Chapter 21:-for-tat

An Yi hurriedly asked the militia to clean up the scene, asked Mao Zi to take the forest workers to the back, and then ordered Jin Mingyin to lay an ambush in the walls on both sides, and two people went to the guard tower to pretend to be guards. If the man in black comes in, don't ask too much, just take it.

After everything was arranged, I saw a man riding on the hillside in the distance, bringing up a cloud of dust towards the forest farm. When the man rode about a hundred paces from the woodyard, he suddenly stopped his horse.

An Yi, who had been looking out inside the wall, suddenly became nervous, what was going on? Found us? He looked at the guards on the watchtower, and there was no reason. Or will they have some kind of signal before the man in black will come in after he sees it?

For a while, An Yi couldn't care so much, he made a gesture at Jin Mingyin, signaling him to take a few people to the horse, and if the man in black had any abnormal behavior, immediately get on the horse and chase him and shoot him!

Jin Mingyin was instructed to take two militiamen, led the horse to his side, wrapped the reins around his hand twice, held a short crossbow in his left hand, looked his head outward, and immediately jumped out as soon as there was a stir.

The man in black sat on his horse, and seemed to be looking towards the forest chief, and then took the crossbow arrow from his back, and took out the arrow from his bosom and put it on the crossbow bed, and pointed an arrow into the forest field.

"Whoosh~"

The arrows whistled and nailed deep into a small wooden pile nearby.

An Yi immediately made a gesture to Jin Mingyin, signaling that he didn't have to chase him, and the man in black calmly turned the horse's head and turned the horse away.

With the departure of the man in black, An Yi and the others also relieved their nervousness, and it seemed that the man in black had come to deliver the letter.

A militiaman had already taken off the arrows from the wooden pile and ran over to give them to Jin Mingyin. Jin Mingyin shook it in his hand, then pinched the iron arrow in his left hand and pushed it outward,

"Poof~"

He pulled the arrow down with all his might, and sure enough, as he thought, the arrow was hollow. Then he poured out the letter from the arrow branch and handed it to An Yi, "Brother Yi, there is a letter here." ”

An Yi took the letter and opened it to look at it, it was strange! It was actually a blank piece of paper, and there was not a word on it.

"Ming Yin, what do you think is going on?" An Yi handed the letter to Jin Mingyin Dao,

Jin Mingyin took the letter, and he was also a little puzzled, what did the man in black mean by a blank piece of paper? He was scratching his head for some reason, and suddenly patted his head and said to An Yi: "Brother Yi, I remember, do you remember that I told you that I bought the blueprint of the Frankie cannon from a merchant in the Western Regions?" I remember that the Western Regions man had a few other small drawings in his hand at that time, which was a blank piece of paper, and then he seemed to pour some blue potions on the paper, and the patterns on the paper came out on their own. It's just that I'm not interested in those things, so I didn't buy them. ”

When An Yi heard this, he took back the letter paper again, looked at it in the sun, and seemed to feel that the middle of the paper was indeed wrinkled, and he asked Jin Mingyin: "That person from the Western Regions, where did you catch it?" ”

Jin Mingyin pointed at the small wooden pile hit by the arrow of the man in black, "There it is." ”

As he spoke, An Yi took the letter and walked to the small wooden pile, and found that this wooden pile was similar to the large wooden pile he had seen before, but it was much smaller. He circled the pile twice, and found a door on the side as well. No wonder this man in black shoots arrows here, it turns out to be a small house.

"Bang Dang~" kicked the small door open, and found that it was not food piled up, but a table and a bed, which together were the residence of the people from the Western Regions.

An Yi came to this table, and saw a large brazier under the table, covered with a thick layer of black ashes, he bent down to pick up the confetti, and found that there were many large and small letters below that were not burned, thinking that it should be that the person from the Western Regions heard that there was something abnormal outside, so he hurriedly said that these letters were thrown into the brazier, fortunately, he was caught out by Jin Mingyin's militia before he could burn out.

He flipped through the rest of the letters, some of them were in Khitan script, some were in Daxia script, and some were other words that he had never seen before, thinking that they should be used to communicate with each other.

He picked up a few letters in slightly complete Daxia characters, opened them and looked at them, and found that they were all written about mutual communication mahogany, and none of them were signed. An Yi guessed that these were the letters between Taketori and the people of the Western Regions who sold official grain privately, this Taketori was really cautious, if it wasn't for the fact that he already knew the strangeness of the mahogany, ordinary people would not pay attention to this letter even if they got it, and only regarded it as a letter between merchants.

