Gou was a member of the imperial family in the late Ming Dynasty

Chapter 455 Death of Mao Wenlong

This meeting again ended in failure. Mao Wenlong's answer and attitude completely thwarted Yuan Chonghuan's plan to defeat the enemy without fighting. Mao Wenlong's "arrogance" even left a very bad impression on Yuan Chonghuan.

After the two broke up, Yuan Chonghuan was determined to kill Mao Wenlong.

As for what Mao Wenlong said, he didn't take it to heart at all. In his opinion, the reason why the Liaodong issue could not be resolved was because of Mao Wenlong. Mao Wenlong was the general of a town in the Ming Dynasty, but in fact he was no different from a warlord. In his eyes, he regarded the entire Dongjiang Town as his private property and did not take the imperial court seriously at all.

The sayings that Dongjiang Town cannot do without Mao Wenlong and that something bad will happen if Mao Wenlong is not in Dongjiang Town are just alarmist. Mao Wenlong is just trying to exaggerate himself.

Without you, the hairy butcher, would I still eat hairy pigs? It's a joke! With so many people in the world, wouldn't it be easy to find a suitable soldier to be the general of Dongjiang Town?

What's more, once Mao Wenlong is dealt with, the lifeblood of the entire Dongjiang Town will be in my hands. If the people of Dongjiang Town want to survive, they will have to look to me for support. I control the military pay, food, weapons, and troops of Dongjiang Town. If these soldiers obey me, it will be fine. If they don't, I will directly cut off your supply. Let's see how you can survive.
If that doesn't work, don't forget that I still have a knife in my hand. I can chop at will with the imperial sword. Let's see if these soldiers are afraid of death. If they are not afraid of death, come on. Yuan Chonghuan is not incapable of killing people. If I chop off a few heads, it would be strange if the remaining ones don't obey.

Yuan Chonghuan had already regarded Dongjiang Town as his own, and even regarded Mao Wenlong as a dead man. At this time, he was already thinking about how to control Dongjiang Town after killing Mao Wenlong.

However, Yuan Chonghuan still had some concerns about killing Mao Wenlong. It's not that he didn't dare to do it, the key is that this is Mao Wenlong's territory. Mao Wenlong has 3,500 subordinates in the entire Shuangdao. With such a small number of people, he would have to think of some way to capture Mao Wenlong.

In this way, Yuan Chonghuan almost did not sleep that night, and the next day he asked someone to find Mao Wenlong and said that he had something to discuss.

Not knowing what Yuan Chonghuan was up to, Mao Wenlong agreed without giving it much thought. An hour later, Yuan Chonghuan and Mao Wenlong met again. This time, Yuan Chonghuan did not talk about anything else, but went straight to the matter of entertaining the troops. He told Mao Wenlong that in addition to discussing the matter of Dongjiang Town with Mao Wenlong, he also came to Shuangdao to entertain the troops at the behest of the court. Since he was here, no matter what the former talked about, the work of entertaining the troops had to be done, so he planned to arrange the work of entertaining the troops tomorrow, and pay the troops' wages to the defenders of Shuangdao in the name of the Governor-General of Ji-Liao.

When Mao Wenlong heard that there was silver, he suddenly became excited. Ever since his transportation was cut off by Yuan Chonghuan, Mao Wenlong had lost his income. If Mao Wenlong had not had some savings these days, Dongjiang Town would have collapsed long ago.

Now Yuan Chonghuan finally mentioned the silver and said he would represent the court to entertain the troops, which was exactly what Mao Wenlong wanted. Mao Wenlong immediately expressed his gratitude and asked how much silver there was. He also suggested that the ceremony of entertaining the troops was fine, but as for distributing the silver, Yuan Chonghuan could just give it to him directly, and there was no need to distribute it one by one.

Yuan Chonghuan expressed his opposition to this. He said that since the court had asked him to come to entertain the troops, the money must be distributed to the soldiers. This was a matter of principle and he hoped that Mao Wenlong would understand.

