Imperial Master of the Ming Dynasty

Fan Dalang held a strung military crossbow and hid high in a granary.

According to the information Ding Meixia told him, national advisor Jiang Xinghuo would come as a merchant at dusk today to inspect the grain. Ding Meixia even informed him of the specific granary being released.

The specific timing of the sniper killing is determined by Fan Dalang himself.

Fan Dalang naturally wanted revenge and wanted to complete the mission as soon as possible, but after careful consideration, he felt that if Jiang Xinghuo shot and killed Jiang Xinghuo as soon as he came in, the probability of success would be low.

There are many veterans around Jiang Xinghuo who have survived many battles. He is very vigilant. When he comes to a strange place, he will carefully observe his surroundings. This will make him easily exposed in advance once he takes aim, and the opponent has not yet penetrated deep into the granary area. Even if It relies on the human shield formed by the guards to resist the crossbow bolts, and it is also easy to evacuate quickly.

He only has one chance to land a fatal blow.

The best time to snipe Jiang Xinghuo is undoubtedly to wait until he has finished looking at the food and thinks he is done. It is different from the time when the guards start to relax. When they come in, they are on the side of leaving, with their backs to you. Yes, easy to aim and snipe.

Although it will become more difficult to snipe at night as time goes by, Fan Dalang thought again and again and felt that this was safer and more conducive to his escape from the scene.

A rope has been tied, and he can abandon the crossbow at any time, slide down the rope and escape from the granary.

Fan Dalang looked at the steel crossbow in his hand and carefully made the final adjustments. Crossbows were banned in the Ming Dynasty, but it did not mean that a man like Fan Dalang, who was born in a rural tycoon, could not use crossbows.

And somewhere where Fan Dalang couldn't see, Cao Song, dressed in night clothes and carrying a bucket of kerosene, was pouring kerosene from granary to granary.

In such a large military ration warehouse area, it was strange that no one could be seen, and there were only a few gatekeepers on the periphery.

Jiang Xinghuo and his party, led by Shopkeeper Chen, arrived here. "please."

Shopkeeper Chen's flattering smile looked particularly greasy under the light of the lantern. He stretched out his chubby arms and invited Jiang Xinghuo and his party to enter the granary area.

Jiang Xinghuo narrowed his eyes slightly and looked at the granary area in front of him.

The walls here are towering, and it is obviously not an ordinary "Midian Grain Depot".

Along the east-west direction of the canal, the granaries are divided into three rows, each row has more than ten storage warehouses. Shopkeeper Chen led them to a warehouse in the second row. Estimated from the outside volume, this warehouse cannot hold two grains. Ten thousand stone of food, but thousands of stone must be available.

Shopkeeper Chen easily opened the lock on the warehouse with the key, and then led a group of people into the warehouse.

The light of the dead air lantern reflected the bags of food in front of me.

Professional personnel are specially hired here to be responsible for monthly cleaning, storage, moving and unloading of food, etc. to prevent the food from getting damp, rotting and moldy.

Jiang Xinghuo pulled out the knife, plunged it in, and opened a bag. The rice with bright grains suddenly poured out like water. The rice was full and heavy in color.

"not bad!"

Jiang Xinghuo nodded and took out a few more bags for inspection.

"Look, are our goods satisfactory?" Shopkeeper Chen asked with a smug belly and rubbing his hands.

"Shopkeeper Chen is really thoughtful!" Jiang Xinghuo said.

Shopkeeper Chen shook his head humbly.

"but."

Jiang Xinghuo changed the subject and said, "The food here alone probably doesn't amount to 20,000 dan."

"this"

Shopkeeper Chen was also a little embarrassed. The adult behind him only told him to take the merchants to see this place.

In fact, shopkeeper Chen also noticed that other places may have been sold out long ago!

After all, this is said to be a newly established warehouse area dedicated to supplying military rations to the Japanese army in Shandong, but in fact, the food is not conjured out of thin air. , these are the warehouses that supplied grain to the Dezhou Camp of the Confederate Army during the Jingyan period. Logically speaking, there should be hundreds of thousands of grains left in them.

But shopkeeper Chen knew that too much grain had been stolen and sold in the past few years. Not only was the Changping warehouse in Changzhou Prefecture, which had a reserve of 20,000 shi, bottomed out, but also the military grain warehouse area, which could hold up to 300,000 shi, could not even collect 30,000 shi of grain at the moment. Not coming out.

