Jiubei said with determination:
"As long as it's the young master, there will be no problem!"
"Hahaha, I'll lend you some good words then."
Aoto and Kyubei looked at each other and smiled, then grabbed the Dingkijin and Wakashi who were lying on the tatami beside them, and hung the two sabers on their left waists.
After nearly 4 months of long rest, November 1st... this day finally arrived.
Aoto is finally going to return to officialdom and go to that new world - the special armed security force of the Edo shogunate: Hōfu Thieves Kai!
Today is Qingdeng's first day at work, and he shouldn't be late either logically or rationally.
So even though it was still a little early, Qingden hung up his sword and put on the exclusive black uniform of Captain Haoban, and left the room without too much procrastination or hesitation.
Arriving at the entrance of the Trial Guard Hall, Qingden saw the general secretary and his team who had been waiting here for a long time.
Souji, Shusuke, Abi, Kondo, Inoue, Saito, Nagakura, Harada, Okita Hikaru, Matsui Tsune... all the current residents of the Test Guard Hall came to see Aoto off.
In the past two months, the population of the Trial Guard Hall has once again prospered. There are 2 more newcomers: Matsui Tsune and Okita Hikaru.
As the daughter-in-law of Shusuke and Abi, Tsunei Matsui naturally lives under the same roof as Kondo.
I have to say that Matsui Tsune is really a good woman. Zhou Zhu and A Bi have a good eye for picking people.
Not to mention her appearance, she is a beautiful woman with excellent face and temperament.
He also has a great personality, speaks softly and moves gently.
Matsui has been living in the Imperial Guard Hall for so long, and Qingto has never seen him lose his temper or speak loudly to anyone.
In addition, she is quite good at housework, cooking and other skills that Yamato Nadeshiko must have, and she is very diligent.
Come and try it quickly. 】
Aoto's evaluation of Tsune Matsui can be summed up in one word: a perfect wife and daughter-in-law.
As for Souji's sister Okita Hikaru, why is she here... This matter has something to do with Souji.
Okita Hikaru and his wife temporarily left their residence in Hino-juku and came to Edo to attend Kondo Isamu's wedding.
Their initial plan was to stay in Edo for a while longer after Kondo Isamu's wedding ended successfully, play with Souji for a while, and then go home.
But in mid-September, a sudden disturbance arose - the general secretary fell ill.
On September 13, a strong wave of cold air hit Edo without any warning.
The summer heat was blown away by this wave of cold air, and autumn entered Edo overnight.
The cold wind full of autumn air clung to the streets, and the sky cast a cold filter unique to autumn.
The temperature suddenly dropped by more than ten degrees, and it was impossible to go out without wearing more outerwear such as feather fabrics.
It was at this time that Souji fell ill.
The body has a high fever and a constant cough.
According to Okita Hikaru, this is an old problem of the Souji.
Whether it is due to genetics or some other reason, Souji's trachea and lungs are extremely delicate and prone to problems.
Every time when the seasons change from summer to autumn to winter to spring, Souji would often have a bad cough and fall ill with a fever. Moreover, his body recovery speed was extremely slow, and it was common for him to lie on the bed moaning for several months before he recovered.
Okita Hikaru, Kondo and others invited many doctors to treat Souji, including many well-known doctors.
But no matter how many high-profile doctors he treated him and how many precious medicinal materials he took, Souji's old problem could never be cured.
This was the first time Qingto knew about this... Unexpectedly, Souji, who was usually very cheerful and full of energy, actually had a "sickly beautiful" side.
Due to the change of seasons, Souji's old habit relapsed. When his condition was at its worst, he couldn't even get out of bed.
The Souji is a girl - the only people in the entire Imperial Guard who know this secret are Shusuke, Abi, Kondo, Hijikata, Inoue and Aoto.
In other words, the only person who can take personal care of the General Secretary in the trial guard hall is Abi, who is also a woman.
