Tibet

The group came to Yongchangfang, south of Guangzhaifang, where Wang Xiaoding lived.

Soon, they came to a dilapidated courtyard. Zhang Song slapped the wooden door, "Xiao Ding! Xiao Ding!"

The door was locked from the inside, but no one responded.

"Isn't his family here too?" Liu Wutong asked.

Zhang Song shook his head, "He is an orphan and has not yet married. It is said that he has an older sister or younger sister who married in Xianyang County. This house was left by his parents."

Liu Wutong winked at his men, who gently climbed into the wall and opened the door from the inside.

Everyone walked into the small courtyard and immediately noticed something unusual. Several rooms were padlocked from the outside, but the courtyard door was locked from the inside, indicating that Wang Xiaoding was in the courtyard.

The two men immediately rushed to the well in the corner. After watching for a moment, a soldier said: "General, he is in the well!"

When Zhang Song heard that Wang Xiaoding was dead, he was so frightened that he sat on the ground, his face pale. Would their profession also be killed?

Liu Wutong immediately understood that this was to kill people and silence them.

"Go and inform Fangzheng to come and deal with it!"

A soldier ran to find someone. Liu Wutong picked up Zhang Song and asked, "I want to know where the house that has been sold but has not been transferred is. Can I find it?"

Zhang Song nodded, "We can find our boss!"

"How to find it?"

"We have been entrusted with the sale, but the transaction has not yet been completed. Currently, there are only three households in Guangzhaifang and none in Yishanfang. I estimate that one of them should be."

At this time, Fang Zheng came running with a group of people, and Liu Wutong ordered: "Go and report to the official immediately, it should be murder!"

"The villain obeys the order!"

Fang Zheng arranged for someone to salvage the body and went to Wannian County Government to report it to the official.

Liu Wutong took Zhang Song back to Guangzhaifang. Zhang Song quickly found three houses that had been entrusted but had not yet been sold. One of them should have been sold because it had not been transferred yet, so it showed that it had not been sold. go.

"I don't know which household it is? If the ownership is transferred, we will get a deed stamped by the county government, and then we will confirm that it has been sold."

"Since the deal has been concluded, there should be commission income!"

"It's because the ownership hasn't been transferred yet and the commission money hasn't been received. That's why Wang Xiaoding complained. If he got the commission money, he wouldn't care whether he wanted to transfer the ownership or not."

"Where are the addresses of these three households? Are any of them facing Danfeng Gate?"

Zhang Song looked at the registration book and said, "There is one household in the north, right opposite Danfeng Gate, and the other two households are in the south."

Liu Wutong nodded and ordered: "Go and find the landlord of this family now!"

Zhang Song hurried away, and Liu Wutong ordered one of his subordinates, "Go and call a hundred brothers over quickly!"

Not long after, a hundred heavily armed internal guards arrived under the leadership of Liu Xiaoshi, and Zhang Song, a tooth man, also hurried over with the landlord.

"General, it's that family. The deal was concluded a month ago, but the other party hasn't transferred the ownership yet."

"Is there a contract?"

The landlord quickly handed over a contract. Liu Wutong looked at the contract and thought, 'Bang! boom! ’ He jumped up and found out that the name of the buyer was Su Qi, a businessman from Dengzhou who commissioned Donglai Restaurant to smuggle twenty-five samurai from Japan.

Liu Wutong was not in a hurry to alert the enemy. He sent one of his men to go to the neighbors to find out the news.

Not long after, his subordinate came back and reported, "The neighbor said that there is only one person living in that small courtyard. He is a businessman. He leaves early and returns late every day. He is in a hurry and has not returned yet."

Liu Wutong nodded and said to his son Liu Xiaoshi: "Take two of your men and sneak in to take a look. Don't mess with his things. Try not to enter the house. The main thing is to see if there is anything unusual in the backyard."

Liu Xiaoshi thought about it and said, "If my father said this, maybe there is some mark on his door. We can climb over the wall next door."

"That's right! You go and come back as soon as possible."

Liu Xiaoshi led two soldiers and ran to the north, while Liu Wutong asked the other inner guard soldiers to withdraw from Guangzhaifang temporarily. Since the other party was not there, they could not alert the enemy.

Liu Xiaoshi entered the next door neighbor. They climbed up the wall to check the backyard. They saw that the backyard was full of wooden shelves that had not been erected. They saw a big yellow crossbow hidden under the wooden shelves.

Liu Wutong received the report from his son, and he was sure that the other party wanted to use a big yellow crossbow to shoot the regent from a long distance during the enthronement ceremony on the first day of the first lunar month. The shot may not be successful, but the threat is great.

Liu Wutong asked his son Wang Xiaoshi and several men to monitor next door. He temporarily evacuated Guangzhaifang.

