Chapter 669 Clues
Chapter 669 Clues
On the twelfth day of the first lunar month, Shi Xiaozhen led a thousand internal guards and arrived in Jiangxia on thirty warships.
The spirit ship and Li Min's family had already headed north to Xiangyang seven days ago, escorted by thousands of naval forces. Judging from the time, Li Min's team has also left Xiangyang and is heading towards Chang'an under the escort of 5,000 cavalry.
Shi Xiaozhen's mission was to hunt down scattered bandits. The characteristics of scattered bandits were that they were civilians in normal times and bandits temporarily. The biggest difference between them and gathered bandits was that gathered bandits were professional water pirates who had water forts and camps and specialized in looting civilian ships for a living.
Individual thieves are thieves who do their side job. Their main job is farmers, fishermen or boatmen, but they usually live together in communities. For example, in a village by the Yangtze River, the men there usually make a living by fishing, but when they have the chance, they will change their clothes, take weapons and go rob at night, steal some money, and then continue fishing as if nothing had happened.
However, if one of the scattered bandits was caught, all the scattered bandits in the village would be doomed, so Shi Xiaozhen led his men to Jiangxia. He wanted to look for clues from the captured or killed bandits.
It was winter at the time and the weather was cold, so the bodies of the pirates were not buried. A total of more than one hundred bodies were collected. Shi Xiaozhen and his men carefully identified the characteristics of the bodies and clues.
Cao Zhen, the military officer of Jiangxia, accompanied them. He said to Shi Xiaozhen, "Although all the bodies were dressed in black, a large number of them had plum blossoms or flying fish patterns branded on their shoulders. It is said that these are the marks of the Daguan Lake Pirates and Poyang Lake Pirates."
Shi Xiaozhen nodded. The captain of the ship also had a plum blossom mark on his shoulder.
"Didn't you catch any alive?"
Cao Zhen shook his head. "These pirates are very methodical. They don't care about the bodies, but they must take away the living accomplices. Even if they can't take them away, they will kill them and leave no prisoners for us. However, we still captured three prisoners. They are all the bandits from Daguan Lake. They don't know anything about the scattered bandits. It is said that the scattered bandits are more cautious and will never leave any prisoners."
"They are afraid of revealing their hiding place!"
Shi Xiaozhen sighed and had to walk into a large tent. There were more than twenty corpses in the tent, all of them were stray bandits without any marks. Ma Yuan, the head of the Ministry of Justice, and his men were busy looking for clues.
Seeing Shi Xiaozhen entering the tent, Ma Yuan stepped forward and said, "General Shi, these bandits are very cunning, and they didn't even bring any tokens of their true identities."
Shi Xiaozhen frowned, "Don't you have any clues?"
"I only found one clue that doesn't count as a clue."
Ma Yuan led Shi Xiaozhen to a corpse. This was a fierce-looking pirate, tall, about 27 or 28 years old, who was killed by a spear piercing his chest. Ma Yuan pointed at his underwear and said, "There's a name sewn on his underwear!"
Shi Xiaozhen looked carefully at the pirate's underwear and saw a name sewn on it with needle and thread: Lin Wulang.
"So this man's name is Lin Wulang!"
Ma Yuan said: "I guess everyone in their village has the surname Lin, and they are all scattered bandits. Lin is not a common surname. We can ask the county or county offices in the surrounding counties to see if there is a village with people with the surname Lin."
This is a solution. Although the effect may not be very good, it is better than having no idea at all.
Shi Xiaozhen and Ma Yuan acted separately, Ma Yuan went to the county government office, and Shi Xiaozhen went to the county government office.
Governor Zhang Jiangu ordered his men to search the yellow book, but after searching for a whole morning, they still couldn't find a person with the surname Lin, which meant that this Lin Wulang was not from Jiangxia County.
Shi Xiaozhen had no choice but to say goodbye. As soon as he came out of the county government office, he met Ma Yuan who was walking in a hurry.
Shi Xiaozhen saw that he seemed a little excited, so he asked, "Did Master Ma find out?"
Ma Yuan shook his head and smiled, "There is no one with the surname Lin in the county government's register, but I got a clue unexpectedly."
