Around Haishi, in the wing room of the Xiyuan of the Prince's Mansion, Zhang Qigong, an aide to Prince Hongyu, turned on the light and read through the "Laws of Wei". From time to time, he excerpted some of the laws that he thought were ambiguous and unreasonable one by one, and copied them into a book.
, adding his own opinions.
I don't know how long it took, but Zhang Qigong suddenly heard a knock on the door from outside the house.
"Who is it?"
While continuing to excerpt, Zhang Qigong asked casually.
As soon as he finished speaking, he heard someone outside the house reply in an urgent tone: "It's Cao Pu, a lowly official."
"Cao Pu?"
Zhang Qigong paused for a moment, then his expression turned a bit ugly.
You must know that Cao Pu was one of the guards responsible for besieging Prince Su's Mansion and placing Prince Su Zhao Hongrun under house arrest. This man appeared anxiously outside his house at such a late hour, and Zhang Qigong felt that it was wrong no matter how much he thought about it.
Putting down the brush in his hand, Zhang Qigong walked to the door and opened it.
Sure enough, outside the house, Cao Pu, the commander of the imperial guards, was standing panting and holding on to the door frame. Although the weather was still cold in the first month of the year, the former was sweating on his forehead.
After seeing Zhang Qigong, Cao Pu did not wait for the former to ask, he clasped his fists anxiously and said: "Mr. Zhang, King Su...he...he got away."
"..." Even though he had already guessed the bad news, Zhang Qigong still subconsciously raised his face and stared at Cao Pu.
It's no wonder, because the incident of "King Su Zhao Run escaping" has simply made things worse for them.
After all, a few days ago, according to the news sent by Song Jun's agents day and night, after seeing the article labeling him as "rebellious", Qing Wang Zhao Hongxin, as expected, won over him.
The nobles of a party formed
He organized a private army of tens of thousands of people, with Qing Wang Zhao Hongxin personally as the commander, and under the banner of "Chasing the rebel brother, Qing Jun side", they are slowly coming towards Daliang - this army, let's call it
It is called "King Qing's Army".
Of course, the strength of King Qing's army is very average. At best, it is at the "county army" level of Wei State. But the problem is that the threat of King Qing Zhao Hongxin does not lie in this "King Qing's army" at all, but in his party.
The other two elites were the "Suppression of Rebellion Army" under the command of Zhao Yuanzuo, the king of Southern Liang, and the "Three Northern Armies" under the command of Shangdang Shou Jiang Bi.
These two armies are both elite divisions that have made great achievements in the "First Battle of Northern Xinjiang", "Second Battle of Northern Xinjiang", and "Third Battle of Northern Xinjiang" between Wei and Han. Their strength lies entirely in "garrisoning".
"Army" level.
What's worse is that according to the reports sent to Anyi, King Huan Zhao Hongxuan has also been reorganizing the army and raising food and grass in the past few days. If nothing unexpected happens, King Huan Zhao Hongxuan's command is full of 100,000 people, but in fact there are 60,000 people.
The "Northern First Army" will probably side with King Qing Zhao Hongxin this time and send troops to attack Daliang.
What's even worse is that in the past year or so, we have to add Hanoi Shou and Yan Wang Zhao Hongjiang, who have been close to Huan Wang Zhao Hongxuan for more than a year. The latter has a "Shanyang Army" with a full strength of 30,000 and a "Nannan Army" with a full strength of 20,000.
"Yan Army", although these two armies were almost wiped out in the "Third Battle of Northern Xinjiang between Wei and Han" and the "Battle of Shanyang", after nearly two years of recuperation, these two armies have already reached their full strength.
, and restored a certain strength.
In other words, if King Qing, King Huan, and King Yan join forces to attack Daliang, these three princes can assemble an army of twenty-seven or eighty-eighth. Although the strength of the army is uneven, it is close to three hundred thousand.
How can the total military strength not make Daliang afraid?
You must know that Daliang claims to have "200,000 forbidden troops", but in fact there are only 100,000, and some of them still criticize Prince Hongyu. The number of troops that can be entrusted with important tasks is actually even smaller.
It was under this circumstance that Zhang Qigong suggested to Prince Hongyu that he would coax King Su Zhao Hongrun to Daliang by "witnessing the enthronement ceremony." A few days ago, he put King Su under house arrest and managed to take over the latter's "Yanling"
"Army", "Shangshui Army", "Youma Army", a total of 100,000 infantry and 5,000 heavy cavalry - only after obtaining these more than 100,000 elite men, in fact, did Daliang have the confidence to fight with "Three
The king's army confronted him head-on.
