The famous book tour starting from the Red House

Chapter 26 Surprise
The next day, Mu Xu took Yang An and went straight to Xiuyiwei Yamen.

Xiuyiwei yamen is located in the northeast corner of the inner city. It is a large courtyard with five entrances. It occupies a street by itself. The surrounding streets are also populated by ordinary people, and they do not get together with other yamen of the imperial court.

Mu Xu came to the gate of Sanjin, and saw two stone Xiezhi (an ancient mythical animal symbolizing justice, which is the same as stone lions) at the main entrance.Looking up, I saw that the gate was closed tightly, and there was no one guarding the gate, and the paint on the black gate had already begun to peel off.

If it wasn't for the large characters "Xiuyiwei Beizhen Fusi" on the plaque, he would have thought he had come to the wrong place.

After getting off the horse, he asked Yang An to call for the door. He got impatient with the wait, and there was a lazy reply from inside, and the door was opened after a while.

I saw a middle-aged man coming out, wearing a tattered flying fish suit, looked at Yang An, and asked him what's the matter unhurriedly.

Seeing his appearance, Yang An was not polite to him, pointed at Mu Xu and told Mu Xu's identity.

When the little official heard this, he hurriedly rushed to Mu Xu, showed a flattering expression, and bowed to salute, "Li Ping has seen the prince, no, the commander."

Mu Xu didn't bother to say anything to him, so he asked him to get up and take him in to have a look.

Li Ping hurriedly led the way, leading Mu Xu and Yang An into the gate.

After entering the gate, there is a large yard covering an area of ​​no less than five acres.Looking at the compound overgrown with weeds, Mu Xu couldn't help frowning.

Seeing that his expression was not right, Li Ping quickly explained, "My lord, since the Embroidered Guards have existed in name only more than ten years ago, the imperial court has no intention of restoring them these years, so..."

Mu Xu interrupted him with a wave of his hand and asked, "How many people are there in the Embroidery Guard now?"

"This..." Seeing his hesitation, Mu Xu took a deep breath and continued,
"You tell the truth, I understand that it has nothing to do with you, so you don't have to be afraid."

After hearing this, Li Ping straightened up and said seriously, "Originally there were a dozen of them, but a few years ago the imperial court even stopped their salaries."

"Everyone persisted for a few months at the beginning, but after all, they had to support the whole family, so they had no choice but to find another way out. Now there are only three people left with villains."

After hearing this, Mu Xu couldn't help asking, "Then why don't you leave?"

Li Ping said excitedly, "Several generations of my family have worked as errands in the Embroidery Guard. I have been here since I was fifteen, and it has been thirty-one years now."

"I was born as a member of Xiuyiwei, and I will die as a ghost of Xiuyiwei."

Hearing what he said so decisively, coupled with the excited expression on his face.

Mu Xu patted him on the shoulder in understanding, and comforted him, "Don't worry, today's order is to rebuild the Embroidered Clothes Guard, and soon you will be able to see that it has regained its former glory."

After hearing this, Li Ping asked cautiously, "What your lord said is true, don't be like what was said before, and finally let it go."

Yang An listened from the side, and without waiting for him to say anything else, he shouted, "What is the status of our son, how can we joke with you."

Mu Xu waved his hand to signal that he didn't need to say more, and then he said to Li Ping seriously, "Since I said it, it is true. This is the promise made by the emperor himself, and I will take full responsibility."

After hearing this, Li Ping was overjoyed, knelt down on one knee, and said, "Li Ping, a hundred households of the Embroidered Clothes Guard, will see you, Commander."

Mu Xu knew that he had finally recognized his identity, so he said calmly, "Get up, and take me inside to have a look."

"Yes." Li Ping replied earnestly, got up respectfully and walked in front with Mu Xu.

Yang An scratched his head, and said strangely to Mu Xu, "Hey, it's strange, why does this old man look like a different person."

Mu Xu smiled and explained to him, "He died before, but now he is alive again."

Yang An became even more confused when he heard this, but Li Ping, who was leading the way, paused and straightened his waist.

Several people stepped across the porch, walked through a small courtyard, and entered a lobby, which was clean.

On the upper wall of the lobby is a picture of a tiger descending the mountain, with a plaque on it saying "Jing Zhong Tang", a tiger-headed chair underneath, and ten chairs on each side of the lower part.

It can be seen that although the furniture is a bit old, it is very clean, and it is obvious that someone wipes it from time to time.

Mu Xu nodded in satisfaction, and walked to the tiger-head chair and sat down.

Then he said to Li Ping, who was bowing down, "Didn't you say there are two more people? Let them come to see me."

When Li Ping went out, Yang An said to Mu Xu, "Your Majesty, this Embroidery Guard has already existed in name only, why don't you ask the emperor for another job?"

Mu Xu smiled and shook his head, "You don't need to say more, I have my own plan."

At this moment, Li Ping brought two people in. The two looked younger than Li Ping and wore similar clothes.

On the way here, the two had already listened to Li Ping's talk about the situation, and now they were very excited, and they saluted Mu Xu as soon as they entered the lobby.

"Zhang Cheng, a hundred households of embroidered clothing guards, see Commander-in-Chief."

"Zhao Dawei, General Banner of Embroidery Guards, has met Commander-in-Chief."

Mu Xu excused the two of them and asked about their situation.

Zhao Dawei used to be in charge of the prison, that's all, but Zhang Cheng from Baihu gave Mu Xu a big surprise.

