Chapter 163: Trying to cover up the obvious
Later, when the country was unified, the imperial court was very averse to the nobles and officials recruiting retainers, so those aristocratic families began to raise assassins.
Most of these assassins were young orphans selected from among the refugees and trained from childhood.
In other words, the assassins were all illegal residents, and no clues could be found if their identities were checked.
"How many assassins are there?" Zhao Xing asked.
"There are three hundred people in total, disguised as a caravan and archers lying in ambush in the farmland." Gu Tingye replied.
Zhao Xing did not ask whether anyone had escaped. They were all death warriors. Whether they succeeded or not, they would all die.
If these assassins escape, it will only give people the opportunity to track them down.
"Cao Mian!"
"Chen is here!"
"I will settle with you for your crimes later. Now take your men to Yangwu County as quickly as possible and capture the county magistrate and his family." Zhao Xing ordered.
The identity of the assassin must be investigated. Even if they are dead men, there are still traces of the weapons and bows and arrows they use.
However, all these take time. In this case, Zhao Xing is prepared to adopt Wang Anshi's suggestion and let the person who sent the assassin relax his vigilance.
If the person behind the scenes cannot be found out, Zhao Xing will never be able to sleep or eat well.
"Your Highness, if I leave, your safety..."
"Don't worry about my safety!" Zhao Xing waved his hand to interrupt Cao Qin and said, "Just do as I say."
Zhao Xing also wondered if the assassin had any other tricks up his sleeve, but after thinking about it carefully, it seemed almost impossible.
This is Kaifeng Prefecture. Hiding three hundred assassins in this place to assassinate the crown prince is simply a fantasy.
"But…"
"Why can't I order you around?" Zhao Xing interrupted Cao Qin again.
"Yes!" Cao Qin didn't dare to say anything else after hearing that. He stood up, bowed, and hurried away.
"Pack up and continue to head towards Yangwu County," Zhao Xing ordered.
"Your Highness, the situation is unclear now. Why don't you return to Bian Jing first?" Gu Tingye said.
"No need. Three hundred assassins should be all the death warriors the person behind the scenes can mobilize. There will be no danger next. Moreover, this place is not far from Yangwu County. If we turn around, we can't reach other counties before dark. It's even more dangerous in the wild." Zhao Xing said.
"Yes!"
Gu Tingye thought about it carefully and realized that this was indeed the case.
Assassinating the prince is a capital crime punishable by the death of nine generations of the clan. In order to be absolutely sure, all the assassins in his hands will definitely be sent out.
Even if there is, it is not safe to spend the night in the wild as the enemy is in the dark and we are in the light.
Gu Tingye ordered the soldiers to remove the arrows from the carriages and collect the bodies of the dead soldiers.
It took half an hour to finish all this. When we set off again, there was already sunset in the sky.
"Jiefu, who do you think wants to kill me?" Zhao Xing asked.
"Your Highness should have some guesses in your mind, right?" Wang Anshi said with a smile.
"I can only have a general direction, but I can't be sure who did it." Zhao Xing said.
"What a coincidence. I also have the general idea. It seems that your Highness and I have the same idea." Wang Anshi said.
"Since you don't want to say it, I won't force you." Zhao Xing shook his head.
"Thank you, Your Highness!"
It’s not that Wang Anshi didn’t want to say it, it’s that he couldn’t say it.
When the crown prince was assassinated, the biggest suspect was naturally another prince.
The current emperor has only one son, so this possibility naturally does not exist.
But since the emperor had only one son, Zhao Xing, the suspicion of the royal family became greater.
The official is already in his early fifties, and it is almost impossible for him to have any more children.
If Zhao Xing died, the emperor would have no choice but to adopt a member of the royal family.
Therefore, the people with the greatest suspicion are those who have the greatest chance of inheriting the throne after Zhao Xing's death.
Of course, it is not ruled out that it was because Zhao Xing ordered the measurement of land.
