Chapter 961 Governor and Son!

Although he was grateful to Murong Lun, decades of ups and downs in officialdom also made Lu Jianchao realize that Murong Zhengshan’s letter was not as simple as it seemed...

With the fall of the Luoan court and the death of Murong Lun, the Murong family changed their ambiguous attitude in the past and began to fully turn to the Fengwu Army, trying to seek a more important position in the existing power structure of the Fengwu Army!

The Fengwu Army has always been clear about rewards and punishments, rewards for merit and punishments for faults. Therefore, if the Murong family wants to seek a more important position in the Fengwu Army, they need to establish a great merit for the Fengwu Army! A great merit that can change the current power structure of the Fengwu Army!

Looking at the world today, the north has been completely unified by the Fengwu Army, and only a few provinces in the south have not been captured by the Fengwu Army!

Therefore, there are not many opportunities left for the Murong family to establish great achievements!

As a family that has been passed down for hundreds of years, the Murong family has some political influence in Huainan and Sichuan. Some of their students and former officials are working in Huainan and Sichuan, but none of them hold any important positions and it is difficult for them to be of much use!

But the situation in the richest and most prosperous Jiangnan area is different!

After thinking for half a cup of tea, Lu Jianchao asked his eldest son:

"Hou De, what do you think of Zheng Shan's visit this time?"

Facing his father's question, Lu Houde answered without hesitation:

“Zhengshan is using this excuse to test your thoughts, Dad. To see whether you want to fight the Fengwu Army to the end, or have other ideas…”

Hearing what his son said, Lu Jianchao's expression revealed a complicated look. He shared the same opinion as his son Lu Houde. He thought that it might be true that Murong Zhengshan came this time to fulfill his father Murong Lun's last wish and give him something, but it was more likely that he came to test his opinion!

As for the Fengwu Army, Lu Jianchao was also very conflicted. On the one hand, his reason told him that Xu Zhaojie had caused chaos in Jiangnan. If the Fengwu Army really attacked, even though Jiangnan had the natural barrier of Nanjiang River, it would be difficult to resist the Fengwu Army!

Therefore, compared to surrendering after being defeated, it is better to surrender directly. In this way, he will have more bargaining power and get better treatment for himself. It is even possible to have a place in the new dynasty established by the Fengwu Army in the future!
Although he thought so rationally, Lu Jianchao was still somewhat unwilling to surrender to the Fengwu Army.

After all, he had been running Jiangnan for ten years and had deep feelings for it. It was difficult for Lu Jianchao to accept handing over the territory he had worked so hard to run to others. He was also accustomed to the prosperity of Jiangnan and wanted to spend the rest of his life there.

And once I surrender to the Fengwu Army, Marshal Ye will give me a high position and generous salary, but he will never let me stay in Jiangnan...

Another most important point is that although Lu Jianchao has no deep hatred with the Fengwu Army, there are still some minor frictions between them!

For example, in the past the Fengwu Army had always exported goods to Jiangnan and earned money. However, because Murong Lun served as the Minister of Personnel of the Luoan court at that time, under the influence of Murong Lun, Lu Jianchao also sat on the side of the Luoan court!
Therefore, in order to pay tribute to the Luoan court, although Lu Jianchao did not completely cut off the sales of Fengwu Army products in Jiangnan, he also significantly increased tariffs and imposed many restrictions on the sales of Fengwu Army products in Jiangnan.

This directly resulted in the income of the Fengwu Army, which originally could earn nearly one million taels of silver each year from trade with Jiangnan, dropping directly to two or three hundred thousand taels of silver!

The two sides had a lot of diplomatic friction because of this matter. Ye Mingsheng even wrote a personal letter to Lu Jianchao, explaining the pros and cons to him, hoping that Lu Jianchao would consider it carefully, lift the trade restrictions on the Fengwu Army, and let the trade relations between the two sides return to the right track.

But because Lu Jianchao was more optimistic about the Luoan court defeating the Fengwu Army at that time, he turned a deaf ear to Ye Mingsheng's letter and ignored all the advice given by Ye Mingsheng.

