Chapter 181 The Meaning of Assassination
Jiang Xinyu's words suddenly woke Xiao Yuan up like a bolt of lightning.
He was so focused on Zhang Zhongyi's assassination that he didn't notice the meaning behind it.
He thought that the old man had tolerated him for so many years and finally couldn't stand it anymore, so he wanted to get rid of him once and for all while he was far away from the capital.
Now that I think about it, it doesn't seem right.
The old emperor's thinking process is becoming more and more bizarre. He used to talk about evidence and motives, but now he only wants to talk about results.
To the old emperor, Xiao Yuan was the knife and Zhang Zhongyi was the fox. His role was to intimidate Zhang Zhongyi.
In the past, if the sword was broken, the emperor would just replace it with another one. If he knew it was caused by a fox, he would just knock on it.
But now the old emperor was afraid of death and suspicious, and his first reaction after the knife was cut was to worry about his own safety.
The man with paranoid delusions would frantically gather everything he had at hand to kill the fox first and then look for a suitable weapon.
It doesn’t matter whether the knife was bitten by the fox or not, and it doesn’t matter whether the fox loses control or not.
The important thing is to completely eliminate the possibility of the fox biting him.
It was impossible for Zhang Zhongyi not to know what he knew, but the old man still resolutely attacked him and killed him.
This would prove that the other party did not care that the old emperor would attack him, or that he was already prepared for rebellion.
This flood is a good opportunity.
He, the supervisor of the East Factory, and several hundred people whom he absolutely trusted were sent out. The other party must have also planted people in the East Factory.
Once the news of his death gets back to Dongchang, there will inevitably be chaos, which means that one of the emperor's direct troops will be destroyed.
Now there are five layers to protect the emperor from inside to outside.
The closest ones are the Dragon Guards, who are close, loyal, and have good martial arts skills, but their numbers are relatively small.
There are only a dozen people on duty at any one time. They are okay for dealing with assassinations, but they are really not very effective in rebellion.
The second level is the Yulin Army. They have quite a few people but their formation is too disorganized.
Since Zhang Zhongyi dared to rebel, the commander of the Yulin Army is probably no longer the emperor's man.
Either the other side has a top expert who can handle these first or second levels.
The third level is their East Factory, which is close and has many elites.
If he is here, he is considered loyal, but if he is not here, it is hard to say.
The fourth level is the Five Cities Army, which has many people but poor quality and a chaotic formation, making it easy to bribe them.
This group of people is just a mob. After the dust settles, we can search for the other side's remnants and ransack their houses for use, but everything else is useless.
The fifth level is the camp outside the capital, which has a large number of people and is a regular army, but unfortunately it is out of reach.
It would be fine if the emperor knew about the rebellion in advance and secretly mobilized troops. Otherwise, by the time three rounds of killing had been carried out in the imperial city, they would have just entered the city at most.
By that time, the Third Prince will have already been crowned the emperor and the old emperor will have died. Can we really expect this group of military generals to avenge the old emperor?
They were the army of the Jin Dynasty, so of course they obeyed whoever was the emperor.
To be honest, there are only one and a half people who are absolutely loyal to the emperor, one dragon guard and half of them.
Of course, if the Third Prince and his son-in-law the Second Prince, who were supported by Zhang Zhongyi, had not rebelled, his half could have been ignored.
He had been annoyed with that old guy for a long time. Not only Zhang Zhongyi wanted to kill him, but he also wanted to.
After figuring out the key points, Xiao Yuan told his wife and started writing the letter.
Soon, several letters were sent out via pigeon mail, and more than a dozen trusted soldiers secretly left the team.
On the third day of disaster relief in Yongshun County, the expected letter for help from Yonghe County arrived.
The couple looked at each other with serious expressions. They guessed right, but they were not happy.
The corpses that have been burned here for a day have not been burned yet. If enough manpower is left, it will be what the other party wants.
However, if we transfer personnel to Yonghe County, the situation here will be difficult to control.
But they all knew that they had to keep some staff.
The other side was determined to use the strategy of dividing the troops to disperse his forces. Even if he brought more people with him halfway, there would still be various accidents that would force him to divide his troops.
