The First Gongsheng of Ming Dynasty

Zhang Mao couldn't help but submit a memorial in which he confessed his guilt.

He had no choice. Liu Jing's words frightened him. While he still didn't know how to deal with Zhang Zhou, he had to ensure that he could return to the capital safely. He should plead guilty and hope that the emperor would be given a lighter sentence. , has also become his current top priority.

"How should I write this memorial?"

Zhang Mao hid in a place with tiles covering his head in the earthen castle, surrounded by a brazier. There was a strong wind outside, and he shrank his hands for a long time, not knowing how to write.

Liu Jing sat on the small bench next to the brazier, flipping the dough over the brazier with his hands to bake, and muttered: "This matter must be passed on to others. Whoever's sin is greater than you, you can pass it on to whomever."

"Who?" Zhang Mao put down his pen and asked in confusion.

Liu Jing blinked and said like a cunning old fox: "Look, Uncle Xin Xin has made great achievements in the past, but this time he has sent troops to you without permission. Has this caused the impeachment of civil servants in the DPRK? You just He said, in fact, Xin Xinbo's deployment of troops was just a matter of meddling in other people's business, and since he gained nothing from this war, he naturally passed on the responsibility."

Zhang Mao said angrily: "He is helping me fight the war, sending troops and efforts, and you want me to participate in impeaching him? Isn't this me a human being?"

Zhong Decai, who was standing aside, quickly gave Zhang Mao a wink, meaning, you should listen more to the advice of this Marquis. At this time, do you still care whether you are a good person or not? The key is to clear away the responsibility first!
Liu Jing sneered at the corner of his mouth and said: "My lord, I dare to ask, if we had not had the thousands of soldiers and horses transferred by Uncle Xinjian outside Pianguan, we would not have been able to win this battle, right?"

Zhang Mao said: "Of course not!"

"Then it's over? Did he send people to help you? He came to take credit from you! Originally, he was busy in this battle, but in name he sent troops to cooperate with you, just to get a piece of your pie. , if he really assisted you, where are the thousands of soldiers and horses of Mr. Ma now? Oh, the credit has been taken away, now when we have to share the responsibility, he ran away, right? If the situation on the border in Ningxia changes now, we need you Can Ma Zongbing's people provide any assistance in deploying troops?"

Liu Jing is also confident.

Anyway, Wang Shouren and he had different interests. We had various opinions on one matter, so we just had to choose the direction that was beneficial to us.

It doesn't matter whether you are reasonable or not, the most important thing is to be logically consistent with yourself.

After Zhang Mao heard this, he sighed helplessly and said: "This matter, even though it is true, I always feel that... I am too embarrassed to go to this impeachment memorial! What will others think of me?"

Liu Jingdao: "My lord, let me ask you, who is the victim like you this time?"

"Of course it's those civil servants. They attack Bingkuan every day. In the end, Bingkuan is really capable..." Zhang Mao mentioned this, and he didn't know how envious he was.

Why don’t I get this treatment despite being a martial artist?

Liu Jing smiled and said: "Then why don't you think about it, is it Duke Cai Guo or the civil servants who can speak for you about this matter?"

Zhang Mao suddenly said: "What you mean is for me to quickly report my surrender to those cabinet elders and ministers, so that they know that I am of the same mind as them, so that we can make progress together, right?"

Liu Jingjing nodded and said: "My lord, you are right to the point. We should be like this. Otherwise, who can we expect? Even if Cai Guogong is in great numbers, His Majesty cannot tolerate two powerful princes in the court. You are the leader of the Three Dynasties." Veteran minister, he is a new rich man, if Your Majesty doesn’t give him face, we will have to have ministers in the court to speak for him.”

"Oh……"

Zhang Mao thought about it for a moment, then frowned and asked, "If I participate in the impeachment of Wang Bo'an, will the civil servants support me?"

Liu Jing smiled and said: "Think about it, Mr. Xie Ge is now in prison because of a little conflict with Uncle Xin Xin. The war situation in Jizhou has changed. Mr. Xie Ge can't save himself. The only way is to cooperate with you." ...In other words, only if you submit such a memorandum of impeachment can you keep Mr. Xie Ge safe."

"Really?" Zhang Mao understood it himself, with a smile on his face, but he was still pretending to be confused.

Zhong Decai smiled and said: "My lord, I feel that what Anyuanhou mentioned is this truth. Now that we and the adults in the court are standing together, we need to know who we should advance and retreat with together."

Zhang Mao said: "That can only be like this. Who told Wang Bo'an to plot against me? If Ma Yi's six thousand soldiers and horses were still under my account instead of sending troops casually, I would not impeach him this time! Just because they didn't listen to the order, they missed the opportunity to impeach me. The person who participated in the impeachment was not Wang Bo'an, but Ma Yi!"

