Chapter 130: Saving Wu Sangui (Seeking Favorites, Seeking Recommendations)

The man Ren Yizhou had found for Zhu Cilang was an ugly fellow with a swarthy face and a curly beard, built on an unusually massive scale, and he looked like a brainless lout. Could such a man really serve as a secret agent?

Zhu Cilang was not one to judge people by appearances, but even he could not help frowning slightly. Yet after the fellow announced his name and status, Zhu Cilang inwardly praised Ren Yizhou's ability.

"This subject, Liu Sheng, Instructor of Tongzhou, kowtows before the Army-Pacifying Crown Prince, Thousand Years!" The man's official speech carried a trace of a Shaanxi accent, and he was, moreover, a civil official.

"An Instructor?" Zhu Cilang studied this "big, dark, rough fellow" carefully. "You are a juren?"

"This subject passed the provincial examination in the twelfth year of Chongzhen," the dark-faced Liu Sheng replied.

Zhu Cilang nodded and glanced at Ren Yizhou again: You, old friend, are a real talent! To have found such a treasure—though is he actually willing to become a secret agent?

"Instructor Liu," Zhu Cilang said, looking at Liu Sheng, "do you know what sort of assignment We are giving you?"

"This subject does not fully understand," Liu Sheng said, "but my family is ruined. Only my aged father and mother fled from Shaanxi to Tongzhou, and we depend on each other. Chiliarch Ren told me that as long as I was willing to join the Embroidered Uniform Guard and serve the Crown Prince, there would be money to support my parents."

"Thousand Years," Ren Yizhou said with a smile, "this Instructor Liu is a filial son. I saw him in his official robes pushing his father and mother along in a wheelbarrow, and that was why I invited him aboard the boat to talk."

"A filial son is a fine thing!" Zhu Cilang said with a beaming smile. "We are a filial son too! And We value filial sons most of all. Instructor Liu, rest assured—We will help support your father and mother, and will issue them the salary of a Centurion of the Army-Pacifying Marshal's Office. Once we reach Jiangnan, they will also be granted land and a house, so their old age will be secure and comfortable."

"This subject thanks the Thousand Years for his great kindness!" Liu Sheng said upon hearing this, and kowtowed once more.

To tell the truth, this filial son had now reached the end of his rope. His family had originally been landlords in Qingyang Prefecture, Shaanxi Province, and before Li Zicheng entered the Guanzhong region they had possessed considerable property—but afterward the family was ruined. His parents had fled to Tongzhou, where they barely scraped by on his official salary. But after Tongzhou fell, his post effectively ceased to exist. Although his honorary rank remained, Zhu Cilang had never said he would pay salaries to officials awaiting appointment—the Great Ming had come to this, and could no longer support idle men as it once had.

Liu the juren, for whom even food and clothing had become a problem, naturally could no longer put on the airs of a juren, and so he had been lured by Ren Yizhou into agreeing to join the Embroidered Uniform Guard.

"Do not thank Us just yet," Zhu Cilang said, looking at Liu Sheng. "We have not yet told you the assignment!"

"Please command me, Thousand Years. This subject would dash out his brains and smear the ground with them, and would not refuse even ten thousand deaths!"

Zhu Cilang laughed heartily. "Those words are enough. Let Us tell you—We need a scholar like you, with a commanding appearance but a meticulous mind, to go to the side of Pingxi Bo Wu Sangui. Are you willing?"

"This subject is willing!" Liu Sheng agreed almost without a moment's thought.

If he had dared say he was unwilling, he would have had to be silenced!

"Good!" Zhu Cilang nodded. "Do you know martial arts? Can you raise horses?"

"A little of both," Liu Sheng said. "This subject is of military household registration."

Shaanxi had always been a key region thick with military households, so military-registered juren and jinshi were naturally more common there, usually making up forty to fifty percent. That Liu Sheng was a military-registered juren was nothing strange.

"Good, good!" Zhu Cilang clapped his hands and laughed. "A man of both letters and arms, and a Shaanxi man besides. Excellent. Before long, Pingxi Bo will be putting you to important use.

Chiliarch Ren, first take Liu the juren to settle his parents properly. You are responsible for looking after them the whole way, until they are safely delivered to the Southern Metropolitan Region. If anything happens to them on the road, We shall hold you answerable."

"This subject will certainly take good care of Instructor Liu's parents," Ren Yizhou said. "This subject is a filial son too, and will surely look after Instructor Liu's parents as he would his own!"

Zhu Cilang nodded, thinking to himself: So all the men under me are loyal subjects and filial sons!

He paused, then said to Liu Sheng: "Instructor Liu, from this moment on you are no longer an Instructor, nor a juren. You are a Company Commander of the Qin Army, stranded in the capital, who joined the Hard-Working New Army and was later dispatched by Wu Sanfu to escort Pingxi Bo's concubine, Lady Chen, northward. Someone will soon tell you all about affairs within the Qin Army—commit every word to memory. After that, you will spend a few days training with the Hard-Working Army, and when the wind is favorable, you will sail to Shanhai Pass."

