Chapter 118 The mantis catches the cicada and the oriole behind
Gu Yu's heart tightened and she put her hands on the railing of the boat. Seeing the water bandits' boat getting closer and closer, she squinted her eyes.
He thought to himself: "It's really here."
She began to have doubts when the broom star told her that the wife Zhu Jianchun wanted to beg was thrown into the well together with Zhu Jianchun's mother.
Originally, she suspected that Wan Niang knew that Mr. Yang was working for Prince An and told Zhu Jianchun, so the two of them were brutally silenced.
But she soon overturned this suspicion.
Salt farm, Shouma, Mr. Li's reaction to her begging for Yingge Yanwu.
All signs showed that what the Holy One told her, that Prince An had a disobedient heart, was not what Zhu Jianchun said, but that the Holy One intended to take the opportunity to eliminate Prince An's trouble.
So the Holy One sent Broom Star with combat experience, and also sent her, a person who was hostile to Broom Star, to check and balance.
What Zhu Jianchun said from beginning to end was only Wan Niang.
Rebellion is a capital crime that involves the nine clans. Mr. Yang will never tell this to Wan Niang, a mere thin horse.
Master Yang asked Zhu Jianchun to take the imperial examination for him because he wanted to gain fame and enter an official career so that he could better serve Prince An.
So when Zhu Jianchun asked him for Wan Niang, a thin horse, in order to stabilize Zhu Jianchun, Mr. Yang agreed without hesitation and even gave the two of them a chance to meet.
And what Wan Niang told Zhu Jianchun during that meeting was the reason why the official ship Zhu Jianchun was on was blown up.
The first time Zhu Jianchun was assassinated was on his way back to Nanwang County. After finishing the exam, he wanted to bring his mother and wife back.
The person who assassinated him was sent by Mr. Yang because Mr. Yang didn't want his plot to be exposed.
This time Zhu Jianchun escaped by chance and voluntarily surrendered, asking the Su County magistrate to publicize his taking the exam in order to promote the reform of the imperial examination system.
At this time, Zhu Jianchun knew that what Wan Niang said was a secret. This secret was far greater than the fraud in the imperial examination, so he did not dare to let others know.
The second time Zhu Jianchun was assassinated was on the way to Kyoto. The official ship he was on was blown up. When he was about to die, he was saved by a broom star and said the word "wanniang".
This time, it was the person who related to Wan Niang's secret who came to assassinate her.
However, Mr. Yang did not know the secret of the late mother, otherwise he would not have allowed Zhu Jianchun to meet the late mother, and he would not have allowed Zhu Jianchun to leave after they met and let Zhu Jianchun take the scientific examination on his behalf.
In the same way, Mr. Li didn't know Yingge Yanwu's secret, otherwise he wouldn't have let her take away the two skinny horses and still smile happily.
She deliberately tried many times to test Ying Geyan's martial arts prowess, deliberately took them back from Master Yang, deliberately asked them to pack their things, left them time and space to inform them, deliberately let them know that she had bought a lot of food, and stayed up all night
Transport by water.
She was just testing whether Master Li's thin horse, like Master Yang's thin horse, also knew this secret.
All this was Gu Yu's guess, and now, the appearance of the water bandits confirmed her guess.
The existence of the inner salt field for many years is enough to prove that Prince An is a very cautious person.
If he felt that Zhu Jianchun knew the secret of his rebellion and wanted to prevent Zhu Jianchun from entering the capital, he had many ways and would never do anything so attention-grabbing as blowing up an official ship.
This illustrates two points.
First, it further proves that the secret that led to Zhu Jianchun's death was not Prince An's rebellion.
Second, it was the people behind Shouma who deliberately made such a big fuss, blaming Prince An, so that the Holy Emperor would pay attention to Prince An, and then sent her and the broom star to Jiangnan to expose the evidence of Prince An's rebellion, in order to force him to
Prince An rebelled.
Gu Yu raised his head and looked at the night sky, so it was the darkest time of night when the stars and moon were gone.
The clue-tangled mystery in her heart gradually became clear.
Two lines were extracted from the cocoon.
One is Prince An's rebellion and the iron ore in the inner salt field.
One is the secret of thin horse and the cause of Zhu Jianchun's death.
However, something more terrible happened.
The first line has a beginning and no tail, and the second line has no beginning and no tail.
Prince An's rebellion has left her and the broom star surrounded on all sides, isolated and helpless. They can only hide in Tibet and wait for Prince An to raise his troops, trying to survive until the court's reinforcements arrive.
The current thin horse is even more troublesome, because they must have known that Mr. Li and Mr. Yang were helping Prince An, so they sneaked into the two mansions and monitored Li and Yang's every move.
But Gu Yu didn't know who the person behind the thin horse was and what his intentions were in intensifying the war between Prince An and the court.
The mantis stalks the cicada while the oriole follows behind. What Gu Yu is afraid of is that she is the mantis. The person behind the thin horse is the oriole who is waiting for the opportunity to move and catch them all.
Seeing the water bandits' boat getting closer and closer, Gu Yu knew that these were not ordinary water bandits, but people sent by the oriole.
The "Oriole" must have guessed that she was buying a large amount of grain in preparation for the upcoming war, so she came to interfere. It means that it is not interested in the imperial court.
It blew up the official ship on which Zhu Jianchun was sitting, which made the emperor decide to send her and the broom star over, which showed that it was not targeting Prince An either.
The unknown is the scariest thing. A big hand is pushing everyone forward, and Gu Yu is also a chess piece being twisted up by a big hand.
A member of the Xiao family stepped onto the bow of the boat, and at Gu Yu's signal, shouted loudly towards the bandit's boat: "Fellow heroes, this is the boat of the Xiao family, an imperial merchant. I have the audacity to use it tonight, and I'll pay you for it!"
"
There was no response from the water bandits.
The Xiao family shouted again: "You heroes..."
Before he finished speaking, a fire thunder was shot from the water bandit's boat, exploding a huge splash on the water.
The boat Gu Yu was on was rocking, and she hurriedly squatted down, inevitably being drenched in water.
This time the distance was not enough and the water bandits' fire mines did not fall on the ship.
Gu Yu quickly took out a greased paper bag from her arms and wiped out the flames.
A firework was released from her hand, and she shouted embarrassedly: "Set up the array!"
"Bang" sound.
Another fire thunder shot from the water bandit's side.
The ship's hull rocked even more.
Sixteen grain-carrying ships formed a fan shape amid the bumps, half-covering the boats of several water bandits on the opposite side.
The water bandits kept firing fire mines, but none of them hit the grain transport ship.
The water was rough, and Gu Yu knew that they planned to use fire and thunder to scare him out of courage first. When the ships from the two parties approached, the water bandits would board their grain ship and kill people and steal grain.
Seeing that the formation was ready, Gu Yu released a firework into the sky again and shouted: "Get fire!"
Only sixteen grain ships were seen taking out fire-throwing racks from their cabins.
This is something that Gu Yu has secretly made for the Xiao family in the past three days.
It was slightly improved on the fire-throwing rack that existed in the Yu Dynasty, making it have a longer range and a more accurate landing point.
The Xiao family took out spheres from the cabin, filled with stones and wrapped in flammable oilcloth. They lit them on fire and instantly turned into blazing fireballs.
Put it on the fire throwing rack, and the fireballs will fly towards the water bandits' ship like meteors.