I formed the strongest swordsman group

Da'ao, meeting place——

The fragrant tatami, the spotless environment, the exquisite decorations, the faint smell of powder... everything is the same as before.

Ching Teng often visited the meeting place in the past.

Whenever Hegong or the female officials around him have any errands to entrust to Qingteng, they will summon Qingteng at this meeting place.

Tianzhangyuan would occasionally meet Qingdeng at the meeting place.

Returning to this familiar room after a long absence made him feel a little nostalgic.

At this moment, Qingdeng was sitting in the center of the meeting place, bowing and saluting expressionlessly.

After a while, he heard a rich middle-aged female voice floating in front of him:

"General Tachibana, please get down."

It was Gogami Nagi's voice.

Since he obtained the official title of "Sakonoe Admiral", Aoto received the honorific title of "Tachibana Admiral" after "Tachibana Aki".

Qingdeng slowly raised his head and looked straight ahead.

The first thing that caught his eye was the colorful colors.

I saw many women sitting in front of it and on its left and right sides.

Roughly speaking, there were about twenty people, ranging in age from ten to forty or fifty years old.

Right in front of Qingdeng, at the main seat of the meeting place, there was a young girl wearing an exquisite small bag, Shang Shang and Tang Yi. Her hands were folded neatly on her legs, and she looked at Qingdeng expressionlessly. Climb up and look at each other.

She is He Gong.

In terms of appearance alone, Wagoniya's appearance is not particularly outstanding.

Neither beautiful nor ugly, just ordinary.

However, because he had lived in the palace for a long time and was rarely exposed to the sun, and he had never participated in physical labor, his skin was very white and delicate.

As for the other women present, they were all personal female officials of the Imperial Palace, the stinky Sanba who Qingden hated deeply.

When Wamiyoshita married Kanto, all these bastards accompanied her to Edo.

Originally, according to the shogunate's practice, the imperial office should not bring so many servants to the palace who had married from other places.

When they arrive at Da'ao, they will naturally be equipped with experienced attendants.

When Tianzhang Academy took over the Great Olympics, they only brought a few people from Satsuma.

However, due to Wagongiya's strong request, the shogunate could only make an exception and allowed Wagongiya to bring over her entire service team when she lived in the Imperial Palace.

These bastards, like Wagongong, have the privilege of "retaining their past living habits."

Therefore, they both wore court clothes and had their hair styled in the official style.

The public respected long black and straight hair, so women in the imperial court would comb their hair back and tie it into long low ponytails. They would not wear it into elaborate hairstyles such as Shimada buns and bun buns like the women of the samurai family.

Looking at these stinky Sanba that had caused him a lot of trouble, Qingden felt his stomach twitch, and all kinds of bad memories came to his mind.

However, there is one thing to say, public-style clothing is indeed beautiful, and the complicated patterns and gorgeous colors alone are dazzling.

These beautiful clothes greatly eased the discomfort in his heart.

Qingdeng gathered his emotions for a moment, then raised his eyes, looked straight at He Gong, and said seriously:

"Your Highness, I send you my long-awaited greetings. I wish you good health."

Facing Wagoniya, Aoden naturally cannot be as casual as he was when facing Tokugawa Iemo and Tenzouin. So he began to speak solemn words that were difficult to pronounce for a long time.

Wagongiya nodded slightly to show that he had received Qingdou's greetings, then turned his head and glanced at Gogami Nagami beside him.

Mikami Nagi leaned over understandingly and put his ear to Wakami's lips.

Wagongiya whispered something to her.

Gogami listened carefully, and after the other party finished speaking, she said loudly to Qingto:

"General Ju, His Highness said: I have often heard of your activity in recent years. Thank you for your hard work."

Qingdeng responded with neither humility nor arrogance:

"Don't dare to take it seriously."

As soon as he finished speaking, Wagoniya glanced at Gogami Nagami again, and the latter leaned closer again.

When Qingdeng saw this, he secretly twitched his lips.

Another big reason why he didn't want to see He Gong was that it was too troublesome to communicate! This "message game" is too torture!

After waiting for a while, Gogami Nagami spoke again:

"Your Highness asks you: How is your Majesty lately?"

The "Your Majesty" in his mouth naturally refers to the current emperor.

——How could I possibly know!

Qingdeng had no good impression of the imperial court.

He would never step into the Imperial Palace unless necessary.

Although the imperial court has made many moves in recent years, giving people a sense of "the rise of the imperial court," if you look closely, you will find that its status has not fundamentally changed.

