For Song Yaozu, everything that happened that night was simply a nightmare!
He is one of Li Zehe's close guards and one of the witnesses of tonight's events.
Normally, Li Zehe treats his confidants very well, not only with adequate salary, but also with various preferential treatments and courtesy.
Take Song Yaozu himself as an example. Once, his father was seriously ill. After learning about it, Li Zehe not only asked Song Yaozu to return home with salary to take care of his father, but also gave Song Yaozu some precious medicinal materials.
From then on, Song Yaozu was grateful and loyal to Li Zehe.
If possible, Song Yaozu would be willing to serve Li Zehe for the rest of his life and repay him with his life.
But all the things that happened tonight completely shattered Song Yaozu's future plans.
Because it would be Song Yaozu's turn to stay vigil for Li Zehe later in the night, so after eating and drinking in a hurry, he returned to the camp early to sleep.
Who would have thought that not long after he fell asleep, Song Yaozu woke up early due to severe abdominal pain and nausea.
However, although Song Yaozu woke up, he was still physically weak and mentally dizzy. He could not even get up to save himself. He could only moan softly intermittently, hoping to attract the attention of his colleagues.
It's a pity that other comrades in the camp are in worse condition than Song Yaozu. Not only are all of them weak in limbs and heavy-headed like Song Yaozu, many people have begun to vomit continuously, and some people are violently convulsing.
They were too busy taking care of themselves to get up, let alone rescue Song Yaozu.
Just when Song Yaozu was gradually beginning to despair, another close guard of Li Zehe, Lu Zhen, who was responsible for keeping vigil, suddenly entered the camp. He originally wanted to find someone to take over his vigil, but he discovered the abnormal situation of Song Yaozu and others in time.
So, Lu Zhen hurried to report the news to Li Zehe.
After seeing Lu Zhen's actions, Song Yaozu's heart ignited hope again.
In Song Yaozu's opinion, as long as Li Zehe receives the news in time, he will quickly find military doctors to diagnose and treat their bodies, and the situation will get better soon.
Song Yaozu seemed to have seen the scene where Li Zehe personally came to visit them and express his concern.
With such expectations, Song Yaozu was waiting anxiously, but he was still able to keep his spirits up and tried his best to comfort his colleagues who were also in pain around him with a weak voice.
But the strange thing is that time keeps passing by. The time for a cup of tea has passed, the time for a stick of incense has passed, and the time for a quarter of an hour has passed...
Song Yaozu stared closely at the door of the camp, but neither the military doctor nor Li Zehe showed up.
Then, dazzling fire began to appear outside the tent, and Song Yaozu thought for a while that their rescuers had finally arrived.
But the next moment, Song Yaozu was shocked to find that the originally bright fire was getting more and more dazzling, and the pungent smell of smoke continued to flow into the tent...
There was a fire!
Moreover, the fire was obviously out of control!
Why didn't he wait for the military doctor and Li Zehe, but instead waited for a fire?
Seeing that the fire had spread to the tent where he lived, and the billowing smoke continued to pour into the tent, many people had been killed by the thick smoke. Song Yaozu wanted to escape from the fire, but his body could not move. He desperately wanted to shout, but
I couldn't shout at all.
Under the heavy smoke and anxious mood, Song Yaozu only felt that his internal organs were surging, and then he couldn't bear it any longer, and he immediately started to vomit violently. Both gastric juice and bile were completely vomited out in a moment.
But after such violent vomiting, a miracle happened. Song Yaozu found that his body had regained some strength.
So, Song Yaozu, under the instinct of saving his life, used his last bit of strength to crawl out of the tent with his hands and feet.
When Song Yaozu finally climbed out of the tent, the tent behind him was quickly surrounded by raging fire. Song Yaozu could even clearly hear the painful screams of his comrades as they were burned in the flames.
At this moment, Song Yaozu did not feel the joy of surviving the disaster, he just wanted to figure out some other things urgently!
Why did the fire suddenly occur? Who set the fire?
Also, where is Li Zehe? Where is the master he swore allegiance to?
Why didn't Li Zehe show up from the beginning to the end, whether he was full of despair, miserable, or about to be burned to death?
*
In this way, a fire almost burned to death all of Li Zehe's guards.
Those bodyguards who were kept by Li Zehe were undoubtedly his close confidants and confidants, and all of them were as loyal as Song Yaozu.
But now, except for a very lucky few, these people have basically been burned to death.
The raging fire that burned them to death was set by Li Zehe himself.
Therefore, there is no doubt that these people died completely at the hands of Li Zehe.
Zhao Junchen fully understood why Li Zehe did not escape with his guards. Li Zehe was afraid that if there were too many guards around him, his target would be too big and his chance of escape would be reduced.
Zhao Junchen also understood why Li Zehe did not tell the truth to his guards when he escaped. Li Zehe was worried that doing so would cause a commotion, which would in turn alert hostile forces and also reduce the chance of escape.
Zhao Junchen knew better why Li Zehe deliberately set a fire when he was escaping. He just wanted to use the fire to attract the attention of all parties and thus cover his escape.
In short, after sensing the danger, Li Zehe tried his best to escape and save his life, and did everything he could.
From beginning to end, there was only one thing that Li Zehe never considered at all: the lives of these loyal guards under his command.
If Li Zehe had paid a little more attention to the guards before escaping, even if he only sent a few warnings, those guards would not have suffered such heavy casualties.
