"Master Cao, please come with me." The man carrying the lantern led the way.
Cao Guang led the people behind him and walked forward along the outer wall.
Cao Guang did not ask about the other party's name. The secret agents of the Intelligence Department had their own rules and never reported their names unless they left the place where the secret agents were stationed one day.
After walking about thirty steps, the man holding the lantern stopped and whispered: "Go up from here. Inside is an abandoned courtyard. No one has lived in it for a long time. Go out and walk north. It's a street away." The place where the mouth is is the gate of the village."
Cao Guang nodded, then turned around and said to the people behind him: "Go in and open the gate of the village from the inside. The rest of you will follow me to the gate of the village."
"Wait a minute." The man holding the lantern raised his hand to stop him.
"What's wrong?" Cao Guang looked over in confusion.
The man holding the lantern said: "There is a doorway at the gate of the village. There are two guards inside. Be careful when passing by."
The men who were about to climb up the wall nodded.
The outer wall of Zhuangzi is as high as one person. Two people in a group climbed up the wall as soon as they joined hands. A total of four people climbed over the wall and entered.
"Follow me, I'll take you to the village gate." The man with the lantern walked in front again to lead the way.
After walking about a hundred or so steps this time, they saw a village gate like a city gate tower appearing in front of everyone.
The man holding the lantern made a stop gesture, signaling everyone to stop.
Cao Guang made a crouching gesture behind him, and everyone slowly squatted down.
At this time, the man holding the lantern whispered: "With so many of us, it used to be easy to alert the guards inside. Let's wait here for a moment."
Cao Guang hooked his hand behind him. ,
Two strong young men walked up with their waists hunched over.
Cao Guang whispered: "You two, slowly approach the villa gate and greet the brothers inside. As soon as the villa gate opens, wave in this direction."
The two young and strong men nodded and quietly approached the village gate slowly and quietly.
Cao Guang stared in the direction of the village entrance without blinking.
After about a quarter of an hour, Mo saw a man at the entrance of the village waving in his direction.
Cao Guang knew that the person who had climbed over the wall before to enter Zhuangzi should have succeeded.
Without wasting any time, he waved to the people behind him and led them to the front of the village quickly and quietly.
The village door was opened at this time, and there were several young and strong men standing in the doorway.
In addition, there were two guards in worn-out cotton armor slumped on the ground, and there was a faint smell of blood in the air.
There was a large amount of dampness on the chests of the two guards, and the bayonets in the hands of the two Tiger Flag men were still stained with blood.
While the vast majority of Tiger Banner soldiers were still using Lumi muskets, Cao Guang and the men he brought with him were already equipped with the latest flintlock rifle muskets and bayonets.
The man holding the lantern tested the breathing of the two guards on the ground one by one to confirm that they were really dead, and then whispered: "I will not accompany Cao Da for the rest of the way. Zhuangzi's granary and stables It has been marked on the picture sent out last time, I believe Mr. Cao has already seen it."
Cao Guang nodded.
Before coming here again, he received a marked map about Zhuangzi from the Foreign Affairs Bureau. The houses and streets of Zhuangzi were clearly marked on it, and it could be said that it was clear at a glance.
The man holding the lantern continued: "There is usually only one groom at the stable, and there are more than a dozen horses. The granary is in the northeast corner, a street away from the stable. There are about a dozen guards guarding it. Before I come to pick you up, I I took a special look and found that all the guards in the granary were drunk and were sleeping like dead pigs. The remaining guards are all in the inner village. As long as you move fast enough, you will have already left by the time the inner village guards react. Zhuangzi."
"Aren't you going to act with us?" Cao Guang asked.
"No," said the man holding the lantern, "I still want to stay in the village. It will be easy for others to recognize me if I follow you."
Cao Guang nodded and stopped persuading.
After the man holding the lantern left, Cao Guang asked the man in civilian clothes beside him, "Is this man trustworthy?"
"Don't worry, he is a secret agent of the foreign affairs, and he is also a miserable man." The common man explained.
Someone from the Foreign Intelligence Agency proved that there was nothing wrong with this person, so Cao Guang said no more.
Cao Guang's team of more than 30 people was divided into two waves. One wave of people went to the stable, and the other wave of people led by him personally went to the granary.
Although the granary is in the outer village, it is also close to the inner village. From the village gate, you need to cross two streets to get to the granary.
Along the way, he had to pass by the doors of many people from other villages. Even if Cao Guang was extremely careful, he would inevitably disturb some people.
On the way to the granary, lights came from several houses, but they were all extinguished soon after.
Most of them were people who heard the commotion on the street and knew that a strongman was coming to Zhuangzi. They were worried about being retaliated and hurriedly put out the lights to avoid attracting the strongman.
For Cao Guang, it was difficult to completely hide his traces, especially when there were so many of them, so as long as these people did not go out of the house or made noise, he ignored them.
However, Cao Guang still sent two people to guard the gate of Neizhuang.
On the one hand, it is to keep an eye on the people in Neizhuang, and on the other hand, it is to prevent anyone from going to Neizhuang to deliver letters.
When I arrived at the granary, I saw ten guards sleeping soundly in a room.
It was already the middle of the night, and these guards were sleeping soundly. There were several empty wine jars and some empty dishes on the table, and the smell of alcohol in the room had not dissipated yet.
Cao Guang made a throat-cutting gesture to the people around him.
Several young and strong men quietly walked into the room, stood beside the guards, and slowly drew out the bayonets on their waists with their right hands.
As Cao Guang's gesture fell, everyone took action at the same time. Before the guards could react, they slit the throats of these guards with bayonets.
Everything went very smoothly, and the guards were eliminated without any resistance.
After doing all this, Cao Guang ordered: "Find more dry firewood, pile it around the grain stack, and spread all the fat you brought on it. Remember, be quick."
More than twenty young and strong men were busy.
Unfortunately, there isn't much dry firewood in the granary, most of it is hay and the like.
But it doesn't matter, everyone brought a lot of grease before they came, which can easily ignite.
"Damn it, burning so much food in one go is simply a sin. I have to have nightmares every day when I sleep at night."
In front of me are tall grain stacks, six in total, all filled with grain.
Cao Guang scolded: "Stop talking nonsense, how much money is this? Do you know how much money was burned in the fire our Tiger Flag set on the grassland? A total of 170,000 taels, what do you want to see the deputy director and the others?" I had nightmares sometimes.”
The strong young man next to him had his Adam's apple twitching.
With the return of Li Shuheng and others, the story of the burning of the warehouses on the grassland has spread throughout the Tiger Flag, and everyone knows that the business roads on the grassland were burned out by fire. 11