Mao Wenlong hesitated for a moment and felt that since Yuan Chonghuan wanted to do this, there was no need to reject it. Anyway, the silver would eventually reach the hands of his Dongjiang Town soldiers, so it didn't matter if Yuan Chonghuan distributed it, so he agreed immediately.

Yuan Chonghuan asked Mao Wenlong about the total number of his subordinates in Shuangdao. Mao Wenlong told Yuan Chonghuan the exact number and took out the list. After flipping through the list, Yuan Chonghuan nodded slightly and agreed with Mao Wenlong to assemble in Shuangdao the next day. No one should be absent. He would first inspect the military situation in Shuangdao, and then distribute them according to the list and the number of people, with three taels of silver per person to ensure that everyone had a share.

There were more than 3,500 people, and three taels per person, which was more than 10,500 taels. This was not a small amount. Mao Wenlong happily agreed. After the two of them agreed, Mao Wenlong said goodbye and left to prepare.

On the second day, Mao Wenlong asked his subordinates to gather. Because they were visiting the troops to entertain them, they did not bring any weapons with them. They lined up in an open space on the island and waited. A moment later, Yuan Chonghuan, dressed in armor and military uniform, arrived with his personal guards. He first glanced at the neatly lined up army and saw that everyone was waiting with anticipation and excitement. Mao Wenlong was personally with Yuan Chonghuan. Except for Mao Wenlong, several of his subordinates and godson were not around. At this point, Yuan Chonghuan was completely relieved.

He quietly signaled to his men, and most of Yuan Chonghuan's personal soldiers dispersed and secretly controlled the soldiers lined up in the open field without Mao Wenlong noticing. These personal soldiers were fully armed, and in addition to swords and guns, they also carried three-barreled guns and other firearms. Once there was any unusual movement, they would be able to completely suppress Mao Wenlong's unarmed subordinates.

The rest of the personal soldiers protected him on both sides and also circled Mao Wenlong. By this time Yuan Chonghuan no longer had any worries. Just when everyone thought that Yuan Chonghuan was going to announce a reward for the troops and distribute silver, something changed suddenly. Yuan Chonghuan, who was smiling the moment before, changed his expression the next moment. Suddenly, with an order, several personal soldiers rushed forward and controlled the unaware Mao Wenlong.

Then, in front of everyone's surprised and astonished eyes, Yuan Chonghuan took out the imperial sword and the seal of the governor of Ji and Liao that he had prepared long ago, and shouted at Mao Wenlong in public: "This department has talked with you sincerely for three days, thinking that it is not too late for you to turn back. Who knew that you have such wolfish ambitions, and you are always deceiving to the end. It is okay for you to disrespect this department, but the holy emperor is so brave and gifted, how can the law tolerate you?" Mao Wenlong was stunned by Yuan Chonghuan's sudden move. Before he could figure it out, he saw Yuan Chonghuan kneeling and kowtow in the direction of the capital, asking for the emperor's order, and announcing the direct arrest of Mao Wenlong.

"Unjust! I am innocent!" Mao Wenlong came to his senses and shouted that he was innocent. He said indignantly, "What crime have I, Mao Wenlong, committed?"

"What crime? Humph! You, Mao Wenlong, have been a tyrant, deceived the emperor and claimed credit, acted arrogantly and disloyal, embezzled food and money, had secret dealings with island barbarians, arbitrarily appointed and dismissed people, robbed merchants, were lustful and taught lewd things, abused Liao people, flattered Wei eunuchs, covered up defeats and claimed credit, and watched and nurtured the enemy! You have committed twelve crimes, and you must be executed for each one! Today, this department will execute you by the emperor's order, and it is not unjust to you."

"It's easy to find a pretext to accuse someone of a crime! Yuan Chonghuan! You can't kill me! I am innocent! Innocent!" Mao Wenlong saw that something was wrong and quickly shouted in defense.

At this time, everyone in Dongjiang Town was dumbfounded. Didn't they say they were going to entertain the troops? Why did they suddenly want to kill General Mao? They even asked for the imperial sword and killed Mao Wenlong by imperial order? What on earth was going on?