"What clue?"
"The county magistrate told me that three years ago, a merchant couple took their daughter to a relative's house in Hanyang County, Mianyang Prefecture for a wedding banquet. As a result, they encountered pirates on the way and their daughter was kidnapped. The merchant couple was heartbroken and reported the case to the county government, but the county government could not find anything and just filed a case for them. Last year, the couple came to withdraw the case. The county magistrate asked why and learned that they had been looking for their daughter. In the end, they found her, but she had already married and gave birth to a boy named Lin Gou'er." Shi Xiaozhen suddenly realized, "You mean, the merchant couple's daughter married a pirate named Lin?"
"She was probably forced to marry the pirate who robbed her, and she accepted her fate after giving birth to a child. The merchant couple also accepted this son-in-law named Lin, so they came to the county government to withdraw the case."
Shi Xiaozhen quickly asked, "Where are this businessman and his wife? Did you ask?"
Ma Yuan nodded, "I asked, he is in Jiangxia County, let's go find him now!"
The two men and their men came to the vicinity of the West City Gate. Ma Yuan pointed to a medium-sized restaurant and said, "That's the one, Jiangxia Cheng's Restaurant. The owner is the owner."
Everyone walked into the restaurant. It had not yet opened for business. The waiters were making final preparations. A short, fat middle-aged man came up to them and said, "The restaurant is not open for business yet. Gentlemen, please sit down for a while, drink some hot tea and take a rest!"
"Are you Master Cheng?" Ma Yuan asked.
"That's right, villain!"
"We are here from Jiangdu to investigate a case. This is General Shi of the Internal Guard. My last name is Ma, and I am an official from the Ministry of Justice. We have something to ask you."
Master Cheng was startled, "Please take a seat, gentlemen!"
Shi Xiaozhen and Ma Yuan sat down, and Ma Yuan asked gently, "We heard from the county magistrate that your daughter was kidnapped by pirates. You reported it to the authorities. Is this true?"
Master Cheng sighed, "Yes, it happened three years ago. My family of three went to Hanyang County to attend a wedding. On the way back, we encountered a group of pirates in the middle of the river. My sixteen-year-old daughter was kidnapped by them. We cried and went back to the county government to report it. The county government filed a case, but an official we knew told us that the case was just to comfort us and that we couldn't find the pirates at all."
"and then?"
"But we were unwilling to give up! We only had this one precious daughter, so I took out all my savings and hired a bounty hunter to look for her. After two years of searching, all my money was gone, but I got the fortunate news that my daughter had been found. My wife and I rushed to a small village near the Yangtze River in Huanggang County, Yong'an Prefecture, and finally saw our daughter. She was holding a child. It turned out that she was already married and had children. The child was named Lin Gou'er."
At this point, Master Cheng hesitated a little. Shi Xiaozhen said coldly, "Go on. If you don't tell me, you and your son-in-law's family will be sentenced to death. If you tell me, I will pardon you and your daughter!"
Master Cheng's lips trembled as he said, "I wanted to take my daughter home, but their clan leader said it was impossible and asked me to withdraw the case. We would treat my daughter well. So I left three hundred strings of cash for my daughter, and my wife and I came back to withdraw the case."
“Are there many people with the last name Lin in the village?”
"Most of them are surnamed Lin. It's a very large family, with more than a hundred households!"
"Does your daughter want to come back?" Shi Xiaozhen asked.
Master Cheng wiped his tears and said, "Of course she wants to come back, but her husband looks very fierce and even pulled out a knife to threaten us, and she can't bear to leave her child."
Shi Xiaozhen nodded and said, "I promise to bring your daughter and child back safely, but you have to tell me where exactly this village is located."
Shi Xiaozhen spread out the map. Cheng Dongzhu looked at it for a long time and pointed to a small river. "If this river is called Huangshui, it's correct. There are several villages to the east of the Huangshui estuary. But their village is close to the estuary. I remember there was a towering tree at the entrance of the village. It's at least a thousand years old."
At this time, Ma Yuan suddenly asked: "You just said that your son-in-law looks very fierce, what is his name?"
(End of this chapter)