Early the next morning, the reconnaissance team set off from Yinghai Town and headed for Wangjiazhai.

Riddle, Ban Xiaowei, and Qi Wei were all dressed in blue-black tuxedos, with a brimmed gentleman's hat, high leather shoes, a cane in their hands, and a large cloak on the outside, like the European gentlemen of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but with a Type 92 pistol stuck in their waists. Behind them were three cross-border warriors dressed in short but also European costumes, dressed as servants, each carrying a large travel backpack containing a Type 95 rifle and extra pistol magazines in addition to their belongings. Behind them were four People's Army soldiers, like Chinese peasants of the era, each wrapped a towel around their head to hide their cut braids. At least from the outside, this group must have been a combination of Chinese and foreign in the nineteenth century.

Riddle pestle with a cane, and a pipe in his mouth, not a puff, spit out a smoke ring, and he thought it was quite funny, so that it felt a bit like a drama in life. The pipes were, of course, also from the German captives, but the tobacco leaves were made from the fills of modern cigarettes. It's been more than three months since the crossing. The packs of cigarettes Riddle brought had already been smoked, and the cigarette fillers he used now were the two packs of cigarettes that Qin Zheng gave him after he took over this task.

Although Riddle is not a smoker, he still has the habit of having nothing to do, and now the cigarettes in the old time and space are already rare goods, and the cigarettes carried by the traverser themselves are basically smoked, and the cigarettes on the three passenger ro-ro ships have become control materials, but many people in the military have prepared for themselves when they set off from China, Qin Zheng brought two cigarettes, of course, there is no one left.

Before the reconnaissance team set off, it had already conducted a relatively detailed investigation of Wangjiazhai through other means, first of all, it dispatched unmanned aerial vehicles to reconnoiter the terrain and landform of Wangjiazhai.

Wangjiazhai is almost a small city, the north side is against the mountain, the front is built facing south, it is roughly a square, and it is divided into two walls inside and outside, the outer wall is about 200 meters long on the side of the earthen wall, but the drone is shot from the air, so the height of the wall can not be judged, it is estimated that it is about 3 meters. In the city, there is also an inner wall, which is made of bricks, with a side length of about 50 meters, and it is estimated that it should be the residence of the Wang family. Outside the wall, there are still some houses, but they are mainly concentrated near the south gate, and most of the fields near Wangjiazhai are basically in the south.

In addition, in the battle two days ago, the People's Army also captured two prisoners, although both were seriously wounded, but after the rescue of the traverser, they were out of danger, so the traverser interrogated the two captives again, and basically found out a lot about the situation of Wang Jiasai.

There are more than 300 households in Wangjiazhai, of which more than 200 households live in the village, more than 100 households live outside the village, a total of about 1,500 people, and nearly half of the people outside the village live in the south, and there is a small market in the south of the village, there are more than a dozen shops, and the daily necessities needed by the whole village are basically supplied by this market.

Wang Zhanyuan, the owner of Wangjiazhai, is just 50 years old this year, it is said that this person was a bandit in his early years, after the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the Qing Dynasty began to reorganize the green battalion into a defensive training army, Wang Zhanyuan seized the opportunity at this time, and took dozens of his brothers to accept the appeasement, and became the defense training army of Shandong, and he also entered Vietnam with the army to participate in the war during the Sino-French War, and was promoted to the battalion officer because of his military exploits. After the end of the Sino-French War, Wang Zhanyuan retired from the army and returned to Shandong, purchased land and built Wangjiazhai. Moreover, through various means, they embezzled the fields of other small and medium-sized landlords and residents in the vicinity, and now the Wang family has more than 3,000 mu of land, and all the nearby residents are hired farmers by their families, renting their fields.

Wang Zhanyuan has a total of three sons and one daughter, the eldest son Wang Kexing, the second son Wang Kefu, the third son Wang Ketong, and the daughter Wang Caifeng. Among them, the eldest son, Wang Kexing, has already married, and his daughter has also married, but none of them have any daughters, and the second son and the third son have not yet started a family, but they are also engaged. In addition, Wang Zhanyuan also has two distant cousins, and several cousins and nephews, so that the family blood relationship constitutes the head group of Wangjiazhai.

According to a captive, Wang Zhanyuan had dealings with several bandits in Shandong, and married his eldest son Wang Kexing to the well-known bandit Heifeng Tiger in Shandong, and at the same time provided money, food and materials for Heifeng Hu's men and horses, of course, including helping Heifeng Tiger sell dirty and so on.

