novelAbuy Chapter 063: Preliminary Preparations
Chapter 063: Preliminary Preparations
November 23, Zhenjiang.
The reeds in Jiaoshan Reed Marsh have turned yellow and withered. When the river wind blows, the reed flowers fall like snowflakes all over the water.
Li Bao sat in the cabin with a bowl of untouched wine in front of him. Jin Bao stood in front of him, clutching a roll of wax paper that had just been delivered from Lin'an.
"News about Sister Keqing." Jinbao unfolded the wax paper. "No unauthorized movement is allowed before the winter solstice. All water activities are suspended, and all personnel and supplies are moved to the fishing village for cover."
There was another sentence: "The Empress Dowager had already reserved words of prayer for loyal ministers during the Winter Solstice Heaven-worshiping ceremony."
Li Bao took the wax paper and burned it near the oil lamp.
He watched as the wax paper curled, turned black, and turned to ash between his rough fingers, then looked up at the river.
The river surface was a hazy gray in winter.
"Pass this down: all six teams from Jiaoshan are to disperse into the fishing village. As usual, they are not allowed to gather together."
All the boats on the water were brought ashore, and their equipment was kept by the fishermen. Only one boat remained at Jiaoshan Ferry, disguised as a fishing boat.
Li Bao paused for a moment, then said, "Have the brothers prepare a meal and invite Jinbao to celebrate the New Year alone."
Jinbao opened his mouth, as if to say, "It's not New Year's yet."
But she didn't say it aloud; she just nodded and turned to leave the cabin, her eyes already red.
She knew the subtext of Li Bao's words was that the old men of Jiaoshan might have to continue to squat in the cold wind this year, but being able to have a meal together in the quiet moments before the battle and look at each brother's face one last time was enough.
At the same time, Manager Wang of Xiuzhou received instructions from Qin Keqing from Lin'an.
The instruction consisted of only one line: "With the winter solstice as the dividing line, all material transportation in Xiuzhou will be suspended for one month. Tea shops will remain open as usual, and members of the imperial clan should not be contacted for the time being. All matters will be subject to news from Lin'an."
After burning the instruction, Manager Wang turned to a new page in the tea shop's ledger and wrote down the date and content of the instruction in a code that only he could recognize.
This was a set of accounting codes he had figured out himself. Qin Keqing had taught him, but he said he couldn't learn those intricate secret codes and charcoal writing.
He couldn't suddenly add pages to the ledger listing tea varieties and quantities that he hadn't actually bought, so he used his own clumsy method.
The number of pages, the number of lines, the weight of tea—every single number matched the actual accounts, but behind each number lay a layer of meaning that only he himself understood.
Qin Keqing examined it once and said, "It's too easy to crack."
Shopkeeper Wang grinned: "Miss Qin, Qin Hui's men are trained in investigation, while I'm trained in bookkeeping. If he wants to break my records, he'll have to learn how to sell tea for half his life first."
......
November 28th, Xiangyang.
Yue Yinping stood on the drill ground of the old camp in Xiangyang, where four hundred veterans were divided into four rows.
In December, Xiangyang gets cold earlier than Zhenjiang, and a layer of white frost forms on the withered grass by the drill ground.
The veterans' feet were covered in frost, and the white breath they exhaled blended into a continuous expanse in the morning light.
Yue Yinping held in her hand the secret letter from Zhenjiang to Lin'an, which contained only eight characters: "Winter Solstice Sacrifice to Heaven, Loyal Ministers Pray for Blessings."
She read the contents of the letter aloud to the four hundred veterans, word by word.
After she finished reading, she drew her plain wooden spear and drew a line on the frozen ground with the tip of the spear.
"From now until the winter solstice, Xiangyang will not move a single soldier, but everyone must be prepared to break camp at any time."
Li Bao has already sunk his boat into the fishing village in Zhenjiang. We in Xiangyang must follow his example, polish our armor, sharpen our guns, and then wait—wait for the bugle call from Lin'an.
"Young lady," a veteran in the front row spoke, his voice hoarse, "will the bugle sound?"
Yue Yinping planted the gun in the ground and turned to look at the old soldier.
The old soldier's beard was already white, and his face was covered in scars.
"Yes, back in Yancheng, my father said, 'Let's march straight to Huanglong!' Everyone thought we'd reach Huanglongfu immediately. Later, my father died, and those words faded into obscurity, but I'll say them to you again today—"
Her voice choked for a moment, but quickly regained its strength.
"—Strike straight at the heart of the enemy. Not for the sake of Huanglong Prefecture, but to let my father's spirit in heaven see that the flag of the Yue Family Army has not yet fallen."
None of the four hundred veterans spoke, but they all stood up a little straighter without prior arrangement.
......
On the first day of the twelfth lunar month, Lin'an officially entered winter.
