Promotion and fortune in Song Dynasty

Death naturally does not die.

Relying on the suppressing skills he learned from Di Qing, Lu Ci exploded suddenly, crushing Liu Qi, who was about to escape, immobilized in an instant.

Immediately, under the careful guidance of his bad friend Yan Shu, who is also proficient in "boudoir fun", he calmly combed his friend into a very delicate bun with clouds, and also put on a colorful lip gloss on Liu Qi along the way.

Even though Liu Qiben has a delicate appearance, coupled with his thin figure and gentle temperament, after being dressed like this, at a glance, he really looks a bit like a lady of the former dynasty.

Lu Ci didn't expect that even though he was doing makeup for others for the first time, he was actually quite talented.

Only after taking it apart and repeating it twice, the very difficult cloud-flying bun style was completed.

"Thanks to Brother Liu," Lu Ci said sincerely, "otherwise I would never have known that I have such a talent."

Liu Qi wept mournfully.

When the work was done, he admired Liu Qi's 'cute and charming' posture with satisfaction, while Yan Shu, who was not too troublesome to watch the excitement, pulled a piece of rice paper while holding back a painful smile, trembling his hands, made a picture.

Although the details are unclear and cannot be called vivid, the general outline and the charm between the eyebrows are in place—at least once this painting falls into the hands of an acquaintance, the other party will probably be able to recognize this man with an exaggerated bun. It was named Liu Qi.

"In the past, this bun seemed to be able to move with the clouds, so it got the name 'following the clouds'. Now it seems that it really lives up to its reputation."

Lu Ci raised Liu Qi's chin with a smile on his face, so he commented.

He unraveled his double snail buns slowly, and without saying a word, cast a warm glance at Yan Shu, who couldn't hide his regret, so that the latter smiled and put down the paintbrush he secretly picked up. He went to comfort Liu Qi who was pretending to be sobbing.

"If the fourth person knows about today's events," Lu Ci said slowly with drooping eyelids, but his words were filled with invisible murderous intentions: "This painting will be stamped with the emperor's private seal and circulated..."

Liu Qi hugged the pillow pitifully, and answered sadly with a "wow".

Lu Ci neither sympathized with his friend who was dying, nor did he go to 'warn' Yan Shu separately. Instead, after combing his long hair and putting on a black hard hat, he stood up from the side of the couch and put on his coat. Putting on the official robe: "Don't mess around anymore, after you get dressed, go out with me."

He led two friends to visit when Li Yuanhao led an army to attack Hehuang. As a Song official, he bought a lot of precious time for Zong Siluo to transfer and mobilize troops, and he defended Huangzhou City in the battle. Cai Zhonghui, the foreign envoy who made the greatest contribution.

After the three-month-long battle of defending the city with heavy casualties, Zong Siluo was grateful for Cai Zhonghui's great achievements and wanted to reward him with special rewards, but Cai Zhonghui flatly rejected them all.

He said that as a minister of the Song Dynasty, he was ordered to go to Tubo to maintain the friendship between the two countries, but he was only performing his duties and should not receive extra rewards.

Gu Siluo treated him with sincere admiration and gratitude, and insisted on sending him more than a dozen times, and even visited the door several times in person, but Cai Zhong avoided them all, so he had to put this idea aside, and only recruited the best doctors of his own. It is raised with the most expensive medicinal materials, and a large number of servants are sent to serve it carefully.

It's just that no amount of rewards can save Cai Zhonghui's left arm that was cut off by the enemy because he took the lead in the battle of Huangzhou.

Cai Zhong Huiyuan thought that he would surely die, so when he put on the military uniform made in the Song Dynasty and fought bloody battles, he made the determination to kill himself once the city was broken.

Fortunately, General Cao Wei cooperated secretly with Zongsiluo, and Zongsiluo stepped up pressure on the surface, forcing Li Yuanhao to be unable to spend any more time in Huangzhou, and hurriedly shifted the battlefield, allowing him and Huangzhou City to escape from death.

After this catastrophe, Cai Zhonghui didn't want to take credit, but made up his mind to apply to Song Ting to go back to Tokyo after recovering from his injuries.

——Now that the war has ceased, he has become disabled and can no longer contribute to his family and country. He can finally return home with peace of mind and be with his family from now on.

When Lu Ci led the two friends to the mansion given to Cai Zhonghui to heal his wounds by Zong Siluo, Cai Zhonghui was being served by his servants to change the wound medicine.

