Chapter 1978

Yangyue Village has been very uneasy recently. First, a group of foreign grain dealers came and raised the local grain purchase price to a record high, which made many grain farmers in other villages take notice. Then the government troops surrounded the village in the middle of the night to arrest them.

The bandits were escaping, firing off a burst of muskets, and then conducting house-to-house searches, causing the whole village to panic.

Although the government troops withdrew within two days of Yangyue Village, they used cloth banners and signboards to circle the "Yantang Yangyue" scenic spot outside the village, and left manpower to guard it, prohibiting people from nearby.

Enter. There are rumors that the army fought fiercely with the bandits there for half the night. It is said that hundreds of bandits were killed at that time. The water in the pond was dyed red with blood. A large flatbed truck brought from elsewhere ran away.

It took many trips to pull away all the corpses of the gangsters.

However, villager Feng Agui knew that these rumors were not true. The gunshots that night only rang out for a short moment, and even one shot could not kill a hundred people. As for the rumors about large trucks pulling corpses, they were completely untrue.

Reliable, he didn't see a few carriages going there the next day. Looking at the appearance of the soldiers on duty, they didn't feel nervous at all as if they were facing a powerful enemy. The most important thing is that Danzhou is a place where

I haven't heard of a group of gangsters appearing in several years. The place is obviously peaceful, so how could a gang of hundreds of people suddenly appear?

In Feng Agui's view, they were probably just a few gangsters who wanted to come to Haihan to make a fortune. They didn't know what crimes they did in Danzhou that angered the government, so they sent the army to the countryside to round them up. Now those who should be killed should be killed and those who should be arrested

Once caught, this matter should be settled.

But soon people from the government came to his door and asked him about the details of his contacts with the group of grain merchants. Only then did Feng Agui realize that the group of grain merchants were the ones the government army wanted to arrest. He was immediately flustered.

, not because he was worried that the government would suspect him of colluding with the gangsters, but because he was afraid that the government would recover the money that the gangsters gave him as a deposit for buying food.

Fortunately, the investigators seemed to have little interest in how much money Feng Agui received from Xue Zheng and his gang. They did not even ask for the detailed amount, nor did they ask Feng Agui to hand over the money on his own initiative. Finally, he made a small fortune.

But Yangyue Village was quiet for a few days, and the government sent people again. This time, they asked the entire village to work together to dig for evidence in the area outside the village that had not yet been lifted. And the water in that pond was

Water trucks must also be used to drain all the water to confirm whether there are weapons and other items discarded by the gangsters at the bottom of the pool.

As the only strong laborer in the family, Feng Agui could not escape such temporary recruitment, but he wanted to take the opportunity to see where the bandits were hiding that day, as well as the various weapons that were said to be buried in the forest by the bandits before they surrendered.

A total of about 500 civilians from Yangyue Village and several nearby villages were dispatched to participate in the excavation and evidence-seeking work at the site of the incident.

The temporarily banned area is about one square kilometer, and it is indeed a time-consuming and laborious task to find a few carefully buried things in it. However, considering that the military also inspected this area the next day

After a simple combing, no obvious traces of excavation were found, which should mean that Xue Zheng and his group did not bury the thing too deep, or simply sank it to the bottom of the pond - the latter possibility is undoubtedly

The biggest.

Feng Agui was assigned to the pond group. The waterway flowing into the pond had temporarily dug wooden stakes in the water and filled it with sandbags. Four water trucks transferred from nearby places were gradually set up beside the pond, and then the water was driven manually.

The car continuously pumps out the water from the pond.

The pond didn't look too big or too deep, but it took most of a day for the edge area to finally bottom out. The government didn't seem to have any intention of stopping work just because it was getting dark, so they lit fires around the pond.

Pile and continue pumping water. Fortunately, enough civilians have been mobilized. Each group only needs to drive the waterwheel with all their strength for one stick of incense before taking a break. Although Feng Agui has been tired for a day, he can still hold on.

About an hour after dark, the water in the pond slowly began to bottom out. The waterwheel on the shore could no longer pump out the accumulated water in the middle. Countless fish and shrimps of various sizes at the bottom of the pond rushed towards the center of the pond.