There are still no soldiers under the imperial court, and the emperor is still a mascot-like existence.

Qingdeng has never cared about the life and death of the "mascot", so how can he know whether he is living well now?

Miyano was the emperor's biological sister, so she probably asked this question out of concern for her brother.

Based on the simple idea of ​​"taking care of other people's brother-sister relationship", he began to rack his brains, trying to recall the rumors he had heard recently about the emperor.

It means "you have a good appetite" or "you are energetic". In short, just pick up some pleasant words.

After He Gong quietly listened, he smiled, and the tense facial lines relaxed a little.

Then she took up the "message game".

"General Tachibana, His Highness would like to ask you: How is the weather in Kyoto lately?"

Just now he was asking about the emperor's current situation, but now he started asking about the weather in Kyoto.

The jump in the question made Qingdeng startled.

Of course, he was surprised. He quickly recovered and answered truthfully:

"Back to Your Highness, since the beginning of autumn, the weather in Kyoto has become extremely cool, which is a good time for travel."

"General Tachibana, His Highness would like to ask you: Will this year's flower festival be held as scheduled? Are there many flowers in bloom this year? Are they beautiful?"

The Flower Festival is one of the three major festivals in Kyoto. It is held in the spring when flowers are in full bloom. It can be regarded as one of the grandest festivals in Kyoto.

According to legend, during the Heian period in Japan, the god of plague was instigated by the Spring Spirit to wander around the city of Kyoto, causing epidemics wherever he went.

People would sing and dance around the flower umbrellas in the streets and alleys to lure the god of plague under the flower umbrellas, and then send the umbrellas to Murasaki Ye Shrine to suppress the god of plague. This is the origin of the Flower Festival.

Nowadays, every time during the Flower Festival, in front of the main hall of Murasaki Ye Shrine, local worshipers will dress up as red-haired ghosts and black-haired ghosts and perform dances to the gods. Later, they will be joined by two other worship teams, one from Flower parades from the Ueno and Murakami areas of Kyoto parade all the way here to perform dances to the gods.

By coincidence, Qingdeng happened to be attending this year's flower festival - together with his newly married wives.

That day, he and his wives went out together for the first time, leaving many beautiful memories.

"Back to Your Highness, I happen to be lucky enough to take my wife to attend this year's flower festival. The weather this year is very good, with five winds and ten rains, so the flowers bloom particularly lush and beautiful."

After hearing this, Wagongiya immediately became energetic and impatiently moved his lips towards Gogami Nagami.

"General Tachibana, His Highness said: Please tell us in detail your specific experience when you participated in the Zhenhua Festival."

Qingden raised his eyebrows, and then looked at He Gong thoughtfully, a look of surprise appeared on his face - he had roughly guessed the purpose of He Gong's sudden summons to him.

He cleared his throat and then described it succinctly.

The bustling crowd, the fragrance of flowers that always lingers in front of the nose, the beautiful scenery like a picture scroll... With excellent eloquence, Qingdeng recreated the flower festival in words.

Wagoniya listened very carefully.

Because she was too serious, she subconsciously leaned forward and stared at Qingdeng without blinking, as if she was afraid of missing any word.

Just on her cheeks as smooth as porcelain, a faint look of nostalgia could be seen.

The female officials next to her all looked the same, listening to Qingdeng's story with rapt attention, either looking nostalgic or full of sadness.

Seeing this, Qingden confirmed his suspicion just now - as expected, Wagongiya was homesick.

Another big reason why He Gong strongly opposed marrying to Kanto was that he couldn't let go of his family and his hometown.

Once she marries into Edo, it will be difficult for her to return to Kyoto for the rest of her life... It is no exaggeration to say that she will most likely never go back to Kyoto...

Being in a distant foreign country, trapped in a fortified castle, looking at the scenery that is very different from your hometown, it is inevitable that you will feel homesick.

In this era of underdeveloped information exchange, we can only rely on word of mouth to learn about news about our hometown.

Therefore, she suddenly summoned Qingdeng, who had just returned from Kyoto, and asked him to tell them more about the current situation in Kyoto to relieve her homesickness.

As soon as Qingdeng finished speaking, He Gong asked a new question:

"General Tachibana, His Highness would like to ask you: What about this year's Gion Festival? Will this year's Gion Festival be held as scheduled?"

"Go back to Your Highness..."

…

…

This "message game" of questions and answers lasted for a long time.

After discovering that Wagongiya only summoned him because he was homesick, Aomori became more involved and serious.

No matter what He Gong asked, he would try his best to answer it.

