The Great Qin Empire---Qin Li

"What Zuo Bingcaoshi said is exactly what I am worried about..."

Li You deeply agreed with Heifu's advice, because when it comes to using spies, their family is one of the best.

More than ten years ago, when his father Li Si first entered Xianyang, he first became a retainer of Wenxin Hou Lu Buwei, and then served as a "Lang", that is, the king's attendant. In addition to Langwei, there are also Yilang, Zhonglang, Shilang, Langzhong and many other types. Li Si served as Yilang, mainly following the king for consultation.

It was in this position that Li Si was able to get a glimpse of the Qin King's temperament, cater to his preferences, and lobby with the words of "urgently annexing the six countries", showing his talent for the first time.

So the King of Qin was overjoyed, thinking that he had found a talent that matched his own wishes, and appointed him as the Prime Minister's Chief Clerk, and asked Li Si to personally preside over the matter, and sent counselors with gold and jade to lobby the princes. If the princes and celebrities could be bribed with money, they would be given generous gifts to make friends, and if they could not be bribed, they would be stabbed with a sharp sword! At the same time, they were also responsible for alienating the rulers and ministers of the six countries, and when their government was corrupted, they would be attacked by good generals and armies.

Later generations used this incident to make up the spy agency "Black Ice Platform".

So now that the Chu State sent an assassin to assassinate the county governor Teng, it was actually just a repetition of what the Qin State and the princes had often done in the past hundreds of years, and there was nothing new.

Li You had heard his father talk about this. After working for a few years, he was promoted to a guest official. His future was bright. Until the tenth year of Qin Wangzheng, he encountered a major crisis...

That year was really eventful. First, Prime Minister Lu Buwei was implicated in the Lao Ai case and was dismissed. At the same time, under the investigation of counselors and spies led by Li Si, the plan of Zheng Guo, a Korean, to lobby Qin to repair the canals was exposed! According to Qin law, Zheng Guo should be put to death. The King of Qin also developed a sense of distrust of the scholars of the six countries under the lobbying of his relatives, so he expelled the guests!

Li Si, a native of Shangcai, Chu, was also among those expelled. However, unlike other guest officials who were ready to leave Qin with their heads down, he regarded this crisis as an opportunity. An article "Remonstrance to Expel Guests" made the King of Qin change his mind and began to promote Li Si further. At the same time, Li Si also became the benefactor and leader of the scholars of the six states in Qin at that time, and from then on he rose rapidly and became a member of the court...

By the way, Li Si also brought his family to Xianyang, and the Li family began to completely abandon their past identities and become loyal ministers of the King of Qin.

That year, there was a man from Daliang, Wei State, who arrived in Qin State at about the same time as Li You and his companions...

Wei Liao was a military strategist, belonging to the branch of "military strategists". He improved the strategy that Li Si had proposed to use spies in the six countries, destroy their alliances, recruit their talents, and alienate their monarchs and ministers, and further proposed to the King of Qin:

"With the strength of Qin, the princes of the six countries are like the rulers of counties. However, I am afraid that the princes will unite again and attack Qin together by surprise. This is why Zhi Bo, Fu Chai, and King Min died. I hope the king will not be greedy for money and bribe their powerful ministers to disrupt their plans. If you only spend 300,000 gold, all the princes can be killed!"

Paying 300,000 taels of gold to get the world is even more cost-effective than Lu Buwei's deal, so the King of Qin instructed Li Si and Wei Liao to jointly preside over this matter and cultivate spies in the six countries.

What is an "internal spy"? Sun Tzu's Art of War says: "Internal spies are used according to their officials." It refers to buying off the enemy's dignitaries and officials as spies, or using them to collect intelligence, or urging them to surrender.

Since "internal spies" are mainly the enemy's "officials", these people often have core secrets, have a deeper understanding of the enemy's politics and military, and even hold certain military command rights. Once used by us, they will cause great, even fatal harm to the enemy!

Guo Kai of Zhao and Hou Sheng of Qi were both internal spies of Qin. Guo Kai helped Qin get rid of its biggest threat, Li Mu, while Qi Xiang Hou Sheng made King Jian of Qi pursue isolationism when Qin attacked Han and Wei and swept across Yan and Zhao. While the fighting was going on outside, Qi was like an ostrich, burying its head deep in the sand, chanting: "As long as I don't resist Qin, the King of Qin will not destroy me..."

Under the auspices of Wei Liao and Li Si, Qin's spies spread throughout the six countries and tasted the sweetness of this strategy. So when Hei Fu said that Chu might have left a lot of spies in Nanjun, Li You, the son of the former Qin spy chief, immediately became alert.

