Zheng Yunda stood in the valley where the fire was not extinguished, looking at the Zheng family manor that had already burned to the ground and only a few embers, looking at the underground armory workshop that had long since left the slightest deposit, gritted his teeth, and secretly added another debt to these damn thieves in his heart. Several members of the Zheng family walked into the fire, pulled down the ruins, and pulled out the charred corpses from the inside. One charred corpse after another was found, lined up in front of him, clear. Although they were not burned in human shape, and some of them were directly charred, he still roughly judged that these corpses were the guards who were originally guarding the armory here. But at this time, these guards all became a pile of black charcoal.

"Only these were found, one hundred and thirty-eight charred corpses." Zheng Duo frowned and said, he was tall and mighty, not at all like the kind of scribe appearance of most people in the Zheng family, with dark skin, a beard, stark eyes, and a burly figure, but like a northern beard. But in fact, Zheng Duo does have the blood of the Xianbei people, his father is a side branch of the fourth house of the Zheng family, and he is the son of the concubine's father and a Xianbei maid.

"There are a hundred and fifty guards here, and there are twelve more, ran away or were they caught?" Zheng Yunda asked. This workshop is operated under the forest house of the fourth cave, and the Zheng family in Xingyang has a large business, scattered expenses, and a very large population. But since the Zhou Dynasty entered the Sui Dynasty, the most prosperous branch is the fourth cave forest house. Although the fourth room is now the strongest in the middle of the house due to the death of the head of the family Zheng Yi a few years ago and there are no top officials in the court, it is inevitably declining, but it is still the strongest among the rooms. Zheng Yunda is not from the fourth room, but he is the manager of the armory workshop appointed by the fourth room. Usually he lives here, but yesterday he went back to Xingyang's home to prepare for the delivery, but he didn't think about it, but he escaped a disaster.

"It seems that those twelve have never escaped from here, and they are probably just buried in the fire, and they can't be distinguished." Zheng Duo is a Hu species, he is not welcomed in the clan, and he can't get the family to teach scriptures, let alone become an official. However, he learned good skills and martial arts. After only inspecting the fire situation a few times, he had already preliminarily judged that the people who raided here were definitely experts, "There are not many people who attacked, less than a hundred, all of them are cavalry." They raided in the middle of the night, first silently clearing the sentry outside with their bows and crossbows, and then broke into the village in one fell swoop. They acted quickly and ruthlessly, with more than 100 guards killed in the melee, and some executed after being captured. ”

"Less than a hundred, are you sure?" Zheng Yunda's face turned pale.

"One hundred is just a conservative estimate, and if I make a bold guess, I estimate that there are only about fifty or sixty horsemen attacking."

Zheng Yunda took a breath of cold air, and he had already thought of an extremely bad possibility: "Could it be someone from the imperial court?"

Just a few days ago, Zheng's convoy of more than 100 people was attacked in Baima, Huazhou, and none of them survived. The official explanation given by Huazhou is that they encountered a group of horse thieves who blocked the road and robbed. However, the Zheng family went to collect the aftermath of the people who came back to report that it was unlikely that the convoy encountered horse thieves, because almost all of them died under the crossbow arrows, and although most of them were hit by the crossbow arrows, they died from the poison. Horse thieves rob, it is unlikely to run to the White Horse Slope very close to White Horse City to rob, and most of the robbers are for money, even if they rob and kill, they will not use crossbow arrows to use ** without leaving one.

The matter over there hasn't been clarified yet, and in the blink of an eye, something happened to the workshop here.

"If the imperial court wants to raid the workshop, it will not act in secret." Zheng Duo shook his head.

"The craftsmen and apprentices were taken away, as well as our batch of finished instruments. Even the tools and materials in our workshop were taken away. Zheng Yi reported another discovery of his own.

Now Zheng Yunda is even more confused, is it true that the other party is just a group of robbers? Did you take a fancy to their ordnance? But if that's the case, why did they take the craftsmen away, even the materials?

"We may have met a fellow player!" Zheng Duo sighed, it was impossible for dozens of horsemen to quickly break through this place and take thousands of people away, and even take their armory workshop almost in packs. Behind this, there are many more people who will respond.

"Perhaps, they are not coming for our Zheng family at all, but for the one behind us." Zheng Yunda said coldly, he is just a steward of the Zheng family, but he also knows a lot about the secrets of the clan. Although the Zheng family has declined a lot, there are still more than a dozen people with titles such as the Chinese Gongjun in the family, and there are nearly 100 people holding official positions at all levels, but this is not all the hole cards of the top lord Zheng family. The biggest hole card of their Zheng family is actually the marriage with the various gate valves, such as the top powerful figure in the current court, Shangshu's right servant shoots Yang Su, and his wife Zheng is from their Xingyang Zheng family, although it is not a branch of the current generation of patriarchs, but according to the generation, it is the sister of the former head of the family Zheng Yi and the aunt of the current head of the family, Zheng Yuanxuan, the current head of the family. In addition, Zheng Yuanxuan's cousin Zheng Shanguo, the prince of Wude County, and his mother Cui's family are from the Qinghe Cui family. And his father, Cui Yanmu, is the Xiangzhou Assassin of the Great Sui, in charge of the military affairs of the six states, the general, the prince of Dongjun, and Cui's cousin is the mother of the current queen Dugu. Zheng Shanguo's mother is the queen's cousin, and Zheng Shanguo and the queen are cousins. Therefore, Zheng Yuanxuan can also be regarded as the queen's cousin.

