After the Harvest Festival, the feudal lords from all over the world came to the royal palace one after another to bid farewell to the king of Wu. Bei Hou was the first one to say goodbye, and left the royal capital the next day to return to his fiefdom. On the day after the harvest, Duke Guang brought the nobles of Dacheng to the king's chambers to bid farewell to him.
"Father!" Gongzi Guang knelt and crawled to King Wu's side, burying his head in his knees and shedding tears. With this parting, I don't know when we will see each other next time.
"Guang'er!" King Wu stroked his son's hair, his eyes reddening. "Manage the fief well, hire and marry a concubine early, and give birth to more male grandchildren for me."
"Light knows." Gong Zi Guang hung his head low.
"Go!" With a wave of his hand, King Wu gently pushed Gong Ziguang away and got up to leave the soft couch, turning his back to Gong Ziguang.
"This is my child's farewell!" Gong Ziguang kowtowed three times at the back of the King of Wu before he stood up and led the nobles of the fiefdom to leave the royal palace to go back to the traveling hall and pack up their luggage, ready to depart early the next morning to return to Dacheng.
While Duke Guang was saying goodbye to the king of Wu, Dr. Jiang quietly entered the king's palace to meet Yi Ji.
"Ma'am! Everything is ready."
"Have the two hundred additional family soldiers arrived at the manor yet?"
Chu Chaohui refused to be used for Ripple Ji, and his and Zheng Yuming's reputation grew louder and louder in the royal capital, making Ripple Ji feel even more compelled to get rid of Gong Ziguang and his party. Originally, in order to deal with Gong Ziguang and his group of eighty-odd envoys, three hundred sturdy family soldiers were arranged to hide in the fiefdom estate of Jiang Dafu's disciples. Now because of the appearance of Chu Chao Hui and Zheng Yuming, Ripple Ji had Jiang Dafu send an additional two hundred.
"Arrived, arrived last night." Jiang Dafu's fief had privately raised three thousand elite soldiers, and selecting the best and brightest, he was ready to take Duke Guang and his party in one fell swoop.
"The Azure Mountain Envoys, not a single one of them should be spared." Ri Ji's face was no longer gentle now, but looked hideous.
"Don't worry, ma'am, five hundred against eighty, calculated against uncalculated, no one from the Ulsan Mission will live to see the day after tomorrow." Duke Jiang was confident. Gong Ziguang will leave the royal capital tomorrow morning and is expected to arrive at the ambush site in the afternoon.
When the guards at the western gate of the royal capital heard the rooster crowing to open the gate, they found their top man already in the citadel.
"Greetings, Sima." The Huben guards hurriedly came up to salute.
"Today, you are on vacation, and this place will be personally guarded by this Sima's personal soldiers." With a wave of his hand, the Western City Sima released these subordinates on vacation.
"Yes, sir!" A few Huben got a day off for nothing, and they were all happy in their hearts.
After the Seijo Sima waited for the Huben guards to leave, he had his own soldiers open the gates, and he himself sat in the citadel and stared at the building's doors, he wanted to make sure that the Ulsan-kun and his entourage went out through these gates today.
When the chickens crowed the sky in the east only brightened up, those who got up early to enter the city were farmers selling produce, and those who left the city were the dung carts that collected the night incense, all of which were sparse. Until the sun reveals the ground plane, in and out of the city gate talent more up. Ximen Sima was at the observation port of the city tower, staring at the entry and exit channels without blinking.
The sun rose, most of the residents of the royal capital city woke up and went out, people came and went in the capital city, and it started to get lively. A convoy of carriages came slowly from the city, the surrounding people saw it and started cheering, shouting 'Zheng Sheng', 'Chu Sheng', it was the convoy of the Ulsan Dacheng Mission, the four-wheeled carriages were unique to the Ulsan Mission, and the people of the Wangdu City saw the four-wheeled carriages, and knew where the convoy was from. The people of the royal capital will know where the convoy is when they see the four-wheeled carriage.
West City Sima lay on his back at the lookout port of the city tower, staring at the caravan with open eyes. Not bad, five four-wheeled carriages, not missing a single one, the number of people was about the same, and the horses were not missing, not only were they not missing, but there were also three extra steeds, which were the rewards that Chu Chaohui had won from the martial arts competition at the royal palace. Right now Chu Chao Hui was riding on a brown red horse, Zheng Yuming was riding a white horse right next to him. The other black horse was offered by Chu Chao Hui to Gong Ziguang, and this black horse was being ridden by an attendant to follow beside Gong Ziguang's carriage.
Dacheng nobles, except for Zheng Yuming and Chu Chaohui who were riding horses, all other nobles were sitting inside the four-wheeled carriage, and Xicheng Sima could vaguely see Gongziguang, who was dressed in black, through the hooded veil of the carriage window.
