"Back to the Queen Mother's words, this protégé post, after he fulfills his promise to cut the widow, I will ask him for it. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info" Wen Xiang replied respectfully, "That day is the minister's big test for him." ”

"Wen Xiang has been really tired these days." The Empress Dowager Cixi saw the haggard look on Wen Xiang's face and said gently.

"As long as you don't miss the state business." Wen Xiang replied, "It is within the duty of the old minister to suffer some hardships. ”

Hearing Wen Xiang's answer, the Empress Dowager Ci'an couldn't help but sigh secretly in her heart: "The most loyal and diligent is an old minister!" ”

"Huang Tifang slandered Lin Yizhe with poisonous words, how should he be punished?" Empress Dowager Cixi asked.

"Huang Tifang's matter must be considered in the long run." Prince Gong said, "Don't do anything in a way. ”

"What does the sixth master mean is that behind Huang Tifang, there is a master envoy?" Empress Dowager Ci'an and Empress Dowager Cixi glanced at each other and asked.

"Li Hongzao is Huang Tifang's teacher, could it be that he instructed Huang Tifang to be an excerpt?" The Empress Dowager Ci'an said, frowning.

"Back to the Queen Mother, Huang Tifang may or may not have the master behind him, maybe he is making his own opinions." Prince Gong said, "And Huang Tifang's excerpt is very cleverly written, and it is not easy to cure his crimes. ”

Although Prince Gong did not explicitly say whether there was a master behind Huang Tifang, his answer still made the two queen dowagers suspicious.

"If they are all like Huang Tifang, do we still have people who dare to do things in the Qing Dynasty?" The Empress Dowager Ci'an said categorically, "Such an unwarranted slander must not last!" ”

Hearing the words of the Empress Dowager Ci'an, Prince Gong and Wen Xiangqi claimed to be.

"Wen Xiang thinks, what should be done about this matter?" Empress Dowager Cixi asked.

"Back to the queen mother's words, in the minister's view, this matter should not be implicated too much, Huang Tifang must be strict, but there is no need to be in a hurry, the minister estimates, Huang Tifang's excerpt as soon as he sees the copy, there will be people who follow the trend, and there may be people in the market who take advantage of this to make waves and obstruct foreign affairs. At that time, the person who chooses one or two of them as the leader will be able to set an example for his crimes. Wen Xiang said.

"As Wen Xiang said, it is the way to seek the country." Empress Dowager Ci'an nodded and said, "Then let's do as the text says." ”

"Commandment."

"Sixth Master, Wen Xiang, you are tired enough for this matter today, so let's go down." Empress Dowager Cixi said.

Prince Gong and Wen Xiang retreated. It may be that she has been busy for a long time, and the Empress Dowager Cixi and the Empress Dowager Ci'an also feel a little tired, and the Empress Dowager Ci'an drove back to her "Jixi Hall", and the Empress Dowager Cixi went to the Accord to rest by herself.

Maybe it was because of the tiredness and anxiety of the days, after Wen Xiang returned to the house, he felt dizzy and lay down on the bed, the housekeeper was shocked when he saw this, and the first thing he did was to hurry to invite Lin Yizhe.

Lin Yizhe was also shocked when he learned the news, he packed up some common emergency drugs and medical equipment that he had prepared, took a few people, and hurried over with the housekeeper.

At this time, Lin Yizhe didn't know that the crisis that Huang Tifang had caused him had not completely passed, and a new crisis was quietly coming.

It was already evening, in the direction of Beijing to Tongzhou, a horse-drawn carriage was moving slowly on a deserted dirt road.

The afterglow of the red sun gradually faded in the sky, and the cool summer breeze passed through the trees beside the road, bringing a "bang-la-la" sound. Sweat slowly trickled down the criss-crossed wrinkles of the old coachman, and he flicked his whip vigorously, and the two old horses pulling the cart paid no attention to it, and still tossed forward slowly. There was still at least half a distance from the village where he was staying, and the old coachman began to feel uneasy. He flicked again, this time firmly on the horse's rump, and the horse scurried forward desperately in pain, and the wheel made a louder noise.