In Chang'an City of the Han Dynasty, thousands of internal guards surrounded a compound covering an area of ​​nearly two acres.

The internal guards went through the registration information of houses bought and rented in the past month, and checked one by one, and found something abnormal in this compound. Neighbors reported that nearly 20 young and strong men once lived in this compound.

But they only stayed for ten days and then left. According to the registered information, this compound was rented until the tenth day of the first lunar month, which means that it is still within the lease period.

Although no one lives here, the guards still keep it under close surveillance.

The inner guards had dealt with the Khitan assassins in Luoyang. Their characteristic was that they kept moving, and generally they were not in the core area, but in the surrounding suburban counties. When they were in Luoyang, they hid in Yique County in the south.

While the internal guards were constantly investigating the surrounding counties, Li Chenghua unexpectedly received news that the group of Khitan assassins had returned to Han Chang'an City.

Although a cunning rabbit has three burrows, if all three burrows are watched, no matter how cunning a rabbit is, it will not be able to escape.

"Report to the capital, the other party has discovered us and is screaming desperately not to surrender!"

Li Chenghua said coldly: "Evacuate all the neighbors around and prepare to shoot with heavy crossbows!"

The neighbors around all evacuated, mainly to prevent accidental injuries.

At Li Chenghua's command, a thousand three-foot-long heavy crossbow arrows were shot into the yard. This kind of heavy crossbow arrow has strong penetration, penetrating the roof, and even the furniture in the house cannot resist it. It is a weapon for street fighting in the city.

After the internal guards shot three rounds of three thousand heavy arrows, hundreds of elite soldiers rushed into the courtyard. After a while, three injured Khitan assassins were carried out, and the other assassins were all shot to death by heavy arrows.

"Bandage their wounds and interrogate them!"

Li Chenghua knew that these Khitan assassins could not rent a house alone. Someone must have rented the house. From the current intelligence, it seems that a Youzhou merchant rented the house for them. This merchant seems to rent houses in suburban counties under different identities, basically two or three acres of large courtyards.

This merchant must be dug out, otherwise there will be endless troubles.

At night, a middle-aged man came to the northernmost part of Guangzhaifang. He was the tall and thin middle-aged man who had rented a house more than a month ago.

When he came to the gate of the courtyard, he was not in a hurry to open the door. Instead, he took out a thin ruler, inserted it through the crack of the door, and gently lifted it up. He felt a thin silk thread.

This middle-aged man was very cunning. He tied a silk thread from the inside and climbed over the wall himself.

As long as this door was opened, the silk thread tied inside would break. Once the ruler could not feel the silk thread, he would run away immediately.

The middle-aged man found that the silk thread was still there, and his heart fell. He took the key to open the door and entered the courtyard. Just as he turned around to lock the door, several internal guards ambushed in the courtyard rushed up and pressed him to the ground.

Liu Xiaoshi's movements were very skillful. He blocked his mouth, put a black cloth bag over his head, pushed him out of the door, and took him to a carriage in a hidden place.

The carriage sped away.

That night, the inner guards interrogated the middle-aged businessman, and without much effort, he spoke honestly.

His name was indeed Su Qi, a businessman from Longquan Prefecture. He had been doing business with Japan for a long time and often came to the Tang Dynasty to do business. He could speak Japanese and Chinese.

Five years ago, he was bought by Japan and became a spy for Japan. After Japan sent troops to Bohai in the name of support, he quickly controlled Bohai.

The Japanese army also knew that the Tang army would soon send troops to Liaodong. In order to annex Bohai and prevent the Tang army from sending troops, the Japanese army thought of assassination and immediately sent Su Qi to Dengzhou to meet 25 assassins who sneaked into Dengzhou.

Su Qi then rushed to Chang'an and bought the house from Wang Xiaoding 20 days ago.

He used the excuse that the real owner had not come to Chang'an yet and delayed the transfer of ownership, but was afraid that Wang Xiaoding would talk too much and do bad things, so he arranged for two assassins to kill Wang Xiaoding and throw him into the well.

"Where are the 25 Japanese assassins?" Liu Wutong asked coldly.

Su Qi lowered his head, "In the Wu family compound in the west of Yunyang County!"

Sure enough, Yunyang County does not need to register with the inner guards to buy or rent a house.

"Why Yunyang County?"

"The house they bought is too small. 25 people living in it will be easily discovered by the neighbors around. They plan to move in on the last day of the year."

An inner guard unfolded a map of Yunyang County in front of him. He looked at it for a moment and drew a circle on a house in the west of the city.

Liu Wutong nodded and said, "If the situation is true, you may still have a chance to survive. If you dare to deceive the inner guards, you will die."

"I dare not deceive!"

Liu Wutong waved his hand, "Take him down!"

The inner guards carried Su Qi and took him away to be detained. Liu Wutong hurried to find Li Chenghua with the confession.