Chongxi [rebirth]

The dark guard followed outside the stockade, took note of the location, and rushed back to the ruined temple before the people in the stockade went down the mountain.

Ye Yunting listened to what the dark guard said, and said: "Sure enough, the refugees turned into bandits."

The stronger refugees occupy the mountain as kings, while the weaker refugees, either as handymen, or like the grandparents and grandchildren, are sent out to take the lead and find out the situation of passers-by.It is convenient for the people behind to start.

"There are only five or sixty young and strong people in the stockade. The rest are old and weak, women and children, and they are not a threat to us." Wu Geng said: "It's just that this place is not far from Jizhou City. Attention Jizhou City."

Ye Yunting thought of another aspect, the village was full of people, probably only a hundred people, compared to the whole Jizhou city, it was still a little less.

And looking at the situation of the grandfather and grandson, it is obvious that life in the village is not good.If you go to Jizhou City or a nearby town, you can still get a mouthful of gruel.But they were willing to stay in the stockade, apparently distrusting the government of Jizhou City and the surrounding towns.

Ye Yunting kept this doubt in his heart, and he always felt that he would be at ease when he was cleared up, so he said, "You don't have to fight with them. To capture the thief, you should first capture the king. When the time comes, you should catch the bandit leader first, and the rest will naturally disperse. I will let the wolves The king and Saker Falcon frighten them, it won't be a waste of time."

Since he is a refugee, he is naturally inferior to the secret guards who are from the army. Threats and intimidation are enough to scare them, and there is no need to directly confront them. After all, Ye Yunting just wants to find out what secrets are hidden in Jizhou City.

Hearing what he said at the fifth watch, he went out to make arrangements.

Ye Yunting thought that there might be a conflict later, so he asked the princess and Yiqiu to hide in the carriage, protected by four hidden guards.He himself sat by the fire, waiting for the bandits to throw themselves into the trap.

After waiting like this for about half an hour, the dark guard reported in a low voice: "Here is the man."

Those bandits thought they were acting covertly, so they divided into two teams and outflanked them from the rear, but they didn't know that their whereabouts had already been exposed to the eyes of the shadow guards who were watching them.

The hidden guard hiding in the tree made a gesture, and the news quickly reached Ye Yunting's ears.

He nodded slightly and made a gesture to get everyone ready to act.

The leaders of the bandits were two big men, one with a beard and a bald head and a fleshy face,

The bearded man was hidden in the shadows, looked at the horses tied to the roadside, rubbed his hands together and said impatiently, "They are all good horses, if you sell them, you can get a lot of money."

The bald head spat on the knife and gave him a contemptuous look: "If you can afford such a good horse, you must have a good family background. These horses are small things. When the time comes, we will find out the family background and let the girls Write a letter from home and send it back without worrying about running out of money."

He was thinking of exchanging hostages for money.

While the two were talking, they had already led someone to the entrance of the ruined temple.A dozen hidden guards in disguise were sleeping in a shelter from the wind on the other side, as if they didn't realize it.

The bald head winked at the bearded servants, pointed at a bunch of sleeping "servants", and made a movement of wiping their necks, asking him to take most of the staff to deal with those servants.He led a small group of people into the ruined temple.

There was only one person in the temple, and there were no other guards. A young man wrapped in a fox fur coat was sleeping soundly.

The bald head glanced back and forth on the expensive fox fur coat, and couldn't help swallowing: "Brothers, we're going to send it out this time."

After speaking, he held the knife and strode towards Ye Yunting who was pretending to be asleep.

Ye Yunting opened his eyes when he heard the movement, and said in shock, "Who are you?"

Seeing this, the bald man chuckled and said arrogantly, "I'm your grandfather!"

Ye Yunting wrapped his arms around his body, and said in a panic: "But, my grandfather has already been buried in the ground."

"..." The bald head choked, and then grinned grinningly: "Little white face with sharp teeth, you won't be able to laugh later." As he said that, the shiny big knife was about to touch Ye Yunting's neck.

Ye Yunting looked up, but didn't move.Instead, he leaned back and said softly, "Ji Lian."

"Come on!" Ji Lian, who was hiding behind the statue, immediately stood up, picked up the fallen head of one side of the stone Buddha statue with both hands, and threw it at the bald bandit leader.

