Baishui City! County government office!

The censor Wu Qing sat in the study with great worries, and the county magistrate Cao Bao sat next to him. In front of the two, there was a letter from Chengcheng. The letter was written by Xin Lancheng, the county magistrate of Chengcheng. After a long passage of nonsense like greetings in the front, he simply said something: "The thief in Huanglong Mountain Baishui Zhu Ba led a thousand thieves to Chengcheng a few days ago. However, under the heroic resistance of Chengcheng officers and soldiers and the village brave army, Baishui Zhu Ba was unable to break through the city and retreated back to the mountains in a mess... In order to reward the village tycoons and the people who performed well in this battle to defend the city, Chengcheng decided to delay the collection of agricultural tax this year, allowing the people to default, and temporarily only collect commercial taxes..."

Wu Yan took the letter and looked left and right, front and back, and after a long time, he didn't find any fault. The letter was indeed Xin Lancheng's handwriting, and Xin Lancheng's official seal was also covered with Xin Lancheng's official seal at the end. From the word selection to the pen, ink and paper, there was no flaw. But... why do you think this letter is weird when you look left and right?

"What is this guy named Xin doing?" Wu Qing frowned and said, "Allow the people to arrears this year's agricultural taxes? He can think of it, but he can't collect the taxes and cannot pay the above. Is he going to make his assessment criticized as inferior?"

"Sir, I think there must be something strange about this matter!" Cao Baoxiang put his head over and shook his head to express his opinions.

Wu Yan snorted coldly and said, "Get out, I have no questions about you!" He stretched his neck and shouted loudly to the outside of the house: "Come on, please ask Deputy General Zhang Fushun to come over and talk!"

Zhang Fushun, deputy general of Tingsui, was the second leader after Du Wenhuan in the army that came to Baishui this time. However, this man and Du Wenhuan were not grasshoppers on the same rope. He was a chess piece laid by the Donglin Party members to the military system. This time, among the five thousand elite soldiers Du Wenhuan brought, two thousand were controlled by this guy named Zhang Fushun.

When Du Wenhuan led his troops to attack Huanglong Mountain Village, Zhang Fushun deliberately took his direct troops to stay in Baishui City in accordance with the requirements of the Donglin Party, cut Du Wenhuan's troops and dragged him back. Facts proved that they succeeded! Du Wenhuan failed to take Huanglong Mountain Village. At this time, Wu Yan's impeachment memorial had already arrived in the imperial study of the emperor in the capital.

Zhang Fushun comes from the Donglin Party, and naturally has many advantages and disadvantages of the Donglin Party. From the core, he has more literati than soldiers, so in terms of strategic command, it is more than an order of magnitude worse than Du Wenhuan, but in terms of literary cultivation, he can be several streets away from Du Wenhuan. Scholars like Wu Yan like the most is dealing with such "Confucian generals".

After a while, the servant invited Zhang Fushun, and Wu Yan handed the letter from Chengcheng to Zhang Fushun: "Mr. Zhang, please check this letter first." Although Zhang Fushun was a general, he did not like others to call him general, but liked others to call him an adult. This made him look more literary and less martial, which was also an interesting thing in the army.

Zhang Fushun finished reading the letter and frowned slightly: "The things described in this letter are mostly untrue."

Wu Yan waved his hand and said, "Please give me advice."

Zhang Fushun picked up a pen and circled the "one thousand people" on the letter paper: "According to our scouts, the troops brought out of the mountain by Zhu Ba in Baishui should be two thousand, so why are there only one thousand people going to attack Chengcheng? This is the first place with problems!"

Then he drew a circle on "Unable to break through the city": "Hmph, with the guards in Chengcheng and some rural brave men, I want to defend the city under the hands of Zhu Ba of Baishui. Isn't it a fool? The second place with problems."

He couldn't help but sneer: "This letter full of nonsense is a fake at all, and it may be a trick of the thief."

Wu Yan shook his head and said, "No! This letter is definitely Xin Lancheng's handwritten letter, and there is no problem with the letter paper and seal, it is indeed sent by Chengcheng."

"Oh? Is it true?" Zhang Fushun touched his chin with his hand and thought for a long time: "Can it be Xin Lancheng being caught and forced to write this letter?"

"This is possible! But what is the purpose of writing this letter?" Wu Yan shook his head and said, "If Zhu Ba conquered Chengcheng, killed all the officials inside, robbed all the property and returned to the mountains. Why do you have to do these tricks? You can't figure it out."

It was really hard to figure it out, and Zhang Fushun couldn't figure it out either. He suddenly had a flash of inspiration in his mind: "Then we can only consider this problem from another direction... Maybe Zhu Ba just robbed the villages and towns in Chengcheng, and retreated back to the mountains without attacking the city. Xin Lan became a seeker and credit. The story falsely reported the military information. Look here, what led the officers and soldiers and the brave soldiers to resist bravely? It was obvious that he wanted to make face for himself... He might not even see the shadow of the bandits, otherwise how could he even write the total strength of the bandits incorrectly?"

"Yes, this is the most likely!" Wu Yan and Zhang Fushun were both gloomy, thinking that they had guessed the real inside story behind the false belief.