An Yi took out a few letters with Khitan written on them, Khitan is the common language of Liao, which means that these grains must also be related to the north, thinking of this, he said to Jin Mingyin: "I originally thought that Taketori was just a corrupt county official, but I didn't expect that he still had a connection with the north." If I'm not mistaken, the grain in the courtyard was actually sold to the north, and these letters were the way they used to communicate with each other, and this Long'an Forest Farm was probably a transit point under the eyes of the imperial court. An Yi told Jin Mingyin about his discovery in the mahogany pile, although he didn't know Khitan, but combined with the current situation, he could guess eight or nine.

"Brother Yi means that this person from the Western Regions is simply a front, and this grain is not transported to the Western Regions at all?" Kim Myung-yin asked,

An Yi nodded, and also agreed with his thoughts, and said: "I think this is the case, although the Liao State and we have not been at war for a long time, but after all, they are still hostile to each other, and the north has been fighting in the autumn wind in the past few years, and the identity of a Liao person is definitely not as safe as a person from the Western Regions." ”

In this way, this bamboo harvest is to transport the official grain to the Long'an Forest Farm in the name of trading with the people of the Western Regions under the cover of mahogany, and then through the trade between the countries of the Western Regions and the Great Xia Dynasty, the mahogany will be transported out of Great Xia, and then the grain will be sent to the Liao State.

An Yi Xin said, no wonder the frequency of autumn winds in the north has decreased significantly in recent years, and the reform of the Liao system that Jiang Ruyue said is one thing, and I am afraid that there are not a few people like Taketori. This is just a small Huayang county order, a Long'an Forest Farm, who can guarantee that other county orders, prefects, and political envoys have not sold materials to the north through this or other ways to make a profit? The general soldiers of the border towns, and even those sanctimonious people above the Wangjing court, they moved their fingers, I am afraid that ten or eight bamboo fetchs tied together will not be comparable, and how many of these people are hollowing out the foundation of the weak giant of Great Xia little by little. He felt terrible when he thought about it, the four hundred years of the Great Xia Dynasty was really rotten to the bone.

"Brother Yi, I've looked for it, but I didn't find that blue potion." Jin Mingyin's words interrupted An Yi's thoughts,

He came back to his senses, thought for a while, and said to Jin Mingyin: "Let's go, let's go and see if there is such a thing on the body of that person from the Western Regions." Then he pointed to the letter in the brazier, "Collect all these things that have not been burned, and when the time comes, they will be regarded as evidence of Taketori's fornication with the enemy." ”

An Yi and Jin Mingyin took the letter paper and returned to the corpse of the Western Regions. Jin Mingyin turned the body over and groped through his clothes and pockets, but still found nothing. Just when he was about to worry, he found that there seemed to be a gourd-shaped video hanging around the neck of the people in the Western Regions, so he took off the gourd and shook it in his ear, and really heard the sound of water in the gourd. He opened it and poured some into his hand, and the cool blue flowed out of the gourd and remained in the palm of his hand, as gorgeous as a sapphire in Jin Mingyin's dark palm stained with mud.

"Brother Yi, look! That's it," he said excitedly to An Yi on the side,

An Yi took the letter paper in his hand, grabbed Jin Mingyin's wrist, carefully poured the potion on the letter, and spread it evenly with his hands. Suddenly, the originally empty letter paper seemed to have been cast by magic, and several rows of small light blue words appeared.

"What's written on it? Brother Yi" next to Jin Mingyin stretched out his head and wanted to see the words on the letterhead, but the color of this word was already light, and he had the light on his back, so he couldn't see a word at all, so he could only look at An Yi and be anxious.

An Yi looked at the letter, the corners of his mouth twitched, and he smiled coldly, and then he handed the letter to Jin Mingyin and said, "Taketori is going to deliver the goods he wants tonight, and he said that he wants to ask the people of the Western Regions to meet in person." ”

Jin Mingyin took the letter, read it carefully, and said to An Yi: "If Taketori comes in person, he will inevitably bring someone over, but we only have a few people now, and there are not many arrows left." If I do, I'm afraid I'm no match for them. ”

"There are still three or five hours left before the time stated in the letter. There is still a long time, so we are here to prepare in advance, and all the guards outside are concentrated in the forest farm, leaving only the people on the watchtower. Taking advantage of the night, I put on the clothes of the people from the Western Regions, and led the bamboo into the forest farm, and when they entered the forest farm, they didn't care about others, and took the bamboo directly, as long as they took the bamboo take, no one else should worry. ”

Jin Mingyin nodded and stood up. Arrange for the militia to prepare according to the comfortable deployment, wait for the night to come, and seize the stolen goods.

