A Journey Through the Worlds of Film and Television.

In April of the fifteenth year of Changtai, the capital city finally received the news of the fall of Qiongzhou Prefecture. However, Emperor Changtai was busy with disaster relief and rebellion suppression in the Central Plains at that time, and had no time to take care of the isolated Qiongzhou Island.

After occupying Qiongzhou Prefecture, the Suzaku Hall's army cleared out the entire prefecture in less than half a month, dug out the hidden Jinyiwei spies, searched the local troops, stabilized public order, and resumed production.

At the same time, the Suzaku Hall under the Flying Eagle Gang was officially renamed the Suzaku Army, evolving from a gang force into a warlord.

In addition, the Suzaku Army established schools in Qiongzhou Prefecture, built ports, built ships, expanded the navy, and established a complete military and political leadership organization.

If people with insight see this, they will realize that this is not pirates or rebels, but the embryonic form of a political regime with a mature system.

In various parts of the Central Plains, the uprising armies formed by groups of refugees began to frequently fight with local guards. In order to establish their own achievements, the sons of the nobles of the Ming Dynasty also mobilized their troops to suppress the rebellion.

When the two sides started fighting, the Ming army soon discovered that these rebels could be roughly divided into two types:

One type is a large group of refugees who are organized, disciplined and have a certain degree of combat effectiveness. The young and strong form the army, while the old, weak, women and children are responsible for logistics. They fight all the way from north to south and never fight to the end.

The other type of rebels were more scattered, lacking a decent organization and leadership, and were equipped with farm tools such as hoes and sickles. They just burned, killed, and looted everywhere, just like a group of bandits.

The combat effectiveness of the two types of rebels is very different. One can fight the Ming army head-on and still not lose. The other can basically only use the advantage of numbers to bully the weak and fight when the wind is favorable.

After suffering some losses, the Ming army responsible for suppressing the rebellion began to avoid the important tasks and focused on attacking small groups of rebels with weak combat effectiveness. As for the large groups of rebels heading south, they were allowed to go all the way south.

As a result, the Ming army, which was already in arrears of wages and was understaffed, could only seek a sense of superiority over those small groups of rebels.

It is obvious that those large and well-trained rebel forces are guided by the Xuanwu Hall and the Qinglong Hall.

As for those small rebel forces, they were composed of bandits who originally gathered in the mountains.

When the rebels fought their way south to the Huai River, they began to split up. The old, weak, women and children were transported away by the Flying Eagle Gang's boats, while the remaining young and strong gathered together to form a stronger army and continued to fight southward.

If there were no Ming Dynasty garrison troops blocking the way, the rebels would not have taken the initiative to attack government cities.

When this uprising army arrived at the Yangtze River Basin, it had gathered 100,000 young and strong men. After fighting and training along the way, the organization, discipline and combat effectiveness of these 100,000 young and strong men were greatly improved, and they became a qualified army.

At this time, the Suzaku Army had already prepared more sophisticated weapons for this new army.

When this army crossed the Yangtze River and arrived in the south, it had undergone a reorganization and had been completely transformed. Its combat effectiveness far exceeded that of the corrupted Ming Dynasty garrison troops. The government offices and garrisons along the way avoided its sharp edge and did not dare to confront it head-on.

However, as this group of rebels moved south, the remaining rebels in the Central Plains were successively destroyed by the court. The sons of the nobles claimed that they had won the battle, recovered the lost territory, and pacified the local areas, and they had begun to wait for the court to reward them for their merits.

When Emperor Changtai learned that an uprising army of more than 100,000 people was marching southwards, away from the Central Plains, he had a bad feeling in his heart. Perhaps the people behind the uprising army were the biggest threat to the Ming Dynasty.

In May, the imperial court spent a lot of food and fodder and drew troops from all over the country, and finally managed to put down the rebellion in the Central Plains.

Immediately afterwards, Emperor Changtai ordered the Prince of Nan'an to rush south and mobilize troops from the south to pursue the fleeing rebels and recapture Qiongzhou Prefecture.