Li You would never believe that there were spies in other counties and prefectures, because he had great confidence in Qin's legal system, but Nanjun was an exception.

As the former inner capital of Chu, Nanjun is still called "Western Chu" by some people today, and the folk language, culture and customs are consistent with those in Huaibei.

What's more terrible is that in addition to the three senior officials, the magistrate, the lieutenant, and the chancellor, there are many former Chu nobles in the counties and prefectures. After surrendering to the Qin State, these people turned into Qin officials and held the real power of each Cao and township. Although after two or three generations, they have regarded themselves as Qin people and taught by Qin laws, it can be seen from what happened during the Shangsi Festival that Chu Ci and Qu Fu are popular among local scholars, and the doctors regard wearing Chu-style high crowns as an honor. Many people even miss the old Chu and think that those were the good times for the nobles!

"The lower officials also think so."

Heifu continued to instigate: "Last year, Qin was defeated by Chu. Those who did not know the general situation might have ulterior motives and accepted bribes from the Chu people to become their spies..."

In this way, Li You, who had been influenced by his father and knew the harm of spies, finally made up his mind: "Zei Cao Yuan, you and the prison Cao will continue to investigate the assassination case thoroughly. You must follow the clues and pull out the spies behind the scenes!"

Then Li You looked at Heifu again: "If those spies rely on their guests and clansmen to resist, Zuo Bing Cao Yuan, you will lead the county soldiers to wipe them out!"

...

Zei Cao is responsible for thieves, similar to the Provincial Public Security Bureau in later generations. Tang Qian is the father of Tang Jue, who was dumped on the spot by the woman in yellow at the Shangsi Festival blind date meeting. Tang Jue has now joined the medical and emergency rescue team and is considered Hei Fu's subordinate, so Tang Qian has some friendship with him. After leaving the county lieutenant's mansion, he complained to Hei Fu:

"Left Military Officer, it's not easy to catch this spy."

Tang Qian has his own difficulties. Now, most of the chief and subordinate officials of the various departments in the county are descendants of the scholars and officials of the Chu State. The connections and accumulation left by the family are not easy to eliminate. It is rare for someone like Hei Fu, who is born in the common people, to be a spy.

So Tang Qian thought that if the spy was pursued on a large scale, it would cause new unrest. At that time, the officials of the various departments in Jiangling City would be in danger, and the local clans would also be uneasy. Wouldn't the order of Nanjun be in chaos?

Hei Fu's real purpose was not to "pursue the spy". Anyway, once the Chu State was destroyed, everything would be fine. The original spies had to be content to be Qin officials until more than ten years later, when a new storm and fire broke out at the end of the Qin Dynasty. They had a chance to show up again...

So Hei Fu comforted Tang Qian and said, "Most officials are of course good officials of Qin, but there is a small group of spies who have their eyes on Chu. Didn't the county lieutenant just say that while handling the assassination case, we can follow the clues and secretly investigate, and don't make a big fuss and alert the enemy."

At this time, Hei Fu saw that there was no one around, so he lowered his voice and said, "But I have a clue here, which may be useful to the thief Cao Yuan..."

Tang Qian was a little surprised: "Oh? What did Zuo Bingcao Shi find?"

Hei Fu smiled and said, "It has nothing to do with the case in Jiangling, it's about my hometown Anlu. I suspect that there is also a spies in Anlu County! He has been secretly communicating with Chu!"

Tang Qian was overjoyed. He urgently needed results that he could report to Li You, so he urged, "Please ask Zuo Bingcao Shi to tell us in detail."

"This clue involves a key witness, the Duke of Hu Dou Ran of Chu who was captured last year. He once mentioned that there was an old official of the Ruo'ao clan in Anlu County who had correspondence with him, but he didn't say who it was! Now I think that person is probably a spy in Chu who has been leaking the truth about Anlu to Chu."

"There is such a thing!" Tang Qian was a little surprised and asked, "Where is Dou Ran now?"

Hei Fu said, "Two months ago, I asked the prison officer to send a letter to Nanyang County to transfer Dou Ran to Nan County for a thorough investigation. Just today, after I left the county governor's mansion, I went to the prison officer again and found that Dou Ran had been taken away and imprisoned in the county prison, ready for interrogation tomorrow! I will then serve as a witness, confront Dou Ran, and force him to tell the name of the spy! Once it is confirmed, I hope the thief officer can help me arrest him!"