Chapter 50: Bearing Humiliation (Please collect! Please vote! Please invest!)

Late at night, in a secret room of a house in the northern corner of Liujing City, Jiang Shouye, a man with a beautiful beard, with a sad look on his face, meticulously performed the ritual of three bows and nine kowtows to the spirit tablet on the shrine in front of him.

Although this memorial tablet looks a bit crude, it is engraved with eight large characters: The Memorial Tablet of the Late Emperor Li Zaiyuan!
After the ceremony, Jiang Shouye still did not stand up. He faced the spirit tablet, knelt silently on the cushion, with his eyes closed and his hands clasped together, as if he was praying for something.

Jiang Shouye knew very well that his good reputation in the palace for decades was completely ruined with his surrender to the Zhou army!
Now he is no longer the loyal minister and good general praised by the court and the people, but a running dog of the Zhou people who everyone wants to kill!

Although his subordinates and relatives did not understand his actions, some even risked their lives to persuade him and sever ties with him...
But Jiang Shouye checked his conscience and asked himself whether he regretted doing so!
Surrender is the only way Jiang Shouye can think of at the moment to preserve the 3,000 soldiers under his command who are prepared to fight against the Japanese.

Jiang Shouye was a senior military general in Gongdu and a well-known loyal minister in the country. His surrender was very good news and highly symbolic for the morally untenable Zhou army.

If nothing unexpected happens, Zhou Jun should follow the example of "spending a fortune on a horse's bones" and let him lead his troops back to Zhushan Port to continue guarding against the East Island ronin who are crossing the sea.

In this way, the 3,000 soldiers under his command who are prepared to fight against the Japanese will be deeply buried as a seed of national restoration. As long as the time comes, they can break out of the ground and rebuild the palace!

When he decided to lead his troops from Zhushan Port to rescue Liujing, Jiang Shouye knew that Zhou's army was powerful. Even if his 3,000 men came to help, it would be a drop in the bucket. It would not end well...
However, being loyal to Lee Jae-won, he was mentally prepared to sacrifice his life for his country, and he still resolutely sent troops from Zhushan Port to rush to Ryukyong for assistance.

However, the handwritten letter sent by the Crown Prince Li Xuanchang and his assassins outside Liujing City changed Jiang Shouye's mind.

In the handwritten letter, Li Xuanchang earnestly requested Jiang Shouye to put the overall situation first, not be burdened by his lifelong reputation, surrender to the Zhou army, preserve his strength, endure humiliation and wait for the opportunity to restore the country.

The appearance of the letter helped Jiang Shouye, who had lost hope of restoring his country, find his direction again. He therefore made up his mind to write letters of surrender to Ye Mingsheng's troops in Liujing City and Xiang Yuanhui's troops who came to support him!

Jiang Shouye was right. Now that the occupation of Gongdu had become an fait accompli, the Zhou army was more than happy to accept the surrender of Jiang Shouye, a famous senior general in the Gongdu army.

Compared with the cautious Ye Mingsheng, Xiang Yuanhui, who was confident of his strength and believed that he could deter his opponents, naturally accepted Jiang Shouye's surrender, but only let the 3,000 Japanese soldiers go after disarming them.

Although he has decided to endure the humiliation, it does not mean that Jiang Shouye can endure the hatred of destroying the country and killing the king!
During this period of time he had found out that Li Jae-won burned himself to death after the fall of Wangcheng. Although it was suicide, he still blamed Ye Mingsheng, the seventh-rank commander of the Zhou army.

In Jiang Shouye's eyes, if Ye Mingsheng had not launched a surprise attack on Liujing, Li Zaiyuan would not have burned himself to death, and the country of Gongdu would not have fallen to its current state.

During the time when he surrendered to Zhou's army, Jiang Shouye was not idle either. He found Jin Duxun, a famous ranger in Gongdu Kingdom, and wanted to take Ye Mingsheng's head to commemorate Li Jae-won!
In his early years, Kim Do-hoon got drunk and caused trouble in Zhushan Port and almost lost his life. It was Jiang Shouye who valued talent and informed his subordinates to spare his life.

Jin Duxun is a man who knows how to repay kindness. This time, when Jiang Shouye found him, he took over the matter without saying a word. Now that the killer has been found, the assassination should be done as soon as possible. Who knew that Ye Mingsheng was transferred out of the palace that day?

Therefore, Jiang Shouye made a prompt decision and arranged the assassination tonight!
After kneeling in front of Li Zaiyuan's spirit tablet for half an hour, footsteps were heard outside the secret room. A trusted servant of Jiang Shouye came over and whispered, "Master, Jin Duxun is back!"

After hearing the news he had been waiting for, Jiang Shouye, who had his eyes closed in front of the coffin, opened them immediately, with a glimmer of anticipation in his eyes...

Jiang Shouye kowtowed solemnly towards Li Jae-won's spirit tablet, then slowly got up from the ground, rubbed his blood-congested and numb thigh, and walked out of the secret room.

Followed by the servants, Jiang Shouye came to the main house of the mansion, where a middle-aged man in night clothes, short and strong, with a very ordinary appearance was waiting for him.

"Your Excellency! I am incompetent and cannot kill that bastard Ye Mingsheng..."

Seeing Jiang Shouye's hopeful expression, Jin Duxun, who had returned empty-handed, knelt on the ground with a "thump", his face flushed with shame and said:

Jiang Shouye was stunned when he heard this. After a few seconds, he let out a long sigh, his face full of dejection. After a while, he whispered, "Get up. Ye Mingsheng is lucky this time."

After receiving Jiang Shouye's forgiveness, Jin Duxun stood up from the ground in great shame.

"What happened? With your skills, Ye Mingsheng, this crazy beast, should not be able to escape this disaster!" Looking deeply at Jin Duxun who lowered his head, Jiang Shouye slowly asked:
Hearing Jiang Shouye's question, Jin Duxun's face was filled with shame, and he said in frustration:
"Originally, things were going smoothly. I quickly sneaked into Ye Mingsheng's tent and killed the sentry outside his tent. When I was about to sneak into the tent and kill Ye Mingsheng, another assassin suddenly appeared from nowhere. It seemed that he was also going to take Ye Mingsheng's head."

"But after this person found me, he probably thought I was Ye Mingsheng's subordinate and wanted to kill me without saying a word. I had no choice but to fight him. The sound of my fight with this person alarmed Ye Mingsheng's personal soldiers. They were numerous, so I withdrew when I saw that it was impossible to do anything."

A look of doubt appeared on Jiang Shouye's face. He pondered for a few seconds and murmured in a low voice: "There are actually people who want to kill Ye Mingsheng..."

"Yes!"

Jin Duxun nodded, recalled the fight just now and said: "The assassin I met is a master of knife skills. Judging from his knife skills, this person should be from the army of the Great Zhou Dynasty. He is not proficient in the art of assassination."

(End of this chapter)