Do you know the long song of laughter?

Chapter 431 The Suspicious Zhao Zongquan
The three of them ordered a table of wine and food, sat down and started drinking.

After a few drinks and some idle chat, Gu Tingye asked, "Brother Shen, have you wiped out that gang of bandits?"

"I was well prepared this time, so I naturally couldn't let them get away. However, I only found a few broken bows in the stronghold, and the captured survivors all said that it was not them who did it. It seems that you are right, Zhong Huai, and there is someone else who assassinated my brother-in-law." Shen Congxing said.

"Uncle, I told you before that it was unlikely to be that group of bandits, but you refused to listen. But there is an advantage to what you did. If we announce to the public that it was done by this group of bandits, it will allow the people behind the scenes to relax their vigilance, and the investigation will be easier." Zhao Ceying said.

He was also present when the assassination attempt occurred before. Those assassins not only had bows and crossbows, but their martial arts were even better than those of the generals in the army. He felt that it was unlikely that it was done by bandits.

But after his father went back, he thought about it for a long time, but apart from this group of bandits, he really couldn't think of who he had offended that caused them to send assassins to kill him.

Because of his busy and sensitive status, Zhao Zongquan was very honest and never had any dealings with Yuzhou officials, let alone offended them.

Normally he either stays at home or in the military camp training the one thousand soldiers under his command.

Gu Tingye asked in confusion: "Could it be that during the previous assassination attempt, no one was left alive? And there was nothing found on the assassin's body?"

"Those people don't look like ordinary assassins. Instead, some of them look like death warriors. They would rather die than surrender even if they were injured, so they chose to commit suicide." Zhao Ceying frowned.

During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, due to frequent wars, people with a little status liked to recruit retainers and train death squads.

Later, when the whole country was unified, the custom of keeping retainers and assassins continued to exist. However, after the decline of the aristocratic families and the strict restrictions imposed by the court, the wealthy families would only keep some bodyguards and no one dared to keep assassins.

But those assassins gave him the feeling that they were dead soldiers.

At this point, Gu Tingye could almost conclude that it was Prince Yan who did it.

Prince Yan had been in Bian Jing all the time, so naturally he didn't dare to keep any assassins, otherwise he would be finished if he was discovered.

However, the King of Yan's mother's family was a northern military family that had been entrenched in the north for many years and had great influence.

Gu Tingye was born in a marquis's mansion and knew some secrets.

Because there were no strategic locations to defend in the north, although there had been peace between the Song and Liao dynasties in recent years, there had been wars in previous years. Even though there had been no wars in recent years, small groups of cavalry from the Liao Kingdom often entered the Song Dynasty to plunder.

The Song Dynasty sent people to the Liao Kingdom to question it, but the Liao Kingdom did not admit it and the Song Dynasty could do nothing about it.

Because of the harsh living environment, the big families and generals in the north secretly kept some death warriors.

This group of assassins were most likely sent by the Yan King’s mother’s clan.

"In this case, the other party may not give up easily if they fail. We have to strengthen the protection of the mansion." Gu Tingye reminded.

If the assassin was really sent by the King of Yan's mother's family, they would never give up until they achieved their goal. Moreover, the Queen's birthday is not far away and the other party does not have much time. Naturally, they will not refrain from taking action just because Zhao Zongquan is in the city.

"Don't worry, my uncle has transferred dozens of people from the garrison, plus the guards at home, there are hundreds of people now. If those assassins dare to come, they will be beaten back without return!" Zhao Ceying said confidently.

"That's good."

Gu Tingye nodded, but felt a little worried.

According to the agreement between him and Li An, he needed to bring Zhao Zongquan to Bian Jing the day after the Queen's birthday.

He originally planned to wait for the opportunity in Yuzhou, but he didn't expect to meet Shen Congxing.

In order to deal with Shen Congxing's inquiries, he had to make up an excuse. Now it was still half a month before the Queen's birthday, and he couldn't guide Zhao Zongquan to Bianjing now.

But he had no reason to stay in Yuzhou.

What Gu Tingye was most worried about was not this, but that many assassins had suffered casualties after previous failures.

If they are short of manpower, they may not dare to take action when they see that Zhao Zongquan is well guarded.

He could arrange for someone to pretend to be an assassin, but the Zhao family’s defenses were so strict, wouldn’t he be sending someone to die?

If we were caught alive, we would be doing more harm than good.

While Gu Tingye was racking his brains for a solution, he also had to pretend nothing was wrong and drink with the two of them.

After three rounds of drinking, the three of them were a little tipsy. Given the special circumstances, Shen Congxing and Zhao Ceying did not dare to get drunk, so they ended the banquet.

Gu Tingye escorted the two out of the inn and said, "Since I know that Zhao Tuanlian is injured, I have to go visit him anyway. It's late today and I drank a lot of wine, so forget it. I will go to visit Zhao Tuanlian early tomorrow morning."

