"PS: I have been spending the past two days with my parents in my hometown and playing cards with them every night. Please forgive me for the delay in updating. It's not that I really can't find time to update, but this plot is difficult to write and the author wants to write more.
line, adding a bit of suspense, so book friends, please don’t rush to update or destroy the progress, because some things really need to be explained."
————The following text————
On the sixth day of May, in the backyard of "Wang's Gambling House" in Xiangyi County.
"Hoo, ho..."
Breathing heavily, Tong Xin, the commander on the right of the Guards Department, looked at the corpses of the thieves on the ground with a look of shock and anger, with lingering fear in his heart.
"You son of a bitch!"
He kicked a corpse in front of him, which was that of Xiangyi County Wei Wanghu.
In fact, Tong Xin had considered that Wang Hu was probably a remnant of the Xiao family, but he never expected that Wang Hu would be so bold. After deceiving the group of people into the backyard of the gambling house, he immediately turned against him and tried to seduce them.
Twenty-one people were all killed.
Fortunately, the guards of the Archguard Division are all highly skilled in martial arts, and their armors and weapons are several grades better than these thieves. Otherwise, Tong Xin and his group might really be killed by this group of desperadoes.
kill.
At this point, Tong Xin's clan brother Tong Hu came to the former, lowered his head and said: "Brother, Li Zhao and Sun Yi... didn't make it through..."
Tong Xin looked around with a sullen face, and sure enough he saw two familiar guard brothers among the corpses in the courtyard.
"Father of a bitch!"
Angry in his heart, Tong Xin slashed at Wang Hu's body with the sharp sword in his hand, until the body was chopped into bloody pieces.
After more than a dozen chops in a row, Wang Hu's body was almost chopped into pieces, but Tong Xin's anger had not yet been fully vented.
Until a guard came forward to stop and persuade: "Commander, the fight we have been waiting for here must have alerted the local county government, so we cannot stay for a long time."
After hearing this, Tong Xin immediately calmed down. After all, any county town has a certain defense force. For example, in Xiangyi City, there are three to four hundred county soldiers. If he is blocked by these county soldiers, Tong Xin will be surrounded by him now.
With less than twenty guards, it is unlikely that they will be able to escape smoothly.
You know, the local county arsenal contains crossbow weapons that have been eliminated by the domestic army.
Although Tong Xin could show the imperial guards and military guards' tokens, he could not trust the local county magistrate.
After all, some of the thieves who ambushed them in the courtyard were wearing the arrest uniforms of the local government, and they were clearly officials from the local county government.
"Take Li Zhao and Sun Yi and let's go!"
Making a quick decision, Tong Xin chose to evacuate.
Sure enough, word of the fighting at Wang's Gambling House had already spread to the streets, and Tong Xin and his party were covered in blood, so that many people fled in panic on their way back to the inn where they stayed.
Under the horrified gaze of the innkeeper, Tong Xin and his party took back their horses and then rode towards the nearest west gate.
When they arrived at the west city gate, reinforcements from the county soldiers, about forty-five of them, had already appeared there.
At this time, Tong Xin no longer cared about killing innocent people. Although he understood that the vast majority of those county soldiers were innocent people, at this point, he could only forcefully fight out of the city because he could not guarantee that the local county magistrate would
Is he an accomplice of Wang Hu, or will he listen to his explanation?
To say the least, even if the local county magistrate listened to his explanation and came up with a safe way to confirm the identity of Tong Xin and his party to Daliang, I believe that the time spent in this round and round would be gone.
.
Fortunately, each of the imperial guards had war horses, and the county soldiers mainly lived for a living and were not as brave as the soldiers of the Wei army. This allowed Tong Xin and others to rush out without any danger.
city gate.
After escaping from Xiangyi County, Tong Xin and his party found a resting place in the forest outside the city. Resting was secondary, and Tong Xin's main purpose was to sort out his thoughts.
I have to say that Tong Xin felt very uncomfortable when he saw the bodies of his two companions, Li Zhao and Sun Yi, being carried by two horses.
In the melee just now, he actually had a glimpse of Wang Hu and his gang of thieves, after discovering that their group of people seemed to be wearing almost invulnerable armor under their common clothes, they greeted the faces of the guards. Guards Li Zhao and
Sun and Yi were outnumbered and were accidentally slashed in the face by the thieves. After being stabbed several times, they finally failed to survive.
This made Tong Xin extremely regretful, because the armors forged by the Internal Manufacturing Bureau actually included helmets. However, Tong Xin did not want to arouse heated discussions among the local people in Xiangyi County and let the remnants of the Xiao family notice, so
, he just hopes to keep a low profile on this trip and take Wang Hu's uniform away when he shows up.
For this reason, he also deliberately disguised himself as a ranger from out of town with his guards, and deliberately quarreled after losing money in Wang Hu's gambling house, in order to lure Wang Hu out and let Wang Hu interact with him in a secluded environment.
