[I will first write a few sentences in the first place. Regarding the concept of the new book, Lao Gao wants to ask everyone for opinions. I have been thinking about it for a long time. I will consider the next book of the Three Kingdoms. I plan to start two years ago in the Battle of Red Cliff. The protagonist will still take the route of hegemony and give full play to Lao Gao's advantages.

But I don’t know what readers mean is to let Lao Gao continue to write about Sui and Tang dynasties or the Three Kingdoms. Other dynasties have not yet considered it. In any case, we must listen to readers’ suggestions. You can suggest it in the book review area or choose from the author survey. Lao Gao conducted an author survey to listen to everyone’s suggestions. Please give everyone a positive suggestion]

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There is a small alley in the south of Jiangdu City called Xinghua Lane. It is named after a century-old apricot tree planted at the entrance of the alley. The alley is not deep, and only three families live in it, all of which are high-gate and deep courtyards, covering an area of ​​more than five or six acres. It can be seen that they are all wealthy families.

The innermost house was originally the private house of Liu Bingyuan, the chief of Jiangdu County. Later, Liu Bingyuan led his family to flee back to his hometown in Wujun, and Li Mi rewarded the house to the inner historian Ling Bing Yuanzhen.

If we talk about the qualifications of ministers of Wei, Bing Yuanzhen can be regarded as the veteran among the elders. He and Zhai Rang fled to the Heze and established Wagang Village, and even Shan Xiongxin's qualifications were relatively shallower than him.

In the confrontation between Li Mi and Zhai Rang, he belonged to the centrist, and later changed to support Li Mi. He was always valued by Li Mi and became the first counselor and civil servant under Li Mi.

But if the moon is full, it will be a loss. In Li Mi's major decision to abandon the Central Plains, he advocated joining the Tang Dynasty to fight against the Sui Dynasty, but Li Mi finally adopted Fang Xuanzao's strategic strategy of retreating eastward and south of the Yangtze River.

It was during this route dispute that Li Mi discovered that he had accepted bribes from the Tang Dynasty, which eventually triggered a crisis of status in Bing Yuanzhen. Although Li Mi did not kill him because he accepted bribes from the Tang Dynasty, he obviously did not use him.

After moving to Jiangdu, he was appointed as Minister of Rites. He had no power or soldiers, could not participate in military decision-making, and did some trivial matters all day long. This made Bing Yuanzhen extremely depressed.

It was precisely because of his bad mood that Bing Yuanzhen took out an excuse for an old disease and took sick leave every few days. He ignored government affairs, and Li Mi ignored him and did not come to court.

Today, Li Mi went to Jiangyang County to inspect the warehouse. As usual, Bing Yuanzhen hid at home and was fine at home. He was nothing more than reading books and drinking wine. He usually had nothing to do with it, but he had one of his biggest hobbies, which was to hide in the secret room and count his gold, silver and treasures.

Bing Yuan was famous for his greed for money in the former Wagang Army. Over the years, he had really saved up a considerable amount of wealth for himself.

He knew that the land could not be kept and copper coins could not be taken, so he exchanged all the money he had obtained over the years for gold and jewelry. There were five large boxes in total, wherever others went, the boxes would go.

At this time, Bing Yuanzhen hid in the study room, squinted his eyes and counted his gold with an inch. There were four boxes of gold, more than 8,000 taels, and a box of jewelry. This was all his wealth. He had to count it every day to sleep peacefully.

The room was dark and there were no windows. The door was locked, and the ground was filled with nearly two hundred cakes of gold, each weighing fifty taels. Bing Yuanzhen sat cross-legged on the couch, gently stroking a ingot of yellow gold. This heavy feeling of reality gave him great psychological satisfaction.

"master!"

At this time, his wife's call came from the outer room. Although his wife could enter his study, her appearance at this time still made Bing Yuanzhen extremely unhappy. His face darkened and he asked fiercely, "What's the matter?"

"There is a tea-seeker."

This is a code word from him and his wife. The tea-giving person is the gift giver, that is, someone has given a gift. This news made Bing Yuanzhen's face clear. Before he could clean up the gold, he put the gold on the ground, opened the door and went out. With a squeak, the iron door in the inner room was closed. He locked the iron door with a copper lock as big as a fist, and carefully placed the key in his arms. Then he asked his wife: "Where is the person?"

“It’s in the living room!”

"Yeah!" Bing Yuanzhen snorted heavily, walked quickly to the living room, and walked at the door. He turned around and looked at his wife vigilantly, "You go out! I want to lock the door of the study."

His wife had no choice but to go out. Bing Yuanzhen locked the door of the study and then went to the living room with confidence.

In fact, Bing Yuanzhen was not so greedy for money in the past. He also had ambitions in his heart and wanted to assist the wise master in his career, but he assisted Li Mi and never realized his ambitions.

Under Li Mi's deliberate suppression, he began to sink, unable to see the career or hope, which made the dark side of Bing Yuanzhen's heart gradually swallow him up, making him greedy, vulgar and profit-oriented. The military advisor of the Wagang Army no longer exists, leaving only a broken body.

This is also due to human nature. After repeated setbacks, many talented people gradually lose confidence and become vulgar and stupid, and their talents gradually fade. Bing Yuanzhen is undoubtedly one of them.

Bing Yuanzhen hurried to the living room and saw a man in his thirties sitting in the living room. His skin was slightly dark, he looked smart and capable, and his eyebrows were a little gentle and kind, which easily made people feel good.

But Bing Yuanzhen's eyes fell on a leather bag at his feet. Something heavier in the leather bag seemed to contain. What would it be? More than a dozen ingots of silver and gold popped up in Bing Yuanzhen's mind. Could it be these two kinds of treasures?

