Late at night, in the secret room of a house in the north corner of Liujing City, Jiang Shouye, a beautiful man with a beard, looked at the spiritual tablet on the shrine in front of him with a sad expression, and meticulously performed three bows and nine kowtows.
Although this spiritual tablet looks a bit crude, it is clearly engraved with the eight characters of the spiritual tablet of the late Emperor Li Zaiyuan!
After the salute, Jiang Shouye still did not stand up. He faced the spiritual throne and knelt silently on the futon, with his eyes closed and his hands clasped together, as if praying for something.
Jiang Shouye knew very well that his decades of reputation in the palace were completely ruined with his surrender to the Zhou army!
Now he is no longer a loyal minister and good general praised by the government and the public, but a lackey of the Zhou people who everyone wants to kill and wants to kill him quickly!
Although his subordinates and relatives did not understand what he did, some even risked their lives to dissuade him and cut off their robes to sever justice...
But Jiang Shouye touched his conscience and asked himself that he would never regret doing this!
Surrender is currently the only way Jiang Shouye can think of to save his three thousand Japanese soldiers.
He, Jiang Shouye, was a senior general in the palace and a well-known loyal minister in the palace. His surrender was good news and very symbolic for the morally untenable Zhou army.
If nothing else happens, Zhou Jun should follow the example of "buying horse bones for a thousand gold" and let him lead his troops back to Zhushan Port to continue to guard against the Dongdao Ronin coming across the sea.
In this way, the three thousand Japanese soldiers under him will be buried deeply as a seed for the restoration of the country. When the time comes, they can break out of the ground to rebuild the palace!
When he decided to lead his troops from Zhushan Port to aid Liu Jing, Jiang Shouye knew that Zhou's army was powerful. Even if his 3,000 men rushed to help, it would be a drop in the bucket. If the mantis was like a chariot, it would not end well... ··
However, he was loyal to Li Zaiyuan and was mentally prepared to sacrifice his life for the country. He still resolutely sent troops from Zhushan Port to help Ryugyong.
However, the handwritten letter outside Liujing City, sent by the dead men sent by the crown prince Li Xuanchang, changed Jiang Shouye's mind.
In the handwritten letter, Li Xuanchang sincerely requested Jiang Shouye to put the overall situation first, not to be burdened by his lifelong reputation, and surrender to the Zhou army, so as to preserve his strength and endure the humiliation and wait for the opportunity to restore the country.
The appearance of that letter allowed Jiang Shouye, who originally had no hope of restoring the country, to find his direction again. He therefore made up his mind to fight against Ye Mingsheng's tribe in Liujing City and Xiang Yuanhui's tribe, who came for help. Write a letter of surrender!
Jiang Shouye was right. With the occupation of the palace already an established fact, it can be said that the Zhou army was happy to surrender to Jiang Shouye, a well-known senior general in the palace army.
Compared to the cautious Ye Mingsheng, Xiang Yuanhui believed that he could keep his opponents at bay because of his strong self-control. He accepted Jiang Shouye's surrender as a matter of course, but after disarming the three thousand Japanese soldiers, he let them go.
Although he has decided to endure the humiliation and bear the burden, this does not mean that Jiang Shouye can endure the hatred of destroying the country and killing the king!
During this time, he had found out clearly that Li Zaiyuan burned himself to death after the imperial city was destroyed. Although he committed suicide, he still placed the blame on Ye Mingsheng, the seventh-grade commander of the Zhou army, for this debt.
In Jiang Shouye's eyes, without Ye Mingsheng's surprise attack on Liu Jing, Li Zaiyuan would not have set himself on fire, and the country in Gongdu would not have fallen to what it is today.
While he was surrendering to Zhou Jun, Jiang Shouye was not idle either. He found the famous ranger Jin Duxun from Gongdu State to take Ye Mingsheng's head and pay homage to Li Zaiyuan!
In his early years, Jin Doxun had drunkenly caused trouble in Zhushan Port and almost died. Jiang Shouye cherished talents and informed his subordinates to let him live.
This Jin Doxun can be regarded as a person who knows how to repay his kindness. This time when Jiang Shouye found him, he took the matter over without saying a word.
Now that the killer has been found, the assassination should be done sooner rather than later. Who knew that Ye Mingsheng would be transferred out of the palace that day.
Therefore, Jiang Shouye made a decisive decision and arranged the assassination tonight!
After kneeling in front of Li Zaiyuan's memorial tablet for half an hour, there was a sound of footsteps outside the secret room door. A close servant of Jiang Shouye came over and whispered: "Master, Jin Doxun is back!" '
After hearing the news he was waiting for, Jiang Shouye, who had closed his eyes tightly before the death, immediately opened them, with a look of anticipation flashing in his eyes...
After kowtowing very solemnly to Li Zaiyuan's spiritual throne, Jiang Shouye slowly got up from the ground, rubbed his thighs that were numb due to blood accumulation, and walked out of the secret room.
Following the servants, Jiang Shouye came to the main room of the house, where a short, stocky, and very ordinary-looking middle-aged man in night clothes was waiting for him.
"Report to my benefactor! I am incompetent and cannot kill this thief Ye Mingsheng..."
Seeing Jiang Shouye's hopeful expression, Jin Doxun, who had returned without success, knelt on the ground with a "pop", his face turned red and he said with great shame:
Jiang Shouye was stunned when he heard this. After a few seconds, he sighed deeply, with a look of loneliness on his face. After a while, he whispered in a low voice: "Get up. Ye Mingsheng is lucky this time."
After receiving Jiang Shouye's forgiveness, Jin Duxun stood up from the ground with great shame.
"What happened? With your skills, Ye Mingsheng, a crazy beast, should not be able to escape this disaster!" After taking a deep look at Jin Duxun, who had his head lowered, Jiang Shouye slowly asked:
Hearing Jiang Shouye's question, the look of shame on Jin Duxun's face became even more intense. He said very frustrated:
"Originally, things were going very smoothly. I quickly sneaked around Ye Mingsheng's camp and killed the sentry outside his camp. When I was about to sneak into the camp and kill Ye Mingsheng, a man jumped out of nowhere. There is another assassin who also looks like he wants to take Ye Mingsheng’s head.”
"But after this person found me, he probably thought I was Ye Mingsheng's subordinate and wanted to kill me without saying anything. I had no choice but to fight him. The sound of the fight between me and this person alarmed Ye Mingsheng. Ming Sheng's personal soldiers were so numerous that I withdrew when I saw that nothing could be done."
A look of confusion appeared on Jiang Shouye's face. He pondered for a few seconds and murmured in a low voice: "There are actually people who want to kill Ye Mingsheng..."
"Yes!"
Jin Duxun nodded, recalled the fight just now and said: "The assassin I met is a master of swordsmanship. Judging from his swordsmanship, this person should be from the ranks of the Great Zhou Dynasty. , is not proficient in the art of assassination."