Everything happened in an instant, and before the bald head could react, it was smashed against the wall by the heavy Buddha head.

Even the dilapidated temples trembled and crumbled.

Not to mention the bandits who came in with the bald head, even Wu Geng and others hiding on the beam couldn't help but "hiss", Ji Lian's brute force is really shocking every time he sees it.

Ye Yunting stood up, patted the ashes on his shoulder slowly, and said in a deep voice, "Take them all off."

Wu Geng and others jumped off the beam and subdued these bandits with ease.

He took Ji Lian to the gate of the temple, and saw that the bearded people outside had been restrained, and the remaining bandits saw that the situation was not good and tried to break out.But the hidden guard made dumplings.

A bandit was dying and struggling, turned his head and saw Ye Yunting standing weakly at the gate of the temple, with only a fat attendant beside him, guessing that he should be the master of this group of people, he gritted his teeth and drew his knife and rushed towards him——

It's a pity that before he got close, he heard a sound of skimming overhead, and a falcon with wings nearly four feet wide swooped down, and its sharp claws went straight to his face.The bandit was startled, and instinctively raised his arm to block it, but a piece of flesh was torn off his arm.Before he had time to rejoice that he had escaped, he heard the sound of Qi Qi's breathing coming from behind him. He covered his injured arm and turned his head, only to see a strong and ferocious gray wolf rushing towards him...

The bandit was pushed to the ground, and the wolf king's sharp teeth were less than a punch away from his neck.He could even see the meat left in the wolf king's teeth, as well as the fishy smell when he breathed.

His eyes widened in horror, his limbs twitched for a while, and a foul smell came from his lower body.

Ye Yunting frowned, and waved to the wolf king: "Ah Xuan, come back."

Ah Xuan was the one who got the name for the wolf king. Since Saker Falcon was called Ah Qing, he did the same and gave him one.

Hearing this, the wolf king shook his ears, let go of the bandit who was limp on the ground, walked back to Ye Yunting and sat down.Its skeleton was already very strong. After being raised in the palace for a while, and then traveled long distances with Ye Yunting and his party, its muscles are strong and smooth, and it is very strong and impressive.When squatting aside, it was even higher than Ye Yunting's waist.A pair of silver-gray eyes filled with the cold breath of a beast.It looked horrific.

Not to mention that the very ferocious Saker also landed on the abandoned pillar beside the ruined temple, and the sharp talons were faintly stained with fresh blood.

This group of bandits had never seen such a battle before. They were desperately trying to break out of the siege, but now they were so frightened that the knives in their hands fell to the ground, lying on the ground and begging for mercy.

The two bandit leaders had their hands tied behind their backs, and they knelt down in front of Ye Yunting.

Ye Yunting sized them up with downcast eyes, and said, "Interview."

Following Li Fengqi at the fifth watch, he had done a lot of interrogation of prisoners and spies, so it should not be too easy to dig out information from the two bandits.Without even doing much, the two of them explained everything honestly.

According to the account of the two bandit chiefs, they were originally refugees from Luzhou. They heard that Jizhou was recruiting soldiers and they gave them a lot of money to join them. Who knew that when they got there, they didn’t get the money, so they were arrested without saying a word. Sent to the mine for mining.According to the bandit leader, the mine only had two meals a day and slept for two hours, and worked day and night for the rest of the time.Those who were lazy, disobeyed discipline, and escaped were all killed directly.

Everyone is locked inside to mine like livestock, and they can't stop unless they die.

And this group of bandits escaped half a month ago taking advantage of the chaos in the mine. They were afraid of being caught back, so they simply found an abandoned village in the mountains and became bandits.

"Mining?" Ye Yunting frowned: "Do you know what mine it is? Where is it?"

Wu Geng said: "The mine is near Zhouju Town. They are only responsible for going in and transporting the ore out. The details are not very clear. But that nonsense, once he saw gold particles falling out of some stones."

That could very well be a gold mine!

There are only a handful of gold and silver mines in Beizhao, and after years of mining, there are not many left.A gold mine was discovered in Jizhou. No wonder the Yin family secretly arrested so many refugees, and even paid a high price of ten taels of silver for conscription.Those recruits were probably also sent to the mine to mine day and night.

Although the extraction of gold mines is costly, the benefits are huge.

