Ming Dynasty: I am truly not the Emperor of Longevity

The following morning.

Renshou Palace, East Side Hall.

Lu Chen casually tossed several memorials onto the table.

The chaos in Shanxi has completely exceeded my expectations!

He originally thought that ordering the Taiyuan Jinyiwei Thousand-Household Office to falsely accuse Zhang Yin and having Fan Jizu summon Zhang Yin to Shuozhou for investigation would be a brilliant way to break the deadlock.

Unexpectedly, the fabricated charge of buying off enemy leaders and falsely claiming credit, fabricated by the Jinyiwei commander named Ouyang Hong, did not attract enough attention from Fan Jizu.

Zhang Yin was the general who "captured" the most Mongol heads this time. While the charge of buying Mongol heads to claim credit is reasonable and may even be true, there is also the possibility that others made false accusations out of jealousy.

Fan Jizu had just publicly praised Zhang Yin's achievements, but immediately arrested him on charges of buying enemy leaders and taking credit for them. What will others think?

If it is eventually verified that the head Zhang Yin sent was indeed bought, that's fine. But if it turns out to be a false accusation, wouldn't he be ridiculed?

Does a high-ranking official like the Minister of War and Governor-General of Xuanfu, Datong, and Shanxi have no regard for his reputation?!

When Zhang Yin went to Shuozhou, Fan Jizu would not choose to arrest him directly. Instead, he would find another reason to keep him in Shuozhou and send someone to investigate whether the report was true before making a decision.

A garrison commander only had a dozen or so personal guards with him.

Fan Jizu didn't think Zhang Yin posed any threat whatsoever in Shuozhou City, which had tens of thousands of troops stationed there.

More importantly, when he sent Lu Bing to Taiyuan, he did not know that Zhang Yin was the leader of the Maitreya sect.

Not only is Zhang Yin himself likely a master of internal martial arts, but he also has the ability to send six masters of internal martial arts to the capital to assassinate him.

Xue Ting died in Taiyuan, and Lu Chen had always thought that he had encountered an advanced weapon created by a time traveler.

If Zhang Yin were merely an ordinary military officer in a garrison, even if he possessed modern firearms such as flintlock pistols, it would be extremely difficult for him to pose any threat to Fan Jizu in Shuozhou City.

Through a series of unfortunate coincidences, Governor Fan died at the hands of Zhang Yin.

Yesterday afternoon and midnight, the Ministry of War received two urgent reports.

The first to arrive was sent from Shuozhou by Zhang Hao, who was in charge of the Jibei Circuit. Fan Jizu was assassinated in the middle of the night, and the murderer Zhang Yin took his governor's seal and fled south overnight.

By the time they discovered that the murderer was Zhang Yin, it was already dawn, and they couldn't catch up with him anymore.

Zhang Hao deduced that Zhang Yin would use the governor's seal to forge documents and escape back to Taiyuan without hindrance, so he immediately led the Taiyuan Left Guard to rebel.

Fortunately, the second urgent report delivered in the middle of the night brought a slight sigh of relief to the Ministry of War.

This urgent report was sent by Liu, the governor of Shanxi.

Perhaps because Zhang Yin went to Shuozhou, the Taiyuan Left Guard lacked a leader and failed to make a decisive uprising after the news of the battle at Blackwood Cliff came.

Liu Nie seized the initiative.

Liu Nie gathered nearly two thousand men in the city, including the Governor's Battalion, the Taiyuan Thousand-Household Office of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, the Taiyuan Right Guard, and the Taiyuan Vanguard, to strike first.

After a fierce battle, they annihilated 600 men of the Taiyuan Left Guard within the city, controlled eight city gates of Taiyuan, and cut off internal and external transportation.

At the time the urgent report was sent out, Taiyuan City was reinforcing its defenses overnight to prevent the more than 4,000 troops of the Taiyuan Left Guard stationed in the camp outside the city from attacking.

Taiyuan is a fortified city. Now that Liu Nie has taken control of the entire city, it is almost impossible for the four thousand-plus Taiyuan Left Guard outside the city to breach it.

The events in Taiyuan and the assassination of Fan Jizu occurred almost on the same day, with only a few hours between them.

In other words, at least two more days would have passed by the time Zhang Yin escaped back to Taiyuan.

This is the latest information; what happened afterward is still unknown.

Lu Chen believed that as long as Zhang Yin wasn't out of his mind, he wouldn't be foolish enough to use half of his elite troops to fight to the death in Taiyuan City.

The people in the Ministry of War also thought so.

