Jiang Dong beside him already knew the truth, but the emperor had a purpose and couldn't expose it yet, so he didn't bother to listen to them fighting each other. He let the guards behind him watch, then turned around and walked out of the room. When he came to the Jinyiwei who accompanied Wu Changshi, there was a general bannerman named Pan Debin.
There was no one else around, so Jiang Dong asked Pan Debin, "Is there anything suspicious about falling into the water?"
To the outside world, Factory Guard is like a family. Therefore, Pan Debin did not hide anything from Jiang Dong, frowning and said: "The current was indeed a bit fast at that time, and there happened to be a gust of wind. Logically speaking, there seems to be nothing suspicious about Wu Xun's fall into the water. But although my brothers and I were I'm from the north and seldom ride on boats, but I felt that the wind and waves didn't seem to make the boat bumpy so much, so I suspected that the boatman was up to something, but I didn't find anything about it even though I was looking around."
"Oh, so that's it?" Jiang Dong responded smoothly, and then thinking about the details, he suddenly raised his head and suggested to Pan Debin, "Maybe you can send someone to check out the boatman's background to see if he has become wealthy recently. , or the trouble suddenly disappears. If you find something unusual suddenly happens with the boat operator, then it is likely that there is something wrong with the boat operator, so you can follow the clues and take a look! "
His family used to be escorts, in other words, they were gangsters. Therefore, Jiang Dong was no stranger to matters in the arena and immediately had some ideas.
When Pan Debin heard this, he thought about it for a moment, and immediately nodded with admiration and said: "The stall owner is very experienced, so this method is good. Later I will arrange for someone to secretly touch the boatman's bottom and try it out."
When he said this, he hesitated slightly, as if he was wondering whether he should say it, but for the sake of Jiang Dong's enthusiastic suggestions, he finally said: "One more thing, when the boat was rocking, There was a brother on the bow of the boat and saw..."
Having said this, he glanced at Wu Changshi's house, then turned back to Jiang Dong and continued: "I saw Wu Xunjian was caught off guard at first and almost fell into the river. But later, he seemed to have stabilized. At that time My brother was relieved, but he didn't expect that in the blink of an eye, Wu Xun's button would fall again..."
At this point, he paused, then subconsciously lowered his voice and said to Jiang Dong: "Our brothers secretly guessed that it was Wu Xun who wanted to fall, right? But it was so cold today. If he fell, Even if I could paddle, I would still be freezing. No, I was already so sick. So thinking about it, it seems unlikely that I fell on purpose."
Jiang Dong couldn't help but sneer in his heart after hearing this. It doesn't matter if the cold water falls, there is a ruthless man over there who plans to assassinate him, and even grabs the dagger and stabs him in the thigh. If he hadn't been careful at that time and had stabbed a major artery, death would have been possible.
Thinking like this, a thought suddenly flashed in his mind. This Wu Changshi must not be a good bird, and he would never be loyal to his errands. If we extrapolate from this situation, it seems not impossible that someone wanted to threaten Wu Changshi, and Wu Changshi took this opportunity to deliberately come to such a place!
Of course, Jiang Dong actually doesn't worry about the truth of the matter. After gossiping about things here, I also gave Pan Debin a few suggestions. At this moment, Zhang Pu was seen striding out of the room. He seemed a little angry and walked out minding his own business.
So Jiang Dong stopped chatting, immediately apologized, and followed.
Back at the inn, Zhang Pu frowned and said to Jiang Dong: "You must have heard it at the stall. Wu Xunjian has reported to the emperor and wants to change places to supervise the two things that the emperor has given. Just take this opportunity, and I will Let’s also take a rest, and when the emperor’s new orders arrive, I believe the fatigue from the journey will be gone, so that I can go about my errands for the emperor with peace of mind, what do you think?”
His question was actually just to tell Jiang Dong what he was going to do next. Because Jiang Dong had no right to let him do this or that, he was just protecting him. Therefore, Jiang Dong naturally wouldn't say much.
Then, Zhang Pu saw that it was still early and asked for pen and ink to start writing.
Jiang Dong was a little curious about this, so he walked over and took a look. I found that he was writing an invitation, as if he was going to hold a poetry party.