-----------------------------

Huayang County Ya

Lin Moxuan succeeded Jiang Qingyu, that is, Jiang Ruyue's father, and became the Cheng of Huayang County for many years. This old county man has always been diligent and hardworking in office, he is a person who has been Chongzheng for 16 years, and now 24 years have passed, and he still has not moved up even a small step.

After receiving the call of the Zhu County Order, Lin Moxuan hurriedly put down the official business in his hand and rushed to the camp of the King of Shu from the county government in a sedan chair. Came to the camp where Taketori was, stood at the door, straightened his robe, straightened the black veil on his head, bowed his waist, and said loudly to the tent: "Xiaguan Lin Moxuan, ask to see Lord Zhixian." ”

Taketori in the tent was sitting on a rattan chair sipping tea, and when he heard Lin Moxuan's voice, he couldn't help but sneer. He has always looked down on his county man, he has read the sage books for so many years, and he has not much ability, but he has learned the pedantic etiquette rules of this officialdom to the fullest. Sometimes I really think that he might as well go to the Duzhi Supervisor to make an errand, and if he can't jump all the way to the celebrant supervisor, then he will inevitably call "Gonggong Lin" when he meets him.

"Come in."

Taketori put down the teacup and put on a warm smile.

"Lin Xiancheng, it's been hard all the way, you don't have to be polite, sit down."

He stood up, held up Lin Moxuan, who was about to salute him, with his hand, and helped the flattered Lin Xiancheng to his seat. Then he sat back and said to Lin Moxuan: "Lin Xiancheng, I came to you today because I need your help. ”

Lin Moxuan hurriedly stood up, bowed to Taketori, and replied, "If Lord Bamboo has anything to do, just order the lower officials." ”

Taketori is also helpless, since he is willing to stand, simply let him stand.

"That's right, Lord Lin, Long'an Forest Farm wants to urgently buy a batch of mahogany wood from this county. You should know that the forest farm is actually mainly selling timber to the countries of the Western Regions, and under normal circumstances, we provide more quantity, and the quality of the timber is also high, so the price he gives us is also very good.

But this time, because they are in a hurry, we don't have that much mahogany to sell to them, so the price will probably be much lower than before. However, the king of Shu is still working hard for the bandits in front of this mountain, and when it comes to the affairs of Huayang County, he still needs to be left and right in this county, and he can't get away for a while. Therefore, this official wants you to replace this county tonight and go to deliver goods to the merchant, so that the other party can have a maneuver in terms of price, I don't know what Lord Lin wants? ”

When Lin Moxuan heard Taketori say this, he was naturally full of joy. Since he became a county magistrate, he usually deals with some trivial matters and miscellaneous matters, plus Taketori, the county order, is relatively strong, resulting in such an errand with merchants, he has had the first opportunity to contact.

Moreover, when the army of the King of Shu surrounded the mountain, Lord Zhu couldn't leave, so he handed over this matter to him, this kind of opportunity was simply undreamable, as long as he could seize this opportunity, Lord Zhu would hand over more things to him in the future.

Thinking of this, Lin Moxuan was overjoyed, and hurriedly responded: "Your Excellency, please rest assured, the lower officials will go back to prepare, and they will not fail in their mission tonight." ”

"Okay, okay, then you go and prepare first, set off early, and don't let our mahogany be sold to others." Taketori patted Lin Moxuan's shoulder as he spoke, and his expression of entrusting him with a heavy responsibility was simply vivid.

Lin Moxuan walked out of the tent with a full voice, and felt a little fluttery when he walked.

As soon as he walked with his front foot, Liu Heng entered the tent with his back foot. At this time, Taketori's face gradually lost the rich expression just now, and he said coldly to Liu Heng: "Leave some of our people in the county tonight, and take care of the aftermath for me, and then bring all the other people in the county office, except for the people who left Zhou Yunlong and the necessary guards, all of them are brought along." Zhou Yunlong has been a house slave in Anfu for many years, and if he doesn't know it, he has to run to report to An Yi, so try not to alarm him about this matter. ”

"Yes!"

"We're going to get the stolen goods tonight!"