In Hua Qi's words, because the fourth prince returned to the palace to report the news, the emperor really wanted to bring the third prince, the prince, to interrogate him in person. However, the emperor always did as he pleased, but the prince knew his priorities very well and was a first-class good boy. , so I personally guarded the emperor in the Qianqing Palace who wanted to see the fun, so I decided to let the two of them come to see what was going on.
Chu Kuan, on the other hand, expressed high praise and admiration for Zhang Shou's seriousness and carefulness in discovering the so-called envoy's flaws. He was even more impressed by Zhang Shou's idea of sending Ah Liu to single out the most doubtful person for trial. He was full of praise. Anyway, when Hua Qi praised the prince, the former head of the ceremonial department directly praised Zhang Shou as a detective superman.
Even though Zhang Shou had long been accustomed to unrealistic flattery, he still felt itchy when he heard it. When he caught a glimpse of the fourth prince staring at him expectantly, he helplessly spread his hands and said, "What if?" You two came here specifically with the fourth prince to question the guy who claims to be the mission supervisor, so you may be disappointed."
Seeing that the expressions of Chu Kuan and Hua Qi both changed, and the fourth prince was so angry that he almost jumped over, he laughed: "I don't know what this guy was like when he was in Shanhaiwei, but Ah Liu is good to everyone. After drugging him, I took him out of the house alone and poured a basin of cold water on him. He just attacked me without using any means."
"How is it possible! Since you are said to be an envoy, why is it so useless!"
It was as if a toy that was expected to be fun suddenly turned out to be boring. The fourth prince's face turned red with anger. He instinctively cursed loudly before he came to his senses and whispered sadly. He muttered: "I thought I wanted to at least scare him!"
Hua Qi and Chu Kuan were not as entangled in the process as the Fourth Prince. They only cared about the results. And Zhang Shou had no intention of asking people to guess riddles. He said straightforwardly: "I am in the Bingliu room of the East Second House. Let the four The prince will take you there."
When the fourth prince saw Hua Qi and Chu Kuan, he immediately looked at him. He turned around and ran away without saying a word, but in his heart he was still complaining that Zhang Shou and Ah Liu moved so quickly and didn't wait for him to come back before attacking. Fortunately, he had to run back and forth in the cold weather. On one trip, the third brother deliberately delayed his father, but he failed to catch up.
However, when he was out of breath and hurried to the East Second House, looking around for the Bingliu Room, he saw a familiar figure not far away, and immediately ran over without thinking, and then Called Sixth Brother.
Before he could ask further questions, Ah Liu stepped aside and pointed to the door: "It's right inside, feel free to ask."
Hua Qi had long been accustomed to Ah Liu's habit of not saying anything when it was not necessary, but when he saw the fourth prince rushing in alone, he still stepped forward and grabbed him, and then looked at him angrily. Ah Liu glanced at him, but Ah Liu seemed to have read through his mind. He stood there without even moving: "Don't worry, he can't hurt anyone!"
Only then did the fourth prince realize that people were worried about his safety, and immediately showed a big smile to Ah Liu, and then patted his clothes after Hua Qi let go of him, and then complained without looking back: " Brother Six is so safe in doing things, why do I need you to remind me! Well, I will just follow you!"
Seeing that the fourth prince was hiding behind him and Chu Kuan this time, Hua Qi simply didn't know what to say about this little guy when he thought that he had just left the palace after reporting the news in a hurry and had not had time to change out of his attire of a page boy.
Now that he's enlightened, it's better to say that this little guy finally knows how to save his life.
However, when he saw Chu Kuan pushing the door open and entering with a sullen face, he didn't have time to think too much and hurriedly chased after him.
At a glance, she saw the guy who was tied to a chair and gagged with a linen ball, unable to even struggle. Hua Qi finally understood why Ah Liu could be so confident in saying he couldn't hurt anyone. His
Almost all the skills in his body have been taught to this boy. However, he is still better than his master.
This rope is really good at playing tricks. It will neither tie it to death and make people lose blood, nor tie it too loosely so that people have a chance to escape... I don't want to do errands like jailer and prison guard.
What a pity!
While Hua Qi was secretly cursing, Chu Kuan reached out and took out the rag from the mouth of the middle-aged man who was tied up with five flowers. The next moment, as if he had been suffocated for too long, he started shouting loudly.
"Sir, the villain is really from Korea. He is not a descendant of Taizu of the Ming Dynasty. He was threatened with death or even genocide, so he had to bite the bullet and pretend to be an envoy to go to Shanhaiwei. Dare you
Swear to God, if you make a false promise, God will strike with five thunders!"