But the possibility of this is so small that it is almost impossible.
After all, Zhao Xing ordered a survey of the land, but he has not yet said how to punish those who hide the land.
In this situation, who would be crazy enough to assassinate the prince?
What's more, the identity of a man who can provide 300 death warriors cannot be simple.
Since it involved the royal family, Wang Anshi didn't dare to say much.
Zhao Xing actually thought of this, but he was not quite sure.
When he asked Wang Anshi, he felt that he was almost right.
Among the royal family, the most suspicious ones are Prince Yong and Prince Yan.
In the original drama, the emperor was wavering between the two and finally chose Prince Yong.
These two people are also the two people in the royal family who are closest to the official bloodline.
In his heart, Zhao Xing was more inclined to favor Prince Yan, after all, he was the one who dared to rebel.
It is not impossible that Prince Yan assassinated the crown prince for the throne.
But these are just speculations, and we need evidence.
…………
For Zhao Xing's safety, Cao Qin did not dare to bring too many people and only took more than ten people to Yangwu County first.
After leaving for a while, he sent two more people to take a detour to avoid Zhao Xing behind him and go to Bianjing to report the news of the prince's assassination to the government. Then he took the rest of the people and rushed to Yangwu County.
When they were almost reaching Yangwu County, they met a yamen runner riding a horse, and Cao Qin had the runner stopped.
After revealing his identity and asking some questions, Cao Qin's face changed drastically.
The family of Yangwu County Magistrate Zhang Xiuting was poisoned.
This yamen runner was sent by the county magistrate to Bian Jing to report the news.
Cao Qin sent someone to find Zhao Xing to report the news, while he himself went to Yangwu County.
…………“Greetings, Your Highness!”
Zhao Xing got off the carriage and walked straight into the county government office without saying a word.
The officials of Yangwu County looked at each other, not knowing whether to follow in.
"Commander Cao, look at us now..." Shi Jingbo looked at Cao Mian.
"Just wait." Cao Mian said.
"Oh." Shi Jingbo raised his hand to wipe the sweat from his forehead, looking distressed.
He didn't know yet that Zhao Xing had been assassinated, and only thought it was because of the death of Zhang Xiuting's family.
After waiting for a while, Sanshui came over and asked them to go to the lobby of the county government.
The group hurried to the lobby of the county government office and bowed, saying, "Greetings to His Royal Highness the Crown Prince."
Zhao Xing looked at Shi Jingbo expressionlessly and said, "Tell me about the county magistrate's family."
"Yes!" Shi Jingbo recounted the circumstances of the murder of the county magistrate's family.
Zhang Xiuting, the magistrate of Yangwu County, was a filial son and would often go to have meals with his elderly mother.
At noon today, Zhang Xiuting's family was having lunch in their old mother's yard. It turned out that the food was poisoned. Except for a few concubines who were not qualified to attend, all the family members were poisoned to death.
"Have you found anything?" Zhao Xing asked.
"I have already asked people to bring back all the servants of the Zhang family for interrogation, but no clues have been found yet," said Shi Jingbo.
Zhao Xing hesitated for a while and said, "Everyone go down and find the murderer as soon as possible."
"Yes!" Shi Jingbo breathed a sigh of relief. He thought that His Royal Highness the Crown Prince would be angry, but he didn't expect it to be so easy.
"What do you think, Jiefu?" Zhao Xing asked.
He didn't care about Zhang Xiuting's death, but the timing of his death was a bit too coincidental.
"The more you try to cover up, the more obvious it becomes." Wang Anshi said succinctly.
"Yes, this is just an attempt to cover up something, but it only makes it more obvious." Zhao Xing sneered, "But this also reveals a lot of clues."
He was assassinated in Yangwu County, and the county magistrate Zhang Xiuting was responsible no matter what. However, his entire family was poisoned and there was no clue. It seemed as if they committed suicide out of fear of punishment.