Hearing that it was the envoy of Song Dynasty who came to visit, Cai Zhonghui was surprised at first, and then immediately gestured to the servants to stop changing the dressing, and immediately gathered up his coat, enduring the pain caused by the unhealed wound, I'm going to stay here.

At this moment, Lu Ci came to the door of the bedroom, and immediately stepped forward to stop him with his own hands: "Zhong Hui, lie down quickly, don't be polite."

"Everyone come to visit, it is inappropriate for the subordinate officials to fail to go out to greet you, how can you waste the courtesy?"

Cai Zhonghui insisted on getting up, but soon realized that... the hands on his shoulders seemed to be light and light, but they used ingenuity to prevent him from getting up and not hurt him.

Although he is a civil servant, but because of his family background, he is quite skilled in martial arts. After thinking about it on the spot, he couldn't help but let out a 'huh', and asked bluntly, "Emissary Lu is also a martial arts practitioner?"

Lu Ci smiled, and sat down on the edge of his bed without hesitation: "It's just that I learned some superficial lessons from my younger brother Di Hanchen, and now Zhonghui is laughing at me because he's playing with an axe."

"Di Hanchen?"

When Cai Zhonghui first heard the name, he felt very familiar. He couldn't help being taken aback, and soon recalled: "Could it be that the young general of Qinzhou who once shined brilliantly when Li Lizun led the army to attack the city, and then helped Zanpu ?”

Lu Ci was also taken aback, and was amused: "Young brother's name seems to be much louder than I thought."

The old saying is really true - the one who will remember the most clearly is the enemy who has been hit head-on.

In the Song Dynasty, Di Qing was just a fledgling in his official career, and he was a bit busy in the border state, but in the eyes of the Tubo people, he was not only a very bright rising star, but also a fearsome warrior.

Hearing that Lu Ci was actually Di Hanchen's brother-in-law whom he was very optimistic about, and Cai Zhonghui, who had been paying close attention to many news on the border of the Song Dynasty, he couldn't help laughing immediately. The unfamiliar politeness just now was invisible The middle faded a bit: "Exactly. I don't know if you are an official elsewhere, but in this Qingtang City, the name of Lu Envoy's righteous brother is probably a bit higher than that of Lu Envoy."

Hearing someone praise his little lover, Lu Ci couldn't help curling his lips slightly, revealing a very gentle and unknowing smile: "I see, if Zhong Hui is kind and willing to make fun of me, I would like to hear about it... ..."

Come again and again.

Look, as long as it's about Qingdi, Cidi seems to be a different person, and his partiality is going to the sky!

The corners of Liu Qi's mouth twitched, and he exchanged helpless glances with Yan Shu, resigned himself to sitting at the table, and acted as an accompaniment to the guests.

What kept flowing through my ears was the conversation between the two about Di Qing.

Cai Zhonghui was gratified that after General Yu Cao Wei of the Great Song Dynasty passed away, there would be successors who would not be afraid of foreign enemies.

Lu Ci... was purely happy that his little raccoon slave was sincerely praised by a very admirable Song general, and felt deeply honored.

After chatting about Di Qing's kung fu for a long time, he returned to the subject and read out the imperial edict written by the emperor of Song Dynasty himself, and praised and comforted Cai Zhonghui for his life-and-death struggle that day.

Cai Zhonghui, who had firmly rejected many rewards from Zongsiluo before, this time, without saying a word, stood up persistently, saluted solemnly, and accepted it carefully.

Even if he is willing to fight to the death for Tubo, he will never forget that this is just to fulfill his duties. His real roots and bones are his family and the Song Dynasty that raised him.

Cai Zhonghui, who was rewarded by the official's edict and never shed tears even though his arm was chopped off by the enemy, now had tears in his eyes, and thanked him tremblingly in his voice.

Seeing him like this, Lu Ci knew that he needed time to clear up his mood, so he said a simple sentence gently, "When I leave for the country, I will send people to come to the house to pick up Zhonghui."

It is indeed Cai Zhonghui's dream to return home.

Alone as a stranger in a foreign land, I miss my relatives every festive season.No matter how well Zanpu treats him, only the city of Shanzhou is the hometown he misses the most.

He didn't expect that before he asked for it himself, the officials had already thought of this, and even rewarded his relatives with great rewards, and he couldn't help but be very grateful.

Hearing Lu Ci's words, he blushed and nodded shyly: "Thank you, Envoy Lu."

Since Cai Zhong returned to the mansion and left, the three of them were silent all the way, especially with a heavy heart.

