Although Yao Zhong is old and no longer young, he is definitely an ordinary person.
He has been training soldiers in the army all year round, dancing with guns and sticks, riding horses and swords. His body is still strong, far beyond the comparison of a pampered civil servant like Song Chen.
His fist was as good as a casserole, and with one punch, Song Chen's nostrils bled and he fell to the ground unconscious.
The scene suddenly came to a standstill.
After all, no one expected that Yao Zhong would really hit someone and make him bleed.
Seeing that Song Chen was bleeding, Yao Zhong realized that he seemed to have made a mistake and done something wrong. In a panic, he quickly led his people out of the Governor's Mansion and returned to the army.
Then he wrote a letter to Lin'an Privy Council to defend himself, and at the same time he wrote to Wu Lin in Sichuan, asking Wu Lin to mobilize his personal connections to help him, and not to let himself capsize in the gutter because of such a trivial matter. .
Wu Gong's boat has capsized, and he doesn't want to continue to capsize.
On the other side, Song Chen woke up after being knocked unconscious for a while.
He looked at his bruised nose and face in the bronze mirror, and deeply hated Yao Zhong, but he also realized that if Yao Zhong took the lead in this matter, he might not be able to reap any good fruits.
After thinking for a while, he decided to change the topic and launch a quantitative war to win with quantity.
Ezhou officials are basically Song Chen's accomplices. When they take the benefits, everyone is basically equally affected. Everyone takes it. Idiots who don't want to take it will be brutally squeezed out. So after the big wave washes away the sand, all that are left are the common sense. Current affairs person.
Everyone held together tightly for their own interests, responded to Song Chen's call, and decided to complain first, then bite back and give Yao Zhong eye drops.
In short, the memorial transferred the crimes they committed to Yao Zhong, slandering Yao Zhong for using high-quality ordnance to trade with the Ming army in Henan, and selling all the high-quality ordnance to the Ming army in Henan to make a lot of money, leaving behind Give it to your own army.
Because his heart was too dark, there were too many defective products, and the army became resentful. Yao Zhong felt that he could not handle it anymore, so he decided to deflect the conflict and instead slandered the Ezhou government for not providing high-quality ordnance to the army.
Yao Zhong tried to confuse right and wrong, cover up his mistakes, and make the soldiers resent the government instead of himself, in order to achieve his ulterior evil purpose. He is really unworthy of others.
As for how to get through it when the court sent people to verify the matter afterwards, Song Chen also had an idea.
He found the businessmen who were responsible for doing business with the peasant army, and asked them to contact the peasant army, explain the matter clearly, and ask them to lend them the high-quality ordnance they had sent before, so as to fool the court. Officers who came to inspect.
After this matter is dealt with, we will never return the weapons to the peasant army.
If we are finished, you will not be able to continue the arms trade for a while, and your successors may not be willing to do business with you. This is probably not what you want to see.
But if this hurdle is passed, our trade price will be easy to negotiate in the future. We can give you a 30% discount or a 40% discount. What do you think?
In the flash of lightning, Song Chen couldn't think of any better way. He could only take a gamble on the peasant army, which still had some moral integrity.
They really got the bet right.
After Zhao Yucheng learned about this incident, he held a small-scale meeting to discuss it.
Finally, everyone reached a unified view.
Yao Zhong was a famous general and was good at using troops. If the peasant army fought with him, he might not be able to get any benefits, and it might even increase casualties.
Since the internal conflicts in the Southern Song Dynasty can be used to get rid of Yao Zhong at this moment, why not do it?
Isn’t the enemy of our enemy our friend?
So Zhao Yucheng sent a message back to Song Chen, telling them that we agreed to the deal. You can send someone here and we will fully cooperate.
After Song Chen got the news, he breathed a long sigh of relief, and his heart that had been hanging fell back into his stomach. He felt like he was reborn.
The peasant army is still reasonable and is a good business partner. Future business cooperation can be strengthened.
