Ping An Biography

Huguang Wuchang City, at this time, it is impossible to see that it is a city that is being watched by an army of 40.It's just that the cloudy weather makes the color of this ancient city darker and more outdated.

A pair of sedan chairs stopped in front of the mansion gate, a young woman with bright eyes stepped out of the sedan chair, and was greeted by several people who came out of the mansion, and entered the house through the side door.She is Luo Yaoniang, a member of the chief assistant Yang Shiqi's family, it is normal for her to appear in Yufu.Everyone in the world knows that the relationship between Yang Shiqi and Yu Qian is a teacher, a father and a friend, and it is a good story among scholars, so it is not surprising that the two families have contacts.But in fact, Yu Qian's wife Dong Shi and Luo Yaoniang did not have much contact with each other.

It was a rare invitation, so when Luo Yaoniang was invited to Yu's mansion, she was not casual at all, and it could be seen from her dress that she had carefully prepared it.

Luo Yaoniang took a seat in the teahouse in the back house, and saw that her blouse was wearing a beige-colored satin, with a light-colored round flower pattern as a whole, and a crimson-purple material for the collar; a goose-yellow silk ribbon was used as a cloak , over the shoulders and lightly tied around the waist.The top is tucked into the skirt, and the bottom skirt is moon-blue brocade embroidered with variegated patterns.The whole person looks rich and noble without being vulgar and vulgar, which fits the family status of a big bureaucrat.In contrast, Mrs. Dong with the same status and status was much more simple and casual. It is not a lie that people rely on clothes and horses on saddles. Dong, who is wearing a cotton moon white skirt, is compared to others, as if she is not a woman of the same class.

Mrs. Dong was obviously a little wary of this mature and dignified woman who had not yet left the cabinet, but she did not show any hostility. She forced a smile and asked in a polite and pleasant tone: "I heard that Miss Luo sent a gift from Jiangxi. A letter to the palace, when did you go to Jiangxi?"

Luo Yaoniang answered honestly, "Early August."

"Oh... I left so early." Mrs. Dong nodded, and she made some calculations in her heart. Zhang Ning only set off from Wuchang in mid-August. Miss Luo obviously didn't go to find Zhang Ning... Although Luo Yaoniang back then The unsuccessful marriage with Zhang Ning is well known in the official circles of the capital.Then who is Luo Yaoniang going to Jiangxi to meet?Without any suspense, she was looking for her "confidant" Dong Shi's husband Yu Qian.

But Dong stopped talking, and didn't want to expose it face to face.She invited Luo Yaoniang today, neither to quarrel like street shrews, nor to question.

Dong's cold fingers held the teacup to keep warm, and said: "My husband is an official in Jiangxi. Recently, rumors have spread, and I worry about it every day. When I learned that Miss Luo just came back from Jiangxi and is from Yang Ge's hometown, I will I came up with the idea of ​​inviting Miss Luo to my humble house, and wanted to ask what's going on there recently."

"The situation is not very good, Jiujiang is very dangerous, so I was driven back." Luo Yaoniang said.

Mrs. Dong hurriedly asked: "Why is it a bad method?"

Luo Yaoniang pondered for a while with a downcast face, and then asked for a pen and paper, "Up north, down south, left west, right east, the Yangtze River flows roughly like this, our Wuchang is here, Jiujiang City is here, and Poyang Lake is to the east. The three armies of the government and the army besieged Jiujiang City, with more than 5000 horses... Before I left, I fought a battle at Poyang Lake here. The entire navy of our Jiujiang Army was wiped out. People. Now except for Jiujiang City, all places in Jiangxi have changed their surnames.

The imperial army attacked Jiujiang City from the east and south, and the king of Xiang and Master Yu were in the city.The bureau also has a large army in Huangzhou on the north bank of the Yangtze River, and it will also cross the river to attack Jiujiang from the west. "

Dong looked at the circles and lines on the paper for a long time: "Can the prince and the others still leave?"

Luo Yaoniang said in a deep voice: "It's not easy to leave, and they don't want to leave either. After walking for a while, the place where the war is fought is Wuchang."

"Then what should we do?" Mrs. Dong suddenly grabbed Luo Yaoniang's wrist, and the jealousy and hostility towards Luo Yaoniang in the past seemed to have become unimportant.In a strange city far away that has never been to, there are two men, one is her reliance in the world, and the other is her lover who she hates and longs for day and night.If these two people disappeared in that city together, what would be left of her, what would she do with the rest of her life?Need to follow at home by suicide, but what about Yu Mian who is not yet an adult?

Dong felt vaguely that bad luck and disaster were coming to him. Is this the punishment for his crime?

Luo Yaoniang said: "Madam, do you know that there are many military camps in and around Wuchang City?" Seeing Mrs. Dong shaking her head, she explained: "Ping An... The King of Xiang gave the military power of the new army in Wuchang to General Zhou, who is the father of Princess Xiang. There are probably tens of thousands of soldiers and horses; General Zhou should lead the army east to rescue."

Dong asked, "When will General Zhou send troops?"

... In the Chu Palace not far from Yufu, Yao Ji also had the same question.

She has a great influence in the Wuchang regime. Needless to say, she is the noble concubine of Emperor Jianwen and the birth mother of the King of Xiang. Monk Yao, one of the five ministers, is her half-brother. The officialdom and military camp stretched all the way to the market, and even the bureaucrats of the Nanya (officials of various temple ministers at the south gate of the Chu Palace) often had correspondence with her.

