I, Kangxi, am here to overthrow the Qing and restore the Ming!

A few days later, an urgent military report shattered the tranquility of the capital.

"Report! Urgent military situation in the Northwest! Tens of thousands of Dzungar cavalry have raided the Khalkha Mongol border and killed Zasagtu Khan! The border is in dire need of reinforcements! We request the court to send reinforcements immediately!"

This military report was naturally forged by the Heaven and Earth Society members arranged by Hong Xiguan through Cao Yin.

Upon seeing the military report, Hong Xiguan was so overjoyed he almost jumped off his dragon throne.

Haha! The east wind is here!

He immediately issued an imperial edict summoning Oboi.

"Lord Ao! A major incident has occurred in the Northwest! Those barbarians of the Dzungars dared to kill a prince of our Great Qing! This is intolerable!"

Hong Xiguan looked both "panicked" and "indignant".

"I have decided to immediately dispatch elite troops to the northern desert to quell the rebellion! Does Grand Secretary Ao have anyone to recommend for the command?"

He was handing Ao Bai a ladder.

Upon hearing this, Ao Bai's eyes lit up. He had been worried about having nothing to do lately and not being able to show off his power. How could he let go of this military merit that was delivered to his door?

Moreover, it was the Emperor himself who took the initiative to ask me to recommend a candidate to lead the troops. What does this mean? It means that the Emperor still cannot do without me!

"Your Majesty is wise!"

Ao Bai immediately waved his hand and said with great magnanimity, "Why should Your Majesty worry about such a trivial matter? I will immediately arrange for my capable generals to wipe out those barbarians!"

"Issue the order! Commander Nemo and Commander Ananda of the Bordered Yellow Banner to immediately muster their troops and garrison Zhangjiakou, ready to cross the border at any time to quell the rebellion!"

Thus, through Hong Xiguan's meticulous planning and Ao Bai's arrogance and greed for merit, the last two threatening military forces of the Ao Bai group in the capital, Nemo and Ananda, were successfully transferred away.

A comprehensive net targeting this Manchurian tiger has finally been completely closed.

......

On this day, the sky over Beijing was overcast, as if a huge storm was brewing.

The atmosphere in Ao Bai's study was equally oppressive.

Murima rushed in, his face showing an undisguised excitement mixed with a strange fear.

"Your Excellency! Something terrible has happened! A major disaster has occurred!"

Ao Bai, who was resting with his eyes closed, suddenly opened them and glared at him with displeasure: "What's the panic? I'll hold up the sky if it falls!"

Murima took a deep breath and said in a low voice, "Your Excellency, our men who were monitoring the Hong family have reported that they've discovered a shocking secret!"

"After that old bastard Hong Chengchou died, he wasn't buried in the ancestral graveyard, but was secretly buried in a remote place in Shijingshan!"

"And...and when he was buried, not only was his head not shaved, but it was styled in the same bun as in the Ming Dynasty! Even more outrageous is...he was wearing a...five-clawed dragon robe!"

"What?!"

Ao Bai slammed his hand on the table and stood up abruptly, his tiger-like eyes wide open, his face filled with disbelief.

"Say it again? A five-clawed dragon robe? A Ming Dynasty hairstyle?"

"Absolutely true!" Murima declared confidently. "Our spies saw it with their own eyes; there's no mistake!"

Ao Bai gasped, his heart filled with turmoil.

The first thing the Qing Dynasty did after entering the Central Plains was to issue the shaving edict: "Keep your head, lose your hair; keep your hair, lose your head." This was the foundation of the Qing Dynasty's rule, the face of the Manchus! How dare Hong Chengchou, a founding father and Grand Secretary of the Qing Dynasty, be buried with the Ming Dynasty's hairstyle? This was blatant treason!

Not to mention that five-clawed dragon robe! Only emperors could wear that! How dare Hong Chengchou, a Han Chinese official, be buried in a dragon robe? What was he trying to do? Did he want to be emperor in the underworld?

"What audacity! What a dog's guts!"

Ao Bai was so angry that he laughed, and the fat on his face trembled.