"Haha, then I will be waiting for Zhong Huai to come tomorrow." Zhao Ceying said with a smile.

"on fire!"

"Look, there's a big fire over there!"

Suddenly, bursts of exclamations were heard and pedestrians on the street stopped and looked towards the south of the city.

The three of them looked towards the south of the city. Although the buildings blocked their view, they could still see flames rising into the sky in that direction.

"No, something happened!"

Shen Congxing and Zhao Ceying's faces changed dramatically. They didn't even bother to greet Gu Tingye. They snatched the horses from the followers and mounted them. Regardless of the dense crowds on the street, they shouted to get out of the way and galloped away.

Gu Tingye's expression changed. He rushed into the stable of the inn, found his horse, and chased after it.

……

Shen Congxing and Zhao Ceying rushed all the way to their doorstep.

As soon as I entered the house, I saw corpses everywhere. The guards and servants and many soldiers were busy putting out the fire!

"Where is my father? How is my father?" Zhao Ceying grabbed a guard and asked!
"My lord, our master is fine. The assassin sneaked in and was discovered by the patrol, so he set fires everywhere. Captain Geng sent people to fight to the death, while at the same time he ordered people to protect the master's wife and transfer her. Fortunately, the soldiers in the city heard the noise and arrived in time. Seeing that the situation was not good, the assassin fled!" said the guard.

Zhao Ceying breathed a sigh of relief when he heard this, let go of his guards, and helped put out the fire with Shen Congxing.

When Gu Tingye arrived and saw this scene, he also joined in to help put out the fire.

Half an hour later, the fire was finally put out.

However, nearly half of the house, which covers an area of ​​more than ten acres, has been destroyed.

"Zhong Huai, thank you for your hard work."

Zhao Ceying dropped the wooden basin in his hand, regardless of etiquette, and wiped the sweat from his face with his sleeve.

"Why are you being so polite to me? Is Zhao Tuanlian okay?" Gu Tingye asked.

"My father is fine." Zhao Ceying said.

Gu Tingye nodded, saw a dead body not far away, and walked forward to check.

"Son!"

A middle-aged man with tattered clothes and a disheveled look ran over when he heard the noise.

"Where is my father?" Zhao Ceying asked anxiously.

"The commander and his wife are in the east yard. I asked Xiao Duan to lead people to guard them!" said Lao Geng.

Upon hearing this, Zhao Ceying and Shen Congxing ran directly to the east yard.

Seeing this, Gu Tingye dropped the body and followed.

When we arrived at the east yard, we saw dozens of guards standing on guard.

"Son!"

A man in his twenties saw Zhao Ceying and his group coming and hurried forward to salute. Zhao Xianying nodded and went into the house.

"Ying'er!"

Shen Congying, who was talking to her husband, saw her son come in looking disheveled. She looked him up and down for a while and breathed a sigh of relief.

"What's going on outside?" Zhao Zongquan asked.

"Dad, the fire has been put out." Zhao Ceying said.

"How many people died?" Zhao Zongquan asked with a gloomy face.

"Returning to the militia, more than forty guards and soldiers were killed or injured, and half of the house was burned down." Lao Geng said.

"boom!"

Zhao Zongquan slammed his hand on the table and said angrily, "This is simply lawless!"

"Dad, calm down. You are still injured."

Seeing that the gauze on his father's left shoulder had turned a little red, Zhao Ceying quickly helped his father sit down.

"Have you found any clues on the assassin?" Zhao Zongquan asked angrily.

"There are no clues. All the marks on the crossbow have been worn off," said Lao Geng.

Since bows are not that powerful and ordinary people can make them, they are basically not marked.

However, the crossbow is different. It is finely made and extremely powerful. In order to prevent it from leaking out of the army, crossbows are marked when they are made.

It is a little difficult to find out who holds it, but it is not a problem to find out which army it leaked from.

"I have found some useful clues." Gu Tingye said from the side.

This attracted everyone's attention.

"Who is this?" Zhao Zongquan asked when he saw that Gu Tingye was a stranger.

"Father, this is Gu Tingye, the second son of Ningyuan Hou." Zhao Ceying introduced.

Zhao Zongquan's eyes flickered slightly, and he said, "I wonder what Young Marquis Gu discovered?"

"I saw a tattoo behind the assassin's left ear." Gu Tingye said.

"You mean these people were all sentenced to exile... No, the prisoners sentenced to exile all had tattoos on their faces."

When Zhao Zongquan heard Gu Tingye's words, his first reaction was that these people were prisoners sentenced to exile, but he quickly came to his senses.

"That's right. These people are not prisoners sentenced to exile. They should be specially trained death warriors. In order to prevent anyone from escaping, the trained death warriors will be marked with tattoos in places that are neither conspicuous nor easy to detect. But I have only seen one body and cannot confirm it." Gu Tingye said.