At this time, Lu Cheng also ended his home visit leave and returned to Kyoto.

Originally, Daiyu wanted to stay in Jinan Prefecture to accompany her father and show her filial piety. However, Lin Ruhai thought that Jinan Prefecture was not safe at the moment due to the turbulent situation, so he asked Daiyu to return to Kyoto with Lu Cheng and continue to stay in the Rongguo Mansion.

The unrest in the Central Plains some time ago also affected the capital, causing food prices in the capital to soar and people to panic.

Fortunately, now that the rebellion is over, public security in Kyoto has been restored and food prices are gradually returning to normal.

But after such a commotion, many people with a keen sense of smell have realized that the Ming Dynasty is about to collapse.

At the same time, the Jian Nu in Liaodong had also initially completed unification. Seeing the war in the Central Plains of the Ming Dynasty, Nurhaci also took the opportunity to develop vigorously, wanting to establish a country and become Khan as soon as possible.

However, many merchants of the Ming Dynasty were still transporting contraband such as salt and iron to Liaodong and the grasslands, contributing to the growth of the Jiannu.

On this day, in the Hall of Mental Cultivation in the Forbidden City.

After reading the intelligence in his hand, Emperor Changtai was immediately furious and threw the memorial in his hand on the table: "This is really outrageous. These noble children only know how to eat, drink and have fun on weekdays, but they actually dare to trade with foreign races privately? Do they still have the Ming Dynasty in their eyes? Order the Jinyiwei to speed up the investigation and eliminate them!"

"I accept the decree."

"Wait, isn't Lu Cheng back? That's perfect. Let him go and help the Royal Guards investigate this matter!"

Half an hour later, Lu Cheng, who had just returned to the yamen for two days, received an oral order from the emperor from the palace, asking him to assist the Jinyiwei in investigating the people behind the trade with the grassland and Liaodong.

Lu Cheng had no choice but to obey orders and rushed to the Jinyiwei Zhenfusi Yamen.

Speaking of which, Lu Cheng was a noble official who came from an imperial examination system, and it was impossible for him to have any intersection with the Embroidered Uniform Guard.

But the current Emperor Changtai doesn't care about all this. He just wants to find out as soon as possible those people in the court who are secretly collaborating with the enemy and selling out the country.

"Lord Lu, according to the intelligence we have, in recent years, merchants have often sold salt, iron, tea and other materials to foreigners through Xuanfu and Datong. These merchants should have colluded with the border garrisons, and there may be the shadow of the nobles in the court behind them..."

"I wonder how the commander intends to investigate, and how I need your cooperation?"

"I've heard that Lord Lu is very observant and can solve cases like a god. We recently found out that Shuiyue Temple in the south of the city might be the meeting place between those merchants and the nobles in the court. At the very least, there are people among them who act as matchmakers for them. I'm about to send someone to investigate, why don't you go with us, Lord Lu?"

"In this case, I will follow your instructions."

After Lu Cheng left, the Jinyiwei commander asked, "Sir, why did the emperor send Lu Cheng here? Could it be to supervise us?"

"Be careful with your words. Do you think you can figure out the emperor's intentions?"

"Yes, I know my mistake."

In fact, the Jinyiwei were the emperor's personal army and his minions, and they possessed enormous power.

However, during the reign of the Emperor, due to the increasingly fierce factional struggles in the court, two Jinyiwei commanders were involved in the struggles and were beheaded. This directly led to a significant loss of Jinyiwei's strength and its reputation was no longer as strong as before.

Although Emperor Changtai wanted to revive the Imperial Guard at the beginning of his reign, the Imperial Guard was unable to recover due to the obstruction of the retired emperor and the rejection of civil and military officials in the court.

It was not until the past two years that Emperor Changtai gradually gained power and began to reuse the Jinyiwei and strengthen its power.

However, the Jinyiwei can still monitor all officials in Kyoto. But outside Kyoto, they are unable to do so.