"I've always disliked this old bastard, but I never expected he'd give me such a huge handle on his deathbed! Good! Very good!"

"Mulima! Take your men and go! Dig up that old bastard's grave! Drag his corpse out and whip it! I want the whole world to see what happens when you betray the Qing Dynasty!"

However, Murima did not immediately accept the order, but hesitated for a moment, and then said:

"My lord, there's another strange thing..."

"What strange thing is this? Tell me quickly!"

"On Hong Chengchou's coffin, there was no inscription of his own name, but rather three characters: Huang Zhuowu."

"Um?"

Ao Bai was stunned, and his anger instantly got stuck in his throat.

"Huang Zhuowu? What kind of weird name is that? When did Hong Chengchou change his name to Huang Zhuowu?"

He frowned, pacing back and forth in his study, completely baffled.

Why would a dead person carve a false name on their coffin? What's the real purpose of this?

His intuition told him that this matter was definitely not simple, even more serious than wearing a dragon robe or having a topknot.

"Go! Bring Banburshan to me!" Aobai stopped and ordered in a deep voice.

Bambursan was a Grand Secretary and the most cultured and quick-witted person under his command. Only he could solve such mind-bending problems.

……

A moment later, Bambursan rushed over.

After listening to Murima's account, the usually composed Grand Secretary's expression instantly turned serious.

He walked to his desk, picked up his pen, and wrote those three words on the paper: Huang Zhuowu.

He stared at those three words, his brows furrowing deeper and deeper.

The study was deathly silent, with only the sound of the three people breathing.

After a long while, Bambursan's pupils suddenly contracted, and the calligraphy brush in his hand fell to the table with a "thud." He looked up, his face showing a terrified expression as if he had seen a ghost.

"Your Excellency... if... if I'm not mistaken... these three characters are a riddle."

"A riddle? What does that mean?" Ao Bai and Mulima looked at each other in bewilderment.

"The literal meaning!"

Banburshan murmured, his heart pounding. He turned to look at Ao Bai, his eyes filled with trepidation.

"Your Excellency, if I may be so bold as to ask, you have always suspected that the current emperor is not the offspring of the late emperor. Is this matter... now confirmed?"

Ao Bai took a deep breath and nodded: "Confirmed! Absolutely true! Even the Empress Dowager Tongjia herself told me when she was alive that the current emperor is not the real Third Prince Xuan Ye, but someone else has switched him!"

He paused, a complex emotion appearing on his face, seemingly immersed in a sense of superiority, as if he were the only one sober in a world of fools.

"I always thought that this was a scheme orchestrated by the Empress Dowager. Although the imposter emperor was fake, he was, after all, Dorgon's posthumous son and a descendant of the Aisin Gioro family."

"I only accepted him gradually because he was young and ignorant, and also because he was a descendant of the founding emperor. Now that this young emperor has realized his mistake, he is even more respectful to me, so I..."

"wrong!"

Bamburshan abruptly interrupted him, his voice becoming unusually sharp, like an awl piercing Ao Bai's eardrum.

"Your Excellency! You are mistaken! Utterly mistaken!"

"If I'm not mistaken, this imposter emperor is not Dorgon's posthumous son at all! He... he's that old scoundrel Hong Chengchou's illegitimate son! He's a Han Chinese through and through!"

"What?!"

Ao Bai and Mulima were once again shocked, their eyes practically popping out of their sockets.

"Banburshan! Are you...are you crazy? How dare you say such things?" Ao Bai said with a dark face.

Bamburshan exclaimed excitedly, "Huang Zhuowu, the character 'Huang' is a homophone for 'Emperor'..."

"拙字" is a humble expression used to refer to oneself or people or things related to oneself.

"The character '吾' itself means 'I'."

"Huang Zhuowu meant... 'The emperor comes from me,' implying that the emperor's lineage originates from my family! Add to that Hong Chengchou being buried in a five-clawed dragon robe and sporting a front-swept hairstyle, isn't that obvious enough?"

The emperor came from my family?

Hong Chengchou's son?

Ao Bai and Mulima froze, their minds blank.