Late Yuan Dynasty: I am the true emperor

Chapter 55 Zhang Wen, what crime should you be punished for! (Please read on)
Kang Maocai must be dealt with!

Although this person also surrendered to Zhu Yuanzhang in history, which shows that he could be persuaded to surrender, he also made many contributions to the Ming Dynasty and was even granted a title of nobility.

But Lu Jin felt that it didn't matter if Kang Maocai was not there.

The main thing is that this man killed Zhao Pusheng and had met Bao Yu. If Lu Jin persuaded him to surrender, it would be very awkward for Kang Maocai and Bao Yu to work together in the future.

Then wouldn’t the fact that he used a knife to kill someone be exposed?
So he had to kill to silence the witness!
Bao Yu was a meritorious official who risked his life to lurk in the enemy camp and helped Lu Jin consolidate his position. Of course, Lu Jin could not kill him. So he just had to kill Kang Maocai, and Bao Yu would be able to be a normal civil servant in the future.

From now on, the only people who knew about this were Lu Jin, Zhang Wen, Bao Heng and Bao Yu.

Zhang Wen will soon be his brother-in-law. What good will it do for the Bao brothers to tell others? And they themselves are also participants.

Others might guess something, but they have no evidence, and that is enough, because stabilizing Lu Jin's position and maintaining unity within the Shengwu Army are in everyone's common interests!
The Liao brothers, the Yu father and son, the faction that wanted to surrender the government troops represented by Ye Sheng, the traditional Confucian scholars and civil servants represented by the Bao brothers, and Lu Jin's confidants, Zhang Wen and Zhu Shou, no one wanted to let Zhao Pusheng, the useless cult leader, come back, so he could only die at the hands of the Yuan army, and he had to!

Tsk tsk tsk. Lu Jin secretly sighed in his heart, it is really not easy for a person to get to the point where everyone hates him.

As for how much change killing Kang Maocai would bring to the original history, and whether it would cause the future to be beyond his control.

Lu Jin thought about it carefully and it seemed that the most important thing was the relationship between Kang Maocai and Chen Youliang.

Kang Maocai was from Qizhou, Hubei, and Chen Youliang was also from Hubei, but not from Qizhou. God knows how they knew each other, but history books say that they knew each other.

Later, Kang Maocai joined Zhu Yuanzhang and was responsible for garrisoning near Nanjing Jiangning. When Chen Youliang led a large army to fight the Battle of Longwan, Zhu Yuanzhang asked him to write a letter to Chen Youliang to pretend to surrender and convey false information, which tricked Chen Youliang and eventually led to his defeat in the Battle of Longwan.

After the Battle of Longwan, the offensive and defensive situation between Chen Han and Zhu Wu changed. Chen Youliang no longer had the strength to reach the city of Nanjing, and Zhu Yuanzhang began to counterattack Jiangxi and Hubei.

Kang Maocai is the key link in the Battle of Longwan!
However, if Lu Jin occupied Nanjing, would he allow Chen Youliang to lead his army to attack his doorstep?

Why didn't he lead the army to attack Chen Youliang's Wuchang city?
According to the current development trend, Lu Jin is confident that he can keep Chen Youliang in Hubei.

In this case, Kang Maocai has lost his last value.

As for military commanders? There were plenty of them in the Huaixi region, and he had already subdued Zhu Liangzu in advance, so there would be no shortage of Kang Maocai.

What else is there to say? Screw him!
Of course, it was definitely not an assassination. Killing Kang Maocai alone would be useless. If Kang Maocai was killed by poisoning or something like that, while his soldiers were still in Hezhou, the court would replace him with someone Lu Jin was not familiar with as a general, and the battle might be more difficult.

He wanted to wipe out Kang Maocai's main force, along with Heyang where he was stationed.

Thinking of this, Lu Jin immediately wrote a letter and gave it to Bao Heng, asking him to find a way to send it to Bao Yu.

The eleventh year of Zhizheng, September 19, noon.

After a day's journey and spending a night outside the city, Kang Maocai finally returned to his Hezhou City.

In the battle that ambush on Zhao Pusheng that day, he led a total of 6200 infantry and cavalry, suffered more than 600 casualties in the battle, and killed more than of Zhao Pusheng's troops, allowing Hua Gao to take away only more than . The most important thing was that he also killed Zhao Pusheng himself.

No matter how you count it, it's a big win.

Of course, Lu Jin also won, it was a win-win situation!
When Kang Maocai returned to the government office, he threw Zhao Pusheng's head on the table and immediately asked someone to find a doctor to treat his injuries.

When Bao Yu heard the news that Kang Maocai had returned, he hurried over to visit him.

As soon as he entered the door, he saw Zhao Pusheng's one-eyed head and two swords, and he was delighted.

Looking at Kang Maocai again, he saw that his brows were deeply frowned, his face was pale, and there was blood on his mouth and face. He was shocked again and asked hurriedly.

