As winter approaches, Hangzhou is covered with a light layer of snow.

A black carriage stopped at the gate of the Qian residence, and a middle-aged man in a long robe stepped down, carrying a guqin in his arms. He was dressed like a person from the Wei and Jin dynasties.

Qian Jin was already waiting at the door: "Shangguan Shentu, please come in and have a seat."

The maid behind him took off Shen Tu Xin's cloak, and Shen Tu Xin followed Qian Jin into the Qian family's residence.

In the study, the charcoal in the stove was burning brightly. Qian Jin had brewed some wine and prepared some snacks.

"Shangguan Shentu, I will speak frankly: the Imperial Guards cannot stop the dog emperor's army."

Shen Tu said, "The Qian family controls the southeast, and the people of the southeast all support them. The dog emperor dares not touch you."

Qian Jin smiled and said, "It's all family business accumulated by our ancestors and passed down to me. But the situation is tense now. If the dog emperor is desperate and does something rash, my Qian family will be doomed. After all, Qian Yu has been caught red-handed."

"So, Brother Qian, what do you mean?"

"Thank you, Lord Shentu, for helping me take the position of head of the Qian family. I would like to ask you for another favor."

"What kind of help?"

"Please, Lord Shentu, save my Qian family."

Shen Tu Xin was slightly startled and asked in surprise, "Brother Qian, what do you mean by that?"

"I have bound Shentu Shangguan and sent him to the capital, Dongjing, to plead guilty!"

Shen Tu Xin was taken aback: "Brother Qian, this..."

Before Shen Tu Xin could speak, several burly men suddenly rushed in, quickly pinned him to the ground, tied him up, and dragged him out.

Qian Jin slowly finished the rest of the wine by herself, a smile appearing on her face.

They arrested Shen Tu Xin, handed him over to the emperor, pinned all the blame on him, and then the Qian family actively responded to the emperor's new policies.

If someone in the court speaks well of the matter before the emperor, the matter will be over.

As for who the head of the Qian family is, that's an internal matter for the Qian family, and even the emperor has no say in it.

From then on, Qian Jin could rest easy.

Heh he ...

At this moment, in a small courtyard in the south of Hangzhou city.

The elegant sound of the zither drifted through the snow, and the wine in the stove was just warm.

A middle-aged man dressed in the style of a famous scholar from the Wei and Jin dynasties sat on the ground, playing the guqin, the music of which was elegant and refined.

After he finished playing, the woman beside him spoke: "Master, as you predicted, he has been arrested by Qian Jin."

Shen Tu Xin pressed his hands on the guqin, and the guqin seemed to respond with an angry voice: "Qian Jin is really a fence-sitter."

"Go and meet He Jing, the military commander of Guangde Army stationed in Hangzhou, and tell him that if he wants to live, it's very simple: use the people of Hangzhou as bargaining chips to blackmail the dog emperor."

"What about the Qian family? Qian Jin betrayed us, are we just going to let him go like this?"

"He thinks that if he captures me, the dog emperor will let him go. How naive! When the dog emperor finds out that it wasn't me, he'll die a much worse death. It's fine this way. Let the dog emperor and the Qian family tear each other apart. Has the ship been arranged?"

"Everything is ready."

"Go quickly and come back soon. We'll set off today."

"yes!"

The city of Hangzhou has been in turmoil recently. The prefect of Hangzhou, Gao Shouyi, is a man of Wang Boyan. At the end of last year, the new emperor ascended the throne and launched a crackdown on the Cai family. The former prefect of Hangzhou, Cai Yun, was the son of Cai Jing and was also executed.

Later, Wang Boyan arranged for Gao Shouyi to serve as the prefect of Hangzhou. After Wang Boyan was imprisoned and executed, Gao Shouyi was not implicated.

However, he did not feel any favor from the emperor and harbored much resentment towards the emperor's actions.

Shen Tu Xin told him that his patron Wang Boyan was dead, and that Hangzhou was a lucrative market, with powerful figures in the court eyeing it and waiting for him to make a mistake so they could remove him from power.

Once you're removed from office, you won't be given a chance to fight back. With the methods of the Inspectorate, they will definitely destroy you.

If you join us in this rebellion now, not only will you survive, but you will also enjoy wealth and prosperity from then on.

Finally, Shen Tu delivered 100,000 strings of cash to Gao Shouyi's residence in a carriage, and also selected two talented women from Jiangning Prefecture to give to him as gifts.

The purpose of winning over Gao Shouyi was simple: when the North and South went to war, the Southeast would be their money bank.

It can be said that Shen Tu Xin was well prepared, but Shen Tu Xin was just a civil official. Although he had some wisdom, like most civil officials in the Song Dynasty, he knew too little about war.

Like the keyboard warriors of later generations, they believed that by strategizing within the command tent, they could win battles from afar.

Haha, if you replace all the generals who served Liu Bang with generals and soldiers from the late Northern Song Dynasty, do you think Zhang Zifang could still strategize and win battles from afar?

Strategy must be complemented by hard power. Only intellectuals who have never been on the battlefield are obsessed with so-called strategy and often neglect their own hard power.

Especially the literati of the Song Dynasty, whose understanding of war came from books, spent their days indulging in fantasies.

So no matter how much he prepared, everything was rendered useless by the new army's powerful attack.

These past few days, Gao Shouyi has only been sleeping two or three hours a day.

He felt that he had been tricked by Shen Tu Xin, and the reason he was tricked was very simple: Shen Tu Xin had touched a nerve.

At the same time, Shen Tu Xin also sent him money and women.

Like Shen Tu Xin, he had a seriously flawed understanding of war.

Unexpectedly, the mighty Imperial Guard was wiped out like tofu dregs, without any room for maneuver.

Han Shizhong's army is now approaching Hangzhou, and the fall of Hangzhou is only a matter of time.

Gao Shouyi had no chance to protect himself. Once Han Shizhong breached the city, he would either have to commit suicide or be escorted to the Five Dynasties Gate of Tokyo and hacked to death.

On this day, he finally packed his things and boarded the carriage through the back door.

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