After leaving the city for a while, Chen Kan suddenly slowed down his horse speed.
Then he silently put the soft armor that he had taken off because of the heat when he went to court in the morning and slowly put it on his body.
"Sir, what's wrong?"
Zhang San and Fang Xu closely guarded Chen Kan.
Chen Kan frowned and stared at the endless official road in front of him in silence.
"Zhang San, you are relatively familiar with the surrounding areas of the capital. You can find a small path to go back to the capital and ask Shi Wen to bring out all the manpower that the Five Cities Military and Horse Division can spare. Be quick."
Chen Kan quickly finished explaining Zhang San, and the ominous premonition in his heart became stronger and stronger.
Zhang San had always regarded Chen Kan's words as his example, and without saying a word, he turned around and jumped into the fields beside him.
Fang Xu asked: "Master Hou, why is this?"
Chen Kan shook his head: "I suspect this is a serial trap."
"Serial trap?"
Fang Xu looked confused: "Then shall we go and rescue Her Highness the Princess?"
"go."
"but not now."
Chen Kan didn't say much.
His intuition had always been accurate, and he had a hunch that if he continued to move forward, he would probably never return.
In the morning, he heard that Baochaosi had been attacked. Because the cute girl with big eyes was still in the wooden villa in the nameless valley, he lost his mind for a while.
But after encountering an interception while leaving the city, he gradually came back to his senses.
Chen Kan didn't dare to say how smart he was, but at this juncture, he still instinctively felt something was wrong.
At first, the other party sent people to harass the bank and assassinate him. He simply thought that the other party was making an attack in the east and west, so that the eyes of the kings and ministers in the palace would stay on the capital and buy time for them to loot the Baochao Department.
But if those people's goal was just the new firearms newly developed by the imperial court, they could have looted the Baochao Department and left.
Why did he plant a killer at the gate of the capital?
Isn't this unnecessary?
There are too many unreasonable places.
Combined with the scenes of those killers rushing towards him without fear of death.
Chen Kan thought about it and could only come up with one reasonable explanation.
That is, the other party's goal is not only Baochaosi, but also his own life.
This is a serial killing bureau.
What kind of person wants his life, and what kind of person wants to try to seize the new weapons produced by the imperial court?
Everything seems to be self-evident.
Those people were targeting him.
And if this is the case, maybe the cute girl with big eyes can be spared.
After all, killing him and killing the imperial princess are completely different in nature, so they should not be completely reckless.
at this time--
Zhu Gaosui and Ji Gang have already brought people to the nameless valley where Baochaosi is located.
The first thing that caught his eye was the bodies lying on the ground.
Zhu Gaosui looked at the scene of mountains of corpses and sea of blood in front of him with a gloomy expression, and his eyes almost wanted to burst into flames.
An entire place with a thousand households was wiped out, leaving not a single person alive.
This is already the case at the mountain pass. How miserable is the situation in the valley?
Zhu Gaoxu could no longer imagine it.
"Walk!"
He didn't say much, and went straight into the valley from the small mountain pass with the Jin Yiwei and the captain of the Five Cities Military and Horse Division.
Ji Gang held the embroidered spring knife and stood guard by Zhu Gaosui with a full face, not daring to take a step away for fear that something might happen to Zhu Gaosui.
As expected, the valley was in a mess.
"Search to see if there is anyone alive in the valley."
Ji Gang gave an order, and countless Jinyi captains instantly separated in all directions.
A moment later, a captain in Jinyi suddenly shouted: "Report, Your Majesty, Your Majesty, there are living people, there are still living people..."
"Where?"
Zhu Gaosui hurriedly walked in the direction of the captain in Jinyi who made the noise.
"Across the river, they are wary of us."
The captain reported, and Zhu Gaoxu also saw the small wooden villa opposite.
You can see countless craftsmen guarding the courtyard of the villa with frightened faces, holding chisels, planers, sickles and other strange weapons.
"I am the third son of the emperor, King Zhao Zhu Gaosui. You don't have to be afraid."
Afraid of irritating this group of craftsmen who had already suffered a mental breakdown, Zhu Gaosui had no choice but to patiently announce his family status.
"He said he is His Royal Highness King Zhao?"
"Don't believe him, let's wait for the Marquis to come."
There was a sudden discussion among the group of craftsmen, but the eyes looking at Zhu Gaosui were still wary.
The commotion of the craftsmen alarmed the girl in the wooden villa.
He vaguely heard words such as His Highness King Zhao.
"Third brother?"
She stood up and was about to go out, but was stopped by the female officials and maids from the princess's mansion.
"Your Highness, please be careful. There is danger."
"Yes, Your Highness, such a big thing happened here, we should wait for the Marquis to come over."