"The envoy is injured?"

Kang Maocai saw that it was Bao Yu who gave him advice, and his attitude immediately became much better. However, he did not say anything, but just nodded, took off the white cloth covering his face, revealing his face that was shot through, and then spit out blood. "This, this is what to do, quickly go and get a doctor." Bao Yu immediately said when he saw this.

Kang Maocai waved his hands repeatedly, asked someone to bring paper and pen, and wrote a few lines for Bao Yu to see.

It first mentioned that he had come up with a plan, which successfully ambushed Zhao Pusheng and beheaded this beast, and praised Bao Yu for his meritorious service.

Then he said that he had an injury on his face and was missing a tooth, making it difficult for him to speak. He would need to recuperate recently, so he asked Bao Yu to take care of him. If there were any official documents from the court or any military intelligence or strategies, he also asked Bao Yu to help deal with them.

After Bao Yu finished reading it, he immediately clasped his fists and assured, "Please rest assured, Xue Yi will definitely live up to your trust. Please take care of yourself and recover from your injuries as soon as possible."

Kang Maocai nodded, forced an unpleasant smile, then waved his hand to let him leave. After a while, the doctor was brought in by the guards, and Bao Yu then left.

When he returned to his temporary residence, he immediately took out paper and pen and began to write down all the information he had collected in the past few days, from Kang Maocai's family background to his troop deployment and tasks as the commander-in-chief and the envoy of Huaixi. All were written down clearly.

That night, an old servant of the Bao family came to find Bao Yu and brought him a letter from Lu Jin. Bao Yu could not help but admire it again and again, thinking to himself, it was really bad luck to go against Lu Jin.
After reading the letter, he burned it and handed the information he had collected to the old servant, asking the servant to send the information back. With this back and forth exchange of information, the information exchange was completed.

All I can say is that spy warfare in this era is much simpler than in later generations.

Two days later, on September 11, Luzhou Prefecture.

All the generals gathered in the lobby of the government office.

On the ground in the middle of the lobby, there was a headless corpse. It was the remains of Zhao Pusheng. Zhang Wen was kneeling beside it, and Lu Jin was standing on top of it, his face as black as the bottom of a pot.

Liao Yongan has returned from Chao County, and he brought with him an eight-year-old boy named Jin Zhen, who was the hostage he brought from Chao County.

The partner he found to infiltrate Chao County was Jin Chaoxing, the Marquis of Xuande in the Ming Dynasty, who was posthumously named Duke of Yi.
This person is currently building a stronghold in Chao County to protect himself. Historically, Jin Chaoxing also surrendered to Zhu Yuanzhang at the same time as the Chaohu Navy, but he had never had any contact with the Chaohu Navy before and surrendered to Zhu Yuanzhang as an independent person.

However, they were all from the same county, and Liao Yongan actually knew this person. This time he went there and persuaded him personally, made promises, and finally made Jin Chaoxing agree to help complete the plan to break the city, and even sent his wife and children to Luzhou as hostages.

However, Liao Yongan did not expect that what he would see when he came back would be Zhao Pusheng's headless body.

He didn't know whether this was a good thing or a bad thing.
On the other side of the lobby, Zhu Liangzu had just returned from Lu'an after recruiting soldiers and was preparing to report his work to Lu Jin. Unexpectedly, he also encountered this incident.

Do you still remember that night when Zhu Liangzu complained to his father that the leader of the Chaohu navy was Zhao Pusheng, so when he went there to join them, was he joining Lu Jin or Maitreya Sect?
His father scolded him for being stupid at the time. With Lu Jin's intelligence, how could he not have a solution?
Zhu Liangzu thought at that time that Zhao Pusheng would definitely not survive more than ten days.

Now, as expected, the body is completely cold.
Thinking of this, he carefully looked up at Lu Jin, who was looking angry with a dark face.

"Hei, so damn insidious. But he did a good job. Once Zhao Pusheng is dead, I can focus on following Marshal Lu from now on. Marshal Lu is still very capable. I don't have to do anything myself. This kid will die in the hands of the Yuan army. Tsk tsk tsk."

"Tell me! When friendly forces were in danger, you failed to rescue them and marched slowly, causing heavy casualties among them. What crime should you be punished for?!"

Lu Jin stood there, pointing at Zhang Wen and cursing.

"I told you to pick up General Zhao after repeated instructions, and you brought back a headless corpse? Huh?!"

"I specifically asked you not to bring the auxiliary battalion, but only four combat battalions, so that you could march faster. But what did you do? Huh?!"

"Speak! Don't play dumb!"

Zhang Wen lowered his head, knelt on the ground and kowtowed repeatedly.

"I know I was wrong. It's all my fault for not rescuing you properly. Please punish me, Marshal!"

(End of this chapter)