He just hates the bad guys around He Gong, and has no ill feelings towards He Gong himself.

It would be better to say...he sympathized with Wagongiya.

She was forced to leave her hometown, marry someone she didn't want to marry, and became a victim of politics... exactly like Tianzhang Yuan back then.

At this moment, looking at the complicated expression of the girl in front of him - nostalgia, sadness, loneliness, three emotions beautifully mixed together - Qingto couldn't help but wonder: After marrying into Edo, will Tenzouin also miss his hometown? ?

He Gong at least has a normal husband who can communicate with each other, and can also learn about the current situation in his hometown through Qingden.

What was there in Tianzhang Academy back then? Regardless of whether anyone introduced her to the current situation in her hometown of Satsuma, the sight of her terminally ill husband who was unable to communicate normally was enough to make her physically and mentally exhausted.

After all, it was a question of how many times she had met the former general Tokugawa Iesada.

When Tenzouin married into Edo, Tokugawa Kesada's physical and mental condition was on the verge of collapse, and his persecution paranoia was extremely serious.

He often felt that someone was coming to kill him. Not only did he not want to eat the food cooked in the kitchen, but he also locked himself in his room all day long and saw no one except his wet nurse.

When he thought of this, Qingdeng's heart suddenly felt sentimental.

Out of this sympathy, he was happy to help He Gong.

Furthermore, Wakomiya is Tokugawa Iemo's official wife - even with this relationship alone, Aoto would not treat Wakiya badly.

Anyway, it's just a little effort and a waste of words, so just try your best to help others.

After asking several more questions, He Gong finally stopped talking.

She was silent for a moment, then turned her head and said something to Gogami.

Gogami Nagi's facial expression suddenly changed subtly.

However, she didn't say much, she just said quietly:

"General Tachibana, please stay. Everyone else will follow me and leave!"

After saying that, Gogami stood up first, folded his hands in front of him, and retreated out of the room inch by inch with the graceful steps of sticking his feet to the tatami.

Qingdeng and the other female officials present were stunned.

Judging from the expressions of the female officials, it is not difficult to see that they are very puzzled by He Gong's order.

However, just like Gogami, they would not question their master's orders to his face even if they had doubts in their hearts.

With the sound of "swish, swish, swish" the soles of their feet brushing against the tatami, the female officials filed out.

For a moment, only Qingdeng and Hegong were left in the huge meeting place.

Qingdeng looked around and saw that the room was much empty and there were no traces of the Sanba people anymore. He suddenly felt proud and proud.

Although he didn't understand why He Gong drove them away, it didn't stop Qingdeng from breathing a sigh of relief when the Sanba's left.

"...General Tachibana, thank you for your hard work."

An unfamiliar female voice... About half a second later, Qingteng realized belatedly - it was Wagong's voice!

It's funny, they have met many times and have been friends for several years, but it was not until today that Qingdeng heard Wagong's voice for the first time.

Wagongiya's voice was very soft, giving people a feeling of weakness.

This fits her appearance perfectly.

Her slender body was really frail.

"Your Highness, I dare not take it seriously."

Qingden responded in a neither humble nor arrogant manner.

"General Orange, Mr. Dashu...are you okay?"

Dashu Gong is Tokugawa Iemo.

Qingden blinked and involuntarily cast a confused look at He Gong.

——Aren’t you his wife? Do you still need to ask me this kind of question?

He Gong saw Qingdeng's confusion and smiled helplessly:

"Mr. Dashu has been busy with government affairs recently. He burns ointments every day, wears clothes every night, and eats at night. I haven't seen him for a long time, so... I can't help but feel a little worried."

As soon as he finished speaking, Wagongiya bit his red lips, raised his right hand, and covered most of his face with his wide sleeve, revealing only a pair of half-closed eyes full of shyness.

When Qingdeng saw this, he couldn't help but burst out laughing - he finally understood why the other party had to block others in advance.

It is well known that Tokugawa Iemoji and Wamiya had a very harmonious relationship.

Since their marriage, they have never had any quarrels.

What's interesting is that Wagongiya, who was always crying and grieving for his "sacrifice" before, suddenly became much quieter and no longer noisy after marrying into Edo.

Qingdeng once heard...really just heard about it! When Wakiya met Tokugawa Iemo for the first time, his handsome face and polite and generous demeanor directly made the girl's eyes flash with stars, instantly reversing the prejudice that "the general who conquered the barbarians is a strong beastman".

Qingneng rarely asked about Tokugawa Iemo's family affairs.

