Chapter Twenty-Eight: The Key Villain

Wang Jian kept looking at Yang Yuanqing and his party before returning to Jinyang Palace, where more than 100 eunuchs and palace maids lived, as well as hundreds of soldiers guarding them, and they were heavily guarded.

In history, Li Yuan's army and Jinyang Palace have a close relationship, and the wild history and romance say that it is because Li Yuan used the palace maids of Jinyang Palace and was forced to rebel, but in fact, Li Yuan's rebellion has been planned for a long time, and the reason why it has a close relationship with Jinyang Palace is to first seize the Cangcheng of Jinyang Palace and obtain the strategic materials inside.

Wang Jian's office is on the periphery of Jinyang Palace, his duty is to maintain the normal operation of this palace, usually there is nothing to do, but today his pace is particularly urgent, he went back to the office and hurriedly explained, then turned over and got on the horse, he wanted to go to Taiyuan City, but out of Jinyang Palace, he hesitated, and turned his horse's head and galloped towards Cangcheng......

Yang Yuanqing and his entourage followed Cangcao Zhao Kaiyuan to Cangcheng, Cangcheng is slightly larger than Jinyang Palace, surrounded by high walls, there are watchtowers at all four corners, there are soldiers guarding day and night, and there are more than 100 soldiers guarding the city gate, and there must be a special token to enter and exit Cangcheng.

Yang Yuanqing was in charge of building the Fenyang Palace, he had a token to enter Cangcheng, and he brought five soldiers and the lord Bo Li Chun to follow Zhao Kaiyuan into Cangcheng.

In the middle of the cangcheng is a central axis, there are hundreds of warehouses of all sizes distributed on both sides, divided into four major areas, the honor guard area, the grain area, the soldier armor area and the sundries area, among which the grain area is the largest, with 500,000 stone grain stored, Yang Yuanqing and others are going to the area is the sundries area, located in the innermost part of the cangcheng, also known as the back warehouse, composed of more than 20 warehouses of large and small, which are stacked with all kinds of sundries.

Zhao Kaiyuan led Yang Yuanqing and the others to a huge warehouse, "Open the door!" He commanded, and one of the workers opened the large copper lock, and several stout warehouse servants creaked open the door of the warehouse, and a large warehouse full of tens of thousands of various pieces of wood appeared before them.

"This is it!"

Li Chun also recognized the warehouse, he walked quickly to the northwest corner, and pointed to the wood piled up like a hill, "The main beam wood was originally placed vertically in the corner, but now it is estimated that it is buried underneath." ”

"That's right!"

Zhao Kaiyuan flipped through the account book and said with a smile: "I have records here, a total of forty-three, which should be buried underneath, does Master Li want to see it now?" ”

Li Chun nodded, "I want to see if there is no decay!" ”

Zhao Kaiyuan immediately ordered several strong men to move the wood, and in a moment, more than a dozen warehouse workers from other warehouses came in to help, and the warehouse was busy.

Yang Yuanqing patted Zhao Kaiyuan's shoulder and smiled slightly, "I want to go to the armor store to have a look!" ”

Zhao Kaiyuan was stunned, "What is General Yang doing in the armory?" ”

"What, can't I go?" Yang Yuanqing's face sank.

"Of course you can go, but ..... All right! I'll go with the general. ”

Zhao Kaiyuan saw that it would take a while to move the wood, so he took Yang Yuanqing and walked towards the armory.

The armor warehouse is next door to the utility storehouse, and a few hundred steps away from it, there are a total of five large warehouses, which contain 30,000 sets of armor and hundreds of thousands of various weapons.

There were more than a dozen soldiers standing in front of the gate of each warehouse, looking at them vigilantly, Yang Yuanqing was just about to enter, but was stopped by the soldiers guarding the door.

Zhao Kaiyuan hurriedly said apologetically to Yang Yuanqing: "General Yang, the armor warehouse is not like other warehouses, it is very heavily guarded here, and it is not allowed to bring any weapons into the warehouse, and General Yang's knives and swords cannot be brought in, I am really sorry." ”

Yang Yuanqing took off his sword and handed it to his subordinates, "You guys are waiting outside, I'll go and see and come out!" ”

They entered the warehouse through a small door, which was an armor warehouse, and the warehouse was densely packed with bright light armor and two-gear armor, a bundle of ten pairs of armor, and it was not randomly stacked like a wood warehouse, and it was placed on the iron shelves in an orderly manner, which was very easy to count.

"How many armor depots are there?"

"Back to the general, there is only this one in the armor warehouse, a total of 30,000 sets of armor, and people from the military department will come to check it in June and December every year."

"I want to know the exact number of sets."

"I'll take a look!"

Zhao Kaiyuan took an account book from the drawer next to him, turned a few pages and said with a smile: "There are a total of thirty thousand and eighty sets." ”

"Has anyone received it this year?" Yang Yuanqing asked nonchalantly.

Zhao Kaiyuan's heart jumped suddenly, and he hurriedly shook his head: "No, there has been no expenditure this year." ”

"Really? Show me your book! Yang Yuanqing looked sharply at the account book in Zhao Kaiyuan's hand.

Zhao Kaiyuan was so frightened that he took a step back, waved his hand again and again, and said, "This account book..... The general can't just look at it. ”

As soon as Yang Yuanqing stretched out his hand, he snatched the account book in his hand, Zhao Kaiyuan trembled in his heart, but he didn't dare to step forward to snatch it, he began to be afraid in his heart, why did Yang Yuanqing care so much, did he know about it?

Intuition told Zhao Kaiyuan that Yang Yuanqing was looking at the wood as an excuse, and his real purpose was to come to see the armor, Zhao Kaiyuan only felt two trembling tremors, and cold sweats broke out all over his body.

