Throughout the winter, the Xiangshan forty miles west of Beijing is extremely cold, the town at the foot of the Xiangshan is also light business, the inn wine shop is also closed early due to the scarcity of tourists, and after about half a month, the peach blossom forest and pear blossom forest on the Xiangshan mountain are in the peak season when they bloom, so they are not in a hurry.

In the middle of the night, the old couple of the Wanjia inn in the east of the town were awakened by a strange noise, Lao Wantou got up and leaned on the window to look out, only to see that in the night, a large group of soldiers and horses were advancing along the fork in the road leading to the mountain road at the east end of the town to the foot of Xiangshan Mountain, Lao Wantou was very puzzled. His inn is in the easternmost part of the town, next to the official road leading to the Xiangshan Mountain Road in the capital, and there are often horse-drawn carriages, ox-carts, and horseback officials passing through here, but the arrival of so many soldiers and horses in the middle of the night makes people always feel that something is going to happen.

Lao Wantou deliberately stared at those soldiers and horses carefully, and the mouths of people and horses exhaled visible heat, obviously not a ghost thing borrowed by the Yin soldiers, Lao Wantou just silently lay in the window and watched for half an hour, and roughly estimated that there were at least thousands of soldiers and horses passing by on the edge of the town.

Soon after, a majestic and stout officer knocked on the door of Lao Wantou, Lao Wantou was frightened, after opening the door, he knelt on the ground and kowtowed to call for help, the officer was also kind, pulled Lao Wantou to get up and took out a piece of silver and stuffed it in Lao Wantou's hand, and said with a pleasant face: "Don't be afraid, I am the Jinyi Wei pro-army of the Jinyi Wei Yamen in the capital, and I have official business to do here, and I want to ask my husband one or two things." ”

Lao Wantou was frightened, where did he dare to ask for silver, and replied with a trembling voice: "The military master asked, and the little old man knew everything." ”

"How many roads are there at the foot of Xiangshan Mountain in the north of the town to and from the mountain pass?"

Lao Wantou thought for a while and said: "Master Jun, the one that can leave is the one in the east, and the rest of the place can only be climbed by the mountaineers who collect medicine with ropes, and there is another mountain pass in the west dozens of miles away, but Xiao Lao'er doesn't know the situation over there." ”

"Thanks for the advice, I have one more thing to ask, is there any mountain people living in this town? For example, there is a Xiangshan annex on the mountain, but is there anyone in the courtyard who lives at the bottom of the mountain? ”

"Xiangshan Annex? Isn't that the house of a powerful father-in-law in the palace? There are more than a dozen of his men living in the town, and they are hanging around the town every day, and they don't make a living, just staring at the people who come and go, and they still carry knives, which is very scary. ”

"Oh? Which one is it? The officer asked hurriedly.

"There is a building in the middle of the town, two floors above and below, and there is a big locust tree at the door. They all lived there at night, sometimes all of them, sometimes in the dark, and I don't know if they were there tonight, but they saw a few people during the day. ”

Hearing this, the officer quickly got up, turned his head and ordered: "Zhao Baihu, immediately take fifty brothers to block the west end of the town, and the firecracker team will come with me, if there is resistance, it will be killed." ”

Lao Wantou was frightened, this group of military masters turned out to be here to kill, and suddenly frightened his lips and face, when he came back to his senses, the officers and soldiers who poured into the house had already left, the more Lao Wantou thought about it, the more afraid he became, and quickly bolted the courtyard door and called the old woman to clean up the house and hide in the cellar in the backyard.

Soon after, the roar of firearms rang out in the town, and the awakened townspeople looked out of the windows to see a wooden building in the middle of the town on fire. In the firelight, a group of officers and soldiers were fighting with several black shadows who had escaped from the building, and from time to time someone jumped down from the building with their whole body on fire, and the smell of burning was pungent and unpleasant. The people were half frightened to death, not knowing what was happening, and the family shrunk together with big eyes and trembling eyes, and only prayed to the Bodhisattva to bless them and not to come to the door in trouble.

These brocade guards and horses are the chief of Song Nan's personal guard thousand household battalion, Song Nan did not mobilize any other brocade guards, this personal guard battalion was also pulled out of the capital in batches a few days ago, secretly stationed in a small town west of the capital, the purpose of this is to hide people's eyes and ears, not to alarm some people in the capital.

There is only one task of the Jinyi Wei Guard's Guard, that is, to surround Xiangshan when needed and cut off the connection between Xiangshan Courtyard and the capital; Xiangshan Villa was originally Fan Heng's industry, since the fall of Fan Heng fell into the hands of Liu Jin, originally Liu Jin had a lot of industry in Beijing, but in the past year or so, Xiangshan Villa has become Liu Jin's lair, located in the mountains outside Beijing, many of Liu Jin's secret deeds are planned here, and it is not easy for all parties in the capital to detect, this Xiangshan Villa hides many secrets.

Because of this, the dragon robe that Song Nan got in his hand was about to be sent into this house, and at the same time as the dragon robe, there were also jade seals and other things secretly carved by Song Nan, and this task naturally fell on Wang Yong's head. After going out from the Yamen, Wang Yong went out of Xizhimen overnight and rushed to the Qianhu Camp Station, and led the team to smear the official road at the second watch, and went straight to the town at the foot of the mountain.

