After a night of drizzle, Yangzhou City ushered in another sunny day.
In the autumn of Jiangnan, the vegetation withers slowly, and in the humid air, the color of the sky appears a little pale. The dense reeds on both sides of the canal guard the canal like guards. At this time, the reed leaves are swaying the fading green without hesitation, setting off the whiteness of the reed flowers, creating a vast Jiangnan autumn color.
By noon, a piece of earth-shattering news quickly spread throughout the streets and alleys of Yangzhou City. The house of Mr. Wang, a salt merchant, was robbed last night. Except for a few female relatives and maids who survived, even Mr. Wang himself was killed by the robbers!
As soon as the news came out, the whole city was shocked. In particular, the rich salt merchants immediately sent people to hire gangs and beat everyone. The servants at home also distributed swords, guns and sticks, raising the security level of their houses to the highest level. At the same time, each family also sent people to the county government to inquire about the information, which gangster dared to attack the salt merchant.
In the Ermeixuan Teahouse next to Yuanmen Bridge, a group of regular tea-goers were smoking dry cigarettes and talking to each other.
"Have you heard about the Wang family?"
"My mother! There are more than fifty people in the family, except for the children, women, family members and maids, all of them are dead."
"Alas! I don't know who Mr. Wang has offended? Why did such a big disaster happen? The Wang family is finished!"
A tea patron accidentally saw Jia Wang immersed in eating by the window, so he turned around and asked: "Jia Er, you are a skinny horse business, running out every day, have you heard anything?"
Jia Wang put down his chopsticks with satisfaction, picked up the bowl and drank the noodle soup. He wiped his lips and said, "Who am I? Who is Mr. Wang? We are like turtles who eat their own food - we have to make our own way."
After he finished speaking, he stood up and threw the two elders on the table. He cupped his hands to a few familiar tea guests and said, "We still have business in the afternoon. I'll say goodbye." After that, he strode out of the teahouse.
Seeing him walking away, a new tea guest asked his tablemate: "What's this Jia Er's business?"
"Him? Bullshit business! This guy is just a guy with sores on his head and pus on the soles of his feet, looking for buyers for skinny horses!"
Jia Wang made an appointment with Chen Songyuan yesterday afternoon to bring a wealthy businessman from Haizhou to choose a concubine this afternoon. Before the second day of the lunar month, Jia Wang arrived at the inn in the south of the city, called a carriage, and after the wealthy businessman came out, the two of them headed to the north of the city outside Bianyi Gate.
When he arrived at the door of Chen Songyuan's house, he got out of the car first as usual and patted the courtyard door. Unexpectedly, no one answered for a long time. Jia Wang looked into the yard through the crack in the door and could only see a person's feet on the ground in the yard.
He patted a few more times, but no one in the yard responded, and the feet in the crack of the door didn't move either. Jia Wang felt something was wrong and was about to find Li Zheng nearby. The wealthy businessman in the carriage became impatient, opened the curtain and urged: "Jia Er, are you a good person? How long do you have to wait for me?"
Suddenly, the wealthy businessman's expression changed. He sucked hard through his nose a few times and shouted, "Something's wrong!"
Jia Wang smiled apologetically and said, "Sir, what's wrong? This old Chen is not like this on weekdays..."
The wealthy businessman glared and cursed: "Fuck you, this yard smells of blood!"
"What?" Jia Wang was stunned and sniffed a few times, but he didn't smell anything. "No?"
"My family used to butcher pigs. Something has definitely happened to the Chen family. You should report it to the official immediately." After saying that, he patted the coachman in front of him on the shoulder. "Let's go back to the inn!"
Jia Wang looked at the carriage driving away and was suddenly shocked. He turned around and looked around. There were many pedestrians walking in the streets just after noon, and several people passing by saw him. Jia Wang had no choice but to sigh, turned around and headed towards the Ganquan County government office.
At the same time, in Wang's house, a mat tent had been set up in front of the front hall as soon as he entered the main entrance. A row of corpses covered with white cloth were placed in the shed, waiting for inspection before being transported to Yizhuang outside the city.
Two detectives were sitting outside the concierge, questioning several surrounding residents; a book office next to them was responsible for taking notes, and Li Zheng was also standing aside.
"I heard that you saw three people coming out of Wang's house?" a middle-aged police officer shouted to a man.
The man turned pale with fright at the corpses on the ground in the courtyard, and replied tremblingly: "The villain lives across the door. In the early morning, the dog started barking, which woke up the villain. The villain walked to the door of the courtyard and thought Look what happened on the street. I happened to see three people coming out of Wang's house."
"Wait a minute, what time was it when you saw those three people?"
"I don't even remember. But it was still dark at that time."
"It seems to be Yin Zheng. When the dog barked, the watchman on the street behind had just knocked on the wooden clapper." A woman in her thirties next to her interjected.
"That's right! It's Yin Zheng."
"Go on."
"Those three people just walked in front of the young man's house. I didn't notice anything at the time, but the clothes of those three people were very strange."
