C243

"I am Mei Zhong. Greetings, General!" A white, fat, and kind-looking middle-aged man bowed towards Gongsun Xu with an extremely respectful attitude.

Song Xian stood by the side with his hands behind his back, looking uneasy. In the time it took to boil a cup of tea, Gao Shun and Cao Xing suddenly brought a few people to Song Xian's home. They caught Song Xian and the butler called Mei Zhong right away, and brought them to Gongsun Xu's house without stopping. Along the way, Gao Shun refused to talk to Song Xian with a cold face, to the point where Song Xian didn't even have the chance to explain himself.

Gao Shun already knew that Mi Zhu had guessed Gongsun Xu's true identity, so his expression did not change after hearing this.

Cao Xing was shocked, thinking that if even Mi Zhu's butler knew Gongsun Xu's identity, wouldn't that mean that Liu Bei knew as well? If that was truly the case, then the great master must have followed Liu Bei to the Suqian! If it wasn't for Gongsun Xu asking this question, he would have asked about this a long time ago.

"Stand up!" Gongsun Xu ordered Mei Zhong to stand up, and then asked: "Where's the letter?"

Mei Zhong extended his hand out to pull his clothes, but Gao Shun and Cao Xing quickly grabbed their weapons and glared at Mei Zhong.

Mei Zhong jumped in fright and quickly explained to Gongsun Xu: "In order to ensure that there is no mistake, I sewed the letter inside my clothes, I definitely do not have any bad intentions!"

Gongsun Xu waved his hands, signalling to Mei Zhong to quickly take out the letter.

Mei Zhong glanced at Gao Shun and Cao Xing who were still holding onto their swords, and carefully retreated two steps back. Only then did he tear open his robes and take out a letter to hold on to the top of his head.

Gao Shun took the letter and passed it to Gongsun Xu.

Gongsun Xu took a look at it, only to see that there was nothing on the envelope, it was sealed with fire paint, Mei Zhong had obviously not opened this letter while he was on his journey here. He opened the envelope and took out the letter from inside. He then started to read the letter closely by the light of the lamp.

The letter was written in a hundred or so words. It was unaddressed at the beginning and signed at the end, and all of it seemed to be ordinary pleasantries. At the end of the letter was a sentence: "Brother, please take care of my family and friends. 'Also, if you have the time recently, why don't you come to my house and join me? I'll definitely welcome you! '

Even if this letter were to fall into someone else's hands, it would be very difficult for them to understand the meaning behind it. Gongsun Xu's eyes lit up, since Mi Zhen was currently in Marquis of Ji's Mansion, he would not let Mi Zhen go back to Xuzhou easily, because if Mi Zhu wanted to meet her, she could only go to Ji County, but at this critical moment, Mi Zhu had written a letter and sent it over, it seemed that he already had the intention to rely on, and most importantly, Mi Zhu had said, 'I will definitely open the gates to the Xuzhou to welcome you!', which meant that Mi Zhu would help him open the gates to the Xuzhou! If Mi Zhu truly defected over, Gongsun Xu felt that its value was no less than a city!

The Xuzhou had three great clans, namely the Mei Family, Chen Family (Chen Deng Family) and Cao Family (Cao Bao Family). In the very beginning, the Mei Family was the weakest amongst the three great families, but after Mi Zhu took over the family, he calculated that he would be able to rise from the bottom to the top in a few years. The Mi family had surpassed the Chen Family and Cao Family in a single leap, becoming the richest family in the Xuzhou. When Liu Bei first arrived at the Xiao Pei, Mi Zhu ignored the objections of the rest of the family and decisively took out a large amount of money to help Liu Bei stand his ground. With just his own strength, he was able to smoothly take over the Xuzhou from Tao Qian, and it could be said that Mi Zhu had contributed the most to the taking over of the Xuzhou.

Coincidentally, Gongsun Xu did not have this kind of business genius with him. When he had met Mi Zhu before, he realized that although he was a merchant, his temperament was not ordinary. At that time, Gongsun Xu already had a lot of admiration for Mi Zhu. If not for the fact that Mi Fang had been personally killed by him and had been "house arrest" by him in the Marquis of Ji's Mansion, he would have long since opened his mouth to try and recruit him. But now that Mi Zhu had taken the initiative to submit, how could it not excite Gongsun Xu? But what about Mi Fang? He rubbed his forehead and lowered his head in thought.

'Ship to bridge is naturally straight! Forget about Mi Fang and Mi Zhen right now, let's rope Mi Zhu over first! Furthermore, at that time I did not even know Mi Fang's identity, and that fellow was determined to kill me, so it was well-deserved that I killed him! Even if Mi Zhu found out about Mi Fang's death later on, I would still have enough reasons to explain it to him! It's just that Mi Zhu is very loyal to Liu Bei, why would he suddenly want to rely on me? 'I must find out about this matter! '

Gongsun Xu calmed his heart down, looked at Mei Zhong and asked: "Now that Liu Xuande has led a large army out of Xuzhou, Mr. Zi Zhong must be very busy, right?"