The people in the car felt the change in speed, and a pot-bellied businessman poked his head out, frowned at the sky and asked, "Boss Che, how long will it take to arrive?" ”

The old coachman wiped his sweat and replied, "It's coming, it's almost there." The merchant snorted disapprovingly, then retracted into the car.

The merchant's wife, with a large package on her lap, looked at her husband with inquiring eyes, who said nothing with a cold face. If it weren't for the fact that this mother-in-law was heartbroken and had a few dollars, she should have joined the team of dart cars to go to the capital. Sleeping in the wilderness is still a trivial matter now, and encountering bandits is no joke.

The two missionary-looking foreigners were not affected in the slightest, they were uncles and nephews, chatting with their fellow travelers in the official dialect of the north. Since the signing of the Treaty of Beijing, the activities of missionaries have become significantly more frequent, especially in the Zhili area, and missionaries can often be seen on the official roads.

The elderly missionary lifted the curtain of the car and looked out, "This is just Bali Bridge, why can't I get to the village tonight, it seems that I will have to sleep in the wilderness." ”

The corners of the fat merchant's eyes twitched unconsciously. The young missionary was anxious: "How can this be done?" I heard that the road has been very rough lately. ”

No one spoke, and the woman's face showed a look of fear, and she huddled behind her husband with the package in her arms.

There was no movement on the carriage for a while, except for the sound of horses' hooves outside and the shouting of the old coachman. The other merchants in the car watched with some curiosity at the uneasy expressions of the two foreigners, and the young missionary seemed eager to prove his mettle. The older missionary sensed his nephew's imminent move, just as he had been when he was younger, and it was indeed a family. He didn't want to actually encounter the bandits, there were things in the luggage in the car that he regarded as treasures, and the few people in front of him all looked like they needed to be protected.

The sound of horses' hooves from behind the carriage made everyone nervous, the woman looked almost crying, the fat flesh on the merchant's face trembled intermittently, and the young man muttered to himself with a pale face. The old coachman peeked in, and three black-clad riders were following the car unhurriedly. The coachman whistled suddenly, and the whip in his hand waved vigorously, and the two old horses, as if aware of the danger, galloped on all fours, but in a moment the rider's figure was hidden in the twilight.

Except for the old coachman, everyone else breathed a sigh of relief. The elderly missionary poured out sweet wine from his skin and distributed it to the crowd. Even the merchant's wife took a sip, and her face turned red.

"It's a bad wine." Everyone was shocked when they suddenly heard the words coming from the luggage pile behind them. A stocky figure emerged from behind a large box, snatched the pouch from the missionary's hand, and poured the wine into his mouth with his neck tilted. The other party was wearing a large bloated leather robe, with a turban on his head, and his body was dirty. Although the other party looked like a missionary, the young missionary was still angry at his rudeness, but his uncle stopped him.

The missionary drank all the wine from his skin and wiped his mouth with great satisfaction.

"This wine is still warm and fragrant."

The older missionary noticed the silver cross on the other's chest, and immediately said respectfully: "If you want to drink, I have it, and when we get to the accommodation, we will warm a vat of wine and drink it happily." ”

The other party looked at it carefully, and suddenly smiled in a hoarse voice: "God forbid, it turns out that we are a family." ”

The young missionary suddenly heard the other party say "family", and then he realized that the old man with a flat face and dirty and covered with dust in front of him was actually a senior Jesuit priest.

"My name is Juno and I'm from Pisa, Italy." The other person introduces himself.

Several businessmen in the car looked at each other at a loss. The woman frowned at the smell of the man, her husband was surprised to find that the missionary's dirty garment was an expensive golden retriever's fur robe, and the young man complained to the coachman dissatisfiedly: "Didn't you say that it would only carry five people?" No wonder it's so slow all the way. ”

Juno glared at him, "I paid for it." ”

At the moment of chaos, Juno Fox wondered: "Why are there so many people walking at night tonight?" Everyone was startled again, and when they quieted down, they heard the sound of horses' hooves behind the car. Juno got out of the car and sat next to the old driver.

