Early morning.
At dusk of yin and yang.
The autumn wind on Hangou is bleak and the fog is thick. It seems that all life has been crushed in this frosty and cold weather.
A small boat, swaying, with only a fishing lantern on the bow, shining dimly for ten miles.
There are two people in bamboo hats and raincoats on the boat. One is fishing and the other is rowing. They are lifelike in the still landscape scroll.
"Ha..." Song Che breathed into his hands and rubbed them. The late autumn cold was even crueler than winter. After taking a few breaths, water droplets formed on my nose, and the mist wetted my raincoat.
"You know it's cold, right? I asked you to come and rock the oar to stretch your muscles. You have to get a fishing rod to show off." Jiang Yun, who was rocking the oar at the stern of the boat, was not much better, his face turned red by the river wind.
"Whoosh!" Song Che pulled up the fishing rod. As expected, there was no fish, but he still hung up the bait unhurriedly, threw the rod into the water again, and said with a smile:
"A man in a boat with a coir raincoat fishing alone in the snow on a cold mountain is called style."
Jiang Yun rolled his eyes, threw away the oar in his hand, sat down on the stern of the boat, and pulled out his sword with a "choking" sound.
Song Che was shocked: "What are you doing?"
Jiang Yun took out a piece of coarse cloth from his arms, wetted it with river water, and began to wipe the sword over and over again, humming softly: "I also want to be stylish."
Song Che laughed.
The boat, which had lost its oar, was drifting in the river.
"Jingle Bell……"
Suddenly there was a sound of wind chimes in the mist.
"Crunch, crunch..."
"Whoosh, whoosh..."
The sound of water flowing from a large ship.
A large ship with extremely high fenders pushed through the fog. The two marquees hanging on the bow looked like the eyes of a black dragon, watching everything on the river.
This is a warship.
"Where are you fishermen? Get out of the way quickly and don't block the way of the official ship!" A guard on the bow shouted at the boat.
Song Che ignored him and continued fishing.
The warship got closer and closer to the small boat. The guard was shocked when he saw Jiang Yun at the stern cleaning his sword:
"There are assassins intercepting the river!"
"Shuashuashua..."
Hearing the sound of drawing swords, more than a dozen guards jumped onto the deck, and the warship stopped moving.
Song Che looked at the guards, trying hard to find a certain figure, but the fog was too thick and he couldn't see clearly.
"What happened?" A middle-aged man wearing a fur robe walked onto the bow.
The guard said: "Sir, a small boat suddenly appeared in the fog, and there were fishermen and swordsmen there. It was very strange. It was probably some short-sighted desperadoes who wanted to rob the boat while people were sleepy."
Gao Chen took a closer look. People with style can naturally see the pattern. In the middle of the night, fishing in a small boat on the flowing water, isn't it just an ordinary person?
He was polite: "I wonder why you two want to block Gao's way?"
Song Che flipped up his bamboo hat, revealing half of his face, and whispered three words to Gao Chen: "Catch a big fish."
Gao Chen opened his eyes wide. Even though he couldn't see clearly, he could hear the sound. He exclaimed: "You are...Mr. Song!"
Song Che said: "Master Gao, please excuse me and come down to talk."
Gao Chen quickly ordered his men to approach the warship and was about to get off the ship, but the guard on the side said: "Sir, there are weapons on the ship, so don't get off rashly."
"Mr. Song is an old friend of mine, and I have full trust in him."
Gao Chen asked people to set up the gangway and stepped directly onto the boat.
Jiang Yun stood up, grabbed the oar, and swayed away from the warship.
"Master Gao!"
"Don't worry, just wait where you are!" Gao Chen stopped the warship he was chasing.
When the boat entered the mist, Jiang Yun stopped rowing and let it drift with the current.
"Mr. Song, farewell to Hangzhou. I hope you are well." Gao Chen said hello first.
Song Che sighed: "Master Gao helped me find that yearly coin business, which made me suffer a lot."
Gao Chen smiled and said: "It is not easy to do business with the royal family, but I heard that Grand Master Jia was demoted from the capital. Is this probably Mr. Song's work?"