In order to reduce Abi's pressure, Okita Hikaru asked her husband Okita Rintaro to return to his hometown alone first, and she stayed alone with Abi to take on the important task of taking care of the general secretary.
After more than a month of careful care by Abi and Okita Hikaru, Souji finally regained some of his former vitality.
The weather is quite cold today.
A shivering coldness enveloped the whole body, making one miss the warm bed.
Today is the first day for Qingdeng to start his new career. It is a very important and special day for Qingdeng.
In order to celebrate, the General Secretary and others spontaneously gathered at the entrance hall this morning to see off Qingteng.
This sense of déjà vu that “the whole family came together to send their daughter off for marriage” made Qingdeng both embarrassed and quite moved.
Qingteng, who did not want to trouble everyone so much, had declined the kindness of Souji and others, but Souji and others insisted, so Qingteng had no choice but to follow their wishes.
After the entrance to the imperial examination hall and the figures of the people preparing to see him off appeared in his field of vision, Qingto's eyes naturally focused on Souji, whose delicate body had not yet fully recovered.
At this moment, Souji, who had a relatively rosy face, was wearing a large haori with a knee-length hem and a very beautiful style and pattern.
She was standing next to Okita Hikaru, maybe because her hands and feet were cold. Her little feet covered with clean white socks were rubbing her insteps alternately, and her arms were folded into Haori's sleeves.
"Okita-kun." Qingto walked up to the Souji in three steps and cast a helpless look at the Souji, "You are a sick patient, so there is no need to hold on your body to come to me. See you off."
"Hee hee hee……"
Souji covered his mouth and coughed a few times, raised his head, and raised a big bright smile at Qingden.
"I didn't force myself to hold on. My energy level is pretty good today."
Qingto glanced at Souji's face... Indeed, Souji was in good spirits today. His face was not as pale as before, and his speech was quite clear. This reassured Qingden a little.
"Mr. Tachibana!"
At this time, Harada's voice intervened.
"Although I don't quite understand the difference between the Fire Thief Kai and the 'Three Chapters' of the Enforcement Office, but in short: if you need to hire someone to help you in the future, you can come to me at any time!"
"Yes." Qingden smiled slightly, "I will."
Compared with the "Three Chapters" of the Enforcement Office, the manpower of the Huo Fu Thieves Reform is much more abundant.
There are 8 division teams in total, each division team has 1 division captain, 10 troops and 50 troops.
In addition, there is also an "increasing service" system - if there is a shortage of manpower, you can directly ask for people from the Xianxian Gonglian and Xianxian Iron Cannon Team, which means that there is a considerable number of "temporary workers" that can be called upon at will.
Therefore, the Huofu Thieves Kai does not have the "Okabiki" system like the "Sanchai" of the Bogosho.
To put it simply - Ainoto can no longer hire Okahirai to help him, and Nagakura, Harada, and Toudo are all unemployed.
Qingdeng once told the three of them: If they are still willing to be Okaki's guide, they can be introduced to the other "three times" companions such as Zhu Gu and Uu Shan.
While working under Aoto, Nagakura and others showed great personal abilities, especially Toudo.
A versatile man like Toudo Heisuke, who can handle paperwork and carry a sword into battle, has no major shortcomings other than being too young, impetuous, and inexperienced. "Hui" is completely a piece of fragrant steamed bun.
However, all three of them clearly rejected Qingdeng's offer of help and introduction.
Nagakura Shinpachi: "To be honest, I agreed to be Okabiki because I admire Mr. Tachibana. If Mr. Tachibana is gone, what's the point of me staying at the shrine?"
Harada Sanosuke: "Mr. Tachibana, let me tell you the truth: I hate working the most. If I am not forced by life, I will not work. I saved a lot of money while working under you, until Until this savings is spent, I don’t want to work anymore.”
