gnovel Chapter 115: Wanyan Liang
Chapter 115: Wanyan Liang
Three years have passed, and the original copy of this list has never been found. The relevant records are classified as "headless cases" in the archives of Lin'an Prefecture.
But its shadow always loomed over Qin Hui's mind. Qin Hui was unaware of how many unexploded traps were hidden within this fake list.
From January to April, the Imperial City Guard's purge was outwardly grand and vigorous, arresting veterans at the grassroots level, investigating the Xiuzhou line, besieging the Ezhou government office, and holding down the White Horse Temple.
But every truly important clue was broken at the most crucial point.
The people on the list seemed to be nonexistent, as if they were protected by an intelligence network more sophisticated and patient than the Imperial City Guard.
What made Qin Hui even more uneasy was that Yue Yinping's statement in Xiangyang, "more than twenty-three people," continued to stir up ripples in various places.
The numbers reported by the spies of the Imperial City Guard were increasing. Some said there were at least several hundred people around Xiangyang, some said there was a larger number in the direction of Ezhou, and some said there were traces of Yue Fei's army remnants in the Jiangzhou and Chizhou areas.
Tian Ruyi was overwhelmed by these conflicting pieces of information, unable to determine which were true and which were deliberate misinformation spread by Yue Yinping.
Qin Hui began to see threats everywhere.
Everyone who glanced at his sedan chair on the streets of Lin'an was like a spy for Yue Fei's army.
Every security leaflet sent from the local area mentioning "unidentified persons" is like a list of people gathering.
He wasn't sure if he was chasing a group of real people or a group of ghosts created by Yue Yinping.
He began to suffer from frequent insomnia, and the cleansing turned into autophagy.
If they couldn't capture the real former members of Yue Fei's army, they could only expand the scope of the arrests; the larger the scope, the more manpower and energy they would consume; the more they consumed, the more exhausted their subordinates would become.
Late one night in late April, Qin Hui sat alone in the signing room, with Wan Qixie's latest arrest report spread out on his desk. The three local merchants from Lin'an who had been wrongly arrested had no connection with Yue Fei's army.
He was arrested simply because one of his businesses failed, and he got drunk and swore. He was mistaken for a sympathizer of Yue Fei's army and arrested. The next day, the Imperial City Guard verified his identity and released him.
The merchant took the money and then laughed behind the scenes at the Imperial City Guard, saying they "couldn't even arrest the right people."
He closed the report, stood up, and walked to the calligraphy that read, "It is easy to bind a tiger, but difficult to release it."
The candlelight flickered on the calligraphy and painting. When he wrote those words by hand last December, he felt that everything was under control.
Now, four months have passed, and instead of binding the tiger, it has burrowed deeper and deeper, even beginning to turn against those who released it.
Qin Hui recalled what he had said to Qin Keqing in the signing room last year—"From the perspective of intelligence work, you've done a very good job. But from the perspective of being a father, you haven't done a good job."
Now he suddenly realized that the reverse was more accurate: from a father's perspective, his daughter had become his biggest rival; from the perspective of the intelligence business, the apprentice had defeated the master.
Tian Ruyi, an old man who had spent his whole life in the intelligence industry, was fooled for a whole month by a girl in her early twenties using seven sets of real road signs.
Wan Qixie, the Imperial City Supervisor who had personally interrogated Zhang Xian, was fooled by a fake list for nearly two years.
Qin Hui reached out and took the inscription "It is easy to bind a tiger, but difficult to release it" off the wall. He turned it over, and another line of text was revealed on the back. This was something he had just written that day, and the ink was not yet completely dry.
"The tiger has entered the mountain, and the net has been broken."
He stared at the six characters for a moment, then hung them back up, leaving the inscription "It's easy to bind a tiger, but difficult to release it" facing outwards.
He couldn't let anyone see the words on the back. As a prime minister who controlled the Imperial City Guard and oversaw the Three Provinces and Six Ministries, there were no secrets in his office that he couldn't show to others, but this line of words was the only exception.
