It happened on the night when Zhang Huan slaughtered the party members, and there was also a horrific massacre in the Yang family in Shu County, where more than 700 men and women of the Yang family, whether they were sons in law or concubines, whether they were old people or children, were killed by nearly 1,000 mountain bandits who stole into the city, including the head of the Yang family, one of the members of the Tang Dynasty cabinet, and the left servant of Shangshu shot Yang.

Of course, history is often written by the victors, and the murder of mountain bandits is just an excuse, but the real murderer is the brother of Yang's eighty-first concubine, the former lieutenant general of the Longwu Army, Zhu.

After the Xuanwumen incident, Zhu escaped from the Taiji Palace, in order to seek refuge, he dedicated his sister to the elderly Yang, Yang was greedy for beauty, and secretly took in Zhu and his younger brother Zhu Tao, but the wolf could not change the nature of eating sheep anywhere, and soon, Zhu Wu, who was renamed Zhu Wu, got the post of county lieutenant through the pillow wind, he poisoned the county commander and the county Cheng on the second day of his tenure, and asked for the temporary county order under the pretext of mountain bandits, Yang was fascinated by his sister, and also cooperated with Zhu, and lied that the county commander was killed by the mountain bandits, and asked the imperial court, suggesting that the county lieutenant temporarily took the post of county commander.

Immediately Zhu got a big grange of the Yang family in Luo County through the pillow wind, and sent his brother back to Shandong to gather his father's old subordinates, in just half a year, the grange secretly gathered 5,000 elite soldiers, Zhu and in the name of encircling and suppressing mountain bandits, wantonly asked the Yang family for armaments, food, and raised 3,000 soldiers in Luo County, these seemingly unreasonable demands, Yang Du agreed.

Although Yang was confused, his eldest son Lang Zhong stabbed Shi Yang Ming but found the clue, so he persuaded his father to beware of Zhu Wolf's ambitions, but Zhu's sister overheard their father-son conversation and immediately passed the news to the eldest brother.

On Yang Ming's way back to Langzhong, Zhu sent people to rob and kill Yang Ming by pretending to be mountain bandits, and the matter came to this point. Yang finally began to be a little suspicious of Zhu, and sent someone to the manor to investigate the situation.

Zhu realized the seriousness of the problem, and on the one hand, he wrote a letter to Yang, swearing that he remembered his gratitude and had no second heart; On the other hand, he secretly sent 2,000 people to infiltrate Chengdu and prepare to act.

July 15 Midyear Festival, this day is the day of the Yang family to worship their ancestors. More than 700 people from all over the country gathered in the ancestral hall of the Yang Mansion to worship the ancestors, at this moment, more than 2,000 people who had been fully prepared broke into the Yang Mansion from all directions, and in just a moment, more than 700 people in the Yang Mansion were all killed.

The incident shocked the Chengdu officialdom, and when the government was investigating the extermination incident, a group of about 1,000 mountain bandits robbed and killed 12 caravans on the outskirts of Chengdu, killed people and oversold goods, and finally fled into the mountains more than 200 miles away. However, the evidence obtained from the scene of the caravan was exactly the same as the massacre of Yang's mansion, and the assassin of Shu County had no choice but to report to the court with mountain bandits.

And on the second day of the destruction of the Yang Mansion, Zhu rushed back to cry the death of his brother-in-law, and then he set up Yang Wei, the grandson of Yang who survived because of his greedy playfulness, as the head of the family, poor Yang Wei was only thirteen years old, and everything was arranged by Uncle Zhu.

At this time, Zhu was silent, and he secretly assigned 5,000 henchmen to various granges. Tens of thousands of slaves were armed and trained, and freedom was promised to them.

At the same time, he bribed Yang Zilin, the assassin of Shu County, with 50,000 yuan, bought the position of Shu County soldier Cao Shen for his younger brother Zhu Tao, mastered the training of 5,000 Shu County regiments, and asked Yang Zilin to agree to recruit 3,000 soldiers from Luo County to be stationed near Yang's mansion, in the name of protecting the Yang family from the second sneak attack.

Although Yang Zilin, the assassin of Shu County, pretended to be confused, there were still many discerning people who threw a letter of complaint to the imperial court, at this time the imperial court was busy with the affairs of reconciliation with Tubo and Hui at the same time, but the mutation of the Yang family and the death of Yang Yang, an auxiliary minister of the cabinet, still shook the Chang'an government and the opposition. And the resulting power vacuum tugs at the heartstrings of all stakeholders.