Yan Fei confessed that Zhang Zhongyi sent out twenty assassins. Even if he didn't know the complete information, the number of assassins under Zhang Zhongyi was at most a hundred or so.
He wanted to keep a portion for his own protection and to prepare for the usurpation of the throne, so twenty would be enough for himself.
Even if he recruited some people from the underworld, there were only a hundred of them at most. He was well prepared and his wife also brought thunder bombs, so he might not be able to fight the opponent head-on.
After making up his mind, Xiao Yuan quickly arranged for the people in charge here to distribute some of the food, medicinal materials and other supplies.
He only brought 500 soldiers, 30 Dongchang bandits and a dozen secret guards to Yonghe County.
Xiao Yuan originally thought that the other side would wait until they reached Yonghe County and consumed half of their manpower before taking action.
I never thought that the other party couldn't wait any longer.
It was evening when the team arrived at a place called Manyu Village, and the two yamen runners from Yonghe County who came to ask for help reported.
Further ahead is a forest with a rugged and difficult road to travel on, so it would be better to set up camp here and set off again tomorrow.
In ancient times, there was a rule in marching and fighting that one should not pursue the enemy and should not enter the forest. After looking at the divination map, Xiao Yuan decided to set up camp here.
However, out of caution, they did not enter the village, but found a flat grassland far away from the village to set up their tent.
Jiang Xinyu felt inexplicably uneasy. She rode her horse around and looked around, but she couldn't figure out what made her uneasy.
There are no mountains nearby and the river is quite far away, so even if the dam breaks, it won't reach here.
In the distance, he could vaguely see the forest, but they did not enter the forest. Even if there were people hiding in the forest, it would not make him panic.
As for the fire attack, that's even more ridiculous. It's so humid here that it's hard to cook...
You're not going to burn food, are you?
It is difficult to make a fire and cook because wood is damp and difficult to ignite, but coal lumps and coal balls are not affected by that.
If the other party wanted to burn food, they probably brought kerosene, which can be ignited in a humid environment.
Or if we don't use fire attack, what if the enemy has brought a lot of poison? If we sprinkle the poison on the grain bag, will they give the food to us or not?
It is no joke if people die from eating the food distributed, but if there is food but no disaster occurs, the people will definitely be in a turmoil.
Moreover, this poisonous food cannot be thrown away but only burned. If the news gets out, the disaster victims will tear them to pieces alive.
Everyone is starving to death and you are burning the rice. It would be strange if it doesn't cause a civil unrest.
Jiang Xinyu told Xiao Yuan about her concerns, and Xiao Yuan also took it seriously. He focused on protecting the food truck in the center and had someone cover it with tarpaulin.
This thing is waterproof and fireproof, and its high density means there is no need to worry about anything seeping into the bag.
In fact, it was not easy for large quantities of food to be poisoned, mainly because the poisons of that era were not so concentrated.
Talking about toxicity without considering the dosage is nonsense.
This bag of rice will be boiled into several large pots of porridge. If you want to reach a lethal dose of poison, it will definitely not work to sprinkle it into the bag of rice.
Biological poisons are too rare and too expensive to be practical for widespread use.
Plant poisons are easy to obtain in large quantities and are quite toxic.
But all Chinese medicines have a strange black smell, and putting them in white rice porridge is simply too conspicuous.
Unless all the people who carry the food, cook the porridge and serve the porridge are bribed, it would be impossible not to discover it.
The rest is mineral poison. Not only is it bitter and hard to swallow, it is easiest to identify by the color of a silver needle that changes when you test it.
It was customary to test the relief porridge for poison before distributing it, and no one had died of poisoning from relief porridge in the Jin Dynasty for several decades.
Of course, there are many cases of eating dead people.
After all, sometimes when you are too greedy, the so-called porridge only contains a few grains of moldy rice. If you are not full and your stomach is upset, it would be strange if you don't die.
The Hexi garrison may arrive in two days, and tonight and tomorrow night are the last chances.
After nightfall, the couple slept in their clothes and did not dare to make any noise. There were people patrolling back and forth in the camp, but there was always a feeling that a storm was about to come.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
