Chapter 127
As everyone knows, both of Meng Shuyuan's sons died in battle, and only his youngest daughter eventually recruited a general in the army. However, after Meng Shuyuan committed suicide in Luocheng, his youngest daughter was returning from a temple after worshipping Buddha when her carriage overturned and fell off a cliff, and her body was never found.
Later, the imperial court concluded that it was Meng Shuyuan who went to Luocheng to rescue the disaster victims and delayed the opportunity to fight, which led to the defeat of Xie Linshan and Prince Chengde in Jinzhou. When people cursed Meng Shuyuan, the most common curse was "It is his destiny that the Meng family will be extinct."
Xie Zhong was a general of the Xie family. He certainly knew the seriousness of the charge against the culprit of the Jinzhou Massacre. When he heard Zhu Youchang say that Meng Shuyuan was innocent, he couldn't help but feel sad. Just when he wanted to comfort Zhu Youchang, Xie Zheng, who had been silent all this time, suddenly spoke up: "The descendants of General Meng are still alive."
When these words came out, not only Zhu Youchang, but even Xie Zhong was stunned.
Zhu Youchang could not care about his disabled legs and tried to get up by leaning on the edge of the bed, but was fortunately stopped by Xie Zhong in time.
"Please tell me where the descendants of General Meng are now? Sister Lihua...is she still alive?" Zhu Youchang clasped his hands towards Xie Zheng, grinning, as if he was crying and laughing at the same time, his hot tears rolled into his messy hair and beard.
Xie Zheng did not know the name of Meng Shuyuan's daughter, but when he heard the word "Lihua", he subconsciously remembered the name "Lihua" written on the tablet of Fan's mother when he was in Lin'an Town.
Lihua, Lihua, I guess the Fan couple are afraid of getting into trouble, so they don't even dare to use their original names anymore.
Xie Zheng met Zhu Youchang's earnest gaze, was silent for a moment, and said, "General Zhu, please accept my condolences. General Meng's beloved daughter is no longer alive, leaving only two granddaughters."
Zhu Youchang was an important general under Meng Shuyuan, and could be considered as half of Meng Shuyuan's adopted son. He had a very close relationship with Meng Shuyuan's children. Meng Lihua was his sister who grew up in his eyes. Although he had long guessed that she was no longer in the world, when he suddenly heard Xie Zheng say that Meng Shuyuan still had descendants, he felt a little hope in his heart, thinking that Meng Lihua was still alive.
Now that he knew Meng Lihua was dead, he was overwhelmed with grief and covered his face with his hands and cried twice.
Xie Zhong was puzzled as to how Xie Zheng knew so much about the descendants of the Meng family. Given the Marquis's temper, the people who used to serve him did not dare to mention the Meng family in front of him.
How did he find out all the details about the descendants of the Meng family without revealing any information?
The more Xie Zhong thought about it, the more strange it seemed. His brows almost wrinkled into the shape of the Chinese character "川". He wanted to ask Xie Zheng, but he knew that now was not the right time. He could only pat Zhu Youchang on the shoulder and said, "I hope the general will accept my condolences."
Zhu Youchang also understood Xie Zheng's position. Before he knew the truth, he must have hated the Meng family deeply. He knew so much about the descendants of General Meng. Was it for revenge?
As soon as this thought came to his mind, Zhu Youchang's heart suddenly lifted up. He suppressed his grief, looked at Xie Zheng and asked, "May I ask, Lord Hou, where are my two nieces now?"
Xie Zheng replied: "They are all safe now. The oldest is only sixteen years old. When the rebels besieged Lucheng, the army blocked the river upstream of Jizhou to drown the rebels. She braved the rain at night and crossed the mountains to kill the rebel scouts. Later, she followed the army to deliver military supplies to Yixian Gorge, beheaded Shi Hu, a brave general under the command of Prince Changxin, and worshipped Taifu Tao Yi as her adoptive father, and was recommended by him to join the army..."
In a low and steady voice, he recounted Fan Changyu's journey into the army. Every scene he described in just a few words flashed across his mind.
When they met again at the Yixian Gorge, she lay on the head of his bed and cried loudly; on the battlefield where corpses were strewn all over the ground, she stood on the pile of corpses with a bone-chopping knife in her hand and a ferocious look on her face...
The road of military service is not easy. He knows all the hardships, blood and tears she has endured.
"In the Battle of Chongzhou, she led the right wing army as the vanguard, saved He Jingyuan from the sword, killed Prince Changxin on horseback, and was awarded the title of Fifth Rank Cavalry Commander. In the Battle of Lucheng, she called herself Meng Changyu, asked to leave the city to defend it, delaying time, and said that she was willing to die to continue the good name of her ancestors."
