"Take off your veil, put down your weapons, and put your hands behind your head." Wu Wu looked at the only five people left in the encirclement and warned coldly.
Seeing that several people were motionless and unable to take the crossbow from a soldier nearby, he aimed an arrow at a masked man in black and shot an arrow. The arrow left only a residual image in everyone's eyes, and before the masked man in black could react, the arrow had hit his shoulder.
"Ah..." The masked man in black who was shot couldn't help but scream.
He didn't even see how the arrow flew towards him. He just felt as if his shoulder was hit hard by someone, and then a piercing pain spread throughout his body.
"This is the last warning." Before he could finish his words, an arrow was shot out and the other shoulder of the man in black was instantly hit by an arrow.
Wu Fa's tone is always calm, as if whatever he does is an extremely ordinary thing. But at this moment, although his tone is calm, it is filled with icy chill that gives several people goose bumps.
Li Hong looked at them from afar for a few seconds, then looked back at the endless, winding and rugged path ahead. After thinking about it, he finally decided to go forward and take a look to see if those people were Wang Kang and Wang Jing from the Jinyang Wang family as he guessed.
Just as he reached the encirclement surrounded by a crowd, he heard hurried footsteps behind him. Li Hong looked over and saw that it was Yang Wu and his group on their way.
He sighed silently in his heart, and then Yang Wu appeared in front of him and said to him respectfully: "Your Highness, His Majesty has ordered me to take them back for trial."
...
...
Li Hong shook his head, looked at Yang Wu and said, "Are you hiding in some corner? Waiting for my people to subdue them, and then you can come out and grab them?"
"I dare not. I am following the order of His Majesty." Yang Wu said as he carefully took out a crystal pendant from his arms. It was the first crystal dragon pendant that Li Hong gave to Li Zhi.
Li Zhi treasures this pendant very much, although he doesn't wear it often now. He also knows that the price of this crystal has started to be slightly lower than that of the jade pendant, and it is no longer as precious as it was at the beginning.
But Li Zhi cherished the piece of jewelry given by Li Hong to his core. He would take it out from time to time to look at it, with a look of satisfaction and pride on his face. He never let anyone touch it casually. Even Wu Mei rarely took it and looked at it.
As time went by, Li Zhi unknowingly turned this crystal pendant into an extremely important token that could represent himself.
So gradually, an unwritten rule was formed in the court: seeing this crystal pendant was equivalent to receiving the emperor's order.
Naturally, among the officials in the court, some people took this crystal pendant as a means of doing things, and word had begun to spread vaguely that this was the emperor's firm support for Li Hong as the crown prince. Some even said that His Majesty attached great importance to this crystal pendant, and that it was actually a signal of delegating power to the prince.
Li Hong had naturally heard these rumors. Seeing Yang Wu bringing out the crystal pendant, he curled his lips in displeasure. He was still a step too late. It seemed that his father and mother already knew the inside story.
He waved his hand impatiently to signal Yang Wu to put away the crystal pendant, and looked at the five people in the encirclement who had untied their face scarves, put their hands behind their heads, and squatted on the ground. As expected, they were Wang Kang, Wang Jing and Wei Ying.
The other two were Turks, whom Li Hong did not recognize. He turned his head and asked, "Who are they?"
Yang Wu had a look of embarrassment on his face. His Majesty's order to him was to try not to let the little bastard ask more questions about the identities of the two people. If he asked, he could choose not to answer.
When he said that, Wu Mei curled her lips and poured cold water on him, saying, "Ask him if Yang Wu has the guts to reject that little bastard?"
"Your Highness, His Majesty and the Queen are now in the Zongsheng Palace. They already know that you left the city of Chang'an without permission..." Yang Wu reluctantly changed the subject, hinting Li Hong not to ask any more questions.
"Haha, Yangwu, you are so capable. They already know that I have left the boundary of Chang'an city. Do you think I can escape this beating when I go back? I can't escape, right? If I can't escape, why can't I let you have some fun now? Hurry up and tell me what you know, or I will beat you! No, I will kill them now!" Li Hong threatened.
"Your Highness, please forgive me. I know I was wrong. Your Highness, please don't make things difficult for me. I will never tell you even if I die. These two people are Mukun and Qerlu, two close confidants of Ashina Telu, the son of Ashina Hubo, the former Khan of the Eastern Turkic Khaganate." Yang Wu looked like he was willing to sacrifice his life for justice, which made Li Hong despise him for a while.
"Well, since you don't want to say it, I won't force you. It's your father's will. Forget it, then I..." Li Hong slowly walked into the encirclement and saw that the five people had been tied up.
"Your Highness, please give your orders." Yang Wu immediately followed and said.
"Then can I beat them up to vent my anger? Look at my arm, they chopped it off." Li Hong asked.
Yang Wu was about to cry, his expression was more bitter than a bitter gourd. He knew that His Royal Highness the Crown Prince would not be so easy to talk to. If he was, he would not be His Royal Highness the Crown Prince!
