Novoland: Eagle Flag Chapter 2: Sword Three
In the afternoon, the sun was blazing.
Xi Yan narrowed his eyes slightly, scanning the ruins. The entire wooden house was reduced to ashes, only half of the girder was spared, leaning obliquely on the gable wall made of earth bricks. The hot burning smell is mixed with a nauseating burnt smell. Near the corner of the gable wall, several white-scarved disobedient officers surrounded the burnt black corpse. A court lieutenant with a low rank approached tremblingly holding a tray, not daring to speak, but stood aside with his head bowed. He didn't quite understand how such an ordinary case of fire alarmed the commander-in-chief of the Forbidden Army, and a group of people gathered in the distance to inspect the neck, and they also came to see the demeanor of the first Tang general.
Xi Yuan took the tray and handed it to his uncle. Xi Yan picked up the black iron plate on the tray, weighed it in his hand, and handed it to Xi Yuan casually. Xiyuan took a careful look at it. The texture of the brand was like cast iron, and the sound was low and deep when knocked, and there were traces of ice patterns on the surface. On the front of the sign is a tiger face with protruding fangs, and on the back is a cloud pattern, engraved with a line of small characters: "Those who follow this order will be plundered by tigers; Chongjiu, Sanyiwei, Qiqiwu."
"It's Fenghu's military household iron certificate. Only Chunguo's calcined fish-scale iron has this texture. The Fenghu steel armor that Chunguo Fenghu is proud of is also made of this kind of iron." Xi Yan shook his head, "Dangtang It’s really not a good place for a riding captain to die.”
"Captain Qi?" Xiyuan's heart moved.
According to the military system of the empire, the status of a cavalry captain is still higher than that of ordinary captains, his rank is not low, and there are at least hundreds of troops under his command. Riding above the captain, you can be honored as a general. The unexplained death of such a Chun official in Xia Tang is a difficult matter for both Xia Tang and Chun.
"You see the words behind the iron certificate, 'Chongjiu, Sanyiwei, Qiqiwu', Chongjiu is his military rank, that is, riding captain, Chunguo Fenghu is divided into thirty guards, One thousand soldiers in each. This person belongs to the 31st Guard, and his number in the army is 775. However, Fenghu should not have a 31st Guard. In fact, the 31st Guard is The secret scout guard of the Wind Tiger Cavalry Army. The men and horses are all selected from the most elite cavalry. With this person's military rank, his status among the scouts is quite high."
Xi Yan waved to Wei Ting: "You go down first."
Tingwei retreated, Xiyuan leaned into his uncle's ear: "These people are the Fenghu we lost?"
"Yes."
"Do you want to report to the king?"
"It's impossible not to report it." Xi Yan shook his head.
Ting Wei didn't know that one of the duties of the Commander of the Forbidden Army Martial Palace was to be the scout of the three armies, to collect information from various princes, and to be alert to the spies sent by other princes. When Xi Yan was away, these cases were handled by Xi Yuan. Two months ago, Xiyuan had received a secret report that three groups of unidentified people had entered Nanhuai City with their identities concealed. After ascertaining that the other party was from the northern Chun State and was a scout from the Wind Tiger Cavalry, the scouts from Xia Tang followed these people quietly. But just the day before yesterday, Xia Tang suddenly lost the other party's whereabouts. And just a day later, these people died inexplicably in a fire in a restaurant outside the city.
"Fenghu's scouts have sneaked into the city," Xi Yuan pondered, "Is it because the Chun Kingdom has some ulterior motives for us?"
Xi Yan shook his head: "Ao Taiquan died in battle in March, and the current Chun State Hou Ao Zhirun is only ten years old. It is absolutely impossible for Chun State to use troops against Xia Tang now. And no matter what, everyone's biggest enemy is now It is Li Guogong."
"Everyone says that the Marquis of Xuanchang County is a hero."
"Yes, but Liang Qiusong is not the Marquis of Chun after all, and he can't mobilize the Fenghu cavalry army. The ugly tiger Huaye will not easily hand over Fenghu's military power. It will not be a threat to Xiatang within ten years. "Xi Yan thoughtfully, "However, this is what I'm really worried about. Liang Qiusong took the risk of sending scouts here. Why? He didn't hesitate to risk offending Xia Tang, unless it was a great benefit. Liang Qiusong's prudence will not do it."
"General..."
Xi Yan turned his head and saw Ting Wei standing aside again.
"There is a strange thing," Ting Wei stammered, "I'm just afraid that the general will be disgusted by it, and the subordinates dare not show it."
"Don't be afraid, take it out," Xi Yan casually shook the cigarette stick.
"Yes," Ting Wei then picked up a tray hidden underneath.
The tray is covered with a thick piece of sackcloth, covering the contents underneath. But a pungent stench rushed straight to his head, Xi Yuan hurriedly covered his nose, knowing in his heart what Wei Ting had brought up. Xi Yan remained expressionless, and took a step forward to uncover the sackcloth. On the tray were half stumps, the surface was burnt black, only the color of flesh and blood appeared in the cracked gaps.
"This is?"
