chapter 28 – the agreement under the sewage
“There really is a mole!”
Fan Xian and Xin Shaoqing simultaneously opened their mouths in a very eight o’clock manner, then simultaneously stopped talking. Both of them believed that the head of the Northern Qi secret spies in their own country was definitely not a softy who would open up under torture, and since the other party was able to capture Yan Bingyun so easily and knew his real name, it was obvious that someone hidden in the midst of Qing’s imperial government must have some sort of agreement with the Northern Qi side.
Xin Shaoqing shook his head, ”Before this matter, even the crown prince and I did not know that Duke Yan had gone to Northern Qi. I think there are at most no more than five people in the court who are qualified to know about this matter, if they say that they are selling the country, no fool would believe it, selling the country always requires benefits, and the fact is that this entire country of Qing is what His Majesty has put these people in charge of, so what benefits can there be in selling the country.”
Fan Xian and Xin Shaoqing looked at each other, both could see the sorrow in the other’s eyes as they both thought of something terrible at the same time, what if it wasn’t an inside job? What if it’s just a tactic used by some ministers in the court to combat the Supervisory Yuan?
Fan Xian thought that when Wang Qinian told himself about Yan Bingyun, he felt a little strange, why did he even know? Why did he even know about it? Did the Supervisory Yuan have so much confidence in its own internal control? Only later did he realize that it was Chen Pingping who had told himself about this matter through Wang Qinian, but at this point, he was still a bit afraid that if the news had leaked out from his side, he would really die a million deaths.
“Will there be such a crazy person? Just for the sake of the power struggle in the dynasty, he would step on the interests of the entire Qing country.” Xin Shaoqing shook his head with a bitter smile.
Fan Xian also shook his head, thinking of his trip to the palace, and knew in his heart that there were actually quite a lot of such high-powered lunatics in Qing. He settled down and asked, “Assuming that Prince Yan has been captured, what kind of arrangements does His Holiness have in mind?”
“Bei Qi still underestimated His Holiness’ determination.” As soon as Xin Shaoqing thought of that high and mighty Son of Heaven, he immediately felt a sense of confidence in his heart and said, “The occupied territory is still not letting go of an inch.”
Fan Xian was surprised and said, “What about Mr. Yan?”
“Change!” Xin Shaoqing’s face showed a sinister color: “Exchange of prisoners, His Majesty’s idea has been decided, the previous exchange of prisoners agreement is canceled completely, and re-drafted again. We’re just waiting for the Northern Qi side to send Duke Yan’s token to confirm it, and then we’ll start a new round of prisoner exchange negotiations.”
Fan Xian frowned and said, “Bei Qi is full of thoughts that they are holding a big fish, so I guess they won’t agree.”
Xin Shaoqing said in a chilling voice, “We will also send two more people back to Bei Qi this time. If Beiqi is still unwilling, in March after the Shuo winter, His Holiness will behead a thousand captives from Beiqi, send them back to Beiqi, and the army will rise again.”
“Pressing people with power is a helpless move, but I’m afraid that the Bei Qi side will also come to a fish out of water, both sides have a total of 3,000 captives, and it’s always useless to kill and kill.” Fan Xian’s hand gently slapped the book case, and a strange thought suddenly surged in his heart, “Who are the two people who are going to join the prisoner exchange? Will they be able to get Beiqi to agree?”
“One is Sean who has been imprisoned for twenty years.” Xin Shaoqing looked at him gently, knowing that this young man did not know Sean’s name.
“This person was the head of the Northern Wei’s secret spies back then, before the second Northern Expedition, President Chen of the Supervisory Academy and Lord Fei personally led the Black Horsemen in a strange raid of 1,000 miles and captured him alive on top of Sean’s son’s wedding. After he was captured by us, the Northern Wei spy network leaderless, suddenly into a scattered sand, when His Majesty’s personal expedition, in order to be as strong as a bamboo, raw will be a huge empire into today’s weak look. Later on, when the merits were evaluated, the Supervisory Court awarded the first merit for this, and at that time, we young scholars all thought that if Sean wasn’t so bold as to leave the upper capital of Beiqi so far away to attend his son’s wedding, the imperial court must not have been able to catch him, and then the subsequent battles wouldn’t have been so smooth.”
Listening to these decades-old passages, Fan Xian sighed breathlessly and listened again to Xin Shaoqing’s latter words.
“Of course, Xiao En was bold enough to dare to leave Shangjing, and President Chen was even bolder, actually daring to go eight hundred miles deep into the enemy’s territory, and although he paid the price of a pair of legs, he caught Xiao En after all. Before that, Xiao En of the Northern Wei and Chen Pingping of the Southern Qing were known to the world as the most terrifying dark ministers, and after Xiao En was captured alive by President Chen, naturally, no one dared to be compared to President Chen anymore.”
Fan Xian listened with a yearning, it turned out that the old cripple’s leg was actually broken that time, and it was unthinkable that Chen Pingping had such a valiant side back then.
“Take Sean and exchange him for Yan Bingyun.” He thought for a moment, judging purely from reason, “It seems like we lost out.”
“Last night, several ministers thought so as well.” Xin Shaoqing looked at him with a smile, “However, His Majesty and President Chen don’t see it that way, after all, Sean is already seventy years old, and once he has been defeated at the hands of President Chen, it is naturally impossible for him to repeat that year’s luster. Duke Yan endured humiliation, sneaking around the enemy country for four years, and his merits and honors have appeared without being awarded, what’s wrong with exchanging an old man for the future of Qing, what’s wrong with that?”