Thinking about Zhang Pu's identity, the leader of Fushe and the head of Qingliu, he was originally his hometown in the south of the Yangtze River. Now that he is back, he can learn poetry and other things, which is something he often did before, so there seems to be nothing wrong with it.
Zhang Pu naturally saw Jiang Dong coming to see him without any hesitation, and thinking about his identity, although he would not stop himself from doing anything, he could report directly to the emperor after he returned. Therefore, he stopped writing, held the pen, looked up at Jiang Dong and explained: "Although I am taking a rest, of course I will not forget the business. These posts are from my friends in the same society when I was in Jiangnan, and I invited them to come over. , although it is the origin of the poetry meeting, in fact, I want to tell them about the current predicament of the court. Corruption among officials must not be allowed. Those who exceed the quota of concessions and exemptions are actually corruption; and those who have money and do not pay it, deliberately default, It is even more of a bad nature. I hope they can help me spread the word. If someone can wake up to it, that would be the best. Otherwise, it would be bad for me to be merciless and act according to the law!"
After hearing what he said, Jiang Dong thought it made sense, so he just assumed that the purpose he said was true. Therefore, he complimented me and said: "I didn't expect that your Majesty would always remember what your Majesty told me. He is really loyal to the country. If the emperor knew about it, he would definitely be happy."
"Haha, there, there!" After hearing this, Zhang Pu said humbly, "Since you have received the decree, you must be sincere in doing things. This is what I should do, it should be, it should be!"
Hearing this, Jiang Dong couldn't help but ask in his heart: "Then after you received the decree, you wanted to assassinate through false intentions. What do you mean? Don't think that the emperor doesn't know and is watching how you act!"
While he was thinking about it, Zhang Pu started writing invitations again. Don't tell me, his handwriting is really good. Jiang Dong thinks that he will never be able to write such good handwriting in his life.
Zhang Pu has been writing for more than an hour, and the invitation is a thick stack.
After finally finishing writing, he put the brush on the pen holder, then stood up and stretched his waist very carefully.
It can be seen that writing so many invitations is indeed very tiring.
He saw Jiang Dong looking a little surprised at such a large pile of invitations, so he smiled and pretended not to care and explained: "I have no choice. I and my friends founded Fushe. Since we have made friends through literature, we have many friends. This I picked up those with official family backgrounds. As for the others, which have little to do with my errand this time, I haven’t written any invitations. Otherwise, I will really be exhausted. "
When I leave the capital under an order, I only have these Dongchang servants around me for the time being, and I don't even have a master. It's really inconvenient. Otherwise, he could write the important characters himself and leave everything else to his master.
After he finished speaking, he saw Jiang Dong looking a little surprised. He felt proud, but on the surface he didn't show any emotion. He called Yi Cheng and said, "Send these out as soon as possible for me."
Yi Cheng was a little surprised when he saw so many invitations. He quickly agreed and called his subordinates to come over and get these invitations.
When Zhang Pu saw Yi Cheng standing with his hands down, waiting for his further instructions, he said: "You clean up a yard and make the environment as good as possible. It must be clean and tidy. Tomorrow afternoon, I will hold a poetry meeting. I understand. What?"
After hearing this, Yi Cheng felt the sky for a while, and then said a little embarrassedly: "Sir, can you give me a day's grace? I will definitely move out of the yard with a good environment, and it will be clean and tidy!"
Upon hearing this, Zhang Pu's face darkened and he shouted: "If we have one day's grace and this poetry meeting spreads out, how can there be a yard in the post station that can accommodate so many people? Let's do it quickly!"
Yi Cheng was helpless after hearing this and had no choice but to leave as ordered.
As soon as he left, Zhang Pu showed a smile on his face and said to Jiang Dong, who was watching from the side: "I can't help it. I don't have a good reputation. If the poetry meeting lasts for a long time, all the scholars who have not been invited will come too." , when the time comes there will be a lot of trouble when there are too many people.”
He is still confident about this.
Although he has also considered it, now that he is sent to Beijing to handle thankless things, it will definitely have an impact on him. But his reputation is there, and he hasn’t even started running errands yet! Even if it has an impact, it should be limited! He estimated that even those who had strong objections to him would definitely come to see how he would do this job!
The other one is the leader of Fushe and holds a lot of power in his hands. Even if he is officially an imperial envoy, patrolling the area, this power is powerful enough, and there are always people who will come to please him.