Xicheng Sima silently counted the number of people in his heart, the number of people on horseback and sitting in the carriage was forty to fifty, and inside the four-wheeled carriage, because of the carriage's cover, he couldn't see the silhouettes of people, but according to the calculation of passengers, it should be twenty to thirty, which roughly corresponded to the number of the mission.
Xicheng Sima code after counting the number of people, can not help but put down the heart, this team of people, out of the west gate, will embark on the road of no return. Looked at the handsome Zheng Yuming, the imposing Chu Zhaohui, Xicheng Sima think it is a pity, this pair of people, five, six hours later will become two full of arrows of the cold icy corpses, really let the heart of the feelings.
The caravan of Ulsan Dacheng slowly left the city gates and drove onto the avenue to the southwest, watched by Seokseong Sima and the people of the royal capital. Seokseong Sima couldn't see the shadow of the caravan from the city gate before he came down from the city gate, instructing his soldiers to guard the city gate, and rode his own horse to report to Dr. Kang.
One hour after Xicheng Sima left, a group of entertainers came in from outside the city, this group of entertainers had both men and women, visually there were 40 or 50 people, the entertainers seemed to be relatively wealthy, there were several horses, the horse appearance was relatively ugly, on the body of the horse hair here is less than a piece of bald there, the color of the horse body is also a mess, but the horse's appearance, although the appearance of the scruffy, but it looks very robust.
After the artists entered the city through the west gate, they didn't stay in the royal capital city, but walked through the royal capital city and went straight out of the north gate. When they left the north gate and walked to a secluded spot in the woods, a teenager was waiting there with several people driving several horse-drawn carriages.
"Si Zhong, Wei Qing didn't encounter anything with the male, did he?" The dress of the speaker was a woman, but her voice was a male voice.
"No, my lord, Wei Qing led the male already far away." The young man was none other than Huo Si Zhong.
"Let's also leave quickly, it's estimated that after four or five hours, when we can't wait for anyone, they will react." Chu Chao Hui stretched his legs, and he bent his legs again to pretend to be an old man, with big wrinkles on his face in addition to a handful of flowery white beard.
"Throw the stuff away and all get on the wagon, speed towards the northeast." Zheng Yuming smoothed down his wig and rolled over to mount a gray, scruffy horse, the gray, scruffy horse being his white horse.
Following Zheng Yuming and Chu Chaohui were Gong Ziguang's attendants and Huben. Gong Ziguang and Wei Shen, who had already led the nobles of Dacheng to follow Wei Qing disguised as a merchant, exited the royal capital through the north gate.
Hearing Zheng Yuming's command, the people did not say anything, one by one, they threw away their disguises and all got on the carriage, following the horses of Zheng Yuming, Chu Chaohui, and Huo Sizhong as they headed towards the northeast.
Forty to fifty miles southwest of the royal capital, more than five hundred men with bows and arrows were ambushed on a hillside as they waited with bated breath for their prey to appear. Three hundred of them, for the sake of this mission, had already stayed in this place for more than three months, and after today's mission was completed, they would no longer need to remain catatonic here, and could return to their master's fiefdom to collect their rewards, and would be able to revel in it for a period of time.
The sun gradually sank in the west, the avenue leading to the royal capital city was quiet, except for a few scattered traders passing through here, no large groups of people appeared. In order to prevent any omissions, Ripple Ji's secret order was to leave none of the pedestrians passing through here, and all of these traders failed to pass the hillside, and after being killed by arrows, their bodies were thrown into the grass congregation.
The sky is dark, the avenue is still missing the mission of the city of Dacheng, the head of the family soldiers are anxious, and quickly sent scouts to search in the direction of the royal capital, but the scouts have been searching to the walls of the royal capital, and have not found any traces of the mission.
The chief secretly screamed that it was not good, could it be that the legation knew that there was an ambush here and went over the mountain to bypass them? The ambush by the mountainside was no longer necessary, the chief commanded his men to search everywhere in the hope of discovering the traces of the Duke Guang's envoys, and it was fruitless until dawn. This place was very close to the royal capital, a fast horse could reach it in more than two hours, and the Huben army only needed three or four hours to get here. The head of the family soldiers did not dare to stay here for a long time, left a few scouts to guard the surveillance road, sent a fast horse to send a letter to Dr. Jiang, he himself returned to the manor with his family soldiers to hide.
