"Immediately send a message to our men near the inn. Tell them to bring their weapons to the inn immediately!"
After Zhao Deyan returned to the Heavenly Guest Room, he could already vaguely hear the "Da Da Da" sound of horse hooves coming from the east street. At this moment, he called over a subordinate and instructed him.
He did not know the exact name of this subordinate because he had too many subordinates. Xuan Ye, Sky Eagle, and the others had all taken away experts. The ten people left by his side were the weakest among them, so he naturally did not remember their names.
Zhao Deyan had planted a total of two hundred people in Sourcepeak City. Xuan Ye had taken away a hundred and ten people, and he had left ten people with him. In the houses near Tong Fu Inn, there were still eighty or so of his men! Previously, due to the urgency of time, Zhao Deyan did not wait for everyone to arrive before giving the order to attack the posthouse. But now, since he had chosen to use himself as bait and guard the inn, then these people naturally had to be called over!
After all, if the cavalry coming from the east was weak, Zhao Deyan was confident that he could take them down with these people. If the opponent was strong, it did not matter even if he lost, because his goal of restraining the opponent would have been achieved!
"Yes! Guard Master! "
That person cupped his fists respectfully to Zhao Deyan, then turned around and left.
"If you want to put on a show, you have to do it all the way. The few of you, wait in the room next door. If this cavalry comes straight for my room after entering the inn, then find an opportunity to kill your way out!"
Zhao Deyan instructed the other nine people.
"Yes!"
Everyone cupped their fists and accepted the order. Then, they turned around and went out to the Earth-ranked guest room next door.
"Bang, bang, bang!"
Not long after this series of arrangements was completed, Zhao Deyan heard the door of the inn being directly knocked open from the outside, emitting a few loud bangs. Almost all of the sleeping guests in the inn were woken up, and some with bad tempers couldn't help but curse loudly:
"Who the f * ck is this? Why aren't you sleeping at night? What are you knocking on the door for? "
"What is the innkeeper doing? Who the f * ck is knocking on the door in the middle of the night! "
"Which bastard is it? Why don't you try hitting me again ~? "
In the midst of the scattered curses, many rooms that were originally in darkness lit up one after another. Then, a crowd of people could be seen moving about. Obviously, those were the guests who had been woken up. They came out of their rooms to see what was happening outside!
With just one look, the people who were cursing earlier immediately shut their mouths!
More than ten men with weapons in their hands were standing in the hall with murderous looks on their faces. Although there were only a dozen of them, they gave off the aura of hundreds and thousands of people!
Aura was a mysterious thing, but it did exist. A general who had been through hundreds of battles and a new recruit who had just joined the army would definitely give off a different feeling when they stood in front of each other.
The One Hundred Cavalry was the most mysterious and elite force of the Great Tang. Each of its soldiers was an elite, and as the commander of the One Hundred Cavalry, Li Junxian's strength was even greater. Amongst all the Tang generals, he could be considered one of the strongest!
This group of elites standing in front of the crowd naturally exerted an invisible pressure on them!
Although the Tang revered martial arts and many of their refined guests carried sabers and swords with them, for Li Junxian and his men to charge into an inn with weapons in the middle of the night clearly meant that they had come with ill intentions!
If not for the fact that they were all dressed rather neatly and had no bandit faces like 'one-eyed man' or 'scarred face' on them, the guests would have thought that they were bandits!
Even if they weren't bandits, Li Junxian's group still gave off the impression that they were not to be trifled with. Thus, those guests who had been about to come out of their rooms and curse when they saw Li Junxian's group swallowed their words and dejectedly returned to their rooms!
It wasn't that they were cowards, but that Li Junxian's group was simply too powerful. Anyone who dared to provoke them would have to have been kicked in the head by a donkey!
In truth, Li Junxian didn't think much of these guests. Ever since he had entered the inn, his eyes had never once paused on them. His head was raised as he scanned the small wooden plates above the doors of each room on the second floor, recording the 'room number' of each room. As the largest inn in Taiyuan City, Tongfu Inn had divided its rooms into 'Heaven', 'Earth', 'Human', and 'Common'. There was only one 'Heaven' room, but it was so expensive that ordinary people couldn't afford it. The lower the level of the rooms, the more there were, and correspondingly, the cheaper each night!
Thus, Li Junxian only needed to find the 'Heaven' character on the wooden plates in front of each room!
"Over there!"
Li Junxian's eyes focused as he pointed at the westernmost room and sternly said, "Chen Fu, Shen Tu, the two of you guard the front and back doors of the inn. The rest of you, follow me upstairs!"
"Yes!"
Everyone bowed and received their orders. Two of them went to the front door and the back door of the inn, while Li Junxian led the rest of them up the stairs to the Heaven guest room on the west side.
"There's no need to knock. Just open the door!"
One of the hundred-horsemen was just about to knock on the door when Li Junxian stopped him.
As the saying went, delay could lead to change, and he did not want any changes!
After saying this, he walked past the hundred-horsemen and kicked open the door. In truth, the door wasn't locked!
