This is the first thought in everyone's mind.

I'm dead.

This was the second thought in everyone's mind.

After all, for spies, it doesn't matter how many they kill. They are all officials of the Xia Kingdom anyway. Moreover, there are so many of them now that it is too late to surrender on the spot. Besides, I have never heard of spies taking prisoners.

Among the crowd, there were several who were military generals and their reactions were extremely fast. Although their positions were not at the front due to their rank, it was still much easier for them to exit the door.

Therefore, their first thought was to rush out quickly. As long as they could find the guards brought by the prince, there would still be a chance to turn the situation around tonight. As long as they could claim the credit for leading the guards to capture Zhang Yuan alive, perhaps they could escape the punishment when the time came.

This is the most correct approach.

So when they kicked open the main hall door, they saw corpses all over the ground, and most of the corpses belonged to the Eastern Palace guards.

The people outside the door took action in advance.

When someone saw the prince with a knife in his chest and shouted, "Your Highness, what's wrong with you?", the prince's guards wanted to go in to check. At this time, the people outside the door had already taken action.

The murderers were dressed in the clothes of Zhang Yuan's family servants, holding Liang country's standard long swords. They looked strong and well-trained. Military generals who had fought for many years could recognize them at a glance. These people must not be servants, but veterans who were used to killing people on the battlefield.

The killing began as the murderer rushed into the main hall with a knife.

Those generals were planning to rush over and hold Zhang Yuan hostage, thinking that he was just a scholar and certainly didn't have much martial power. As long as they could subdue him, there was still hope.

As a result, when they pushed everyone away, they found that Zhang Yuan and Xie Zhihui had already retreated from behind the screen, and in front of them were dozens of fully armed servants of the Zhang family and a prince who was almost dead.

None of the guests at the wedding banquet considered what Zhang Yuan wanted to do anymore.

Because they are all dead.

Wei Mingyuan, who was sipping tea in the garden, saw a man covered in blood walking towards him. He became inexplicably nervous for a moment. He looked closely and saw that although he didn't recognize the man, he was wearing the clothes of a servant of the Zhang family. He calmed down and asked, "How is it?"

"It's done. The prince and those who came to the wedding banquet were all killed. Zhang Yuan is alive and tied up inside." said the man.

If any of the Zhang family's former servants were present at the scene, they would have recognized this honest-looking man covered in blood as the new lady's cousin-in-law. I heard that he was a good cook, but I didn't expect that he was also good at killing people.

"Light the fire, notify the others, and start." Wei Mingyuan knew that he must not retreat at this time. After all, the first knife had already been stabbed out, so it didn't matter how many more times he stabbed.

Three fires were lit on the hill behind Zhang's house and could be clearly seen from miles away.

Soon, several teams of guards from the Crown Prince's Eastern Palace arrived at the various gates of the royal palace. Some held the Crown Prince's tokens and announced, "Zhang Yuan rebelled and laid siege to the Eastern Palace, but was repelled by the Crown Prince. He is now fighting a desperate battle in Zhang's mansion. The Crown Prince is now directing the battle outside Zhang's mansion and has sent to the royal palace to instruct them to strengthen security."

Some were just two or three people, holding the Crown Prince's token and saying they were coming to retrieve something. Since the Crown Prince's reign as Regent had been quite long, it wasn't the first time he'd suddenly decided to send a eunuch with two guards to the palace to retrieve something. The palace guards were about to let the eunuch in as usual, but as the guards waited outside, a poisoned dagger lodged in his stomach.

To be honest, of the eight gates of the palace, only three were opened by trickery, and the other five teams were exposed.

Those who pretended to open the door cleared the guards at the door as quickly as possible, opened the door, and let more people in, while those who did not pretend to open the door directly attacked. After all, they did not know the situation of other doors, so they could only follow the pre-planned plan and attack directly. At least they could attract some attention of the defenders for other brothers.

The highest commander on duty in the palace tonight is the deputy commander of the palace guards, Weiming Yuange. He is also a member of the Weiming royal family, but his bloodline is distant, so he did not get a good title. However, he fought several battles through his hard work in martial arts and studying military tactics. Although they were small victories, they were still commendable enough, and he gained a reputation as a "military expert" in the royal family.

It can be said that the king knows how to appoint the right people and knows that his own safety must be entrusted to his own people, so he appointed him as the deputy commander of the imperial guards.

Unlike the previous deputy commanders, whenever he was on duty, Wei Mingyuange would wear armor and patrol around the palace, and would never sleep soundly in the duty room.

When he heard that the guards came to report that the palace was under attack, Deputy Commander Yuange immediately ordered all six of his centurions to gather in the duty room for a meeting.

Although it was a little strange that they didn't directly order a desperate stand or call for reinforcements, to be honest, there had been many coups in the years since the founding of the Xia Kingdom, but most of them used relatively civilized means such as poisoning and framing. A direct siege of the palace was indeed the first of its kind. The captains guarding the palace were like headless flies. After hearing the military order, they didn't think much about whether it was reasonable. Instead, they breathed a sigh of relief: "As long as there is someone commanding from above, it's fine."

Then six centurions entered the duty room.

There was a flash of swords and sabers.

Weiming Yuange came out of the duty room with two captains. The three of them had already tied a piece of red cloth on their left arms. The usually kind deputy commander Yuange pointed his sword to the sky and shouted, "Glory and wealth will come today. Open the gates, everyone follow me!"

On the other hand, the commander of the palace guards, Lord Liang Guorong, was not on duty today. However, due to his status, he felt it inconvenient for him to make friends with ministers, so he just sent a heavy gift to Zhang Yuan and went to bed early.

My dear, there is more to this chapter. Please click on the next page to continue reading. It will be even more exciting later!