Chapter 945: Restlessness
Originally, Sun Shaozong had been planning to wait until the two sides were negotiating and then flex his muscles in the face of the attack from the ruler and ministers of the Later Jin Kingdom.
Who would have thought that for several days, Wu Pu Duan Heng only summoned Xu Fu Ren alone and refused to let him accompany him into the palace, making all previous plans completely useless.
Fortunately, around the New Year, Sun Shaozong had already established a great reputation in Jianzhou City, and with Xu Furen's shrewdness, he was enough to handle the tactical work.
Of course, every day when Xu Furen returned to the posthouse, he would inevitably briefly repeat the negotiation process between the two parties to Sun Shaozong.
At present, it seems that both sides are still sincere in the peace talks - at least temporarily - and the major premise of stopping the fighting and making peace was reached on the first day.
However, the two sides remained deadlocked on some additional conditions.
For example, the Great Zhou hoped that the two sides could exchange prisoners of war and release the detained people.
However, most of the Jurchens captured by the Zhou had already been executed. The so-called exchange was just a nice-sounding statement. In fact, the purpose was to force the Later Jin to unilaterally release all the Han slaves.
This was naturally unacceptable to the Jurchens.
For example, the Later Jin Dynasty hoped to establish several places for mutual trade near Xingcheng.
There would have been nothing wrong with mutual trade, but the Jurchens, in addition to demanding that the Zhou Dynasty not restrict the import of ironware, also asked the Zhou government to purchase some special products from Liaodong at a premium to ensure that the two sides could achieve a trade balance.
This is really too much.
Although it was a delaying tactic, how could the Zhou people, who have always openly advocated imperial Hanism, accept such concessions made by a tiny country that has not even been officially recognized?
In addition, there are also issues such as the demarcation of the borders between the two sides, the official titles of each other, the etiquette of exchanges, the relationship between the Later Jin and the Waqira, etc.
In short, under the same general policy, there are still many differences between the two sides.
The Zhou Kingdom was trying to buy time, and after enduring the war in the south, they would free up their strength to attack the Later Jin.
As for the Later Jin, due to heavy snow blocking the mountains, it was impossible to carry out large-scale military operations before the end of March.
So neither side was in a hurry, and they kept going back and forth like a tug of war, but after a few days, there was no progress at all.
I think if we can come up with a general outline during the first month of the year, that would be pretty good.
Sun Shaozong didn't care. He was a person who could be active or quiet at the same time. Apart from being a little uncomfortable with the food, he just relaxed in the inn every day, just like staying up all winter to gain weight.
But the guards accompanying him were quite restless.
A while ago, there were always some blind Jurchens coming to cause trouble. There was something fun to watch every now and then, but I didn’t think much of it.
But starting from the fifth day, everything became calm, and many Jurchens even chose to take a detour rather than pass through the gate of the post station.
Now that I have some free time, I feel uncomfortable all over.
And a few days ago, Harlu's wife had a high-pitched voice. She first scolded everyone in front of the door, making them very angry. Then she yelled at everyone inside the door, making them very furious .
He has been single for more than a month. Once he gets angry, how can he control himself?
So these few days, he first asked Feng Xin to ask for leave to go out and "stroll around", but after being suppressed by Sun Shaozong, he tried to instigate him to get a few women to serve him.
It was said that she would help with washing and cooking, but when Sun Shaozong tried casually, the requirements of 'well-dressed and smooth' and 'strong breasts and big buttocks' were filled in his ears.
To put it bluntly, it's all about the lower body.
Logically speaking, since he was in a suspicious situation, it was better to avoid trouble than to worry about it, so Sun Shaozong should have refused it outright.
But Sun Shaozong was not an unreasonable person. Besides, he himself failed to set a good example, so it would be difficult for him to refuse outright.
Therefore, after careful consideration that day, he decided to discuss with Xu Furen to see if he could ask the Jurchens for a few Korean women - the reason he specifically asked for Koreans was naturally because he did not want to humiliate the abducted Han women.
…
It was evening.
Calculating the time, Xu Furen should be back from the inner city, so Sun Shaozong ordered people to set up food on the kang table in the backyard and heated up a pot of aged wine, just waiting to drink and chat with him.
It was impossible to bring a cook along after travelling so far, so the daily meals were really unremarkable. The only advantage was that they were enough to fill you up.
But the wine was really good. It was a forty-year-old Huadiao wine, originally a trophy of a Jurchen noble. However, in the bitter and cold land outside the Great Wall, everyone was proud to drink strong liquor, and these jars of aged wine were rarely in demand.
It was not until a few days ago that the neighbor Qi Tu came to the house to negotiate, because he knew that Sun Shaozong liked this kind of thing, so he specially asked for it as a gift.
I unscrewed the lid of the hand warmer and used it temporarily as a wine warmer. After a short while, the rich and mellow aroma of wine filled the room.
At this time, the door curtain was lifted, and Xu Furen, wearing a wide robe with big sleeves, came in from outside. His nose twitched a few times, and he couldn't help but smile and chant: "I drink wine with you, and you are kind to me. Human feelings are like waves. The old man knows each other but still draws his sword, and the senior officials in the rich family laugh and tap their hats. The grass is wet with drizzle, and the flowers are about to sway in the cold spring breeze. What's the point of asking about the world's trivial things? It's better to lie down and have a meal."
