one step closer to the end

"What? The black and white guards rebelled together..."

The faces of Prince Duan and Shoufu changed, and Xia Shoufu hurriedly shouted: "Quick! Send two teams of imperial troops to block the four gates, and the official boats will go to patrol the waterway. Xiangyong and Tuanlian are all dispatched to search for Ouyang Renjie, and then gather again." The field guard counted the number of people and handed over their weapons!"

"Yes!"

The commander of the guards rushed out quickly, Xia Shoufu frowned again and said: "It seems that Zhao Yunxuan had expected that someone would steal the poison powder, Ouyang Renjie is a second-rank skill, he must be good at escaping if he can explode, I hope the corpse There is nothing wrong with the poisonous powder!"

"It must be fine, that kid is smarter than a monkey..."

Prince Duan laughed and said: "I sent him to get the poisonous powder, but when he got the poisonous powder, he killed the person and kept it in his hands to prevent anyone from touching it. It seems that he has already seen the mystery, but I I really didn't expect that Ouyang Renjie would rebel!"

"Not good! Quickly send Feige a message..."

Xia Shoufu said anxiously: "Ouyang Renjie's sworn elder brother is the deputy commander. The two brothers must have rebelled together. Hurry up and ask Jingli to arrest him and his henchmen. To be on the safe side, send out two carrier pigeons, no! Three, Give another one to the commander!"

"I wrote it myself..."

Prince Duan ran back in a hurry, and the little princess ordered someone to prepare a few suppers. She was wearing a small waistcoat and sat on a stone bench waiting for her lover. rushed over.

Xia Shoufu and Prince Duan rushed to meet him, and asked, "Zhao Tiju! What happened?"

"Ouyang Renjie came to steal the dead body poison powder, and a master archer rescued him..."

Zhao Guanren handed over the broken bow and iron arrows, and said: "Two hundred steps away, the three iron arrows all sank into the ground, filled with profound energy. Although I cut off the shoulder of a master archer, more than ten masters responded outside, and finally chopped me down. The corpses of the dead assassins were taken away!"

"This is the Iron Arm Bow and Star Iron Arrow from the Divine Arrow Battalion..."

Prince Duan took the Broken Bow and said in surprise: "This is unique to my elite teacher, the Shenjian Battalion. All the soldiers of the Shenjian Battalion can shoot through Yang with a hundred steps, but they can also shoot arrows into the ground after two hundred steps. Out of ten, it is impossible for them to leave the camp without an order!"

"You are stupid, they are confusing the public..."

The little princess jumped over and said: "This kind of bow and arrow can be picked up on the battlefield, and Ouyang Renjie brought two black-clothed guards. If I guessed right, the thief not only covered his head and face, but also had thousands of black-clothed guards. He definitely didn't run away, Ouyang Renjie wanted to blame him!"

"You are such a clever ghost, you are right..."

Zhao Guanren gave a thumbs up in admiration, and said: "Ouyang Renjie wanted to assassinate me, but in the end I was blown half to death by a thunderbolt. The face mask fell off to reveal my true face, and then I set off a firework. It should be to inform his accomplices." Run away quickly!"

"Your Highness! The black and white guards brought..."

The commander of the guards suddenly ran in, and all the hundreds of households who only saw the black and white double guards were arrested, and Chen Qianhu, who was full of bewilderment, was also tied up and kicked on the ground, panicking: "Your Highness! What happened?" What's the matter, the lower officials don't know!"

"Your Highness!"

The commander of the guards clasped his fists and said: "The white guards are missing 16 people. The Qianhu and the deputy Qianhu are gone. Only one deputy Qianhu is sleeping. There are even more black guards. A total of 26 people are missing. The deputy Qianhu Tan Qingning Disappeared before dinner!"

"No, it's impossible..."

Chen Qianhu hurriedly said: "Your Highness! Elder Ge! It is impossible for my junior sister to rebel. She must have brought someone to investigate the case. Her family members live in Beijing, so there is no reason to rebel!"

"I asked her to get corpse poison powder..."

Zhao Guanren stepped forward and said: "Bian's accountant hid the corpse poison powder in three batches. I thought there might be an insider in Jingdu's guard, so I asked her to set up an ambush in Xiangtian County and go get the corpse poison powder at the same time. Counting her, she happened to be there. 20 people, it means that there are at least six traitors in the black guards!"

"It's a shame! It's a shame..."