According to the Ministry of War's calculations, Zhang Yin's most likely action would be to abandon Taiyuan and march east to capture Pingding Prefecture.

Pingding Prefecture only had one garrison with a few hundred soldiers, which was no match for Taiyuan Left Guard.

Moreover, the reliability of this garrison commander is highly questionable.

For at least a decade, Zhang Yin was able to build a mountain city within the territory of Pingding Prefecture as the headquarters of the Maitreya sect. It would be hard to believe that the local garrison was completely unaware of this.

Even if the Pingding Prefecture Garrison Command wasn't Zhang Yin's accomplice, they must have been bribed by him over the years.

After the Taiyuan Left Guard arrived in Pingding Prefecture, their most likely outcome was not to fight to the death, but to surrender directly to Zhang Yin and join the rebel army.

The imperial court's order, issued just a few days ago, to transfer the garrison troops of Guguan and Longquanguan to Pingdingzhou to support the Jingxing Pass Three Guards who are currently confronting the religious bandits on Heimu Cliff, has probably only just arrived.

As long as Zhang Yin doesn't act too slowly, he has plenty of time to take Pingding Prefecture before reinforcements arrive.

The number of Maitreya rebels is more than double that of the three guards of Jingxing Pass, and they also have the advantage of terrain, so they should be able to break the siege easily.

Even the nearly 5,000 officers and soldiers of the Three Guards who were confronting the religious bandits could be annihilated.

The Ministry of War requested the Cabinet to decide on the new Governor-General of Xuanfu, Datong and Shanxi as soon as possible, to take overall control, and to mobilize elite troops from the three towns to suppress the Maitreya sect.

This matter is indeed urgent, and the cabinet has already nominated candidates.

This time, however, disagreements arose regarding the selection of the person in charge.

The Grand Secretary Xia Yan recommended Mao Bowen, who had recently returned from a triumphant return from the south.

In the seventeenth year of the Jiajing reign, this man was appointed Minister of War and concurrently Right Vice Censor-in-Chief, and was ordered to go and suppress Mo Dengyong, a powerful minister of Annam who had usurped the throne and occupied the four villages of Qinzhou in Guangxi.

In the nineteenth year of the Jiajing reign, Mao Bowen mobilized 120,000 troops from Guangdong, Guangxi, Fujian, and Hubei in Nanning and marched on Zhennanguan.

Mo Dengyong, wearing a black hat and white clothes, with a ruler around his neck, led his nephew Mo Wenming, barefoot, crawling into Zhennanguan, where they presented a letter of surrender, land registers, household registration documents, and official seals, and returned the four villages of Qinzhou.

Mao Bowen quelled the internal strife in Annam without firing a single arrow.

Annam was downgraded to Annam Military Governor's Office, and Mo Dengyong was appointed as a second-rank military governor, changing its status from a vassal state to a chieftain's territory.

Moreover, before his expedition to Annam, Mao Bowen had briefly served as the Governor-General of Xuanfu, Datong and Shanxi for a few months, but the Mongols did not invade during his tenure.

In Lu Chen's view, Mao Bowen was definitely qualified to succeed Fan Jizu as the governor of Xuanda and Shanxi.

However, there is still a small problem: Mao Bowen never actually fought a single battle, whether he was serving as the Governor-General of Xuanda and Shanxi or as the Commander-in-Chief of the Southern Expedition.

Whoever takes on the role of Governor-General of Xuanfu, Datong, and Shanxi this time will face a tough battle.

Moreover, Mao Bowen was not the only one with this qualification.

The person recommended by the Second Grand Secretary Zhai Luan was Liu Tianhe, who had previously served as the Left Vice Minister of War and the Governor-General of the Three Border Regions.

The nine important border towns in the north of the Ming Dynasty were divided into three governor-general jurisdictions.

The Jiliao Governor-General Region on the eastern front, the Xuandashan Governor-General Region on the central front, and the Sanbian Governor-General Region on the western front.

Having served as the Governor-General of the Three Border Regions, he was certainly qualified to serve as the Governor-General of Xuanfu, Datong, and Shanxi.

Moreover, during his tenure as Governor-General of the Three Border Regions, Liu Tianhe fought against Jinang on several occasions, beheading 440 enemy leaders and even killing one of Jinang's sons in battle, demonstrating his genuine military achievements.

The two senior officials who were qualified to vote on the proposal actually drafted different opinions on the same matter.

This was the first time Lu Chen had encountered this situation since he entered the capital to assist the Crown Prince in overseeing the country!