In the middle of the night, the entire camp was awakened by a panicked noise. Not long after Zhang Yanling and Tan Ruqing lay down after returning from a night outing, they were awakened by the noise. He hurriedly got out of the tent and saw Huang Si walking by the campfire.
A figure running towards me.
"Master Marquis, Master Marquis!" Huang Si was panting, his clothes and hair were disheveled, he was sweating profusely, and his face was dripping with blood. He looked extremely embarrassed.
Zhang Yanling stepped forward in surprise and asked, "What's wrong with you? You sent your wife back so quickly? What happened?"
Huang Si gasped and waved his hands and shouted: "I'm fine, Lord Marquis, there was an accident on the road."
Zhang Yanling asked in shock: "What happened? Where are the others?"
In the tent, Huang Si quickly reported what happened in a low voice.
After the quarrel in the evening, Zhang Yanling ordered Huang Si, Zhao Yuancheng and others to escort Xu Wanyi's master and servant back to the capital. At normal speed, it would actually only take more than an hour to rush back to the capital, and he could reach the capital before dark. However,
, because Xu Wanyi suffered from motion sickness, so on the way back, she told Huang Sixing to go slower to avoid suffering from motion sickness.
Because of this, after the sun set, everyone only walked a small part of the way to the official road in the west of Beijing. It was already dark. After the sky got dark, the road was even slower, and they did not dare to move quickly.
Zhao Yuancheng asked a nurse to explore the road ahead to avoid any obstacles on the road. However, not long after, the nurse rushed back nervously and reported that there was a group of people holding torches coming from a distance on the official road ahead. Unknown
Who is he?
Zhao Yuancheng was a little cautious. In the deserted mountains and wilderness, he and he had a heavy responsibility to escort the princess's master and five servants back to the capital. It was already dark, and there was no village or shop in the area. It was still more than ten miles away from the capital. How could it happen?
Don't be careful.
So Zhao Yuancheng asked Huang Si to stop the car and wait, and he followed Hu Yuan to take a look at the situation and see who was coming. However, Hu Yuan and Zhao Yuancheng looked up the small slope in front, and found that it was pitch black in front of them.
Someone came with a torch.
The nurse was also very puzzled and swore that when he walked up the official road slope just now, he saw a string of torches in front of him about a mile away. There were at least a dozen torches, and he would never be mistaken.
Although Zhao Yuancheng was doubtful, the nurse swore that he saw it. In addition, it was not just one or two torches, but more than a dozen, so the possibility of being dazzled was unlikely. Besides, he had no reason to lie.
So, Zhao Yuancheng took the nursing home to investigate in person, and then they saw people and heard the sound of digging. Down the slope in front, there were about twenty or thirty figures digging for something on the road. Zhao Yuancheng
I immediately realized something was wrong. These were not road builders. How could anyone build roads in the dark at night? They were digging pits. These people were definitely not good people.
Zhao Yuancheng secretly moved forward and heard a few words from this group of people. The leader asked them to dig the trench quickly, spread straw mats and cover it with soil. He said, "When they return to the capital tomorrow,
I'll give them a trap to catch turtles in an urn on the way.' He also said, 'This time we must do it cleanly and without leaving any clues. Everyone will be rewarded generously when it is done.'
Zhao Yuancheng listened for a while and did not dare to listen any more, because he had already determined that these people were bad guys. And they were most likely targeting the Zhang family. There were clues in their words.
Zhao Yuancheng hurried back with the nurse to report. How could Huang Si, Xu Wanyi and others not be surprised when they heard this? Although they were not sure who those people were, they were obviously bad guys. So everyone immediately turned around and walked on the road.
Walk.
However, those unidentified people actually sent more than ten riders to search along the official road. I don’t know if they were looking for a better place or they discovered the traces of everyone. With no choice, everyone could only speed up and escape. Good death
Unfortunately, because the carriage was carrying too many people, and the two horses pulling the carriage could not see the road in the dark, they rushed directly into the grass next to the official road when they turned.
The sound of the overturning carriage seemed to alert those people. Not only did they speed up the chase, but some also called others to search.
In desperation, Zhao Yuancheng decided to ask Huang Si to ride back quickly to report to the Marquis. He and the two guards led Master Xu Wanyi and several servants to find a place to hide in the mountains. The only way to hide was to avoid being discovered.
, it is possible to evade arrest. After all, it is pitch dark in the mountains and wilderness. If you just find a cat in a ravine or bush, it will still take time to search for it.
Naturally, Huang Si did not dare to delay, so he got on his horse and hurried back. Because he was going in such a hurry, he fell off the horse and fell down. The injury on his face was the skin scratched when he fell.
Zhang Yanling frowned after hearing Huang Si's report. Based on what Huang Si said, it can basically be judged that the group of people is definitely not a good person. The trenches dug on the road were obviously used as roadblocks to prevent cars and horses from passing by. This
If someone does this in a sneaky way while it's dark, it's only natural that they have bad intentions and do bad things.
As for who it is aimed at, it cannot be completely determined at the moment. After all, this official road leads to the Western Mountains and runs through Taihang, and there are also many merchants carrying goods. It is difficult to say whether it is aimed at themselves or the goods of those merchants.
However, Zhang Yanling felt that if a strongman wanted to hijack the goods of merchants, he could choose to do it in the official road of Xishan Mountain. The mountains are high and the forests are dense, so he can hide without a trace. There is no need to do it outside the mountain, only a dozen miles away from the capital. This is not
In line with common sense.
More importantly, we have not heard of bandits gathering and running rampant in the area along the highway in Xishan, Gyeonggi Province. Xishan is a place where the princes and nobles of the capital often come to hunt and play, and the security in this area is still very good.
Therefore, it is hard to say what the purpose of this group of people is. Maybe they are really targeting the Zhang family.
But no matter what, the current situation is urgent. Zhao Yuancheng, two nurses, and the five princess servants are now in a dangerous situation. It has been almost two hours since the incident happened, and I don’t know what will happen.
So reinforcements need to be rushed immediately.
Zhang Yanling didn't have time to explain too much, so she asked Ma Quan to quickly gather the servants, briefly explained the situation to Tan Ruqing, and asked her to take the others back to Zhaojiazhuang immediately to wait for his return.
Tan Ruqing was naturally very worried, but he also knew that Xu Wanyi was in danger and had to be rescued quickly. He had to tell Zhang Yanling to be careful. With nervousness and worry, he watched Zhang Yanling and his party quickly descended the Wild Dog Ridge and disappeared into the darkness.
middle.
The group of people rode three horses and drove two carts quickly up the official road and galloped towards the capital. Regardless of whether it was dark or not, they kept beating the horses to make them go faster.
Fortunately, there was still some waning moon and starlight in the second half of the night, so it wasn't too dark, so there was no accident.
After leaving the official road on the north side of Zhaojiazhuang and running towards the capital for about twenty miles, we approached the area where Huang Si mentioned the accident. After the car drove up a gentle slope on the official road, there were dots of trees in the mountains ahead.
The torches flickered, moving slowly like will-o'-the-wisps scattered in the dark wilderness.