Prince Duan said angrily: "The guards of the capital! The guards of the Son of Heaven! The spies of the Ji Kingdom were actually mixed in. What kind of case did you investigate, what kind of poor handling did you do, and there were mistakes one after another. I will report to the emperor when I go back. It is useless to dismiss you all trash!"

"Your Highness, please calm down! I don't think it may be Jiguo..."

Zhao Guanren said: "I don't know if you have noticed that Ouyang's appearance is not like that of my Dashun people, with a high nose bridge and deep eye sockets, but people from the country of Ji don't look like that, and he has never shown mercy to the spies of the country of Ji. The latest batch of spies are all He caught it with his own hands!"

"You mean the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, that small island country..."

Prince Duan suddenly realized something, and everyone present was also surprised.

"Jiguo is currently on nationwide epidemic prevention. We already know that corpse poison is a double-edged sword. Why do we want to snatch corpse poison? Besides, as long as we put it in the past, they will have ready-made..."

Zhao Guanren said: "Only Xiaotai and I, Dashun, face each other across the sea. Even if there are corpses all over the place, they can't swim through. As long as we provoke us to kill each other with Jiguo, they can come to pick up the bargain. Otherwise, why use the Shenjianying camp?" Bow and arrow to blame?"

"It makes sense! It makes sense..."

Prince Duan pointed at him and nodded repeatedly, but Zhao Guanren continued: "There is an illusionist among the responders, wearing a brown cloak and holding a skeleton staff in her hand. She can create illusions and smoke. I think it might be Xiaotai. Onmyoji!"

"Damn it!"

Prince Duan gritted his teeth and scolded: "Proper onmyoji, only onmyoji can create illusions, damned foreign bandits, dare to break ground on Taisui!"

"Commander Wu!"

Xia Shoufu waved his hand and said: "The field guards will go down and check one by one. If Tan Qingning comes back, let her report immediately. Zhao Tiju, please come in with me. You must have guessed some things!"

"George! The official said something disrespectful..."

Zhao Guanren said as he walked, "You guys like to beat around the bush too much. It's a simple thing, but you insist on being mysterious. If I had been prepared earlier, how could Ouyang Renjie run away and give him all the shit? type it out!"

"It's not as simple as you said, otherwise why should we keep it secret..."

Xia Shoufu entered the study helplessly, sat down and sighed: "Oh, this is a big deal! I didn't come here to deal with two small merchants, let alone to investigate the corpse plague, but the emperor has always suspected that I am collaborating with the enemy at the top!"

"Ah? What a tall high-rise..."

Zhao Guanren looked at him in surprise, while Xia Shoufu lowered his voice and said, "The two ministers! The Jingdu Weichang! The commander of the Fire Feather Army, etc. are all suspects. How tall do you think?"

Chapter 0464

"Hey~ There's nothing to hide now..."

Xia Shoufu leaned on the grand teacher's chair and said: "Four years ago, when the corpse poison first appeared, the news leaked out. The person who transported the poison powder was intercepted and killed halfway. Do you know who that person is?"

"I've already found out..."

Zhao Guanren sat next to the two of them and said, "It should be Zhang Tianbao, but why did he transport the poisonous powder? Why didn't the imperial envoys take it away?"

"At that time, the imperial envoy went to Yuzhou Mansion to issue an edict, and the poison powder was only found on the third day after leaving..."

Xia Shoufu solemnly said: "Zhang Tianbao sent a pigeon to the capital, and the Ministry of War returned him a carrier pigeon and ordered him to bring poisonous powder and send it to the capital as quickly as possible. Zhang Tianbao then led the guards to go, but was intercepted and killed halfway. In order to investigate the case, the court said that he died in the border battle!"

"I'll go! So that's how it is..."

Zhao Guanren was surprised: "Did the Ministry of War receive the pigeon? Did the Ministry of War send the pigeon?"

"I took it and sent it, but I ordered him to lead the army and send it to the imperial envoy..."

Xia Shoufu said: "Flying pigeons use ciphertext to transmit letters, and outsiders don't know what they mean when they find them. The ciphertexts are different between armies. The Ningzhou Guard who received the pigeons also has detailed records. This means that the Ministry of War Something went wrong, someone killed the real pigeon and sent a fake one!"

Zhao Guanren spread his hands and said, "Then wouldn't it be found out after this investigation?"

"Two people ran away from the Ministry of War, both of them were small officials of the sixth grade. The ministers of the Ministry of War back then were all sent to prison, and a group of people were arrested but they were not found out why..."

