From beggar to emperor: I am not Zhu Yuanzhang

What Li Yu found in the account book was an inconspicuous record. It was very brief, just one sentence:

"On April 10th, Xuanzhou sent [-] taels of silver."

What does it mean?

On April 10, Cai Chou accepted a huge sum of [-] taels of silver from Xuanzhou.

Xuanzhou? Taimeng was shocked, Xuanzhou was not...

Tian Wei!

The two said the name at the same time.

As expected, it was guessed that Cai Changzhen had a relationship with Tian Kai. It seemed that a shocking secret was about to be revealed.

The two became more energetic and wanted to dig out more clues, but strangely, they could no longer find any records about Tian Kai. Sharp-eyed Li Yu discovered that many account books had pages torn out.

Tai Meng said: "It seems that Cai Chou has destroyed the records of his dealings with Tian Kai."

Li Yu: "This shows that they definitely have an ulterior conspiracy and don't want the eldest brother to know."

At this moment, a soldier hurriedly came in and reported: "Two generals, we found several pages of unburned letter paper in the charcoal brazier next door."

"Bring it over quickly!" Tai Meng became more energetic.

Several mutilated pages of letter paper were delivered to Tai Meng. It can be seen that Cai Chou was too hasty when destroying the letter and left before the fire was completely burned. In the end, a few pages were left unburned.

By studying those intermittent texts, Taimeng and Li Yu confirmed their suspicions that Cai Chou did have private contacts with Tian Kai.

The letter was written by Tian Kai to Cai Chou. In the letter, Tian Kai and Cai Chou reached an agreement. The two sides formed an alliance to counter Yang Xingmi, one in the south and the other in the north. Tian Kai proposed a plan to join forces to rebel against Yang Xingmi. When the time came, he first raised his troops in Xuanzhou, and Cai Chou immediately responded in Luzhou. The two armies attacked Yangzhou from the north and the south.

After getting this key piece of evidence, Tai Meng and Li Yu felt like they had found a treasure and immediately took it to see Yang Xingmi.

After reading the incomplete handwritten letter, Yang Xingmi was furious. As expected, Cai Chou had an affair with Tian Kai. It seemed that Tian Kai had already rebelled and had to be on guard.

Now that Cai Chou has been killed, Tian Kai will soon get the news. Will this alert the enemy and prompt Tian Kai to change his plan and launch a rebellion in advance?

This problem is very serious. Xuanzhou is the territory that Yang Xingmi just conquered. If Tian Kai takes over and rebels there, his hard work will be in vain. He cannot sit idly by and ignore Tian Kai's problem as soon as possible.

At this time, the war in Huangzhou in the west had ended. Du Hong withdrew his troops and returned to Ezhou. Huangzhou fell into the hands of Yang Xingmi, and they confronted Du Hong across the Yangtze River. There was no major war for the time being.

At this time, he could safely and boldly recall Xu Wen's black clouds to deal with Tian Kai.

Yang Xingmi sent people to Huangzhou overnight and ordered Zhu Yanshou to stay in Huangzhou. Xu Wen, Liu Wei, and Tao Ya took the main force of Heiyundu back to Luzhou to discuss with Yang Xingmi how to deal with Tian Kai's threat next.

There is no airtight wall. Cai Chou was killed, Luzhou fell, and Heiyun was urgently transferred back to Luzhou. This series of actions soon reached the ears of Tian Kai in Xuanzhou. He was indeed as Yang Xingmi expected. Not calm anymore.

Xuanzhou Tingfeng Tower is a place where Tian Kai often drinks. Whenever he is upset, he will go there to drink to drown his sorrows, and this time is no exception.

Cai Chou's murder made him panic. He was very worried that Yang Xingmi would discover his private dealings with Cai Chou, especially the letters. He didn't know whether Cai Chou had destroyed them.

The random thoughts in his mind made Tian Kai very irritable. He sat in the attic and poured himself a drink. The fine wine and food in front of him seemed to have lost its charm in an instant, and the wine was tasteless.