It was only after the earnest exhortation of his aide Wang Huaiyi that he reluctantly relaxed some restrictions in some unimportant areas, which was considered as not completely disregarding Ye Mingsheng's face...
At first, Lu Jianchao didn't care about this and thought that Wang Huaiyi was doing something unnecessary, but now he is very glad that he listened to Wang Huaiyi's advice and gave Ye Mingsheng some face.

Even so, Lu Jianchao was still a little worried. He thought that if Ye Mingsheng was a vengeful person, it would be fine if he was bullied by him, but he was afraid that Ye Mingsheng was cruel and would kill all the hundreds of people in their Lu family!
Therefore, considering all these factors, Lu Jianchao had very complicated feelings towards the Fengwu Army. Lu Houde could also sense his father's thoughts, so he hesitated for a moment and suggested:

"Dad, although Zhengshan came here for personal reasons, I think he came here with the instruction of the Fengwu Army, and he may even be directly representing Marshal Ye. So I think Zhengshan can come to test our attitude, but we can also use this opportunity to test the attitude of the Fengwu Army!"

As soon as these words came out, Lu Jianchao's eyes lit up and he nodded repeatedly and said:
"Hou De, your suggestion is very good! Let's do it!

"Hou De, Zhengshan is your brother-in-law! I'll leave this matter to you. You must find out the attitude of the Fengwu Army towards us from Murong Zhengshan and see if Marshal Ye still remembers the friction in the past!"

In response to his father's instructions, Lu Houde naturally nodded repeatedly and said, "Dad, please rest assured. I will definitely test the attitude of the Fengwu Army..."

Upon hearing this, Lu Jianchao nodded with relief. After the father and son finished their business, they talked about some trivial matters, and then Lu Houde said goodbye and left.

Lu Houde got on the carriage back home, and his submissive look in front of Lu Jianchao just now changed to a very sinister one.

Although he had a premonition that his father Lu Jianchao would not do anything to that bastard Wang Chuanxiang, but when he actually saw that bastard commit such a serious crime and his father still wanted to cover it up and clean up his mess, Lu Houde's resentment was beyond words!
Lu Houde could now imagine the smug look on that bastard Wang Chuanxiang's face when he saw that things had gone so smoothly!
When he thought of this, Lu Houde couldn't help but clench his fists, wishing he could cut Wang Chuanxiang into pieces!

Although his father Lu Jianchao had made great achievements in governing the people's livelihood in Jiangnan, his personal morality was not particularly good. More than 20 years ago, when he was still working in Guanzhong, he had an affair with a famous prostitute Yizhihua, and he spent a lot of family wealth to redeem Yizhihua and keep her as a mistress outside.

Originally, Lu Houde's mother, Zhao, turned a blind eye to this matter, after all, if the matter became a big deal, it would affect Lu Jianchao's career.

But Yizhihua was very ambitious. Relying on the fact that she was pregnant, she broke into the Lu family and wanted to enter the house. Zhao naturally could not tolerate this and immediately wanted to have Yizhihua driven out. However, Lu Jianchao was protecting Yizhihua...
Although Yizhihua failed to achieve her goal in the end, Zhao was so angry that she fell seriously ill. She died of depression a few years later.

Later, Yizhihua gave birth to a baby boy for Lu Jianchao. Because Lu Jianchao's political enemies used this incident to attack him, at the instruction of Murong Lun, Lu Jianchao arranged Yizhihua to be a concubine of his subordinate named Wang. Therefore, the illegitimate son born by Yizhihua for Lu Jianchao also had the surname Wang!

This illegitimate son is the one Lu Houde just mentioned, Wang Chuanxiang, the commander of the Jiangnan Navy, who accepted bribes from the Thousand Tiger Guards who pretended to be businessmen and let Xu Zhaojie go.

Because of what happened back then, Lu Houde hated Yizhihua and Wang Chuanxiang very much, and always wanted to avenge his mother Zhao. However, his father Lu Jianchao always let the mother and son go, so Lu Houde could never achieve his wish and could only hide his resentment in his heart.

Compared with his father's complicated attitude towards the Fengwu Army, Lu Houde had once followed a merchant caravan on a diplomatic mission to the Fengwu Army. He had witnessed the lives of the people under the rule of the Fengwu Army, felt the powerful strength of the Fengwu Army, and felt the people's support for the Fengwu Army.