"Yes, yes." Liu Jing realized that Zhang Mao was also on the road, and quickly helped, "Even if it is Ma Yi who is impeaching Ma Yi, people in the court actually know that you are impeaching Uncle Xin Xin. If possible, we can do it at the same time. Send a letter to Mr. Wang from the three sides and ask him to help."

"He will help? I don't believe it!" Zhang Mao didn't think Wang Qiong would go to impeach Wang Shouren.

Liu Jingdao: "He is also busy working indiscriminately. He is worried about how to report to the court. Doesn't this give him a chance? He is also a civil servant after all. Doesn't he want to lose the trust of Cai Guogong in the future? Even if he refuses, we will give him such a A letter, if someone knows about it later, can be regarded as a thorn in the side between him and Cai Guogong, causing them to have bad feelings."

Zhang Mao sighed: "Old Liu, no wonder they say you are a human being. You were demoted and you were able to make a comeback. It seems you are really capable. You didn't take the imperial examination and be promoted to an official position in the Sixth Ministry. You are blind."

Liu Jing said with a look of shame: "Master, you are making fun of me. How can I do that? We are just discussing how to make amends. This time, I am the same as you... I hope your majesty will not pursue it. , just get through it peacefully."

"Okay. This guy Wang Bo'an, I have completely matched up with him! Decai, you can draft the text of the impeachment. I will go have a drink with Marquis Anyuan first, and then I can transcribe it later."

"Yes."

Zhong Decai looked aggrieved.

You even ask me to ghostwrite for others, you are really lazy.

Just like this, you still want to make a contribution? I'm afraid it's not just the idle errands in Jingying that are suitable for people like you who spend three days fishing and two days drying nets.

……

……

That night.

On the grassland, more than a hundred miles west of Guanshan, a battle continued for a day and a night, and is still going on.

For the first time, the Ming Dynasty's musketry cavalry demonstrated the advantage of long-distance raids. They gave up the huge group combat advantage of artillery and directly relied on the individual combat advantage of flint muskets. The men and horses led by Ma Yi and Zhang Rui fought in one day and one night. , pursued the Tatars for nearly a hundred miles, and the front was fully stretched.

When the war first started, a group charge of 6,000 people was carried out.

That night it was broken down into units of a thousand people. During the day it was a pursuit battle of a few hundred people. By the next night, it had been completely broken up into a small combat team of less than a hundred people, fighting and chasing at the same time. Resting and killing at the same time... While fighting to support fighting, the battle lines are also spreading in different directions and must be reunited in a short period of time.

Ma Yi and Zhang Rui each led a group of soldiers and horses. Initially, there were more than a thousand people. By the second night of the meeting, there were less than 300 people around Ma Yi and Zhang Rui. These are already headquarters of the Chinese Army.

After all, Zhang Rui had never experienced this kind of fighting method. By the second night, he could no longer help but withdraw his troops. Especially when his generals informed him of the current situation, it made him feel that... this war seemed to be beyond the limit. Expected.

"Young Master, we have chased the Tatars for more than sixty miles. If we don't go back, our future will be bleak, and our fire bombs will be insufficient. We have killed more than 2,600 Tatars in this pursuit. If we don't withdraw our troops, if……"

The soldiers were tired of fighting.

First, it was days and nights of day and night, and then it was a day and two nights of long-distance pursuit and pursuit. They were still in a foreign country covered in ice and snow, and they achieved achievements that they could not even dream of. If they don't withdraw now, is it possible? Waiting to die on the grassland, relying on ghosts to go back to receive merit and rewards?

In front of Zhang Rui, fire shot into the sky.

They destroyed another Tatar camp, and the prisoners they captured were killed on the spot... This was Wang Shouren.

Knowing that there was no way to take the prisoners back, they killed them all on the spot, regardless of age or sex. They didn't take back the heads, just the ears... Anyway, there was a precedent... In the past, I killed a few or dozens of people and took the heads with them. It doesn't matter, but now we have to kill thousands of people and tie a few heads to each person immediately. Whether they will be lost along the way is still a problem. The point is... this is a very heavy burden. For the light cavalry, this is not realistic at all.

Zhang Rui jumped off his horse. Not far away, there were several strong Tatar men crawling on the ground. Some soldiers rushed up and killed them with three strikes.

Then a bunch of people were fighting for the ears, and when they were sharing the credit, the teams were also wrangling among themselves.

Zhang Rui said: "What's going on?"