This upcoming fierce battle will determine whether Prince Hongyu can take back the military power in the hands of the princes, completely weaken the local areas, and completely and finally centralize power.
But just when this crucial battle was about to begin, Su Wang Zhao Hongrun escaped. How could this not make Zhang Qigong feel anxious? Although according to the news, the "Yanling Army", "Shangshui Army", and "Youma Army"
These three armies have already set off from Shangshui and are on their way to Daliang. But the premise is that after seeing the edict and the letter from King Su Zhao Run, the generals of these three armies mistakenly thought that "King Su Zhao Run chose
Support Prince Hongyu", and then he obeyed the order from Daliang. Once King Su escapes, these three armies may immediately turn against him.
There is no way, these three armies are too special: Yanling Army and Shangshui Army are both composed of Chu people who defected to Wei State Shangshui. Daliang has very low binding force on these two armies; You Ma
Although most of the army are from Wei, the leader, Ma You, was born as "Dangjun Youma" nearly twenty years ago because he was betrayed by Emperor Wei and Daliang and caused Dangjun Youma to be massacred by the Dangshan army of General Sima An.
Therefore, Ma You had a very bad impression of Daliang. Therefore, when training this cavalry, what he instilled in the soldiers was not "loyalty to the emperor and loyalty to the court", but "loyalty to the Wei Dynasty and loyalty to King Su". This led to
The imperial court's prestige in the hearts of Yuma's soldiers is extremely low.
Therefore, whether King Su Zhao Run stays in Daliang is a very critical matter for Prince Hongyu.
"How can you ask King Su to escape?!"
Zhang Qigong yelled rudely and walked out of the house, as if he wanted to visit Prince Su's Mansion in person.
Seeing this, Cao Pu, the commander of the Imperial Guard, immediately followed.
After a while, Zhang Qigong and Cao Pu, the commander of the imperial guards, rode horses and braved the cold wind at night to arrive at Prince Su's Mansion.
When he saw the group of guards looking at each other outside Prince Su's Mansion, Zhang Qigong's face turned blue with anger, and he wished he could raise his whip and throw it at the faces of these people - a total of 500 guards surrounded Prince Su's Mansion, and only the guards needed to guard them, including
How difficult is it for only eight people including Su Wang Zhao Hongrun?!
But luckily for these five hundred people, they actually made Su Wang Zhao Run and his party escape.
"What a waste!"
Zhang Qigong gritted his teeth bitterly, secretly hating that these guards had almost ruined the entire plan between Prince Hongyu and him.
But when he thought about it, Zhang Qigong felt a little strange, because he didn't see any corpses of the imperial guards along the way - could it be that the Green Crows were really so powerful that they could kill all the imperial guards without killing them?
All eight people including King Su Zhao Run and Princess Su Mi Jiang were rescued?
Thinking of this, Zhang Qigong, who had already driven his horse to the door of Prince Su's Mansion, reined in the reins and suspiciously asked Cao Pu beside him: "How did Prince Su escape? Zhang looked at the guard, and the number of guards did not seem to decrease...
…”
As if he had guessed what Zhang Qigong was thinking, Cao Pu smiled bitterly, pointed at a female official from the East Palace and four stout women who were standing on the steps of Prince Su's palace at the moment, and said: "I don't know how to explain this humble position. Mr. Zhang, please ask this woman."
Zhang Qigong glanced at Cao Pu doubtfully, got off his horse, walked up the steps in front of the mansion, and asked the question again.
The female official then told Zhang Qigong exactly what they had experienced: "... Princess Su's concubine Mi Zhao has a very powerful drug that makes anyone who hears it stand up, but the slaves are not aware of it and fall into the trap accidentally. …”
"..." Zhang Qigong was dumbfounded and could not believe it.
This is no wonder, because almost ninety-nine percent of the Wei people in Daliang, including Prince Hongyu, do not know the origin of Princess Su Mi Jiang - they only know that Mi Jiang is the eldest daughter of Chu Runan Jun Xiong Hao. Xiong Tuo, Lord of Yangcheng, regards him as his younger sister's cousin. She knows swordsmanship and has superb martial arts. However, few people know that Mi Jiang is a witch who studied in the country of Ba. Compared with her superb swordsmanship, this girl What he is best at is preparing witchcraft medicine.
Because of this, when Zhang Qigong heard the female official say that Princess Su Mi Jiang knocked her down with a crushed pill, he felt as absurd as seeing a ghost in the daytime.
