First Minister of the Tang Dynasty

Chapter 31 Finding out the cause of the fire
30. Find out the cause of the fire
Li Shimin also felt that the fire was inexplicable, mainly because Zhu Zhijin's reaction was a little strange.

It stands to reason that it is normal for the kidnapping of Juncheng to cause panic and fire, or deliberately set fire to create chaos in order to escape, but why Zhu Zhijin behaved so strangely.

"It's all burned like this? Can you find anything?" Li Jiancheng looked at the ruins and frowned, saying with a look of regret, "I don't know how many documents and rules are stored here, just burned like this. pity".

"Everything has a source, and every effect must have a cause, not to mention so many people died," Gao Chong said firmly, and Gao Chong was thinking about those charred corpses all night long.

Gao Chong made up his mind to find out the source of the fire, and went straight to Zhu Zhijin, "I heard that Zhu Shuzuo came here overnight to look for something? I wonder what valuables it is?".

Zhu Zhijin was startled, and said with a smile in front of her: "Reporting to Gao Gaolang, it's not so precious, it's just a jade handed down from the official's family, which was lost in the panic last night. This jade is of great significance...".

"Yu Jue?" Gao Chong nodded, looked at Zhu Zhijin and said with regret: "Ordinary people know that jade will be brittle when exposed to fire. With such a big fire, jade products must be difficult to preserve. Zhu Shuzuo Don't get your hopes up."

After finishing speaking, Zhu Zhijin ignored Zhu Zhijin's pretending regret, lifted up his robe, squatted in the ruins, and slowly observed, Li Jiancheng and others looked puzzled and followed curiously.

Gao Chong shook his head and went to the backyard mansion after looking through the entire front yard mansion, looking room by room.

After a long time, Gao Chong stopped in his tracks, pointed to the burnt house in front of him and said, "This is the source of the fire." He said and looked at Zhu Zhijin. Sure enough, Zhu Zhijin was stunned when he saw the location clearly.

Facing everyone's doubts, Gao Chong pointed to the burnt bed frame and beams and said: "Look at the wood and furniture here, they are all burnt into black charcoal, the carbonization is the most severe, and most of the bricks and stones on the ground are also turned into powder. Even more so in other places, only when the source of the fire burns the most fully can the wood be broken into carbon and the stone cracked into powder."

As he spoke, he called his personal guards, "Search here carefully to see if there is anything unusual."

At this time, Zhu Zhijin's face was already pale, and Gao Chong called another servant who had escaped from the fire, "Where is this room?".

The servant looked at the location, and replied tremblingly: "This is the side room where the concubine of the county concubine lives." Everyone looked suspicious when they heard this.

After a while, the guards brought out a charred corpse from under the collapsed bricks, tiles and logs.

There were dozens of such charred corpses in the fire in the prefect's mansion last night, and everyone didn't take it seriously, but Gao Chong saw Zhu Zhijin's eyes closed tightly, immediately covered his mouth and nose, and stepped forward to check while holding back his nausea.

After looking at his stature, he pried open his mouth and nose with a piece of wood, Gao Chong immediately understood, stood up and said, "Looking at this figure, it should be a young woman.

And this woman was burned after being killed, because there was no ashes in her mouth and nose, you can look at the mouths and noses of other corpses. Thus inhaling a large amount of fire ash."

Li Shimin was stunned when he heard this, and signaled to the guard, who went to check the corpses next to him, and said in surprise: "There are really a lot of ashes in the mouths and noses of these corpses."

Everyone was startled when they heard the words, and hurriedly looked at Zhu Zhijin. Zhu Zhijin couldn't hold on any longer, and hurriedly told the cause and effect, "Eldest son, second son, this is all for the sake of submitting to Duke Tang."

After hearing this, Li Jiancheng's face became livid, and he took a deep breath, "Zhu Zhijin, it's a private matter for you to give Ji concubine to Gao Deru privately, but why did you kill him? , should be sentenced to exile. What's more, what's more, with your fire, dozens of people were burned to death in the mansion, and countless laws and regulations were damaged, you... you really deserve to die," said Li Jiancheng, trembling with anger.

"Governor, take this woman with you. There are a total of 28 corpses, all of which have been burnt beyond recognition." Wen Dayou also whispered.

"Bastard, you care about human life", Li Shimin was furious when he heard this, and kicked Zhu Zhijin to the ground.

Zhu Zhijin struggled to get up from the ground in a hurry, his body was sifting through chaff, his face was defeated, and he hurriedly begged for mercy, "Eldest son, second son, I am doing this to surrender to Duke Tang."

Seeing this, Yin Qiao whispered: "After all, Zhu Zhijin is a hero who surrendered. If he is punished immediately, he will be suspected of crossing the river and tearing down the bridge."

Li Jiancheng was concerned about this, so he couldn't punish him immediately.

Gao Chong stepped forward and repeated: "Zhu Zhijin, you mean that you gave the concubine Ji to Gao Deru to confuse him so that he could get drunk, and then felt humiliated, so you killed the concubine and set fire to it Destroying the corpses and destroying the traces, I didn't expect the fire to be so fierce that it burned down the entire prefect's mansion, is that so?"

"Yes, yes, that's exactly the case, Gao Gaolang, I really didn't do it on purpose." Zhu Zhijin listened to Gao Chong and summed it up for him, busy as if catching a life-saving straw. It's a credit, Gao Gaolang, save me."

"Then why did you come back here overnight?" Gao Chong shouted coldly.

"I... I'm going down to look for the family heirloom jade", Zhu Zhijin froze for a while, and hurriedly said.

"Yu Jue? Are you still talking cleverly to justify?" Gao Chong was furious when he heard that, "Eldest son, second son, this Zhu Zhijin is full of loopholes, obviously he has something to hide, but he has made great contributions to breaking the city after all. , Immediate punishment is not very good, it is better to confine him and arrange for interrogation, and I will try my best to find out the truth, and then deal with it after the evidence is conclusive, so that it can be justified."

Li Jiancheng and the others thought about it and thought it was feasible. The private killing of concubine Ji was easy to deal with, and Zhu Zhijin could be saved after some manipulation.

However, in the eyes of Li Jiancheng, the burning of more than [-] people was unforgivable, but Zhu Zhijin was the one who dedicated the city. If he didn't handle it well, he would inevitably get the reputation of crossing the river and demolishing bridges, killing donkeys.

"Yuzhi, are you really sure?" Li Shimin asked with a frown, this is a hot potato, if the result cannot be found out in the end, wouldn't Gao Chong be in an embarrassing situation.

Gao Chong was also helpless, "Let's try it for now."

After everyone left, Gao Chong stood in the ruins of the fire scene, unable to figure out for a long time, that Zhu Zhijin obviously still had something to hide, and continued to argue with determination, what exactly was he hiding.

"Huh? This is?" At this moment, Chen Yanshou at the side squatted down and took out something from under the burnt bed frame.

Looking at it from Gao Chong, it seems to be a hairpin, which has been melted and deformed by the fire, but the original shape can still be seen. Some places are slightly blackened, and some places are shining golden. Gao Chong knows that this is a golden hairpin , The place that burns black is because the purity is not high.

(End of this chapter)