The top gate valve of the Zheng family, relying on the fame of the family, married with the high families, and even married with the powerful people in the DPRK and China, forming a huge network of interests. This is the reason why the Zheng family has never fallen despite its decline, originally there were relatives like Yang Su in the court, and the Zheng family's life could be better. It's a pity that the relationship between Yang Su and his wife Zheng is not very good.

Zheng was born in Xingyang Zheng's top gate valve, so his personality is very strong, Yang Su once quarreled with his wife, saying: "If I am the son of heaven, I will not be worthy of being the queen." "It was a momentary anger, but the Zheng family directly sued the emperor Yang Jian, which made Yang Jian very unhappy, you will be the emperor in the future, so what will I do in the future? Therefore, Yang Su was directly dismissed from the official position, and Yang Su was allowed to sit on the cold bench for a long time, although he still used it later, and finally went straight to the clouds, and became the deputy prime minister today. But Yang Su doesn't have a good face for the Zheng family, and he is even more unhappy with the Zheng family.

Because of this, the Zheng family not only did not get help from Yang Su, but sometimes they were often suppressed. They had no choice but to leave the queen's side of kinship, and finally bet all the chips on the crown prince Yang Yong. He even did not hesitate to take risks to make weapons for the prince!

The Zheng family is actually very good at speculation, Zheng Yi bet the treasure on the prince Yuwenyun back then, and later Yuwenyun died, and then bet the treasure on Yang Jian. Now that the Zheng family wants to turn over, they bet the treasure on the crown prince Yang Yong.

Zheng Yunda is just a small person in the Zheng family, but he also vaguely hears that the prince is not liked by the Son of Heaven, but the King of Jin is the most virtuous.

"Maybe it's King Jin's people!" Zheng Yunda guessed.

Zheng Yi's face couldn't help but look ugly, if it was really the hand of King Jin, it would be in line with the current situation. As soon as you can get up right, the king of Jin ambushed the Zheng family's convoy in front of the white horse slope, and it was naturally no problem to use some elite private troops and even bows and crossbows. And with the power of King Jin, attacking the Zheng family's workshop and looting it is even more of a problem. Isn't it obvious why this is done?

"The Zheng family is involved in the battle between the crown prince and the king of Jin, and they are afraid that something will happen." Zheng Yi sighed, Yang Guang may not be able to deal with the crown prince directly, but it is very easy for his prince to deal with them with just one Zheng family.

Zheng Yunda didn't say a word, jumped on the horse with a whip, and kicked the horse's belly towards Xingyang. He felt nothing but chills to his bones, and his whole body was filled with fear. If it was really King Jin's move, then the ambush in front of Baima Slope was to warn the Zheng family with more than 100 people. And the looting here is a harsher warning. This place is not far from Xingyang City, since he can quietly loot and burn here, if he wants to deal with the Zheng family, it will not be very difficult. "A bunch of idiots, fuck it." He scolded while patting the horse, and he didn't know whether he was scolding the guards, or the current head of the Zheng family. How can the royal housekeeping be so easy to meddle in, the Zheng family is not the Gao family, and no one has controlled the government for more than ten years like Gao Gong. Although Zheng Yi, the old family owner, was more powerful than Gao Gong back then, and he was favored by the Son of Heaven, it was all about the Year of the Monkey and Ma Yue. Today's Zheng family has declined. If King Jin wants to kill a chicken to show the monkey, then the Zheng family will be the most suitable chicken.

Zheng Yunda hurried back to Xingyang City and reported the matter of the armory workshop to his home as soon as possible.

The contemporary head of the Zheng family is Zheng Yi's sister-in-law, Zheng Yuanxuan, who inherited the title of Duke of Peiguo, but Zheng Yuanxuan was in Beijing at this time. The real person in charge of Xingyang is his brother Zheng Shanyuan, who has the title of Duke of Guichang County, but has no actual ministry and presides over the affairs of the clan in Xingyang.

"The workshop was burned, and the craftsmen and the ordnance that had been built and even the workshop tools and materials were taken away?" Zheng Shanyuan suppressed and finished speaking, his hands were already clenched into fists, "What about the one hundred and fifty guards, aren't they as good as a dog, even a dog, and they will bark a few times when they encounter a thief!" ”

Zheng Yunda felt the anger of the acting family master rising, he lowered his head and said softly, "All the guards were killed in the village. Then he hesitated for a moment, but still said his guess: "Zheng Duo said that there were only fifty or sixty horsemen who attacked the manor, but all of them were elite cavalry, not like horse thieves, but more like an army. I think, I think, it's the same people who attacked the manor and the White Horse who attacked the convoy of the clan, yes"

"What is it?"

"Those people are very likely to be the people of King Jin. They are not coming for our Zheng family, they are coming for the prince! ”

Zheng Yunda raised his voice as he tried to hide the horror in his voice, "If King Jin really wants to attack us because we support the crown prince, then we must immediately report to His Royal Highness the crown prince and ask him to come to his rescue." ”

If it was really Yang Guang's hand, then they could only ask the prince to fight immediately, this was the only way, and the Zheng family alone would not be able to fight against the King of Jin.