But absurdity is absurd, the fact that "King Su escaped" has been put before his eyes, and Zhang Qigong can only accept this absurd explanation.
In other words, he no longer cares about how Su Wang Zhao Run and his party escaped. What he thinks about is how to quickly capture the latter.
"Mr. Zhang, what if we don't search the whole city?" Cao Pu suggested from the side.
After hearing this, Zhang Qigong looked at Cao Pu with a look of "How stupid are you?"
Are you kidding me? Are you searching for King Su Zhao Run in the whole city of Daliang? Do you think that no one knows about the fact that "the prince is under house arrest of King Su" and you want to spread it?
After shaking his head slightly, Zhang Qigong asked in a deep voice: "Is there any movement at the city gates?"
Hearing this, Cao Pu quickly said: "Reporting to Mr. Zhang, after learning that the man had escaped, I ordered more guards to guard the city gate. I haven't heard back from my subordinates yet. I think the man should still be in the city." .”
Hearing this, Zhang Qigong glanced at Cao Pu, his expression slightly brightened.
In his opinion, no matter how powerful King Su's Green Crows are, no matter how powerful the drug that Queen Su Mi Jiang intoxicates, this group of people will not be able to escape from Daliang silently - even if they escape Go, the guards on duty should also send back the news.
Since there is still no movement at several city gates so far, perhaps as Cao Pu said, King Su Zhao Run is still in Daliang.
"After all, things are not the worst..."
Zhang Qigong secretly breathed a sigh of relief.
But when he thought about it again, his expression became solemn again.
"It has been more than half an hour since King Su and his party escaped from the trap, but there is still no movement at the city gates. This is something wrong in itself... Logically speaking, King Su should have found a way out of the city immediately after escaping from the trap. There are still people in the city. Even if many Green Crows force their way out of the city gate, it is not impossible for him to do so, but there is no movement from him. Unless...he has another unknown way to get out of the city."
Thinking of this, Zhang Qigong called Cao Pu in front of him and said a few words to the latter.
Cao Pu was stunned for a moment, then nodded.
At the same time, the Su Wang Zhao Run who Zhang Qigong said was out of trouble had already quietly arrived at the "Prince Yi's Mansion" where his Sixth Prince Zhao Yuanli lived.
The reason why I came here is because Zhao Hongrun knew that there are two secret passages underground in this palace, one of which can lead to the "Tingfeng Pavilion" in the palace. It is probably the person who calls himself "Wei Youzi", I don't know who is Zhao Hongrun.
How many generations of ancestors secretly excavated it during their princely years.
When his father, Zhao Yuancai, was still King Jing, he sneaked into the palace through this secret passage and had a private meeting with Xiao Shuai.
Of course, don't count on this secret passage so far. I believe that after the incident of "the former prince Zhao Yuanqi escaped", Emperor Wei must have blocked this secret passage.
As for the other secret passage, it was dug by Zhao Hongrun's Sixth Prince Zhao Yuanli when he was young, so that the latter could sneak out of the city to play and hunt before he grew up.
According to Zhao Hongrun's guess, after his Sixth Prince agreed to Xiao Shuai's request to rescue the former crown prince Zhao Yuanni because of his soft heart, he probably secretly sent Zhao Yuanni out of the city through this secret passage and sent him to Nanyan.
Even Zhao Hongrun and his father, Zhao Yuanxi, did not know about this secret passage. Zhao Hongrun only inferred the existence of such a secret passage when his Sixth Uncle Wang told the dust-laden past events at Zhongyang Huangshou that day.
But even Zhao Hongrun didn't know where the entrance was.
Fortunately, at this time, Yawu had led dozens of Qingya people to find Zhao Hongrun. With these people on hand, finding the land would not be too difficult.
But what I didn't expect was that when Zhao Hongrun said that everyone should look for the secret passage, Zhao Que asked in confusion: "Your Highness, you don't know the entrance to the secret passage?... His Highness brought us to the palace, and the concubine returned.
I thought His Highness knew about it."
"I just speculated that there is such a thing..." At this point, Zhao Hongrun looked at Zhao Que in surprise and asked: "Quier, do you know?"
Zhao Que did not disappoint Zhao Hongrun. She nodded and said with a chuckle: "In the past, when my sister (Zhao Ying) and I went back and forth to visit my adoptive father, we would come in and out through this secret passage." After that, she led Zhao Hongrun and the others.
People came to Zhao Yuanli's study.