Cui Yuan wants to let Cui Qinggong enter the cabinet again; Pei Jun was resolutely opposed, he proposed that Li Mian, the former Jing Zhaoyin and the current envoy of the Tang Dynasty of Lingnan, enter the cabinet, which was unanimously supported by the Li clan, but Cui Yuan was unexpectedly tough, he resolutely opposed, and Cui and Pei had a stalemate, which was under the auspices of Cui Xiaofu. Cui Yuan and Pei Jun reached an agreement to temporarily shelve the dispute, jointly track down the real culprit of the Yang family's extermination case, and dismissed Yang Zilin from the post of Shu County Assassin, and replaced it with Jiannan Jiedu Xian Yu Shuming as the Shu County Assassin History.

At the beginning of August, Cheng Cui in the imperial history set off for Chengdu without being injured and under the escort of a thousand Jinwu guards. Began to investigate the truth of the Yang family's tragedy. At the same time, Zuo Prime Minister Pei Jun used an excuse to bid farewell to the Tibetan envoys. Arrived at Geumseong-gun.

A cavalry of 800 people escorted Zhang Huan galloping like lightning on the land of Longyou, the sun and the moon changed, sending away the starry sky, and ushered in the morning of the golden light, the morning of the fourth day, Zhang Huan and his party finally saw the towering city wall of Jincheng County.

Jincheng County is today's Lanzhou, which was once the largest city in Helong, since Emperor Suzong ascended the throne in Lingwu and the Wei family rose in Kaiyang County after the Anshi Rebellion, Jincheng County gradually lost its former aura, despite this, Jincheng County is still rich in humanities and developed commerce, and many important ministers of the Guanlong Group who supported Suzong's accession to the throne live in Jincheng County.

Jincheng County has a population of 300,000 people, together with Kaiyang County, Lingwu County and Wuwei County, it is known as the four major cities of Helong, and it is also the first front line to defend Tubo, with 30,000 Longyou troops stationed.

Zhang Huan ordered Chen Ping to lead 500 people to be stationed outside the city, and he led 300 cavalry into Jincheng County accompanied by Pei Mingkai and Xin Lang.

People here are accustomed to seeing all kinds of troops, so they turned a blind eye to Zhang Huan and their entry into the city, and did not give way, everyone had to lead the horses and Xu Xing, Xin Lang was worried about his sick father, and went home first, and Pei Mingkai led Zhang Huan to the assassination mansion where his father rested.

On the way, Zhang Huan had already learned from Pei Mingkai about the change in Shu County, but Pei Mingkai didn't know the inside story very well, and only vaguely said that the Yang family was wiped out by mountain bandits, despite this. Zhang Huan still guessed that there must be something strange in it, Shu County is so rich that there are thousands of mountain bandits, and the mountain bandits do not move, but they go to kill the important ministers of the court and kill themselves, these mountain bandits are not ridiculously stupid, and there are many garrisons in Shu County. If you don't know the distribution of the garrison, how can these mountain bandits escape calmly, in fact, it is very simple to infer the real murderer, you only need to see who is the biggest beneficiary after the Yang family is destroyed.

After walking along Ping'an Avenue for about three miles, the group came to the Jincheng County Thorn Mansion.

It has been the fifth day that Pei Jun has come to Jincheng County, and he doesn't care too much about what happened in Shu County. But the resulting imbalance of power in Chang'an made him tense his nerves, it stands to reason that Yang is Cui Yuan's in-laws, and he is a hardcore Cui Party, and the power vacancy left by his death should be filled by Cui Yuan, but Cui Yuan chose his brother Cui Qinggong to take over, which made Pei Jun unacceptable.

Since the revision of the door-shade system, two by-elections have been held in March and May, and a large number of children from the family have poured into the court. So that this year's imperial examination in the Jin Shi after the entry of scholars into the rank of the scholar is less than 20 people, the injustice of the dove to occupy the magpie's nest has caused widespread dissatisfaction among the poor people, and some people even wrote dozens of slogans on the walls on both sides of Suzaku Street, such as the world of the family and the return of the Li family, which is by no means possible for one or two people.

And not only can this unfairness not be stopped, but it also shows signs of getting worse, and only the children of the family who have registered in the ministry and are waiting to be admitted to the office have been lined up for five years, that is to say, it will be difficult for the Jinshi to enter the situation within these five years.

This phenomenon has made many people of insight feel very worried, and if it continues like this, it is very likely that the prestige of the imperial court will be lost, and the Tang Dynasty will gradually move towards a split situation. There are also many Li Tang clans who have also expressed their dissatisfaction through various channels, but the high-ranking officials who hold the power are all people from major families, and these dissatisfied voices have been masked.

Pei Jun is a sober person, but he is helpless, on the one hand, Cui Yuan has received the support of many famous families in the Tang Dynasty in dealing with the problems of the family, Pei Jun is difficult to support alone, on the other hand, most of the Pei family is also in favor of the correction of the door shade system. For this reason, Bae Jun has been silent.