Xia Shoufu took a sip of tea before saying: "Zhang Tianbao had a guard who didn't die. After he was rescued, he said that the enemies were all masked and their martial arts were superb. Zhang Tianbao was also a tough guy. Before he died, he swallowed the whole bottle of poison powder. The belly turned into pus on the spot, so the enemy failed!"

Zhao Guanren wondered, "Then you didn't settle the score with the Bian family?"

"At that time, I didn't know about the accountant Qi. I thought it was a spy who set fire to the poisonous powder..."

Xia Shoufu waved his hand and said: "After Zhang Tianbao was intercepted and killed, the imperial envoy ordered his family to continue to develop poisonous powder and put under surveillance, but the Bian family couldn't do it all the time, so the governor of Ningzhou issued an ultimatum. If you can’t hand over the poisonous powder, they don’t want to do this business!”

"Tsk tsk~"

Zhao Guanren shook his head and said, "Our court hall in Dashun is full of lice and loopholes. The Ministry of War can let spies in. I'm afraid there are many other cases of spies, right?"

"Indeed there are quite a few! But as soon as you mentioned the Peaceful Heavenly Kingdom, we suddenly realized..."

Prince Duan knocked on the table and said: "We made a mistake at the beginning. It was not a good thing done by the thief. Of course we couldn't find anything. We didn't take Little Thailand seriously at all. Who would have thought that they would be so brave?" , I must let them destroy the country this time!"

"My lords! Let me tell you the real situation..."

Zhao Guanren raised four fingers and said, "Actually, Zhang Tianbao found four bottles of poisonous powder, and he hid three of them. No one knows what the purpose is, but Zhang Tianbao even hid it from his family, and only said it was to destroy the poisonous powder." The corpse powder used to destroy corpses!"

"..."

The two adults looked at each other in surprise, and said, "It turns out that the poison powder has been in the hands of the Zhang family!"

"That's right! The Zhang family has a gambler, Zhang Tiansheng, who killed the person who came to ask for debts more than a month ago..."

Zhao Guanren said: "The kid took out the corpse powder after he killed someone, and threw it into the dry well to dissolve the corpse. As a result, it rained heavily that night, and the original dry well was flooded to the outside house of the Bian family. In this way, the corpse poison spread out like this!"

"It's true that people are not as good as heaven..."

Prince Duan hurriedly asked: "How did you find out? Did you find out just now? Zhang Tiansheng can be arrested. Whether he intends to or not, this is not a small crime!"

"I went to the old lady of the Zhang family and asked everything clearly, but..."

Zhao Guanren said helplessly: "Zhang Tiansheng ran away four days ago, and he probably found something wrong, and he may still have a bottle of corpse poison powder in his hand. I have found the remaining two bottles. I will also send the official document of the arrest. Yes, a reward of 200 taels is offered!"

"A reward of two thousand!"

Prince Duan impatiently patted the table, and said: "If I don't kill his head when I come back, I will give him 500 taels for [-] sticks, the poison from the corpse will be terrible!"

"My lord's actions are magnificent, I admire you..."

Zhao Guanren clasped his hands and said, "Master Ge! As the Chief Epidemiologist, this subordinate is duty-bound to eliminate the corpse poison. Corpse poison is not a weapon of war. It can turn all the big fish in the sea into corpses. If it leaks out, human beings will die, so I beg to destroy it." Corpse poison, not a single drop!"

"Hmm! Your mind and vision really make this old man admire..."

Xia Shoufu nodded slightly and said with a smile: "Why did the emperor throw the bowl in court? The emperor is not angry that the poisoning failed, but that those people are greedy for profit and short-sighted. If we can poison them, so can they. When the time comes, no one will be able to please everyone." !"

"Oh? I actually wanted to go with the emperor..."

Zhao Guanren realized that he really underestimated the emperor. He never thought that an emperor could have such foresight.

"I know that you really want to cure poison. Your Highness said that you were anxious with him earlier. It's really good..."

Xia Shoufu laughed again: "However, the emperor's intention is not to eliminate the poison, but to seal up the corpse poison, as a deterrent to other countries, and tell them clearly, if they dare to violate our Dashun territory, we will Let your country be full of corpses!"

"No, no, no! This is not a nuclear weapon, it will really kill you..."

Zhao Guanren waved his hand and said: "What I mean is that the court is full of loopholes. If the poisonous powder persists for a day, people will worry about it. Thousands of corpses are rampant everywhere, who can stop them?"

"impossible!"