They negotiated so that they could subdue Wang Hu.
At first, they were successful. They not only lured Wang Hu, but also allowed Wang Hu to take them to a secluded backyard. However, what they didn't expect was that Wang Hu had already ambushed people in the backyard and dealt a cruel blow to them.
"The news has leaked."
After thinking for a moment, Tong Xin said with a gloomy expression.
His words made the nearby guards look at each other in disbelief.
You must know that these imperial guards came to Xiangyi from Daliang without telling anyone. Not to mention the Ministry of Justice, not even the inner chamber supervisors knew what they were going to do when they left Daliang. In this case, the commanding officer Tong
The letter actually said that the news was leaked?
Doesn’t this mean that there is a traitor among them?
Thinking of this, the guards looked at each other a few times, their expressions a little ugly.
They are not afraid of external enemies. No matter how many enemies there are outside, they still have considerable self-confidence. But if there are spies from the remnants of the Xiao family among them, it will be a big problem.
Seemingly noticing the actions of the guards, Tong Xin shook his head and said, "The problem is not among us."
There is basis for what he said. After all, as far as the thrilling situation just now is concerned, if there are really one or two traitors among them, then the casualties will definitely not only be the two guards, Li Zhao and Sun Yi, but maybe all of them will be killed.
I'm going to die here.
Of course, the more important reason is that the selection of imperial guards has gone through many layers of screening, and only some clan members who have been loyal to Emperor Wei for a long time are eligible to be selected.
For example, the Tong clan of the great eunuchs Tong Xian and Tong Xin, Tong Hu's two nephews, and another example is Li Zhao, the clan nephew of Li Zheng, the president of the Three Guards Army.
And since the problem is not among the guards, how did the news leak out?
Tong Xin thought with a gloomy expression. He felt that Wang Hu and others seemed to know the identity of these guards, so much so that after arriving in the backyard of the gambling house, they killed them without saying a word.
You must know that Tong Xin and others came here deliberately disguised as rangers from out of town. Logically speaking, Wang Hu and others should first mistakenly think that they were rangers who came to cause trouble on purpose.
Since the other party carried out the assassination without saying a word, it means that Wang Hu and others have already known their exact identity, and have already ambushed the assassin here and are waiting for him.
This means that before Tong Xin and others arrived in Xiangyi, Wang Hu and others had already known that they would look for him.
"...The problem lies with Dali Temple!"
Tong Xin clenched his fists expressionlessly and speculated on a possibility: because he interrogated Xi Jiang and Xu Ji in Dali Temple, the remnants of the Xiao family guessed that he would follow Xu Ji's line to find Wang Hu.
.
And this means that there are accomplices of the remnants of the Xiao family in Dali Temple!
"Go back to Dali Temple!"
Tong Xin ordered with a gloomy expression.
The guards nodded and followed the commander Tong Xin without saying a word. A day after arriving in Xiangyi, the group immediately hurried back to Daliang.
At the same time, at Zhongyang Hunting Ground, Su Wang Zhao Hongrun and his younger brother Zhao Hongxuan were enjoying hunting.
Although the prey that appeared in front of them was only a small deer, brothers Zhao Hongrun and Zhao Hongxuan both raised their crossbows.
"Xiao Xuan, please take it easy. You are not familiar with this crossbow yet. It's up to your brother and me to show you my skills."
"Brother, although you designed this thing, I don't necessarily think I will lose to you."
"Oh? What about a competition?"
"Let's compete."
The two brothers looked at each other, raised their crossbows at the same time, and aimed at the deer in the distance.
At this moment, a sharp arrow passed over the heads of the two brothers and hit the deer's belly accurately.
The deer howled and ran away with the arrow. However, Zongwei Mu Qing, who had been prepared in advance, caught up with him on horseback and knocked down the injured deer with a single strike of his sword.
"who?"
Zhao Hongrun and Zhao Hongxuan came to their senses in shock, wondering in their hearts: Who else dares to steal their brothers' prey?
However, when they looked back, they saw Oona holding her bow and looking at them both proudly.
Next to her, Princess Yulong clapped her hands and applauded Oona excitedly.
Seeing this, Zhao Hongxuan understood instantly, nudged his brother with his elbow, and laughed softly: "Sister-in-law is angry, brother, why don't you go and calm her down?"
Saying this, Zhao Hongxuan glanced at the carriage of Prince Su's Mansion that was quite close to them, intentionally or unintentionally. In the carriage, Ying'er was looking at the fleeing deer in frustration, seemingly because Zhao Hongrun failed to take the lead.
Feel sorry.
Zhao Hongrun shrugged helplessly, and then looked back at Oona, just in time to meet Oona's eye contact.