"The Marquis must have received the news, and he might be on his way here now."
Looking at the worried looks on people's faces, Zhu Yuelan's little face also had various expressions of fear and fear mixed together.
For a moment, she was not sure whether to open the door. What if the thieves hadn't left yet?
Moreover, the other side of the river is more than two miles away from the wooden villa. Even if you go out, you may not be able to see clearly what the people on the other side of the river look like.
"By the way, I remember that there is a telescope at home, which was used by the Marquis to observe the waterfall in the back mountain when he was here."
"where?"
"Go get it quickly!"
soon--
The maid found a telescope that looked like a blowtorch from upstairs.
Zhu Yuelan impatiently took the binoculars and looked at the small gap in the window that the maid had opened. She saw Zhu Gaosui's face, which was a few years older than Chen Kan, as dark as the bottom of a pot. He was talking fiercely. Talking to the craftsmen on the other side of the river.
"It's really the third brother."
Zhu Yuelan exclaimed, threw away the telescope, pushed open the door and ran towards the river.
"Third brother, third brother..."
Hearing the shout from the other side of the river, Zhu Gaosui narrowed his eyes: "Chang Ning?"
Seeing the girl running towards him clearly, Zhu Gaosui couldn't help but feel surprised, scared and happy at the same time.
I was surprised and scared that Chang Ning would appear here. Fortunately, Chang Ning was not poisoned by the thief.
Otherwise, with how much his father doted on this little sister, he really couldn't imagine how furious his father would be after something happened to her.
"Chang Ning, why are you here?"
"Send someone back to tell Father and Chen Kan that my little sister is fine."
Turning to give instructions to Ji Gang, Zhu Gaoxu didn't bother to care about the group of unsighted craftsmen now. He hurriedly led people to run towards the girl who was rushing towards him. He was so anxious that he didn't even walk across the bridge and walked directly across the half-people-deep river water.
"Third brother, third brother, I'm scared."
Zhu Yuelan threw herself into Zhu Gaosui's arms and couldn't control her tears.
"Don't be afraid, Third Brother is here and the bad guys are gone."
Zhu Gaosui gently patted Zhu Yuelan on the shoulder to comfort her.
Among the children born to Zhu Di, except for the three brothers who dislike each other, the relationship between the brothers and sisters is not bad.
Zhu Yuelan, in particular, has been quirky since he was a child. Not only did Zhu Di dote on him, but his three brothers also felt more sorry for this little girl than the last one.
At this time, seeing the little girl whom he regarded as the apple of his eye crying so hard, Zhu Gaosui's heart suddenly rose with anger, and he couldn't help but secretly swear in his heart that he would discuss with his father about serving in the Five Cities Military and Horse Division after returning home.
Then control the power of the Five Cities Soldiers and Horses Division to seek justice for my little sister.
After coaxing her for a long time, Zhu Yuelan finally stopped crying. She just put her little head on Zhu Gaosui's chest and asked with sobs: "Third brother, where is my husband? Why doesn't he come?"
Hearing this, Zhu Gaosui frowned, and suddenly felt dissatisfied with Chen Kan in his heart.
What does this Chen Kan do for a living? How could he leave his sister alone in such a dangerous place?
However, thinking of Chen Kan's tragic situation, Zhu Gaoxu comforted him softly: "He encountered something on the way, so the third brother brought someone here first. He should be on his way here now."
"Tell third brother first, what exactly happened here?"
Zhu Yuelan did not doubt that he was there and sobbed: "I don't know either. I just heard a group of people shouting slogans such as the birth of the old mother in the vacuum and the birth of Bailian, and started killing people. The craftsmen of Baochao Division saw that something was wrong, He ran to me..."
"By the way, I remember that after they rushed through the Baochao Division, they headed towards the Back Mountain Waterfall. There were many craftsmen there."
Hearing this, Zhu Gaosui couldn't help but feel his heart skip a beat.
Others didn't know it, but he knew very well about Chen Kan's experiment with new fire guns in the Baochao Department.
Are those thieves here for new firearms?
"Ji Gang, please send someone to the back mountain quickly to take a look."
Zhu Gaosui didn't need to give orders for such matters. Ji Gang had already sent Jin Yiwei to search everywhere.
As the commander-in-chief of the emperor's personal army, he knew better than anyone how much Zhu Di valued those things.
It is no exaggeration to say that Zhu Di once said bluntly that whether the grasslands can be included in the Ming Dynasty's territory in the future depends entirely on whether Chen Kan's research can be successful.
Just as he was talking, a captain in Jinyi rushed towards the place where the two of them were, sweating profusely.
"Report, report... Your Majesty, sir, all the finished fire guns in the back mountain... are all missing..."