In the past five years, floods have occurred every year in the south of the Yangtze River, and people have been displaced.

But the gentry and officials relied on stealing and selling grain to make their meals rich and fat.

"What? Shopkeeper Chen didn't bring the key to his warehouse?"

Jiang Xinghuo asked with a half-smile.

Shopkeeper Chen saw sweat on his forehead, gritted his teeth and said, "Wait here for a moment, I'll get the key."

"It's better to go with Shopkeeper Chen."

Jiang Xinghuo wanted to see what was going on here today, so he naturally refused to let Shopkeeper Chen act alone.

Of course shopkeeper Chen disagreed, but at this moment, strong smoke drifted into the warehouse.

Then, the increasingly thick smoke spread.

"not good!"

Almost instantly, everyone realized what had happened. There was a fire in the warehouse area!

If there was an accidental fire, this timing was too coincidental.

They just came here and it was an "accident"?

"Boom!"

There was a sudden violent sound in the warehouse area. I don't know what caused the explosion, and then there was panic... The whole warehouse area was in chaos.

"Walk."

Jiang Xinghuo's eyes were cold, and he walked out under the protection of a group of guards.

The situation is now very clear. If there is a fire in the warehouse area, someone must have deliberately set the fire. In order to prevent fire, the granaries are set up with distance and isolation of ignition materials. If it were not man-made, there would never be such a big movement.

And this shows that this place is extremely unsafe.

Everyone walked out of the warehouse at this moment.

"call out!"

A voice came from behind, and then the sound of breaking wind roared!

Almost as an instinctive reaction, Wang Bin, who was walking next to Jiang Xinghuo, pushed Jiang Xinghuo away from his position. An arrow flew past Jiang Xinghuo's arm, and his upper arm was instantly scratched with a large gash. .

The guards behind Jiang Xinghuo reacted a little slower, but at this time they also covered Jiang Xinghuo with their bodies and pulled him back to the warehouse.

Shopkeeper Chen was so frightened that his legs were weak and he could not move at all, but the ambusher did not shoot at him.

"Damn it!"

Fan Dalang missed the hit, and as the smoke became thicker and thicker, he knew that he could not stay here no matter what, so he immediately slid down the rope to the top of the warehouse.

But just as he landed on the ground, several masked men in black with knives appeared from the left and right!

Fan Dalang was caught off guard and fell directly into a pool of blood. With a steel knife stuck in his chest, he raised his head with difficulty.

"A vacuum hometown, a birthless mother."

The masked man in black twisted his neck and slashed Fan Dalang's throat with another knife.

Beside him, more and more masked men in black clothes came out of the empty military grain warehouse, dozens of them.

At the other end of the warehouse area, a kerosene barrel was thrown down, and Cao Song wanted to evacuate.

In fact, unlike what Zhao Haichuan knew, Cao Song, as the top official of the local Jinyiwei, was deeply involved in the case of stealing and selling military rations by a gang headed by Ding Meixia, the governor of Changzhou Prefecture. He was by no means just a hush money.

If he only received some hush money, why did he need to send Zhao Haichuan to kill Wujin County Magistrate Yao Gongzhi? Why should we silence Zhao Haichuan?

However, Cao Song was scheming. He didn't trust Ding Meixia. At this time, his evacuation direction was not the side door that Ding Mexia told him. Instead, he followed the three rows of granaries to the main entrance. Although the wall here was very High, but at the corner, he had already observed that there was a place to climb, and he also carried a hook rope on his body.

Hearing the sound of rapid footsteps in the distance, many policemen flashed out of the darkness, holding torches in their hands and running towards the warehouse. Instead of putting out the fire, they shouted: "Catch the arsonist." ! Catch the arsonist quickly!"

"really."

Cao Song sneered and tried to evacuate according to the planned route.

However, to his surprise, amid the smoke, he bumped into several masked men in black on the road!

Although Cao Song didn't know the situation, he also knew that he was an enemy rather than a friend, and the opponent directly slashed at him with a knife. Cao Song was staggered and received a knife on his back, but he didn't care about anything else and scattered a bag of lime from his sleeve. With the brief shelter of lime, I escaped from this place.