"Didn't you come out." The old guy complained. Juno grinned, "I can't stand the smell of alcohol." As he spoke, a black horse passed by the cart, and the knight's cloak and hood covered his body tightly. Strange, this back is so familiar. Juno scratched his head and suddenly said loudly, "Hey, the one ahead." The rider turned to look at Juno, and the horse did not stop for half a step, and disappeared into the mountain road in front of him.

In the silence of the night, only the carriage was left waddling along. "No way, I have to spend the night on the road."

The old coachman looked up at the rising moon. A whistle came from nowhere, and a woman's scream was heard in the car, and the first arrow pierced through the canvas carport and nailed to the wooden frame.

The bandits' caravan of twenty-three men numbered in number, appearing and disappearing like ghosts behind the car.

The first few people were supposed to be the bandits' outposts. The young missionary, unable to endure the non-stop screams, crawled out of the carriage.

"What can I do?"

Juno glanced at the young man contemptuously, "Send to death." ”

More arrows were fired, and darkness was the advantage of the bandits, but in terms of the accuracy of their arrows, they were far inferior to the dart players, but a skilled archer could fire four arrows in a single breath.

Juno lifted his leather robe, revealing a revolver at his waist, rubbed his hands together, drew his gun sharply, and shot at the pursuing bandits. The drunkard's marksmanship was obviously very skillful, and a few shots rang out, and the chasing knights kept falling, but at this moment, the old horse pulling the cart could no longer bear the mission of escaping, and fell in a sharp turn, and the people in the cart were thrown to the ground.

Juno rose from the ground very neatly, and did not see any old age. His first opponent rushed in from the left. Juno easily dodged the horse's hooves and shot the horse in the hind leg, and the knight rolled down the ditch with the horse. The second opponent's saber swept past Juno's chest, and Juno rolled out between the horse's legs, and this time he jumped up and fired a shot, and the opponent fell to the ground with the horse.

At this time, the uncle and nephew missionary also took the pistol and began to shoot.

The situation was unfavorable for the passengers, and except for three missionaries, the others had lost or had no combat effectiveness at all. Juno panted and knocked out the fifth opponent, then found himself surrounded by the remaining eleven. The uncle and nephew had only fired two shots and had already become captives.

"Well, let you bastards see how powerful God's samurai are!" Juno yelled and dropped the pistol, which had run out of bullets, and reached for the long knife at his waist. At this moment, an arrow pierced the knight's throat in the slightest, and the tail of the arrow, which was still trembling, showed that it was an arrow shot by a Chinese. The robbers panicked, and then a second man fell. The rest began to turn their horses' heads and charge in the direction of the arrows.

"Come back! I'm here! No one cared about the diminutive missionary anymore, so Juno angrily lifted his uncle and nephew up on the ground.

The bandits surrounded the mysterious knight just now, and even if it was nine to one, the bandits still had difficulty resisting each other's long knives and sharp arrows. In the sharp offensive of the opponent, some people kept screaming and falling.

The bandits' morale finally crumbled, and the remaining three fled in a panic.

Only then did Juno see clearly that the knight in front of him was a masked woman dressed in black.

The woman in black saw a foreigner in front of her, a look of disgust flashed in her eyes, her eyes swept over Juno's pistol that fell to the ground, looked at several other passengers, turned the horse's head and was about to leave, to chase the bandits.

"Wait!" Juno shouted, and the woman in black, who was about to leave, hesitated for a moment and stopped.

"May I ask the name of the life-saving benefactor?" Juno came to her, put his hand on his chest, bowed deeply to her, and asked respectfully, looking the same as just now.

The woman in black turned around and stared at Juno with sparkling eyes, "You don't need to know. ”

"May God bless you, brave young lady." Juno knew she wouldn't be able to say her name, so she bowed again.