Toudo Heisuke: My original intention of serving you, Mr. Tachibana, is just to see the world by doing different jobs. Since Mr. Tachibana can no longer hire Okabiki, I will take advantage of the situation and find a new job. I just want to try what it is like to be a bodyguard for others.
The reasons why the three people refused were all different...
However, although these three people can no longer be Aoto's Okabiki, Nagakura and Harada still live in the Kaiwei Hall as "diners".
The reason is not only because Shusuke and Kondo have developed a deep friendship with the two people who have been staying at the Imperial Guard Hall for a long time, but also because hiring the two as diners of the Imperial Guard Hall has indeed played a certain role in the enrollment of the sword hall. positive effect.
Everything went as Hijikata had originally planned - after the news spread that "The Tribune Hall had successfully conquered two masters who were recently famous in Edo", it immediately created a very effective brand effect and blind obedience effect.
Many newcomers recently came to take a look out of curiosity because they heard that the Trial Guard Hall is a place where dragons and tigers are hidden.
By the way - in addition to Nagakura, Harada, and Toudo, there is one more person who lost his job.
That is Saito Kazuo.
However, unlike Nagakura and others who are "passively unemployed", Saito is "actively unemployed".
The group that wanted to take Qingdeng's life was gone, and Qingdeng was no longer the Wu Xia Ameng who couldn't even hold a sword.
In terms of personal strength alone, Saito may not be Aoto's opponent now.
Qingdeng no longer needs him to protect him. Qingdeng no longer needs him as a bodyguard.
In early October, Saito took the initiative to resign from Aoto.
Among the relatives and friends in the Trial Guard Hall, Saito is one of the people who has been with Aoto the longest, and is also the one who has fought alongside Aoto the most.
Saito is leaving... Of course Aoto can't let him go.
However, Saito is also a very stubborn and straightforward person.
He insists that if Qingdeng no longer needs his protection, if he continues to receive Qingdeng's salary as a bodyguard, it will be a complete fraud - he does not want to accept such an unexpected reward.
There was no other way. In order to retain Saito, Qingto had to change his mind.
The trial defense hall has been booming recently, and with the gradual increase in new apprentices, the number of teachers has begun to be a little insufficient.
Therefore, Qingto and Kondo decided to invite Saito to be their teacher's representative.
Although Saito's swordsmanship style has no external influences, in the field of swordsmanship, no matter which school it is, there are quite a lot of things in common.
For example: the sword-holding postures in the upper, middle and lower sections, how to draw and retract the sword, how to draw blood...these contents are common in every school.
Saito is fully capable of teaching these basic kendo skills.
Shusuke and Kondo were also reluctant to let go of Saito, so they all went into battle and beat Saito hard.
In the end, Saito finally succumbed to the "saturation offensive" of Qingto and others.
Ever since - even though Saito was no longer Aoto's bodyguard, he continued to live in the Imperial Guard Hall as a "diner and teacher of the Imperial Guard Hall".
In the past, Qingto could lead Saito, Nagakura, and Harada to work at the shrine every working day.
But now, all of them are gone, the bodyguards have resigned, and he has to go to the yamen where Huo Fu thieves were reformed alone - thinking of this, Qingdeng feels a little lonely inexplicably.
…
…
The air is filled with the refreshing smell unique to autumn.
Under the high blue sky, Mount Fuji in the distance silently overlooked the people who began to shuttle busily through the towns of Edo.
Compared with summer, the sunlight that permeates the streets is white and soft in the atmosphere of early autumn.
While walking at a leisurely pace, Qingdeng looked around with interest at the street scenes that were different from what he was used to seeing in the past due to the change in his route to work.
Compared with other government departments, the Huofu Thieves Reform has a very interesting feature, that is, the location of their government offices is not fixed.
Generally speaking, whoever is the current commander-in-chief of the Huofu Thieves Reform, then this person's residence is the new Yamen of the Huofu Thieves Reform.
Unless there are some very special circumstances, the commander-in-chief of the Huo Fu Thieves Reform will basically change once a year. Therefore, the yamen changed by Huo Fu Thieves also changed every year.