Unfortunately, due to the thick smoke, Cao Song lost his way while running. He only saw a slightly open warehouse, so he squeezed in and took shelter.

However, as soon as he entered, three or four steel knives were placed on his neck.

"Cao Baihu, long time no see."

Cao Song slowly turned his head, only to see that the person sitting on a "stool" made of several bags of grain and talking to him was none other than the national master Jiang Xinghuo!

Cao Song was horrified in his heart. He didn't expect that his luck was so bad. Not only did he fail to escape, but he also came to his door. He was even worse than Dou E in the drama of the previous dynasty.

At this time, it was only a dozen breaths before everyone was attacked by a powerful crossbow and retreated to the warehouse. Cao Song accidentally sent himself to Jiang Xinghuo.

Jiang Xinghuo tore open his sleeve to reveal a bloody wound. Wang Bin took out a small bottle from his arms. The bottle contained specially refined high-purity liquor, which was used for sterilization. It was not sold on the market and was exclusively for tax guards. Try the effect first.

"National Master, please bear with me."

Wang Bin took off the cap and sprinkled half the bottle of wine evenly on Jiang Xinghuo's wound.

Suddenly, the pain came like a tide.

Jiang Xinghuo seemed to have no feeling at all and just asked calmly: "Cao Baihu, how many enemies are there outside?"

Cao Song smiled bitterly and said: "There are many, I will touch them soon."

Looking at the hidden anger in Jiang Xinghuo's eyes, he certainly had reason to be more angry than ever before. Instead, Cao Song shook his head and said, "Master, I'm afraid you won't be able to leave tonight."

"Walk?"

Jiang Xinghuo bit the strip of cloth and bandaged his upper arm. With a hint of ferocity in his smile, he asked, "Why are you leaving?"

The guards disarmed him, and the steel knife from Cao Song's neck was put down, and he was bundled into a ball and thrown to the ground.

"Aren't you going to wait to die?" Cao Song asked dejectedly.

Jiang Xinghuo pointed to his side with his other intact arm. A guard was already tinkering with something at the ventilation vent used for ventilation and drying in the warehouse.

Cao Song was a little stunned when he looked at the thing in the guard's hand. Of course he recognized it. The Jin Yiwei also used it. It was a communication firework.

"——Let's just watch the boys suppress the thieves."

Jiang Xinghuo took the sharp Shang Fang sword from Wang Bin's hand, stood up with one hand and said lightly.

"Whoosh~bang!"

Suddenly, a dazzling firework exploded in the sky. The light was brilliant and illuminated the entire dark sky.

"The Imperial Master still has backup plans."

Cao Song murmured, his face became extremely ugly, and he had a vague feeling in his heart that tonight might not end well.

Sure enough, soon, even the ground began to tremble.

Cao Song knew this sound very well. It was the sound of large-scale cavalry movement.

Two miles away, the general at the top of the city saluted Zhu Gaoxu, who was wearing a helmet and armor, and said: "I will see His Highness the Second Prince!"

"Open the city gate. This prince is here to capture the traitors and bring them to justice."

"Traitor?"

The general stationed in the capital city of Changzhou hesitated for a moment, but the dark army behind the second prince gave him no confidence.

"Ding Meixia, the governor of Changzhou Prefecture, and others."

Zhu Gaoxu's words made his liver and gallbladder burst. It would be nonsense to say that he was completely unaware.

But he couldn't stop him. This general knew Zhu Gaoxu's temper very well. If he explained more, he was in a good mood. If he dared to stop him, the living king of hell would definitely tear him to pieces. He did not have jurisdiction over military supplies. In this case, his guilt was not serious, at most it was an oversight, and he did not deserve to be killed on the spot.

"Open the city gate!" The general gritted his teeth and ordered towards the city head.

Immediately, thousands of cavalry took the lead, followed by infantry holding torches, like a red fire dragon, striding into the capital of Changzhou.

PS: [Important reminder (there is no charge for this content)] Chapters 316 to 356 are about the rectification of officialdom and the suppression of rebellions in Jiangnan. They do not contain any theoretical knowledge. They are all practical content. If you are not interested, you can jump directly to Chapter 366. "Class" will contain theoretical knowledge content from now on.