When Qiu Yizi saw the river gradually calm down, he remembered that although the people were rescued, the black-sailed boat had already sunk, but there were still many things to do.
So he quickly sent someone to call Liu Qing, the governor of Jiangnan Road, to take over all the defense of Yanziji Wharf, and asked him to continue to strengthen the defense of Jinling City Gate and not to take it lightly. He also paid for a restaurant near the river and lived there to deal with the aftermath.
In order to facilitate the salvage of the sunken wupeng boat, Qiu Yizi asked Liu Qing to mobilize the Jiangnan navy, temporarily blocked the Yanziji Wharf, and hired several old river workers and fishermen who were good at salvaging. After a lot of effort, they finally salvaged the sunken ship ashore after five days.
When Qiu Yizhi first boarded the ship, it was dimly lit in the awning and he could not see what was going on. Now he suddenly saw that there were 27 black lacquer jars in the ship, and he did not know what they were for. He opened them and saw that they were filled with gold. Each jar contained about 1,200 taels of gold, and 27 jars meant 38,000 taels of gold. Two thousand kilograms of heavy things were piled in the cabin, no wonder the ship sank so easily.
Qiu Yizhi looked at the pile of pure gold that was a little red, thinking that the pile of gold that Tianzun Sect Leader Wen Honghui carried with him could be exchanged for at least 300,000 taels of silver, which was almost one-tenth of the Han Dynasty's annual revenue. There were many people in the martial arts world who were greedy for money. If he took this money out to win people's hearts, who knows how much trouble he would cause.
In addition to the gold and silver treasures, Qiu Yizhi's black bladed sword from the Western Regions was also in the shipwreck. If it were an ordinary sword, it would have rusted and rotted after being soaked in the river water for so many days, but this sword seemed to be no different, still cutting iron like mud, and extremely sharp. Qiu Yizhi naturally had a different feeling when she found her belongings.
Following the black-sailed boat, several fishermen used fishing nets to pull out two bodies from the bottom of the river. One of them was a man in his thirties or forties, and the other was an old woman dressed in black. The two were dressed exactly like Wen Honghui and the "aunt", but they had been in the water for so long that their bodies turned blue and swollen, and they were unrecognizable.
However, the identities of these two people are very related, so Qiu Yizi had to ask Wen Lingjiao to identify them.
When Wen Lingjiao saw the man's body, she burst into tears and kept shouting, "Brother! Brother!" She almost fainted from crying.
When Qiu Yizi saw this, she felt relieved. However, when she saw Wen Lingjiao crying so sadly, and thought of the fact that she no longer had any relatives in the world and had become a lonely person, she felt sad again.
Qiu Yizi saw that Wen Lingjiao was getting more and more sad as she cried. At the end, she was almost choking and unable to breathe. Thinking that she would inevitably hurt her body by crying like this, she called He'er and asked her to help Wen Lingjiao up and go to the back to rest first.
He saw Yuchi Jiming staring at the corpse of the old woman in black, his eyes fixed on her, as if he was thinking about something. He managed to calm down and said to Yuchi Jiming, "Jiming, you were defeated by this old woman, but she drowned. I'm afraid you will never have a chance to take revenge in the future!"
Yuchi Jiming shook his head and said, "Her martial arts skills are too high. I am afraid that I will not be able to take revenge until I die of old age..."
Qiu Yizhi was stunned for a moment and said, "Hasn't Ji Ming always been confident in his kung fu? Why did he say such discouraging words today?"
Yuchi Jiming sighed for the first time: "Uncle, you don't know, this person is an old elder of my Yuchi family!"