Fan Xian nodded repeatedly and asked curiously, “Are you still afraid that Beiqi is unwilling to, and who has been added?”
“That woman is a request that Beiqi has made in the past, so His Holiness simply granted it all together.” Xin Shaoqing looked at Fan Xian and suddenly laughed, “I heard that the Emperor of Northern Qi liked that woman very much, so it seems that later on, Lord Fan has already pre-empted the young Emperor of Northern Qi and put a green hat on him.”
Fan Xian’s face was a bit brilliant as he said in a nebulous voice, “Could it be Siri Li Li?”
Negotiations were always divided into two parts, on the surface, the courtiers of Qing and the envoys of Northern Qi were deliberating on the negotiation table, showing some kind of morbid insistence on every name, every word used, the only way to ensure the face of the state dynasty, not to weaken a few points on the final state letter. So every day in Honglu Temple is always noisy non-stop, slap the table, step on the chair, which like two countries in the negotiation, purely in the vegetable market shrews in each other.
The other part of the negotiations, but seems cold and direct many, here the negotiations do not have the presence of Honglu Temple officials, the Northern Qi side is not the head of the mission’s face characters, but hidden in the shadows, can really talk about the real power of the characters.
Supervisory Yuan four adults Yan Ruohai, placed in the officials such as walking dogs swimming carp in Kyoto, is also a bit of a well-known high-level figures, he coldly in the prisoner exchange secret agreement signed, and did not look at the paperwork a glance.
The agreement has his own son’s name on it, originally he could have resigned from this negotiation, but he insisted to come and have a look.
The unassuming official from Beiqi smiled as he drew his signature and looked at Yan Ruohai and said softly, “Don’t worry, Mr. Yan, your son is having a good time in his country.”
Yan Ruohai said expressionlessly, “I wanted to see how skillful my colleagues in the north were today to catch the little brat I taught from childhood, but seeing you, this fool, I know what’s going on.”
That official didn’t burst into a rage, but only retorted grimly, “Lord Words, don’t go too far with your words, but you should know that your son is still in our hands. If we are fools, then what does your son count as? What do you count as?”
Yan Ruohai sneered twice, got up and walked towards the door, saying, “The problem is that my son was not captured by you.”
Walking out the door, Chen Pingping, who was sitting in a wheelchair, glanced at him and shook her head, “You’ve been in this position for a long time, you’re no longer as tolerant as you were back then.”
“I can tolerate a lot, but I can’t tolerate cold arrows shot from behind.” It could be seen that Yan Ruohai spoke with respect to his superior, pushing Chen Pingping’s wheelchair and slowly walking towards the quiet place.
Chen Pingping sat in the wheelchair and stretched out a finger, “Inside the imperial court, I don’t know how many people want you and I to die, this time we can take Xiao En to exchange for Bing Yun, next time I don’t have someone like Xiao En in my hands.”
Yan Ruohai responded, “There is no next time.”
“We need to hurry up and find that person out.” Chen Pingping said, “This time, the Emperor is on our side because he is clear that it must be one of the nobles who wants to teach us a lesson, but I don’t like this feeling of being picked on.”
“Yes, Dean.” Yan Ruohai knew that his old boss would find a way to deal with this matter, so he wasn’t in much of a hurry, “Even though the prisoner exchange doesn’t necessarily go smoothly, as long as Bingyun doesn’t die, it’s also considered to be a refining for the young people, which is not a bad thing.”
“Makes sense, so I’ve also decided to let a young man go and hone his skills, it doesn’t need to be too long, a few months would be good.”
“A few months? Is it about this return mission to Northern Qi?”
“Not bad, and also to bring back Yan Bingyun in one piece, I hope he can handle it.”
“Who is it?”
“I’ll let all eight of you meet him before we leave.”
Everything was going smoothly, and after Qing paid a considerable amount of chips, the two sides drew up an agreement for a prisoner exchange as well as a secret exchange of undercover spies, and everyone was happy; Qing got face and land, and Beiqi got face with Sean and the woman the emperor liked.
Only the mission from Dong Yi City stayed honestly in the courtyard, and the people seemed to have forgotten about him. The Qing court is also deliberately cold to the other side, in order to rely on the matter of the foot of Cangshan Mountain, extort more money, Dongyi City is the world’s giant merchants gathered, as early as in the Qing court before the opening of the southern ports, began to trade with the foreign barbarians, although the force of force is only the four Gu Sword a sword dear to the heavens, the financial power is inexhaustible.
Three days later, it was the day of His Majesty the Emperor of Qing Dynasty’s palace banquet for the ambassadors of the two countries, Fan Xian, as the deputy negotiating ambassador, naturally had to go to the palace to attend the banquet, which would be his second visit to the palace, and also the night he had planned for.
He carefully prepared everything in his room, only his eyes occasionally glancing over the black leather case that showed a corner under his bed. In these few days of official business, he saw something more deeply, the Kingdom of Qing seemed huge and strong, unrivaled, but inside the court, caught in the ulterior thoughts of certain nobles, there would still be so much dirt and black water.
The emperor’s family was ruthless, but not necessarily towards the members of the royal family, but more towards the subjects of the world. Fan Xian knew very well that even if His Majesty knew who was trying to deal with his own secret service, he wouldn’t really kill them because those people could be his wife, his sister, his son, or even his mother.
“Be a person who thinks purely for himself.” This was something Fan Xian had reminded himself of countless times since coming to this world. His gaze grew cold as he hid the slender dagger and carefully inserted the three thin needles soaked in poison into his hair.