"Sanlang, all the rooms...are booked out." Li Tiedao came out of the inn and said.
"Why, such a big family doesn't even have one room?" Mao Zaidi looked inside in disbelief.
"Damn, the waiter must be bullying me. Let me call in and see if he has it or not?" Lu Jiu rolled up his sleeves and cursed, but was grabbed by Lu Rui beside him:
"Old Lu, don't be rash! Look at his house, which is guarding this official road. There is no second inn nearby. It's impossible to say that there is some background behind it, and there may be some officials or distinguished guests living there. We must not be rash and violent. It's not a joke to cause trouble for Saburo."
"Then, what should we do? The restaurant just said that his family is the only one within forty miles. Is it possible that we sleep in the open tonight?" Lu Jiu shouted in a loud voice and peered straight into the door.
"So what if you sleep in the open? After so many battles, this is not the first time you camp?" Huang Qin, who was riding behind him, scolded him.
He, Gao Can, Lai Wubao, and Zhang Bo pretended to be guards. Li Tiedao was the leader of their servants, Lu Jiu and Mao Zaidi were the coachmen and attendants, and Zhang Nao pretended to be the housekeeper.
Also traveling with them was Yang Dayi, who was about to report to the Ministry of War. The Ministry of War felt that it was a pity to leave such a talented person behind, so they promoted Dong Houyong, who had made great achievements, to serve as a member of the garrison for thousands of households, and asked Yang Dayi to go to Beijing. Waiting for the Ministry of War.
Yang Da noticed that everyone was talking about it. He jumped off the horse and threw the reins to the soldiers. He stepped forward and said, "Everyone, wait a moment. I'll go in and ask. Maybe it will be easier for them to see that I am an official?"
Li Dan cupped his fists and said, "Then please ask. If it really doesn't work, there is nothing we can do."
Yang Dayi went in and came out in confusion shortly after. He was embarrassed when he met everyone's eyes: "Maybe this fifth-grade official is not high enough. The waiter said that the person who hired this shop, the fifth-grade official had to be his housekeeper."
These words made Li Dan and Lu Rui exchange glances. Lu Jiu was still angry, but Li Dan raised his hand to stop him and said, "If that's the case, there's no need to talk about it anymore. We'll find another place to deal with later."
As the team was about to leave, they suddenly saw a man dressed as an entourage running out of it, shouting: "Your Majesty, wait a minute!" After saying that, he ran to the carriage. Lu Jiu immediately jumped out of the car and blocked the door: "Hold on. who are you?"
The man hurriedly stood up, bowed and saluted: "My master saw your carriage upstairs and sent a servant to ask, is your carriage from Yugan, Jiangxi?"
"Hey, your master knew that we were from Yugan, Jiangxi Province when he saw the carriage?" Lu Jiu was surprised.
Li Dan leaned forward and looked at the upstairs of the inn: "Your master guessed it right, we are indeed here from Yu Qian. Since I wanted to stay overnight, I didn't expect the hotel to say that it had been booked. I dare to ask, but who is here at your residence? Covered?"
"Exactly!" The man bowed again: "My master asked me to ask one more question, is your Majesty familiar with Li Sanlang?"
This question made everyone stunned. Li Dan thought for a moment and said, "I am Yu Qian and Li Sanlang. He is going to Beijing to take the exam because he is attending the Spring Festival and passed by here."
After hearing this, the man quickly bowed deeply and said, "It turns out it's Li Xiaoqi who's in front of me. I'm rude! Please wait a moment while I let you report back to my master." With Li Dan's permission, the man quickly ran back.
After a while, the innkeeper and the waiter came out and asked them how many rooms they wanted. They also said that the owner of the inn had already sent word to the inn to arrange rooms.
Then a middle-aged Confucian scholar in a long gown and a dashing young man with a sword came out to invite Li Dan in. "My master is waiting in the study, please come to Mr. Li for a while."
"Who is your boss...?" Li Dan asked curiously.
"Young master, you will know it as soon as you see it."
Li Dan took a step forward, but Yang Dayi and others were stopped by the young man holding the sword. "Young master, please meet alone. Everyone else please arrange your room with the shopkeeper." The middle-aged Confucian said with cupped hands. Li Dan nodded to everyone and asked him to lead the way.
It turns out that there is a cave behind the first-floor patio of the inn. A two-story building occupies the southeast corner of the garden, from which can be heard the sound of pipa playing and the chatter and laughter of men and women.
Li Dan glanced around and found seven or eight shadows, either bright or dark, standing there silently. He wondered who would have such a formation when going out?
If calculated based on rotation, the attendants and servants brought by the master
, there should be no less than thirty people! No wonder he wanted to book this place.
The young man holding the sword stood at the door of the courtyard and stopped moving forward. The middle-aged Confucian led him upstairs. Li Dan hesitated but followed.
"Oh, Master Han is back, where is Li Sanlang?" a girl's crisp voice asked. Li Dan was already standing on the floor and almost turned around and ran away when he heard the sound.
"Your Highness, this is Li Sanlang." Master Han pulled Li Dan back and pushed him forward. .z.
