prosperous age

Wei Guangde was still thinking about the title of "Idiot General". At this time, there was a figure flickering at the gate of the Garrison Mansion, and an official in a red robe came over after a while.

With such a big disturbance in Nanjing, Xu Pengju sent people to contact all the officials in Beijing.

In fact, at this moment, many officials heard that there was a riot among the officers and soldiers and were frightened out of their wits. Many people had no time to pack up the gold and silver, and ran to the gate of the city with their families, planning to leave the city to avoid it first.

If the mutiny of the soldiers cannot be handled properly in a short period of time, the consequences will be very dire.

Soldiers out of control will kill and set fire in the city, looting wantonly, and often only the first offender and main accomplices can be dealt with afterwards, and the others can only let the past go, because the law does not blame the public, is it still a one-time trial and punishment of thousands of people? soldiers?

So although Xu Pengju sent a lot of people to call the high-ranking officials of Nanjing City to come here to discuss, but from the sedan chair Wei Guangde saw when he entered the door, he knew that there were not many people coming here.

The person who came here was indeed walking unsteadily, without any panic, and behind him were two servants in green robes.

Wei Guangde looked over carefully, and sure enough, this person was white-faced and beardless, wearing a red robe. A name flashed in Wei Guangde's mind - He Shou.

At this time, Nanjing City is the capital, but there is no emperor, but there is a big eunuch left in the palace to watch, that is, the guarding eunuch of Nanjing City.

It's just that the word "Guardian" in He Shou's title does not refer to guarding the palace.

In the Ming Dynasty, guarding was originally the title of a military officer. "The one who guards one side is the guard, and the one who guards all the way is the guard."

The guards are all served by the commander-in-chief, the deputy commander-in-chief in a few areas, and the generals of many departments.

In the Ming Dynasty, each border town and provincial-level area had a commander-in-chief guarding the army. The emperor of the Ming Dynasty naturally couldn't rest assured of these commander-in-chief who held the power of soldiers and horses in one province. They believed that the most convenient and reliable way was to He sent his confidant palace slaves to monitor, so there was a guarding eunuch.

Speaking of the first guarding eunuch, it was still in the eighth year of Yongle, "the imperial official Ma Jing went to Gansu to inspect".

Although Ma Jing's official name was patrolling, he was entrusted with the power of guarding. In the late Yongle period, the number of guarding eunuchs sent to border areas gradually increased.

When Emperor Yongle moved his capital to Beijing, a guardian eunuch was naturally left in Nanjing, and he has retained this position for a long time until now.

He Shou walked to the garrison hall and saw Wei Guangde on the side.

He was not familiar with Wei Guangde, but when Wei Guangde got married in Nanjing, He Shou had met Wei Guangde in Wei Guogong's mansion, so his first reaction was that this sixth-rank official looked familiar.

You know, all the people walking in front of him are of a certain level in Nanjing City, and he doesn't pay attention to the petty officials below the fifth rank.

Seeing He Shou walking in front of him, Wei Guangde stopped to look at him, and hastily bowed slightly. This was just a habitual gesture, showing politeness to others.

You know, the opposite is a eunuch, and there seems to be a natural disagreement between civil servants and eunuchs.

"Guangde met Eunuch He."

Wei Guangde has an impression of He Shou, but it's not that He Shou's impression of him is so shallow.

"Hehe, who did I say, it turned out to be you."

Eunuch He's shrill voice sounded, "I don't even know when I arrived in Nanjing, didn't you go to Suzhou and Hangzhou on business?
Oh, I understand, I think it's over, and I'm going to transfer to Nanjing to be transferred to the capital. "

"Exactly."

Wei Guangde nodded slightly.

"Then why are you here? Go, go in and listen. You have returned to the capital. If the emperor asks, you have to give us a good word."

Speaking of this, He Shou sighed and continued: "Who would have thought that this would happen, and I don't know if Mr. Huang was really killed."

"Master Huang must be broken."

Wei Guangde said in a low voice.

"Really?"

Just as He Shou was about to walk in, when he heard Wei Guangde's words, he stood still for a moment, his eyes fixed on Wei Guangde.

"Before that, my brother-in-law and I rushed to the small school grounds with our family members. We encountered rebels on the way, so we can be sure that Mr. Huang died."

Wei Guangde explained in a low voice.

"Let's talk inside."

Knowing that Wei Guangde had been involved in this matter, although He Shou frowned, he nodded slightly, as if relieved.

After thinking about it, Wei Guangde understood that he had nothing to do with the official circles in Nanjing. If the matter had nothing to do with him, he could tell the truth after returning to Beijing, but he might not know what kind of rhetoric would be heard by Emperor Jiajing.