Prince Duan firmly said: "The poisonous powder is hidden in the forbidden palace, guarded by a great master, who has the ability to steal it out, besides, there is Zhang Tiansheng, if his bottle falls into the hands of Little Thailand, we will not Isn't it passive, you don't have to worry too much!"

"You have doubted even the six ministers, what if the grand master is a traitor..."

Zhao Guanren patted the back of his hands and said: "I heard that the Forbidden Palace is guarded by three great masters. As long as there is a problem with one of them, it is easy to steal something. Let's just destroy the corpse poison and declare to the outside world that we have poison powder. No one will believe you if you say no one!"

"This……"

The two adults looked at each other hesitantly, when an eunuch knocked on the door and said that Tan Qingning had arrived, Zhao Guanren hurried over and opened the door, only to see the bloodstains all over Tan Qingning's body, the soft armor had been stabbed twice, her face was as sallow as straw paper ugly.

"What's wrong? Has the corpse poison been robbed..."

Zhao Guanren hurried over to help her, Tan Qingning stepped into the study wearily, took off the leather satchel and said with a sad smile: "It's a humble job, fortunately, I got all four bottles of poison powder, but I was intercepted by thieves on the way, we waited for a bloody battle to break through It was a lucky escape!"

"Just come back! Thank you for your hard work..."

Prince Duan wanted to take the satchel when he came up, but Zhao Guanren snatched it and said, "Qing Ning! You heard that Ouyang Renjie has defected and brought a group of Thai ladyboys to assassinate me earlier. Their spies!"

"Your Highness! Elder Ge..."

Tan Qingning suddenly knelt down on the ground, and said in a sobbing voice: "We are indeed guilty of negligence, but my senior brother will never rebel, and my black-clothed guards are all good men. I led more than 20 people out of the city with humble duties, and all of them were injured. Please Your Highness and Ge Lao trust me and wait!"

"Deputy Tan Qianhu! Please get up quickly..."

Xia Shoufu helped her up with his own hands, and said: "I know that you are loyal, but there is such a big mistake in Jingdu's guard, we must investigate it to the end, but I can assure you that it will be handled fairly. , never let a bad person go, and never wrong a good person!"

"Thank you sir! Thank you Your Highness..."

Tan Qingning stood up with tears streaming down her face, and Zhao Guanren opened the bag to look at the poison powder, and said with a smile, "That's right, I have all nine bottles of poison powder in my hand, and I have to put a question mark if there is one more bottle left." , Your Majesty will destroy it in public!"

"Why are you in a hurry, at least let us ask for an order..."

Prince Duan grabbed the satchel, and Zhao Guanren had no choice but to say: "Let's do it! You don't need many poisonous powders, one bottle can destroy the world. Your Highness and I each keep one bottle, and we destroy the rest in person, otherwise there will be more poisonous powders." The bigger the target, the easier it is to be stolen!"

"Two bottles! You take one bottle and hide it well..."

As Prince Duan said, he was about to take out the poisonous powder, but Zhao Guanren yelled deliberately: "Hey! You can't take it out, and you will die if you leak the powder. Professionals work like professionals. Poisonous powder can be spread through breathing. One mouthful will kill all four of us!"

"You didn't say it earlier, take it away quickly, and fetch water to wash this king's hands..."

Prince Duan hurriedly handed the bag to him in fright, and ran out with his hands up. Xia Shoufu also stepped out instinctively, and said, "Take care of it quickly, just leave two bottles of poison powder, and the rest Take the poisonous powder and destroy it in public tomorrow morning!"

"Then you have to send me hundreds of forbidden troops, otherwise I can't beat those Xiaotai..."

Zhao Guanren held up the bag with a helpless expression on his face, and Xia Shoufu said without hesitation: "Go to Commander Wu, and hand over the poisonous powder to him. Just tell me what I want. If Tan Qianhu is okay, let him go." Go for personal protection, there is more or less a caretaker!"

"Follow your orders!"

Tan Qingning immediately followed Zhao Guanren, and the little princess dragged Zhao Guanren to eat supper. Zhao Guanren used the corpse poison to scare her away. Finally, he found a wooden box and filled it with two bottles of corpse poison. Followed Tan Qingning and the forbidden army to leave.

"Hey~ Sister! The acting skills are not bad, did you gain anything from Xiangtian County..."

Zhao Guanren led Tan Qingning into the carriage, cut open the leather armor and saw that the white flesh inside was fine, and the wounds and bloodstains were all staged.

"An ordinary person would definitely go to the trap in Xiangtian County, but Ouyang Renjie would never fall for your trap..."