This year the Yamen is located in the east of the city, but next year it may be moved to the west.
From its formation to the present, the history of Huo Fu Thieves Kai is only over a hundred years old.
As a result, in the mere hundred years of its history, the Huofu Bandits have had more than two hundred chief commanders...
The commander-in-chief changes clothes more frequently than the Yoshihara oiran - this is not the most speechless part of the organizational structure changed by the fire thieves.
What makes people feel even more ridiculous than "frequently changing the commander in chief" is that there is often more than one commander in chief among the thieves!
Only in very rare circumstances will the Huo Fu Rogues have only one commander in chief.
Most of the time, there will be at least two top leaders in the Huo Fu Thief Kai.
The current Fire Thief Kai has two top officers at the same time: Kurosawa Atsushi and Okubo Tadashi.
These two people are respectively the 240th and 241st generation commanders of the Huofu Thief Kai.
The status of these two people is completely equal, there is no distinction between superior and inferior, and there is no detailed division of functions. They both have the same rights and obligations.
Not only do the brains of an army change frequently, but they often have two or even three brains at the same time... This kind of thing seems ridiculous at first glance, but it is actually full of insidious political wisdom.
According to legend, Tokugawa Ieyasu, the first shogun who founded the Edo shogunate, once said: The secret of running a country is to keep the peasants half-dead.
The shogunate structure built by Tokugawa Ieyasu and his descendants and continued to this day can be regarded as understanding and playing this sentence to the extreme.
During the more than two hundred years that the Edo shogunate ruled Japan, not only the farmers were tortured to death, but also the merchants, craftsmen, ordinary samurai, and feudal lords were manipulated to death.
Huo Fu Thieves is a microcosm of the officialdom of the shogunate.
In fact, the chiefs of almost all agencies and departments of the Edo Shogunate were held by several people at the same time, and they were replaced very frequently. It was normal to change them once a year or several times a year.
The reason for doing this is to torment the officials and warriors.
Although redundant officials and redundant personnel will lead to extremely low administrative efficiency, this can make the throne of the General Zhengyi quite stable.
If there are too many people in a department who can talk about issues, they will inevitably start wrangling and kicking the ball when it comes to big or small issues.
The strength and energy of the officials were completely eroded in this endless wrangling and kicking the ball.
If the power of each person and department is dispersed, it will be difficult to form a joint force and pose a threat to the rule of the Tokugawa family.
Moreover, setting up a bunch of talkers in each department can also effectively alleviate the social pressure of "a large number of samurai have no official positions and have become socially unstable elements".
Whether there are frequent changes of commanders, or there are multiple commanders...the purpose of these methods is simple and the same: to minimize the threat to the Edo shogunate from the fire bandits!
If the commander-in-chief is replaced frequently, "the soldiers will not know the generals, and the generals will not know the soldiers."
If there is more than one commander-in-chief, the internal divisions of the Huofu Thief Kai will naturally form and it will be difficult to unite as one.
Therefore, these systems, which at first glance seem extremely absurd, are actually extremely vicious political games.
The Edo shogunate has been able to rule Japan for nearly 300 years, and has maintained general stability until now. Almost no vassal state has the strength to challenge the authority of the Edo shogunate - this series of extremely troublesome events left by Tokugawa Ieyasu and his descendants The system and governance ideas of the country are indispensable.
The government office that the Huofu Thief changed this year is Kurosawa Atsushi's mansion, which is located in the south of the city, quite far from the Imperial Guard Hall.
Qingden always walked very fast, but it took him nearly 40 minutes to finally see Kurosawa Atsushi's mansion... the government office that the thieves had transformed into now.
Kurosawa Atsushi's mansion is quite luxurious and magnificent. Qingdeng looked to his left, then to his right - no matter which direction he looked, he could not see the end of the stone brick wall surrounding the mansion.