Seeing that Yuan Chonghuan was determined to kill Mao Wenlong, everyone pleaded with him to spare Mao Wenlong's life, but Yuan Chonghuan was not moved at all. He looked around coldly, with murderous intent all over his body.

Although his personal guards had controlled the scene, Mao Wenlong had many more people than his own. If he didn't kill Mao Wenlong now, it would be difficult to deal with him once Mao Wenlong reacted.

It would be fine if he could fool these ordinary soldiers with this action, but Mao Wenlong was not so easy to fool. Although the Imperial Sword was intimidating, the problem was that it could not kill a general of Mao Wenlong's level. You have to know that Mao Wenlong was the Left General, the General of Dongjiang Town, a first-rank military officer, and he also had the title of General Ping Liao, plus the title of Prince Taibao. If the latter title was used as an excuse, Mao Wenlong was still a first-rank civil official.

Although Yuan Chonghuan was the commander-in-chief of Ji-Liao, he was only a second-rank official, and the two sides were not directly superiors and subordinates. How could he have the qualifications to kill Mao Wenlong?
If we fail to cut the Gordian knot quickly and wait for Mao Wenlong to come to his senses and raise his arms in public, then let alone killing Mao Wenlong, there is a possibility that Mao Wenlong will turn around and kill us. Don't forget that Mao Wenlong also has the Imperial Sword. We can give him a taste of his own medicine. The same applies to killing Yuan Chonghuan for the same reason.

Yuan Chonghuan was very clear that this matter could not be delayed. He had to solve this trouble before Mao Wenlong came to his senses. He immediately gave the order without hesitation, and the three people who had been prepared, Zhao Kejiao, He Lintu, and Zhang Guobing, the flag officer, went forward.

Zhao Kejiao and He Lintu supervised the execution. Zhang Guobing took the Imperial Sword from Yuan Chonghuan and used it to chop off Mao Wenlong's head in front of everyone. Poor General Mao Wenlong, who had fought for the country in Liaodong for 33 years, made countless contributions, saved countless Liao people from dire straits, and founded Dongjiang Town, was hated by the Jian Nu people and wanted to be eliminated as soon as possible. He only had time to shout out that he was wronged. He didn't have time to think about it and lost his life in a daze.

As Mao Wenlong's head fell to the ground, the people in Dongjiang Town finally reacted and stared in amazement at Mao Wenlong's body lying on the ground.

Seeing Mao Wenlong's head fall to the ground, Yuan Chonghuan finally breathed a sigh of relief. It was really dangerous just now. If Mao Wenlong had reacted faster, the result would have been different. Fortunately, Mao Wenlong's brain was slow, and he confidently deceived people and used the imperial sword to suppress everyone, so he killed Mao Wenlong easily.

Now that Mao Wenlong is dead, all worries no longer exist. The next step is to take control of Dongjiang Town.

Seeing that everyone was still sad about Mao Wenlong's death, Yuan Chonghuan spoke a few words, warning everyone that Mao Wenlong's death was his own fault, not that he wanted to kill him, but that the national law did not allow it, and that he was beheaded with the imperial sword bestowed by the emperor.

Now that Mao Wenlong is dead, Yuan Chonghuan is magnanimous and forgiving of the past for the soldiers of Dongjiang Town. As long as they do not cause trouble or resist, he will not do anything to them. In addition, Yuan Chonghuan also had people distribute the silver that had been prepared long ago, telling them that this silver was reward money from the court and his commander, Yuan, so that everyone could rest assured in the army and not make mistakes.

Yuan Chonghuan's moves both suppressed and comforted everyone. Although everyone was indignant about Mao Wenlong's death and felt sad about his unjust death, the situation was stronger than people. If Mao Wenlong was still alive, the situation might be different, but now that Mao Wenlong was dead, the people in Dongjiang Town did not know what to do without their backbone and could only let Yuan Chonghuan manipulate them. Soon Yuan Chonghuan successfully took over Mao Wenlong's troops.

(End of this chapter)