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 freely and are about to fade away.
The green color contrasts with the whiteness of the reed flowers, creating a vast Jiangnan autumn color.
At noon, 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 robbed.
The bandits were killed!
As soon as the news came out, the whole city was shocked. Especially the wealthy salt merchants immediately sent people to hire gangs to beat everyone. The servants at home also distributed swords, guns and sticks, and raised the security level of their houses to the highest level. At the same time, each family
They also sent people to the county government to find out what kind of gangsters dared to attack the salt merchants.
In the Ermeixuan Teahouse next to Yuanmen Bridge, a group of regular tea-goers were smoking cigarettes and talking to each other.
"Have you heard about the Wang family?"
"My mother! There were more than fifty people in the family, except for the children, women, family members and maids, all of them died."
"Alas! I don't know who Mr. Wang has offended? Why did such a big disaster happen? The Wang family is finished!"
A tea guest accidentally saw Jia Wang immersed in eating by the window, so he turned around and asked: "Jia Er, you are in the skinny horse business, you run 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 are doing our own thing."
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 is this Jia Er's business?"
"He? What a 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 take a wealthy businessman from Haizhou to choose a concubine this afternoon. Before the second quarter 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, they went to the north of the city together.
Benyi left the door.
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 courtyard through the crack in the door and could only see a person's feet on the ground in the courtyard.
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. Jia Wang felt something was wrong and was about to go find Li Zheng nearby. The wealthy businessman in the carriage became impatient and opened the curtain.
He 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 cried out: "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 he sniffed hard a few times, but couldn't smell anything. "No?"
"My family used to be a butcher of 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 suddenly he was excited. He turned around and looked around. There were many people walking in the streets and alleys just after noon, and several people passing by saw him. Jia Wang was helpless and lamented.
With a sound, he turned around and headed towards the Ganquan County government office.
At the same time, in Wang's house, as soon as he entered the front hall of the main entrance, a mat shed had been set up, and a row of corpses covered with white cloth were placed in the shed, waiting for the relatives to collect the corpses after they were inspected. As for those who were caring for the hospital,
The body, if the family is not local, can only be sent to Yizhuang outside the city first.
Two detectives were sitting outside the concierge, questioning several nearby residents; a clerk next to him was responsible for taking notes, and Li Zheng was also standing beside him.
"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 lying 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
Let's see what happened on the street. We 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 can't even remember it, even though 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 past the door 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 shorts are also the same color as that hat. Oops!"
The catcher angrily kicked the man on the calf, knocking him staggering. "Idiot! What a bullshit hat, that's a fucking mask!"
"Ah! Yes, yes. The villain is short-sighted and took that as a hat."
The policeman asked: "Where did those three people go after they went out?"
The man rubbed his calf and recalled, "It seems he was heading west."
The middle-aged woman on the side retorted: "No! I saw it too, they were heading east."
The policeman slammed the table angrily and asked, "Damn it! Which way did you go?!"
The man quickly bowed and said, "It's the east. 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! That's almost ten feet high?" When the two policemen heard this, they wondered, are they talking about human beings? The Yangzhou city wall is only one to 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 and pointed at the man.
"It was too dark, so I couldn't see clearly. But there are always three people who are eight feet tall."
Another detective asked: "Did the three of them take anything in their hands when they came out of the yard?"
"It looks like I got it. But it's not big in shape. It's just that big." The man gestured with his hands for a long time. When the two detectives took a look, they saw that it was a curved object a little longer than a palm.
"They didn't carry any baggage or anything?"
"No. Really not." The woman and the man replied at the same time.
In later experimental psychology research, in order to obtain effective information from eyewitnesses, investigators must guide and inspire the eyewitnesses' memories through verbal communication so that the eyewitnesses can 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 when witnesses describe the information afterwards, they will not only be affected by their memory, but also by the reasoning process and the hints received by the narrator.
Self-confidence, obedience to authority, group influence and many other influences.
It is easy for witnesses to use habits and imagination to speculate on the facts, rather than using words to fully express what they saw and heard. Description is not only a memory recall process, but also involves the communication behavior itself; the former is used to answer "
"What did I see?" and the latter is used to answer "What should I say?". From the perspective of the motivation for describing the content, the main determining factors are memory effect, subjective consciousness and communication strategy.
