Just when Li Hu and the others lived in the Deyuan Inn, two hundred and sixty miles away in Beijing, there were dark clouds.

The originally lively and joyful Duanyang Festival Lion King Conference was stirred into a mess of porridge, and then Jinyiwei and the Imperial Forest Army blocked all the streets in the city under martial law, tossed for a whole day, and arrested many people.

The next day, martial law in Beijing was lifted, but a large group of officers and men went out of the city to search in all directions, causing chickens and dogs to jump in the farms and towns around the capital. The scope of the search was rapidly expanded, and the yamen of all the prefectures near Gyeonggi received urgent documents, and all of a sudden, the officers and men of the 10 prefectures and 17 prefectures in the northern Zhili region were arrested quickly and began to carry out a large-scale search.

The official government posted a literary list, drawing pictures and graphics of a prisoner in his twenties, and anyone who was caught could receive a reward of 100,000 taels of silver, and those who reported his whereabouts could also receive a heavy reward. In the past, the government arrested Jiangyang thieves, even if it was a giant on the underworld, the reward of 50,000 or 60,000 taels of silver was already extremely high, but this seemingly ordinary young man actually hung 100,000 silver, which is really staggering.

In the arrest document, the young man's crime was listed as killing people in the street and disturbing the peace of the capital, but there was no mention of the kidnapping of the crown prince and princess. The news of the prince's robbery was forcibly suppressed by the government and did not publicize it, in fact, although many people saw the process of the carjacking on Tianqiao Street that day, most of them did not know who was sitting in the car.

When the crown prince was kidnapped, the matter was too important, and once it spread, it would not only damage the national body, but also cause chaos, so it was the best policy to keep it secret.

In the whole thing, the most unlucky is the "Yanjing Eight Gates". Just because the Lion King Conference was held by them, now that there is a big incident, they naturally can't escape the involvement. Now the heads of the eight sects have all been detained by the government and put in prison, although there is no torture to extract confessions, but if this matter is not good, the robbed prince and princess cannot be recovered, I am afraid that the eight of them will inevitably become scapegoats after all.

The "Yanjing Eight Gates" have a lot of foundation in the Beijing Division, and now that the head of the sect has been arrested, people from various factions are moving around, spending money to try to rescue them, but the matter is too important, and it is almost impossible to rescue them in such a situation.

In a blink of an eye, it is the eighth day of the fifth month, and three days have passed since the incident on Tianqiao Street of the Duanyang Festival.

Today's weather was fine, with a clear blue sky and cloudless, which was completely different from the gloomy and heavy mood of many people in the city. The sun is shining brightly from early in the morning, and by noon, it is already quite hot when standing on the street.

On the willow shade street by the sea in Shicha, Xicheng District, there are many people standing. Although they all had carriages and horses, none of them dared to sit in the carriage, but lined up in a row, standing honestly under the sun and sweating. Many of them were accompanied by servants, and they brought gifts of different sizes, but they were all of great value, and they all wore official uniforms, and judging from the style of clothing, they were all officials ranging from four to six grades.

If these people are elsewhere, they are all great masters who have been recruited and embraced by others, but when they come here, they are no different from the lowliest servants.

Liuyin Street is not the Emperor's Purple Gold Treasure Palace, and there is only one family living on this street today. There are two huge white marble lions standing at the gate of the courtyard, the gate is as high as three zhang, and the wooden plaque on the door forehead has two gilded characters: "Cao Fu".

This is where the most powerful Cao family mansion in the court is located, and for many officials, it is more difficult to enter the gate of the Cao Mansion than to enter the emperor's Jinluan Palace.

The long queue of officials who came to see outside the palace gate is not a new thing today, and it is usually the same when the weather is windy and rainy. Just because there are too many people coming to the door, the Cao family has set rules for visitors:

Officials below the third rank are not allowed to enter the palace gate without being summoned, and can only queue up on the willow shade street outside the door to wait for an audience; those who are up to the third rank can enter the palace gate, but they can only stand in the corridor and wait, compared with the street outside the palace There is an extra roof to protect from the sun and rain.

The members of the second grade can sit in the front hall, and there are servants serving tea. But if he is not summoned, no matter how official he is, he can only wait, and he will not be able to see the master of Cao Mansion.

In the Ming Dynasty official system, it is the Lord Shangshu who is in charge of the five departments, and he is only an official of the second grade, and he can only obediently wait for the summons when he comes to the Cao Mansion, which shows the power and majesty of the Cao Mansion.

However, even if Cao's Mansion is so difficult to enter, it is still crowded every day, and there is an endless stream of officials who come to see it. It's not that they want to be slaves, but there are many things that can only be done here.

Today, more than 30 officials outside the gate of the palace have all come to line up here early in the morning, and now two hours have passed, and it is almost noon, and these people's stomachs are growling with hunger, but none of them dare to complain, and everyone's faces are full of pious and respectful looks.