"Where's the craftsman?"
Ji Gang lifted up the captain's collar and gave the captain a vicious look.
"The craftsmen... the craftsmen... all the core craftsmen were kidnapped by thieves, and the rest were killed. The subordinates... The subordinates found this in the cave."
The captain gasped and explained clearly the current situation in the back mountain.
Ji Gang grabbed the thing in the captain's hand and pushed the captain aside.
Then he looked at the thing in his hand and let out a long sigh of relief.
Bad news came one after another. No matter how well-mannered Zhu Gaoxu was, he couldn't help but change his face at this time.
"Are all the craftsmen dead?"
"My lord, please calm down. Things haven't gone to the worst yet. Please calm down and be sensible."
Lychee, how do you want me to lychee?
Zhu Gaoxu turned to look at Ji Gang and scolded fiercely: "You'd better find out in which direction the thief ran, otherwise, don't blame me for being a thief."
Ji Gang felt depressed, but when he thought that the other party was a prince, he had to suppress the anger in his heart.
"Your Majesty, please calm down. I have already started tracing the whereabouts of the thieves. However, I suspect that they may have only taken away the core craftsmen who participated in the development of new fire guns and a few fire guns used in experiments. They failed to capture the real core thing." Get it.”
Ji Gang quickly handed the thing in his hand to Zhu Gaosui, and then kept trying to persuade him to calm down.
What Ji Gang handed over was a piece of paper with two-thirds of it burned off. Zhu Gaosui took the paper and said, "What is this?"
"The blueprint, the blueprint of the new fire gun. If I guessed correctly, when the thieves came in, the craftsmen involved in the research and development burned the blueprint immediately."
"As long as they don't get the blueprints, even if they kidnap the craftsmen who participated in the research and development, and take away a few firecrackers used in the experiment, it won't have any effect."
After listening to Ji Gang's explanation, the rage in Zhu Gaoxu's heart still did not ease in the slightest.
He forcibly said angrily: "Whether it is useful or not, their actions are provoking the majesty of the imperial court and the face of the royal family. As the emperor's eagle dog, you don't need me to teach you how to humiliate your ministers to death, right?"
After all the good talk, Zhu Gaoxu calmed down, Ji Gang couldn't help but wipe the cold sweat from his forehead.
He knew very well that what he feared the most in the current situation was that his pig teammates would disrupt the situation, giving blind orders even though they didn't understand anything. In the end, they would not say anything about things not getting done, and they would still have to take the blame.
"Don't worry, Your Majesty. Even if I pursue you to the ends of the earth, I will definitely bring all the thieves to justice."
Zhu Gaosui's face brightened slightly when he heard Ji Gang's confirmation.
Seeing this, Ji Gang hurriedly struck while the iron was hot: "Your Majesty, Your Highness the Princess is frightened by this. Do you want to arrange for someone to send Her Highness back to the capital to recuperate, so as to ensure that Your Majesty is safe?"
Zhu Gaosui muttered: "I am worried about the others. I will personally send Chang Ning back to the capital, and I will leave this place to you."
Ji Gang had laid so much ground in front of him, and he was waiting for these words. He immediately summoned a team of Jinyi captains and ordered: "You will escort His Royal Highness King Zhao and His Highness the Princess back to the capital. What went wrong? I will ask you." .”
Zhu Gaosui thought for a moment and did not reject Ji Gang's kindness.
Although he brought many captains of the Five Cities Soldiers and Horses Division, he could clearly see at this time that the combat effectiveness of the captains of the Five Cities Soldiers and Horses Division was obviously not on the same level as that of the Jinyi Guards.
Watching the brother and sister go away, Ji Gang secretly said in his heart that he finally saw off these two gods of plague.
Afterwards, the whole person regained the majesty of the emperor's personal army commander.
"Come here, first take all the craftsmen of the Baochao Department and the servants of the Hou Mansion into custody."
"With such a large gathering of people, they must not be able to run far. Let me chase them..."
One order after another came from Ji Gang's mouth, and the Jinyi captain under his command quickly took action. Not long after, the captain came back to report: "Your Majesty, the commander, found the traces of their escape..."
at this time--
On the official road outside Nanjing, Chen Kan was counting the time on his fingers.
Zhang San should have returned to the city by now. Even if Shi Wen gathers his men and heads out of the city, it will still take an hour anyway.
But if there were still interceptions targeting him on the way, those assassins might not wait that long seeing that he hadn't arrived yet.
I wonder how the cute girl with big eyes is doing right now?
The anxiety in my heart is beyond words.
After thinking twice, Chen Kan decided not to wait any longer.
After encountering so many things, he didn't want to let any assassin go.
