Li Jing forced the people of the Gu family to tell him the truth that Chen and Gu Zi'er were taken away from the ancestral house of the Gu family, and then thought that if it was really the official army who came to take people back to Jiankang on the order of Wang Shao to listen to the questioning, he should have informed the local government in advance, so he said goodbye to the people of the Gu family, and turned around and came to the county order of Dongjiao City to verify the authenticity.

As a result, the county order of Dongjiao City never received any orders from Wang Shao, let alone the officials and soldiers who came to the city to escort away criminals on Wang Shao's orders. However, just when Li Jing was about to turn around and look for the Gu family to inquire in detail about the appearance and characteristics of the officers and soldiers who took away Chen and Gu Zi'er, the parent official of Dongjiao City did not forget to remind Li Jing: "General, the following officials remember it well, the few days when the officers and soldiers came to Dongjiao City to take away Chen and Gu Zi'er, it was just when Wang Servant was assassinated in Jiankang, and Jiankang stayed in the Yamen to issue a strict order to the government offices in various parts of the Yangtze River: It is strictly forbidden for any government office to send people and officers and soldiers stationed in other places to transfer and run errands. I'm afraid it will be difficult to leave Dongzhu City, and if I walk far, I will most likely hide in a secret place nearby, and wait until Jiankang stays behind in the yamen to send orders to the local government offices and garrisons to lift the ban before trying to leave. The lower official sent the official to cooperate with the general to launch a search near Dongjiao City, and maybe he would catch the team of thieves who pretended to be officers and soldiers. ”

Li Jing was overjoyed when he heard the words of the county order, and immediately led a group of officers from the local government office to launch a large-scale search and arrest inside and outside Dongjiao City, hoping that as the county order said, the whereabouts of Chen and Gu Zier could be found near Dongjiao City.

However, Li Jing went out early and returned late every day, leading a group of officials to search every corner of a small Dongzhu city, but he didn't even find a figure.

In addition to being disappointed, Li Jing found the people of the Gu family again, and after repeated interrogation with them, carefully compared the date when the thieves who pretended to be officials and soldiers came to take away Chen and Gu Zi'er, carefully estimated their itinerary, and decided to expand the scope of the search to the entire prefectures and counties under the jurisdiction of Huiji County. Asked Wei Huang to send someone to cooperate with him to continue to find the whereabouts of Chen and Gu Zi'er within the jurisdiction of Huiji County.

After Wei Huang checked and confirmed that the token that Li Jing showed him was indeed issued by Yang Guang, the king of Jin, Wei Huang did not dare to be careless at all, and hurriedly sent light cavalry to the prefectures and counties under his jurisdiction, and ordered the local government office to send all the officials to strictly check the whereabouts of Chen and Gu Zi'er like a screen. As a result, four or five days later, he really found out the possible whereabouts of the two.

According to the report of the Ruian County Order, which faces the sea in the east, in the process of being ordered to strictly investigate the whereabouts of Chen and Gu Zi'er, they found a clue: Residents in the Wenling area of Ruian reported to the officials of the government office that they had personally seen a pack cart carrying two women, Yisha and Ni, come from the north seven or eight days ago and went straight into the Wenling Mountains.

After Li Jing and Wei Huang received this report, they immediately carefully asked the local residents who came to report the news, which direction the pack cart came from, which direction it was going, the age and appearance of the two women on the car, and compared it with the time when the officers and soldiers of the Gu family came to pick up Chen and Gu Zi'er, and believed that judging from the direction of the pack cart, the time of arrival in the Wenling area, or the age characteristics of the two women on the car, the two women on the pack car were probably the two aunts and nephews of Chen and Gu Zi'er.

The only situation that is difficult to match the description of the Gu family is that, according to the residents near Wenling, there was only an old man who did not see his appearance at the time driving the pack cart, and there was no team of officers and soldiers escorting the pack cart.

Despite this, after receiving the report, Li Jing still decided to go to Wenling in person to find out whether the packwagon was carrying the two people he was looking for, Chen and Gu Zier.

Wei Huang was not worried that Li Jing would go alone, so he sent him ten capable messengers to escort him together, and personally led hundreds of officers and troops to Ruian County, ready to reinforce Li Jing and his party at any time, and go into the mountains to suppress bandits and save people.

Because he had received a report in advance that only an unknown old man had driven the suspicious pack cart into the Wenling Mountains, when Li Jing led ten messengers to the Wenling Mountain Pass, he ordered the ten messengers to be divided into two teams, one team was responsible for answering outside the mountain and sending a signal to the officers and soldiers stationed in the county town, and the other team was led by him into the mountains to find the whereabouts of the pack carts.

Wenling is a mountainous area with a radius of hundreds of miles facing the sea in the southeast and facing only the north and west leading to the land, because Wei Huang sent officials and troops to block the passage out of the mountain in the west after receiving the report from Ruian County, so when Li Jing led people to Wenling, he could confirm that the pack cart he was looking for was still in the Wenling Mountain.

Soon after Li Jing entered the Wenling Mountains with five or six messengers, he found that there was only one sheep intestine path in the mountains for the carriage and horses to pass through, and it seemed that it was not difficult to find the pack cart, so he ordered the messengers to follow closely behind his horses and first search for the sheep intestine path.

However, after searching along the sheep intestine path for nearly an hour, Li Jing unexpectedly found that the only sheep intestine path in the mountains was tortuous, and he didn't know how many bends there were in the mountains and forests, and he couldn't see where it led at a glance.

He immediately summoned an errand officer who was familiar with the local terrain, and asked him where he would eventually go if he followed the path, and asked him to judge where the pack cart was most likely to be hidden, based on the terrain of Wenling.

The errand officer answered the first question raised by Li Jing without thinking: the sheep intestine path eventually led to the western mountain pass, but when answering the second question he asked, he became hesitant: "General, although this Wenling Mountain is not high, if it comes to the places where a pack cart can be hidden within a radius of hundreds of miles, as far as the small ones know, there are no less than twenty or thirty places, and even if we have a few people in this area, even if we find it for three or five days, we may not be able to find it." ”

When Li Jing discussed with Wei Huang to go to Wenling to find out the whereabouts of the pack cart, the reason why he was only willing to bring 10 messengers was because he considered that if he sent a large group of officers and soldiers to search the mountains, it was very likely that the thieves and dogs would jump over the wall in a hurry and kill Chen and Gu Zi'er.

Riding on the horse and frowning for a long time, Li Jing stared at the errand officer who was familiar with the terrain of Wenling with a sharp gaze, and asked him slowly: "Judging from your experience, once the thief finds that the western mountain pass is blocked by the official army, and it is difficult to withdraw from the northern mountain pass to the outside of the mountain, then where is he most likely to drive the pack cart to hide in order to avoid the search of the official army?" ”