But his father-in-law, Xu Pengju, has already been involved. Now that he is involved, at least he will not say anything else and expand the number of officials involved. Naturally, he, the guardian eunuch, will not be involved too much.

Wei Guangde followed He Shou into the garrison hall, there were not many people inside, most of whom Wei Guangde had met earlier.

In the past two years, Nanjing's officialdom has not changed much, so when Wei Guangde got married, all the famous people in Nanjing came.

In the hall, except for Xu Bangrui, who had the least sense of presence and hid on the side, everyone else was of higher rank than him, so Wei Guangde saluted them first when he came in.

Fortunately, after many years in the Ming Dynasty, Wei Guangde got used to it, and later generations also practiced etiquette, but it was not so troublesome.

Wei Guangde can be regarded as a minister of the court, although his grade is much lower than them, but after all, he is still an imperial envoy who is ordered to go south to handle missions. Although others were surprised by his sudden appearance here, they quickly figured it out. reason.

Only Zhang Jia and Li Tingzhu, who had fled with Xu Pengju before, knew that Wei Guangde had brought the servants from Duke Wei's mansion to meet them before, and he was still going to kill them.

After getting off the sedan chair, they planned to send a team of cavalry back to take a look. After all, Wei Guangde was going to face a vicious rebellious army, but they couldn't gather many horses for a while. It happened that Li Sui, the servant of the Ministry of War, arrived again. Let's discuss the matter of troop deployment.

When such a big mess happened, it must be safe to surround the small school grounds, lest they run out of control and cause a bigger disaster, so before Wei Guangde arrived, they had already sealed off the surrounding guards that could be mobilized Which streets were divided, Xu Pengju issued a transfer order in the name of Nanjing's defense, and the Ministry of War used the seal.

Wei Guangde came in at this moment, and sat down to listen to them explain the deployment to He Shou again, but He Shou was obviously not interested in these, waved his hands and said: "The generals don't understand the matter of leading the army, you can figure it out , as long as the rebels are not allowed to cause trouble in the city."

The troop transfer order has been issued, and the rewards from all parties will be sent one after another soon. At this time, Zhang Jia looked at Wei Guangde who was next to him and asked, "When did Shandai arrive in Nanjing? Why didn't you come to my house to sit?" sit."

Wei Guangde hurriedly got up and said: "I just arrived yesterday, I planned to visit all the adults in the next few days, and let the accompanying officials rest in Nanjing for two days before returning north to Beijing."

"Hey, I made you laugh. I didn't expect that there was a big disaster last year, and this year will be a big epidemic. Now there is such a moth."

Zhang Jia shook his head and said, then looked at him seriously and said: "What happened to the rebels? They ran out of the small school grounds, did they burn, kill and loot outside?"

This is the topic that all the adults here are concerned about. If the Zhenwuying rebel army messes around in Nanjing, and the court investigates them, even if they can get away with it, they will have to wear the hat of dereliction of duty and uselessness. Don't count on it.

Wei Guangde thought about it for a while and said: "I have persuaded the chasing soldiers over there to return to the barracks and wait for the imperial court's order. I think there will be no more troubles in a while. I am just worried. Others around the small school grounds If there are still rebels breaking out in the street, it will be troublesome if there is trouble."

"I have already sent someone to inquire about the news, and I think there will be news soon."

Xu Pengju from above answered at this time.

"If Shan Loan can really suppress the rebellious army and let them return to the barracks, it will be a great credit."

At this time, He Shou suddenly interjected in a high-pitched voice.

"Yeah, it's not easy. It's the most difficult to control when the soldiers are in chaos."

At this time, Li Sui also said that he had led soldiers before, so he naturally knew that it would be difficult to gather soldiers when they were in chaos, and it would be extremely difficult to get them to obey the command again.

Why there is such a saying that "the army is defeated like a mountain", is actually a true portrayal of victory and defeat on the battlefield.

It is impossible for the defeated army to gather their soldiers and form a formation to retreat. Most of the soldiers only want to leave their robes and run first, and their behavior will also drive those soldiers who originally wanted to obey orders, and eventually lose control completely.

At this time, the senior officials of Nanjing City sitting in the room were still thinking about how to control the mutiny of soldiers. As for the aftermath, that was after the situation was under control.

As the news came one after another, the three guards on Wei Guogong's side rushed to the small school field to save people under Xu Bangrui's order, and encountered many rebellious troops on the way, but both sides were relatively restrained, and only sporadic fire broke out.

It can only be said to be a firefight, because the two sides did not fight, but the soldiers in front separated after a simple conflict.