The fourth prince blinked his eyes, as if he couldn't react. They didn't even start to ask questions, but they did this... It was really useless!
If he had known this, why would he happily come to serve as a servant? If he escorted someone to the palace, would he have confessed so easily?
Of course the middle-aged man who was still tied up didn't know that in the mind of a child, he had become a symbol of uselessness. He struggled twice and shouted at the top of his lungs: "Our tribute ship has been hijacked.
, all the tributes are gone, if we go back to Goryeo, the king will not let us go, our whole family will be beheaded... even if we survive, we will be demoted to official slaves and maidservants!"
"The villain's grandfather was a pariah, and he managed to pass the miscellaneous subject examination and become a middle-class man. The villain also inherited his ancestral heritage and became a translator, so he could only venture out to sea with the mission, hoping to earn a good background, and at least let the villain
People's children should live a better life, rather than end up living more miserable than untouchables because of poverty..."
Chu Kuan was not interested in this guy's life experience at all. At this time, when he heard someone still chattering about his misfortune, he grabbed the other person's chin with a cold expression and forced the words he had not finished speaking back into his mouth.
, then he let go of his hand and said coldly: "I just want to know what happened to your ship and who is the person who ordered you. I am not interested in other things."
"Yes, yes, the villain is on the ship...the translator on the ship. In fact, the king is not willing to send tribute to the Celestial Empire by sea, but because of the system left by Emperor Taizu of the Celestial Dynasty, the number of land missions has always been strictly controlled, and that few people
It was not enough to escort the tribute, so we could only send the tribute across the sea in accordance with the rules. But our ship encountered pirates just a few days after setting sail!"
As if he saw Chu Kuan's expression that instantly became extremely ferocious, the middle-aged man who called himself the translator couldn't help but shuddered, and then he lowered his head involuntarily and his voice became much quieter.
"I don't know how I got blocked by pirates. Tribute is paid every year. Although there are times when there are storms and waves, because our country often borrows merchant ships from the Ming Dynasty, the number of times they capsize or encounter pirates is actually
It’s really not much. But this time, the king has just ascended the throne, but he refuses to borrow Ming’s merchant ships.”
Speaking of this matter, the middle-aged translator gritted his teeth as if thinking of his own experience of almost being killed at the hands of pirates and almost losing his life.
"For the sake of the king's face, he felt that borrowing merchant ships from the Ming Dynasty was really detrimental to the country. After killing a few clans and two classes to scare others, he finally got three ships. Those families had trade relations with the Celestial Empire.
But how can these ships compare to the merchant ships of the Ming Dynasty?"
"So when we encountered pirates at sea, we had no ability to fight back, and we couldn't even escape. In the end, we were attacked lightly and deftly... Many people died, many, many people..."
When talking about the danger that day, the middle-aged translator's face turned white, even a little distracted, and even his eyes looked a little dull. When the fourth prince saw his expression, he heard someone exaggerate that there was blood everywhere on the ship, and it was even stained red.
When he entered the sea, even though he was always brave, he couldn't help but feel a little scared.
And at this moment, he heard Hua Qi's faint voice: "Don't listen to this Korean guy talking about the river. The sea is so vast. Don't say that people in one boat bleed to death. Even if people in ten boatloads bleed to death, they may not be able to be infected."
The sea is red! What's more, since it is said to be a Korean merchant ship... the ship is indeed very small, and one ship can only hold twenty or thirty people at most! Speaking of this..."
Hua Qi suddenly frowned and shouted loudly to temporarily wake up the middle-aged translator who was still talking incoherently, and then asked: "Even if your king used a confiscated merchant ship from his own country to load the tribute, then what would happen on the ship?"
There will also be soldiers, horses and officers stationed, otherwise, wouldn't he be afraid that someone would be obsessed with money and rob a ship full of tributes?"
Chu Kuan caught a glimpse of the fourth prince beside him who was dumbfounded, so he explained softly: "Korea can travel to the Ming Dynasty by land or sea. However, once there are many people on the land route, the sky is high and the road from Liaodong to the capital is too long, and it is extremely cold at the end of the year.
, disturbing and tiring the people, so Emperor Taizu established a tribute shipping system. Most of the people who took over this matter from Goryeo were the merchants from our dynasty who often traveled to Goryeo."
