I am Emperor Shizu of Song

Chapter 9 Catch the big ones and let go the small ones
Facing Zhao Zicheng's question, Yang Zhi directly told him everything he knew:
"All the money Duan Mingmei stole has been recovered. What hasn't been found yet is mainly the goods of another cargo owner on the ship at that time. My dear Master, you should still remember that in addition to Zhu Jie's goods, my ship also had a batch of goods that Huang Shang, the governor of Fuzhou, had asked to take with him.

Eight years ago, in the first year of the Zhenghe reign, Magistrate Huang received an additional commission from the government while serving in Fuzhou: to proofread and compile the Daoist Canon. Over these eight years, he proofread 540 volumes, nearly 6,000 scrolls. Now that the proofreading is complete, and the blocks are mostly engraved, the cargo that Magistrate Huang has asked us to transport on board this ship is a sample of one of these volumes, approximately several thousand scrolls.

"I don't know why those Taihu Lake pirates, those fire-worshipping, vegetable-eating thieves, would be interested in these Taoist texts. Even Mr. Zhu was baffled. According to Duan Ming, he secretly swapped the Taoist texts with his accomplices before they were loaded onto the ship. But those thieves have disappeared, so I'm the only one left to look after."

If Yang Zhi had said this a few days ago, Zhao Zicheng would not have thought much about it. At that time, he would definitely have thought that the thieves were only interested in gold, silver and treasures.

But now, with a deeper understanding of the situation, especially knowing that all the treasures had been taken by Duan Duguan and the thieves had received nothing, Zhao Zicheng had also made friends with the Murong family and witnessed the exquisite martial arts firsthand, and his mind was clearly opened.

Huang Shang, Daozang, Taihu thieves, these elements mixed together, it is really hard not to associate them with something like "Nine Yin Scriptures".

Of course, up to now, Zhao Zicheng still believes that the "Nine Yin Scriptures" probably does not exist, and Huang Shang has just finished proofreading the Taoist Canon. Even if he has realized the truth and practiced martial arts, he probably has not yet reached the level of perfection.

Therefore, Zhao Zicheng estimated that even if Huang Shang gave the emperor some additional personal experiences and insights in order to please the monarch, it was probably just some early works such as "Wanshou Daozang Cultivation Experiences".

It might be that the Zoroastrian bandits in Fujian had a conflict with Huang Shang and suffered losses. They knew how powerful he was. After the news spread in the martial arts world, their colleagues started to target him and wanted to find out the truth.

So far, Zhao Zicheng can only come up with such a motive in his mind, and he really can't think of a more reasonable explanation.

However, even this level of imagination is much better than Yang Zhi and others who rush around blindly. At least Zhao Zicheng has a general direction of investigation in mind.

Zhao Zi said that he had been thinking about it for a while, and Yang Zhi did not dare to disturb him. Zhao Zi said that after he felt that he had fully understood it, he added:
"Then why did the task of finding an accomplice fall on you?"

Yang Zhi also spread his hands helplessly: "Because two of Duan Ming's accomplices, the two big men who were recruited by him by disguising themselves as sailors and later sank the ship, were only seen by me and the other soldiers on the ship at that time.

Duan Ming has been tortured to the point where not a single piece of healthy flesh remains on his body. It's impossible to let him go and identify the person, so this matter has to fall on me."

Zhao Zicheng quickly remembered that, indeed, when Murong Yan rescued people that day, most of the people on the Hua Shi Gang were rescued, but Duan Ming's two accomplices who sank the boat pretended to drown and did not get on Zhao Zicheng's boat.

They must be very good swimmers, and they can swim back even if they are many miles away from the lake shore, so they can use this trick to fake their death and escape.

Duan Ming couldn't do this himself, leaving a loophole for someone to rescue him. On the one hand, it was probably because he wasn't a good swimmer and couldn't swim that far. On the other hand, someone like Duan Ming couldn't fake his death, otherwise he would become an illegal resident and the money he had embezzled would be gone.

At that time, Duan Ming had to find a reasonable excuse to allow himself to "survive successfully", so he exposed a flaw to Zhao Zicheng and Murong Yan. However, he did not expect that such a small flaw would eventually be discovered and killed.