Qiu Yizhi was so shocked that she could not speak. Then she heard Yuchi Jiming say faintly, "I heard about this from my father. It is said that there was an old lady in my Yuchi family who fell in love with a scholar when she was young. This scholar made great progress and passed the imperial examination and became an official. At that time, several ancestors of the Yuchi family strictly followed the family motto of 'not to have private contact with officials' and asked them to break off their relationship. But at this time, the old lady was already pregnant with the scholar, and the scholar refused to resign. The two sides forced the old lady to be fierce, and she killed and injured countless uncles, brothers, nephews and nieces of the same clan. The child in her belly also fell out during the fight. Later, I heard that the scholar had a prosperous career and became a high-ranking official of the second rank, but he died inexplicably in the lobby. The case has not been solved to this day. But everyone in the Yuchi family knows that the person who did it must be this old lady."
Yuchi Jiming heaved a sigh of relief: "Later, the Yuchi family sent people to look for her everywhere, but unfortunately, she was very skilled in martial arts and was very smart, and she seemed to have evaporated and disappeared from this world." Yuchi Jiming sighed deeply again, "She was dressed in black like this, I don't know if she was mourning for the dead clansman, the unfaithful scholar, or the innocent child!"
Qiu Yizhi felt a lump in her throat and her eyes became moist after hearing Yuchi Jiming's miserable story. She pretended that the wind in the river had hurt her eyes, and gently stroked them with her sleeve, saying, "Then how did you know that she was the elder of the Yuchi family?"
Yuchi Jiming lowered his head and never left the old woman's body. "I didn't recognize her. She told me her identity when she saw that I had the Yuchi family's martial arts skills. In fact, I have to call her old aunt. She also taught me a few martial arts skills and moves, which are enough for me to benefit from for the rest of my life..."
Qiu Yizi also sighed: "It seems that this old lady still sides with her family. Since Jiming is her junior, there is no need to report this matter to the court. Let Jiming come forward and I will pay for the proper burial of this old senior!"
Yuchi Jiming nodded: "In fact, her martial arts skills are much stronger than mine. If she wanted to kill me, I'm afraid I would be dead now. If she hadn't massaged my blood vessels before the ship sank, I might be the one lying here now..."
After hearing this, Qiu Yizi sighed by the river for a long time before returning to the house to rest.
No matter how strong the martial arts of the old lady of the Yuchi family is or how high her status in the martial arts world is, she is just a guard of the Tianzun Sect Leader, so naturally she can be dealt with privately without telling anyone. However, Wen Honghui is the most wanted criminal in the world, so even a dead body cannot be easily dealt with.
So Qiu Yizi had no choice but to find a dry cellar to place the half-rotten body in. He also discussed with Lin Shuhan and drafted a memorial, asking Wang Laowu to send it to the capital as soon as possible to ask the emperor and the prime minister how to deal with it.
A few days later, when Wang Laowu returned to Nanjing, he brought with him, in addition to an imperial edict, a sentry horse.
Qiu Yizhi knew Zhang Long, the leader of the army. He had led the guards in the Youyan Palace since he was in charge of the palace. Now he was the leader of the imperial guards and the most trusted confidant of the emperor. Today, the emperor Zheng Rong sent him here to deliver the imperial decree, which must mean that he took this matter very seriously. The imperial decree from Zheng Rong required Qiu Yizhi to immediately hand over Wen Honghui's body to Zhang Long, who would then send it to the capital Luoyang, where the coffin would be opened and the body would be mutilated at Caishikou. Finally, the head would be sent to the nine borders to serve as a warning to others.
Qiu Yizi actually didn't agree with this approach, but since it was the emperor's decree, he had nothing to say, so he ordered people to carry Wen Honghui's body out of the cellar.
The cellar was dry, cold and sheltered from the sun. Qiu Yizi also ordered people to sprinkle lime all over the cellar. As a result, Wen Honghui's body, which had lost its human form due to being soaked in water, gradually showed its outline. A careful inspection confirmed that the body looked like the "Shi Wei" that Wen Honghui had pretended to be.
Wen Lingjiao heard the news and came to pay her respects to her brother's remains. When she saw this scene, she burst into tears again.