Although it has been more than a year since the great war, Cai Zhonghui’s sword and arrow wounds have healed, but whether it is the empty sleeve on the left side or the mottled and hideous scars on his emaciated body due to lying in bed for too long, It's all shocking, it's hard to let go.

For Liu Qi and Yan Shu, who had never been on the battlefield, it was the first time they saw such a terrible wound directly on their colleagues, and it inevitably took some time to recover.

Lu Ci was thinking about his little lover.

He was sincerely thankful that he had encouraged Di Qing to take the path of civil servants, instead of becoming a general who had to go through life and death all the time, and was destined to incur the contempt of civil servants.

Of course, if Di Qing decides to join the army in the end, he will not stop him—but at the very least, it will give Di Qing the opportunity to make his own choice.

According to Lu Ci's plan, it was agreed to form an alliance with Zong Ke and send troops to Xia Kingdom. At least it would take three to five or six times, a year and a half.

He has fulfilled his duty as an envoy this time, and then he only needs to wait for Cai Zhonghui to recover from his injury, and then he can set off to return to Beijing with the letter of credence returned by Ji Siluo.

Cai Zhonghui, who was about to return home, was getting better and better because of the vaguely buried knot in his heart. What Lu Ci didn't expect was that in the end, it was Zhesiluo who stopped him.

He was very busy discussing political affairs with his courtiers every day, but he did not forget that every night, he called Lu Ci into the palace, and discussed some details for an hour or two before letting him go back.

After all, Lu Ci didn't know this Tubo Zanpu, and although he didn't understand why he wasted time on small details that could be changed at any time, but thinking of the ups and downs in the early days of Zong Siluo, being cautious and cautious by nature was unavoidable. No suspicion.

After two whole months of dawdling like this, seeing the change of seasons, Lu Ci had to set off in autumn to avoid the cold winter. He had just entered the palace to bid farewell to Ji Siluo, when he saw Tubo Zanpu's expression of surprise.

Gu Siluo cunningly did not speak bluntly to persuade him to stay, but only said that after ten days, he would summon the leaders of various tribes to hold an oath of offering sacrifices to heaven for the event of uniting the Song Dynasty against the Xia Dynasty.

In this way, as the envoy of the Song Dynasty, Lu Ci couldn't afford to be absent.

It's just half a month's departure at night, and the impact should not be great, so Lu Ci agreed without thinking.

It's just that after this oath, Zong Siluo came up with a new routine - he will go to Lijing City, where his wife Qiao's family is located, and it will take half a month. He wants to ask the Song envoy to either go with him, or When he comes back, send him off in person.

Lu Ci guessed that Ji Siluo had the intention of showing off his military power to future allies, but he really wanted to know about the elite military power of Tubo, so he agreed.

Although the core hole cards headed by the Zongsiluo Guards are not visible, the importance of the Lijing City guarded by the Qiao family is self-evident, and it is obviously worth seeing.

So as soon as Lu Ci agreed, the return date was pushed back again.

The little emperor who is far away in Bianjing has a calm and dignified face, but he is restless in his heart.

When he waited until summer and autumn came, and saw that winter was coming, but the courtiers who went to Tubo never came back, he finally couldn't sit still.

After repeated questioning and inquiring, it was the first time that Zhao Zhen saw through the true intentions of Ji Siluo by relying on his intuition one step earlier than the little master.

"In my opinion," he complained to Kou Zhun angrily, "that Zanpu really has sinister intentions, and he changed the story again and again, isn't it all to trick the little master into staying longer!"

The author has something to say: Notes:

In the article "Looking Back at the Qingtang Dynasty", it is mentioned that in the first battle of Huangzhou City, "Facing the arrows like locusts, a general in the uniform of the Song Dynasty on the tower was not afraid of the arrows and waved purple. There were dozens of corpses lying around, and heaps of arrows shot down beside him. At this moment, his left arm was missing, with seven or eight arrows stuck in his body, and he was still standing upright. Facing the situation that was over, he Unwilling to be attacked by Hu Yi again, he took a last look in the direction of Shanzhou City (today's Ledu) with nostalgia. After the war, a coffin was found to bury him. He was Cai Zhonghui, the envoy sent to Zongka by the Song Dynasty (later generations worshiped him in the Town God's Temple in Xining, and the temple forehead said: "Song Shiguzhong" )...... The hero Cai Zhonghui swore to the death in Qingtang to reject Xia, and won for the servant Luo

Got the time to prepare for Shanzhou.