But in fact, it is full of loopholes. If it is really related to Zhang Xiuting, assassinating the prince is a serious crime punishable by the extermination of nine generations of the family, so they might make the worst plan.
Even if he knew he couldn't escape, he should have sent an offspring away in advance to preserve his bloodline.
However, all of Zhang Xiuting's family members were poisoned to death.
The purpose of doing this is probably not to make it look like the person committed suicide out of fear of crime, but to create the illusion of murder to silence the witness and mislead the direction of the investigation.
Through this series of events, Zhao Xing came to the conclusion that this assassination was both long-planned and impromptu.
The reason for saying this is that it is impossible that those 300 assassins were trained near Bian Jing.
The person behind the scenes had already gathered his assassination squad near Bian Jing, obviously with the intention of assassinating him.
I usually stay in the city, and even when I go out of the city, it is at the polo field and Jinming Lake, so the people behind the scenes can't find any opportunities.
This time I went out of town and gave my partner a chance.
The fact that the person behind the scenes thought of poisoning Zhang Xiuting's family to divert attention proves that they have been monitoring his every move.
However, this assassination, including the poisoning of Zhang Xiuting's family, seemed too hasty.
This means that the spy behind the scenes was not someone around him or his father, so he did not get the news in advance and had no time to make precise arrangements.
But the other party did not want to miss this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. After all, Zhao Xing himself didn't know when he would go out of the city next time, and the people behind the scenes also knew that it would be hard to find an opportunity for Zhao Xing to go out of the city.
…………
Bianjing City
It was already late at night and the weather was cool. The soldiers on duty on the city wall were taking a nap.
Since the founding of the Song Dynasty, no one has ever attacked the city of Bianliang for a hundred years.
The soldiers defending the city of Bianjing were very lax.
Suddenly, the sound of horse hooves broke the silence.
The soldiers on the city wall woke up instantly and looked in the direction where the sound of horse hooves came from.
However, in the dark night, even though there were many braziers on the top of the city and it was as bright as day, the directions that could be seen were limited.
However, the soldiers did not think that anyone was rebelling or anything.
After all, although the sound of horse hooves was rapid, it was not frequent, and you could tell there were only one or two riders.
A fire captain quickly ordered someone to invite the captain, who was riding a horse towards Bianjing City at this time. It might be an urgent report sent in an express manner from 800 miles away, and the soldiers guarding the city could not make the decision to open the gate.
Soon the captain came hurriedly, and the man on horseback also arrived at the top of the city wall. Two soldiers in imperial guards uniforms could be vaguely seen.
"Who is under the city?" the captain shouted.
From their attire, the captain could tell they were not messengers.
"By order of His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, there is an urgent matter that needs to be reported to the emperor." The two imperial guards under the city shouted.
The captain on the city wall hesitated for a moment after hearing this, and ordered his men to prepare the horses and lower the basket.
Since it concerns the crown prince, he dare not be careless.
After the two men were pulled up to the top of the city wall by the basket and their identities were verified, the captain immediately arranged for people to take them to the palace.
"It looks like something big has happened." The captain murmured.
…………
Half an hour later, the palace gates opened wide, and Rong Xian, deputy commander of the imperial guards, led thousands of imperial guards out of the palace.
He rode straight to the Duke of Wei's mansion. Not long after, Duke of Wei Cao An, dressed in military uniform, met up with Rong Xian and led the imperial guards out of the city from the east gate holding the imperial edict.
Although it was already late at night, there was no curfew in the city of Bianjing, and the officials and nobles soon received the news of such a big commotion.
Although they didn't know the reason, these officials and lords knew what it meant when the palace gates opened late at night.
Even if an urgent report with a speed of 800 miles arrives in Beijing at night, only the side door will be opened.
But this time it was the main gate that was opened, not to mention that there were thousands of imperial guards leaving the city.
Some people even had a thought in their minds: could it be that the emperor is in poor condition, so he ordered people to recall His Royal Highness the Crown Prince?
(End of this chapter)