Then he began to arrange for his subordinates to make false accounts based on the current data, preparing to fool people from the court and take away Yao Zhong.
However, Zhao Yucheng felt that this was not enough for the Southern Song Dynasty court to get rid of Yao Zhong, so he conveyed the news to the Tianwang Army and detoured the matter to Commander Zhang Yuejing of the Henan Corps, asking Zhang Yuejing to cooperate.
For example, some very "secret" rumors were released, such as some shady trade between the Ming Army and the Song Army in Xiangyang.
If Yao Zhong can be killed in this wave, it will definitely be a good thing for the upcoming war.
Zhao Yucheng was very cooperative, and Song Chen himself did not wait foolishly.
The memorial he wrote to the court not only contained false accusations against Yao Zhong, but also contained content about generals punching sergeants and forcibly beating civil servants.
Zhao Song's family law has always attached great importance to restrictions on generals and strictly guarded against any transgression by the generals.
Song Chen felt that if he could set off a trend and transfer this matter from simple corruption and dereliction of duty to a civil-military conflict, it would be of great benefit to him to overcome the danger.
Both sides have made moves and revealed their cards, and then it depends on their respective luck.
The memorials from both sides rushed to Lin'an City at rocket speed.
So, on the eve of the launch of the fourth encirclement and suppression war, the Song court was shocked when it heard that Yao Zhong, Song Chen and other Ezhou officials had violent conflicts and even bloodshed.
The Privy Council first received Yao Zhong's report.
Yao Zhong's memorial stated that the local officials in the Jinghu War Zone had withheld military supplies and transported large quantities of defective products, which had seriously affected the combat effectiveness of the army. This made him very dissatisfied, so he took people to find an explanation from the Ezhou Governor. .
However, the governor of Ezhou tried to evade the matter in many ways, but refused to help him solve it. He had no choice but to go to the warehouse to check what happened, but was blocked by the governor Song Chen. A physical conflict broke out between the two sides. In the chaos, Song Chen did not know who was knocked down.
This was not his intention. He was just worried that if the equipment was too poor, he would not be able to prevent the Ming army from going south in Henan. He also heard rumors when he came in that some officials were secretly communicating with the peasant army on Jiangnan West Road and sold weapons to them, so he Ask the court to deal with it impartially.
Zhao Kan had just finished reading Yao Zhong's memorial, and before he could get angry, the memorials from Song Chen and Ezhou officials were delivered.
In terms of quantity, Ezhou officials' memorials defeated Yao Zhong.
In terms of content, the memorials by Ezhou officials, especially Song Chen, are also quite exciting.
The content is that the things they gave Yao Zhong were sent directly by the Privy Council. They did not stop or withhold them at all, and sent them all to the Xiangyang Military Camp. But they don’t know why Yao Zhong took the initiative to bring people to the door to cause trouble, and insisted that they had embezzled money. Ordnance, shoddy goods.
Yao Zhong led 200 soldiers to make trouble and blocked the governor's office. His attitude was arrogant, unreasonable and arrogant. He frequently waved his fists to threaten the helpless civil servants, and occasionally drew swords to threaten them, just to make them hand over their weapons. .
Song Chen argued hard, but Yao Zhong was arrogant and unreasonable. In the end, he tried to rob him. Of course, Song Chen refused and stepped in to stop him. Yao Zhong punched him in the face, causing his mouth and nose to bleed. He fainted for a while. Wake up.
He didn't know why Yao Zhong did this, but he had heard some rumors that Yao Zhong had been guarding Xiangyang for a long time and had many contacts with the Ming army. He didn't know what happened to the Ming army here.
It was better now. Zhao Xun, who had not had time to be angry with the civil servants, calmed down instantly. Looking at the two memorials with completely conflicting contents, he felt that it was difficult to make an appropriate decision.
So he summoned the ministers to discuss and announced the matter.
