Those who could dine and make merry at Guanjiang House were either wealthy or noble in Dingzhou City. Many were even mid-to-high-level officers and officials of the Chengde Army and prefecture and county government offices. Seeing the fire at Guanjiang House burning more and more fiercely, with even clusters of sparks splashing onto the long street, never mind that at this moment it was Guanjiang House guards of unknown origin sealing off the long street from both sides—even if it were Provincial Military Governor Wang Yuankui’s guard personal army elite forces sealing the street, they would dare to step forward to argue, demanding to first evacuate from the dangerous place.
Whether someone was secretly instigating or not, Han Bao and Huo Li faintly heard the clamor of voices. Soon chaos appeared on the long street, with crowds packed on the street pushing and shoving toward both sides.
Guanjiang House’s armored guards held blades and crossbows, but obviously still didn’t dare directly use force to suppress the Dingzhou powerful people dining at Guanjiang House tonight.
Even though most of the banquet guests clearly understood Guanjiang House’s special status in Dingzhou, as long as the secrets behind the scenes hadn’t been officially announced and everything still remained at the level of speculation, suddenly seeing so many armored guards burst into Guanjiang House—who could remain completely calm and stay, not panicking inside?
The banquet guests almost all had family soldiers and servants with them. Some people’s mansions were nearby, with family soldiers and servants thinking of bringing their own people back home. The atmosphere and situation became increasingly tense and chaotic.
Seeing this scene, Huo Li couldn’t help saying, “The people secretly directing matters at Guanjiang House may have already discovered Liang Kingdom secret agents mixed in the crowd. Look—they’re transferring even more people from the rear courtyard, forming shield formations on the long street to prevent being scattered by the crowd.”
Wang Zhe saw that at this moment Guanjiang House had close to over two hundred armored elite forces on both sides of the long street. He became even more certain that his earlier speculation was extremely likely closer to the truth.
One must know that even though Dingzhou City was the seat of administration for the Chengde Army and location of the Provincial Military Governor’s office, the city garrison numbered only three thousand troops. More of the elite forces were—at least openly at this time—mainly stationed in defensive fortifications to the north guarding against Mongol Uighur southern advances.
For Wang Yuankui to secretly permit Guanjiang House to directly hide so many elite armored troops within Dingzhou City—the possibilities weren’t many.
The first possibility was that Guanjiang House and the Chengde Army had long merged into one.
This possibility actually wasn’t very likely. From Wang Yuankui’s execution of the Liang envoy but then hesitation about dispatching troops against the Liang army, one could see that disagreements existed between Wang Jingrong and Wang Yuankui and other high-level Chengde Army officers.
If there were no disagreements, there wouldn’t even be a need to rush to demonstrate an irreconcilable stance with Liang Kingdom by executing the Liang envoy. Even if Jin Crown Prince Shi Chengzu or Prince Lu expressed their position, they only needed to expel the Liang envoy.
The second possibility was not that Wang Jingrong and Guanjiang House had long been vassals of the Mongol Uighurs, but that after Wang Jingrong unauthorized execution of the Liang envoy forced a showdown, Wang Yuankui directly secretly submitted to the Mongol Uighurs through Guanjiang House.
Besides these two points, of course there were other possibilities, but other possibilities all had places that couldn’t be fully explained.
In the current situation, even more urgent were the Liang army secret agents. If they couldn’t transmit the news out in time, no matter how brilliant and talented Emperor Zhu Yu of Liang was, defeat and ruin would be just around the corner.
“Regardless of whether individual Liang army secret agents can successfully escape from Guanjiang House, raising such a big commotion, Wang Yuankui will inevitably clear the streets and search the city, hunting for whether there are other Liang army secret agents in the city,” Han Bao said. “We can’t all remain here…”
Although Dingzhou City was magnificent and the seat of administration for the Chengde Army, the city only had five to six thousand households.
This abandoned residence, though normally inconspicuous, with such a big commotion raised, once Chengde Army Provincial Military Governor Wang Yuankui ordered a city-wide search, they shouldn’t hope this place could continue to remain hidden.
They needed to immediately disperse and further conceal their identities.
Han Bao had made arrangements for this over the past two months.
After brief consultation, they decided Shi Ruhai, Zhang Shimin and others would cover Wang Zhe and his group to first leave for the hiding place in the east of the city, while Han Bao’s group with Zhang Shigui, Huo Li and others would plan to sneak to another backup hiding location.
Wang Zhe didn’t rush to depart. Worried that circumstances could change at any moment, he entered the room to borrow lamplight to rush drafting multiple copies of secret letters that urgently needed to be sent back to Tangyi. This way even if they were unfortunately captured, the secret letters could still be sent out of the city by others finding a way.
Huo Li and Han Bao led people to disguise the scene. Even if this place was discovered by Chengde Army and Guanjiang House people—once a city-wide search began, discovery here was almost certain—they still needed to mislead them into thinking this was a Liang Kingdom secret agents’ outpost.
Huo Li and Wang Zhe’s trip here had another extremely important purpose, which was to emphasize to Han Bao and others that Guanjiang House maintained extremely close contact with Wanhong House. If Tangyi wanted to hide its intentions and make Lu Qingxia and Li Zhigao mistakenly believe Tangyi knew nothing about the northern situation, they in Dingzhou absolutely couldn’t alert the snake by beating the grass or expose any traces.