Zhu Youchang listened to Xie Zheng's detailed explanation of all this, and tears kept rolling down his cheeks.
After Xie Zheng finished speaking, he even choked up and couldn't speak. He covered his face and cried for a long time before he trembled and said, "This is the general's flesh and blood, the general's flesh and blood!"
Xie Zhong was also particularly shocked. He had heard of a female general in the northwest a long time ago, but he did not expect that she was the descendant of Meng Shuyuan, and that his own master knew her life story very well.
He thought to himself, could it be that Xie Zheng had already known about the failure of grain transportation that year, and Meng Shuyuan was wrongly accused?
Because he was distracted, he failed to support Zhu Youchang, and he let him push his hand away and fell off the bed.
Zhu Youchang's legs were broken, and he had to support himself with his hands on the ground to maintain a kneeling position and bow to Xie Zheng.
"General Zhu, what are you doing? Get up quickly!" Xie Zhong stepped forward to help Zhu Youchang, but he refused to get up.
Xie Zheng was also shocked by this sudden change. He was unable to avoid Zhu Youchang's kneeling. He half-knelt down and helped Zhu Youchang up himself: "General Zhu, if you have anything to say, please stand up and talk."
Zhu Youchang still refused to get up. The man who had not shed a tear even when his leg was broken on the battlefield in the past, now cried bitterly.
He choked up and said, "I am kneeling here to thank the Marquis on behalf of the Meng family. The Marquis was unaware of the hidden truth and allowed the child to make a name for himself in the army. I thank the Marquis for his righteousness and frankness!"
Xie Linshan was disemboweled and hung on the city wall of Jinzhou. Even today, common people still shed tears when they mention him and curse the Northern Jue people for their beastly behavior. Xie Zheng is Xie Linshan's biological son, and his hatred for the culprit of the Jinzhou case is no less than that of common people.
Zhu Youchang didn't know how Xie Zheng treated the descendants of the Meng family who served in the army equally. At that moment, all he felt was endless gratitude and respect.
After hearing what Zhu Youchang said, Xie Zheng paused for a moment as he was helping him up. He asked, "General Zhu, what was the secret back then?"
Whenever he recalled what happened back then, Zhu Youchang could not help but gnashing his teeth: "It was not that the old general ignored the military order and delayed the transportation of grain, but that the Sixteenth Prince who followed the army was ambitious. Seeing that there were only a few thousand Northern Jue people guarding Luocheng and a hundred thousand civilians trapped in the city, he ignored the old general's order and insisted on going to Luocheng to rescue. In the end, the Sixteenth Prince was also captured alive. The Northern Jue people wanted the old general to exchange the army's grain for the Sixteenth Prince, otherwise they would use the Sixteenth Prince's blood as a sacrifice to the flag!"
Xie Zhong's expression suddenly changed, and Xie Zheng's eyes also darkened.
It was not for any other reason, but the matter of the Sixteenth Prince seemed to have been deliberately erased in the past ten years. There was not even any historical record of what the Sixteenth Prince did in the Battle of Luocheng.
Xie Zheng heard the news and re-investigated the Jinzhou case. When he retrieved the family files from the Dali Temple, it was written in the files that Changshan General Meng Shuyuan disobeyed the military order and went to rescue the 100,000 trapped people in Luocheng, but was defeated in the end and failed to rescue the people in the city. He also caused the death of the sixteenth prince who accompanied him. He delayed the transportation of food and indirectly led to the failure to defend Jinzhou on the front line. In the end, he committed suicide out of fear of punishment.
But the Northern Jue army that was entrenched in Luocheng at that time was not a threat at all. They were few in number and had no supplies. They could only rely on Luocheng's easy-to-defend and difficult-to-attack terrain to survive in that small area.
The imperial court initially ignored Luocheng because, firstly, the situation in Jinzhou was more dangerous, and secondly, the bandits in Luocheng were not yet at the end of their rope, so it would take a long time to defeat them.
In contrast, if they defended the Jinzhou gate and stopped the Northern Jue army outside the pass, they could turn around and deal with the Northern Jue army in Luocheng without any worries, which was no different from closing the door and beating a dog.
This is also the reason why Xie Zheng has hated Meng Shuyuan for so many years.
If we don't help Luocheng, many people will die in Luocheng, but if Jinzhou is lost, Dayin's gates will be wide open, and the foreign clan leaders will rush down, which will result in the death of ten or a hundred times more people than that.
It was Meng Shuyuan's momentary kindness that caused him to disregard military orders and commit an irreparable mistake!
It turns out that when Uncle Meng went to Luocheng to provide assistance, it was not because he could not see the situation clearly, but because there was also a figure like the Sixteenth Prince involved in the situation?
Xie Zhong frowned and asked, "General Meng delayed the transportation of grain in order to save the Sixteenth Prince?"