"Let this guy wait for a long time." Bing Yuanzhen walked into the room and bowed. He didn't know this person and had never seen him before.

The visitor also stood up and smiled and said, "I am the king of Xia, named Shunyuan, from Wei County, Hebei. He came to the door for the first time and disturbed Shangshu Bing."

"It's easy to say!"

Bing Yuanzhen sat down in the main seat, couldn't help but glance at the bag of the lids, and asked with a smile: "Mr. Wang has any advice for him?"

"There is no question of advice. Actually, I am here to send a letter to Shangshu Bing."

‘Send a letter!’

Bing Yuanzhen felt as if he was stepping on the air, and a deep sense of loss surged in his heart. He was not here to give gifts, but to deliver letters. He couldn't help but feel disgusted on his face, and said coldly with a stern face: "What letter is sent?"

The man took out a letter from his arms and pushed it to Bing Yuanzhen, "Look at it!"

Bing Yuanzhen picked up the letter and was stunned for a moment. The letter was written on it: "To the Minister of the Sui Dynasty, the King of Chu," which seemed to be his handwriting. Bing Yuanzhen quickly glanced at the man, became nervous, and opened the letter in a hurry. He looked it out quickly. He screamed, his eyes suddenly widened.

This was actually a surrender letter written by Bing Yuanzhen to Yang Yuanqing. He was humble and flattering. He was willing to give away the heads of Jiangdu and Li Mi. He also signed his name and seal behind him. Regardless of the handwriting and seal, it was completely his handwriting. There is no doubt that, but the question is when did he write such a letter?

"You are false accusation!"

Bing Yuanzhen's veins stormed, his eyes were so angry that he spit out the fire. He tore the letter into pieces and said, "Go!" He pointed to the door and shouted: "Get out!"

The man was not in a hurry and took out a letter from his arms, put it on the table, and smiled and said, "I wonder how Li Mi would feel when she saw this letter?"

Bing Yuanzhen snatched the letter and looked at it. His legs suddenly became weak and he sat heavily on the couch. It was exactly the same as the letter just now. After a while, he asked, "Who are you...?"

"Shangshu Bing, you are a Shangshu at least. So far, can you even imagine my identity?" the man said coldly.

Bing Yuanzhen stared at him and gritted her teeth, "You are a spy from the Sui Dynasty!"

"Of course I am, I am affiliated with the Inner Guards of the Sui Dynasty, but I am a civilian officer."

Speaking of this, he took out another letter and placed it in front of him. "This is another letter, the letter from His Highness the King of Chu to you."

Bing Yuanzhen glanced at the letter and snorted in her nose, "It's another fake letter!"

"It's up to Shangshu Bing to judge whether it's true or not!"

The man picked up the leather bag and stood up and said, "One night is enough for Shangshu Bing to consider. I will come back tomorrow and say goodbye."

He quickly walked out the gate. When Bing Yuanzhen looked at his far away back, he suddenly felt a kind of fatigue that he had never felt before.

.........

In the secret room, Bing Yuanzhen sat cross-legged on the couch, staring blankly at the golden ingots all over the ground, and placed two letters beside him, one was a fake letter from him who surrendered to Yang Yuanqing, and the other was a letter from Yang Yuanqing to him. I don’t know the authenticity. This was actually a special amnesty order to relieve him of all his guilt and allow him to return to his hometown to return to farming, with the seal of the King of Chu behind him.

Bing Yuanzhen sighed. He knew that this was true faith. No one in the world dared to engrave the seal of the King of Chu privately, let alone the Sui army.

Yang Yuanqing promised to give him a special amnesty, which also included his original crime of designing to deal with Zhang Xutuo, including his crime of assisting Li Mi. Of course, he knew better what price he had to pay to get such an amnesty.

He thought of Li Mi's injustice to him. Bing Yuanzhen always believed that Li Mi suppressed him for a deep reason, because he represented the interests of the former subordinates of the Wagang Army. Suppressing him was to completely remove the influence of Wagang.

More importantly, he had already seen the general trend of the world. Li Mi even had difficulty in dealing with Du Xiao's coalition, not to mention the powerful Sui army. The powerful cavalry of the Sui army swept across the south of the Yangtze River. It would be a matter of time before Li Mi's demise was sooner or later.

Since that's the case, why did he want to bury this unrighteous person? Since Yang Yuanqing has given him a special amnesty order, why didn't he seize this opportunity?

Bing Yuanzhen slowly reached out to pick up a piece of gold and held it tightly. Even for the sake of this gold, he would seize this opportunity.

......

The man who delivered the letter to Bing Yuanzhen was named Wang Shunyuan. He was a sixth-rank civilian officer in the inner guard. Two years ago, he was ordered to come to Jiangdu to establish an intelligence hall. He opened an inn as a cover. The inn was called "Shunlai Inn". It is also located in the south of the city, not far from Bing Yuanzhen's mansion. Standing on the second floor of the inn, you can still see the old apricot tree at the entrance of the alley.

Wang Shunyuan had already returned, and he stood in front of the window and stared at the apricot tree in the distance. He felt an uncontrollable excitement in his heart. For two years, he had silently collected various information about Jiangnan, and summarized it into a book every three months and sent it to Taiyuan.

He spent two years peacefully, receiving almost no orders, and year after year, he almost felt that he had been forgotten.

But at this moment, the inner guard suddenly came up with an important order, which was issued by the general Wei Ben himself, and the handwritten letter from the King of Chu. He suddenly realized that the Sui army was about to attack Jiangnan, which made him extremely excited.

He was not worried about Bing Yuanzhen's problem at all. He knew the court in Wei State very well. He was absolutely unwilling to die out by Li Mi. He would definitely seize this opportunity.

.........

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