The moment the door was kicked open, Li Junxian's group rushed in and saw an ordinary-looking middle-aged man casually drinking tea at the tea table in the center of the room. The middle-aged man was taken aback by the intrusion of Li Junxian's group, and then he frowned.
"Who are you? Why have you barged into this one's room? "
Li Junxian frowned when he saw that there was only one person in the room, a seemingly refined middle-aged man who didn't seem to know any martial arts. He began to wonder if his previous judgment had been wrong, but since he was here, he had to get to the bottom of this matter.
He signaled the people around him with his eyes, and several of the riders went to guard the door and the windows to prevent the middle-aged man from escaping. Li Junxian sat down across from the middle-aged man and stared at him. Instead of answering his question, he asked, "Why?
"There's no need for you to know who we are. First, tell me who you are. Where did you come from? Why have you come to Taiyuan City? "
The middle-aged man scowled in displeasure and coldly snorted. "Hmph! Good Sir has barged into someone else's room in the middle of the night. It's fine if you don't give an explanation, but now you're questioning me? Truly tyrannical! Do you really think there's no law in Taiyuan City? "
Li Junxian couldn't be bothered to waste words with him, so he bluntly said, "Don't waste words with me. I'll give you one more chance. If you can't clearly explain your background, we'll arrest you and send you to the authorities. Once we're there, we'll slowly talk to you about the law!"
"Arrest me? This one has not committed any crime, nor has he stolen or robbed. What right do you have to arrest me? "
The middle-aged man coldly sneered.
Li Junxian chuckled. "Heh! You're not going to speak? Come, arrest him and send him to the Provincial Governor's Residence for interrogation! "
Although he couldn't be sure of the middle-aged man's exact identity, since he was connected to the Wang Clan's second branch, and on the way to the inn, Li Junxian had learned that Wang Kui had fled for fear of punishment, this meant that the Wang Clan's second branch truly had colluded with Turkic spies. Since this middle-aged man had secretly met with Wang Xinyuan, this meant that he was in cahoots with Zhao Deyan. At the very least, he was someone Zhao Deyan had sent to liaise with the Wang Clan's second branch!
After saying this, Li Junxian got up and prepared to leave. The two horsemen at his side began to approach the middle-aged man, clearly intending to capture him.
A hint of panic flitted across the middle-aged man's face, and he hurriedly said, "You … are you from the authorities? Fine, I'll speak. This one is Yu Dexing, a native of Yunzhou. I came to Taiyuan to buy some goods. Once I'm done, I'll return! "
"A merchant of Yunzhou?"
A playful smile appeared on Li Junxian's face as he indifferently asked, "Then do you have a talisman scroll?"
A talisman scroll was equivalent to a modern letter of introduction. In ancient times, one needed an 'identity card' to stay in an inn. However, this' identity card 'was not the same as the modern one, but something similar to a letter of introduction. Although ancient China did not have an information system to manage household registers, it had a complete household register system long ago. In order to distinguish between people, the ancients had invented 'travel permits', 'door tickets', 'fish tokens', and 'tooth tokens' to prove one's identity. The majority of ancient China rarely had the opportunity to travel, and only a few people had the need for such things.
If an official or merchant was on a business trip or engaged in an official foreign activity, they would have a 'talisman scroll' or a 'talisman scroll'. These 'talismans', 'sections', and 'scrolls' were all proof of identity for staying in an inn in the early days. They were equivalent to modern letters of introduction. Later on, 'courier scrolls' and 'letter tokens' were also proof of travel. Without a proof of travel, it was impossible to stay in an inn, especially one run by an official.
In the Tang Dynasty, officials of rank five and above had a 'fish token' issued by the Imperial Court to prove their identity. If an ordinary person wanted to travel, they had to report it to the Prefect Inspector or Fang Zheng. The Prefect Inspector or Fang Zheng would then report it to the local yamen, and the Prefect or Secretary would issue a talisman scroll (letter of introduction) upon approval.
In truth, the travel permits of the Ming Dynasty were similar to these things!
"I do, I do!"
The middle-aged man seemed to believe that Li Junxian was an official. He nodded and then took out a yellowed paper from his bosom and placed it on the table. Li Junxian took it and began to carefully examine it.
A few moments later, Li Junxian put down the paper and smiled at the middle-aged man. "This talisman scroll is forged so well that it looks almost real. If this general hadn't seen the talisman scroll from Yunzhou, you really might have fooled me! Come, seize this man! "
The middle-aged man grimaced and immediately backed away, harshly saying, "My talisman scroll really can't be any more real. Good Sir is deliberately making things difficult for a deer as a horse. Just what are your intentions? Do you really think that this Yu is easy to bully? "
After saying this, he picked up the teacup on the table and smashed it to the ground.
At the same time, there was a rush of footsteps outside the door, and then a group of people charged in, sabers and swords in hand. At a glance, there were twenty to thirty people. It was clear that some of the reinforcements Zhao Deyan had sent earlier had already arrived at the inn!
… … …
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