Jiang Dong didn't think about it that much. Seeing how confident he was, thinking that he was still a concubine and that he couldn't be a concubine without true learning, he complimented him with admiration.
After dark, Yi Cheng led his men and used torches to clean up a yard that met the requirements. Of course, we don’t dare to go too late, lest it affect the rest of the imperial envoys in the post station. I got up early the next day and started to be busy again. I finally finished it before noon.
Zhang Pu personally inspected the courtyard with his hands behind his back, without commenting.
However, Jiang Dong couldn't stand it, because this courtyard was very different from the places where literati gathered that he had heard about.
Generally speaking, when the literati gathered during this period of the Ming Dynasty, they would either choose a place with beautiful scenery, travel with them, and recite poems and compose poems; or they might simply sit in that romantic place, with good wine, good food, and beautiful women, and they would also recite the same poem. Poems and poems.
But look at this yard now, there is no scenery at all. As for beauties, this is an inn, so there are naturally no such beauties.
Perhaps seeing what Jiang Dong was thinking, Zhang Pu said nonchalantly and seemingly casually: "This poetry meeting of mine is different from other places. It is a sincere meeting of friends through poetry, mutual guidance and improvement of their knowledge. And I After all, I have been here before, and maybe I can give them some advice on their experience in the imperial examination, so they won’t mind the simplicity here!”
Jiang Dong heard it immediately. What he said about giving advice to each other to improve their knowledge actually meant that he himself was giving advice to others to improve their knowledge, right?
Faintly, he could hear Zhang Pu's arrogance. Jiang Dong didn't feel anything about this, after all, he was not a scholar.
However, sometimes, things don't go as expected.
In the afternoon, time passed slowly, and Zhang Pu never heard any sound. He was a little anxious, so he called Yi Cheng and asked, "How many guests have come now?"
He thought that if those with whom he had a very good friendship came, they would come to his courtyard to say hello first; those with whom he had an average friendship and did not hold an official position would go to the courtyard that had been arranged. , wait for him to go out to meet.
However, he did not expect that Yi Cheng would answer him: "No one is here yet!"
"What?" Zhang Pu asked a little lost his voice after hearing this, "No one has arrived?"
"No one has arrived!" Yi Cheng didn't know whether he should gloat or not, asking you to urge you to clean the yard. Now no one comes, isn't it embarrassing?
But on the surface, of course he didn't dare to show it, but he immediately replied, "If someone comes, I will report it to the adults immediately."
Zhang Pu looked up at the sky and felt that a long time had passed. There was not much time left before the time he set in the invitation. No one had come yet. How many people could come when the time is up?
Thinking like this, he became a little uneasy, and turned to look at Jiang Dong. Although Jiang Dong didn't react at all, he always felt that Jiang Dong's face looked a little strange, and he felt even more unhappy.
If Jiang Dong were his servant, he would probably scold him for finding trouble. But Jiang Dong was the stall owner of Dongchang who was protecting him, so he had no right to vent his anger, so he had to pretend to be calm and walked back with his hands behind his back.
Jiang Dong, on the other hand, looked at his back, raised his head to look at the sky, then called one of his subordinates, and whispered: "Take a few brothers, change into plain clothes, and walk around the only way to the inn to see if there is anything going on. ?”
No matter what, Zhang Pu's identity here is that he is an imperial envoy; his talent is undoubted, and he is a concubine. Under such circumstances, there is absolutely no way that no one will come! There must be something fishy in this!
Afterwards, Zhang Pu kept looking at the sky, and it could be seen that he often listened attentively. However, no matter what, he was disappointed in the end.
The time agreed in the invitation had come, but the one who came to him was the Yi Cheng. He came to report that the time had come, but still no one came to the door.
At this moment, Zhang Pu couldn't hold back his anger, and immediately shouted sharply: "Could it be that your subordinates were sneaking around and not delivering all my invitations?"
"Sir, you are wronged!" Yi Cheng couldn't help shouting immediately after hearing this, "This is your invitation. The villain's subordinates are just making a living. How dare you be so lazy? This is absolutely unacceptable." Will do!"
His answer made Zhang Pu even more angry! Because this answer is not what he wants. In comparison, he would rather believe that the postman here was lazy and did not send the invitation!