"Busy?" Mei Zhong was startled, he then shook his head, and said with a look of anger: "Reporting to General, when Envoy Liu left the Xuzhou, he handed over the most important matter of the city to Jian Yong and Sun Qian, and had the family master still in charge of preparing the food, in a moment of anger, the family master decided to stay home to recuperate!"

Gongsun Xu suddenly realized that this was actually the main reason why Mi Zhu wanted to rely on him! Thinking about it, Mi Zhu's actions were completely normal. If he was the type of person who had worked hard for someone for so many years and still did not receive their trust and respect, he would probably choose to break all ties with them!

Mei Zhong continued, "Master said that there are some things that cannot be written in the letter. If General has any doubts, feel free to ask. This lowly one will tell you the truth!"

Gongsun Xu smiled, "Then I'll be troubling you!"

Mei Zhong quickly bowed and said, "I dare not! This is my duty! "

"How many people are there in Xuzhou City?"

"About ten thousand people, seventy percent of them are young and strong. The other thirty percent are old, weak, and handicapped."

"Only ten thousand people?" Hearing this number, Gongsun Xu immediately calmed down, even if Liu Bei planned to capture him, he could only send 4-5 thousand troops at most. This kind of force was definitely not a match for the 1000 White Horse Camp s, the only thing he needed to worry about was the general in the south side of the city, Jiang Quan!

Mei Zhong nodded his head and said, "I would not dare to lie! Xuzhou City originally had more than forty thousand troops, and Envoy Liu had brought more than thirty thousand people with him. Therefore, it is true that there are only over forty thousand people left in the city! "

Gongsun Xu glanced at the anxious Song Xian and asked: "Why are you looking for General Song Xian?"

Mei Zhong also looked at Song Xian, and looked awkward: "I came to Xiao Pei with the team that escorted the rations, so I have some friendship with General Song Xian, who received the rations, but this time I quietly went to Xiao Pei, and did not dare to directly request for an audience with General Gongsun, so I went to General Song and asked him to bring me to General Gongsun, I did not expect that."

So that's how it was! Gao Shun's tightly knitted eyebrows loosened immediately. His relationship with Song Xian was pretty good, but now that he heard that he had misunderstood Song Xian, he could finally relax after feeling guilty. He cupped his fists and bowed towards Song Xian, as an apology.

Song Xian quickly cupped his fists in return, and his tensed face finally revealed a smile.

Cao Xing was also relieved. He went up to pat Song Xian's shoulder and said in a deep voice: "I was wrong about brother just now. I hope that brother will not take offense to this large number of people.

"Brother, you didn't do anything wrong, why must you apologize?" Song Xian shook his head and laughed: "If it was me, I would definitely do the same thing!"

Cao Xing laughed, and all the awkwardness from before vanished like smoke in thin air.

Gongsun Xu said solemnly: "Since General Song's matter is only a misunderstanding, then don't ever bring this up again! There are two important things to do right now, so I hope that everyone can work together! "

Gao Shun and the rest all stood up and cupped their fists: "General, please give your instructions!"

"Firstly, send people to Feng Xianxiong to inform him of the news, and remind him to guard against Liu Bei's sudden attack. Secondly, the general in charge of the south of the city, Jiang Quan, has a high chance of being Liu Bei's man.

The moment Gongsun Xu's words fell, Cao Xing immediately said in a low voice, "General, this lowly general is willing to send a message to Master that very night!"

Gongsun Xu did not say anything, but looked at Gao Shun.

Gao Shun agreed: "General Cao is indeed the most suitable person to bow and horse skillfully, and is also able to adapt to circumstances!"

"Then it's settled!" Gongsun Xu nodded his head: "Since that's the case, then I request General Cao to bring fifty men and a hundred horses out of the city at night. Oh right, remember to quietly leave the city from the north. You must not alert too many people! "

"Here!" This lowly general will not disappoint you! " Cao Xing cupped his fists and turned to leave.

Gongsun Xu asked: "General Gao, who do you think is more suitable to capture Jiang Quan?"

Before Lv Bu left, he had sternly ordered all of them to listen to Gongsun Xu's orders. He was originally a little worried that Gongsun Xu would randomly issue orders, but he never thought that the other party would ask for his opinion on everything, and didn't casually issue orders. Just based on this alone, this General Gongsun whose name shook the northern lands was much stronger than Lv Fengxian! He cupped his fists respectfully: "General, Jiang Quan has a good relationship with General Song Xian, why don't we let General Song invite Jiang Quan out. Just say that General Song has something to discuss with him, and then we can find an opportunity to capture him."

Gongsun Xu did not immediately agree, and looked at Song Xian: "What about it, General Song?"

Song Xian cupped his fists, and said with a sonorous tone: "I obey! I hope both generals can be at ease, and that this lowly general will definitely 'invite' Jiang Quan! "

When Song Xian said the word "please", he bit his teeth. He had interacted with Jiang Quan before, but he never thought that Jiang Quan was actually Liu Bei's person.

Gongsun Xu said solemnly: "General Song, please restrain your anger, you must not alarm anyone else!"

"This lowly general understands!" Song Xian nodded and turned to leave.

Just then, a panicked shout came from outside, "Not good! "I've lost!"