At this moment, Yang died, and he gave up a cabinet seat, and Cui Yuan rightly offered to fill the vacancy by Choi Kyung-gong, but Bae Jun thought that this would exacerbate the country's dissatisfaction with the family. He disagreed. He offered to bring a clan into the cabinet to ease the growing tensions between the clan and the clan.

But Bae Jun has a deeper idea. He wants to clear the way for Zhang Huan to enter the cabinet in the future, and Li Mian, the envoy of the Lingnan Festival, was a supporter of Prince Yu back then, and he will be biased towards him because of Zhang Huan after entering the cabinet. At this moment, Pei Jun was standing in front of the window and pondering the current situation of the imperial court, when there was a sudden sound of hurried footsteps outside the door, and a subordinate reported outside the door, "Qi Xiangguo, Liangzhou Governor Zhang Huan asks to see!" ”

"Let him in!" Pei Jun immediately retracted his thoughts, he did come to Jincheng County to see Zhang Huan, on the one hand, Zhang Huan was an important chess piece in his future layout, and on the other hand, Zhang Huan's determination and intelligence in the confrontation between the Rites Department at the beginning of the year made Pei Jun already regard him as his right-hand man.

After a while, Zhang Huan and Pei Mingkai walked in, and Zhang Huan stepped forward and knelt down to give a big salute, "Son-in-law see father-in-law." ”

Pei Jun hurriedly helped him up, looked him up and down, and said with a smile: "Virtuous son-in-law, we haven't seen each other for a long time." ”

Zhang Huan also smiled: "Thank you father-in-law for your support to Wuwei for more than half a year." ”

"The point is that you gave me more face in the battle of Huixi Fort and blocked many people's mouths." Pei Jun affectionately pulled him into the room to sit down, he glanced at his eldest son again, and had the intention to let him go, but he couldn't open this mouth because of Zhang Huan's face, so he had to say lightly: "You can also sit down!" ”

Pei Jun has always disliked Pei Mingkai because of his lame legs, and among the five sisters-in-law, he likes the fifth son Pei Mingyuan the most, but because of the clan rules, he is not good at abolishing the position of Pei Mingkai's family head and heir, and his brother Pei You has also advised him many times not to abolish the establishment lightly, so as not to cause brothers to kill each other.

Pei Mingkai is a very loyal and honest person, and he also wants to please his father very much, but his inability to see through many issues has caused him to lose many opportunities, such as today, although his father asked him to sit down, but he didn't expect that his father came all the way to find Zhang Huan, it was not as simple as chatting about family life, at this time he should avoid it, but Pei Mingkai was ready to do it.

Zhang Huan didn't say anything, after all, this was the Pei family's housework, after taking a sip of tea, he groaned, and asked directly: "Ming Kai told me that something happened to the Yang family in Shu County, and I heard that it was destroyed, who did it?" ”

Pei Jun sneered and said: "The excerpt reported by Yang Zilin, the assassin of Shu County, said that it was a group of mountain bandits who had a grudge against the Yang family, revenge and murder, and the evidence was conclusive, but there were also many people who submitted letters to the court, saying that this was actually done by one of Yang's concubines, in order to occupy the Yang family's property, but I can't figure it out, what is the ability of a small county lieutenant of Ruo County, he can actually mobilize two thousand bandits, unless he is a gang of bandits, the court has sent someone to investigate this matter, and before there is no investigation clear, no conclusion will be made for the time being." ”

Pei Jun doesn't care much about Yang's death, he is Cui Yuan's in-laws, and he has Cui Yuan to worry about, and he cares about how to get Li Mian into the cabinet.

But Zhang Huan was very interested in Yang's death, he could kill more than 700 people, and no one was injured, this kind of ferocious and vicious means made him sigh to himself, this person is by no means an ordinary person, if he really masters the Yang family's property, he will cause chaos in the future.

"I don't know what the name of this county lieutenant is?"

Pei Jun saw that Zhang Huan was interested, so he smiled and said: "His name is Zhu Wu, and he is from Beihai County on the record of the Ministry of Officials, but there is no such person on the household registration information of the Ministry of Households, which is very likely to be his pseudonym." ”

"Zhu Wu?" Zhang Huan seemed to have caught something, but he couldn't see it clearly for a while, he lowered his head and thought hard about the knot in his mind.

At this time, Pei Jun thought of something again, sighed and added: "His sister married Yang as a concubine in November last year, I heard that she is only seventeen years old, Yang will be retribution!"

"November?" Zhang Huan immediately thought of the Taiji Palace incident that happened at that time, and his mind was like lightning, and a name suddenly jumped out: Zhu!

At the moment when the name was about to blurt out, Zhang Huan bit his tongue tightly.