On the third Tuesday of June, the sun sets.

Outside Besançon, outside the city, outside the secluded large room by the window on the second floor of the "Homecoming" inn, a caravan guard with a short sword on his waist stood guard at the door, and there was also a guard in the attic of the inn looking around.

In the guest room, Stanley, dressed as a wealthy merchant, and Oliver, who looked like the leader of the caravan guards, led eight men who looked like guards, coachmen, and laborers around the rough clay terrain on the wooden table.

With the participation of the "mill" tavern owner Redbeard, the Besançon task force adjusted the original assassination plan, changing the location of the assassination from the Count Bernard's palace to the road between the farm north of the city and the city of Besançon, so the ten soldiers of the task force also "ended" the identity of Besançon City as a beggar and fruit and vegetable seller, and withdrew to the "Homecoming" inn outside the city in the guise of caravan guards.

That's right, this is also an eagle's eye under Art's northern steps, but unlike the eagle's eye socket of Redbeard's "Mill", this is just a point, and the "returnee" shopkeeper only occasionally takes money to find out for others, but he doesn't know who he serves.

"In the past few days, I have repeatedly surveyed that line with the deputy steward, and this place is the best place for an ambush." Stanley inserted a wooden-handled knife into the clay sand table, between two hills near the north of the city between Besançon City and the North Farm.

Oliver took over, "This place is only a mile and a half away from the northern gate of Besançon, and it is basically close to the city gate, so the average person will be less vigilant when approaching the door of the house. ”

"The road passes between two hills, which are deserted, but now overgrown with weeds for hiding and raiding. Our crossbows can only hurt people within twenty paces, so this time we will have to get a few crossbows in addition to the hand crossbows that each person has equipped. Bernard usually takes ten guards to the farm for secret meetings, and we can only win the battle after taking out four or five guards at the moment the ambush begins. ”

"Of course, our first target must be Bernard, and we cannot and cannot destroy all of his guards."

Oliver wasn't lacking in self-confidence, but he was no ordinary person who could choose to be the Earl's personal bodyguard, at least the Earl of Bernard's bodyguard they knew were all warriors who had been in battle in the army.

"Bernard's personal guards are all officers from the army, and they are generally leading knights or trainee knights, and they can fight three or five ordinary soldiers at will, so we don't expect to kill many guards, everyone is all focused on Bernard, biting off a piece of Bernard's flesh is more useful than killing a few guards!" Stanley added a few words.

"Steward, should we put some venom on the arrows?" A man who looked like a guard asked.

"Smear it all!"

"Now let's rehearse the whole battle again, starting from the news"

In the twilight, a man on a horse with a large hood and cloak came out of the east gate that was about to close, and hurried towards the town outside the city.

After a while, the men and horses arrived in the town, and headed straight for the inn in the town

When Redbeard appeared in the guest room of the returnee with a sweaty face, Stanley and the others had just rehearsed an emergency retreat after a successful or failed assassination.

"Mr. Redbeard, why did you suddenly appear here? Is something wrong? Do you need to evacuate this place immediately? Stanley looked at Redbeard's appearance and thought his whereabouts were revealed

"Let me take a sip of wine!" Redbeard grabbed a low table by the wall, and a clay pot with low-quality beer was brought to his lips, and he took a big sip.

"Two stewards, guys, Bernard has not returned to the mansion since he left the palace today, and he suddenly went to the farm in the north of the city."

Stanley's brows furrowed after hearing this, "At this time? No, it's too urgent, we don't have time to prepare. ”

"He only brought four personal guards." Redbeard only added.

Stanley's eyebrows shrugged, he looked down in contemplation for a moment, and then looked up at Oliver and several core backbones, and Oliver nodded.

"Deputy steward, immediately lead someone to prepare the weapon and smear the weapon arrow with venom."

"Remember to change into the boots of the Eastern Frontier Army." Stanley added emphatically.

"Coachman, go and prepare the horses and tools."

The two core backbones each called a few of their subordinates to hurry up and prepare.

"Mr. Redbeard, we are going to act, you always pay attention to Besançon's movements, and send news back to the south immediately if there is any disturbance!"

"Okay! Be careful, too, and if you can't escape on your own, send someone to find me at once. ”

In the twilight, at the door of the bedroom of the farmhouse in the north of Besançon, the Count Bernard, the chancellor of the court in his sixties, pulled his silk robe vigorously to make himself solemn again.

