Late at night, in the dark room of the Poyang County Yamen Hall, two men were talking softly. There was a low table in front of them, and an oil lamp was lit on the table. The light was weak and the indoor furnishings could not be seen clearly. Only their faces were illuminated. Get a clear picture.
The person on the left is about forty years old, slightly chubby, gorgeously dressed, wearing a blue and white robe made of Sichuan brocade. His round face looks very rich with a smile, as if he belongs to a rich family. appearance.
The man sitting opposite him was in his early thirties, thin and plainly dressed. His body was tightly wrapped in a black robe. If he had not taken off his bamboo hat before entering the room, it would have been difficult for him to do so in the dark night. Make his presence known.
"Why, Da Sima wants to release Dong Cen and Shaonan back again?" The man on the left asked in surprise.
The lean man on the right nodded and replied: "It's not to put them back, but to send them back. Da Sima never meant to keep the two envoys as hostages. He fully believed in the sincerity of the prince in surrendering to the Wei Dynasty. These days, the two envoys are left behind. I just wanted to know more about Wu Jun's deployment and Poyang's terrain.
Da Sima asked the next generation to tell the king of the government. Since the two envoys Dong Shao had leaked their traces in Jiangbei, Sun Quan would be suspicious, so it would be better to let the two envoys come back. It happened that Da Sima wrote a letter to the king of the government. The two of them Just in time to bring it back along the way. "
It turns out that the man on the left is Zhou Li, the governor of Poyang in the Eastern Wu Dynasty. According to the conversation between the two, the identity of the person he is meeting in this secret dark room is already clear. It is expected that the man on the right is Cao Xiu, the great Sima of the Wei State. people.
Sure enough, Zhou Li said respectfully to the lean man: "So it turns out that Da Sima thought everything carefully, and I didn't even think of this. I almost missed a major event."
"What do you believe completely? What are you afraid of the Supreme being suspicious? You deliberately leaked the whereabouts of Dong Cen and Shao Nan. It's just that you still don't trust Yu, so you put Dong Shao back to alienate the relationship between You and the Supreme.
Huh, Cao Xiu is still worried. It seems that we need to add some spice to this drama. "Zhou Li looked respectful on the surface, but he was full of slander in his heart.
Dong Cen and Shao Nan were the children of the Yangxian Zhou family's retainers who had been with them for several generations. They were raised by Zhou Yi's side since they were young, and were regarded by Zhou Yi as his biological nephews.
After Sun Quan, Lu Xun, and Zhou Li made the plan to surrender, Zhou Li sent two of his confidants, Dong Cen and Shao Nan, to Cao Xiu to deliver messages seven times.
In the letter, Zhou Li either told Cao Xiu the reasons for surrendering to Wei, or revealed Wu's military deployment and shortcomings, and encouraged Cao Xiu to send troops south to collect the immortal contribution to the destruction of Wu, etc.
Among them, in the fourth letter, in order to win Cao Xiu's trust even more, Zhou Li sincerely used the lives of Dong Cen and Shao Nan to play the emotional card, and thoroughly explained the pros and cons of sending his envoys to surrender.
In his letter, he said to Cao Xiu: "The sent Dong Cen and Shaonan, the young masters of the family, are trusted by relatives and are like sons. Therefore, they use the special order as a letter and the word of betrayal. They use eyes, words and calculations, and do not tell their lips, teeth, flesh and blood." Dear relatives, no one knows.
It has also been ordered that when you arrive in the state, you should tell me to surrender. Anyone who wants to rebel from the north can pass this on. The bream built this plan and left it to the heavens. If it helps, it will be a blessing for life; if it leaks by chance, it will suffer the disaster of destruction.
I often look up to the sky at night and swear by the stars. How can I appreciate the slightest sincerity? However, when things are urgent and I am lonely and poor, God is the only one who can tell me. On the day of dispatching the envoy, there will be life and death, the body will be alive and the spirit will be dead, and the soul will be refreshed and in a trance.
I am afraid that you will not protect your privacy, so you can keep one of them, Cen and Nan, as a later letter. Once you return the teaching, you should repent and return the teaching. The proprietor has Changke, and those who repent and return are all guilty of original sin. If they are all blocked by each other, there will never be any reason. The county official looked west, crying and writing. "
Excluding those scenes where he revealed his feelings, the core meaning revealed by Zhou Li in this letter of surrender was that the two retainers Dong Cen and Shao Nan had a very good relationship with him. If Cao Xiu still dared not trust him, Cao Xiu could Leave Dong Cen and Shao Nan alone as hostages.
Of course, Cao Xiu can also let the two of them come back, but once the two return to Soochow, they will definitely be considered as an attempted defection by Sun Quan, the leader of Wu, and Zhou Li, as the master of the two of them, is naturally involved.
As a result, Zhou Li's own escape route was completely blocked, and he had no choice but to seek refuge with Cao Xiu.
Therefore, Cao Xiu didn't have to worry about whether Zhou Li could fully trust him. He only needed to use Dong Cen and Shaonan to cut off Zhou Li's retreat. By then, even if Zhou Li pretended to surrender, it would have to become real.