Only Yang Zhi and his soldiers had seen those pirates who faked their death. Even if others saw them, they would not be able to recognize them. Of course, Yang Zhi had to take the blame.

Even though Yang Zhi was originally just a commander of troops, not a criminal, and his expertise was not very relevant, but who made you the only eyewitness?

After Zhao Zicheng sorted everything out, he couldn't help but rub his swollen temples:

"So the question now is, do we first need to find a breakthrough point and dig out those two Taihu Lake pirates?
How could they be found in the vast sea of ​​people in Suzhou? Who knew if they would return to a small island in Taihu Lake and continue their plundering?

"Furthermore, pirates are generally very mobile. Which county around Taihu Lake can't dock? What if they've fled to Changzhou or Wuxing (Huzhou)? Can we still cross the border to track them down?" Zhao Zicheng immediately pointed out several difficulties in this matter. He felt that such an investigation would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Yang Zhi had no plan at first. On the way here, he relied on his belief that Zhao Gongcheng was "resourceful" and thought that Zhao Gongcheng must have a plan, so he mustered up his confidence.

Now hearing Zhao Zicheng say the same thing, Yang Zhi suddenly felt discouraged.

"What should I do?"

Zhao Zicheng didn't say anything, but just ate quietly to relieve the fatigue of practicing martial arts all morning.

After finishing a bowl of rice and a fish, he finally figured out some of the clues and said slowly, "It's hopeless to directly investigate these two unidentified thieves. It's like looking for a needle in a haystack, because they don't need to show their faces at all. They can hide as long as they want.

If I want to find it, I have to look for breakthroughs that require me to show myself. I thought about it and there are two directions.

First, consider where Magistrate Huang's collection of scriptures was moved. Could they have been destroyed or resold? I don't believe a group of thieves would be truly interested in the Taoist scriptures. There must be something else within them that they covet.

So, of those thousands of volumes, perhaps more than half were worthless to them. Would they sell them, hide them, burn them, or simply sink them into a lake? Selling them would recoup some of their investment, but it would be too conspicuous, so they probably wouldn't do that. They didn't need the money.

If they were destroyed, unless they were buried, such a large amount of material would easily leave traces. Even if they were used as firewood, if there were ashes from the burning of a large number of books, there would probably be traces. The paper and ink used for the Taoist scriptures given to the government must have been extraordinary.

Therefore, I think it is very likely that these scriptures are still piled up somewhere and have not been dealt with. We can check with the major booksellers in Suzhou and ask them to look for clues.

Another approach is to simply ignore the two petty thieves and strictly investigate the Zoroastrian thieves around Suzhou, arresting the big ones and letting the small ones go. If they can be caught, they can trick them first by saying that they have already caught the two petty thieves and that they were betrayed by someone else.

But I always feel that this case is a bit of an overreaction. If the thieves think that most of the scriptures in the Taoist Canon are useless and we force them to destroy them, then even if we catch them in the end, we will have to get a new batch of books and send them to Bianjing.

Why not notify Huang Shang in Fuzhou now and ask him to print some more and send them over? After all, he carved the blocks, and only the sample books were destroyed. As long as the blocks are still there, it won’t be a big deal to print another batch.”

After listening to it, Yang Zhi felt that it made sense. Before he came, he had never thought of the possibility that "the thieves might only want a small part of the scriptures, and the rest were just waste to them and could be disposed of."

Even Zhu Zhen didn't expect this, so he thought of getting the book back directly.

However, Yang Zhi was not qualified to directly advise Zhu Jie on how to handle the case, so Zhao Zicheng had to go and talk to Zhu Jie in person.

Yang Zhi could immediately start to take action on the several directions of investigation pointed out by Zhao Zicheng.

Yang Zhi quickly started the investigation with his soldiers and a group of officers from the Yingfeng Bureau temporarily assigned to him by Zhu Jie.

After Zhao Zicheng finished his meal and packed up, he left Murong Manor and rode to Yingfeng Bureau to talk to Zhu Jie.

(End of this chapter)