He knew the character of grassland women like Oona very well. If he lowered his eyebrows and went forward to coax him, this was certainly a way, but it was not as good as him snatching the prey from Oona's hunting bow and then taking the prey away.
The prey is given to this woman as a gift, and a few beautiful words of love are said by the way - for a prairie woman, the best way is to convince the other party with her own strength.
"Look at your brother, I can show off my skills."
Lifting up the sleeve of his right hand, Zhao Hongrun said firmly.
By chance, not long after, they encountered a wild boar.
Seeing this, Zhao Hongrun immediately loaded the crossbow arrows, and at this moment, he heard the howl of a wild boar, and Oona shot an arrow and hit the wild boar.
"Huh?" Zhao Hongrun couldn't help but be a little dumbfounded. He really didn't know that Oona's archery skills were so superb.
But think about it, Oona is a daughter of the grassland, how could she not be good at bow and horse?
"Brother, are you okay?" Zhao Hongxuan deliberately joked.
"Stop talking nonsense!" Zhao Hongrun scolded angrily: "Crossbow loading is slower than bow loading, what's there to say?"
After saying this, he turned his head and glanced at Oona, only to see Oona humming and looking at him.
Seeing this, Zhao Hongxuan joked from the side: "Brother, I advise you to apologize to sister-in-law Oona. Otherwise, you will get nothing in the whole day. How embarrassing would it be?"
"I don't believe it!" Zhao Hongrun obviously had no intention of listening to the advice.
Unfortunately, the subsequent prey was still shot first by Oona.
"Do you still want to compete? My man."
Under the instigation of Princess Yulong, Oona rode her horse to her man's side and said with some pride.
"Better!" Zhao Hongrun said through gritted teeth.
He couldn't believe that a war weapon carefully developed by the Smelting Bureau would lose to a small hunting bow.
But subsequent facts proved that in terms of hunting, the crossbow was indeed not as fast as the hunting bow. In addition, the arm crossbow was still too heavy and could not tighten the crossbow string for a long time. As a result, Zhao Hongrun was always slower than a bird when encountering prey.
Na's move.
Even though there were a few times that Zhao Hongrun was clever and kept the crossbow in a cocked state for a long time at the risk of damaging the crossbow string and misfiring, his accuracy was still much worse because his mind was disturbed by Oona.
Zhao Hongrun was so angry that he wanted to throw the arm crossbow on the ground and cursed, "What's the use of this thing!".
During this period, Zhao Hongxuan had already abandoned his brother in a very unloyal manner, because he found that by following his brother, he seemed to be the target of sister-in-law Oona's attack.
No, once he leaves his brother's side, there will be countless prey for him to use the power of his arm crossbow.
"What a wonderful treasure."
After killing a wild boar with one arrow, Zhao Hongxuan fell in love with the arm crossbow given to him by his brother Zhao Hongrun, which was in sharp contrast to his brother's attitude towards the arm crossbow.
"My husband is weak." Zongwei Mu Qing rode to Zhao Hongrun's side, teasing His Highness amidst the laughter of the Zongwei.
Zhao Hongrun licked his lips and said to Wei Jiao: "Wei Jiao, bring the sniper crossbow to me!"
Since you can't beat Oona's small hunting bow in terms of shooting speed, then you can defeat it through distance!
So, after Zhao Hongrun shot an arrow to death a bear that was deliberately attracted by the clan guards four hundred steps away, Oona was obviously stunned.
While watching these people hunting happily, Ying'er leaned against the inner wall of the carriage, looking at Zhao Hongrun with a complicated expression, and then looked at Princess Yulong with an even more complicated expression.
"I don't want "she" to see it with her own eyes... She is also your adopted daughter, why is there such a big difference? Adopted father..."
Compared to Zhao Hongrun, Ying'er cares more about Zhao Yuanli's doting on Princess Yulong.
"Que'er." Ying'er looked at her sister Que'er who was kneeling in the carriage and said softly: "It's still too late for you to regret it now..."
Que'er glanced at her sister, shook her head, and said expressionlessly: "It's the prince's order...Besides, sister alone may not be able to charm that highness."
"How dare you say that, Xiaonizi." Ying'er gritted her teeth, leaned forward, stretched out her hand to touch her sister's face, and teased: "You are not the one who is tempted, right?"
Que'er shook his head and said expressionlessly: "No, it's just that His Highness has no time to care about it and affects the prince's grand plan."
Looking at Que'er's serious look, Ying'er suddenly felt dull for some reason and said lightly: "I hope you won't regret it."
That night, Zhao Hongrun and his party chose a place in the hunting ground that was not easily attacked by wild beasts, lit a bonfire, barbecued and drank wine.
When night fell, Zhao Hongrun, his younger brother and the clan guards were half drunk and went to the carriage to rest.
In a daze, he vaguely felt two soft and hot bodies burrowing into the quilt, tightly next to him...