As he said this, he took off his boots and sat cross-legged opposite Sun Shaozong.
The two had become familiar with each other along the way, so Sun Shaozong did not bother to be polite. He just picked up the wine jug with one hand and filled a glass for him.
At the same time, he said with a smile: "From what Mr. Xu said, I'm afraid I've wasted another day?"
"It's a waste of time, but it's not nothing."
Although there has been little progress in the negotiations in the past few days, Xu Furen's spirits are much stronger than when he was on the road.
He first drank the whole glass like an old man with youthful enthusiasm, then he became serious again, leaned forward slightly, and said in a low voice: "It is undoubtedly the White Lotus Sect."
Although this sentence made no sense, Sun Shaozong immediately understood what he meant. He quickly put the wine jug back on the hand warmer, straightened his back, and put on an attitude of listening attentively.
It turned out that since arriving at the posthouse, Sun Shaozong had vaguely sensed that in addition to the Jurchen spies, there seemed to be some unidentified people around who were spying on the delegation's every move.
Sun Shaozong captured more than half of the Mongols outside the city gate that day. Even if the remaining ones secretly returned to the city, they would most likely not dare to appear near the Great Zhou delegation - and even if they really had the courage to come over, they would be recognized by Sun Shaozong.
So the two of them discussed it secretly and concluded that there were probably other forces in the city, and most of them were hostile forces to the Great Zhou.
Although the Great Zhou is surrounded by enemies, if you really count them, there are only a few forces.
So during the past few days, Xu Furen negotiated with the Jurchens while trying to find out information in a roundabout way. However, he did not want to alert the enemy, so there was no progress for several days.
But today, he finally managed to find out some details.
Xu Furen stroked his beard and said, "Today, when I was talking about the border troops with the Tartars, I deliberately left out a flaw when I mentioned the Shaanxi-Gansu area. As a result, Wu Qizi casually pointed it out. It is obvious that he is quite familiar with the deployment of the border troops in Shaanxi and Gansu."
"But the current range of activities of the Jurchens is far from reaching the Shaanxi-Gansu area - even the Mongols of the Oirat are now mostly harassing Shanxi and Hebei, so as to support the Jurchens."
"The people who care so much about the Shaanxi-Gansu Border Army and can clearly grasp its movements are most likely the White Lotus Sect!"
Xu Furen's speculation may not be 100% certain, but it is at least 60% to 70% correct.
Su Xingfang's voice and smile flashed through his mind involuntarily. Sun Shaozong said in a deep voice: "If they are really members of the White Lotus Sect, the Mongolian attack outside the city gate was probably related to them. These White Lotus rebels are best at fanning the flames and leveraging others' strengths."
Xu Furen nodded: "Compared to the Mongols, they are the least willing to stop the Liaodong troops. They will try every means to stop it, and that's also..."
When Xu Furen was talking, his eyes suddenly fixed, and Sun Shaozong opposite him also looked serious. Then they both blurted out at the same time: "Could it be that the White Lotus Sect is going to start an uprising again in the near future?!"
This time, the court decided to send Xu Furen as an envoy to the Later Jin Dynasty. Initially, only a few important officials in the court knew about it, and it took only two or three days from the official order to the departure of the delegation.
With such a short period of time, even if the White Lotus Sect far away in Shaanxi and Gansu could react, it would be impossible for them to send people to Jianzhou City to stir up trouble.
In other words, the White Lotus Sect came to Liaodong with other purposes without knowing this matter.
The only thing that could make the White Lotus Sect travel thousands of miles and brave the wind and snow to contact the Later Jin Dynasty was probably "rebellion"!
After thinking about this, Xu Furen and Sun Shaozong immediately formulated a countermeasure.
The first thing to do was naturally to send someone back to the interior to inform the court in order to prevent any disaster from happening.
Secondly, it would be best to find the White Lotus rebels in the city and force them to reveal the information about the Shaanxi-Gansu headquarters.
This time is different from going to the capital to find the saint. In order to form an alliance with the Jurchens, the person sent by the White Lotus Sect to be in charge of the negotiations must come up with some significant "bargaining chips".
If they could pry open the other party's mouth, it would definitely deal a huge blow to the White Lotus Sect.
Furthermore, the posthouse must be doubly guarded.
Never forget the past and learn from it. Since the White Lotus Sect was damaged and split, its power has long been reduced. However, its pervasive infiltration methods are the biggest headache for the imperial court.
If the post station is also infiltrated by the White Lotus Sect, it will be a lot of fun.
But in this way, the plan to introduce Korean women naturally came to no avail.
Sun Shaozong came out of Xu Furen's room and was thinking about how to pacify those restless officers and soldiers, but suddenly he felt something was wrong.
I raised my head and looked around, but couldn't figure out what the problem was.
So he returned to his room with a restless heart. As soon as he opened the door and put one foot in and one foot out, a sudden idea came to his mind:
Where is Feng Xin?
Isn’t that guy waiting for my reply?
According to his impatient temper, I should have been stopped by him long ago while I was enjoying myself so leisurely along the way.