It stirred up a lot of water. The foreman who directed the construction asked people to bring the prepared wooden boards and lay them from the edge of the pond to the center of the pond. Then he sent people to step on the wooden boards and use long-handled grapples to start digging into the mud at the bottom of the pond.

Drag it back and forth and try to use this method to salvage something that may be sunk at the bottom of the pond.

Due to limited lighting conditions and the interference of a large number of fish and shrimps in the stagnant water at the bottom of the pond, it is difficult to clearly observe the situation at the bottom of the pond by sight alone. It is more necessary to feel it to judge whether something at the bottom of the pond has been hooked. But only

After trying it for a while, this method could no longer be used due to too much interference. After a brief discussion among several foremen, they had no choice but to bring another fishing net and try to clean up the fish and shrimp at the bottom of the pond first.

Feng Agui was born and raised in Yangyue Village. This was the first time in decades that he saw the water in this pond being drained. He knew that there were many big fish in this pond before, but this time he finally saw their true colors.

.

However, it was not easy to catch fish in the middle of the night, and it was quite laborious to fight with the fish and shrimp in the muddy pond. It took until the middle of the night to finally clean up the fish and shrimp in the pond, which made the villagers very happy.

And it was an unexpected blessing to get hundreds of kilograms of aquatic products, and each family could have a piece.

Feng Agui also received a large bucket of fish and shrimp, and asked his family to take it home first. He thought that the whole day was not in vain, and he could still get some meat to eat at the end. However, he had previously obtained a sum of money from Xue Zheng.

, the government did not chase the money away, so he had no complaints about being drafted into labor service today. And he really wanted to see what the government was looking for after they went to great lengths to drain the pond.

In fact, this day's search work was not just carried out in the pond. There were also hundreds of people in the surrounding woods who had been trying to find the theoretical burial point, but it did not go well. There was no actual harvest at the end of the day, so this

At this time, everyone's attention was focused on the pond. Under the water in the center of the pond, which was already less than two feet deep, was there any target they were looking for hidden under it?

"We caught something!" After an unknown amount of time, someone shouted from the pond, immediately waking everyone up from their sleep.

The thing hooked with the grappling hook was quickly dragged out of the pond. Feng Agui stood on the edge of the pond and watched the dark thing being slowly dragged to the shore, and then several people jumped into the pond.

In the process, they stepped in the mud and lifted this thing to the shore. Feng Agui saw that they were struggling to lift this thing, and it seemed that it was not light.

Several officers-looking people came over quickly, not caring about the mud on it. They reached out to take the thing and immediately put it on the ground and started cleaning it. There were several soldiers beside them who held high torches to light them. Feng Agui happened to be standing right next to them.

Next to him, seeing that the soldiers did not chase him away, he continued to watch the fun with peace of mind.

The thing turned out to be wrapped in a long coat. After it was untied, everyone around who could see what was inside took a long breath - what shone under the firelight was a pile of metal sharp objects.

There were knives, swords, and some weapons that Feng Agui didn't recognize at all.

"This should be it!" One of the officers made a judgment, and then had people put these things away on a door panel and carry them away.

But the search work was not over yet. The salvage at the bottom of the pond continued until dawn. When nothing else was fished out, the leading officer finally ordered the operation to be terminated. However, the pond will still be closed for a few days until the bottom of the pond dries up naturally.

Afterwards, another review will be conducted to confirm that there are no missed parts in the search.

The salvaged weapons were placed in front of Zhang Qianzhi at noon that day. This was undoubtedly extremely important physical evidence for the attack case being investigated. Before that, they had already carried out weapons in Danzhou City and Yangyue from the beginning of the operation.

Weapons were found on the three people captured outside the village, and weapons were also found on the four people who were shot by the Haihan Army during the breakout. However, Xue Zheng only admitted that these people were accompanying bodyguards and claimed that he was an ordinary grain merchant.

Of course Zhang Qianzhi would not believe such a confession, especially the body that was shot in the pond, which showed that Xue Zheng and others had carried some kind of musket. Now the musket whose whereabouts are unknown is the same as last night

The other weapons found were placed in front of Zhang Qianzhi.

Although Zhang Qianzhi cannot be said to be a weapons expert, he was able to recognize at a glance that this was a flintlock handgun that was only one foot long, and it was not the standard weapon that Haihan installed in the army. He even found it among the pile of items.