There were four soldiers wearing black clothes and holding long sticks standing guard at the spacious door that could accommodate four adults entering and exiting side by side at the same time.
Qingdeng strode over, and the four sentries immediately raised their long sticks with nervous expressions on their faces.
But after seeing Qingden's squad leader uniform, the nervousness on their faces suddenly turned into confusion.
"This is the captain of the third division who came to report today: Tachibana Aoden!"
Qingden took the initiative to announce his name to the sentries, and lifted the hem of the haori on the right side of his body, revealing a brand new seal hanging on his right waist - a black-and-silver seal that symbolizes the fire bandits' changed captaincy. cage.
In an instant, a small commotion broke out among the four sentries.
I saw them biting their ears in a low voice:
"This is the 'Nioh'... so young... He looks younger than my sister."
"You read that right, 'Nioh' is only 18 years old this year. He is indeed younger than your sister."
"Hey, stop chatting, it's more important to do business."
These four sentries should have received the news in advance that "the new captain of the third division will be here today", so after a brief period of shock and confusion, they quickly calmed down their minds and emotions and came forward to verify Qingdeng's identity. .
Just when Qingdeng was patiently waiting for his identity to be confirmed——
"Aiya~~ Isn't this Niou? It's been a long time~~ Do you still remember me?"
A male voice with a long, strange tone at the end of each sentence suddenly sounded behind Qingdeng.
A familiar male voice... Qingden quickly turned back.
A young man with a delicate face and a soft smile on his lips, holding a knife on his waist in his left hand and tucking his right hand into the lapel of his coat, walked towards Qingdeng with brisk steps.
Qingdeng immediately recognized who this young man was.
"My grandson..."
It was on the night when this person accompanied Zuo Nazi to go to the fireworks display that he had a chance encounter with him that he met the captain of the Fire Thieves Kaiyi Squadron and the leader of the 9th Division of the Advanced Iron Cannon Division, a rare genius detective: I Grandson Chutaro!
In order to facilitate his work in the future, Qingdeng has searched for a lot of information and done a lot of homework in the recent period, and has memorized the names of every person in the current command level of Huofu Thief.
The current command level of the Huo Fu Thieves is composed of 2 commanders and captains of 8 divisions. The list is as follows -
Commander-in-Chief: Kurosawa Atsushi, Okubo Tadashi.
First Division Captain: My grandson Chutaro
Second Division Captain: Kanazawa Chusuke
Captain of the Third Division: Tachibana Aoden
Captain of the Fourth Division: Mizushima Rensaburo
Captain of the fifth division: Kimura Suma
Captain of Division 6: Genzo Hosaka
Captain of the 7th Division: Masaki Tsuchida
Captain of the Eighth Division: Nobuyoshi Kazama
Among them, the 3rd division commanded by Aoto, the 6th division commanded by Hosaka Genzo, and the 8th division commanded by Nobuyoshi Kazama were all units concurrently served by the Hoshigami group.
The other five troops are all served by the advanced iron artillery team.
3 archer teams, 5 musketry teams... Although the muskets used by the advanced iron artillery team are still old-fashioned matchlock guns, this kind of firepower is enough to crush more than 90% of the young people into powder.
Only those Hatamoto samurai with an innocent family background and a certain family background are qualified to serve as squad leaders in the Huofu Thieves Kai.
Therefore... just by looking at the elegant names in this list, you can see how Qingdeng's future colleagues have superior family backgrounds.
*******
*******
The author Jun Cheng is the last yin person in the family... There are 5 people living in the house, 4 of them are yang, and I am the only one who is okay for the time being.
But if this continues, it will be a matter of time before I get Yang... (Leopard Head Cries.jpg) Everyone, please be mentally prepared that there may not be a new chapter to read tomorrow.
But before falling ill, the author will work hard to update!
Asking for a monthly ticket! Please vote for recommendation! (Leopard cry.jpg)