Therefore, Lu Houde was very clear about the gap between Jiangnan and Fengwu Army, so in the past he had always supported the three southern parties to unite and fight against Fengwu Army.

However, due to Xu Zhaojie's ambition, the alliance of the three southern families can only be a mirage!

Therefore, Lu Houde, who knew very well that he would be defeated one by one by the Fengwu Army if he fought alone, gradually changed his mind and thought of surrendering to the Fengwu Army in order to gain the greatest benefits!

Although Lu Houde had such an idea, after all, the person in charge of Jiangnan now is his father Lu Jianchao. Therefore, Lu Houde, who has no idea what his father is thinking, can only hide his true thoughts and try his best to be consistent with his father Lu Jianchao in politics································

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Yunbing, Wugang Mountain
Amid the wild roars of the Cuman soldiers like wild beasts and the roar of the Serban cannons, countless Cuman soldiers once again launched an attack on Wugang Mountain.

Facing the enemy's charge, Ye Fu calmly commanded his men to use the Tiger Crouching Cannon, Weiyuan Gun, Fengwu Army and other firearms to kill the enemy from a distance in the fortifications. Although the Fengwu Army's three-stage gunfire had tried its best to suppress the enemy and prevent the enemy from rushing to them!

However, under the fearless charge of the Cuman soldiers, the relatively slow firing speed of firearms was magnified a lot. After paying the price of more than 200 lives, the roaring Cuman soldiers finally rushed to the fortifications of the Fengwu Army.

The two sides came into close combat, and the gap between the 14th Division, a newly formed unit of the Fengwu Army, and the most elite Tiger Division of the Golden Horde became apparent.

In the one-on-one battle between the two sides, most of the soldiers of the 14th Division were no match for the Cuman Tiger Division. Fortunately, the Fengwu Army basically fought in small groups with mutual cooperation, so the gap in individual combat could be made up. However, even with such a brave Cuman Tiger Division, the Fengwu Army's position was still shaken by its impact...

Just when the Fengwu Army's position was in danger of being lost at any time, a new force suddenly appeared on the Fengwu Army's position. This new force was not only well-equipped and had very strong individual combat power, but also had perfect coordination in battle formations!
Therefore, even though the number of this new force was not large, with only more than a thousand people, their joining immediately stabilized the Fengwu Army's position.

At this time, Esidogan, who was standing on the watchtower of the Cuman military camp, holding a captured telescope, also noticed the existence of this new force!

Asdoan narrowed his eyes slightly. He knew that this Fengwu Army troop with strong combat effectiveness was the best guard battalion in the Fengwu Army!

Logically speaking, wherever the Royal Guard Camp is, Ye Mingsheng should be there. It was for this reason that Asdogan was certain that Ye Mingsheng was in Wugang Mountain!
But after several days of fierce fighting, the reaction of the Fengwu Army made Esidogan become suspicious again!
In his opinion, given Ye Mingsheng’s status in the Fengwu Army, once Ye Mingsheng was really trapped in Wugang Mountain, the Fengwu Army in Dagu County would definitely try their best to rescue him and help Ye Mingsheng break out and return to Dagu County...
For this reason, Asdogan also carefully arranged some pockets, preparing to surround and attack the reinforcements and ambush the Fengwu Army. However, the fact is that the Fengwu Army in Dagu County, although it has sent troops several times to try to assist the Fengwu Army on Wugang Mountain, they are all small fights.
As soon as the Cuman soldiers showed any resistance, they would retreat back to the county town of Dagu, making it impossible for Esdogankin's carefully designed ambush to be carried out.

Asdogan was also very confused about this and didn't know what the Fengwu Army was up to.

He was not sure whether his judgment was wrong and Ye Mingsheng was not on Wugang Mountain, or whether Ye Mingsheng was really on Wugang Mountain, but the Fengwu Army wanted to use this trick to make him mistakenly believe that he was deceived, so as to reduce the intensity of the attack on Wugang Mountain, and then take advantage of his unpreparedness to help Ye Mingsheng break out!
Asdogan was somewhat hesitant between these two ideas. He always felt that the Fengwu Army was setting a trap. However, for now, he didn't seem to have any good solution and could only continue to attack Wugang Mountain...
(End of this chapter)