Chapter 342: Opening the Port (9)

Comrade Liao Shuangding was without a doubt a man of weak will. His whole body lacked even a shred of fearless revolutionary spirit; instead, the corruption and cowardice of the lumpen-proletarian were on full, vivid display.

After Chicken had made one trip across the river, he confessed everything — the underwater secret passage, the plan to come burn the building in the middle of the night, all of it.

Later, after he fired a cannon at him, Liao Shuangding, in order to avoid becoming Liao Wuding, quickly gave up the hidden hand pulling his strings: Chief Thief Lao Guai.

After adding a hidden program of "hand-cranked generator iron rod attacking the chrysanthemum" and discovering the fellow truly had nothing left to hide, Liu Wang wrapped up the work. The next morning at first light, he sought an audience with Xiong Dao at the first moment and reported the previous night's incident.

"Your assessment." Xiong Dao brushed his teeth as he gestured for Liu Wang to continue.

"Liao Shuangding wasn't here for ordinary theft; he came specifically to set fires. From this one point, I estimate he was sent by that Wu Sanye."

"Any evidence?"

"None at present. The one who gave Liao Shuangding his orders was the thief chief Lao Guai; he never mentioned anything about Third Lord Wu."

"Having his jetty burned, he thinks to burn a house in return — that's only human nature." Xiong Dao smacked his lips. "I'm also inclined to think Third Lord was behind this mischief."

"That said, you'd best go question that Lao Guai who gave the order. After all, we still need evidence when we do things; don't wrong a good man, but don't let a bad one slip by either."

"Yes, your subordinate will go handle it at once."

"Mm, take more men. That bunch of thieves is not small in number."

Outside Xiancheng, by the North River, Yuewang Temple.

As a fence who divided the spoils, controlled over a hundred thieves, and managed the Da Hang's theft operations as Assistant Regional Commander Manager, Lao Guai naturally had more than one hideout.

Recently, with the increase in trade after the start of spring, Lao Guai had set his nest at Yuewang Temple by the North River: organizing manpower to carry out theft against traveling merchants from outside was the highlight of every spring season, and mob-grabbing along the river and diving onto boats to steal were all standard tricks of the thieves.

At high noon, Liao Shuangding, wearing a ghastly smile, clamping his buttocks, walked with a bizarre gait to the front of Yuewang Temple.

Yuewang Temple was an abandoned temple, otherwise it would never have been chosen as a thieves' den. It backed onto the North River, had bamboo groves on both sides, and faced a slope in front — one could spot approaching people from afar, yet retreat at any time through the bamboo groves or the North River. The location was quite good.

A thieves' den naturally has lookouts posted at the door. So when two idle thieves saw Liao Shuangding, they casually greeted him — they had no idea about Liao Shuangding's mission the night before; the matter had been privately assigned by Lao Guai.

Along with the greeting, the door guard asked in passing, "Brother Liao, these two have unfamiliar faces?"

Indeed, behind Liao Shuangding followed two smiling, tough-looking men in sturdy attire.

"Here to see the Chief Thief about business." Liao Shuangding nodded slightly and led the two men into the temple. And at the very moment they brushed past each other, those two men drew daggers from their sleeves and swiftly thrust them up under the door guards' jaws.

At the same instant, one of the men, ignoring the guard still struggling in his hands, lowered his head toward his collar and said one sentence: "Cleared!"

After a moment, from far down the slope, over thirty men charged up. The majority of these men were peripheral Action Team members trained locally in Hangzhou, subordinate to Hangzhou Station. Ten percent of them were core personnel who had gone to headquarters for training as formal field operatives.

Most of the Action Team members had short knives tucked at their waists and held T-batons in their hands. In fact, in ordinary cold-weapon brawls, the T-baton, widely used by police in later generations, completely outclassed those motley weapons.

Of course, this statement presupposed professional training and hollow steel tubing.

These two conditions were hardly conditions at all in later generations, but it was different in the 17th century, when society's total wealth was relatively scarce. Even the household retainers and personal troops under generals and nobles normally drilled only once every three days; very few power bases could support over a hundred men, feeding them their fill of meat daily and training them desperately.

Moreover, something like hollow steel tubing, which combined lethality and agility, was a divine artifact in the 17th century — even though the tube walls were uneven in thickness and it was actually a souvenir from the Steel Plant's failed attempt to crack seamless steel tubing, in this era it was still a divine artifact.

After the squad arriving at the gate detached a small number of men to guard the temple walls on both sides, the rest let out a shout and filed into the temple in rapid succession.

At the same time, on the North River at the back gate of Yuewang Temple, two flat-bottomed boats sailed in from left and right, carrying men with grappling hooks and crossbows.

...... When the enemy charged in, one part of the thieves were in the middle of dividing the spoils: the previous night's haul needed to be promptly inventoried and sorted to find buyers.

And the others, those who had stayed up all night, were sleeping.

The twenty-plus elite fighters rushed in and struck anyone they saw. The pitiful fifty-odd thieves inside the temple were completely caught off guard; a sheet of loose sand, they were beaten into scattering and fleeing in all directions.

That said, even if these types, accustomed to pickpocketing and mob-grabbing, had been on guard, they would certainly have been no match for the elite personnel. Whether in morale, equipment, or training, there was simply no comparison between undisciplined ordinary men and the paramilitary Action Team members.

So when Liu Wang, carrying a pistol, strolled leisurely through the temple gate, the inside was already in the stage of hunting down the remaining enemies.

