That year, that cicada, that sword

Chapter 352

The whole journey was smooth and the sky was dark when the boat entered Jiangling. Xu Beiyou didn't hurry to go ashore and enter the city, but decided to spend the night on the boat.

There were no spare rooms on the ship, and after barely vacating one, the scholar surnamed Xu was accommodated, and Li Qingping shared a room with Wu Yu.

After lighting up the lights in the room, Li Qingping, who had relaxed a little, was taken aback when she saw Wu Yu. A beauty, but compared with Wu Yu, she is still inferior.

It is said that looking at a beauty under the lamp, the more attractive it is, even if Li Qingping is a daughter, it is inevitable that her heart will be moved by two or three minutes at this time.

At the same time, she was also secretly surprised in her heart, with such a beauty in front of her, that white-headed man could hold back his temper, he was indeed not an ordinary person.

At this moment, Xu Beiyou was standing on the deck, looking at the Jingjiang River under the moonlight at night.

Not long after, a secret guard in black brocade clothes stepped across the Jingjiang River and boarded the deck, cupped his hands and said, "Zhao Jianxing, the inspector of the Huzhou Department of Jiangnan Dark Guard, has seen Mr. Xu."

Xu Beiyou returned the salute with clasped fists, "Thank you, Inspector Zhao, to go there in person."

Zhao Jianxing shook his head and did not speak.

As a member of the secret guard who directly belongs to His Majesty the emperor, he can ignore the first and second assistants, and he can also ignore the military orders of the Metropolitan Governor's Mansion, but he must not disobey the words of his immediate superiors, and before Xu Beiyou comes to Huzhou, secretly Xie Suqing, the Governor of the Wei Mansion, had already greeted him in advance, and he had to come if he didn't come.

Xu Beiyou walked towards the bow of the boat, Zhao Jianxing followed closely behind him by half a body.

Xu Beiyou stopped walking all the way to the bow, and said with a smile, "If Inspector Zhao doesn't mind, I won't go to the cabin and stand here for a while."

Zhao Jianxing naturally didn't care about this.

Xu Beiyou asked, "The Governor's Mansion of the Rear Army is in Xiangyang, and the Secret Guard's Mansion is in Jiangling. The wells of the two do not interfere with the waters of the river. Inspector Zhao has lived in Jiangling for a long time, so he knows Jiangling very well, right?"

Zhao Jianxing nodded and simply said yes.

Xu Beiyou then asked, "Has something happened to the Li family in Jiangling recently?"

Since the Dark Guard Mansion claims to be a detective in the world, the matter of the Li family can't be hidden from their eyes and ears. Zhao Jianxing didn't have much entanglement with that Li family, so he said directly: "Mr. The matter of marriage is just a play between a poor scholar and a rich lady, but this incident has caused a lot of trouble in the city, and the Li family is very embarrassed."

Xu Beiyou smiled lightly and said, "I wonder which family's son is so unlucky? This is the hatred of taking his wife."

After all, it was not a secret matter, Zhao Jianxing did not hesitate to hide it and said: "It is a young man named Lu Fang from the Lu family. In the early years, the elders of his family married the head of the Li family, but after the elder passed away, the Lu family I didn't have much contact with the Li family, and didn't visit until this young master of the Lu family won the second-class degree in the Jinjin Department."

"Jiangnan Lu's family?" Xu Beiyou thought of Lu Pu he met in Shendu of Yuzhou, and asked in surprise, "Isn't that the remnant of the rebels wanted by the imperial court?"

Zhao Jianxing didn't expect Xu Beiyou to know a thing or two about such confidential matters, he couldn't help being startled, and then explained: "After all, the Lu family is a big family in the south of the Yangtze River, and the court can't completely kill them all, so since the first year of Taiping, all Only the direct lineage is punished, not the sidelines. Lu Fang belongs to the sidelines, and is not among the arrests of the Dark Guards."

Xu Beiyou nodded suddenly, and asked again: "Where does this young master of the Lu family live now?"

Zhao Jianxing said: "This person still has some integrity, he has made it clear that the Li family will no longer fulfill the engagement, and left the Li family's mansion on the same day, temporarily living in an inn, and will probably leave within a few days Jiangling."