Now it seems that the relationship between this young couple is more friendly than he expected.

"Back to Your Highness, the General is in good health, looks very good, and exudes strong vitality."

"That's it...that's good."

Qingdeng couldn't see the change in Wagong's expression due to his sleeves covering his face, but he vaguely heard the other party let out a long sigh of relief.

"General Tachibana, as far as I know, you will lead an army of 200,000 to launch a large-scale attack on the Choshu Domain."

"I don't know the art of war, so I really can't help you. I can only wish you success and good military fortune."

"Please be sure to destroy the traitors and restore peace to the world."

"In this way, Lord Dashu, he, he...he won't have to work so hard anymore and can meet with me more..."

The further Wagoniya spoke, the weaker his voice became.

By the end of the sentence, it was almost like a mosquito humming.

All parts of her body that were not covered by her sleeves - her forehead and the tips of her ears - were stained with a conspicuous red glow.

Qingdeng secretly twitched the corner of his mouth, his expression became quite complicated - he has been eating dog food since just now...

On weekdays, he is the only one who feeds other people's dog food, but he didn't expect to be fed so much today.

Wagongiya's words continued:

"Ah, and also, please help me to tell Mr. Dashu afterwards that he must eat well and sleep well."

When Qingdeng heard this, he couldn't help but asked:

"Your Highness, you should be the one to say this to the General, right?"

When He Gong heard this, he immediately panicked and was at a loss.

"But, but I can't even see his face..."

Qingdeng smiled helplessly:

"Your Highness, please rest assured, I will come down to help you!"

…

…

Edo Castle, between breaks, upper section——

The mother and son talked passionately, unaware that time was passing quickly.

Abruptly, an announcement came from outside the door——

"My lord! General Tachibana wants to see you!"

Suddenly, Tokugawa Iemo's eyes lit up and he murmured:

"Finally here..."

Tianzhangyuan, who had no idea Qingdeng would come, was slightly startled.

"Eh? Sheng Qing is here?"

"Mother, I have a request, please agree to it."

Tokugawa Iemo looked at Tianzhangin with a solemn expression and spoke seriously.

Without waiting for the other party to respond, he continued speaking on his own:

"Next, no matter what happens or what you hear, please stay here and never leave or make any noise."

"Huh? Why?"

As she spoke, she subconsciously rolled her eyes and looked outside the room - the sound of Qingdeng's footsteps came from this direction.

"Mother, I'll explain it to you later. Anyway, I'm begging you!"

After saying this with great solemnity, Tokugawa Iemo stood up and left the room, preparing to welcome Aoto, leaving Tianzhangin sitting there with a confused look on his face.

…

…

After bidding farewell to Wagoniya, Aoto followed Tokugawa Iemo's instructions and went straight to the rest room without stopping.

The rest room is divided into the upper section (where the general sleeps) and the lower section (where the general works). The two rooms are adjacent.

As soon as Tokugawa Iemo left the upper section with his front foot, his back foot met Aoden in the lower section.

At this moment, Aoden was sitting directly in front of Tokugawa Iemo, and the two faced each other - he had no idea that Tenzou-in was in the upper section next door.

"Tachibana-kun, thank you for your hard work. Wagoniya must have asked you a lot of questions, right? After chatting with you, did she feel a little more excited?"

Qingden smiled:

"I tried my best to recreate Kyoto in words. As for whether you and Your Majesty are happy... Why don't you, Your Highness, confirm it with her yourself?"

After hearing this, Tokugawa Iemo shook his head with a wry smile.

"I do have this intention, but I really can't get away recently..."

Qingden looked back with a half-smiling look.

Later, he did not continue this topic, but changed his words:

"Your Highness, to be honest, I have been talking today. First, I told you the specific battle plan of the 'Changzhou Expedition', and then I introduced the current situation in Kyoto to His Majesty the Palace. My tongue is a little tired from talking, so I won't stop. That’s a circle—what is the ‘important thing’ you mentioned earlier?”

As soon as these words came out, Tokugawa Iemo suddenly perked up and raised the corners of his mouth slightly:

"Okay, then I'll get straight to the point!"

He paused for a moment, and after a brief moment of accumulating strength——

"Tangerine-kun, are you willing to be my father?"

It’s the end of the month again! Book lovers who have monthly tickets, please be sure to vote for this book! (Crying Leopard Head.jpg) Please vote for me! Please vote for recommendation! (Leopard head crying.jpg)

PS: The father assists his daughter-in-law, and the son works hard to bring the father and mother together. What a chaotic family (Leopard Hi.jpg)