Liu Sheng had just been led away by Ren Yizhou when another key figure in the "intelligence work against Wu"—none other than the great beauty Chen Yuanyuan—entered the cabin where Zhu Cilang sat, her heart full of unease.

Ever since the great beauty Chen had been "humiliated" by Zhu Cilang at Wu Xiang's house, she had been unable to forget this heir to the Great Ming who understood nothing of women or beauty. What was so good about that big, clumsy, rough girl Wu Sanmei? She could not compare with herself at all! She was one of the Eight Beauties of Qinhuai—a woman of both talent and beauty, acknowledged by all the romantic scholars of Jiangnan!

And yet this Crown Prince Zhu Cilang had not even looked at her, but had grabbed that silly girl Wu Sanmei and run off. He was clearly a muddle-headed fool!

With the Great Ming in his hands, could it possibly end well?

In the chaotic days of war that followed, Chen Yuanyuan fled with the Wu family, and gradually forgot this blind, muddle-headed Crown Prince. It was only today, when the sand-boat she was on reached the docks at Dagu, and a eunuch claiming to be the Crown Prince's study companion came to summon her to an audience with His Highness, that Chen Yuanyuan's heart began to stir once more.

Surely the Crown Prince could not forget me! Chen Yuanyuan thought. But she already belonged to Wu Sangui, so it would not be proper for her to enter the palace, would it? The Great Ming did not seem to permit a talented woman like herself into the inner palace...

"This humble woman Chen Yuanyuan kowtows before His Highness the Crown Prince." Chen Yuanyuan, occupied with her thoughts, had already entered the cabin and performed the kowtow before Zhu Cilang.

"Rise, and be seated." Zhu Cilang smiled gently at the great beauty Chen and gestured toward an embroidered stool before him, inviting her to sit.

Chen Yuanyuan stole a glance at Zhu Cilang and saw only a solemn and majestic heir to the Great Ming, the sort of face fit for an ancestral portrait. She had heard many rumors of Zhu Cilang's lechery! At the Battle of Tianjin he had even captured a female bandit general and had her bound and molested in the great prison of the Tianjin Provost's office! So why was he acting so proper with her?

"Lady Chen, We intend to send you to Pingxi Bo's army at Shanhai Pass."

Zhu Cilang's words were gentle, without the slightest hint of impropriety. Although he did think Chen Yuanyuan was quite pretty, he truly had no intention of laying a finger on her—he did not want the story of "rage for a beauty's sake" to happen to him!

If he wanted to develop feelings with a Qinhuai courtesan, he could go find one of the other seven. Touching Chen Yuanyuan would be brainless.

Moreover, Chen Yuanyuan carried a mission this time: to save Wu Sangui!

"Lady Chen," Zhu Cilang's words remained soft, giving one the feeling of a spring breeze, but what he said next made Chen Yuanyuan's heart tremble, "We will speak plainly. Pingxi Bo is now in a perilous position. Whether he advances or retreats, there is a cliff on either side. One careless step, and he will be utterly ruined and his name will stink for ten thousand years!"

What? Chen Yuanyuan was shocked again and again, and no longer had any mind to think about Zhu Cilang's taste in women—at most she and Zhu Cilang could become kindred spirits, but Wu Sangui was her very foundation!

If he was going to be utterly ruined and his name stink for ten thousand years, could she possibly fare well by following him?

Zhu Cilang looked at Chen Yuanyuan and said, one word at a time: "As things stand, the only one who can save Pingxi Bo is, We think, you!"

"Me?" Chen Yuanyuan was startled again. What influence could a mere concubine like herself have?

Zhu Cilang said calmly: "We have already concluded that he is going to borrow troops from the eastern barbarians to retake the capital."

"This..." Chen Yuanyuan did not understand Zhu Cilang's words. Borrowing troops to retake the capital was a good thing! If it succeeded, could they not all go home soon?

"That is inviting the wolf into the house!" Zhu Cilang said. "Once they come, they will not leave easily—unless they are driven out by our Great Ming's heavenly troops! And the eastern barbarians are certain to enter the passes. If not through Shanhai Pass, then through one of the passes in the Yan Mountains. So Pingxi Bo's act of inviting the wolf into the house will only ruin his own reputation, and cost our Great Ming tens of thousands of battle-worthy elite soldiers!

Therefore We hope you will earnestly persuade Pingxi Bo not to do such a foolish thing."

Chen Yuanyuan furrowed her delicate brows. "But Pingxi Bo is a man, a true hero—how would he listen to a mere woman like me?"

"No matter," Zhu Cilang said with a smile. "Others will go to Shanhai Pass with you. If Pingxi Bo truly will not listen, it is no great matter. Stay close by his side, and when an opportunity arises in the future, we will save him together. What do you think?"

(End of Chapter)