At this moment, on the banks of the Han River on the outskirts of Ezhou, Xiao Bieli was squatting under an old willow tree, waiting for Lao Xu's fishing boat.
He rested in Xiangyang for three days, adjusted the frequency of the code rotation at the Baima Temple liaison point to once every three days, confirmed that Zhao Tieqiang and Mingxin were familiar with the three-level early warning process, and then went to Ezhou to relieve the troops as agreed with Xin Qizong.
After Xin Qizong's support team escorted Dong Xian safely onto Li Bao's speedboat, they were retreating overnight by land back to their old camp in the southern suburbs. Xiao Bieli needed to take over the outer perimeter guard duty in Ezhou to ensure that Xin Qizong was not caught by the Imperial City Guard during his retreat.
Old Xu's boat hadn't arrived yet when Xiao Bieli took out the sesame cake that Xiao Jinlu had brought from the direction of Xiangyang from his pocket, unwrapped the oil paper, broke off a piece, and put it in his mouth.
The cake had cooled completely, and the sesame powder had become a little damp from the water transport, but he chewed it very slowly.
There were a few words on the corner of the oil paper: "Brother, this is sesame cake, it keeps longer than osmanthus cake, you can eat it slowly. I've learned how to make spring rolls, I'll fry them for you when you come back."
He folded the oil paper again and stuffed it into his clothes. He looked up at the sky, stood up, and patted the dirt off his knees.
His younger sister was waiting for him in Lin'an. He had promised her that he would take her to Xiangyang "next time." He didn't know when that "next time" would be, but since he had promised, he had to go back alive to tell her that the next time had come.
......
April 5th, Lin'an Wharf.
Li Bao's merchant fleet arrived in Lin'an regularly, once every two weeks. The fleet operated under the banner of Zhenjiang Merchants and openly traded medicinal herbs and cloth.
The dock patrolmen of the Imperial City Guard had become accustomed to the ship's fixed route, from Zhenjiang to Lin'an and back to Zhenjiang, occasionally making a trip towards the Han River to "purchase medicinal herbs".
Each time the ship arrived at the port, the sailors would unload several boxes of Sichuan fritillary bulbs and saposhnikovia root, and load several bundles of Jiangnan cotton cloth, making it no different from other merchant ships at the dock.
But this time, a minor anomaly occurred during the routine voyage. When the sailors met with Manager Chang at the dockside tea stall, they handed him not a list of medicines, but a secret letter wrapped in three layers of oilcloth.
The sailor was an old soldier that Li Bao had brought from Jiaoshan, and Manager Chang was the contact person from Ezhou at the Lin'an Wharf. The coordination process between the two had been going on for more than half a year, and the entire process, from exchanging glances to passing the oilcloth, took less than three breaths.
The secret letter was delivered to Qin Keqing that evening. She unwrapped the oilcloth, read the contents, and immediately went to her study.
"Your Highness, Li Bao brought more than just routine reports with him this time."
His sailors received intelligence from the north of the river while anchored at the mouth of the Han River. It wasn't something we actively gathered; it was information provided by a surviving Han Chinese spies within the Jin territory.
Intelligence reports indicate that Wanyan Liang is secretly expanding and training his army.
The origin of this old line can be traced back to around ten years after the Shaoxing era. At that time, Wanyan Liang was still an inconspicuous member of the Jin royal family, managing the allocation of military equipment for surrendered Han soldiers on behalf of Wanyan Zongbi. At that time, our Jin intelligence network had already noticed that this man was cunning and secretly recorded his activity patterns.
This line of communication was severed eleven years after the Shaoxing era; this is the first time it has been re-established.
Qin Keqing placed the secret letter in front of Zhao Bocong.
The secret letter contained only two very simple lines: "In the direction of Yanjing, Wanyan Liang is expanding his army and training his navy. The weapons and equipment of the surrendered soldiers from the former Han territories are being redistributed, and the remaining personnel from the old supply lines are being sent back."
After reading these two lines, Zhao Bocong remained silent for a long time.
He understood better than anyone else in his time what Wanyan Liang meant.