At this moment Zhang Shigui, who was stationed in the tree crown observing the development of the situation at Guanjiang House, ran in again calling:
“Over a dozen people wielding blades and bows killed their way through the western wall of Guanjiang House’s rear courtyard into the compound. Earlier they created chaos on the long street, seemingly trying to lure the tiger away from the mountain, drawing Guanjiang House guards out to facilitate assassinating the Mongol Uighur envoys!”
Wang Zhe, Huo Li, and Han Bao climbed the tree again and saw Guanjiang House already ablaze with soaring flames, illuminating the surroundings brightly. They could clearly see over a dozen black-clothed figures had already killed into Guanjiang House’s rear courtyard, engaged in bloody battle with twenty to thirty guards remaining in the rear courtyard.
“Something’s wrong. There must be an extremely important Liang army figure on the long street who needs to escape. Otherwise at this moment they shouldn’t be flying like moths to the flame to carry out assassination!” Wang Zhe said with deeply furrowed brows.
Although Wang Zhe practiced civil affairs and didn’t handle weapons, he also clearly understood that even if Guanjiang House had earlier fallen for the lure-the-tiger-from-the-mountain ploy, even if they had emptied the rear courtyard’s guard forces, just the personal bodyguards beside the Mongol Uighur envoys and Weizhou envoys would definitely have formidable martial strength. How could over a dozen black-clothed figures break through?
Even if they were all expert hands at the level of Han Bao and Huo Li risking a desperate gamble, the possibility of successful assassination wouldn’t exceed fifty percent.
Moreover, even though the envoys were important figures, once two factions’ forces determined to collude together, how could assassinating envoys obstruct this?
Even if the assassination succeeded, it would only delay matters somewhat, right?
With the Liang army hiding so many personnel within Dingzhou City, at this moment shouldn’t the priority be ensuring such important news was transmitted to Emperor Zhu Yu of Liang’s command tent in Luzhou?
When matters defy common sense, there must be demons at work.
For Liang army secret agents to not hesitate to carry out suicidal assassination under such extremely unfavorable circumstances, the only thing Wang Zhe could guess was that this action covered the escape of even more important figures.
What figures were more important as a priority than transmitting such crucial military intelligence?
Han Bao, Huo Li, and Wang Zhe looked at each other. In any case, for all three of them, nothing was higher priority than transmitting such important military intelligence. Even if the three of them had to sacrifice their lives, they had to ensure such important military intelligence could be transmitted out at the first opportunity.
Han Bao and his group were clear-sighted bystanders, but those secretly directing matters at Guanjiang House didn’t dare let the noble guests in the courtyard face mortal danger. After over a dozen assassins killed into the rear courtyard, they could only first transfer personnel from the front long street to reinforce the encirclement and killing of the assassins. The seal on the long street was subsequently broken by the chaotic crowd.
Wang Zhe hastily finished writing several identical secret letters. Han Bao arranged for Shi Ruhai, Zhang Shimin and others to carry six carrier pigeons and evacuate first.
He and Huo Li, Wang Zhe who insisted on staying, along with Zhang Shigui and two other expert hands remained in the ruined courtyard to continue observing the development of the situation.
Currently the long street in front of Guanjiang House was in complete chaos. They still couldn’t confirm exactly what important Liang Kingdom figure was mixed in, so they could only patiently wait for the crowd to disperse further. At the same time they also needed multiple personnel to keep their eyes fixed on several directions at all times…
If there truly was an extremely important figure who fell into their sights with few guards beside them, they could fish in troubled waters to intercept and capture them, then secretly escort them back to Tangyi. The value wouldn’t necessarily be much less than transmitting tonight’s news back to Tangyi in time.
No matter what, Tangyi’s greatest opponent was still the Liang army.
Han Bao’s bold recklessness need not be mentioned. That Huo Li could proactively come to Dingzhou also showed he dared take risks.
Wang Zhe also insisted on staying. After all, only he had traveled Bianjing and other places in earlier years and was proficient in civil affairs, having some understanding of Liang Kingdom’s important figures.
Those dining at Guanjiang House were either wealthy or noble in Dingzhou City. They had wanted to leave earlier out of fear of being affected by the fire spreading while staying on the long street, and simultaneously felt panicked and angry that Guanjiang House guards of unclear intentions dared obstruct them.
However, after breaking through the Guanjiang House guards’ seal, the vast majority weren’t in a hurry to leave. Instead they held the mood of watching excitement, standing on the periphery watching the fire burn Guanjiang House.
Such a large fire was still rare in Dingzhou City. Many officials and commoners in the city heard the commotion and ran to the streets or borrowed ladders to climb walls to watch the excitement.
These people were ultimately obstructed by buildings and courtyard walls. Even though closer, they couldn’t see the fighting in Guanjiang House’s rear courtyard.
The city garrison at this moment had one or two squads of troops rush to Guanjiang House, only thinking of firefighting and prioritizing protecting the personal safety of noble guests inside Guanjiang House.
Streets and alleys full of people almost all stared at the increasingly fierce fire at Guanjiang House. But four shadowy figures took advantage of the chaos to rapidly transfer toward the periphery. In the eyes of Han Bao, Huo Li, and Wang Zhe, they were truly more conspicuous than the bright moon in the night sky after snow cleared.
However, Han Bao and his group weren’t too excited.
Those secretly directing matters at Guanjiang House weren’t fools either. Even though they had no choice but to transfer more guards to protect the envoys in the rear courtyard, obviously they had always been watching the movements on the long street in front of Guanjiang House. Han Bao and his group quickly saw twenty to thirty people chase out from Guanjiang House…