A small plier-shaped tool, which is used to make molds for lead bullets. However, the flintlocks currently installed in the army no longer use this kind of projectile, regardless of length.

"Old Wang, what do you think?" Zhang Qianzhi asked Wang Baisuo, who had just returned from Yangyue Village, for advice.

Wang Baisuo spent the night in Yangyue Village last night and personally escorted these things back to Danzhou City early this morning. At this time, his eyes were full of bloodshot eyes. However, perhaps because this harvest was of great significance, Wang Baisuo was in a very excited state of mind, and

I didn’t look too tired from staying up late.

"I discussed it with people from the Military Intelligence Bureau at the scene. This gun is definitely not made in my country. Look at the scythe cover, powder tank, hammer, and the bullet-making pliers for making lead bullets. They are not made in my country. .And the most important thing, look at this gun handle..." Wang Baisuo pointed to the abstract pattern on the gun handle and said: "There are no such purely decorative patterns on the muskets produced in our country."

Zhang Qianzhi did not go to get the gun, but first picked up the bullet-making pliers and said: "The bullet we found on the corpse before can now be used as a standard reference object."

Wang Baisuo said: "We only found this gun at the scene, so it must be correct. But when these people came to our country to attack the crown prince of North Korea, they only prepared such a gun. I always feel that something is wrong."

Zhang Qianzhi said slowly: "They can spend a lot of money to find people to buy information, but the weapons are mainly cold weapons. If they are willing to spend money, they can obviously have one musket for each person. Is this what you want to say?"

"Yes, yes, you are right!" Wang Baisuo nodded and said, "Isn't this strange? Even the price on the black market is completely within the affordable range for them."

"Lao Wang, actually, whether this is strange or not, I think there are two reasons." Zhang Qianzhi analyzed: "First, they are not confident enough about the purchasing channels. Once they are exposed in the purchasing process, their mission will not be able to continue.

Carry on. Second, they have not received any special training in using muskets before. They have too little preparation time after receiving this errand, and they cannot become familiar with this weapon through a lot of shooting practice. For someone who does not know how to use muskets,

To people, this is no different than a fire stick, so they might as well continue to use the weapons they know how to use. Only one gun was found because only one of them knew how to use a musket."

Wang Baisuo scratched his head and said, "It seems you are right."

For Xue Zheng and his group, the disadvantages in weapons meant that their mode of action was destined to be relatively simple. They could only try to get close before launching an attack. To break through the peripheral security deployed by Haihan for Li Hao, they relied on their ten

It is actually quite difficult to have multiple people. If they can use muskets, the actions they can take will be more abundant, and the security pressure on Haihan will be greater.

But Zhang Qianzhi's focus at this time was not actually on this. The second search of Yantang Yangyue was an order from the Sanya headquarters. He Xi asked him in the telegram to find the musket used by the suspect as soon as possible and return the evidence to it.

Send it back to Sanya for inspection. Although the telegram is unclear, Zhang Qianzhi feels that the higher-ups attach so much importance to the existence of this gun, rather than Xue Zheng and other arrested suspects, that it is very likely that Sanya has discovered something more important.

clues.

Zhang Qianzhi was very curious as to what clues led He Xi to make such a choice, but the investigation work in Danzhou was not over yet, and he was not yet distracted to care about the progress in Sanya. As for Xue Zheng and others,

The interrogation has not made any decent progress for several days, and Zhang Qianzhi's patience is being worn away bit by bit. However, the weapons found this time may once again impact the psychological defenses of Xue Zheng and others.

"Old Wang, you stayed up all night and traveled back and forth for dozens of miles. Go back first and take a bath and sleep to replenish your energy before coming to the Yamen to work." Zhang Qianzhi sympathized with Wang Baisuo's fatigue and persuaded him to go back and rest.

Then he examined the weapons again, took the gun, and interrogated Xue Zheng again, hoping to use this new evidence to make him talk.

However, Zhang Qianzhi does not have high hopes for this. After all, this guy is extremely stubborn and it is difficult to obtain valuable information from him through interrogation. Zhang Qianzhi is already considering transporting these people back to Sanya. It seems that

See if your boss can pry their mouths open.
Chapter completed!