Zhu Youchang said anxiously: "General Meng is the veteran general whom the general relies on the most. How could he be so ignorant of the importance of others? Xie Duqi followed the general in the battles, so he should know the kind of person our general is!"
Xie Linshan was conferred the title of Grand General of the Nation. He was the only one in the entire Dayin who could be called a "Grand General".
Xie Zhong was a retainer of the Xie family. He had always followed Xie Linshan as a member of the personal guard. Duqi was his official title at the time, but Zhu Youchang still used the old title.
When he said this, Xie Zhong breathed a sigh of relief unconsciously.
Zhu Youchang said with hatred: "Your Highness is still young, and you don't know how much the late emperor loved the Sixteenth Prince. Xie Duqi should know that."
As he spoke, he looked at Xie Zhong.
Xie Zhong nodded. "The Sixteenth Prince's mother's family is powerful, and his mother, Concubine Jia, was even the most favored concubine in the harem. It was often rumored that if it weren't for the fact that His Royal Highness Crown Prince Chengde was kind and virtuous, and had a high reputation among the ministers and the people, the late emperor would have made the Sixteenth Prince the Crown Prince."
Xie Zheng said nothing, half lowering his eyes to hide all his thoughts.
It is really bizarre that only a few words can be found about the glorious Sixteenth Prince seventeen years later.
After Xie Zhong's testimony, Zhu Youchang continued, "General Meng did not dare to ignore the life and death of the Sixteenth Prince, nor did he dare to delay the transportation of grain, so he rushed the battle report back to the capital at an accelerated speed of 800 miles to ask the late emperor how to rescue the Sixteenth Prince. During this period, he ordered the army to escort the grain and grass to Jinzhou, leaving only a small number of troops to deal with the situation outside Luocheng."
"Two days later, a tiger talisman was delivered from the capital city, eight hundred miles away, along with a handwritten letter from Wei Yan." When he mentioned Wei Yan, Zhu Youchang's jaws clenched unconsciously, as if he wanted to eat his flesh and blood alive: "The despicable villain said in the letter that His Majesty ordered the generals to return to Luocheng immediately to rescue the sixteenth prince, and that the grain and fodder were to be sent from Chongzhou to Jinzhou."
Chongzhou is geographically located between Luocheng and Jinzhou. The situation on both sides is urgent. To solve this urgent problem, Meng Shuyuan's army that is transporting grain should turn back to attack Luocheng, and the army stationed in Chongzhou should escort the grain and fodder to Jinzhou.
Xie Zheng was quick to spot the loophole and asked, "Since it was a troop transfer, there was only a personal letter from Wei Yan, not even an imperial edict, and the old general believed it?"
Zhu Youchang subconsciously reached into his clothes, but didn't feel anything. He then pounded the bedside in regret, "There is a military token as evidence! Unfortunately, when I was robbed out of prison, someone claimed to be the Prince of Chengde's man. I was afraid that I would die if I got away with it, so I quickly handed the military token to that person and asked him to clear General Meng's name!"
Xie Zheng took away Zhu Youchang during the chaos when Qi Min's men were fighting with Wei Yan's group of assassins. Of course, he knew that Qi Min's men were also involved in the robbery.
He said, "I have checked the files of the imperial court regarding the use of tiger talismans seventeen years ago. Before the fall of Jinzhou, there was no record of the imperial court sending tiger talismans again."
Zhu Youchang said anxiously, "Yes! It was Wei Qilin, the ungrateful bastard, who personally brought the tiger seal and the letter! I don't recognize the Chongzhou tiger seal, but the general of Changzhou tiger seal cannot be mistaken. The general put the two tiger seals together and confirmed that they were correct before turning to Luocheng!"
When the truth of the incident was finally revealed, Xie Zheng was surprisingly calm. He asked, "Two tiger talismans were used at once, and the Changzhou Army was responsible for escorting military supplies. Why was there no imperial edict?"
Zhu Youchang was also heartbroken when he talked about this again: "Wei Qilin, that ungrateful wolf, said that if Your Majesty had issued an edict, the Sixteenth Prince had committed such a crime, then the crime would have been committed. Without an edict, but only given the tiger talisman, we could have defended Jinzhou and recovered Luocheng, which would have been a good thing, and the matter would have been covered. Everyone in the court knew that the Sixteenth Prince was favored, and we saw the tiger talisman and had Wei Yan's handwritten letter at the time, so we believed his lies!"
Xie Zheng suddenly asked: "Wei Qilin, betrayed General Meng?"
