zuo Zongtang.

At this time, Zuo Zongtang had just directed his militia to set up defenses at Chaozong Gate. The Hunan Warriors used rice bags brought from the rice market to build a "rice bag breast wall". This breast wall was circular, which just enclosed Chaozong Gate and the two horse paths leading to the city.

More than a thousand men under Chen Qishu of the Chenzhou camp, three or four hundred men under Zhang Dingxiang of the Daozhou camp, as well as Bai Siwen, Tulama, Wenxiang, Duolong'a and three or four hundred Eight Banners soldiers, and more than six hundred Green Camp soldiers from Gansu and Shaanxi are now stationed behind this breastwork and on the city gate tower of Chaozong Gate.

Opposite them, thousands of "red-headed men" (including the Taiping Army and the Tiandihui rebels) were busy knocking down and demolishing the dilapidated houses near the fire site in order to prevent the fire from spreading.

"Master Zuo Jigao, don't shoot. I'm Jin Aduo. I'm from Beijing and I'm from the Eight Banners Gun Guard School. My surname is Aisin-Gioro."

Zuo Zongtang, Chen Qishu, Bai Siwen, Tulama, Wenxiang, Duolong'a and others were standing behind the "rice bag defense line" below the city gate and looking at the raging fire in front of them, when they suddenly heard a voice in Beijing dialect, claiming to be Aisin-Gioro!
Several people were startled, and looking in the direction of the sound, they saw a lame man wearing the uniform of an Eight Banners soldier, leaning on a cane, holding a white flag, limping along the city wall from south to north. Because he was wearing the uniform of an Eight Banners soldier, there was only one person, and he was a lame man, no one on the Qing demon side shot him with a shotgun, so they let him get close.

Zuo Zongtang found this a bit strange and thought, "How does this guy named Jin Aduo know that I'm in Chao Sect? I don't even know him."

Zuo Zongtang did not recognize Jin Aduo, but Bai Siwen did, and he immediately shouted, "Aduo, Aduo, are you still alive? Did you escape from Changmao?"

"No, I'm lame, how can I run? Some angel of peace sent me back to deliver a letter to Zuo Jigao in Xiangyin!"

"Xiangyin Zuo Jigao?"

"Mr. Zuo, do you know the hairy pseudo-angel?"

Zuo Zongtang glanced at the talkative Bai Siwen, Duolong'a, and Tu Lama, and ignored them completely. Then he said to Chen Qishu, "Please send someone to help Jin Aduo over."

"twitter!"

Chen Qishu responded respectfully and immediately sent two soldiers from Chenzhou to support Jin Aduo.

Looking at Zuo Zongtang's power and Chen Qishu's attitude towards him, it was as if Zuo Zongtang was the leader of all the troops in Chaozongmen!
But in fact, Zuo Zongtang was just a commoner from Xiangyin.

"Ado, what did that long-haired pseudo-angel tell you?"

Zuo Zongtang asked Jin Aduo with a smile, but Bai Siwen, Duolong'a and Wenxiang who were present changed color slightly.

Because Jin Aduo has a yellow belt! And he is also an official, a sixth-rank lance guard school, Zuo Zongtang is a commoner, although he is a chief advisor and has the title of Juren, but he is still a Han commoner. He should at least respectfully address Jin Aduo as "Mr. Jin", how can he call him by his name?

How can a Han Chinese commoner address a yellow-belted, sixth-rank musket guard officer by his name?
What is this rule?
Jin Aduo didn't think there was anything wrong. He was still very grateful to Zuo Zongtang. If he hadn't sent the letter to Zuo Zongtang, he would have lost his head!

"Mr. Zuo, the long-haired angel asked me to deliver a letter to you. He seems to want to meet you on the white ground after the rice market in Chao Sect was burned."

You two sent letters and met again. Didn't you know each other through fighting?

Bai Siwen, Duolong'a and Wenxiang were all very nervous.

"Show me the letter."

Zuo Zongtang stretched out his hand.

Jin Aduo quickly took out the envelope containing Luo Yaoguo's handwritten letter and handed it over respectfully.

Zuo Zongtang took the envelope, took out the letter paper, unfolded it, and laughed out loud, saying, "Haha, this Luo Tianshi is quite interesting. He wants to recruit me and make me a prefect in Hunan Province!"

"Recruitment?"

"To recruit Mr. Zuo?"

"That's ridiculous. Mr. Zuo, you are an official appointed by the imperial court."

Zuo Zongtang looked back at the man who said he was an official appointed by the imperial court. He was a foreigner wearing the official uniform of the Qing Dynasty, with a big beard, a high nose bridge, and deep eye sockets. He was none other than the Chief Lama of the Imperial Observatory.

This foreign lama did not participate in the battle of Huangdao Street, but stayed in the Jade Emperor Temple with dozens of other people. Later, a group of Tiandihui attacked, and they ran away together and escaped to Chaozongmen.

Zuo Zongtang listened to his words and just smiled gently: "Master Tu, in fact, I am not an official appointed by the court. I am just a commoner from Xiangyin!"

As soon as he said this, Bai Siwen, Wenxiang and Duolong'a's faces changed drastically, and some even felt a chill down their spines.

Zuo Zongtang was a commoner from Xiangyin!

Most of the leaders of Xianghu militia were scholars in plain clothes.
(End of this chapter)