Chapter 1245: Fulfilling the Mission

When Zhu Zhen sent Hu Rang and Wu Yin out, he saw Ping An walking around in the yard, his beard and eyebrows all white.

"You didn't go with them?" Zhu Zhen asked with a smile.

"The two princes didn't go to the lake at all. After they came out, they went to the study, reading or sleeping, so I had to come back." Ping An smiled awkwardly, "Your Highness has finished talking to them, can you talk to me alone?"

"We have been together day and night for so many days, what can't you say earlier?" Zhu Zhen asked.

"Isn't my performance not finished yet?" Ping An said.

"What performance?" He confused Zhu Zhen.

"We agreed that if I perform well, the prince will take me to the battlefield." Ping An hurriedly reminded him, and then flattered him, "Now that I have finished my performance, are you satisfied, Your Highness?"

"..." Zhu Zhen looked at Ping An with sympathy, and he was flirting with him. Last year, when he was interrogating the people in the Qi Wang Mansion and collecting evidence of Lao Qi's crimes, he learned what Ping An had experienced in the Qi Wang Mansion.

For example, Lao Qi took out a brown pill and said that it was the "Ren Zhong Huang" he personally prepared. As long as he ate it, the grudge between the two would be wiped out.

Ren Zhong Huang is human feces. In order to calm things down, Ping An made enough psychological preparations and ate one pill despite his nausea... As a result, he found that it tasted quite good in his mouth. It turned out that it was not Ren Zhong Huang at all, but something like peach cake.

Lao Qi laughed and took out another pill and said, "After all, you are my brother, can I really let you eat shit? Come, try the "Ren Zhong Huang" made by me."

Ping An took it with a wry smile, and put it into his mouth without any defense and chewed it. He immediately put on a mask of pain a hundred thousand times... It turned out that this "Ren Zhong Huang" was real.

Seeing his miserable state of vomiting, Lao Qi and his lackeys laughed so hard that they fell backwards. They also wrote a couplet for him and hung it at the door of his residence:

‘The dignified Shandong Commander-in-Chief eats the shit that the king himself poops! ’

During the days when he was under house arrest in the Qi Wang Mansion, Ping An suffered all kinds of torture from Lao Qi. It is normal to be abnormal after he comes out. If he is completely normal, it is abnormal.

~~

“Are you satisfied or not?” Ping An asked.

“Satisfied, satisfied.” Zhu Zhen nodded hurriedly.

“Then can you take me with you?” Ping An asked hopefully: “Your Majesty, you know me. I can lift a tripod and my spearmanship is invincible in the army. If you use me as a vanguard, I will be invincible.”

“Of course I believe in Brother Ping An’s ability.” Zhu Zhen laughed and nodded. This youngest adopted son of the emperor did have special skills. But according to the original history, he would have to wait until the future Jingnan battlefield to shine.

On the battlefield of Jingnan, he defeated the army led by the Prince of Yan several times, killed countless generals of Zhu Di, and nearly captured Zhu Di several times. The words "the king was very afraid" and "the Yan army was more afraid" appeared many times in history books, which was enough to prove his toughness.

But his brain was not very smart. It is said that after Zhu Di became emperor, he asked him:

'During the Jingnan Campaign, you had several opportunities to kill me, but why did you only tear my clothes and not hurt my body? '

At this time, Ping An was already a prisoner who was defeated and captured. If he wanted to survive, he should take the opportunity to say something nice, such as "Because your majesty has dragon energy, I dare not hurt you."

Or tell the truth, "Jianwen, that idiot said, don't hurt my uncle. As a minister, I can only obey orders. ’

All these could make Zhu Di put down his resentment, but he didn’t know what was wrong with him. He insisted on being a hero and said: ‘I tore your clothes not because I was afraid of you, but because I wanted to capture you alive. ’

Zhu Di laughed when he heard this. He originally felt that he owed him a favor, but now he didn’t feel that way anymore…

If he had died for his country like Tie Xuan, he wouldn’t be a hero, but he endured humiliation and lived for a few years until Zhu Di felt strange and asked why Ping Baoer didn’t die?

Ping An then committed suicide in disgrace. He turned himself from a tragic hero who would be remembered for all eternity into a joke… It can be seen that brains are really good things.

~~

Zhu Zhen estimated that Ping An had been unknown because he didn’t have much brains. It wasn’t until the end of the Hongwu period when the military generals group was purged and Jianwen really had no one to use that it was his turn to come to the fore.

This time, the Jingnan Campaign was probably gone. Ping An might never have the chance to let the world know his abilities in his lifetime.

So Zhu Zhen felt that he owed him a chance to shine, so he agreed: "Okay, I'll take you to the battlefield, but you have to wait."

"Ah, why?" Ping An asked.

"Why?" Zhu Zhen said speechlessly: "If you were a thousand households, or even a commander, I could take you to Beiping without asking for permission. But you are the commander of Shandong, how can I take you away?"

After a pause, he said: "Besides, the participating troops are all decided by the general. Now they have assembled and are in place, just waiting for military rations. This time they will definitely not be able to catch up. But I promise that I will help you get the next wave of participation, how about it?"

Ping An said with a bitter face: "How long will it take?"

"It won't take too long." Zhu Zhen said with certainty: "After eliminating Nahachu, we should aim at the Northern Yuan Dynasty. And with Nahachu's status and his close relationship with the Northern Yuan Dynasty, he may know where the Northern Yuan Emperor is."

"Really?" Ping An was excited when he heard it. If he could catch the Northern Yuan Emperor himself, he would become the first general of the younger generation!

Seeing that he believed it so easily, Zhu Zhen sighed and said: "Anyway, you should be prepared and wait for the transfer order."

"Hey, hey." Ping An was busy and had no words to respond.

~~

On the 25th day of the first lunar month, the wind stopped and the snow was light. The team continued to head north and reluctantly left the border of Shandong.

After entering Beiping, the accommodation conditions were not as good as in Shandong, but Zhang Jicai still did his best to provide all the conveniences so that the team could have firewood and shacks to live in, so they didn't have to set up tents.

For a prefect, this was already the limit of what he could do. He worked so hard, and Zhu Zhen naturally didn't want to let him down. Anyway, so many reassurance pills had been given out, and he didn't need one more...

With the good weather and rising temperatures, the team didn't suffer much and arrived at the destination in one go.

On the evening of the 27th day of the first lunar month, with the last truck of grain transported from the water gate into Tongzhou City, this "Ice Sky Operation" that crossed three provinces and traveled 4,000 miles back and forth finally came to an end.

From the 29th day of the twelfth lunar month last year, when Zhu Zhen decided to use ice trucks to transport grain, a full 29 days had passed.

If we count from the day when Xu Da asked Zhu Zhen to transport two million shi of military rations in one month, it would be thirty days, exactly one month.

"Fortunately, I have fulfilled my mission." Zhu Zhen breathed a sigh of relief.