Qin Official

Hearing what Hei Fu said, it seemed that he had a plan, Li Xian raised his eyebrows: "It seems that the pavilion chief has made a decision, Xian is willing to hear the details!"

Seeing his dissatisfaction, Heifu said: "If you search blindly all over the mountains and plains, it will be like looking for a needle in a haystack. It is impossible to find it."

“But wouldn’t it be easier to find the person who submitted the letter and when he committed the crime?”

Heifu did not spend three years in the police academy for nothing in his previous life. He also learned some criminal investigation methods. The matter at hand should not be blindly guessed, but should be defined using the "seven whats" in criminal investigation.

The so-called seven whys are seven questions: when, where, by whom, for what purpose, what tools were used, for what goals, and what consequences were caused? Referred to as the "seven elements" of criminal cases.

So first, he had to determine the time and place of the crime.

Heifu stood up, came to Ji Ying's side, patted his shoulder and said, "Ji Ying, you said you went to three places today? Which ones were they?"

Ji Ying clapped his fingers and said, "I first went to Xiaoqingli in the east, then to Pinghu in the west, and finally to Chaoyangli in the south..."

"After you have sent the official documents from the township to Pinghuli, how many letters are left in the basket on your back?"

Ji Ying thought for a while: "This is a document written by Tian Zuoli in the countryside to Tian Dian in Chaoyangli."

"When was the last time you opened your backpack?"

"It's time to hand this official document to Chaoyangli Tiandian..."

"Isn't there any faith in the basket at that time?"

Ji Ying shook his head and said, "No more."

"You never opened the backpack again?"

"No more, until I return to the pavilion..."

The more Ji Ying spoke, the more certain Hei Fu became. He said, "It is now clear that this anonymous letter was written by Ji Ying after he delivered the last official document to Tian Dian in Chaoyangli until he returned to the pavilion. During this period, it was quietly thrown in."

Everyone nodded, this could only be the case.

Heifu began to interrogate Ji Ying again: "How long did you stay in Chaoyangli after you submitted the official document? Where did you go? Who did you talk to, and where did you rest after leaving Chaoyangli? Did you put your backpack aside during the journey? Who did you meet on the way? Did you come into contact with them?"

Ji Ying answered one by one. After finishing his official duties, he went to his home to sit with someone he knew in Chaoyang, drank some water, and chatted for a while. During that time, a neighbor of that family gave birth to a fat boy, and Ji Ying went over to join in the fun. There were many people congratulating the neighbor. People were coming and going at that time, and the scene was very chaotic. Ji Ying suddenly had abdominal pain, and he put down his backpack and went to the toilet. …

After that, he stood at the prison gate in Chaoyangli and chatted for a few words. Several hunters came back from inside and outside and stopped to say hello to him...

To Heifu's relief, Ji Ying confirmed again and again that after leaving Chaoyangli, he did not stop to rest and never left his backpack. Although he met people on the road, they did not talk to each other and just passed each other in a hurry...

"Unless there is someone who can unknowingly put the letter into the covered basket in the middle of the road, a few steps away while Ji Ying was walking quickly."

"Otherwise, there is only one conclusion!"

Heifu said firmly: "The person who submitted the letter could only be someone who moved in the morning sun!"

"That's right!" Ji Ying raised his hand and said, "When I was in Chaoyangli, I did feel something moving behind me, but I didn't pay attention to it at the time. Maybe that's when someone sent me an anonymous letter!"

In this way, the time and place where the person who submitted the letter committed the crime was basically determined. Heifu looked at the other people and asked: "Second and Third Son, do you still have any objections?"

"The pavilion chief is really amazing!"

Dongmen Leopard, Yuliang, and Xiaotao's eyes were full of admiration, and Pu Zhang also nodded in praise.

Even Li Xian, who had just raised the question, had no choice but to accept: "The pavilion chief's thoughts are meticulous, and his words are like an official in the county deciding a case..."

Dongmen Bao immediately laughed and said: "Hei Fu is a man who can answer twenty questions about the law correctly! Even being an official is enough!" He heard this when he returned to the county town to take a rest, and no one else was there. The county seat, so I don’t know yet.

"Twenty questions are all correct... I didn't expect the pavilion chief to be so good." At this time, Li Xian was stunned, and he also respected Hei Fu in awe.

"It's all luck, luck."

Heifu smiled modestly. It would be bragging to say that a police academy graduate like him has many crime-solving skills, but he has seen many case files and has been trained in his thinking and logic.

Alas, there is no chance to become a people's policeman. I can only live my life in this ancient police station.

Fortunately, this anonymous letter came just in time, which was an opportunity for him to show off his skills. If he succeeds, he will not only receive a reward, accumulate his "reward" as the pavilion chief, and pave the way for future promotions, but also convince everyone in the pavilion to obey his orders...

Of course, in addition to this, there is another reason that is difficult to explain.

For someone with obsessive-compulsive disorder like him, it is intolerable to receive a letter but not be able to open it... No matter what, the person who submitted the letter must be captured, and then open the letter in front of him to see what's going on. Bar.

Thinking of this, Heifu stopped smiling and said solemnly:

"The time and place of the crime have been determined. The person who submitted the letter is probably from Chaoyangli and is still in Lizhong at this time! Early tomorrow morning, I will take my two or three sons with me to Chaoyangli for a walk to take a look. I must Let the person who wrote the letter reveal his true colors!"

…

Early the next morning, Heifu divided the people in the pavilion into three: Dongmen Bao, the thief, and Yuliang, the pavilion soldier, escorted Wu Mao, the scholar who had been locked up in the pavilion all night, to the countryside; Xiao Tao and Pu Zhang, the father of the pavilion. He stayed behind in the pavilion; he went out with Ji Ying and Li Xian and walked towards the rising sun in the south...