But Li Zehe didn't do anything. He only cared about protecting himself as much as possible, so he killed the guards who were loyal to him with his own hands.
These guards did not die in the hands of their enemies, but in the hands of the masters they wanted to protect wholeheartedly, and their deaths were unclear.
On the contrary, the Liaodong cavalry who originally wanted to kill Li Zehe, the enemies whose guards were supposed to draw their swords, played the role of putting out fires and rescuing people to a certain extent.
I have to say, this is a very ironic thing.
But Zhao Junchen felt that this kind of satirical story was very suitable for a smart man like Li Zehe.
Looking at Li Zehe who was trying his best to induce vomiting, Zhao Junchen sighed first, and then a hint of sarcasm and malice appeared in his expression.
Zhao Junchen began to seriously consider how he should tell Li Zehe about this matter in order to maximize the impact on the smart people in this organization.
And after Li Zehe heard these things, how would he react when he knew that he had burned all his close guards to death with his own hands!
*
While Zhao Junchen was thinking secretly, Shi Cheng also hurried to the scene of the fire.
Seeing the mess in front of him, Shi Cheng's expression was full of shock, and he quickly called Ma Zhu to ask what happened.
Why did Li Zehe's tent suddenly catch fire?
And why after the fire, Li Zehe's bodyguards could only watch themselves being burned to death, but never took any action to save themselves?
The most important thing is, where is the missing Li Zehe now?
But Ma Zhu was also confused at this time and could not explain all the strange things.
Therefore, Ma Zhu just explained some basic situations to Shi Cheng, and then concluded: "According to statistics from his humble position, one hundred and four guards under General Li Shen were burned to death and seventy were smoked to death in the fire.
One person and twenty-three others were burned, and only nine people were safe and sound. However, these nine people are currently extremely weak, as if they were seriously ill or poisoned. Perhaps this is what they have always done.
The reason why they are unable to save themselves... But after I asked the survivors, they were all confused and unable to provide any more information!"
After Shi Cheng thought for a moment, he waved his hand and said, "Call me one of Li Zehe's surviving guards. I want to question him personally."
After hearing Shi Cheng's order, Ma Zhu quickly brought one of Li Zehe's surviving guards.
"What's your name? Tell me what you experienced today in detail. Don't miss any details!" Shi Cheng asked immediately after seeing the person coming.
The survivor who was brought before Shi Cheng by Ma Zhu was none other than Song Yaozu.
At this time, Song Yaozu, probably because he had vomited most of the toxins in his body, had regained some energy, but his image was still in a mess and his demeanor was depressed.
After hearing Shi Cheng's inquiry, Song Yaozu did not answer the question and said anxiously: "This Qianhu, please tell me where my general Li Shen is now? Is he safe? Is there any chance of a fire?
Injured? Since I escaped from the fire, I have been desperately looking for him, but I can't find him..."
As he spoke, Song Yaozu, a tall and strong man from the Northeast, was about to burst into tears.
Seeing that Song Yaozu was only thinking about his master's safety at this time, Shi Cheng felt a little fond of him. He was not angry with Song Yaozu for not answering the rhetorical question. Instead, he shook his head and explained: "I haven't found General Li at the moment, so I want to
I want to find out more information from you..."
Hearing what Shi Cheng said, Song Yaozu's expression became more and more anxious, and he said loudly: "Why... why is there no news? There must be no accident, right? If Sir General had an accident, I, as a guard, would
We can't keep him safe..."
When talking about the latter part, tears really welled up in Song Yaozu's eyes.
At this moment, someone behind Shi Cheng said: "I have received the news that Li Zehe is currently at Zhao Gechen's place... Just a quarter of an hour ago, Li Zehe ignored the previous agreement and broke into Zhao Gechen's camp without authorization to meet with Zhao Gechen.
See you!"
Shi Cheng turned around and saw Ximen Sheng, Xu Zha, Gan Cheng, and Li Shijie coming together, all with serious expressions.
Ximen Sheng nodded lightly towards Shi Cheng and said: "I have a general understanding of the situation here. Now you can come with us to see Zhao Gechen and Li Zehe to see what is going on today!"
*
At the same time, after repeated vomiting and gastric lavage, Li Zehe felt that his physical condition was much better, perhaps due to psychological reasons, and he finally felt less panic.
Later, Li Zehe came to Zhao Junchen again and thanked Zhao Junchen for saving his life.
Zhao Junchen looked at Li Zehe, his expression was half-smiling at first, but soon he sighed with regret and said slowly: "General Li, I want to tell you some unfortunate news..."
…
PS: Old readers may still remember that Chongzi once wrote a plot that asked Zhao Junchen to dump opium to the Jianzhou Jurchens and fundamentally destroy the Jianzhou Jurchens. However, due to various considerations, that plot was deleted later.
.
According to Chongzi's initial thoughts, in that plot, Zhao Junchen will eventually be backlashed because of too many calculations, and several foreshadowings have been laid.
After deleting that plot, Chongzi set up the character Li Zehe who is also calculating too much, is also egoistic, and also likes to take chestnuts from the fire. But he does not have Zhao Junchen's opportunities, nor Zhao Junchen's protagonist aura, nor Zhao Junchen's aura.
Junchen’s bottom line.
The appearance of this character is essentially because Chongzi wants to deny some of Zhao Junchen's ideas and practices.
Deceptions and conspiracies are destined to be short-lived; there is often a thin line between being smart and being smart.
Therefore, Li Zehe's fate is destined to be tragic.