"I don't need your gods." The woman in black sneered.

"You can't talk like that, miss." Juno smiled and said, "God is everywhere. It was He who borrowed your hand and saved us all. ”

The woman in black seemed to have heard a big joke and couldn't help but sneer.

"If your God really exists, he should have saved you by himself, not me!"

Juno could say more, and the woman in black seemed unwilling to linger with him any longer, so she jumped off her horse and came to the corpse of the slain bandit, and pulled out the arrow that had been stuck in the corpse.

Juno watched her movements curiously, he had long noticed that the woman in black did not have a crossbow on her, and he did not understand how she used to shoot these arrows.

Several of the bandits who were shot and killed by Juno had no arrows on them, and the woman in black couldn't help frowning after examining the wounds of the corpses.

She got up and walked over to Juno, looked at Juno, and reached for the empty revolver that Juno had dropped.

"You foreigners' things are always so ruthless!" She looked at the revolver in her hand, and a hint of resentment flashed in her eyes.

"As a weapon, of course, you have to be ruthless." Juno laughed, "If it weren't for this gun, I might have gone to heaven by now and wouldn't be standing in front of you and talking to you." ”

The woman in black snorted, threw the pistol into his arms, and rolled over on her horse.

"Wait a minute!" The young preacher called out to her.

The young missionary brought a silver flask to him and bowed deeply.

The woman in black opened the lid of the flask and sniffed it, her eyebrows raised, "Thank you." She hung the jug on the horse, galloped away, and soon disappeared into the darkness.

"This is the most powerful Chinese woman I've ever seen." Juno watched her figure disappear and said to herself, "She didn't even wrap her feet......"

The woman in black on the horse galloped forward, and although it was already night, by the bright moonlight and her superior eyesight, she could easily navigate through the darkness.

From time to time, she watched her surroundings vigilantly, because she knew that danger was everywhere.

The rigorous training she has endured since she was a child has made her extremely sharp.

The act of killing the bandits just now had nothing to do with her mission, but she couldn't watch these unarmed merchants being killed by the bandits.

Of course, she did not expect that there would be foreign missionaries in the carriage, and they would have guns in their hands.

She was no stranger to muskets, and she could use them as well as the foreigner, but she never did.

The musket was too loud for the covert tasks she was performing.

Although the musket can easily kill the opponent, it is too easy to expose the target, and it is not easy to retreat with all his body.

Like this time, her target was a high-ranking official of the imperial court, and he had many guards around him, and if she used a musket, even if she could succeed, she would be doomed to die.

Her most trusted weapons are long knives and hidden arrows.

She couldn't help but feel a little amused at the sight of the foreign priest's surprise when he didn't see her with a bow.

The Hidden Arrow she uses is tied to the inside of her forearm, and when fired, she flicks the butterfly's wings to trigger a bracket and send out the arrow. In addition, there are quivers, which are generally twelve arrows. She used a modified Plum Blossom Sleeve Arrow, each barrel that fired six Sleeve Arrows in turn, which was extremely powerful. So far, there are not a few people who have died from her arrows.

Thinking of how many times she had passed by the target she was going to snipe, she felt a little annoyed in her heart.

This officer is very cunning, and when he is at home, he will transfer a team of red-clothed soldiers with foreign guns (shipmaster and navy soldiers?). He always sat on one of those big ships with smoke and cannons.

Like this time, she wanted to do something on his way to the capital, but she didn't want him to take the boat again.

And those oceanic warships, she can't get on anyway.

After learning that his destination was the capital, she hurried to the capital.

Although she knew that assassinating him in the heavily guarded capital of the government would definitely cause a lot of trouble, it was still easier to kill him on a foreign warship.

"Just wait! This time, I'm not going to let you slip away! You wicked man who has taken refuge in foreigners! She thought to herself with hatred.

She seemed to have forgotten that she had killed the bandits and saved three foreign priests.