In the first year of Zhaoxi, October 27th. After nightfall, in the Chengguo camp, the lights were dim and everyone was silent. In the distance, the mountain stream rushing from Feiyun Gorge into the Huaihe River was roaring. In the woods under the moonlight, there were occasional sounds.
The few low calls of night owls can make one's heart tremble with fear.
After the First World War in Ye State, more than half of the army's strength was lost, and its vitality was severely damaged. In addition, the Wei Liang in the north was eyeing the enemy. Since Yin Qujian ordered the withdrawal of troops, the once famous Green Harrier cavalry abandoned their helmets and armor and was already in ruins.
As the saying goes, when the wall falls, everyone pushes it. After Chengguo's defeat, Nanhua and other countries that had previously occupied large areas of territory also waited for the opportunity to counterattack, which became a huge hidden danger lingering in Yin Qujian's mind. Just half a month ago, Nanhua and Dunguo
The coalition forces formed even directly captured the river corridor area known as the Throat of the River, completely cutting off the last supply line that Chengguo had always relied on.
Now, the once sharp-toothed leader of the Cheng Kingdom had to recruit some of his old troops who had retreated to Huaiyou from Jade Bone Lake. Due to Wei Liang's pursuit and interception, he temporarily ordered his troops to stay in Mining after crossing Feiyun Gorge eastward.
Among the mountains along the creek.
Due to the extreme shortage of manpower, the guards on duty outside the tents of Lian Qujian have been withdrawn in recent days. Even the servants who were originally responsible for serving the king's bed and meals have been incorporated into the patrol team around the camp.
At this time, Yin Qujian was like an old mountain eagle whose feathers had been plucked, completely losing its former majesty. Later generations commented on his defeat as: "It was not courage but laziness, but it was actually due to laziness.
If one person gambles on the fate of the country with his heart, his fortune will be exhausted and his energy will decline."
After this battle, this powerful princely state that had risen from the east coast of the mainland in just a few decades failed to recover, and step by step it actually reached a state of almost national subjugation.
But at the moment, Yin Qujian still has a glimmer of hope for a comeback in the future. He ordered that no one should enter or leave within a fifty-step radius of his tent, and the lights in the tent were lit until midnight before they were extinguished. However, there was a feeling of loneliness.
Underneath, there was a dark shadow that avoided the patrolling sentries and quietly came in.
Although the lights in Chengguo's tent were all turned off, he was not sleeping deeply. In the hazy moment, he vaguely felt the wind blowing on his face from outside the tent. When he opened his eyes, he saw a few steps beside him.
A dark figure stood outside!
Yin Qujian was immediately startled and broke into a cold sweat. Under the moonlight, he saw that the other party was wearing the linen clothes of a servant in the camp, so he calmed down and reprimanded sharply:
"Don't you know that I have already gone to bed?!"
On a normal day, the grumpy Duke Cheng Guo would have drawn his sword and killed the attacker on the spot. However, at this time, he could not bear any unnecessary casualties. He just held the sword in his hand and did not step forward to attack.
The servant's face was also full of horror. He fell to his knees with a plop and kept pleading:
"Your Majesty, please forgive me! Your Majesty, please forgive me! I didn't break into the tent intentionally, but I just got a hot water towel after being ordered to do so——"
"When did I ever give such an order?"
Yin Qujian was stunned for a moment, and then he saw that the other party was indeed holding a copper pot in his hand, and he was indeed preparing to wash himself. He couldn't help but frown.
In fact, these days, the defeated Duke Cheng Guo was not worrying about military matters until late at night, but he was worried about whether he could still make it out alive from this deep mountain and old forest. Now he would not only feel the turmoil,
The grass and trees are all in a state of panic, and even the spirit has become a little trance due to the days of insomnia.
"Could it be that the Lord of the Kingdom doesn't remember? This evening, the Lord of the Kingdom specifically told the villain that a kind of wild flower that can calm the mind and aid sleep has grown on the nearby mountains, called Lingxiang, and ordered me to go collect it and boil some water for later use.
When the candles in the tent are extinguished, I will wait for you to wash them to see if they are effective."
As the servant on the opposite side spoke, he took out a copper basin from a corner of the tent and poured some water out of the copper pot. Sure enough, the steam was churning, it had just been boiled. There was still some water floating in the basin.
The petals are only the size of fingernails, exuding a faint fragrance. The steaming water vapor hits the face, making people feel drowsy.
"I've been so tired these days, I can't even remember what I said. I'd like to help you, please relax for me!"
Until now, Yin Qujian still couldn't remember when he had given such an order. It could be seen that the other party was very knowledgeable and even boiled the water and brought it over, so he no longer doubted it.