Only then did Li Dan see clearly that there were two people in front of him. The man was of medium height and had a short beard on his upper lip. At first glance, he could tell that he was not very old, probably around 20 years old.
This man wears a green smoke and black gauze t-shirt, a goose yellow dark cloud pattern slant-breasted round neck shirt, dark red trousers and a pair of thin-soled cloud-head low-heeled shoes. He has a yellow ribbon tied around his waist, with a sachet and a jade hanging from it. and a short sword only a foot long.
A pair of smiling eyes, with the corners of their eyes slightly raised, was looking at Li Dan with great interest. That woman..., Li Dan only saw a pair of beautiful naked feet, brazenly on the concubine's couch.
He swallowed, lowered his head and saluted: "Student, Yu Qian and Li Dan have met and met His Highness, uh, I don't know which His Highness summoned him, and why? Please clarify."
The two people opposite burst into laughter upon hearing this, laughing so hard that they were out of breath, which made Li Dan very embarrassed. "Master Han, you didn't tell him our identity?" the man asked.
"How dare I, without His Highness's permission?" After Master Han finished speaking, he introduced Li Dan: "The speaker is His Highness Prince Ding, and this is His Highness Ninth Prince Miyun."
Li Dan was stunned immediately. He originally thought he met some vassal king who was traveling, but this... this was the emperor's half-brother and half-sister!
He was stunned for a long time and suddenly thought about it, no, these two are the closest relatives to the emperor, shouldn't they stay in the capital? "You, why did you come here?" He blurted out.
The two people on the opposite side laughed again, and then Zhao Jie came over and said with a straight face: "It's not because of you? Otherwise, why do you think the supervisory censor helped you to speak? How could you get away so quickly?"
"Ah? It turns out that Your Highness went to Nanchang?" Li Dan was surprised.
"I just went quietly. Only Shi Hao and Prince Peng know about this." Master Han said from the side, and then added: "Shi Hanxian, the left chief of Prince Xiading's palace, the one who raised the sword just now is Yiwei Zhou Yuanlu."
He smiled and held his hands in his hands: "Because His Highness left the capital incognito, we dare not reveal our identities. We will fall short, Young Master Haihan!"
"What did Chang Shi say? However, Dan still doesn't understand."
"Haha, you mean Jiumei, right?" King Ding explained with a smile: "Of course you have to have a job title when you come out. My name is to take Jiumei back to Beijing." After he explained it, Li Dan understood.
It turned out that the old King Peng gave birth to the current King Peng in Beijing when he was not a vassal. Because his mother died in childbirth, the late emperor took pity on him and took him into the palace and gave him to the queen to raise.
When he was in the palace, he and the Ninth Princess used a wet nurse. Later, when King Peng came to the throne and took the wet nurse to Nanchang, the Ninth Princess made a fuss and refused to leave the wet nurse, so the Queen Mother relented and allowed her to come to Nanchang with her.
That's why the emperor sent Prince Ding to take her back to the capital and "by the way" ask about the plot of Li Dan's case.
After hearing this, Li Dan expressed his gratitude to King Ding again and again, but King Ding said that it was not necessary. He smiled and said: "Your Majesty is very kind to you. You should repay more. Gu is just a Bodhisattva running errands!"
If you really want to thank your majesty, I have ridden in the carriage you built and it was very comfortable. How about you let my brothers and sisters ride in it tomorrow? That would be the best! "
"His Highness is also going back to Beijing? Then we are traveling together, I will hand over the carriage to you two!" Li Dan said generously, but from the beginning to the end, he did not dare to look at the couch, not even looking like Princess Miyun. clear.
That night, Li Dan and others stayed in the west wing on the second floor of the front yard. Next door to him was Han Xian.
In the middle of the night, Li Dan suddenly woke up. He felt something was wrong and quickly got dressed. Mao Zaidi and Lu Jiu outside were also up. "Send a signal to alert everyone!"
As he spoke, Li Dan took out his knife and put it on the table. He took out two B2-type flintlock short guns made by the weapons factory, loaded them with paper-wrapped fixed ammunition and inserted them in the back of his waist.
At this time, Lu Jiu had already knocked out the appointment signal on the wall to wake up the people next door.
"Tap, step, step..." There was a slight sound of footsteps on the ceiling overhead.
Mao Zaidi slowly opened the partition window and looked out through the crack. "Sir, there are men in black on the roofs of both houses. They are getting ready to come down!"
"Kill when you come down!" Li Dan calmly picked up the knife: "You and Lu Jiu try to catch someone alive!" After saying that, he walked to the door next to Lu Jiu who was holding a repeating crossbow: "I go out, you cover, and Amao blocks Don’t let the old gentleman get hurt at the next door!”
"Then who is following you?"
"I'll go to the backyard and tell Tie Dao to follow me. The gate may be lost. Ah Jiu and Huang Qin stop the thieves coming from the front lobby and shoot them one by one!" As soon as he finished speaking, he saw several figures jumping into the corridor from the eaves.
"Open the door!" Li Dan shouted.