Bypassing Bernard's figure, a plump woman could be seen slumped on the bed motionless, covered in the marks of whipping and wax dripping

Bernard's mood finally calmed down slightly, and the anger of being impeached by Balwyn at the court meeting was vented a lot.

"I have arranged for your son to enter a knight's school, and I will make him a qualified knight." Bernard turned his head and said lightly, and then walked straight towards the gate of the mansion without looking back, and several sword-wielding personal guards in armor followed Bernard's pace.

It was getting darker and darker, but Bernard had to return to the mansion, where the shriveled thin old woman was still sitting like an old crow waiting for him.

Bernard had no affection for the witch-like woman, but now that he was in adversity, he had to rely on the power of his wife's family as a reliable external force, so he did not dare to provoke the Countess easily.

Bernard got out of the farm mansion and into two four-wheeled carriages parked in the courtyard, and the four personal guards also jumped on their horses, and the two guards took the torches prepared from the farm servants and walked in front to light the way, and the carriages soon disappeared into the carriage outside the farm leading to Besançon

"It's coming, it's coming! Less than a mile away! "A masked task force soldier standing on the hill and observing the sentry ran down the hill towards Stanley, who was personally leading the men to dig the trap and the deep ditch barricade.

Hearing that the target of the operation had been reached, Stanley didn't care about the unfinished barricades, "Quick, hurry up and level the camouflage barricades, and prepare for battle immediately." With that, Stanley picked up the crossbow leaning against the curb, pedaled and pulled the strings, and then carefully placed a crossbow arrow, still smeared with an unknown liquid in maroon, into the bow slot.

The rest of the task force soldiers also hurriedly threw the farm tools that were digging holes and trenches into the grass beside the road and hid them, drew their crossbows, wound their arrows, and adjusted the short knives and long swords at their waists to the most suitable position for drawing, and then followed Stanley and Oliver respectively to the weeds on the hillside on both sides of the road.

Bernard's carriage soon appeared on the carriageway north of the hill, with two horsemen carrying torches leading the way, two horsemen guarding the back, and a special carriage in the middle, driven steadily by an old coachman, towards the north gate.

The sporadic candle flames in the residential area outside Besançon could already be faintly seen, and the guards who were leading the way on horseback were a little relieved, the earl's arrangement today was too sudden, so he didn't have time to transfer out the few "strict-mouthed" guards, so only these four personal guards accompanied the noble and solemn earl to "talk secretly".

Now that the situation in the Earl is delicate and in crisis everywhere, as the personal guard of the earl, he is even more cautious at this time, and he is worried all the way, and at this moment, the city gate is imminent, and the two guards in front of him breathe a sigh of relief.

The horse under him walked briskly between the two hills, and after passing the hills, he could see the torch lit by the defenders on the gate of the northern city of Besançon, and a guard held the torch in his right hand and the reins in his left hand, turned his head to look at the carriage behind him that was more than ten paces apart, and then continued to kick the horse forward.

At this moment of turning his head, the war horse under him suddenly paused, and then there was a crisp sound of fracture from the front hooves, the front hooves of the war horse were pruned, and the horse's body immediately fell forward, and he fell to the ground, and the guards on the horseback were also dropped off guard, and one leg was still hanging on the horse's pedal.

In the face of the sudden crisis, several earl guards reacted very quickly, and the other guard in front instantly threw away the torch, took off the iris shield of the right saddle, drew the knight's sword at his waist and stared vigilantly at the hills on both sides, and the two guards in the back also immediately approached the carriage, blocking the carriage carrying the Count Bernard with the body of the horse and the shield in his hand.

In the darkness, there were a few rustling sounds, and seven or eight crossbow arrows flew out of the barren grass on both sides of the hill, and most of the arrows flew towards the carriage carrying Bernard, and the guard, who had not had time to get up on the ground, was lucky enough to be hit by an arrow because the torch was too close to the head, and the arrow missed and failed to hit the vital point, and the guard tore off the short arrow hanging on his cheek, and was about to stand up with his hands, but found that a numbness spread from his cheeks to his head and then spread to his whole body.