"It's a hand," Ting Wei saw that the general didn't have much disgust, he breathed a sigh of relief, and pointed to the stump, "Look, general, this place used to be fingers, but now all four fingers have been burned, and the rest The bottom one is the thumb."
Xi Yan nodded: "So, it does look like a hand."
"What are you doing with the dead man's hand?" Xiyuan couldn't stand the scorching smell.
"Don't worry," Xi Yan stopped his nephew, "Listen to him. The court lieutenants may not be your opponents in battle, but when it comes to catching thieves and solving cases, you may not be able to compare with these old foxes in your whole life."
Tingwei bowed his waist and saluted: "The major general thought, although this hand was burned in the fire, only four of the five fingers were lost. Then how could this hand be burned off?" ?Human arms are much thicker than fingers."
He turned the tray around and pointed to the other side of the stump: "This is the fracture. Although it has been burned, the fracture still looks too neat. The subordinates ventured to guess that these scouts were not burned to death." , but was killed before the fire broke out."
"This is nonsense," Xi Yan smiled, "a whole team of scouts were burnt to death outside Nanhuai City for no apparent reason, and the blind man knew there was something wrong with it. But who killed them? It was set on fire, do you have any clues?"
"The general is right! You are right!" Ting Wei nodded and bowed, turned around and shouted at the post-mortem workers.
In order to tidy up his clothes, he came up to meet him in small steps. This time, the tray he brought over was several times larger than the one held by Tingwei just now, and a stronger stench came over his face. Almost throw up. Wu Zuo lifted the curtain that covered his face, and he put on a perfect smile.
"Why aren't you afraid of smells?" Xiyuan said with a bitter face.
"The room of Zhilan, you can sit for a long time without smelling its fragrance; the place of abalone, you don't know its smell if you live in it for a long time." There is no difference between fragrance and smell."
"It looks like the whole thing was chopped up?" Xi Yan pondered.
Zuo Zuo put away his smile and nodded: "Returning to the general, that's exactly the case. We put together ten wreckages and thirty-two pieces of broken limbs. Before these people were burned, they must have been burned. He chopped off his hands and feet with a sharp sharp knife, and one of them was torn apart, making it almost impossible to recognize the human figure. The person who did it was so strong in sword skills and cruel in heart, it is really outrageous.”
"A...extremely sharp knife? Why do you say that?"
"There was a drizzle in the early morning, which put out the fire, and the stumps were not burnt out, and we could still see a few fresh fractures. There is no other kind of knife that can cut a human body like this, the cut is extremely smooth, it cuts off the tendons and bones at the same time, without even turning the flesh, just like a hot knife cutting wax."
"A hot knife cuts wax?" Xi Yan froze for a moment.
"Yes, General. A person's body has strong tendons and strong bones, not to mention beheading people. Butchers cut meat, tendons and skin with horn knives, and bones with broad-backed knives. If you want to cut Cutting off a person's limbs is definitely not an ordinary person's technique, but the fracture is smooth, it must be the strength of the knife, and the knife is extremely fast, and the knife used by the murderer is a very thin and good knife. Ordinary knife , the back of the blade is slightly thicker, and the cutting power cannot be concentrated like this..."
He closed his mouth in embarrassment. When he was speaking, Xi Yan had already quietly walked away, wandering among the ruins, his eyes sweeping over the broken beams and rubble. Finally, he stopped by an unfinished rafter, knelt down and blew away the ashes, exposing a small black iron ring that was difficult to distinguish with the naked eye. It was firmly nailed to the rafters, and Yi Xiyan took some effort to pull it out. Xi Yan narrowed his eyes, looked at the iron ring against the light, expressionless.
"What is this?" Xi Yuan leaned forward.
"This is a part of that kind of weapon. What I said is right, but with a knife, it is difficult to kill a person without wounds. But there is really a weapon in the world that only has a blade but not a blade."
"No blade?"
Xi Yan waved at him, turned to look directly at Ting Wei and Yu Zuo: "Don't write these into the file, send someone to clean up the surroundings carefully, if you see such iron rings, collect them and send them to me .The body should be burned as soon as possible, and nothing should be left behind."
His voice was not high, but Ting Wei couldn't help shivering. There was a hidden power that forced him with Xi Yan's gaze, quietly like the pressure of a mountain.
"Yes!" He lowered his head to avoid the general's gaze.
"Xiyuan, let's go," Xi Yan led Mo Xue, his dark horse.
Xiyuan took a sneak peek, but the court officials did not follow, so he leaned closer to his uncle's ear: "Uncle, what happened just now?"
Xi Yan took a deep breath: "Don't ask too much, just pass on my order, immediately send more people, follow the remaining two teams of wind tiger scouts, and report back to me as soon as there is any movement!"
"Yes!" Xi Yuan turned his horse's head and was about to leave.
"Wait a minute!" Xi Yan stopped his nephew again in a low voice, "Turn people from the ghost bat camp, you need more people, the most agile, and the best swordsman. Don't be afraid of being discovered by Fenghu, you must Keep an eye on them and protect them."
"Protect them?" Xiyuan was taken aback.
"I know who did it. The spider's web has been opened. If she wants to kill all the prey, even if we use all the ghost bats, it may not be effective."