gnovel Chapter 112: Hibernation
Chapter 112: Hibernation
The first document that Yue Yinping restored was Zhou Sanwei's court line.
She pieced together this list from a secret letter that Zhao Bozong had passed through, and although the letter only contained seven known names.
However, each name was accompanied by a note indicating the person's current public status in the court, the resources they could access, and their delicate relationship with Qin Hui.
Among the seven people were a former censor who sat on the sidelines in the Censorate, an old councilor who was marginalized in the Privy Council, and a member of a collateral branch of the imperial clan who was sidelined in the Ministry of Rites but still retained the right to attend court.
They had no military power and could not confront Qin Hui directly in the court, but each of them held something that Qin Hui could not ignore.
The power of impeachment, the right to access old archives, and the right of members of the imperial family to jointly submit memorials.
These powers, when used individually, pose no threat, but once unified and directed, they can form a powerful encirclement within the court.
The second report contained Zhijia's intelligence network.
This is the one Yue Yinping knows best and feels most sorry for.
Before Master Zhijia was arrested in Shaoxing in the eleventh year, he dismantled the intelligence network into fragments and scattered them to various places.
A copper coin with a missing corner is a token, the dead letter notation is a code, and the combination of cattail root and pebbles is a password.
For the past two years, she, Qin Keqing, Li Bao, Shopkeeper Wang, Jin Bao, and Yuwen Xu, each of them holding a copper coin, have been picking up the fragments one by one in their own way.
But the number of nodes on the Zhijia roster is far more than just a few.
She knew that many more coins had not yet appeared, and many more nodes remained silent.
For example, the wooden box intercepted by Qin Hui at Fantian Temple contained a complete map of the intelligence network in Lin'an, and several key nodes in the box had already been exposed.
She still doesn't know the exact list of those nodes, which means there are still some unseen agents in the Lin'an direction whose safety she cannot confirm, still under the surveillance of the Imperial City Guard.
The third document was Zhu Fu's military intelligence report.
This is a map she just deciphered completely, containing information on 79 officers, over 1,300 soldiers, and 8 key nodes that were prioritized for activation.
Niu Gao, Li Bao, Dong Xian, Sun Yan, Wang Zhongchen, plus three undercover agents from Suizhou, De'an, and Yingzhou.
Next to each name is a note indicating the specific activation conditions and current status.
This list was hidden in the last account book that his father had someone bring out from the Dali Temple in the twelfth month of the eleventh year of Shaoxing. Zhu Fu kept it safe for twelve years with his lame leg.
When the three lists are put together and overlaps are removed, the total number of people is at least twenty.
More than twenty names are scattered among the mountains and cities of the Song Dynasty, each name a seed planted by the father himself.
On the 29th day of the twelfth lunar month in the eleventh year of Shaoxing, everyone thought that Yue Fei's army had been uprooted, but the roots were still there.
It's not about one person, but about the mutual trust among these twenty-odd people. As long as these twenty-odd people are still here, the root is still alive.
But there is a problem here, a problem that Yue Yinping cannot ignore.
Zhao Bocong's name is not on any of the three lists.
He was not on Zhou Sanwei's list of court informants, nor on Zhijia's list of intelligence informants, nor on Zhu Fu's list of military informants.
His father placed him separately on the list of military officers that Zhou Sanwei had sealed in the secret room of the Dali Temple, managing him separately from all other lists and listing him as the first among the military officers.
This means that Zhao Bocong was not a member of Yue Fei's old troops; he was the person all the old troops were waiting for.
His father prevented his name from appearing on any potentially interceptable list in order to protect him.
When Qin Hui purged Yue Fei's army in the eleventh year of the Shaoxing era, any member of the imperial clan who had even the slightest connection with a military general was accused of "plotting rebellion."
If Zhao Bocong's name appeared on any list of former members of Yue Fei's army, it would be a capital offense, no matter who had that list.
But the father also had to find Zhao Bozong.
Therefore, he sealed Zhao Bocong's name separately in a secret room of the Dali Temple, placing it together with the list of military generals, and set a "lock" that Zhou Sanwei had to activate personally.
If Zhou Sanwei remains silent forever, Zhao Bocong's name will never appear on any list; if Zhou Sanwei decides to break his silence, Zhao Bocong can rightfully take over command of the military line.
This silence itself represents a certain signal.
A judge who withstood Qin Hui's pressure in the twelfth month of the eleventh year of Shaoxing and refused to force his father to sign the confession, his silence carried more weight than his words.
As dawn broke, Yue Yinping copied the composite image of the three lists and sealed it in a wax pill.
This assembled diagram needed to be delivered to Zhao Bocong as quickly as possible. Once he knew he was singled out, he would understand that the seven copper coins he possessed were just the tip of the iceberg, and he would also understand why Zhijia repeatedly emphasized "the wooden bird has three wings" before his death.
The "three wings" do not refer to three lists, but rather to three complete communication systems, each capable of operating independently and serving as a backup for the other two.
Even if the Imperial City Guard destroys one of its wings, the other two wings can still continue to fly.
She handed the wax pellets to her subordinates and instructed them, "Take the fastest route, go along the Han River to Guazhou Ferry, where Li Bao's fast boat will pick you up and take you by water to Lin'an."
After finishing this task, Yue Yinping stood up and walked outside the bamboo shed.
In April, the bronze bell of the White Horse Temple bell tower on the Han River is striking the first chime of the hour of Chen (7-9 AM).
But Yue Yinping knew that behind every ordinary bell chime might lie an unusual signal.
......
At this moment, on the mountain road from Ezhou to Hanshuikou, Xin Qizong was leading Ma Zhong and the support team to escort Dong Xian to the ferry.
Dong Xian hadn't changed his clothes for three days, his face covered in coal dust and sweat, but his eyes were much brighter than when he was in the backyard of the Ezhou Prefectural Government. He no longer had to face the surveillance of the Imperial City Guard and approve those endless training loss accounts every day.
At this moment, at the mouth of the Han River, Li Bao's speedboat was moored in a secluded reed bed downstream from the ferry crossing, with two old sailors squatting at the bow, mending fishing nets.
Dry rations and fresh water were already prepared on the ship, waiting for Zhu Fu to return from Xinyang and for Dong Xian to escape from Ezhou before heading north to Xiangyang together.
In a dark cellar of an abandoned granary on the outskirts of Xiangyang, the account book left by Zhu Fu lay quietly in a sealed tin box.
During a break in training, Yue Yinping looked up at the northern sky.
The sky in April was so blue, it didn't seem like a place in a time of war.
Her father was killed in the twelfth month of the eleventh year of Shaoxing, and her brother was beheaded at Fengbo Pavilion.
She waited for nearly a year and a half, and now all the lists are in her hands, and all the forces are gathering.
But she still needed to wait for one last thing: the order from that person in Lin'an City.
Without orders, all she has is a list; once orders are given, the list turns into a knife.
Yue Yinping knew and believed that this day would eventually come, and that everyone's waiting would not be in vain.