Zhu Youchang gnashed his teeth and said, "Wei Qilin is a dog raised by Wei Yan! After seeing the tiger talisman and the letter, General Meng temporarily placed the food and grass on the road, left people to guard it, and led the army to Luocheng to rescue the sixteenth prince. Wei Qilin took the Chongzhou tiger talisman and went to Chongzhou to mobilize troops! Who would have thought that after we followed General Meng in Luocheng for several days of hard fighting, we would receive the news that Jinzhou City was broken and Prince Chengde and General Xie were dead!"
When he got excited, Zhu Youchang couldn't help crying and covering his face: "There was no Chongzhou army to deliver food! The soldiers in Jinzhou were so hungry that they had no strength left. They were slaughtered alive by the Northern Jue people like animals!"
When Xie Zhong heard the truth that had been hidden for many years, he felt uneasy in his heart.
No matter how you look at it, Wei Yan is not innocent in this.
But Xie Zheng was raised by Wei Yan without knowing it, and he even called him his uncle for more than ten years!
Xie Zhong looked at Xie Zheng with a complicated expression. Xie Zheng lowered his head, and most of his face was hidden in the shadows, so people couldn't see his expression at that moment. He only asked, "Wei Qilin has never come back?"
Zhu Youchang said in hatred, "If he dares to come back, I will kill him first!"
Something is not right. Something is not right.
Xie Zheng thought of the letter that Wei Yan's assassins had found at Fan Changyu's house, and he spoke slowly, "Before General Meng died, did he tell General Zhu anything else besides giving him the Changzhou Tiger Tally?"
Zhu Youchang still felt heartbroken when he recalled the situation on that day. With red eyes, he said, "The news of the fall of Jinzhou reached the army in the morning. When we went to the general's tent to look for him, the general had lost all hope and sat there unwilling to say a word. I knew the general was blaming himself, so I was afraid that he would be upset, so I stayed in the tent to guard him. It was then that the general handed the tiger talisman to me."
"The general said that from now on, the Changzhou Tiger Tally is lost, and asked me to wait for the right time to take it out."
"I didn't understand what the general meant at the time, but when I turned around to serve the food, the general knelt in the tent and looked at Jinzhou and committed suicide..."
Zhu Youchang choked up and said, "Then the court questioned us. The general had clearly received the order to mobilize troops before moving to Luocheng, but it was said that the general had disregarded the order and delayed the delivery of food, which led to the disastrous defeat of Jinzhou!"
Seventeen years later, Zhu Youchang still cried out for General Meng from the bottom of his heart: "General Meng is innocent!"
The heavy rain outside had not stopped yet, and the cold wind blew into the house through the wide-open doors and windows, so damp and cold that it seemed as if God was also grieving for the Meng family's eternal injustice.
Xie Zheng helped Zhu Youchang up. Although he remained calm, his hand hanging at his side had already clenched into a fist. He asked, "General Zhu, you had the tiger talisman, such irrefutable evidence. Why didn't you redress the injustice for General Meng?"
Zhu Youchang said excitedly: "I have thought about this. I wanted to go back to the capital to reveal this matter to the emperor, but all the generals under General Meng were demoted several levels, dispersed and sent to various places. I didn't even have the chance to see the emperor! I thought the East Palace would investigate this matter thoroughly, but then a fire broke out in the East Palace, and the Crown Princess and the Emperor's eldest grandson died in the fire..."
Zhu Youchang pounded the bed with great force, his face in agony. He cried sadly, "The only people I can count on are General Xie's former subordinates. At first, I wasn't sure if this matter had anything to do with Wei Yan. After all, General Xie's wife is his biological sister! But I finally managed to get in touch with General Xie's former subordinates under the pretext of going to pay my respects to General Xie. Mrs. Xie heard everything I told her. When the matter was exposed and Wei Yan detained us, it was Mrs. Xie who threatened to die so that Wei Yan would not kill us!"
"Who would have thought that this stage would last for seventeen years!" Zhu Youchang cried out in grief.
Cold wind mixed with rain blew into the house, ruffling the strands of hair on Xie Zheng's forehead. His face turned unusually pale, and he called out in a voice that only he could hear: "Mother."
Xie Zhong's expression changed, and he said in shock, "So the Madam wanted us to return to the Xie residence in Huizhou because she was afraid that we would be implicated in this matter? Then the Madam's death..."
Xie Zhong suddenly stopped talking halfway through his speech and looked at Xie Zheng with an expression of great pity.
Was it Mrs. Xie's idea to send Xie Zheng to Wei Yan to be raised? So that Wei Yan could be completely assured of the existence of this child.
Xie Zheng's lips were almost pursed into a cold straight line. He clenched his muscles and punched the solid yellow pear wood table in the room, turning the table into a pile of broken wood. From his throat came the name wrapped in endless hatred and bloody aura: "Wei Yan——"
The author has something to say:
Changyu doesn’t appear in this chapter. What is Changyu doing?
Changyu: Take care of yourself!
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