The carriage left Dongchang Hutong and headed south slowly along the Imperial City. It was soon submerged in the busy traffic. There was a constant flow of pedestrians, but no one expected to pass them by. In this ordinary carriage sat the current Ming Dynasty Prince, who was already powerful. The eunuch of Xuntian's Dongchang.
Zhu Cixiang stared out the car window in trance, and sighed for a while: "Getting married is a great event in life, but it's a pity that your identity can only be concealed, and I can't participate in it... It's a pity after all."
Chang Yu chuckled and changed the subject: "Do you think this capital has changed?"
Zhu Cixiang was startled, looking out the car window and looking around: "It's a lot cleaner, and a lot quieter... There's no more feces and urine everywhere, and there are fewer homeless beggars." As he said that, he glanced sideways at Chang Yu and chuckled: "This Of all of them, you deserve the most credit.”
Chang Yu smiled and sighed: "What you see is too superficial."
Um... Zhu Cixi was startled again, turned his head and looked out the window again, and remained silent for a long time. It wasn't until the carriage left the front door and approached Yongding Gate that he took a long breath: "What you want to say is that the people are living and working in peace and contentment?".
"There are some signs." Chang Yu smiled lightly: "After more than a year of hard work, I finally have a sense of accomplishment."
This year, Yu Changyu has been fighting almost everywhere outside Beijing. Every victory on the battlefield can make the foundation of the court more stable, and it can also make the people live in peace.
Of course, the capital has changed the most relative to the place. You must know that when Chang Yu first crossed over, the capital was in a mess. Just the plague and sanitation almost made him, a person from later generations, almost collapse. There was no place in the huge capital. In public toilets, people defecate everywhere, and they can accidentally step on hot freshly baked pancakes...
The plague was raging in this extremely poor sanitary environment. For a while, the capital was like hell. What made matters worse was that the capital was in constant war at this time. Countless refugees poured into the capital, and the sanitation and epidemic situation were even worse...
At that time, the common people didn't even think about having a happy career, and living in peace was just a delusion.
Now, a year has passed, and the changes in the capital have been earth-shaking. The plague has been effectively controlled through the isolation method, and sanitation has fundamentally eliminated the bad habits of the people. There are public toilets everywhere, and people who urinate in public are patrolled. If the Bingma Division catches him, he will be severely beaten. If he is caught, he will be locked up in a dark room for a few days.
As for the refugees who were originally stranded in the capital, they have either returned to their hometowns, immigrated to Tongzhou, or worked on nearby farms and construction sites.
And as the war subsided, commerce in the capital began to gradually recover, and shops and vendors were overwhelmed...
"A prosperous age, creating a prosperous Ming Dynasty, is what I want!"
Chang Yu's expression was very sincere, and Zhu Cixiang's eyes lit up: "It's also what I want."
The carriage left the Yongding Gate. There were vendors and people sunbathing at the gate of the city. Refugees used to build many simple shelters here, which was the refugee camp outside the city. It was now late, but it was still very noisy.
"When will all the shacks outside the city disappear, the people will truly live and work in peace and contentment?" Chang Yu said lightly, and Zhu Cixiang nodded slightly.
"Coming, coming." Beside the official road three miles away from Yongding Gate, Tu Yuan was lying in the grass, holding grass roots in his mouth and looking at the white clouds in the sky. One of his men hurriedly ran over. Tu Yuan stood up and got on his horse. Looking north, there were many carriages on the official road. Although Chang Yu's carriage was no different from ordinary carriages, Tu Yuan still recognized it at a glance. Don't ask why, because he knew the driver, Lao Hu! !
"Not far away. I wish you a happy wedding. Please make love to me when you come back from the wedding." Zhu Cixiang jumped out of the carriage and cupped his hands with Chang Yu, then turned around and left. Not far away, his entourage had been waiting for a long time.
"You, the Governor, always come to see the Crown Prince off every time you leave the capital. It's so respectable. Where are we going this time?" Tu Yuan drove his horse close to Chang Yu's carriage and asked in a low voice.
As Chang Yu's close confidant, Tu Yuan didn't know the purpose of his trip?
This is really not an exaggeration. Chang Yu knew very little about getting married. Even his personal attendants were mostly kept in the dark. They were just worried that too many people would cause unnecessary public controversy.
Tu Yuan just returned to the capital yesterday. This morning he received a military order to lead twenty soldiers to wait outside the city and follow Chang Yu out of the capital. As for where he was going or what he was going for, he had no idea why he had brought so few people. Going out to Beijing is also to keep a low profile and not attract attention.
"Take you to the wedding banquet." Chang Yu stood on the carriage and looked back. Ten steps away, two girls were standing under a sycamore tree on the roadside. One of them smiled slightly at her and nodded, looking a little disappointed.
"That girl seems to be..." Tu Yuan looked at the situation and scratched his head. He thought of something and quickly shut up. He shook the reins in his hand and shouted to the twenty warriors on the side of the road: "Brothers, cheer up and walk."
He was a tall man with a loud voice, which attracted the attention of passersby on the road. They secretly sighed that this man looked very brave. He was probably from the Beijing Escort Bureau. Looking at his subordinates, they were all good guys. They didn't look like good guys. This is a tough trip.