The first thing to do is to block the mountain pass up and down the mountain of Xiangshan, and with Liu Jin's fineness, his subordinates must have manpower to act as an eyeliner in the small town and village under the mountain, so Wang Yong mercilessly ordered the suspicious two-story building in the middle of the town to set on fire, and all those who escaped were killed. As for whether the innkeeper's news is accurate or not, and whether he killed the wrong person, it is not within Wang Yong's consideration.

Considering that there is only one entrance to the eastern foot of Xiangshan Mountain, and the other passage up the mountain is still on the Shanxi side dozens of miles away, Wang Yong has a lot less to worry about, from this moment on, the entrance to the eastern foot of Xiangshan is neither allowed to enter nor exit, and all the people entering and leaving the mountain pass must be arrested and imprisoned, in order to ensure the success of the plan, Wang Yong will definitely not be merciful.

But the premise is that Liu Jin's people in the Xiangshan Annexes can't be aware that they have fallen into a heavy siege, and it is certain that there must be means of contacting the capital in the Xiangshan Annex, such as flying pigeons and harrier eagles, and if the news leaks, I am afraid that they will startle the snakes.

Halfway through the third watch, Wang Yong led several capable people under his command to climb the mountain. There is only one way to spiral and climb the stone steps from the east foot, enter the mountain through the Wangfeng Pavilion halfway up the mountainside, and then go up to the Pingshan Pavilion and the Great Yong'an Temple, Guanyin Pavilion these places, to the Pingshan Pavilion, the road is divided into two, one leads to the west, the other turns north into the valley of the north, on a lonely peak in front of the Zhao Temple, the Xiangshan Villa sits in the north and faces south where it is located, facing the Wang Dahu Lake between the valleys, and the back is against the layers of mountains and forests on the top of the mountain peaks.

It is not difficult to enter the Xiangshan Annex, Jinyiwei already has a secret agent here, when King Anhua and Liu Jin had a secret meeting in the Xiangshan Courtyard, and sent a few boxes of silver to Liu Jin, they were told by a Jinyi Wei secret agent who was the second housekeeper in the Xiangshan Courtyard.

There were three big willow trees on the banks of the valley lake, and when Wang Yong arrived there, the spy had already been waiting behind the trees under the slippery silks, and the two sides sent out a secret signal and then connected to the head, Wang Yong unloaded a wooden box from behind and handed it to the man, and whispered: "Put it in Liu Jin's room, whether it is by the pillow or in the cabinet, as long as it is not discovered by others." ”

The secret agent cherished it in his arms, and disappeared into the darkness after saying goodbye, Wang Yong sighed, and his ears heard the pine waves in the mountains, but there was a hot sweat on his body. He knew that from this moment on, this big drama that brought down Liu Jin could be regarded as the beginning of the gong, once the contents of the box were put into Liu Jin's bedroom in the Xiangshan Courtyard, it would be like a cupola cannon that would be detonated anytime and anywhere, and now he only needs to guard the mountain pass, not let the news leak, and wait for the development of the situation after the rising sun tomorrow. The highlight will be tomorrow's Fengtian Temple.

The town under the Xiangshan Annex, where calm had been restored, the small building had been burned to ashes, dozens of brocade-clothed guards were on guard at both ends of the town, and two ten-man squads patrolled back and forth along the streets of the town; In the darkness, two black shadows slowly squirmed in the wild grass north of the town, one of them was named Cao Yu and the other was Zheng Cai, the two of them were the two captains of the East Factory, and the two of them were ordered to lead the team to garrison in the town below the mountain as eyeliner, always paying attention to all the people who went up the mountain. Liu Jin specially met with them in private, saying that someone wanted to do something to him, and strictly ordered them to pay close attention, and immediately returned to Beijing to report the suspicious situation in person.

Cao Yu and Zheng Cai also felt that their father-in-law was a little nervous, Father-in-law Liu was in full swing, who would do it on Father-in-law Liu's head, and Father-in-law Liu didn't come to this Xiangshan Courtyard very often, and no one was stupid to come here to find Father-in-law Liu's stubble. But since the father-in-law strictly ordered, the two of them had nothing to say, they stayed here for more than a month, and their brothers rotated several shifts, but Cao Yu and Zheng Cai have always adhered to it.

This kind of errand is actually very leisurely, in February of the first month, there are only a handful of people who come to Xiangshan, and it is very boring to gamble with his subordinates every day, no, the two drank some old wine tonight, and thought that they had not opened meat for a long time, and the two made an appointment to go to the house of the widow of the secret prostitute in the north of the town to play a threesome. On weekdays, I can't raise my appetite when I see the horse widow full of fat, but I haven't opened meat for more than a month, and I see that the sow also has double eyelids. The two spent a tael of silver to poke all the mouths of the widow from top to bottom, and when they comfortably lifted their pants and hurried back, they saw the shocking scene of Jinyi guards swarming into the town blockade, burning down the small buildings where they lived, and slaughtering their own brothers.

The two of them were so frightened that they almost peed their pants, and they didn't dare to move in the long grass, thinking that something must have happened, lying in the grass and freezing hard, only then did they wait until the town stopped, the two of them squirmed silently like caterpillars, slowly withdrew from the range of the town, climbed over several mountains, ignored the thorns and mud, and finally bypassed the sight of Jinyiwei from a distance.

In connection with the recent words of Father-in-law Liu, these two people really believe that someone wants to attack Father-in-law Liu. The two did not dare to stop, ran along the official road to the capital, and when passing by the thirty-mile post, they asked for two horses with the brand of Dongchang on their waists, and ran to the capital to report the news on their horses.