Sure enough, Cao Xiu thought that Zhou Yi's initiative to cut off his retreat was very considerate. Not only did he release Dong and Shao, he was also afraid that the Soochow spies would not notice that Dong and Shao were frequently in and out of Hefei, and would take the initiative to leak it. The purpose of finding the two men's traces was to cut off Zhou Li's retreat and further test him.
I have to say that Cao Xiu was indeed very good at planning. However, what he never expected was that he would fall into Zhou Li's plan from the very beginning. Cao Xiu had slowly fallen into the trap after being seduced one after another. , can no longer see clearly the truth of the whole thing.
Seeing that Cao Xiu's suspicion had dissipated a lot, Zhou Li continued to show his sincerity, pretending to be anxious, and asked: "By the way, may I ask your envoy, did Grand Sima inform His Majesty the Emperor of Wei about my surrender? "
The Wei envoy replied: "Don't worry, Mr. Zhou, the Grand Sima has reported this matter to the Emperor. However, the Emperor and the princes in the court still have doubts, so no decision has been made for a long time.
Therefore, Da Sima sent me to cross the river again and ask for a letter from the emperor. As long as the emperor revealed some Wu people's secrets, Da Sima would be confident that he could completely convince the emperor and the princes. "
"You still want to reveal secrets? But I have told Da Sima all the secrets I know before, and now I really don't have any secrets in my belly. Da Sima's request is really difficult to handle!" Zhou Li's face Sad and seemed very embarrassed.
Ambassador Wei smiled and said: "Hey, Mr. Zhou, don't be discouraged. Even if Mr. Zhou has no secrets, you can still investigate again. Da Sima believes that with the ability of Mr. Zhou, he will definitely get some new information."
Da Sima said, it doesn't need to be too much, just to find out one or two more important information and show the sincerity of the prince's return to Wei, so that Da Sima can speak for the prince in front of the emperor. "
"Well, it doesn't matter. Since Da Sima has said so, Zhou has no choice but to try again."
Ambassador Wei smiled with satisfaction and said: "Haha, Grand Sima knows that the Lord of the House has a solution, so I will wait for good news."
"Okay, please ask your envoy to wait in Poyang for a few days. If there is any progress, Zhou will report it immediately."
Ambassador Wei stood up, clasped his fists and said, "That's it, I'll take my leave now."
"Okay, I will send the envoy out."
After the Wei envoy returned to his place of stay in the city, the leader of Cao Wei's school affairs who was lurking in the local area immediately came up to him and asked, "How is the situation?"
"Zhou Li has promised to go back to find out new confidential information and will let me know in a few days." The Wei envoy took a sip of tea and replied.
"What does he think of the release of Dong and Shao?"
The Wei envoy sneered and said: "How else can I look at it? Of course I accepted it. This is the method of cutting off the retreat offered by Zhou Li himself, and it is only right that the Great Sima follows it."
"Is there anything unusual between the answers?"
Wei Shi thought about it for a while, shook his head and said: "I don't see anything abnormal, it's all normal reactions."
"I see. It seems that Zhou Li's intention to surrender is indeed true." The head of the school affairs department nodded.
Wei Shi shook his head slightly: "We have to take another look. Grand Sima said that this is the last test. If there are no abnormalities, we can report to the emperor to ask for orders to send troops, so we must be cautious."
"Yes, I understand."
A few days later, Sun Quan, Lord of Wu, indeed sent another Langguan to interrogate Zhou Li about Dong Cen and Shao Nan's appearance in Hefei.
In order to complete the trick, Zhou Li cut off his hair in front of the prefect's house to apologize to the envoy. As soon as this incident came out, it immediately caused a sensation in the whole city and caused a lot of discussion among the people in the city.
You must know that there is a saying: "The hair and skin of the body are received from parents and dare not be damaged, which is the beginning of filial piety." For today's people, especially the noble officials, hair has extraordinary social values such as filial piety, righteousness, and face. significance.
On the way to attack Zhang Xiu, Cao Cao trampled the wheat field with his horse and violated the military law he had established. He cut off his own hair in lieu of beheading. Although it was a bit cunning, it also showed enough repentance and sincerity.
Therefore, Zhou Li suffered a lot of humiliation when he apologized in public today. It is said that scholars can be killed but not humiliated. For the noble officials, such humiliation is no less than killing them.
Therefore, it is conceivable that once Cao Xiu learns about this, he will naturally think that Zhou Li has great hatred for Sun Quan, and his suspicion of him will be minimized.
Sure enough, when the Wei envoy who witnessed Zhou Li's broken hair returned to Hefei and informed Cao Xiu of the matter, Cao Xiu was shocked at first, and then sympathized with Zhou Li.
In addition, Zhou Li leaked two pieces of confidential information about Wu's army in his reply, so Cao Xiu no longer had any doubts, so he sent an envoy to report Zhou Li's submission to the Wei Emperor and requested to send troops to attack Wu.