Xu Beiyou said with a smile: "Will the Li family swallow this breath willingly?"

Zhao Jianxing also smiled and said: "Of course not. Although this young master of the Lu family is a new scholar, it sounds very good, but the number one scholar is only a sixth-rank Hanlin. Home, this young man may not be able to walk out of Jiangling City."

Xu Beiyou narrowed his eyes, stretched out his hand and used his index finger to pick up his only strand of black hair, playing with his taste: "Could it be that the Li family wants to kill people to silence them?"

"That's not possible." Zhao Jianxing shook his head and said, "But it is possible to force the two to get married."

Xu Beiyou couldn't help but sneered, "Lang is unsympathetic, women are unwilling, and the pairing of livestock is nothing more than that. What are you talking about?"

Zhao Jianxing coughed lightly, but did not agree.

Xu Beiyou didn't dwell too much on this topic, and instead said, "Mr. Xie said earlier that he would give me a present."

Before Zhao Jianxing came, he brought a delicate wooden box, and now he offered it with both hands, "Before I came down, Master Tongzhi had specifically ordered this item to be handed over to Mr. Xu."

Xu Beiyou took the wooden box and opened it casually. Inside was a three-eyed firecracker made of copper.

The three-eyed blunderbuss is a kind of short firearm that flourished in the Dazheng period. It is made of iron or thick steel. It is shaped like three bamboo-shaped single blunderbusses. Add gunpowder into the tube, and finally fill with steel balls or cast iron blocks, crushed iron sand, etc., add a fire cap at the small hole, and knock the fire cap against a launching pad such as a stone when in use, detonate the loaded gunpowder and launch the projectile.

The three gun barrels can be fired in turn. There is a handle seat at the end of the three-eye gun, and wooden poles of different lengths are installed to hold it to ensure the safety of the shooter.

It's just that the three-eyed blunderbuss has a short range, which is not as good as a crossbow, and the reloading speed is too slow, so it is not equipped with large-scale troops, but is only used in a small range in the Tianji camp.

Of course, the three-eyed blunderbuss in Xu Beiyou's hands is quite different from the ordinary three-eyed blunderbuss. It is not only luxurious in appearance, but also omits the process of tapping the cap. Instead, it uses something called a trigger. The gunpowder in the blunderbuss can be aroused by lightly hooking your fingers. It is said that there is no luck within three feet of a blunderbuss.

With Xu Beiyou's current level of cultivation, he naturally doesn't need this kind of thing, but he is very interested in these firearms. As early as in Jiangdu, he had collected three bird guns and one Lianzhu gun. General guns are too hard to find, and he doesn't mind buying two.

Xu Beiyou stroked the three-eyed gun lightly, seemingly unintentionally asked: "I heard that this new type of three-eyed gun was improved by His Royal Highness Wei Wang himself?"

Zhao Jianxing nodded and said: "Today's Wei State Army is almost all equipped with these three-eyed guns, and even has a special firearms battalion. Each battalion has 400 people and is divided into four sides. Each side has 100 people. There are four lieutenants. The captain is divided into four teams with 25 people, and the school lieutenant is in charge, with a total of 16 school lieutenants. There are ten cannons on each side, forty cannons on each side, two cannons on each side, and a total of eighty gunners. There are 320 three-eye guns on each side, 320 three-eye guns on four sides, and a total of [-] gunmen. There is one cannon between each gun, eight cannons in total, and the remaining two are located at the gate of the camp."

Zhao Jianxing couldn't hide his worry, "Young Master Xu should be well aware of the power of firearms. The king of Wei placed great emphasis on firearms and used firearms to build his army. Facing the firearms battalion, except for the elite cavalry who rushed into formation, the rest of the army Without the power to fight, if such tiger and wolf divisions cross the sea and land, not to mention the commanders and envoys in those places, what chance will the Jiangnan Army, which has not fought for a long time, have any chance of winning?"

Xu Beiyou held the three-eyed blunderbuss in a daze.

That Wei Wang Xiao Jin who has been dormant and forbearing for many years by the side of Da Qi's couch.

(End of this chapter)