The weather is sunny and the official roads are busy with traffic. Now the situation in the Gyeonggi area has stabilized and trade with surrounding areas has resumed. Business travelers are constantly going back and forth every day, and it is very lively. There are many escorts and merchants selling goods, and there are often dozens of people with dozens of cars and horses. Chang Yu After a group of disguised people walked among them, they were not obtrusive or inconspicuous.
"Shopkeeper, where are we going to have a wedding banquet?" Tu Yuan rode beside Chang Yu's car and asked in a low voice. Chang Yu, who was resting in the car with his eyes closed, yawned: "Did you notice anything strange?"
Ah, Tu Yuan is not a careful person. Hearing this, he thought to himself that he might have been followed. He hurriedly looked around and saw people on horseback and carriages. They were either walking in a hurry or talking and laughing calmly. He couldn't see anything strange. He was so stupid. I don't know. ...Hey, suddenly Tu Yuan saw a very familiar little girl on the carriage of a carriage about ten meters away... "Hey, isn't that Lian Xin? Oh, we are going to Jinan."
Chang Yu smiled and said nothing, Tu Yuan scratched his head and looked confused: "Whose wedding banquet is going to Jinan, King De... No, ah, it can't be Lianxin's, could it be that this girl has found her husband's family, whose family Erlang?"
"You are of the same character as those meddlesome nuns in the alley." Chang Yu laughed and scolded: "On the battlefield, no one in our Dongchang Guards can surpass you in terms of bravery. Even Wuzhong is inferior to you when it comes to riding and shooting. However, In terms of carefulness, you have to be at the bottom of the list."
"I don't have to go to Liumen to investigate the case. Why should I be so careful?" Tu Yuan chuckled and Chang Yu nodded: "That's right. Then I can't take you with me when I go out. Maybe one day it will be because of you." His carelessness cost our family our head.”
Ah... this... Tu Yuan was stunned for a moment and said quickly: "The shopkeeper's safety is more important than my head. I won't be careless. I was just joking..."
Are you kidding? Chang Yu curled his lips: "I asked you to look around and see something strange. After a while, you saw the little beauty Lian Xin. If the thief deliberately distracted you with his beauty, wouldn't our family be in danger now? ".
Um... Tu Yuan suddenly broke out in cold sweat on his forehead. He looked around again, and sure enough, he made another discovery. There were carriages and pedestrians...
It's not that these carriages and pedestrians are suspicious, but they have left signs in some places that are not easy to be found that can only be understood by insiders. In other words, Chang Yu's trip to Beijing this time, although on the surface only Tu Yuan and his men More than twenty fierce soldiers from the Black Tiger Battalion were accompanying him, but there were actually more men secretly.
Seeing these people, Tu Yuan finally breathed a sigh of relief: "It's not very peaceful on this road recently, but although my subordinates only have more than 20 brothers, they are not afraid of those young men. It's just the old saying that it's easy to dodge a gun and hard to defend against a hidden arrow. Just now The shopkeeper also said that I was careless and there would inevitably be some mistakes, so now it’s better..."
The unrest on the road that Tu Yuan said was actually due to the fact that Li Zicheng had escaped recently and secretly attacked east and west to hide his whereabouts. The initial scale was not large, with more than ten or dozens of people, but the general environment of this year is really It is too suitable and easy to gather people to cause trouble or rebellion. As long as someone takes the lead and shouts, the poor people will follow suit as if they have drunk chicken blood. In a short period of time, they have blossomed all over Hebei and Shandong. Although the scale is not very large, but The number was so large that Wang Jiayan was so busy that he dispatched his troops to put out fires and train troops everywhere.
Moreover, these thieves who rise up when the wind blows are not just rebels, but also many professional grassroots bandits. Previously, when the thieves were defeated in the Eastern Expedition, the court was so murderous that they all stayed with their tails between their legs. Now they rise up when the wind blows. Following the commotion, not only did they clamor to fight for the imperial court, but they also started to do things like robbing houses and blocking roads, so that the business of the Sihai Escort Agency in the capital was now booming.
However, Chang Yu, who has experienced many battles, is not afraid of this, and he is more relaxed than ever before, and even feels like retiring and returning to his hometown. After all, at this time, the court and the thieves are at a critical moment of negotiation, and he actually left Beijing to deal with private matters. went.
If the ministers inside the court found out about this, they would kill him.
In fact, at this moment, in the Wenyuan Pavilion in the palace, Emperor Chongzhen was discussing peace talks with a group of pavilion elders. While revealing his bottom line, he also asked the negotiating team to stop as soon as they saw fit. Although Li Yan was on the Yellow River front They got a good bargaining chip, but what they thought was the biggest bargaining chip was actually a misunderstanding: the intruder in Dongchang Prison was just a stand-in!
The elders can still understand that they should give up as soon as they see fit. After all, with the current national strength and situation, they can fight without fighting. If the rebel army is forced to a desperate situation and everything is defeated, there will undoubtedly be a quagmire behind it.
But Dongchang actually fabricated a substitute to fool the government and the public, which made them so angry that it was hard to accept. Even though Emperor Chongzhen explained to Chang Yu that this was a deliberate smoke bomb to cause the thieves to chaos, which led Li Yan to use troops in the Yellow River... It still makes them aggrieved, but fortunately, these are cabinet ministers who can still understand a thing or two. When the court ministers know about it later, they will inevitably over-interpret it or take the opportunity to fan the flames and cause trouble.