"Oh?" The two detectives looked at each other and asked, "What's weird?"
"Mr. Xu, there are many merchants traveling from the south to the north of Yangzhou City, but I have never seen them dressed like that. They wear strange dark hats on their heads, which even cover their faces. He has two eyes. His short clothes are also the same color as that hat. Oops!"
The catcher angrily kicked the man on the calf, causing him to stumble. "Idiot! What a bullshit hat, that's a fucking mask!"
"Ah! Yes, yes. The villain is short-sighted and takes that as a hat."
The detective asked: "Where did the three people go after they went out?"
The man rubbed his calf and recalled, "It seems like he was heading west."
The middle-aged woman on the side retorted: "No! I saw it too, they were heading east."
The catcher slapped the table angrily and asked, "Damn! Which way did you go?!"
The man quickly bowed and said, "It's the east side. I remembered it."
Going east, that is the direction of Bianyimen or Dongmenmen.
"Well, let's talk about the figures of those three people."
The middle-aged woman suddenly interjected: "My mother! I heard that the book said "eight feet tall" before. I always thought it was bragging, but it turned out that I really ran into it. One of them was almost nine feet tall. He is as tall as a foot and as strong as a bear!"
"What?! Nine feet! Then it can't be three feet tall?" When the two detectives heard this, they asked, are they talking about human beings? The Yangzhou city wall is only one foot and five feet high.
If Zhao Xin were here, he would immediately hug the middle-aged woman and kiss her fiercely. What a great assist!
"Say it!" the policeman interrupted the woman's silence and pointed at the man.
"It was too dark, so I couldn't see clearly. But there are always those three people who are eight feet tall."
Another detective asked: "Did the three of them take anything with them when they came out of the yard?"
"It seems to have been taken. But the shape is not big, just that big..." The man gestured with his hands for a long time, and the two detectives took a look and saw that it was a curved object a little longer than a palm.
"They didn't carry any baggage or anything?"
"No. Not really." The woman and the man replied at the same time.
In later experimental psychology research, in order to obtain effective information from eyewitnesses, investigators used verbal communication to guide and inspire the eyewitnesses' memories; in order to allow the eyewitnesses to provide maximum clues related to the suspect, And express it completely and accurately.
However, the clues provided by witnesses at many crime scenes are often full of errors. The reason is that the information described by eyewitnesses after the fact will not only be affected by memory, but also by the reasoning process, the hints received by the narrator, self-confidence, obedience to authority, group influence, etc.
It is easy for eyewitnesses to use habits and imagination to speculate on the facts, rather than fully expressing what they saw and heard in words. Description is not only a memory recall process, but also involves the communication behavior itself; the former is used to answer "what I saw", and the latter is used to answer "what should I say". From the perspective of motivation for describing content, the main determining factors are memory effect, subjective awareness and communication strategies.
For example, light, touch, hearing, vision, distance, angle, orientation, and the purpose of the witness' observation will all affect the final description. Everyone has different interests in things, and the results of observation will also be very different. Many observers appear to be proactive and positive on the surface, but on the inside they are hesitant and worried.
Ordinary people generally adopt the mentality of "doing more is worse than doing less", and have an attitude of avoidance or boredom towards communication activities themselves. The fear of getting angry often affects the final description.
As for the Qing Dynasty in the eighteenth century, the discipline of experimental psychology did not even have a shadow. How much can two police officers who are proficient in writing know?
At this time, they heard that several witnesses insisted that they did not see the three people carrying the baggage out of Wang's house, and the two couldn't help but feel embarrassed.
According to the dictation of the women of the Wang family, the gold, silver, antiques, and even the wooden boxes and wooden shelves in the cellar of the inner house were gone, not to mention that Mr. Wang’s study was completely empty, so clean that even mice would not go there.
Where did all these things go? How did the murderer get out of Wang's house?
When the two were in trouble, a quickie suddenly ran in panting.
"Mr. Xu, no, it's not good! There's a big case at Yanyi Cang! The lord asks you to come over quickly."
"What?!"
"Chen, who raised thin horses, and the Chen family were all killed! More than 20 girls from his family are also missing!"
"Ah!" Everyone present was stunned. What happened in Yangzhou that night? !
In the afternoon, as news spread that the Li Family Courtyard in Hedong District under the jurisdiction of Jiangdu County had been robbed, the entire city of Yangzhou was in shock. This is also a family that raises skinny horses; it is said that there are as many as sixteen skinny horses in the family.
Now the families in the city who kept thin horses were panicking, fearing that robbers would visit their homes. So many people took their money and thin horses and fled to Suzhou, Zhenjiang and Jiangning by boat that day. After one night, it was "hard to find a thin horse" in and around Yangzhou; even people like Jia Wang and Chen Yapo fled to relatives' homes in the countryside.