There was not much blood on the ground; only the few brave souls who drew knives to resist met with ruthless blows. The majority of the thieves were now curled up there, clutching their abdomens and their smashed heel bones, wailing miserably.

Before long, the intruders had the situation under control. Everyone in the temple was searched out, trussed up, and dumped in front of the main hall door. Then seven or eight who had climbed the walls to escape were also escorted back in — a thieves' den indeed; quite a few had high agility scores.

After that came those who had fled via the river dock at the back gate, and among them was the target of this operation: Chief Thief Lao Guai.

That the thief chief Lao Guai would escape was entirely expected. A man like this had spent practically his whole life escaping; one could not expect him to be as bravely unyielding as a bandit leader.

Lao Guai, his hands bound and escorted to the rear hall, was soaked from head to toe, his face covered in blood — clearly he had been fished out of the river after being beaten with boat oars. What was slightly surprising was that Lao Guai was not the wily old fox, the gloomy, triangular-eyed old man everyone imagined, but a tall, heavyset, bald, thuggish-looking brute.

But none of that mattered anymore. At this point, unless Lao Guai transformed into Batman, no amount of thuggish looks would be of any use.

After being escorted in, when the originally baffled Lao Guai saw Liao Shuangding's bitter smile, he, a veteran of the Edo for many years, instantly understood the source of today's calamity.

Once he grasped the situation, Lao Guai first shot Liao Shuangding a venomous glare, then immediately opened his mouth and shouted, "Could it be Master Xiong before me? Every wrong has its perpetrator, every debt its debtor. Da Hang was merely entrusted by another; this matter cannot be blamed on us."

"Heh heh, it seems you keep a clear ledger in your mind, Lao Guai." Liu Wang rose at this moment from a package of sundries in the corner of the hall and slowly walked over. "Every wrong has its perpetrator, every debt its debtor — mm, so which worthy brother should we lads go to collect this debt from?"

"That..." Lao Guai faltered for a moment, then said with an ingratiating smile, "How could a nobody like me know such a thing? I merely follow orders and run errands. If you gentlemen don't believe me, you may go ask my Guild Master."

"Trying to scare us lads by throwing around Deng Hu's name?" Liu Wang sneered. "Deng Hu takes the jobs — we all know that. So rest assured, he won't get away."

Liu Wang reached this point, stretched out his hand and slapped Lao Guai's bald head forcefully a few times, then circled around to his ear and asked, "You're called Lao Guai, yet you don't use a crutch — isn't that rather strange?"

The moment Liu Wang's words fell, someone beside him had already used a T-baton to ruthlessly smash down on Lao Guai's knee. A "Crack!" rang out, followed by Lao Guai's muffled groan of pain; he sat down on the ground with a thud.

"Lao Guai, now you truly live up to your name — I fear you'll be needing at least one crutch from now on." Liu Wang squatted down with a grin, stared at Lao Guai, whose head was drenched in cold sweat, and continued asking, "Have you recalled anything now?"

Lao Guai looked at the big man beside him, eager and itching to act, eyeing his other knee, and could not help but be scared out of his wits.

Knowing he had run into ruthless characters today, Lao Guai could not help but be filled with immense regret. He understood that one of his legs was likely beyond saving; though he did not know of Kong Yiji, he had seen far too many people of that crawling style, so he did not want his other leg to follow suit and be ruined.

And so Lao Guai recalled everything: "It was Wu Sanye by the river who paid silver for the guild to handle this matter. This lowly one was merely following the boss's orders; it has nothing to do with this lowly one. Brave heroes, please spare my life."

"Now that's more like it..." Liu Wang clapped his hands and stood up from the ground. "That one sentence from you is exactly what I wanted."

After finishing with Lao Guai, Liu Wang first spoke a few sentences into the walkie-talkie, then began to make an inspection tour of Yuewang Temple.

Since Yuewang Temple was a thieves' den, stolen goods were certainly not in short supply. The rear hall was not only piled with all sorts of sundry goods, but the hidden compartments underground were also stuffed with the silver, coins, and jewels Lao Guai had amassed over the recent period.

After roughly glancing over the silks, cotton cloth, paper, and raw silk wrapped in hemp cloth, Liu Wang could not help but shake his head: on some of the goods, dark brown bloodstains were still clearly visible; on others, there were water stains. The origin of these stolen goods was thus easy to imagine.

"Twenty men stay behind; the rest leave by boat." Estimating that the time was about right, Liu Wang waved his hand and had one part of the men leave first through the back gate.

After roughly another half-hour, a clamor arose outside the Mountain Gate.

A large crowd entered. At the lead was the County Yamen's Constable Cao, followed by the Fast Squad's Constable and a group of yamen runners, and behind them were the disciples and unranked assistants of the various yamen runners — the entire procession was vast and mighty, far exceeding a hundred men.

...... Shortly after Lao Guai was dealt with, the Adviser, who had been arranged in advance, upon receiving the news, swaggered into the County Yamen and, bearing Xiong Dao's visiting card, sought an audience with the County Magistrate.

By rights, the visiting card of a commoner like Xiong Dao was of no use whatsoever. However, the present was not like the past; at the very least, the County Magistrate knew that this certain Xiong could at any time produce the cards of several gentry families to see him, to say nothing of bringing out the big shot behind him — Cao Chuan's card was for meeting the Fuzhou Governor; a county magistrate was not of sufficient rank.

After meeting the county magistrate, regardless of whether the relevant parties in the County Yamen were willing or not, this counted as formally filing a case. Then the Chief Clerk, specifically Responsible For the county's public order, and the Fast Squad, Responsible For apprehending criminals, would Have To mobilize.