Chapter 69: Entering the City

It was almost noon, and it was finally the turn of the Li family firm to be inspected. If you want to say that this Li family business, it is not simple, and the soldiers guarding the city gate all know that the # platform of this business is Li Yan.

Li Yan, the word is square, a native of Nanyang (now Nanyang, Henan), originally Qianwei Taishou, general of the Auxiliary Han Dynasty. In the second year of Zhang Wu (222 AD), Liu Bei recruited Li Yan to Chengdu and appointed him as Shang Shuling.

After Xu Jing and Wu Yi seized power, they demoted Li Yan to Qianwei Taishou, so Li Yan must have resentment against this Chengdu puppet court, and he hated the chaos of Xu Jing, Wu Yi and others. This kind of person is exactly what Liu Hou needs to fight for.

This Li family's business name is the business name opened by Li Yan's family, and Liu Hou sent someone to contact them, and immediately received a positive response. The Li family knew that the demotion of the head of their family was because Liu Li became the emperor, and because Xu Jing, Wu Yi and others controlled the government. The only way to restore the head of the family is to overthrow this small court and pull this little emperor off the throne.

In the past, this wish was slim, so they chose to forbear, chose to dare to be angry, and now the opportunity has come, as long as they can help the crown prince Liu Chan regain the throne, then this credit will be great, this is from the dragon's merit, this kind of merit not to mention the restoration of the head of the family, even if he takes a step forward, it is not impossible.

Therefore, the people in charge of the Li family did not wait for the Hong military officials who came to contact them to tell them the conditions that they could exclusively operate a "Ministry of Industry" product in the future, and directly agreed to help. Therefore, this time, the team of the Li family's caravan was mixed with more than a dozen members of the special forces of the Hong Army.

Fortunately, the Li family's business is quite large, with rice grains, vegetables, fruits, cooking oil, cloth, ready-to-wear and medicinal materials. There are more goods, and there are naturally more people needed, so there are more than 30 people in this delivery, and there are 7 or 8 cars, all of which are pulled by donkeys.

The horses were all made into war horses, and the cattle needed to be used as arable land, so even the official eunuchs such as Li Yan's family could only use donkeys to pull the cart in normal times. Of course, Li Yan's family must also have horses, but the number is very small, and they are generally not used lightly.

The city gate official took the Li family's office and seriously inspected it, and he even took out a template, folded this template into a triangle along the diagonal, and folded the Li family's office into a triangle along the diagonal, and then spliced the two triangles in the diagonal position to form a "new" office, but half of this "new" office was the template in his own hand, and half was the Li family's office.

After the spelling, he began to carefully compare the patterns at the stitching, the patterns at the splicing are very complicated, as long as the position of the two is slightly wrong, the lines between the two triangles can not be connected, which means that this is a forgery. This is exactly what Guo Youzhi was worried about before, and the secret memory in the past is.

It is indeed a difficult thing to forge so many and such complex patterns to the slightest, and there is no photocopying technology in this era, relying on people to paint by hand, how stable the hand of the person holding the pen must be, and how superb the skill must be to draw it?

The city gate officers were at the checkpoint, and the soldiers were not idle, some of them were searching the caravan, and some were carefully rummaging through the caravans. As for whether they have slipped something into their arms, only they know.

Of course, even if they don't do it themselves, the people in charge of the caravan will consciously stuff some broken silver into the hands of the city gate officials when they submit the station, and go out to do things.

Even after receiving the money, the city gate officials and soldiers still checked very carefully, because the order from above was given, and they were going to lose their heads when they went on a business trip, so no one dared to disobey it. The cashier is just a guarantee that they won't deliberately make things difficult and can't make them give up their normal checks.

They didn't show favoritism because Li Yan was a big official, saying that they could get the merchants who transported goods in and out of the city gate, wasn't that one more or less related to the big officials in the court?

They had seen the caravans in the homes of larger officials, not to mention unlucky people like Li Yan who had been demoted. This is also the reason why the Li family's caravan did not take any VIP passage to enter the city, but obediently lined up to wait for inspection. To put it bluntly, Li Yanguan, the backer of the Li family's caravan, is too small, and in front of a bunch of caravans opened by the family of the three princes and nine kings, they are a scum.

"Huh? What is it? Why is the taste so big? A soldier asked, pointing to a large # sack on a car.

A steward of the Li family's caravan trotted over, smiling like a Maitreya Buddha, and nodded to the soldier without seeing his teeth and said, "Master Jun, this cart is full of medicinal materials, which are used in the Huichun Hall of our Li Family Pharmacy." ”

Indeed, this car was loaded with all kinds of medicinal herbs, and as soon as you approached the carriage, all kinds of medicinal smells came to your face, but the sulfur had a pungent smell, which seemed more unusual.

"Medicinal herbs? Why does it taste so big? Open it up and take a look. The soldier said.

Hearing this, a fierce light flashed in the eyes of a big man standing next to the car, but soon, he retracted his murderous intent and vision, lowered his head again, pretended to be a simple guy, and watched the development of the situation here without saying a word.

This guy wears a straw hat, a white sweat towel around his neck, and a short coat, he is tall and strong, he has dark skin, and his finger joints are thick, and if you shake hands with him, you will find that his hands are full of calluses, especially the thumb and index finger of his right hand, which give people a very thick feeling, and the calluses are also very thick.