But Yao Ji's influence was almost all indirect. She had no precedent for directly participating in government affairs or issuing orders to ministers.After all, it is not the situation of the Wu Zhou Dynasty in the Tang Dynasty. The scholar-officials are more resistant to the direct participation of women in the harem. Yao Ji herself usually pays attention to propriety.So now she can't directly order Zhou Mengxiong to send troops, but can only pay attention to the cabinet's movements.

Today she was still having lunch, and just moved her chopsticks. When she heard that Xia Changshi had returned from the cabinet, she immediately put down her chopsticks and called Xia Changshi to come in and talk.Zhou Yiniang and Zhang Xiaomei, who were eating with her, also put down their chopsticks and sat and waited.

Xia Yu walked into the room, looked at the people inside quietly, then bent down and said to Yao Ji: "The meeting in the lobby just ended, and Zhou Butang also came. He tried his best to persuade Yang Shoufu and the other two cabinet ministers Zhu and Zheng , Said that now is not the time to send troops, we have to wait a little longer."

Yao Ji's face was pulled down, and Tuesday's mother hurriedly lowered her head.Xia Yu glanced at Tuesday's Niang, and said cautiously: "It's not that Zhou Butang is unwilling to send troops. He thinks that the new army is not trained enough, and they are unfamiliar with the battle formation. They need to hurry up and train more frequently, and send troops when they are sure."

Yao Ji frowned and pondered, Xia Yu figured it out, and then hurriedly said: "By the way, the cabinet ministers also asked Mr. Zhou, what should we do if Jiujiang falls and Yongding Camp is destroyed, and the consequences will be unimaginable?"

"How did he answer?" Yao Ji couldn't help asking.

Xia Yudao: "Master Zhou yelled in front of all the ministers, saying that he would be willing to die at that point."

Xia Yu took a step forward and said in a low voice, "It is reported that most of Huangzhou's army has crossed the Yangtze River. The cabinet believes that this army will not attack Wuchang, but will encircle Jiujiang City to the east. The Jiangbei army has been deployed in Between Wuchang and Jiujiang City, it is said to be [-], but the Ministry of Internal Affairs estimates that the total strength of the local army should be between [-] and [-]. If Mr. Zhou sends troops at this time, he must first contact the North Road. Fighting against each other, if you can't defeat the North Route Army, there will be no way to save Jiujiang City... Master Zhou's concerns are also reasonable. Wuchang's new army has been preparing for it since last year, and it has not been formed until now; if Master Zhou this time Sending troops failed to defeat the Northern Route Army, and even defeated and damaged the new army. We really have no soldiers in Huguang, and it is difficult to support the attack of the official army."

Yao Ji closed her eyes gently, her eyelashes trembling slightly.A while ago, there were constant rumors that Zhou Mengxiong ran on the old man of the Suzaku army in the new army.

After a long time, she asked coldly, "What did Zhu Heng say in the lobby?"

Xia Yu couldn't figure out what Mrs. Yao meant for a while, but her intuition was a bit strange. Zhu Heng is neither the chief assistant nor in charge of the military, and there are several other cabinet ministers, but why did Mrs. Yao ask him what he said alone?Xia Yu thought about it for a while, and replied: "Zhu Butang urged Mr. Zhou to step up his preparations twice, but he never asked him to send troops immediately from the beginning to the end."

Yao Ji raised her sleeve and waved it lightly, but said nothing more.Xia Yu hurriedly performed the ceremony and retreated: "This subordinate will leave."

"What are you doing sitting while eating?" Yao Ji looked at the woman at the same table and forced a faint smile.Then he said a few homely things to Zhang Xiaomei, and asked her, "Is the food cooked by the cook delicious at noon today?"

"Delicious..." Zhang Xiaomei said in a mosquito-like voice.Yao Ji heard something strange and turned her head to look at her, "What's wrong?"

Zhang Xiaomei suddenly burst into tears, buried her head and wiped her tears with her sleeves, choked up and said, "Brother is surrounded by enemy soldiers, I don't know what he is eating now, can he have enough to eat..."

After hearing this, Yao Ji patted the little girl's back very fondly, "Don't worry, your brother is the commander of tens of thousands of people in the army. If even he can't get enough to eat, what will so many people do? So you Don't worry about such things."

Mother on Tuesday was left out in the cold for quite a while, seeing this, she also comforted Zhang Xiaomei, and said: "My father will definitely lead his troops to help the prince. I will go back later in the afternoon and ask him."

After hearing this, Yao Ji said softly: "Ning'er is not at home, you can go back to your mother's house for two days and be filial." Tuesday's mother hurriedly said: "My mother's family has my brother Zhou Zhong, and now I should be filial to my mother-in-law. .”

Regardless of the conversation between the two of them, Zhang Xiaomei only remembered that on Tuesday Niang said that she would ask her father to send troops to rescue her, and she immediately showed some confidence: "When my brother left, he solemnly promised me that he would definitely defeat the army. return."

Yao Ji felt more and more likable about Zhang Xiaomei after hearing this, so she said, "Wen Biao loves you the most, and he never lied to you, so he should be able to do what he says."

In the afternoon, Mother on Tuesday did tidy up and left Chu Palace to go back to her mother's house.His father, Zhou Mengxiong, came back in the middle of the night. He was wearing an iron sheet with a tired face. When he saw Zhou Yiniang in the living room, he didn't ask anything, but immediately grasped the main point: "It's the business that you are pregnant with the blood of the Zhu family. Do you need to care about military affairs and state affairs?" Mother on Tuesday said: "My daughter didn't say anything, why does my father think that I am involved in politics?" Zhou Mengxiong said: "Then you don't say anything, anyway, you understand, wait for such a night, go to bed early .”