Yang Yuanqing quickly turned to the last page, but this is just an armor balance account, there is no specific income and expenditure details, it can be seen that the balance at the beginning of the year is 39,000 pairs, and now there are only 30,000 and 80 pairs left, why is there no expenditure? This Zhao Kaiyuan is talking nonsense with his eyes open.

"There should be a detailed account! Show me. ”

As soon as Yang Yuanqing's words fell, there was a rapid running sound outside the warehouse, and then Wang Jian's voice came, "Zhao Cangcao, where are you?" ”

"Humble duty.... Humble here! ”

Yang Yuanqing saw that Wang Jian's figure had appeared at the door, so he casually returned the account book to Zhao Kaiyuan and smiled, "The soldiers on the border are like this, they are more curious and anxious, please forgive Zhao Cangcao." ”

"Nothing!"

Zhao Kaiyuan took the account book, but lowered his head, Wang Jian stepped forward and looked at them suspiciously, "Why are you here?" ”

"Zhao Cangcao took me to visit the armor storehouse, the palace supervisor, is there anything wrong?" Yang Yuanqing asked coldly.

Wang Jian laughed dryly, "It's nothing, I think it's rude not to accompany General Yang in person, so I rushed here." ”

"Let's go! Back to the timber warehouse, it is estimated that they have found it. ”

Yang Yuanqing turned around and walked towards the door, Zhao Kaiyuan took two quick steps and went out behind him, Wang Jian looked at their backs, and the suspicion in his eyes became even stronger.

．．．．．．．

Taiyuan City is divided into two counties under the jurisdiction, one is Taiyuan County, one is Jinyang County, Zhao Kaiyuan's home is located in an alley near the south of Jinyang County, his family is quite solid, there is a small house covering an area of one acre, more than 20 tile houses, two yards before and after, and there are 100 acres of ancestral fields outside the city.

Zhao Kaiyuan is in his 40s and has two sons, both of whom have started their own families, and only he and his wife live in his home, as well as two servants.

Taking advantage of the opportunity for Yang Yuanqing to go through the procedures for receiving wood, Zhao Kaiyuan slipped out of Cangcheng, fled home directly, locked himself in the room when he went home, and covered his whole body with a quilt, he was extremely scared in his heart, today's intuition told him that Yuan Shangying had privately taken the armor exposed, Yang Yuanqing was to investigate this matter, once this matter was known by the imperial court, he would definitely die.

Zhao Kaiyuan suddenly thought of something, he kicked open the quilt, turned up a brick from the corner of the wall, and took out a small iron box from below, he opened the iron box with trembling hands, and there was a booklet inside, this is the true record of the armor, five thousand sets of armor, bows and arrows, spears, horizontal knives, and shields, which were privately taken away by Yuan Shangying and others in the past two years, and he recorded all this in detail.

"Bang! Bang! Suddenly there was a knock on the door, which scared Zhao Kaiyuan's heart to jump out.

"Yes.... Who? He asked in a trembling voice.

"It's me!" It was his wife's voice, "What are you doing behind closed doors?" Open the door! ”

Zhao Kaiyuan stuffed the iron box into the quilt casually, stepped forward and opened the door, and his wife Zhang walked in with a bowl of soup and complained to him: "What are you doing with the door locked in broad daylight?" ”

Zhao Kaiyuan sighed, sat down at the table with his head in his hands, and Zhang touched his forehead strangely, "Kailang, are you sick?" ”

Zhao Kaiyuan said in pain: "I may not survive this time!" ”

Zhang was taken aback, "What nonsense are you talking about?" ”

"I didn't.... Nonsense! ”

Zhao Kaiyuan grabbed his wife's hand, trembled and said: "King Qi may rebel, I will be an accomplice, I gave him a lot of weapons privately, and now someone is investigating this matter, lady, I really can't escape this time." ”

Zhang was also trembling with fright, "Why don't we go now and flee to the south." ”

Zhao Kaiyuan shook his head, "If we escape, what will Da Lang and Erlang do?" And they were condemned to death. ”

"Or, take them with you, and the whole family will go with you!"

At this time, Zhao Kaiyuan had slowly calmed down, and he suddenly realized that things were not as bad as he thought, Yang Yuanqing may not have discovered the secret, and even if he knew something, he couldn't see the problem at all from his account.

It is because he is a thief that he is so afraid, but it is easy to arouse the suspicion of others, especially Wang Jian's suspicion.

Zhao Kaiyuan thought for a long time, then took the iron box out of the quilt, wrote a note and put it in the iron box, hid it in the corner in front of his wife, and whispered to his puzzled wife: "In case something happens to me, you can dig out the iron box, I left a note in the iron box." ”

．．．．．．

Wang Jian urged the horse to gallop all the way, rushed into Taiyuan City, and soon came to a mansion gate, he turned over and dismounted, stepped forward and knocked on the door, the door 'squeaked! With a bang, a crack was opened, and the door was opened by a young man, and he saw that it was Wang Jian, so he opened the door, and Wang Jian flashed into the door, and the door was 'bang!' The ground slammed shut again.

"Is Chen Senjun here?" Wang Jian asked the man who opened the door.

"Palace Supervisor, it was that gust of wind that blew you here today!" A man walked out with a hearty smile.

This man is in his thirties, with big ears and fair skin, and he is Chen Zhiwei, the henchman of Yang Jun, the king of Qi, who came to Hedong to inspect the manor on the order of Yang Jun, and just arrived in Taiyuan three days ago, and the house he lived in was arranged by Wang Jian.

Chen Zhiwei saw that Wang Jian looked a little nervous, so he smiled and asked, "What happened?" ”

"Yang Yuanqing is coming to Jinyang Palace today!" Wang Jian said nervously:

．．．．．．．