At night, after the curfew in the capital began, the bustling and noisy Xuanwumen Street became empty and silent.

Wang Wenyan, who carried a sign and did not worry about curfew, sat in his own carriage, turned into Chunshu Hutong between Xuanwumen Street and Liulichang, and walked into the backyard of the silk village.

Liu Qiao and Zheng Haizhu were already waiting for him.

Wang Wenyan knew a lot about etiquette, and first asked Liu Qiao's young son about the situation of drug withdrawal, and learned that the frequency of crying had decreased, so he breathed a sigh of relief and paced to the silver box.

Liu Qiao didn't put on a show, and said frankly: "This official knows a limited amount of money, and he can only see that these silvers are no worse than the fineness of Xie Jing's Yulu silver, Mr. Wang is still more well-informed, and can he see other strange things about the silver?" ”

Wang Wenyan had already passed on the suspicions of Xu Gongzi by the servants and Li Daniu, and he didn't say anything at this time, he reached out and took a piece of silver with a full appearance of about five taels, put it under the bright lamp and candle, turned it slowly, and observed it carefully.

"Cast in the North." He spoke the first judgment.

"Can you see that, too?" Zheng Haizhu and Liu Qiao consulted at the same time.

Wang Wenyan pursed his lips shallowly, pointed to the pitted honeycomb traces on the surface of the silver nugget and said: "Whether it is a silver nugget or a silver ingot, if the color is more than ninety percent, under the sun or candlelight, the surface between the pores has a silver treasure light. But in silver, there is more or less copper, and there is a distinction between red copper and brass. Brass is born together, seven black, eight gray and nine turn green, red copper is born together, seven black, eight red and nine with white. Northland silver mines, mostly red copper, southland silver mines, more brass. ”

Zheng Haizhu took the silver nuggets handed over by Wang Wenyan, rubbed them over for a moment, and checked a few silver boxes again, and said to Liu Qiao: "As Mr. Wang said, since the fineness of these silver has reached more than ninety percent of the good quality, and it is white but not green, it can be inferred that it is obtained from the tempering of the north. But Xu Gongzi's steward said that they had collected the goods and silver all the way from the south. Although silver is circulated in the north and south of the trade route, it is too strange that these silver nuggets that are a few thousand taels small are all white, and there is no green one to be seen. ”

Isn't that weird? It's the same as the buyer who pays in the other province and pays the same amount of RMB.

I saw Wang Wenyan leaning over, grabbed a larger silver nugget with a full twenty or thirty taels, and continued to lean under the lamp to taste, his fingers sliding back and forth on the surface, as if a warrior was carefully feeling the blade of the sword.

"Do you want to feel good about the touch?" Zheng Haizhu asked.

"No, it's the pattern of the pattern." Wang Wenyan replied.

He simply instructed the housekeeper to carry the box to the table, add two more glass lamps to illuminate it, and lay his head in the box for a while, and only after a while did he select a few pieces and put them together.

A complicated expression appeared on Wang Wenyan's face.

"You two, look, if you spell out a big guy of fifty taels, what does the pattern on it look like?"

Zheng and Liu went up to discern it.

"Flagpole? Still with a flag? Liu Qiao wondered.

"No, it's a blade," Zheng Haizhu said, "isn't it...... The kind that generals use on horses, big swords? ”

Liu Qiao's Jinyi Guard, investigating cases, does not go to the battlefield, and often uses embroidered spring knives, which belong to the waist knife-shaped short blade, while Zheng Haizhu has seen Ma Xianglin and his subordinates' white pole guns several times, and is very sensitive to long weapons.

Wang Wenyan nodded: "It's a big knife, and it's also a big knife with a provenance, it's Guan Erye's Qinglong Yanyue Knife." The people who cast these silvers used the silver fan engraved with the pattern of the Qinglong Glaive, because what they obeyed was their fellow countryman who was the head of the righteous word, Guan Yuguan Er Ye. ”

Liu Qiao was still smacking this information, and Zheng Haizhu, who had more information about the past, had already brightened his eyes and said awe-inspiringly: "Jin Shang? ”

"That's right," Wang Wenyan sneered, "I wouldn't have known that thoroughly. Last year, the Jin merchants and our Hui merchants competed for the location of the hall, I didn't show my identity, with the head of the Huizhou line to find the theory of the tooth line, the tooth line was triumphant, showing the fixed silver sent by the Jin merchants, the fineness is good, the single portion is large, and the silver fan of the same size is used, and there is a green dragon glaive knife at the bottom of the fan, indicating that they are Jin merchants, and they have to be protected by the second master, with the words of 'loyalty, faith, benevolence, and righteousness', they can cut six generals in five passes, and travel all over the world. ”

Zheng Haizhu listened to it, and felt a little ironic in his heart.