For example, light, touch, hearing, vision, distance, angle, orientation, and the purpose of the witness's observation will all affect the final description. Everyone has different points of interest in things, and the effect of observation will also be very different. Many observers
On the surface, he looks very active and positive, but on the inside, he is hesitant and worried.
Ordinary people generally adopt the mentality of "one thing is worse than one thing less", and have an attitude of avoidance or boredom towards the communication activity itself. Because they are worried about getting angry, it will often affect the final description result.
As for the Qing Dynasty in the 18th century, the subject of experimental psychology didn't even have a shadow. How much could two policemen who were 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 of them couldn't help but feel embarrassed.
According to the oral accounts of the female members of the Wang family, the gold and 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 eldest master wants you to come over quickly."
"What?!"
"The Chen family who raised thin horses 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 compound 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 thin horses; it is said that there are as many as sixteen thin horses in the family.
.
Now all the people in the city who kept thin horses were panicking, fearing that robbers would visit their homes. So many people took their money and the thin horses and fled by boat to Suzhou, Zhenjiang and Jiangning that day. After one night, the entire Yangzhou
It is already "hard to find a thin horse" inside and outside; even people like Jia Wang and Chen Yapo have 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 found the copper-coated lead-core bullets that killed the victims at the scene. After comparison, it was found that the sizes of the projectiles were basically the same. Faced with this
Using a "musket" projectile that had never been 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 Ganquan County magistrate breathed a sigh of relief when he heard that someone was finally taking the blame!
After nightfall, the entire city of Yangzhou, including the city walls, was brightly lit with lights. County government officials, policemen, agents, and guards hired by various salt merchants patrolled around the city with lanterns all night near the salt merchants' houses.
Until dawn.
On the morning of the next day, Mr. Xing from Ganquan County went to Mr. Xing from Jiangdu County with evidence of "musket" pellets. When they compared the two, the two Shaoxing people were shocked. The three cases were actually committed by the same group of people.
Yes, this is obviously a big case! I don’t know how many people will fall into disgrace, 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 magistrate of Yangzhou couldn't sit still after hearing the news. Three major cases occurred one after another overnight, which will surely shock Jiangnan and even the government and the public! Next year will be the Emperor's Wanshou Festival, and the richest man in Jiangnan will appear on the Fangjie Festival.
If such a big matter affects the donations of Yangzhou salt merchants, I might not be able to protect my fortune.
So the magistrate severely rebuked the two county magistrates of Jiangdu and Ganquan, and gave them a strict deadline of ten days to solve the case and catch the murderer. That night, both Jiangsu Governor's Yamen and Liangjiang Governor's Yamen received the report from Yangzhou Prefecture. But this was
At that time, Sa Zai, the governor of Liangjiang, was busy controlling floods in Pizhou and Suqian, and could not take care of the criminal cases in these places.
On the morning of the third day, Suzhou, Jiangsu Governor’s Yamen.
After reading the urgent report from the Yangzhou government, a staff member under Min Eyuan who was responsible for handling official documents and reports from various places dug out the urgent report he received yesterday from the Jiangnan Water and Land Admiral's Yamen. The two reports were placed together.
On the table, lying on one side, was the exhibit sent by Jiangnan Admiral's Yamen, a deformed bullet; 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, finally made up his mind, and found Min Eyuan with two letters and evidence.
"Dong Weng, there are two urgent reports here."
"Oh? Where is it?" Min Eyuan raised his head from the desk, wearing a pair of spectacles on his face, and asked with a serious face. This man is famous for his literature, and he is also good at running prisons and cleaning up.
The governor of Jiangsu, who is known for his backlog of cases, has turned fifty this year.
The staff first talked about the Clippers incident reported by Admiral Jiangnan. After the shocked Min Eyuan read the report, he then 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 Jiangnan Admiral's report clearly stated that the patrol
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 fetch Fu Biao's Qian Zong. After a meal, Qian Zong, 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 tip and explained: "The muskets in Biaoxia camp are made of one-cent iron; even the muskets used by the Eight Banners are 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 suddenly slapped his palm on the bill 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 the Jiangnan Admiral's Yamen to inquire about the search situation on the coastal waters!"