We are all military households, and we used to look up and down when reviewing. We are not acquaintances, but we are not outsiders, so soon both sides chose to retreat to avoid bigger conflicts.

With the arrival of Uncle Chengyi Liu Shiyan, the news that he scared off a group of rebels was also confirmed. On several roads outside the small school field, soldiers from the Beijing camp entered and deployed one after another, and the situation was barely under control. .

"My lords, just now a sentry came back to report that Master Huang's body has been found. It was sent by people from the Zhenwu Camp. They said that Master Huang fell to his death when he climbed over the wall, and it has nothing to do with them. Mr. Huang reasoned about the payment arrears, but he never expected such a misunderstanding to happen."

While all the senior officials in the hall were celebrating for having brought the situation under control so quickly, a school lieutenant came in from outside to report the latest information.

"Did they send Master Huang's body over?"

Xu Pengju was slightly taken aback, then asked back.

"Yes, it has been handed over to Wu Dewei. Commander Wei wants to ask how to deal with it."

The captain hurriedly said.

"Let them send someone to Huang's house, what else can we do?"

Xu Pengju said immediately.

This incident was caused by Huang Maoguan's meanness to the soldiers. If he was still alive, Xu Pengju would have planned to impeach him in a memorial. Even if he died, let's forget it.

In fact, Huang Mao is mean to the soldiers, so why not reduce the financial burden for the court.

Before he took over as the servant of the Nanjing household department, the Beijing household department agreed to the request of the Ministry of War due to the supply difficulties in the border towns, and loaned more than one million yuan of grain money that should have been distributed to the southern Zhili, resulting in the emptiness of the southern reserve for a long time.

When Huang Maoguan took office, the surplus food in Nanjing was only enough for half a year, and he wrote many times, requesting that the imperial court should allocate a part of the relief from the reserves sent to the north every year, but was rejected on the grounds of "focusing on frontier defense".

Under such a situation, Huang Maoguan had a sharp personality, so he started from two aspects.

On the one hand, strict audits were carried out, and suspicions of fraud were carefully investigated. On the other hand, the payment cycle of food and salaries was delayed as much as possible, and they even planned to stop the subsidy for wives, which was one of the salary conditions at the beginning of recruitment.

It's just that this petition has now been torn to pieces by the rebels, and it is no longer possible to play it to the court.

These actions of his are only focused on completing the tasks of the superiors, but he has no scruples about the people's livelihood in the disaster year, regardless of the life and death of the sergeant, and how not to arouse the hatred of the soldiers, he will kill him whenever he finds an opportunity.

In fact, when Huang Maoguan was responding to the demands for pay and food from the battalions and guards, he yelled "Why not die" more than once.

Especially when the plague broke out in Nanjing City and its surrounding areas, he wished that more sergeants would die, so as to reduce the pressure on the household department.

One of the very important reasons why Zhenwu Camp’s military salary was forcibly withheld this time was that under the plague, all battalions reported dead people, but only Zhenwu Camp did not.

"There is still a need for a general to guard the small school grounds. I think it's better to invite Liu Houye to take over the battalions temporarily, so that emergencies can be dealt with in a timely manner."

At this time, Zhang Jia said.

The Beijing camp surrounded the small school grounds, and the people from the Zhenwu camp could not get out. The situation was under control, but the aftermath required a very small number of people to participate in this matter. After all, when he and Xu Pengju were surrounded by the household office Some things are not easy to say publicly.

As Liu Shiyan went to the small school grounds to set up defenses, in case the soldiers of the Zhenwu Battalion lost control and rushed into the market to make trouble again, people from other yamen saw that the situation was under control, and they also left one after another.

Soon, only Xu Pengju, He Shou, Zhang Jia, Li Tingzhu and Li Sui were left in the garrison hall. Of course, Wei Guangde was also sitting below.

Both Xu Pengju and Zhang Yan were witnesses, and He Shou was the military supervisor sent by the royal family to Nanjing, so we can't keep things from him, not to mention that we have worked together in Nanjing for many years, and we are all on our own.

"How to deal with the follow-up, we can't arrest and kill all the people in Zhenwu Camp."

At this time, He Shou took the lead and said that he was just trying to attract others, but from the expressions of Xu Pengju and Zhang Yan before, it seemed that the two of them still had something to say.

"Hey, soldiers are not easy, especially in this calamity year."

Xu Pengju said with a sigh at this moment, and Zhang Yan immediately nodded in agreement.

"How did you suppress the gang of rebels?"

At this time, Xu Pengju seemed to suddenly remember, and asked Wei Guangde below.