He only heard him say, "My lord, since the Embroidery Guards were disbanded, I have been in charge of taking care of them since I have no job in charge of documents and files."

Hearing what he said, Mu Xu was overjoyed, and quickly got up and asked him to take him to see it.

Come out of the lobby, turn around the west corridor, and come to the front of the three rows of houses.

Zhang Cheng pointed to the house in front of him and introduced to Mu Xu, "My lord, in the first row of rooms, I remember all the various cases of our embroidery guards over the years."

As he spoke, he opened a room in front and brought Mu Xu in.Mu Xu went in and took a look, and found several rows of bookshelves inside the room. He walked to the bookshelves, picked up one of the copybooks, and saw "Wuchang Mansion in the Ninth Year of Zhaowu" written on it, and Zhaowu was the reign name of the Supreme Emperor.

Mu Xu opened the file, and saw that it introduced the cases in Wuchang in the ninth year of Zhaowu in detail, and even the cases that were not handled by the embroidery guards were also recorded.

Closing the copybook and putting it back to its original place, Mu Xu went around the house and found that the copybooks were both new and old, but they were all in good condition. Xia was very satisfied, he knew that this must be the result of Zhang Cheng's careful care on weekdays.

After leaving the house, Mu Xu went straight to the third row of houses.Zhang Guocheng said abruptly, "My lord, all the records in this row of rooms are the employees of the Embroidery Guard over the years." After hesitating, he whispered, "There are also spies from all over the place."

Pointing to the houses in front of him, Mu Xu asked anxiously, "Where are the secret agent files that are still alive?"

Zhang Cheng nodded, took him to the last room, opened the door with the key, and said to Mu Xu,
"My lord, what is recorded in this room is that although there has been no contact for more than ten years, most of them are still alive."

Mu Xu nodded and asked Yang An and the others to wait outside, only walking in with Zhang Cheng.

Picking up a few documents and checking them out, suppressing the excitement in his heart, he asked Zhang Cheng, "Can these people still be contacted now?"

Zhang Cheng nodded and replied, "Most of them can be contacted. Except for the new spies recruited every once in a while, most of our spies are passed down from father to son, from generation to generation."

"Except for their respective liaison superiors, even their family members will not know their real identities."

After thinking for a while, he added, "According to the Embroidery Guard's rules, if there is no spying mission, they will lurk on the spot to collect information."

As he spoke, he sighed again, "Because of the sudden disbandment, many personnel in charge of delivering information have found another way out. Otherwise, information from various places should have been sent here continuously in the past ten years."

"Those are placed in the second row of rooms, do you want to see them?"

Mu Xu shook his head and said, "No need, the documents in this house are the most valuable to the Embroidered Guard."

Then he said seriously, "Because of your dedication, we can now save a lot of time and easily spread the intelligence network across the country."

Zhang Cheng smiled wryly, "It's all the responsibility of a humble job, besides, there's nothing to do every day besides these."

Mu Xu patted him on the shoulder, led him out of the room, brought the three of them back to the lobby, and asked Yang An to wait at the door.

Standing under the picture of a tiger descending the mountain, he said seriously, "Zhang Cheng."

Zhang Cheng came to the middle and knelt down on one knee, "Humble position is here."

"The command envoy is ordered by the emperor to rebuild the Embroidered Clothes Guards. You have done a great job in protecting the documents. I now mention you as the Embroidered Clothes Guards. You are responsible for sorting out those documents and contacting potential personnel from all over the place."

"Subordinates obey."

When Zhang Cheng retreated, Mu Xu called Li Ping and Zhao Dawei to come out again. On the grounds that they had made meritorious service in staying at the Embroidery Guards, he also promoted them to a level. Try a hundred households.

Then he ordered the two of them, "You can contact me. If the staff of the Embroidery Guards are still willing to come back, they can keep their original positions."

"But remember, you have to distinguish clearly, and don't let people with ulterior motives get in. It doesn't have to be as clear as I said."

The two naturally understood and took orders seriously.

Seeing that the three were in tatters, Mu Xu pretended to put his hand into his bosom, but actually took out a stack of bank notes from the space.

In the puzzled eyes of the three, they gave Zhang Cheng one thousand taels, "You keep one hundred taels for your own use, and the rest is for you to contact potential personnel in various places."

"I will send another person to help you, and the two of you will be responsible for intelligence work first."

Zhang Cheng nodded, "Yes, my subordinates will definitely cooperate with him, but the one hundred taels is fine. The subordinates' family is not bad."

Mu Xu ignored him, and gave Li Ping and Zhao Dawei one hundred taels each, and then said, "Don't refuse, this is my personal reward for you."

"Besides, our embroidered clothes guards belong to the emperor's army no matter what. If you go out dressed like this, you will not only lose the face of the official, but also the face of the emperor."

The three looked at each other's attire, and then thanked each other, "Thank you, my lord."

　The official positions of embroidered clothes in the article can refer to the Ming Dynasty: one commander, three ranks, two Tongzhi commanders, two commanding officials from the third rank, four ranks, and two eunuchs, fourteen thousand households from the fourth rank Fourteen people, five ranks, deputy thousand households, five ranks, one hundred households, six ranks, one hundred households, six ranks, general banner, seven ranks, small banners, seven ranks.The subordinates include generals, school lieutenants, and strong men, who are externally involved in certain affairs, school orders, and translators who are proficient in multiple languages

　　
　
(End of this chapter)