Chapter 468 Chasing the Assassin
As a veteran of many years of conquest, Ma Su is extremely sensitive to many sounds. Among the noisy crowd, Ma Su heard the sound of a crossbow being cocked with great sensitivity!
"Protect His Highness! There are assassins!" Ma Su reacted immediately and gave an urgent order while blocking Liu Xuan himself.
Ma Su moved very quickly and protected Liu Xu behind him before the assassin took action. While he was completing this step, he heard the sound of several crossbow arrows piercing the air behind him.
"Whoosh!" "Whoosh!" "Whoosh!"
Several arrows suddenly shot out from the crowd and shot straight over.
Fortunately, with Ma Su's warning, all the guards around him were alert. At the same time as the crossbow arrows were fired, the guards were already moving, and almost no arrows hit Ma Su and others.
The sudden change caused the already noisy crowd to become even more chaotic. A large number of refugees fled in panic when they saw weapons being used.
However, Ma Di obviously still noticed the direction in which the arrow was shot, and his eyes quickly locked on a few people in the crowd who looked embarrassed. This group of people was hiding in the crowd and trying to escape.
"Assassins, please leave!" Ma Di narrowed his eyes, drew his sword himself, and ordered his personal guards to guard the prince while chasing after several assassins.
However, at this critical moment, Ma Su was actually a lot more excited. After all, after seven or eight years, I finally met the assassin again.
Although it seems that the assassination target is not him, it does not matter. So Ma Su specifically looked at this time, and he could ask everyone to protect the prince as a matter of course, and then chase the assassin himself.
You are already an assassin, no matter how weak your skills are, you should still have some hidden weapons and poisons on your hands, right? You can just greet me, but I can't even be considered a hero if I dodge!
Ma Su thought so, he held his sword, gritted his teeth and roared, and chased after him.
Several assassins were really panicked when they found out that Ma Su was chasing them in person. Several people immediately dove into the crowd, planning to escape through the chaotic situation.
But it was obvious that Ma Su would not let them go. Ma Su pushed aside the crowd blocking him and stared directly at the assassins who were pursuing them.
Do you still want to leave if you don't give me a try? Don’t even think about having a door!
But Ma Su still underestimated these assassins. When Ma Su was about to catch up, several assassins suddenly fell to the ground. When Ma Su caught up and took a closer look, they were all dead.
It was obvious that several assassins knew how much they weighed, and were afraid that they would not have the chance to commit suicide when they competed with Ma Su. So before Ma Su could catch up, several assassins all chose to commit suicide by taking poison.
This made Ma Su feel uncomfortable, and he chased after him excitedly, but only a few corpses were left.
"Fuck! A bunch of gutless things." Ma Su lifted an assassin up by his collar and slapped him several times with his bow left and right. After confirming that the other party was completely dead, Ma Di couldn't wait to draw his sword and kill him.
Soon the county military and government officials from Xinye gathered over and quickly protected the prince and others, maintaining order. When Li Hui, the governor of Jingzhou, arrived at the scene, his face was so gloomy that he almost dripped water.
Nanyang was under his jurisdiction. The prince and the cavalry general encountered assassins in his territory. You can imagine how big a blow this had to him.
Not everyone can make Liu Chan say "you can take it for yourself". In particular, Li Hui is not only not a member of the Jingzhou faction, but is not even a core member of the local faction.
This kind of thing happened in his jurisdiction, so one can imagine Li Hui's mood.
Fortunately, after arriving at the scene, Li Hui saw that both Liu Xuan and Ma Di were safe and sound. At this moment, Li Hui breathed a sigh of relief, and then quickly adjusted his attitude, and personally held the seal and ribbon of the Jingzhou governor to apologize to Liu Xuan.
"It's okay for me to govern, but the rescuer came too late, and he deserves death!" Li Hui came to Liu Xuan holding a seal ribbon in his hand, and apologized with fear.
Liu Xuan seemed a little at a loss about this... In other words, Liu Xuan had been in a state of confusion since the assassination. Until now, when he came to his senses, he was a little at a loss when facing Li Hui's apology.
But at this time Ma Su came up, calmly cupped his hands and said to Liu Xuan,
"Your Highness, this matter is not Li Shishi's responsibility. After all, it is my idea to let you personally care for the people, so this matter should be regarded as my responsibility!"
"When I return to Chang'an, I will personally go to Chengdu to plead guilty to His Majesty and demote myself..."
"This is not your fault. It is Gu's wish to come out to appease the people. How can you vent your anger on others?" Upon hearing that Ma Di was going to apply for self-deprecation, Liu Xuan immediately went online rationally. There was no way Ma Su could directly take the responsibility on himself after he finished speaking.
Just kidding, if the prime minister is asked to plead guilty and self-deprecating, what if he is no longer the prince or tutor?
Of course, Li Hui was wronged in this matter. After all, Xinye was the front line and he couldn't control so many rioters. And Ma Di was extremely desperate to take the prince with him and show up in front of a mixed crowd of refugees.
Let alone Li Hui, even if you ask Zhuge Liang to govern Nanyang, you may not be able to prevent this assassination.
It makes sense for a son of a rich man not to sit down in court.
"It's my fault!"
In the end, Liu Xu personally concluded the assassination incident and quickly appeased everyone.
Li Hui was overjoyed by this result and thanked the prince again and again for his kindness before retreating. Before leaving, Li Hui glanced at Ma Su gratefully, leaving Ma Su speechless.
There are a lot of people trying to blame me for the things I caused, but the one who was implicated has to thank me...
After all the fuss, Ma Su did not dare to let Liu Xu continue to appear in public. Then he protected the prince and returned to the house, leaving the rest to Li Hui to handle.
As for the assassin's identity, it's actually not that important. They were holding military crossbows, which basically eliminated most options.
There are only a few forces that allow assassins to use crossbows, and they all have damning motives. Whether it is Cao Wei, Soochow, or even Gongsun Yuan of Liaodong, they are all suspected.
The assassins were still very clean, with nothing that represented their identity. Li Hui didn't even know when they had sneaked into Xinye, let alone how many people there were in the city.
To thoroughly investigate the assassin's matter, we can only wait until we return to Chang'an, which will give the prime minister a headache. All Li Hui could do was to quickly impose martial law throughout the city and then check to see if there were any accomplices.
These are not Ma Su's business anymore. What he needs is to continue to protect the prince and at the same time use his influence to ask the counties along the escape route to provide supplies.
I have to say that Ma Di gave Zhuge Liang a headache. With so many refugees fleeing to Guanzhong, I'm afraid the pressure on Guanzhong will not be very small.
But there was nothing they could do about it, they had no choice.