Duke Cheng Guo lowered his head and realized that he had not taken off his armor for nearly half a month, and there was already a faint smell of sourness on his body. He laughed somewhat self-deprecatingly, and finally let down his guard.
He nodded and allowed the servant opposite to get up and bathe and change clothes for him.
However, he failed to expect that that person was actually the Liusha Camp assassin who came to carry out the assassination on Qi Shouyu's orders!
A few days ago, when Yin Qujian was reorganizing the defeated soldiers he encountered on the road, this man had secretly sneaked into the camp with the help of an army uniform ripped off from a corpse. He had been lurking in the camp for many days, and not only did he
After finding out the locations of various sentry posts, I also found out the daily routine of Duke Cheng.
Seeing Yin Qujian sitting on the edge of the couch, undressing his clothes, holding his head high and closing his eyes, the assassin couldn't help but reveal a smile of certainty on his face, and then poured a basin full of boiling water on the opponent at lightning speed.
Throw it over!
The sudden severe pain caused Duke Cheng to stand up immediately and let out a heartbreaking cry. However, because he had previously issued an order not to allow anyone to disturb his rest, his cry failed to attract the attention of the guards.
Paying attention to it, I thought it was just like the previous night, the king had some kind of nightmare.
Yin Qujian was about to call out for help again, but the assassin on the opposite side gave him no chance. He pulled out the short sword from his waist and rushed forward. He immediately reached out to touch his sword on the couch, but in panic, he
I only touched the jade pillow that I used to put under my neck when sleeping!
The helpless Duke Cheng had no choice but to throw the jade pillow towards the assassin. The opponent only blocked it for a moment, and the jade pillow had already deviated from the direction and fell to the ground and shattered. Taking advantage of this opportunity, he bought a little time.
Yin Qujian finally held the sword in his hand.
However, it was not until this moment that he realized that his vision was quickly becoming blurry at a perceptible speed. The tent was already very dark, and no matter how hard he tried to open his eyes at this moment, his whole body seemed to be surrounded by a ball of ink.
When he got up, even the assassin who was close at hand turned into a blurry black shadow.
Duke Cheng Guo instinctively rubbed his burning cheeks with his hands. Unexpectedly, he heard a slight sound, like something breaking. It turned out that after being scalded with boiling water, his right cheek and eyelids had already bulged a large amount.
The blisters. After being rubbed, the blisters burst open, and a whole piece of bloody human skin fell off from his face!
As a result, Yin Qujian's right eye was completely blind. With his left eye, which was slightly better injured, he could only wave the sword back and forth in front of him, shouting: "Help, help!"
However, the knife in the assassin's hand was already stabbing at him like a storm, and he shouted fiercely in an obviously disguised voice: "The desperate struggle is in vain. By the time those losers of yours arrive, I will have already succeeded!"
"Who sent you here?"
"Anyway, you're going to die anyway. Why do you ask so clearly?"
In just a few words, Yin Qujian's sword-holding arm had several new wounds that were deep enough to show the bones. He had never seen such a sharp sword technique before, and knowing that he was no match for him, he immediately turned on his heels and wanted to attack. Flee outside the tent.
However, in the darkness, with only blurry vision, he could not tell where the entrance to the tent was, and it was even more difficult to use the long sword in his hand inside the tent. In anxiety and fear, he could only I felt that I suddenly stepped on a few brushes that rolled to the ground. I immediately became unstable and fell heavily towards the bookcase beside me!
The desk was knocked to pieces by Duke Cheng and fell to the ground. The books and volumes on it also fell down and entangled his limbs, causing him to completely lose the ability to continue resisting.
The assassin stepped forward, as if he was teasing his prey, and used his knife to cut off the ropes on the opponent's breastplate one by one, revealing the slightly yellowed undershirt underneath. Yin Qujian, whose face was covered in blood, closed his eyes tightly. He seemed to be unable to believe or face his impending death.
The assassin raised the knife and stabbed it into the left side of his chest without hesitation. Duke Cheng Guo, who was lying on the ground, let out a muffled groan in his throat, his hands and feet only trembled twice, and then there was no more movement.
Perhaps because he was afraid that the blood spurting from his heart would splash on his body, the assassin did not pull out the short knife, but just fiddled with the opponent a few times with his feet. But he never thought that just when he stood up and was about to leave, Yin Qu fell to the ground. Without any warning, Jian swung the long sword in his hand again and cut off the assassin's legs at the knee level on the spot!
There was an expression of disbelief on the assassin's face. However, it was already too late. After hearing the king's call for help, the Chengguo soldiers finally realized that something was wrong and poured in from outside the tent holding torches, surrounding the two men. .Two fists are no match for four hands. Even if the assassin's legs are not broken at this time, he can no longer escape intact.
