*
Several people tried to hold Madam Shi and Nan Qing down, but before they could touch Nan Qing, General Shi pushed them away.
With a grim face, he looked at the chief eunuch who was clearly enjoying the show, and said in a deep voice:
"Li Zhong, even if I was harmed by that treacherous minister Zhou Jingshu, it is not something you can humiliate!"
"I'd like to see who among you dares to lay a hand on a single person from my Zhenguo General's Mansion today!"
Shi Yuanhuai, a first-rank general of the Great Yan Dynasty, commanded 300,000 troops. His 50,000-strong Shi family army was feared by many countries.
That's why Zhou Jingshu was so wary of him, worried that he was part of the Crown Prince's faction, and even went to great lengths to bring down the General's Mansion.
After he said that, some of the imperial guards were indeed hesitant to step forward.
Although Shi Yuanhuai has fallen, as the God of War of the Great Yan, his reputation is known to all, and who is not afraid of him?
Li Zhong knew he couldn't go too far today, so he waved his whisk, signaling the imperial guards to retreat. He looked at General Shi and said:
"General Shi, please don't make things difficult for a nobody like me. This is all the Emperor's decree. I am just following the order. Moreover, the Emperor has decreed that we should set off immediately. The escort team is already waiting outside. Please, General Shi and Madam Shi, change your clothes!"
No sooner had he finished speaking than someone threw a pile of dirty, old prison clothes in front of Nan Qing and the others.
Looking at the Imperial Guards surrounding them, Madam Shi could only manage a weak smile as she addressed the haughty Li Zhong:
"Please, Steward Li, do us the honor of letting the ladies go inside to change their clothes."
Fortunately, Li Zhong didn't make things difficult for them anymore and had the Imperial Guards make way for them.
Madam Shi immediately took Nanqing's hand and told Zhao Mama, who was taking care of her, and Mingxia to pick up a few sets of prison clothes and go into the small room next to the front hall.
"Qingqing, come here, this set is cleaner, you can change into it first."
Madam Shi glanced towards the doorway again, then lowered her voice and said to Nan Qing:
"They must have set a trap for us beforehand, just waiting for us to fall into it when we return to the capital. Keep a close eye on your father and make sure he doesn't get into a conflict with those people. Let's get out of the capital first."
Madam Shi was also from a military family, and she had a heroic spirit. She had been on the battlefield and led troops, and she was not the kind of sheltered woman who would only cry and whine when things went wrong.
In recent years, the emperor has become increasingly muddle-headed. She had never imagined that treacherous officials would be in power in the Great Yan, but she never expected the emperor to condemn them so hastily.
Nan Qing nodded to indicate that she understood. With Ming Xia's help, she quickly took off her lake-blue outfit and snow-white undergarment, leaving her in only a bellyband embroidered with plum blossoms and a prison uniform.
Although she had practiced martial arts since childhood and grew up on the border, her skin and flesh were still very well-maintained. The rough fabric of her prison uniform rubbed against Nan Qing's delicate skin, causing a burning pain.
Nan Qing, who was always delicate, only frowned slightly. She tied her clothes without expression, took off the hair crown on her head, and tore off a strip of cloth from her undergarment and tied it up casually.
Fortunately, she wasn't wearing any jewelry or ornaments. Even her coming-of-age ceremony gift was a sharp sword, which she had already stored away in her spatial storage.
However, Madam Shi on the other side looked longingly at the pair of white jade bracelets on her wrist. They were given to her by her mother when she married Shi Yuanhuai, and they were part of her mother's dowry.
After changing her clothes, Nan Qing walked to her mother's side. Knowing the significance of the bracelet to her mother, she gently slipped it off her mother's wrist and said:
"Mother, let me keep this bracelet for now, I have a way."
When they changed their clothes and walked back into the hall, some of General Shi's male relatives had already changed their clothes and were even wearing heavy shackles on their hands.
Fortunately, in the Great Yan Dynasty, only male relatives were required to wear handcuffs during exile, while female relatives were not. Otherwise, with twenty or thirty pounds of iron chains on their bodies, the journey of exile over a thousand miles would have been much more difficult.
In front of the Zhenguo General's Mansion.
Shi Huaiyuan and more than a dozen other male relatives were all handcuffed, while Nanqing and some of Shi's female relatives had their wrists tied together with a long rope.
Despite their current predicament, General Shi, Madam Shi, Nan Qing, and the servants of the General's Mansion, including Ming Xia and Zhao Mama, all stood tall and showed no fear, despite wearing dirty prison clothes.
Outside the general's mansion, a group of curious onlookers gathered, wondering how their Great Yan's war god general could suddenly be accused of treason.
Last year, the Northern Di army came with great force, but in the end, it was General Zhenguo who led the troops to quell the war, gave the Northern Di a good beating, and sent countless treasures, cattle and horses, and a letter of peace to the Great Yan.
The Shi family had guarded the borders of the Great Yan for three generations, and the Shi family was also an invincible war god general of the Great Yan. They simply couldn't believe that General Shi would collude with the enemy!
So when Nan Qing and his group walked from the general's mansion to the city gate, dense crowds of people had already gathered on both sides of the city gate, and people kept shouting "The General Who Protects the Nation is wronged" and "The court is unjust."
It's unclear who started it, but the people on both sides of the road knelt down like a tide, and the area around the city gate was filled with deafening cries.
In fact, the Emperor of Yan ordered the Shi family to be exiled immediately after the imperial decree was announced, precisely to prevent further trouble.
Zhou Jingshu wanted to bring Shi Yuanhuai down because Shi Yuanhuai might be part of the Crown Prince's faction.
In fact, the Yan Emperor had long been wary of this general who commanded 300,000 troops.
Despite the Shi family's unwavering loyalty, the fact that the Shi family had been generals for three generations, commanded 50,000 troops, and wielded considerable influence in the Great Yan Dynasty made him restless and unable to eat or sleep.
Therefore, whether it was the abolition of the crown prince or the framing of General Shi for treason, it was less a scheme by Zhou Jingshu and more a case of the Yan Emperor going with the flow. He pretended to be ignorant, thus creating the current situation.
Despite the people blocking the road, a hundred imperial guards cleared the way, and Nan Qing and his entourage were still escorted out of the city.
After leaving the city, Nanqing saw that it wasn't just their General's family who were being exiled; there were many other people as well.
She didn't recognize those people, but the entire exile group numbered several hundred.
Suddenly, the sounds around me became noisy.
The women sobbed softly, the children cried, and there was some tantrums and commotion.
Nan Qing looked at the massive exile procession with a headache.
She felt this was even more terrifying than exile...
Besides the women of the general's mansion, all the other women in the mansions were crying. Shouldn't she join in and wail a couple of times too?
Nan Qing and her mother exchanged a glance, both seeing a hint of helplessness in each other's eyes.
It was unclear whether anyone had yet to arrive, but the entire exile procession remained gathered in this open space not far from the city gate, waiting without saying they would depart.
More than a quarter of an hour later, a small group of five or six people emerged from the city gate that was temporarily closed to traffic. Although they were dressed in the clothes of ordinary people, it was clear at a glance that they were all guards who knew martial arts.
As the group approached, a tall, slender man with a handsome face, dressed in white, stepped down from the carriage surrounded by them.
The person's clothes fluttered as they walked, making them appear like a celestial being.
Well, okay, seeing how he coughed with every step, Nan Qing silently retracted her praise that sounded like that of a celestial being.
This year's chosen one seems a bit...weak.
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