At this moment, his cronies, Xuan Governor Shi Luo Zhixiang and General Li Tao, walked in together.

Tian Kai asked: "Is there any news outside?"

Luo Zhixiang said: "I just received the news that Yang Xingmi ordered the killing of Cai Chou's family, and ordered Cai Chou's head to be sent to various states for public display. Each state will be displayed for three days. He left Chizhou yesterday and arrived in Xuanzhou this morning."

Li Tao added: "Yang Xingmi raided Cai Chang's house and heard that some letters were found..."

Tian Kai's hand trembled, and the wine glass in his hand almost dropped to the ground. His eyes widened: "We found the letter? Didn't Cai Chou destroy it? This is troublesome."

In Xuanzhou, Tian Kai is the de facto eldest brother, and his subordinates are accustomed to calling him eldest brother. As for the real eldest brother Yang Xingmi, they all call him by his first name, with a kind of disdain in his words.

Most of this group of people are Tian Kai's old subordinates when he was in Crouching Tiger Village, especially Luo Zhixiang and Li Tao, who are Tian Kai's staunch confidants. Back then, Tian Kai was forced to give up the position of his eldest brother in the cottage under the pressure of Dai Yougui and Tao Ya. These people were dissatisfied when they took their seats, and they have never forgotten their grudges over the years.

In the battle to eliminate Sun Ru, Tian Wei took the lead and rescued Yang Xingmi from danger many times. But later, Yang Xingmi awarded many meritorious officials, and all of them prospered. However, Tian Kai, who made the first independent contribution, did not receive a big reward. He was only given the position of Xuanzhou governor and stayed in Xuanzhou to guard it.

The reason for this was not stated explicitly by Yang Xingmi, but it can be judged from clues that Yang Xingmi was angry at Tian Kai's habit of killing prisoners, and his poor military discipline was also an important reason.

Tian Kai is the most powerful general under Yang Xingmi, but his shortcomings can also be ranked first. He relies on favors and is arrogant. He has a group of arrogant generals who rely on their military exploits to act unscrupulously. Every time they capture a city, they let it go and plunder it for three days. Three days later, Only then did he release the list to bring peace to the people.

But Tian Kai is not just messing around, he also has his own weird temper. It was his rule to destroy the city and rob it for three days, but after three days, no more plundering was allowed after the list was released to calm the people. Anyone caught violating the rule would be killed without mercy.

This has nothing to do with whether he loves the people or not. The real reason is that Tian Kai cannot tolerate his subordinates challenging his authority. I will give you three days to grab it, so you should cherish it. I won't allow you to rob on the fourth day. If you continue to rob, you are defying my military order and provoking me. If I don't kill you, I will kill whoever you want.

It was precisely because of Tian Kai's orders and prohibitions that his Crouching Tiger Camp became the most powerful force in Yang Xingmi's army at that time. As his power continued to grow, his ambitions also expanded.

The dream of the eldest brother who died young seemed to have come to life again. Yang Xingmi was wary of Tian Kai's ambition. In order to check and balance this fierce general, he specially sent Tao Ya, Tian Kai's old comrade-in-arms, to Shezhou (today's She County, Anhui Province) next to Xuanzhou as the governor.

Shezhou is a newly conquered territory and is very close to Xuanzhou. Sending Tao Ya there has two meanings:

One is to use his own people to control Shezhou and threaten Xuanzhou so that Tian Kai does not dare to act rashly;

Second, if Tian Kai dares to make any dangerous move, Tao Ya can take action quickly. This is equivalent to placing a sniper next to Tian Kai. If you dare to make any move, I will take action immediately.

The intention of Yang Xingmi's operation is too obvious. How could the cunning Tian Kai not understand that since you are playing like this, I will overturn the table and stop playing.

Of course Tian Kai will not sit still and wait for death. Now that my relationship with Cai Chou has been exposed, there is no need for me to pretend.

Tian Kai decided to speed up the pace of rebellion.