The general thought he was talking about why the Tatars fell off their horses, so he explained: "In order to deal with our fire blunderbuss, the Tatars tied a thick iron plate in front of their bodies, so that our fire blunderbuss could not kill them directly, but They will be knocked off their horses directly, and they will be thrown half to death. I don’t know what they think... but either they will be beaten to a pulp, or they will be knocked off their horses. They may still choose this."

Zhang Rui frowned and said, "I'm asking, what are they robbing?"

The general was a little speechless, but he still said truthfully: "It's always been like this. You can't tell who fired the bomb from a distance, and then you go up to grab it. This kind of thing is very common, and it's just between the ranks. There are many soldiers and pawns fighting over each other, and there are even violent fights."

Zhang Rui sighed: "I never thought that one day, I would still have conflicts over this matter."

The general said: "Young Master, you don't know that the comrades below are all living off this merit. The life of being a soldier is not easy. The old ministers in the court have never planned to make our life easy. Today, it’s hard to get through today, but everyone wants to take the credit back and exchange the house for the mother-in-law or the land, otherwise what should I do? Generation after generation are living a life of one meal and no next meal.”

Zhang Rui remained silent.

As a British prince, he was also a soldier, but his military environment was obviously different from those of the people in front of him.

"Young Master, let's withdraw. We have achieved enough now. If we continue to pursue, I'm afraid we won't have time to join forces with General Ma, and we don't know what's going on with General Ma! At least on our side... Enough is enough for the soldiers.”

Zhang Rui looked at his generals, and then at the dusty soldiers following him in pursuit of the Tatars, illuminated by torches.

He suddenly understood the difficulties of this group of people.

"Okay." Zhang Rui said, "Clean up the front and return the way you came! If you encounter any trouble on the way, just solve it together."

"Okay!"

When the soldiers heard that they were going back the same way, they were all very happy.

Just like when they charged forward before, now with the blessing of merit, they all think about returning home in glory, which is a kind of joy of victory.

……

……

Zhang Mao's memorial was sent out.

In Liu Jing's words, no matter how fast they go, they can't keep up with the speed at which the people in the court impeach them. All they have to do is to make a judgment earlier than the emperor. If the emperor qualifies their expedition, and Before the memorial they argued was sent to the capital, it would be too late.

At the same time, following Liu Jing's suggestion, Zhang Mao also sent a letter to the Yulin Guards station in Yansui Town and delivered a letter "requesting cooperation" to Wang Qiong.

After Wang Qiong read Zhang Mao's proposal, he almost thought that this old boy was crazy.

"His son was still marching to the grassland with Ma Yi's men, but he secretly participated in the impeachment. They said that tigers poisoned will not eat their seeds. Is the British prince going to kill his relatives out of justice?" Wang Qiong did not hide this letter in front of others. He just wanted to do things in an open manner, and even published the contents of the letter in front of a group of commander-in-chief, deputy commander-in-chief, subordinate officers, generals, etc.

The deputy commander-in-chief of Yansui and the Bo of Xiangcheng, Li Ao, said: "Sir, why do I feel that the British Lord is trying to protect himself?"

Wang Qiong looked around at the people present and asked, "You also think that Ma Yi should be impeached, and General Secretary Wang Shouren should be impeached, right?"

Li Tao said hurriedly: "I don't mean to be humble. The British Duke is probably confused. At this time, he should choose to advance and retreat together with Uncle Xin Xin. Who knows... I don't know what is wrong with him."

Wang Qiong threw the letter on the table and said: "This old boy is crazy! Before the war has concluded, he is eager to clear up the relationship. He thinks that the small victory outside the border can cover up his cowardice. Incompetent? Do you still expect me to become a lunatic along with him?"

Upon hearing this, the generals present knew that Wang Qiong did not like Zhang Mao at all, and had no intention of having any contact with Zhang Mao at all.

But think about it.

No matter how awesome you Zhang Mao is, you are still just a British public servant. The person in front of you is the left minister of the Ministry of Household Affairs and the president of the Trilateral Council. The civil servants of the Ming Dynasty are close to the existence of the minister. Even Wang Qiong will most likely become the minister when he returns to the court... ...and Wang Qiong also has Zhang Zhou as his backer, so he is also worthy of his reputation.

You Zhang Mao's martial arts skills are not worthy of shining Wang Qiong's shoes.

Just like this, you old boy still expect Wang Qiong to be on your side? And offered you an olive branch? You don’t know how much you weigh, right?

Li Er asked: "Would you like to write a letter to reject it?"

Wang Qiong glared at him and said, "Do you think it's necessary? People who don't understand the rules of the officialdom will not be tolerated in the officialdom in the end. If he doesn't understand, shouldn't I still not understand?" (End of Chapter)