Yin Qujian stood up with the support of his subordinates, raised his sword to the opponent's throat, and shouted sternly:
"You didn't expect that there are people in this world whose hearts are born on the right side! I should not have died like this. Please tell me honestly who ordered you to assassinate me!"
The assassin was covered in cold sweat and his face was frosty, but he spat without fear: "Bah! Kill me now if you can!"
"Do you think I don't dare?!"
Under Yin Qujian's instructions, a soldier began to feel around the assassin. After a while, he presented a dark black military iron certificate:
"The lord of the country is the Quicksand Camp of Ye Kingdom!"
"Ye Guo?"
There was a look of astonishment on Yin Qujian's face. He immediately took the iron certificate and held it up to the firelight to examine it carefully. On the dark piece of pig iron, there were eight large characters written in gold: "The flowing shadow is invisible, the white sand is white." "Without a trace" is the mysterious assassin unit of the Ye Kingdom - the Quicksand Camp, whose name has always been heard but whose true appearance has never been seen!
Yin Qujian was so angry that he stabbed the sword into the opponent's shoulder regardless of the stab wound on his body and the bleeding, and then turned the hilt of the sword to torture and extract a confession:
"Qi Shouyu is such a treacherous person, I should have thought it was him! At this time, it was the newly formed allies who stabbed me in the back!"
"So what? The confrontation between the two countries is just about you going back and forth, deceiving and exploiting each other."
Seeing that the assassin didn't care about his identity being revealed, Duke Cheng became increasingly angry. He swung his long sword and actually cut off a pair of the opponent's arms on the spot, mutilating the captive who had no power to fight back.
The cudgel cursed fiercely:
"After I return to Chengguo to recuperate, I will definitely lead my cavalry to the west again, trample every inch of the rivers and mountains in Yeguo, and kill all the living people in Yeguo!"
"Do you think you still have a chance?" The assassin lying on the ground sneered.
"Why don't you have a chance? You are the one who is going to die now, not me!"
"Do you think Liusha Ying would still carry such an important iron stipulation with him during the assassination? The reason why you found that iron stipulation is because the king hopes that you can clearly know it before you die.
In whose hands did I die?"
"Do you still have some skills that you haven't used yet, so you can continue to assassinate me?!"
Yin Qujian snorted heavily, raised his sword again, and stabbed the opponent's belly hard. But the assassin seemed not to feel the pain at all, and actually lay on the ground and laughed, still mumbling.
It's unclear what he's talking about.
The leader of the Cheng Kingdom no longer had the strength to continue arguing with the opponent. With the help of the medical officer, he sat back on the couch again. While treating the wound, he stared at the angry assassin and asked the person next to him:
"When he was about to die, what was he still talking about?!"
"Reporting to the lord of the country, he seems to be saying that the quicksand camp has never failed to kill people."
The school lieutenant who had previously found the iron sledgehammer from the assassin came forward with contempt on his face, as if these words were just an extremely funny joke to him. However, before he finished speaking, his legs suddenly softened and he suddenly
He fell to his knees with a "pop" sound. In the blink of an eye, he was foaming at the mouth and died on the spot!
"This is - poison! That piece of iron slate is actually quenched with poison!"
Seeing that the captain's lips were purple and his palms were swollen like radishes just dug out of the ground, Yin Qujian immediately reacted. He hurried back to the assassin in panic, trying to extract the truth from him
What kind of poison was quenched on the iron sledge? However, the other party was seriously injured and could not recover, and had already breathed his last.
Cheng Guogong suddenly straightened up, and then slowly collapsed to the ground, gasping for breath. A heartbreaking pain came from the stab wound on his chest, making it difficult to breathe. Soon, the poisonous attack caused
The numbness also spread quickly to his limbs and bones from the fingertips that touched the iron scorpion!
"Quickly-quickly-give it to me, search for the antidote!"
Yin Qujian used his last strength and ordered his men to search for the last hope of saving his life on the assassin. However, when the soldiers hurriedly rummaged through the blood-soaked corpse of the assassin, the poison on the iron sledge had already been
It flowed all over the body of the king and could never be saved again.
This hero, who was once only one step away from realizing his grand ambition, was in the wilderness thousands of miles away from his homeland, his eyes widened in pain, blocked by blood and vomit gushing from his mouth and nose.
The trachea and breathing are cut off.
Then, with the news that Duke Cheng Guo suddenly killed Wanzhou, his country quickly fell into chaos. Even before the Dasheng Dynasty, which had lasted for more than 1,800 years, officially came to an end, the country had almost been destroyed. The surrounding countries were divided into pieces.
Since then, the small countries of Wan, Si, Miao, and Yi were no longer surrounded by a huge hidden threat. But soon, they became increasingly sleepless and restless because of a greater threat from the north.
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