On the other hand, Wang Zhanyuan also attaches great importance to having a good relationship with the official, not only making good local officials in Jiaozhou, and having a routine offering every year, but also marrying his daughter Wang Yinfeng to the son and daughter of Li Wanqing, a warden in Gaomi County, and at the same time his second son Wang Kefu was also admitted to Xiucai five years ago, so Wang Zhanyuan made a point up and down, and gave Wang Kefu another position in Jiaozhou County. Therefore, Wang Zhanyuan eats both official and private sides, even if he does something out of the ordinary, the government also turns a blind eye, it turns out that there are two families who went to Jiaozhou to sue Wang Zhanyuan, but as a result, these two families were wiped out by robbers overnight, and since then, no one dares to provoke the Wang family in the area near Wangjiazhai.

Although he learned some of the Wang's crimes from the captives, the traverser still felt that he should go and reconnoiter himself. Therefore, the reconnaissance team set off as scheduled.

Yinghai Town is less than 30 kilometers away from Wangjiazhai, and a group of people walked for more than an hour to reach the sphere of influence of Wangjiazhai, which is already a vast field, and from a distance, the outline of the walled wall can be vaguely seen.

The direction they chose was to the south of Wangjiazhai, because there was a small market here, and it was usually easier to gather information in the market, so Ban Xiaowei spoke with the People's Army who was preparing to meet them, and confirmed the connection between the two sides, and then continued along the field road.

The road is about four meters wide, and both are fields, but by this time it is December, and the autumn harvest has ended, and most of the fields are bare and bright, and only a few people are working in the fields, as if they are sprinkling something into the field.

Riddle was a little curious, and said, "What are they planting in the field?"

Qi Wei, who had spent a few days in rural Tianjin, had some insight into agricultural production, saying, "It's not planting things, it's fertilizing the fields." ”

Riddle said: "There are no crops now, what kind of fertilizer. ”

Qi Wei said: "This is to let the land accumulate fertility, and wait until next year's spring to plant crops, which can be conducive to the growth of crops, which is called land cultivation." We in Tianjin should also start cultivating land now. ”

Riddle nodded, and then asked, "Then why are only a few people raising the land, and the rest of the land seems to have not been touched?"

Qi Wei said: "I don't know about this, maybe their family is accumulating fertilizer, or they simply don't want to raise land." ”

Riddle looked left and right again, and said, "There don't seem to be many people passing on this road, we have walked for so long, and it seems that we haven't seen a few passers-by." ”

Ban Xiaowei said: "Yes, this is an abnormal phenomenon, maybe it was a battle with us two days ago, and now the whole village is on alert, so no one comes out, and there are not many people working in the fields, anyway, let's inquire in the market." ”

The group walked forward for a while, the road was wider, and more than a dozen houses were built on both sides of the road, all of which looked like shops, and the sales were basically some daily necessities. The market was a little more crowded, but it was still very depressed, not even normal, most of the shops were basically not patronized, and a few shops were simply half closed.

Generally speaking, after the autumn harvest is the most abundant time for farmers, and there will be some surplus money on hand, so the market should be relatively prosperous at this time, but looking at the appearance of the market, it has nothing to do with prosperity at all, and it is probably very difficult for the reconnaissance team to use the market to collect intelligence information.

However, after this group of people walked into the bazaar, it was quite eye-catching, but most of them were vigilant and even frightened, and they avoided it one after another, which also shows that the foreigners are indeed quite important.

Riddle looked left and right and said, "What do we do now?"

Ban Xiaowei said: "Find a restaurant to eat first, rest for a while, and slowly figure out a way." ”

Qi Wei also nodded and said, "That's the only way to do it." ”

There were two small restaurants in the bazaar, but they were empty, everyone walked into a larger restaurant, there were four tables in this restaurant, everyone sat down at two tables, a guy came over, first glanced at Reed, obviously a little timid, but still bold and said: "A few masters, foreign masters, what do you want to use?" Don't hide from a few uncles, the small shop is a small business, but it can't make any good dishes, and a few masters have to take care of a little more. ”

A soldier of the People's Army replied: "We know that we can serve a few dishes at will, but we have to serve them twice, and we also bring dry food ourselves to deal with a meal, anyway, we are just doing things, and we are not so particular." ”

Seeing that the other party spoke politely, the guy was also a lot more relieved, and immediately agreed, turned around and went into the back room.

The group sat in the restaurant, waiting for the food to be served, Qi Wei said: "What should I do now? I can't find anyone, how can I inquire about the news." ”

Ban Xiaowei said: "Why is there no one, isn't there still a shop guy? The shop guys are all well-informed people, and they may be able to pull out something after a while." In addition, there are a few shops that are open, so you can ask people to come over and buy some things, and then ask a lot of things by the way. ”