"The arrow is poisonous~" The guard only had time to shout a sentence before he collapsed to the ground, unable to move, watching a group of black shadows rush down from the hills on both sides, and a short sword pierced towards the door in front of him

At the moment of the first engagement, one of the earl's guards was stabbed in the neck after being stabbed with a poisoned arrow, but the remaining three guards were not so easy to deal with.

After a round of arrows, ten masked black shadows rushed to ignore the guards in front of them, and directly ran towards the carriage with their swords gōng nǔ, five or six black shadows entangled the two guards who jumped off the horse and resisted, and the rest of the people stabbed to death the coachman who had not yet reacted with a sword, ready to break open the side door of the carriage.

But the two guards wearing plate chain armor desperately blocked the side door of the car, no matter how the black shadows slashed, they didn't leave an inch, and for a while, the black shadows couldn't open the car door to assassinate Bernard hiding in the car.

If you can't hit it, you lose the opportunity.

The horseback guard who led the way turned and rushed over, and in one fell swoop knocked away two black shadows fighting with the door guard, grabbed the reins and turned back to attack again.

Seeing that he couldn't break the door for a while, Stanley went around the door and jumped into the coachman's seat, where there was a small gap for the people in the carriage to order the coachman.

Stanley put a poisoned arrow into the slot, pulled the crossbow and pointed it into the gap.

The arrow made a "boom" sound in the carriage, and it must have been nailed to the thick wooden planks of the carriage.

Stanley drew the arrow again, and prepared to fire another arrow along the gap, but the guard on the other side had already spotted the dark shadow in the front section, and regardless of the current enemy, he risked being attacked in the back and swept sideways to Stanley's leg with a shield that was half-crouching and shooting.

Stanley, whose fingers had already been cut at the suspension, was suddenly hit hard, his body was stunned, the crossbow was raised, and the arrow flew into the carriage from an unknown angle.

"Ah~"

There was a dull cry from the carriage, and it turned out that the crossbow bolt had been bounced off the carriage and inserted into the base of Bernard's calf

"Woo~Woo~Woo~"

At this moment, the guard on horseback took out a horn out of nowhere, raised his neck and blew the horn.

"Withdraw! Remove! Remove! Stanley knew that he couldn't assassinate Bernard, and he didn't know if the arrow just hit or not, and there were already two black shadows lying on the ground, and he might not be able to get out if he continued to fight.

Oliver immediately led his men to drag the two shēn yín companions on the ground and fled towards the side of the hill.

Stanley glanced at his own people on the ground, who were motionless, and pulled out his short sword to cut the neck of the man on the ground with a single sword.

"Don't fight, retreat, retreat!"

Bernard did not die, the poisoned arrow only hit him in the calf, after rushing back to the Earl's Palace, several well-groomed doctors took turns to treat Bernard, due to not too much activity and timely disposal, the venom on the crossbow arrow did not soak into the torso, and after taking many antidotes, Bernard's complexion returned to ruddy.

At noon the next day, the court was furious when he learned that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Earl of the Frontier, had been assassinated outside the city of Bernard, and the Marquis of Ivrea, who was on the sickbed, coughed up blood, and personally ordered the dispatch of thirty palace guards and two hundred elite soldiers of the Praetorian Legion to strictly investigate inside and outside Besançon, and the hundred Earls of the Count of Bernard were also sent from the mansion to search for criminals.

Ivrrea also sent the Prime Minister of the Imperial Court to personally lead the court officials to the assassination site of Bernard to inspect the scene, except for the two of Bernard's bodyguards after they were killed in battle.

After arriving at the battlefield, the officer quickly found a man with a crossbow wearing the uniform of a caravan guard, and carefully dà fǎ officer soon discovered that the caravan guard's two-legged combat boots were very special, because they were the standard combat boots of the Eastern Frontier Army

What is even more strange is that early in the morning of the second day of Bernard's assassination, someone found a missing piece of bloody cotton cloth used to bandage wounds in a corner of an alley near the Earl Balwin's residence in the east of the city, which happened to be the outer wall of the Earl Balwin's mansion.

Thinking of the court meeting yesterday afternoon, there have already been rumors that it was Earl Balwin's "beheading"~

For a time, Besançon was full of wind and rain in the city.

Just two days after Bernard's assassination, a leading viscount and three barons of the Western Frontier Army were killed overnight by several waves of men of unknown origin in black.