But I have already disobeyed His Majesty's order. If I disobey again, it would be disloyalty and unfilial for a slave. So I shook my head fearlessly and said, "No, Your Highness. His Majesty said that it must be brought back intact. As long as you don't slap me in the face, you can do whatever you want."
“Haha…” Li Hong smiled and said to Wang Kang and Wang Jing, “You have a good life but you insist on doing what the rebels do. You deserve it. You are lawless. Just keep a breath. Oh, and take off those arms. Let them have a taste of what it feels like to be unable to move their shoulders.”
"You can't touch me? Even if you are His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, you can't do that. If you dare to hit me, when I return, our people will prepare to break away from the rule of the Tang Dynasty..."
"Fuck you! I've given you the face, but do you have the right to speak?" Li Hong suddenly pulled out the sword from Wutan's hand. A cold light with murderous intent flashed, and the sword cut into the man's shoulder.
"Ah..." Mu Kun immediately howled in pain.
"Shut his mouth! I gave you face, but you really think yourself a human being. I will go back and tell that Terror that I will make him obey me sooner or later." Li Hong let go of the sword. No one dared to care about the sword that was still stuck in the gap between Mu Kun's shoulder bones. They could only watch His Royal Highness the Crown Prince vent his anger.
"Okay, I'll leave the person to you, we're leaving." Li Hong clapped his hands and thought helplessly: This is the overall situation, I can't do anything about it, my father can't do anything about it, and my mother can't do anything about it either.
In order to make the Eastern Turks completely submit to the Tang Dynasty and to achieve temporary peace in the east of the Tang Dynasty, even if he is the emperor of the Tang Dynasty now, he can only suffer in silence when facing the pleas of the Eastern Turks.
But Li Hong didn't think so. The Eastern Turks dared to work with Jinyang Wang to assassinate his mother this time. He couldn't just let it go. Otherwise, who knows if these guys would become even more aggressive!
Just after taking two steps, Yang Wu ran over again with a shameless face and laughed dryly: "Your Highness, His Majesty and the Queen have ordered that I bring Bai Chun...Bai Chun...with them..."
"Yangwu, I think you are going crazy! What's the relationship between Bai Chun and them? They haven't been in contact for many years. What do you mean by this now?" Li Hong glared at him and asked protectively.
"Your Highness, you misunderstood. In fact, we want Bai Chun to go back and accept the orders from the Ministry of Justice and others..." Yang Wu said in panic.
"Get out of here, get out of here! It's impossible! If you dare to touch Bai Chun, I will chop off one of your hands. I'm not just chopping off one of your fingers like before. People are bullying you, and instead of taking it out on them, you're showing off your own abilities? Get out of here!" Li Hong couldn't stand this humiliation and felt very dissatisfied.
But now I still have to obey the wishes of my father and mother, and I also need to understand their difficulties.
There is no way, this is the helplessness of being the emperor and empress of the Tang Dynasty, and even more so the helplessness of being a son. And this is also the difficulty of the entire royal family, and the royal family has to compromise with a kind of sadness.
The emperor, who seems to be high above and dominates all living beings, actually often has all kinds of helplessness and regrets. The art of political intrigue, to put it bluntly, is an upgraded version of how to behave and treat others.
When dealing with these uncivilized barbarians, it is completely impossible to persuade them with reason or emotion. Although the Tang Dynasty is very powerful now, it does not really have absolute influence and deterrence, which is why wars continue in the surrounding areas.
The destruction of Tuyuhun by Tubo naturally made the Eastern Turks and others who were subject to the Tang Dynasty see a weakness of the Tang Dynasty, which gave them a glimmer of hope for their ambitions and allowed them to start testing the bottom line and principles of the Tang Dynasty by throwing tantrums.
Therefore, Li Hong now had to hand this matter over to his father and mother, and at the same time, he had to appear to be in step with the emperor and empress.
But he believed that this assassination would be a big blow to the Wang family of Jinyang. After all, Jinyang was the base camp of the Li Tang Dynasty when they were fighting for the country. Whether it was his father or his mother, they would never allow unrest and discord there.
The sun was setting. The screams of pain from the people whose arms had been removed by Wufa and Wutan could no longer be heard. Everyone's mouth was tightly stuffed with thick cotton cloth.
The Zongsheng Palace was already in sight from afar. When he arrived at the foot of the mountain, not only had the dusk, which Li Hong disliked the most, arrived, but the entire foot of the mountain was already surrounded by the Qianniu Guards and the Jinwu Guards. Needless to say, his father and mother must be in the Zongsheng Palace, waiting to beat him up.
It was naturally impossible for Li Hong's left and right Qingdao and Bai Chun's two thousand men to go any further, so they, led by their respective commanders, slowly marched towards the military camp in the restricted area of Taiyi City.
As soon as he stepped into the mountain gate, Li Hong couldn't help shrinking his neck. Looking at the heavily guarded soldiers at the door, he casually waved and asked, "Um... where are my father and mother now?"
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