As the saying goes: If it snows and it doesn't get cold, it becomes cold. Today is actually a sunny day. Most of the snow that covered Anlu County yesterday has melted, making the surrounding area extremely cold. As soon as he went out, Heifu took a breath of cool air into his lungs. The weather was cold and wet, and Ji Ying shivered from the cold...

"Once the snow melts, the road to Chaoyangli will be even harder to walk. If you have to go around a hill from Tudao and follow the path for several miles, you will definitely be covered in mud..."

According to Ji Ying, it was probably almost noon by the time they reached Chaoyang.

So the three of them quickened their pace, and after walking for half an hour, they finally came out of the main road. They sat on a big rock at the fork in the road to rest for a while and eat something. The Qin State does not allow civil servants to go to the homes of ordinary people to eat and kill chickens and ducks. When older officials go on business trips, they can eat public food in the pavilions, while junior officials like Heifu and others can only bring their own dry food. .

"Let's eat some dried fish and rice cakes for breakfast." Heifu brought some specialties from Sunset when he came. During the wax festival, he taught the neighbors how to pound rice cakes, and many people pounded them at home. I gave a lot of rice cakes to their family.

Li Xian took the food and thanked him, while Ji Ying chewed something unceremoniously and asked in a mumble: "Brother Heifu, I still don't understand something."

Hei Fu nodded: "You say."

Ji Ying said: "Although you are sure that most of the people who submitted the letter are from Chaoyangli, Chaoyangli is a big place with seventy families and nearly four hundred people. Those who came into contact with me yesterday and had the opportunity to submit letters were also There are no less than twenty or thirty people. How can we find the person who submitted the letter among so many people?"

Heifu didn't answer, but looked at Li Xian and said, "What do you think of Li Xian? How should we narrow down the search scope?"

Looking at Hei Fu's look, Li Xian knew that he was deliberately testing himself, so he swallowed the food and said, "I took a good look at the letter yesterday. The wooden tablets used were short and the edges were not neat. They were not the same as those used by the government for writing." The length of the official document and the two standard slips are different, so he should have made them himself. In addition, he can also write letters, which is not something ordinary soldiers can do..."

He thought for a while and added: "By the way, I smelled it and the material of the wooden tablet should be yellow pear wood."

"Of course!"

Heifu held up his palm and said: "He can cut wooden slips, write letters, and know how to write letters. He is no longer an ordinary Guizhou official. Even if he is not a small official, he must be literate and able to read and write... In this way, I There are far fewer people waiting to be found.”

Although the Qin State took the law as its teachings and officials as its teachers, and had a higher literacy rate among the seven kingdoms, it was still the tallest among the shortest.

For example, in the setting sun where Heifu's family lives, there are more than fifty households with three hundred people. Only twenty or thirty people are literate, mainly the officials and the children of the seven or eight noble households. . With the title of nobility, there will be a certain amount of land and financial resources, and there will be people to help with the work, so that the children can take some time to learn literacy and know the laws and regulations.

The 10% literacy rate in Xiyangli is considered very high in the countryside. This is because there is a retired official named Lu Ying in the village, who has taught many people. The same goes for the plaque next door. The Yan Zhen family taught many villagers how to read.

In other places, a literacy rate of 5% would be pretty good.

In this way, the number of people Heifu and the others need to investigate is reduced to single digits. The person who submitted the letter should also know that this kind of thing is illegal, but he still takes a chance. When he does something, he must not let others see it. , so it should be delivered in person.

Heifu could even guess where the man committed the crime: it must have been when Ji Ying was not very prepared and there was no one around...

You must know that criminal investigation is a process that traces back to the past, discovers the causes from the results, and discovers the suspects from the events. Its reasoning mode is retrospective, and its method is a hypothesis verification and elimination method that continuously approaches the truth.

The only thing left by the letter writer was a wooden slip. A layman might be confused and unable to start, but Heifu was able to deduce many facts from this thing.

But this is not enough. The difficulty of criminal investigation lies in how to discover the inner connection of things from the complicated appearance, and how to remove the false and retain the true from the fragmented and difficult-to-distinguish clues, and remove the rough and retain the essence.

So on the next road, Heifu began to ask Ji Ying in detail who the people who came into contact with him were in Chaoyangli yesterday, and when and where they were.

Ji Ying is also a man of God. He is from this town. He likes to make friends, so he knows a lot of people. After I became a postman, I traveled frequently from place to place and got to know more people. Most of the people I came into contact with yesterday could be named by their names. Even if they couldn't remember their names, they could still recall their relatives and family members, and they could always be found out by following the clues.

"That's very good!" Heifu was very surprised. If he could confirm the names of those people, his plan could be implemented.

"When we arrive at Chaoyangli later, we will pretend that nothing happened. It's just that the new pavilion chief has taken office and is here for routine inspections."

He pointed to the two of them: "Let's first ask the prison gate if anyone from other prisons came here yesterday. Then we will visit Li Zheng and find out how many people there are literate and can read and write!"

"What if this matter was done by local officials?" Li Xian suddenly asked.

Heifu pondered for a moment: "Then when we ask, he will reveal his flaws, and then you will act like this..."

When Ji Ying heard Hei Fu's plan, he held up his hands and praised it. Li Xian was also amazed and thought it was feasible.

While they were talking, the path reached the end and was cut off by a low wall. Among the dense mountain forests, a quiet village with smoke from the kitchen appeared in front of them...

Chaoyangli, here it is!