Qiu Yizi persuaded Wen Lingjiao to leave after a long time. Then he ordered people to take out the coffin that had been prepared long ago, sprinkle lime and other things on it as usual, and after carefully embalming the body, he let Zhang Long escort her back to the capital.
At this point, a huge case in which a gangster kidnapped the imperial envoy ended with the leader of the Tianzun sect impersonating the imperial envoy.
The top criminal had actually been hiding his identity for more than ten years beside the emperor. If he had not been overconfident and tried to persuade the emperor's son Qiu Yizhi to rebel, it would have taken who knows how long it would take to find out his identity. If such a fact were made public, the court would not be able to save its face anyway, so it had to turn a blind eye and only say that Liu Qing, the governor of Jiangnan Road, was smart and capable, and he had captured the Tianzun sect bandits in one fell swoop. The leader of the Tianzun sect was sunk and drowned by the Jiangnan navy during his escape.
Since the court had such a statement, Liu Qing, who had made "great contributions", would naturally be promoted, and the lucrative post of the governor of Jiangnan Road could not be removed for a while. Therefore, Liu Qing was overjoyed, and not only prepared two large gifts for Qiu Yizhi and Lin Shuhan, but also entertained them for several days to express his gratitude.
Qiu Yizi was extremely annoyed by his disturbance, and thinking that there was really nothing to do in Jinling now, he did not even say goodbye and led more than 200 of his men back to Shanyin County.
Despite such a big commotion in Jinling, Shanyin County, nestled among the hills and mountains, did not react at all. It was still as peaceful and tranquil as a paradise.
These days, Qiu Yizhi has entrusted all the affairs of Shanyin County to Xu Rong. Although Xu Rong is an eyeliner planted by His Highness Zheng Xin, after Qiu Yizhi talked to him thoroughly, he was able to perform his duties faithfully and govern Shanyin County without locking the doors at night.
Qiu Yizi saw that there was nothing in the county that needed his help, and because Wen Lingjiao's brother had fallen seriously ill and needed rest after being buried at the bottom of the river, he did not often live in the government office. Instead, he took a fancy to the "Liaochen Palace" of the evil Taoist nun Miaozhen, and invited Lin Shuhan, Wu Ruofei, Yuchi Jiming and others to live there permanently.
Because Qiu Yizi opened up the trade route between Emperor Zhou Cijing and the great sea merchant Li Zhi, the two families always gave Qiu Yizi a commission of nearly ten thousand taels of silver every month. In addition to using the money to support the troops and pay their salaries, Qiu Yizi could still save two to three thousand taels of silver every month, which was really a tight budget.
Qiu Yi felt that the "Liaochen Palace" was too negative, so she paid someone to renovate the "Liaochen Palace" which no longer had an owner. In particular, she demolished several dark rooms where people had died, pushed down the wisteria trellis where the bodies were buried, and completely rebuilt the house where Miaozhen lay Buddhist lived. She also rearranged the entire garden according to Lin Shuhan and Wu Ruofei's suggestions. It took about two months to complete the whole thing.
During this period, Emperor Zheng Rong sent Qiu Yizi several imperial edicts. Some of them were to promote Qiu Yizi to the rank of marquis for his new achievements; some were to inform him of the successful negotiations with the Shogun of Japan, asking him to restrain the Japanese werewolf warriors and strictly prohibit them from crossing the sea to become pirates; and some were to seek his advice on closing one of the ports of Fuzhou and Guangzhou and opening another one in Jiangnan or Shandong.
Qiu Yizi stayed with Wen Lingjiao all day long, occasionally discussing interesting stories from ancient and modern times with Lin Shuhan, and running errands with Yuchi Jiming. He did not pay any attention to state affairs, and had no interest in promotion. He just discussed it briefly with Lin Shuhan, and then hastily handed in a memorial to get the matter over with.
In this way, time passes aimlessly yet as one wishes, like a river of spring water slowly flowing away... (To be continued)