If the Yin family can steal the gold mine, they will be able to compete with the imperial court by relying on the gold mountain and recruiting troops.

Ye Yunting's heart beat faster and faster.

He looked at the fifth watch, and said resolutely: "Go to Weizhou immediately to report to the prince, and at the same time assign half of the secret guards to escort the old princess back to Weizhou, and the remaining half of the guards will stay with me in the village and listen to the news of the mine. "

Wu Geng looked slightly startled: "What does the princess mean...?"

"Although Zhouju Town is within the territory of Jizhou, it is close to the junction of the three states..." Ye Yunting made an intercepting gesture: "The Yin family is a rebel army, they provoked first, the prince led the army to quell the chaos, and regained the lost land, justified. "

If it's really a gold mine, let the Yin family take it all to themselves, it's better for them to keep it for themselves.

Wu Geng naturally understood the importance of this. He suppressed his worries and said, "This subordinate will report it immediately. The princess must be careful, and don't act rashly."

Ye Yunting called the commander of the dark guards and ordered him to escort the old concubine to Weizhou after the fifth watch.As for himself, he took the remaining half of the hidden guards, pressed down the two bandit leaders, and prepared to go into the mountain to enter the stockade.

The stockade is hidden, but it happens to be used by him.

***

Ye Wang was cold and tired, he almost lost consciousness below his knees, only the hot and itchy feeling urged him to go out quickly.

After eating the half of the cake in my stomach, I have already digested it, and my hungry stomach is also rumbling.

He took a breath, grabbed a handful of snow and swallowed it.

The cold snow turned into water at the entrance, and it was so cold that his brain hurt. After eating two handfuls with difficulty, he felt that his stomach was not so uncomfortable after all, so he found a branch as a walking stick and continued to walk down.

It was too dark, and he couldn't tell the direction in the continuous forest, so he could only stop and go, straining his ears to listen to the movement around him, and then walked in the direction of movement.

——With so many people going down the mountain in the stockade, the movement must not be too small.

He tried hard to identify it for a while, and finally heard a human voice from the whistling wind, followed the sound and saw the light of the torch again.He didn't dare to rush forward, and quietly hid behind a tree far away, poking his head to identify carefully.

The two bandit leaders are tall and easily recognizable.

Ye Wan saw the two of them following another hooded figure, seeming to be talking about something.

Did you come back from work?

Ye Wan then shook his head and denied the guess, there were many more people in the team, and the man in the middle didn't look like he was caught, but two bandits were following him, somewhat Please mean.

Could it be that Zhaizi finally encountered a hard stubble and was about to be taken over?

Ye Fan was startled and puzzled, thought for a while, and decided to follow up to see the situation, and wait for the opportunity.

He waited for a group of people to pass by, and then followed quietly behind leaning on a branch, without noticing that a pair of silver-gray animal eyes behind him were secretly watching him.

The wolf king did not follow Ye Yunting, but hunted in the forest.However, a sneaky figure was spotted in the dark.

It followed secretly for a while and judged it as an enemy.After giving Ye Yunting a long whistle to warn Ye Yunting, he ran towards the unaware Ye Wang.

Ye Wan was startled by the sudden wolf howl, looked around in horror, and saw a ferocious gray wolf running towards him not far away.He suddenly turned pale with fright, and he didn't care about being discovered, so he broke out and ran forward at the fastest speed in his life.

When Ye Yunting heard the wolf king's warning, he immediately ordered people to stop and look around.Then I saw a figure running staggeringly towards the hillside on the left. He was in a panic and accidentally tripped over a rock and rolled down along the thick snow.

The wolf king who was catching up was about to pounce on it, but Ye Yunting stopped it loudly, and said to the dark guard: "Bring him over to have a look."

The wolf king will not hurt people casually, this person must have something strange to attract the attention of the wolf king.

The dark guard led the order and walked towards Ye Wang.

Ye Wan, who was lying face down on the ground, was in pain all over his body. He vaguely heard that the other party was going to send someone to arrest him. He gritted his teeth and hurriedly got up. direction to run.

Just as the lightning flashed when he stood up, Ye Yunting saw his side face, hesitantly said: "Ye Fan?!"

Ye Fan shook his legs, staggered, turned his head in surprise, and saw Ye Yunting surrounded by a group of people, striding towards him.