Preparations for the Winter Solstice Ceremony have entered the final stage. The colorful pavilion in front of the Imperial Ancestral Temple has been erected, and the sacrificial vessels on the altar are being checked one by one by the Court of Imperial Sacrifices.
That evening, Qin Keqing went to Xihefang alone.
She didn't go as a laundry worker, but instead changed into an inconspicuous blue cloth dress and pretended to be a woman looking for a prescription.
But her hair was still wrapped in an indigo cloth, with a bamboo hairpin inserted inside, the end of which was slightly sticking out.
The small tavern in Xihefang is called "Ji'an Wine Shop". It is a tiny shop with only four tables.
When Qin Keqing pushed open the door, Yuwen Xu was sitting at the innermost table, with a pot of yellow wine in front of him, pouring and drinking by himself.
Dr. Louke, who was fifty-two years old, looked older than his actual age. He had thinning hair, sunken eyes, long and thin fingers, and dark stains that could not be washed off from years of contact with ink embedded in his fingernails.
He was wearing an old, faded official robe with frayed cuffs, which seemed to have been deliberately left unrepaired.
Qin Keqing sat down opposite him. This gesture would be inappropriate for most women, but Yuwen Xu looked up at her without any surprise, and simply picked up the wine pot and poured her a cup as well.
"This young lady has been following me for almost half a month." He pushed his wine glass towards me, his voice hoarse. "You've been everywhere—in Xihefang, Jiantiantai, even the back alleys of taverns. Tell me, which family are you from?"
Qin Keqing did not touch the wine cup. She took out the chipped copper coin from her sleeve and placed it on the table.
When Yuwen Xu looked down and saw the copper coin, his hand holding the cup froze in mid-air.
He put down his wine cup, picked up the copper coin, examined it closely by the oil lamp, and then put it back on the table.
"I haven't seen this thing for many years. That old monk Zhijia used to use this broken copper coin as a token when he was delivering messages for Yue Fei at the Observatory."
After he died, this old man thought this thing was extinct. He raised his eyes to look at Qin Keqing, his gaze suddenly becoming clear, no longer like that of a down-on-his-luck old drunkard: "You are his woman."
"Zhijia is my master."
Yuwen Xu remained silent for a long time, then lowered his head to finish the remaining half of his wine. When he looked up again, he steered the conversation directly to the line that Qin Keqing most wanted to know.
"In the tenth year of Shaoxing, a great fire burned down two entire streets in Lin'an. Qin Hui claimed it was a fire from heaven, but in reality, he set the fire himself in order to take advantage of the chaos to burn several boxes of old documents that the Privy Council had used to impeach him for colluding with the Jin envoy."
At the time, I was on night duty at the observation tower, and I was the first to ring the bell to report the fire.
"If we had been even half a cup of tea later, the Imperial Ancestral Temple would have been on fire." His voice suddenly lowered, so low that Qin Keqing had to lean forward slightly to hear him.
"For the next twelve years, I stayed there and didn't leave, because I was afraid that one day Qin Hui would set fire again. This time, it wouldn't be the old documents that were burned, but the witnesses."
Qin Keqing looked at him, not in a hurry to ask questions, and let Yuwen Xu finish speaking.
"Then the Empress Dowager was coming back, and then you came." Yuwen Xu said this with a cryptic laugh, "The person this old man has been waiting for for more than ten years has finally come."
"Mr. Yuwen, I have no official position, nor do I have the funds to hire you. I've come to you to ask you something: Can the fire alarm bells of the Observatory be used to transmit something faster than a fire alarm?"
Yuwen Xu paused for a moment, then slowly twirled the empty wine glass in his hand.
Then he picked up his wine glass and put it down again, dipped his finger in the wine, and drew a simple diagram on the table.
A single dot represents the main frame of the bronze bell on the Observatory, and five lines extend from here to various parts of the city.
This simplified map matches the information Qin Keqing obtained from her assistant, but it includes a short and forceful pause on the route in the southern suburbs.
"The bell wires for the copper bells were readily available, running from the Imperial Observatory all the way to the abandoned watchtower east of the old camp in the southern suburbs, and also to the west wall of Deshou Palace."
By simply adding a double-layered bell to the bell frame, the visible layer could be used to sound the fire alarm, while the hidden layer could be used to transmit a secret signal. This would allow all thirteen watchtowers in the city to relay a coded message from the east to the south within the time it takes to drink a cup of tea.
Yuwen Xu paused here, looked up and stared directly at Qin Keqing, "But this old man wants to see someone. I will not hand over anything until I see him with my own eyes."
He knew what his conditions meant.
The fact that a 52-year-old clepsydra doctor wanted to meet a 16-year-old Prince Puan, a descendant of Emperor Taizu, was enough for the Imperial City Guard to file a case.
But he calmly added, "If you ask him to come in person, or bring the old man along, he won't refuse."