Mao Zaidi suddenly opened the door. As soon as a man in black turned around, Lu Jiuyi shot an arrow through his head. Then he rushed out and chopped down another one with an axe, and raised his hand to shoot down the other one on the left.
Then Li Dan and Mao Zaidi rushed out one after another. As soon as the fighting started in this room, the other three rooms suddenly became lively. The men in black who jumped into the corridor in the west wing all fell to the ground in an instant. Everyone began to expand the results to the south room and east chamber.
Li Dan didn't care about the front yard anymore. He heard the noise and knew that the guards of the palace had also been alerted. He jumped into the courtyard and saw a knife coming towards his head.
He dodged sideways and cut off the weapon in the opponent's hand with a backhand knife. Their team is equipped with No. 4 alloy steel produced by hydraulic presses and hydraulic forging machines in the weapons factory. Yusuf has guaranteed that it is comparable to Damascus steel.
Seeing that the weapon in his hand was broken into two parts, the black-clothed thief was still in a daze. Li Dan had already turned his body half a circle. The guy's eyelids rolled up and his body fell down softly.
There were shouts of killing everywhere, some of which were obviously coming from the backyard. Li Dan was not worried about his own people. They had all led soldiers, fought on the battlefield, and had martial arts skills. He was worried about the safety of Ding Wang's brother and sister.
So he walked away and rushed to the backyard. As soon as he entered the door, he saw two guys attacking Zhou Yuanlu, one from the left and one from the right, so that he couldn't get away.
Li Dan raised his leg and kicked an enemy away, moved to the side in two steps, and shouted: "Brother Zhou, go escort me, leave these two to me!"
When the two men heard the voice behind them, one of them immediately shouted: "Kill him!" The other one waved his sword and rushed towards Li Dan. Pu Dao is a long weapon, with the length from tip to tail being four to six feet.
One inch long and one inch strong, this boy wanted to take advantage and not let Li Dan reach him. Who would have thought that he had a self-made gun behind his back?
Li Dan made a feint to draw the blunderbuss in his hand, turned his body and turned on the safety, pierced the cartridge case tail, and pulled the trigger "hidden in the stirrup".
After the "bang" sound, he put the gun in his waist and stepped forward without stopping or looking at the result.
The guy who was fighting Zhou Yuanlu didn't expect Li Dan to suddenly appear next to him. He was startled and hurriedly pulled away and took two steps back, only to see that his companion had fallen to the ground.
He yelled and swung the knife with all his strength. Li Dan calmly pushed back half a step to get out of the way. He exerted a slight force on his hand, and the two knives collided with each other, making a crisp metal collision sound.
The man was so shocked that he almost dropped the knife. Seeing that he was so open-minded, he knew it was not good. He subconsciously raised his left hand and tried to block it with his shield. It was too late. Li Dan stumbled and moved very fast. With his backhand, he "fished for the moon from the bottom of the sea" and the knife flashed. Pass!
The guy's left hand was cut off from the wrist, and the tip of the knife passed across his chest, emitting a burst of sparks, and then broke from his throat, breaking his jaw in half.
"What a sharp knife!" Zhou Yuanlu exclaimed in surprise.
"Brother Zhou is laughing, go and protect King Ding!" Li Dan reminded him of his duty, and Zhou Yuanlu turned over and ran upstairs. Li Dan went to the corpse and used the tip of a knife to open his clothes, and saw that he was wearing fine and fine chainmail armor underneath.
No wonder there were sparks when the tip of the knife struck just now. Judging from the torn spot on his clothes, Zhou Yuanlu must have been eaten by Zhou Yuanlu several times, but they were all blocked by the armor and no vital parts were hurt.
Judging from the way his eyes were open, it was estimated that the thief probably never understood why the armor failed to protect him until his death.
"Help!" A woman screamed from upstairs. Li Dan looked up and saw a thief's figure moving in the corridor of the wing, and suddenly realized that it might be the residence of Princess Miyun.
"Oops!" Just as Li Dan thought this, he saw King Ding's panicked face appear at the window. He shouted at a glance: "Sanlang, save Jiuniang, save Jiuniang!"
"Saburo, here we come!"
Li Tiedao and Zhang Nao appeared behind him, and Li Dan immediately said: "Master Tiedao is going to rescue people from the second floor above the main hall. Tong Operator (nicknamed Zhang Nao) is guarding the entrance to the wing. I'll go up and rescue those on this side!"
Zhang Nao didn't bring any weapons and took a temporary door bolt. He said good things and rushed over. In an instant, he knocked down the two people who were about to rush into the wing and grabbed the Koupu knife in his hand.
Li Dan quickly went upstairs under his cover and saw that the two guards had been forced to the end of the corridor by three or four thieves, and two others were kicking in the door.
Just as he was about to step forward, a thief came out of the first door, holding a crying woman on his shoulder. Without any time to think, Li Dan slashed open his stomach with a knife, then jumped over the two of them.
"I'm suffering from a severe cold. It's been almost two weeks, so why am I still not feeling better? It's so frustrating!"