But at this moment, there was a sound of horses' hooves and cars in the distance, and everyone looked back, only to see a two-seated black painted carriage galloping along the willow street.

Looking at this situation, it is about which colleague from the DPRK and China came to Cao Mansion to ask for a meeting!

All the officials outside the mansion thought so, but it was already noon, and it was so late, and I was afraid that it would not be his turn to enter the mansion until it was dark.

It stands to reason that the carriage should have stopped at a distance, and the people who came got out of the carriage were good at lining up behind the long queue waiting to be seen on the street, but the carriage had no intention of stopping, but galloped straight forward along the street, until the opposite gate of Cao's mansion, and the coachman stopped at the reins.

Could it be that the person who came was a senior official of the third rank or above, and had the qualifications to enter the mansion directly?

The curtain of the car was opened, and a person in military attache costume came out of it, this person was oily and pot-bellied, but looking at the grade of his official uniform, there were only five grades, and he was not a Beijing official.

Behind the military attaché, two more people got out of the carriage. An ordinary-looking young man wears a melon-skin hat and a brocade robe with flowers, which is the outfit of a rich young master, and the other is a woman in a lilac dress, with a beautiful face and a slender figure, but it is quite enchanting and moving.

This man and woman are not wearing official uniforms, and they are probably the personal entourage of the military attaché.

According to the rules of Caofu, only officials with three grades can enter the door, and now there are many officials in the long queue outside the door, and there are many officials of the fourth grade.

The officials lined up outside the door could still control themselves, and some of the people they brought with them were already blind, and they reprimanded one after another.

"Hey, don't mess around!"

"Let's see where this is, get to the back and line up!"

"Hey, that's you, do you hear that?"

However, the military attache who was full of fat intestines didn't seem to hear the protest from behind him, and ran up the steps with a big red letter of worship in his hand, and went straight to the gate of Cao's mansion.

Seeing that the military attache handed the sticker to the family members who were guarding at the door, everyone was in a mood of schadenfreude.

As the saying goes, "the waiting door is as deep as the sea", but today's Cao Mansion is deeper than the waiting door, and these five-grade petty officials think they are some kind of character, so they boldly run up to hand over the stickers, and they must be blasted out immediately.

However, the good show that everyone was waiting for was not staged, and the next scene made everyone dumbfounded.

Jiading took the sticker and went in to report, not long after, the two red lacquer doors of Cao's Mansion actually opened, and a handsome boy in a snow-white robe came out of the door, which was the young master of Cao's Mansion, Cao Duyun, and the man in the robe who followed behind him was the first master of today's East Factory, the chief manager Qiu Hengbo.

Cao Duyun walked straight down the steps, clasped his fists at the rich young master beside the carriage and said, "Brother Hua is coming, and the little brother is late to greet him, please forgive me!"

The vestibule of Cao's Mansion is wide, with three large and small gates, and the people who come here to ask for a meeting are all walking through the side doors, and even the officials of all sizes who line up on the street are also lined up outside the side doors. How could these people have ever seen the Cao family actually open two main doors to welcome guests, and it was the young master "Duyun Gongzi" who went out to greet them in person.

Even the princes and marquis in the court, I'm afraid they won't be able to enjoy such courtesy!

It turned out that the five-rank military attache was not the main master, and it was this inconspicuous rich young master who really came to visit the palace, could it be that this person was actually a relative of the emperor and the country, otherwise how could he have such a big face? The officials standing on the side of the road saw this scene, and they were all secretly guessing in their hearts.

The rich young master who everyone can't guess his identity is Hua Bushi, and the purple skirt Meiji next to him is Chu Yiyi, and the fifth-grade military attache is, of course, Wu Yinghao, the chief soldier of Changsha.

Seeing Cao Duyun who went out to greet him, Hua Bushi's heart was also quite emotional.

Since the South China Sea, it has been six years, the "Evil Dog Gate" has changed from a weak faction to a large faction with rudders throughout the seven provinces, and the Shili of the Cao family has also developed rapidly, and has become the most powerful wealthy Wang clan in the Ming Dynasty.

This "Twilight Cloud Prince" still looks graceful, as if it is no different from six years ago, but Hua Bushi can see that his gaze is deeper, and some microlines have faintly appeared in the corners of his eyes.

When they first met in the "Happy Island Casino" in Changsha City, Cao Duyun once said to Hua Bushi: "The rivers and lakes and the imperial court are both dangerous places of swords and swords, but in fact, there is not much difference. ”

It is expected that Cao Duyun has been in officialdom all these years, facing the increasingly declining national fortunes, maneuvering in the party struggle in the imperial court, and working hard, so he will only be thirty years old, showing signs of aging and haggard.

And Hua Bushi himself is not like this. In order to develop the sect, he has been working day and night for the past six years, although he has the control of the medicine stone, but the disease of "Qianyuan Absolute Pulse" is still getting more and more serious, and his physique is not as good as before, and he can even clearly feel that death is getting closer and closer to him.