Seeing that there was no one else in the room, Zhao Que walked to the two bookcases in the room and pushed a book on top of the left bookcase inward. For a moment, he heard a few clicks. These two bookcases were taller than a person.
, actually slowly moved to both sides, revealing the wall behind it.
"?"
Zhao Hongrun looked at Zhao Que doubtfully.
Zhao Que smiled slightly and pushed the wall with both hands. Zhao Hongrun was shocked to see that the wall turned out to be a movable stone door. No, when Zhao Que pushed it, the green bricks on the stone door were in contact with the adjacent green bricks.
The bricks gradually separated.
Finally, a dark downward passage appeared in front of everyone.
Different from the "so awesome" expressions on other people's faces, Zhao Hongrun said in surprise: "The mechanism technique of Lu State?"
"It was not like this originally. This was changed later. For this reason, my adoptive father specially invited a good mechanical master from the Lu State to come and help." Zhao Que explained.
After a while, the Green Crows prepared torches for lighting, and the group carefully followed Zhao Que and entered the secret passage one by one.
After Zhao Que closed the stone door from inside the secret passage, he heard a faint clicking sound. After Zhao Que explained it, everyone realized that this was the sound of the two bookcases outside the secret passage reuniting.
Witnessing this incredible mechanism technique with his own eyes, Zhao Hongrun was amazed. If the timing hadn't been right, he would have really wanted to study this product of the Lu State's mechanism technique.
He had to admit that Wei State had gradually caught up with Lu State's craftsmanship in terms of military technology, but Wei State had almost no background in this magical mechanism technique.
This secret passage is very long, and the passage is made of blue bricks. Due to ventilation problems, the secret passage feels a bit stuffy, but it is bearable.
Under the leadership of Zhao Que, Zhao Hongrun and others walked in the secret passage for about half an hour, and finally arrived at the exit mentioned by Zhao Que.
When Zhao Hongrun stepped onto the steps leading to the ground and walked out of the secret passage, he realized that he was in a dilapidated debris warehouse. The dilapidated warehouse was filled with messy farm tools and wooden barrels.
According to Zhao Que's explanation, this warehouse is located among many farmlands outside Daliang City. There is a large area of farmland around it, which is the family property of Sixth Uncle Zhao Yuanli. It is only rented out to nearby people for farming all year round. As for the rent, I can only remember it.
Go and collect it, Zhao Yuanli doesn’t care about the land rent anyway.
"Your Highness, what should we do now?" Wei Jiao, the chief of Zong Wei asked.
Zhao Hongrun glanced at his group of dozens of people, and after a moment of reflection, he said in a deep voice: "Go to Xiangfu Port and grab the boat back to Shangshui!"
"yes!"
About an hour later, Zhao Hongrun and his party quietly arrived at Xiangfu Port.
Xiangfu Port was once an extremely important Cao Canal port in the Daliang area, but now that the Bolangsha River Port has gradually grown in size, the status of this river port has inevitably been slightly affected, but no matter what, the household is still berthed here.
There were many ships used for transportation. As long as Zhao Hongrun and his team sneaked into them, grabbed a ship and sailed down the river, they could reach Shangshui in less than three days. This was much faster than traveling by land on horseback.
I don’t know if it was God’s help, but there were not many guards patrolling Xiangfu Port. After the Green Crows used Mijiang’s poison to knock down three teams of patrolling guards, the group of them arrived near the port smoothly.
However, looking at the many empty ships so close, Zhao Hongrun felt inexplicably uneasy.
He couldn't help but murmured: "Something's wrong...the defense here is too weak."
Indeed, even if Xiangfu Port was replaced by Bolangsha River Port, its significance to Daliang was greatly reduced, but it was still an important transit point for Wei State's water transportation. How could it be possible that there were only a few patrol guards?
Just when Zhao Hongrun was surprised, he suddenly saw countless figures holding torches gathered around him. With the light of those torches, Zhao Hongrun could vaguely see that these were not guards stationed at Xiangfu Port, but men wearing black armor.
The Daliang Imperial Guards.
"His Royal Highness Prince Su is so cheerful. Are you still out to relax so late at night?"
Following a joke, Zhang Qigong, the aide of Prince Hongyu, walked out from the countless imperial guards, looked at Zhao Hongrun who was protected by the Zongwei and the Blue Crows a few feet away, and said with a half-smile: "Zhang,
I’ve been waiting here for a long time!”
"Zhang Qigong..."
Zhao Hongrun looked at Zhang Qigong solemnly, feeling a little surprised in his heart.