He looked like a country boy who was used to hard work, and there was nothing to show in his angular muscles, or in his skin color that was clearly exposed to excessive sunlight, or in his thick bones.

However, a well-intentioned person can still see from the location of the calluses on his hands that this person must be a good hand in the army, and a sharpshooter who is good at shooting.

Because the distribution of calluses is caused by the habit of holding weapons and excessive archery, this is not the same as the distribution of calluses caused by holding farm tools. And the hard training in the army will also create a strong body of muscles and joints, and it will also tan the skin.

That's right, this person is a member of the special forces of the Hong Army, and this is the leader of the team, he is Huang Xu. Since this mission is a heavy one, and it is necessary for a wise and brave character to take on it, Liu Hou feels that Huang Xu is indeed a manufacturable material, especially after the battle of White Emperor City, Liu Hou feels that he can take charge alone.

So, at yesterday's military meeting, he patted Huang Xu on the shoulder and said, "General Huang, the merits you made last time were only recorded in the merit list, and I haven't had time to reward you yet." The task of entering the city this time is a matter of great importance, which is not something that ordinary people can complete, and only those who are brave and resourceful can be competent. I am optimistic about you, and I am confident that you will be able to accomplish this difficult task. I am waiting for your triumphant return, and when the time comes, the two merit will be rewarded together. ”

Everyone also understands the arduousness and importance of this task, and no one robs him, even Zhang Bao and Vulture Gu, who usually like to grab tasks the most, are silent, and everyone also knows that the best person to carry out this task is indeed only Huang Xu.

The steward of the Li family quickly untied the rope that bound the mouth of the sack, and the soldier reached out and took out a handful of yellow powder from the sack, put it under his nose and sniffed it, and choked him until he sneezed.

"What the hell is this?" The soldier shook his hand, threw away the yellow powder in his hand, and wiped two more handfuls on the sack, trying to wipe his hand clean.

"Master Jun, this is sulfur powder, Master Jun, don't you know, the weather has been hot recently, snakes, insects, rats and ants in the city are frequent, many customers come to my Li family pharmacy to buy sulfur powder for insect repellent purposes, so that our pharmacy has been out of stock for several days.

No, our owner finally bought this bag of sulfur powder from a foreign merchant, and immediately let the small one be transported into the city, I don't know how many people are waiting to buy it back to repel insects, maybe this bag of sulfur powder will be sold out in a few days, and I don't know if the owner can buy another bag of sulfur powder. The steward explained in a rambling manner.

"Oh, it's sulfur powder, no wonder, this smell is familiar." The soldier knew how much chemistry he knew, and what could be used to make sulfur, and he had the impression that sulfur did have the effect of repelling insects and killing scabies, so he did not have much doubt about what the steward said, and after answering a sentence, he ignored the bag of sulfur and continued to inspect other goods.

The nerves of other special forces, including Huang Xu, who were already tense, suddenly relaxed, and it seemed that they had passed this level. They now have no weapons on them, and if they are discovered, they have no choice but to be captured.

Soon, the city gate officials and soldiers completed the inspection of the Li family's caravan where Huang Xu was located, and Huang Xu and the others entered the city along the way. Not long after the Li family caravan entered the city, the Cai family caravan also entered the city with a check, and this caravan was also mixed with people from the Hong army, some of whom were craftsmen, and there was also a young scribe, of course, this young scribe disguised himself as a steward.

The real identity of this young scribe is Zhang Xingcai's senior brother, Zuo Ci's protégé, and he is proficient in chemistry and physics. Moreover, this Cai family caravan also brought a large amount of saltpeter powder into the city in the name of medicinal materials. Sulfur and saltpeter are the two main raw materials for the manufacture of certain explosives.

Whether it was the Li family caravan or the Cai family caravan, after entering the city, some people left the caravan and entered a vacant mansion of the Li family with the items they needed, and these people were the members of the Hong army's operation.

A large family like the Li family naturally owns many properties in the city, some of which are vacant, especially after Li Yan was demoted, now even if it is the Li family's mansion, the Fu Han General's Mansion is now very empty, there is no male master, only Li Yan's wife and children live, and some servants are doing some sprinkling and sweeping work on a regular basis.

This operation was named by Liu Hou as the "Killing Chickens and Monkeys" operation, and the action team was led by Huang Xu. The action team is divided into two groups, one group is the technical group, and the leader is the young scribe, his name is Pu Dan, and he is the younger brother of the master craftsman Pu Yuan.

Like his brother, he learned ancestral casting techniques since he was a child, and later after Liu Hou established the college, he developed a strong interest in chemistry and physics, and later became a graduate student of Zuo Ci, which can be regarded as a disciple of Zuo Ci. He, like Zhang Xingcai, is Zuo Ci's proud protégé.

Such a person is also a very precious talent in the Hong army, and he is not yet thirty years old, there is still a lot of room for development, it can be said that the future is limitless, if it is not for the importance of this operation, Liu Hou is reluctant to let him enter the city to take risks.

The other group is the executive team, which is led by Huang Xu, who is responsible for carrying out specific tasks. The executive team, including Huang Xu, was the best of the special forces, and after they settled down, they began to scatter to the city to do reconnaissance work. The three armed forces did not use intelligence first, and the intelligence work was not done well, and the follow-up operations were all blind.

And the technical team is not idle, they are also the first to put into the work.