The earliest death squads were specially recruited retainers who were won over with various benefits to make them loyal to them.

The phrase "a gentleman will die for his friend" was not originally referring to the scholar-officials, but to Yu Rang's revenge for his master.

But after the unification of the country, aristocratic families rose to power. They no longer recruited their retainers to train their death squads, but selected children from among the refugees and trained them from a young age.

However, the training of the death squad was extremely tough, and at the beginning those people still had thoughts and emotions, so they would naturally think of escaping.

There were no photographs in ancient times, so it was impossible to carry photos around to look for someone. In order to prevent people from running away and becoming difficult to find, people would mark their bodies.

This kind of mark will not be made in public or in private.

Gu Tingye also heard about it and just checked. Sure enough, he found a tattoo behind the left ear of the assassin's body.

Although Zhao Zongquan was a member of the royal family, he had never heard of this.

After listening to Gu Tingye’s story, he looked at Lao Geng.

Lao Geng understood, bowed, and walked out.

"Why did Young Marquis Gu come to Yuzhou?" Zhao Zongquan asked.

Zhao Zongquan was very suspicious about Gu Tingye's appearance.

As a descendant of the royal family from Taizu's lineage, his status is very embarrassing.

Although there were regulations that royal family members were not allowed to come into contact with officials, the court did not care about those of lower status.

It's okay even if you come into contact with it.

However, his identity was sensitive, and he was afraid that the government would be suspicious of him, so he didn't dare to let anyone catch him.

He never dared to have any contact with any official in Yuzhou, even with his brother-in-law Shen Congxing, and even told him not to come over often.

Even if he encountered an assassination attempt, he was afraid of being caught and did not dare to mobilize too many people to protect his home. He only asked Lao Geng, whom he trusted most, to bring twenty people, plus more than twenty guards at home to protect him together.

Shen Congxing sent fifty soldiers over, and they were also sent by force.

He was somewhat relieved when the assassin came. If Shen Congxing had not insisted on keeping the assassin, he would not have been able to resist the assassin with only the guards at home and the twenty people brought by Lao Geng.

Because of his long-term caution, Zhao Zongquan developed a somewhat suspicious character.

Gu Tingye's sudden appearance in Yuzhou was very abnormal. He even suspected that the government had sent someone to test him.

After all, he had also heard in Yuzhou that the emperor's health was getting worse.

The emperor was about to die, and was worried about someone causing trouble, so naturally the people who would take the most stringent precautions were those like him who were descended from Taizu's lineage.

Gu Tingye naturally heard the doubt in Zhao Zongquan's words and repeated his previous excuse.

Zhao Zongquan didn't comment after hearing this. He first thanked Gu Tingye for helping put out the fire, and then said, "Young Marquis Gu, you came to help, and I should have treated you well, but now most of the house has been destroyed and it's a mess. I'll ask Ying'er to prepare a generous gift tomorrow and go to thank you!"

Gu Tingye heard that Zhao Zongquan was trying to chase people away, and just as he was about to speak, Lao Geng walked in.

"Militia, I had people check all the bodies of the assassins. Without exception, everyone had a word tattooed behind their left ear. It was just that it was very small. Plus, after the wound healed, the word changed a bit, so it's impossible to recognize it at all," said Lao Geng.

"Are they really assassins?" Zhao Ceying exclaimed.

The fact that the assassin is a deadly person proves that the person behind the scenes is not simple. The problem is that they don’t even know who sent the assassin.

Who knows if the other party will continue to send people next?
Zhao Zongquan's face turned pale. He thought more and suspected that it was an assassin sent by the government, who wanted to eliminate the last "remnants" of his Taizu.

Seeing everyone's panic, Gu Tingye said, "I have some guesses about the person behind the scenes."

"Zhong Huai, speak quickly!" Zhao Ceying grabbed Gu Tingye's arm and said anxiously.

The others also looked at Gu Tingye, wanting to hear his guess.

Gu Tingye looked at Zhao Zongquan and said, "Zhao Tuanlian, I want to confirm with you, have you really not offended anyone?"

"I am either in the military camp or at home every day. I rarely interact with outsiders. How could I offend anyone?" said Zhao Zongquan.

"As far as I know, because small groups of cavalry from the Liao Kingdom often plunder in the north, wealthy families have always had the habit of keeping assassins. The south is very stable, and wealthy families basically only keep some guards, and few people keep assassins." Gu Tingye said.

"That's even more impossible. I have never offended anyone from the north. Besides, Yuzhou is located in the Central Plains and is not a major transportation hub. Few people from the north come here." Zhao Zongquan said.

"Since it's not hatred, then it must be some other reason." Gu Tingye said.

(End of this chapter)