Jiang Dafu received the information and was shocked and angry, the West City Secretary personally saw the Dacheng delegation out of the city, in the West Gate guarding the soldiers did not see the delegation of people return, from the capital to the ambush site, all the turnoffs are watched, Gongziguang want to change the road, the monitoring people will be immediately found, but now all the reports are no trace of the eighty people, carriages, people have disappeared. People may be able to walk into the roadside hillside and woods, the carriage can not be separated from the main road, leading to the southwest direction only must pass through the ambush site of the main road.
"Search all the villages near the avenue!" Dr. Kang thought that perhaps Gong Zi Guang was hitting the villages on both sides of the avenue.
Before Dr. Jiang's order was sent out, scouts came to report that in a village outside the royal capital, five four-wheeled carriages and a few ordinary carriages were found, and the villagers said that a group of artists had paid to leave them here, saying that they would come to pick them up later, and that the group of artists numbered about forty people. The scouts also found a bunch of footprints in the woods near the village, showing that there had been many people staying here.
Since knowing that the Harvest Festival will be a pilgrimage to the king's capital, Chu Chao Hui has made two trips to Tang, secretly sneaked into Wu from Tang, and mapped out the two roads from Tang to the king's capital in Wu, and Wei Qing also walked along the avenue to the king's capital, and silently memorized the topography on the road. Chu Chao Hui is afraid of the danger of Chaobai, saving for a rainy day, first think of a safe escape route is his instinct.
Wei Shen pretends to receive secret information, which shows that Yi Ji will send someone to murder them on their way back, so as to persuade Gong Ziguang to disguise himself and change the route. When Gong Ziguang hears that Ri Ji is up to something, he is determined to use his body as bait to catch the evidence of Ri Ji's murder.
"My lord, in these ten years, has Ripple Ji sent fewer assassins to Dacheng? Which time can we catch her?" Wei Shen wiped sweat in his heart, fortunately he didn't tell Gongzi Guang the exact location where Ri Ji sent her family soldiers to ambush.
"But is it possible to let her get away with it?" Gong Ziguang gritted his teeth, Ripple Ji never gave up on taking his life, explicitly and implicitly sent countless assassins, if it is not Wei Shen is always vigilant, Gong Ziguang early with Wei Ji and Gong Zi Ming met. Even last year that came ferocious malaria, Wei Shen suspected that it was Ripple Ji to make the detrimental trick, after all, later tortured to find out the two suspects, there is a relationship with the Wang Du.
"Even if the prince goes to the palace now to report to the great king, the great king will not believe it. As for Yi Ji, she won't be able to bounce around for long, and when the crown prince ascends to the throne in the future, there will be a prince to clean him up." Wei Shen advised bitterly.
"Let's go northeast into the Tang Kingdom and take a big boat back by sea, Gongzi can enjoy the scenery of the sea." Zheng Yuming was beside him tempting Gong Ziguang with the sea, the fiefdom where Gong Ziguang was located, to the southeast was the junction of the Yangtze River and the sea, but Gong Ziguang never had the chance to take a look at the sea.
"The ocean?"
"Not bad, all the way can also see more flavor, Gongzi status due to the fact that you can not travel around the country like Wang Jie famous scholar, this time is just the right opportunity." Zheng Yuming continued to persuade.
Chu Chao Hui's heart is slightly sour, Zheng Yuming knows Gongziguang too much.
"Not bad, you can take the opportunity to travel." Gongzi Guang's eyes glowed, the temptation to travel was very great for a young man who had been imprisoned for more than twenty years.
Gong Ziguang thought it would be a good trip to travel back to Dacheng by a big ship from Tang. However, the fact is the opposite of the wish, he and Dacheng nobles dressed as traders followed Wei Qing out of the north gate, all the way non-stop, can not stop to stay, using the merchant ultimatum to enter the Tang, but also to be careful to avoid the Huben of the Tang country of the investigation, and even got on the ship moored in a small harbor, can not get off the ship to walk around. Until Zheng Yuming and Chu Zhaohui with their convergence, the ship along the land traveling in the sea, Gong Ziguang this can be generous in the deck to walk around, but when you can walk around, but Gong Ziguang can not walk around, he lying on the cabin couch vomiting dark, even the strength to sit are not.
While the big ship carrying Gong Ziguang and his party was sailing on the sea, Jiang Dafu's men were still searching the main roads outside the west and south gates, and none of them thought of going to the north gate of the king's capital to investigate, and none of them guessed that Gong Ziguang would be walking in the opposite direction, and that he would go to the neighboring country to take a boat back to his fiefdom.
Have been waiting for Gong Ziguang from the South Port disembarked back to the city of Dacheng, Jiang Dafu did not understand the city of Dacheng mission is from the coast of the State of Wu which place on the ship, as long as the State of Wu can be moored in the place of the ship, Jiang Dafu can be sent to explore.