Guan Erye is indeed the most important word.

But whether the Jin merchants at the end of the Ming Dynasty had the righteousness of their family and country, at least from the eight major families who took refuge in Houjin and sought glory and profit, I didn't see it.

At this moment, Zheng Haizhu pinched the silver piece that vaguely showed half of the glaive knife, gently scratched it on the table, and deduced: "If the surname Xu sells high-grade Cantonese embroidery and Guangfu and changes hands to Shanxi people, it is not unusual for one or two votes to have a thousand taels of silver, but with his display when he invited me to dinner that day, why should he hide his dealings with the wealthy merchants of Jindi?" On that day, I was looking for my bad luck in Fahua Temple, and there were also Shanxi people in the magpie alley where I went. Therefore, eight or nine are not far from ten, and the turmoil in Fahua Temple was played by Xu Gongzi, saving his life once and saving him twice. I've never seen him before, he's like he's falling from the sky, and he's trying so hard to curry favor, what does he want from me? I want to help him sell goods together? ”

When Liu Qiao heard the last sentence, he clearly heard the ridicule in it, and laughed, but quickly accepted his smile, and said: "Bo Langzhong is also from Shanxi, you said that he wanted my old Liu to have soldiers under him, and he was the pro-army of the Son of Heaven, so for you, do you also fancy that you can enter and exit the imperial city......

Wang Wenyan, who was listening on the side, interjected: "The Wenhua Hall and the inner court can only bring one or two assistants to teach, and the investigation is strict. These people may be a group of people, who should covet something more useful in the hands of Madame. ”

Zheng Haizhu heard Wang Wenyan talk about "more useful things", and his heart suddenly overflowed.

She looked up at Wang Wenyan: "The really useful ones in my hands are the firearms factory in Songjiang, and the sailors and battalions in Chongming. The latter is still tender, but the former has a bit of weight, the surname Xu, want to ask me to buy firearms? ”

Wang Wenyan said: "There is no need to 'buy'. If they are really a gang, they are obviously not the same way as Liu Dudu's family's small style and his wife's style. Xu Gongzi looks like he wants to marry his wife, and the property and soldiers in his wife's hands are not also surnamed Xu? ”

Liu Qiao is the head of the spy in the end, once he gets enough clues, the torrent of thinking is like a river that has opened the floodgates, and his brain hole will inevitably open a little bigger, he interjected solemnly: "Then they want to kill the king and rebel?" It's not a dart game, is it? ”

Zheng Haizhu stared at him: "In today's world, who may be the one who wants to seek the life of the Son of Heaven and the Ming Dynasty?" ”

Wang Wenyan, as a strategist of Donglin, blurted out: "Concubine Zheng and King Fu Zhu Changxun." ”

"And Jiannu," Zheng Haizhu said with a solemn expression, "Just when I talked about the firearms factory, I remembered that Jiannu's spies touched Songjiang, and they were attacking my firearms factory and taking me to Hetuala. Moreover, the Jin merchants took root in the border trade land of Zhangjiakou and monopolized the mutual market with the Mongolian ministries. It is not impossible that Jiannu reconciled with the Mongolian ministries and was introduced by the Mongols to the Jin merchants and bought goods in large quantities. With the cunning and good tactics of Nurhachi's father and son, how do you know that they will not secretly communicate with those Jin merchants? ”

Wang Wenyan felt that it also made sense: "Madam is guessing, that Xu Gongzi is also a spy of Jiannu?" ”

Zheng Haizhu caught a glimpse of Liu Qiao's gaze suddenly became strange, raised his head to meet him, and said bluntly: "What did Governor Liu think of?" ”

"Thinking that since the end of summer, there have been rumors inside and outside the capital that the jade seal of the country has reappeared, and I also think of the clues that Madame saw in our edict prison," Liu Qiao said in a deep voice, "Therefore, there is a third type of people who want to kill the monarch and usurp the country." ”

When Zheng Haizhu heard this, she did not show the excitement of agreeing with the case, although she and Liu Qiao thought of the same answer.

She felt that in a short moment, she seemed to be divided into two people, one was still standing at the table, discussing with Wang Wenyan and Liu Qiao the division of labor to continue the investigation, and the other was sitting in the corner.

When he lowered his head and pondered, he thought that Xu Gongzi was generous and generous since Chen Zu was from Nanjing, and pondered Wang Wenyan's sentence "He seems to be marrying his wife", Zheng Haizhu always felt that the indescribable coolness spread all over his body.

She decided that she would accompany Wang An tomorrow and do another important matter in the inner court, and she would go to Shanhaiguan to find Ma Xianglin.