In the afternoon of that day, the two teams responsible for examining the victims of the Wang family robbery and the Chen family robbery each discovered the copper-coated lead-core bullets used to kill the victims at the scene. After comparison, it was found that the size of the projectiles was basically the same. Faced with this kind of "musket" projectile that they had never seen before, the Ganquan County Chronicle and the county magistrate determined that the Wang family robbery and the Chen family robbery were committed by the same group of people, and they could be handled together.
In the evening, news came from the Jiangdu County Government that copper-coated lead core projectiles were also found at the murder scene in the Li family compound. The magistrate of Ganquan County breathed a sigh of relief when he heard that he finally had someone to take the blame for!
After nightfall, the entire city of Yangzhou, including the city walls, was brightly lit with lights. County yamen servants, policemen, kuaishou, and guards hired by various salt merchants carried lanterns and patrolled around the salt merchants' houses in the city all night long. Until dawn.
On the morning of the next day, Master Xing from Ganquan County went to see Master Xing from Jiangdu County with the evidence of "musket" pellets. When they compared the two, the two Shaoxing people were stunned. The three cases were actually committed by the same group of people. This was obviously a huge case! I don’t know how many black hats will fall to the ground, and their lives will be at risk!
The two talked in detail and found that the soldiers in charge of guarding the city wall in Jiangdu County and people from Hedong District testified that a white speedboat ran along the canal toward the Shahe River on the night of the incident; the speed of the boat was said to be Surprisingly fast.
The next day, the prefect of Yangzhou couldn't sit still after hearing the news. Three major cases occurred one after another overnight, which is bound to shock Jiangnan and even the government and the public! Next year will be the Emperor's Wanshou Festival. Such a big thing happened to the richest man in the south of the Yangtze River on this festival. If it affects the Yangzhou salt merchant's donation, I may not be able to protect my black gauze hat.
So the magistrate ignored the two subordinates and ordered Jiangdu and Ganquan counties to solve the case and catch the murderer within ten days. That night, both the Jiangsu Governor's Yamen and the Liangjiang Governor's Yamen received reports sent by Yangzhou Prefecture. It's just that at this time, the governor of Liangjiang, Sa Zai, was busy controlling floods in Pizhou and Suqian, and he couldn't care about the criminal cases in these places.
On the morning of the third day, Suzhou, Jiangsu Governor’s Yamen.
After reading the urgent report from Yangzhou Prefecture, a staff member under Min Eyuan who was responsible for handling official documents from various places dug out the urgent report he received yesterday from the Jiangnan Water and Land Admiral's Yamen. The two submissions were placed on the table together. On one side was the exhibit sent by Jiangnan Admiral's Yamen, a deformed warhead; it was dug out from the bullet hole on the outside of the ship's plank.
The staff member looked back and forth for a long time, and finally made up his mind and found Min Eyuan with two letters and evidence.
"Dong Weng, there are two urgent reports here."
"Oh? Where are you from?" Min Eyuan raised his head from the desk, wearing a pair of spectacles on his face, and asked with a serious face. This governor of Jiangsu, who is famous for his literature, is also good at prison management, and is known for clearing up the backlog of cases. He is already over fifty this year.
The staff first talked about the Clippers incident reported by Admiral Jiangnan, and after Min Eyuan, who looked shocked, read the report, he explained the case in Yangzhou.
"What do you think?" Min Eyuan leaned forward and asked.
"My subordinates believe that this group of thieves first committed a crime in Yangzhou and robbed the Wang family, the Chen family and the Li family. Then they took the white speedboat and sailed out to sea. The report from the Jiangnan Admiral clearly stated that "Xunjiang" All the officers and soldiers saw a group of beautiful young women on the boat. I think they must be those skinny horses that were robbed."
Min Eyuan nodded, and then ordered someone to find Mr. Qian, Fu Biao's firearm. After a meal, Mr. Qian Qian, who was sweating profusely, arrived panting.
"I've seen you, sir!"
"Get up. Come and see, have you ever seen this kind of gun?"
After Firearms Manager Qian took it from his staff, he looked at it for a long time and said in embarrassment: "Sir, this is different from my regulations on muskets and blunderbuss!"
"Oh? Tell me." Min Eyuan asked calmly.
Firearms Manager Qian pointed to the broken copper bullet point and explained: "The muskets in Biaoxia's camp are all made of one-cent iron; even the muskets used by the Eight Banners are all made of iron. I have never heard of it Who has ever made a gun out of copper covered with lead? The workmanship alone costs a lot of money."
After speaking, Mr. Qian Qian added in his mind: "This is too wasteful! Copper is so expensive!"
"Okay. Just step back."
"Pah!" Min Eyuan slapped the case with his palm and said angrily: "The world is bright and the world is peaceful and prosperous, how can we allow Xiaoxiao to jump off the beam?!"
"Pass on my Jun order to order all states and counties to strictly inspect people's firearms. If there are any violations, they will immediately seize and confiscate them. Then send someone to Jiangnan Admiral's Yamen to inquire about the search situation on the coastal waters!"
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