You must know that when he was in Daliang City just now, he deliberately did not try to break through the city gate, just to make the imperial guards in the city become careless and mistakenly think that he was still in the city.
Unexpectedly, Zhang Qigong actually saw through his intentions and led the imperial guards to ambush in Xiangfu Port, waiting for Zhao Hongrun to fall into his trap.
In this regard, Zhao Hongrun had to admit that Zhang Qigong's scheming and wisdom were no less than that of Jie Zizi.
"Your Highness Prince Su, it's getting late, please follow me back to Daliang." Zhang Qigong said with a smile.
After hearing this, Zhao Hongrun frowned and remained silent.
Seeing that Zhao Hongrun had no reaction, Zhang Qigong ordered in a deep voice: "All imperial guards listen to the order and put their swords into their scabbards."
Immediately, the countless guards around them put their swords back into their scabbards.
At this time, Zhang Qigong raised his hand, pointed at Zhao Hongrun and others, and said in a deep voice: "Get them."
Seeing that the guards around them had put away their swords, Wei Jiao, Ya Wu and others secretly breathed a sigh of relief, but when they saw the number of guards around them, they couldn't help but secretly complain - it was really the number of the other side.
There are too many people. Even if the opponent is bare-handed and they are holding weapons, they cannot withstand so many people.
There are at least seven or eight hundred of these guards, right?
But the matter has come to this, and we must find a way to break through no matter what.
At the very least, His Royal Highness Prince Su must be sent on board!
Thinking of this, the Zongwei and the Green Crows took the initiative to come forward, determined to force their way out.
But at this moment, several soft whizzing sounds were heard, and an unknown number of arrows came out of thin air and shot towards Zhao Hongrun and his party.
For a moment, Zhao Hongrun only felt a pain in his left chest. When he took a closer look, he discovered that there was an arrow stuck in his left chest.
"Zhang Qigong!"
Seeing this scene, the Zongwei's eyes were wide open and they roared angrily at Zhang Qigong.
However, Zhang Qigong looked confused.
"King Su... was hit by an arrow? Who? Who dares to do that?"
He glanced around with a surprised look on his face.
At this moment, an even denser rain of arrows enveloped this side, and both the Imperial Guards and the Green Crows were attacked by arrows regardless of each other.
Immediately, there was a cry of killing from far away. In just a moment, a group of people of unknown origin came towards them with weapons in hand to kill them.
"These people are...could they be Xiao Ni?!"
For a moment, Zhang Qigong felt a chill running down his spine.
"Mr. Zhang, there are so many thieves that we can't resist them anymore..."
In the distance, the shouts of Cao Pu, the commander of the imperial guards, came.
After hearing this, Zhang Qigong looked at the chaotic situation and quickly made a decision: "The Imperial Guards, resist the invading thieves and buy time for His Royal Highness Prince Su to board the ship!"
Indeed, compared to the trouble caused by Prince Su Zhao Run's escape, the death of His Highness Prince Su here would be the real disaster.
Due to Zhang Qigong's temporary change of mind, Zhao Hongrun successfully boarded a ship under the protection of Zong Wei and the Green Crows.
Watching Zhao Hongrun and others take a boat and leave along the river, Zhang Qigong's expression was really complicated.
But there was nothing he could do. He felt that this group of thieves came with the obvious purpose of "killing Su Wang Zhao Run and setting the blame on Prince Hongyu."
No, after Su Wang Zhao Hongrun and his entourage boarded the boat and slowly left along the river, this group of thieves immediately abandoned the imperial guards and chased in the direction of the boat.
"Follow me!"
Zhang Qigong shouted in a deep voice: "The thieves have crossbows in their hands, so we must hold them back!"
After that, he caught a glimpse of the body of a thief not far away from the corner of his eye, walked forward quickly, then squatted down and picked up an arrow from the ground.
That is the arrowhead of the arrow. It is the secretive three-sided arrowhead of Wei State, and the arrowhead is still very new.
After letting out a long breath, Zhang Qigong stood up slowly while holding the arrowhead in his hand, looking at the many imperial guards who were chasing into the distance with a sinking face.
"Among these people, someone conveyed news to Xiao Ni..."
He said secretly in his heart.
"Crack!"
With a ferocious look on his face, Zhang Qigong angrily broke the arrow in his hand and threw it to the ground as if to vent his anger.
He had obviously blocked King Su Zhao Run, but it was because of a group of damn rebels that he had to personally order King Su to be let go.
"The plot is on Zhang's head, huh, it would be ungentleman not to avenge this..."