"This matter has nothing to do with me."
"Then you really shouldn't ask too much," Gao Chen said without thinking, and asked again: "Mr. Song came here early in the morning. Why?"
Song Che whispered: "Someone wants to kill you."
Gao Chen was startled, then relieved for a moment, and said calmly: "There are too many people who want to kill me."
Song Che said: "What's annoying to you is that you know that someone wants to kill you, but you can't find out who it is."
Gao Chen sighed softly: "It's easy to hide from an open gun, but hard to guard against a hidden arrow. Sir, since you intend to remind me, I will not just sit idly by."
Song Che told Gao Chen everything about the Japanese pirates in Yangzhou.
After hearing this, Gao Chen couldn't help but cursed: "These traitors!"
Song Che slowly pointed out three fingers: "Three kinds of relationships——
Cicada, mantis, oriole.
The cicada is Lord Gao, the mantis is the Japanese pirate, and the oriole is the mastermind behind the scenes.
It is a fundamental contradiction for Japanese pirates to kill you, so don't do more.
If someone kills someone with a borrowed knife, it is not necessarily a traitor, but it is most likely political persecution.
Gao Daren moved here to the left. If he died under the sword of the Japanese pirates, Huang Que might gain three benefits:
One is to kill someone with a borrowed knife, leaving melons and plums in the fields;
Second, eliminate dissidents and consolidate their position;
Third, it intensifies ethnic conflicts and increases the anti-Japanese trend;
There must be more than one oriole. Your Excellency has been an official in the court for many years, and you should know better than anyone who is the biggest one. As for those oriole, there are many of them in Yangzhou city. You can see them tonight. . "
"Sir, please give me some advice to save my life, hang the Japanese pirates, and root out the traitors!"
Gao Chen wanted to lower his body and be polite, but Song Che quickly held his hand and said, "I will help you, partly for my own sake, sir. There is no need to be polite."
Then he preached:
"If nothing else happens, Mr. Gao will definitely be invited to the 'Eight Immortals Tower' for a banquet after he is busy with government affairs today.
Even if they don't invite you, you still have to take the initiative to hold a banquet at the Eight Immortals Tower, where there will be a place of murder;
If Huangque sets up an ambush to kill you, let's do a 'strategy' and arrange an ambush outside the building to act according to the opportunity to suppress the Japanese pirates;
The people who took the initiative to eat with you tonight, or the people who should have eaten with you but did not come, are most likely those oriole;
Those who don’t come are afraid of being killed, but those who come to chat are to create evidence of the presence and get rid of their own suspicion;
Remember, both types of people must die. It is better to kill the wrong person than to let them go. "
Gao Chen frowned: "Among the people accompanying me to the banquet tonight, there must be Li Youtian, the pacifying envoy of Yangzhou. Although his rank is not as good as mine, he is the capital of Huainan and holds military and political power. Killing him will inevitably cause turmoil."
"What's his relationship with you? Is he your party member?" Song Che asked.
Gao Chen shook his head: "Li Youtian is cunning, slippery, and unpredictable. Although he regards me as his superior on the surface, he doesn't like to see me secretly. Alas..."
He sighed again: "To be honest, the reason why I went to Yangzhou was for frontline logistics. As the capital of Huainan, Yangzhou always uses various excuses to deduct military resources. It is really shameful. I want to punish him, but I have no choice. If you move here from the left, you will be powerless and unable to do anything!"
He let out another long sigh, turned around and let the cold wind hit his face, like cold water in autumn:
"The imperial court demoted me to the coast to fight against the Japanese, but they were afraid of the overwhelming numbers of troops and wanted to rebel. The traitors and sycophants were afraid that I would make great achievements, so they tried every means to cut off my life. If the fight against the Japanese was not successful and I was completely defeated, I would only die. It would not be a pity! I would just be pitiful! A vast country with thousands of miles of rivers has lost its land, its people have suffered, their dignity has been lost, and their backbone has been lost!"
He sighed again, slowly closed his eyes, and squeezed out a drop of hot tears:
"The world is so big, but there is no place for me, Gao Chen..."