Wu Yan snorted coldly, "This damn Xin Lancheng actually reported military information to fool me. He also wanted to use procrastination such as 'no agricultural tax' to deceive Shangguan. I guess he wanted to embezzle this year's taxes. I have to go to Chengcheng to go. On the one hand, he is to inspect the situation after Chengcheng was robbed by thieves, and on the other hand, he also needs to teach this damn corrupt official a lesson!"

Zhang Fushun was startled: "Sir, it's not right to leave the city at this time. What if Zhu Ba hasn't left yet..."

Wu Yan said with a sneer: "Since the letter from Xinlan City has been sent, Zhu Ba will definitely lead the bandits back to Huanglong Mountain. Otherwise, he would not be in the mood to write such a fake letter to seek credit?"

Zhang Fushun thought about it and made sense: "Then let the officials accompany the imperial envoy to Chengcheng."

Therefore, people are most afraid of being smart. Wu Qing would not have thought that Zhang Fushun guessed that "the thief held Xin Lancheng to write a letter" was actually the correct answer, but he naively believed that the thief did not need to hold officials to write such fake letters...but that Xin Lan became a seeker and wrote such fake letters.

Why are there such wrong self-righteousness? The reason is that the overall quality of officials in the late Ming Dynasty was too poor, and taking credit has become a normal situation. Once something becomes a normal situation, it can easily affect the judgment of the uninformed.

For example, in later generations, it has become a normal practice to make fake milk powder. If you go out to buy milk powder, as long as you see domestic milk powder being reduced in price and promotion, it is twice as cheaper than other milk powders. No matter whether it is fake or not, you will think that it is mixed with some kind of chemical drug called Triammonia.

When Wu Xuan saw the fake letter, he thought about it and thought that the reason was that Xin Lancheng wanted to seek credit, which was the same mentality!

Once a species like the Donglin Party, who is self-righteous and noble, determines that someone is a bad official, he must bite the other party to count. Wu Qi quickly ordered: "Send troops, and I will go to Chengcheng to inspect!"

－－－－

Just as Wu Yan sent troops to Chengcheng, in a small village at the junction of Chengcheng and Baishui, Yang Hong and Wang Er led a thousand bandit soldiers and were making arrangements. It turned out that after Zhu Yuanzhang left Huanglong Mountain, he only brought one thousand troops to Chengcheng, and the other thousand troops were stationed at the junction of Baishui and Chengcheng under the leadership of Yang Hong and Wang Er.

In name, of course, this army was led by Wang Er, the second in charge of Huanglong Mountain Village. In essence, Wang Er received Zhu Yuanzhang's secret orders and followed Yang Hong's orders. The real leading general was Yang Hong.

As a new leader, Yang Hong defected from the officers and soldiers. No matter how strong he has, he would not be able to convince the public. Zhu Yuanzhang knew this very well. In order to allow him to gain command, Zhu Yuanzhang pretended to hand over the troops to Wang Er, but in fact, it was ordered by Yang Hong. Only Wang Er, who never was cautious and knew Zhu Yuanzhang the best, could do this.

At this time, Wang Erzheng, as Yang Hong's instructions, sent soldiers to invite dozens of households in the village out of the village, and asked them to temporarily hide in the city for a few days. After all the people in the village were moved away, Wang Er sent dozens of the smartest soldiers to put on the clothes of ordinary people and disguised themselves as residents of the village.

These bandits were originally from peasants, so they did not need to work hard to disguise themselves as peasants. They would be able to handle the problem immediately after wearing thick sackcloths.

After all the arrangements were made, Wang Er walked back to Yang Hong and laughed and said, "Brother Leng Feng, I've arranged everything as you said... Why are we going to arrange this for?"

There was no smile on Yang Hong's face, only a deep hatred: "To ambush the birdman Wu Qing."

"Do you really think that coward Wu Yan dares to come?" Wang Er was a little curious.

"It will come!" A wicked smile flashed across Yang Hong's mouth: "After Brother Zhu's letter fell into Wu Yan's hands, the bird man will definitely come... If it were me who saw the letter in Baishui City, I would also be fooled."

"I don't understand." Wang Er hummed, "If it were me, I would definitely see that the letter was forced to be written."

"That's because you don't know how to read that letter by being an official!" Yang Hong spread his hands and said, "Nine out of ten officials will think that Xin Lan has succeeded and Zhu Ba has returned to the mountains."

Speaking of this, Yang Hong sighed lightly: "Sometimes I really can't see through Brother Zhu. He is obviously a cowherd, but he actually understands the psychology of officials so much. It really makes me creepy."

Wang Er shook his head so that he would not be confused about this kind of problem. He only focused on the visible and touching place: "What is the purpose of replacing the people in the village with their own brothers?"

"Hehe, this is to ambush the scouts of the officers and soldiers and paralyze their intelligence network!" Yang Hong said seriously: "It is almost impossible to put down the scouts in a flat place, because the scouts are very alert and will avoid them from afar. It is impossible to plot against them at all. However, the terrain of the village is complex and the vision is not wide. Moreover, the scouts are also low on guard against ordinary villagers. It is very likely to go near to inquire about intelligence. At that time, our people can take down the scouts of the officers and soldiers."

Wang Er said, "No wonder Brother Zhu asked me to transfer command to you. Your mind is indeed better than mine."
Chapter completed!