"Korea was much poorer than the Ming Dynasty. The court didn't care how much tribute they sent, but the merchant ships left with full loads. After selling out the goods, they came back with their Korean ginseng, but they couldn't fill the cabins, and the work of picking up a batch of tributes was not enough.
Just right. Moreover, the tributes from Goryeo are nothing compared to their trade income between the two countries, so merchant ship transportation has always been the safest."
"In the nearly 100 years since the founding of the country, except for real storms, there has never been a problem."
When Chu Kuan said this, the fourth prince certainly understood it completely, but the middle-aged translator naturally became even more sad and angry.
"Your Excellency is right, this is the truth! The Ming Dynasty's merchant ships are safe, but the king insists on going his own way. The ministers have no choice, and I, a little translator, can't do anything! Because escorting the ship is dangerous, even the real Spanish warriors are not willing to do it.
Accompanying the ship, so in the end our ship was escorted by a small officer and ten soldiers."
"But this man acted like a soft-footed shrimp when he encountered pirates. His soldiers were slaughtered cleanly, but he actually raised his hands to surrender! In the end, he was chopped up and thrown into the sea to feed the fish..."
Speaking of the scene of massacre at that time, the middle-aged translator became sad and angry again. However, Hua Qi had no time to listen to people crying about this. Chu Kuan mentioned the national conditions of Goryeo, which was still explaining the knowledge of tribute to the fourth prince.
How could he stand this guy's chatter? He immediately drank again.
"That's enough, you just need to tell you what the hijackers asked you to do! Are the six of you survivors on the ship, or are there people left by the hijackers among them? Also, has the ship been changed?
?Why didn’t you tell me when you were at Shanhaiwei, but here you are just like pouring beans through a bamboo tube?”
"Sir, the six younger ones are the people who survived on all three boats together... It's God's blessing to be able to survive! Our boat has been sunk by them, and we have replaced it with their boat, sailing and so on.
Their people took care of everything. As for when we were in Shanhaiwei, we all mingled together, and Shanhaiwei didn't dare to interrogate us alone, and the villain didn't dare to say anything..."
"Stop!" Chu Kuan suddenly interrupted the middle-aged translator and asked with a frown, "If they really want to sneak in, pretend to be your Goryeo tribute ship, and kill you all, wouldn't it be more convenient?
How can they do this without knowing Korean?"
As soon as these words came out, the middle-aged translator was still confused. The fourth prince, who was only watching and had no chance to interrupt, finally felt that he had grasped the key point this time: "Yes, just pretend to be a tribute ship from Korea and sneak in."
, that is much easier to win people’s trust than false claims such as Taizu Miao descendants and overseas founding of the country! Could it be that these people want to deliberately build momentum!"
Hua Qi agreed with the fourth prince's last words, but there was a more important issue that came to his mind: "Since all six of you are real survivors of the Korigong ship, you six came here first.
Are those guys so defenseless? Are you afraid of what will happen to them after you confess?"
The middle-aged translator was stunned for a moment, and then he said hesitantly: "I don't know, but after those extremely vicious guys ordered them to dock, the six of them asked to go to Beijing first as envoys. Because including the villain, they were there.
Inside, everyone is very proficient in the Ming Dynasty language, yes, they just asked about this before killing us, and deliberately kept us."
Chu Kuan's brows were already furrowed into a knot. He didn't care to continue the interrogation. He turned to Hua Qi and cupped his hands and said, "Master Hua Qi, I'll leave this to you first. I'll go back to the palace to report. If the emperor nods,
, I will lead people there at night, and if I can intercept those people on the way, I will interrogate them on the spot immediately!"
Seeing that Hua Qi had no objection, Chu Kuan turned around and left, but he even forgot to say hello to the fourth prince. And for such neglect, if it were the fourth prince who had never been taken seriously by the queen, the eldest prince and the second prince before,
, he would definitely be furious, but now that the three big mountains above his head have long gone, he can treat this matter with a normal heart.
Therefore, seeing Chu Kuan leaving quickly, he tilted his head and thought for a moment, then looked at the middle-aged translator who was hesitant to speak, and asked word by word: "Hey, you said you are a Korean translator?
The others are also Koreans. Is there any evidence? Also, based on what you just said, you cannot be exempted from guilt or even convicted. If you are investigated, it will not be lighter than if you were convicted by the King of Koryo!"
"If you think about it carefully, what did those people who robbed the tribute ship say to you, so you don't eat rice, vegetables and other things when you eat? Well, what happened to Emperor Taizu's bow and arrows?