The Great Qin Empire---Qin Li

Hearing Hei Fu's confident words, as if he had a plan, Li Xian raised his eyebrows: "It seems that the pavilion chief has already made a decision, and I would like to hear the details!"

Hei Fu saw that he was dissatisfied, so he said: "If we blindly search all over the mountains and plains, it will be like looking for a needle in a haystack, and it is impossible to find it."

"But if we define the scope of the person who wrote the letter and when he committed the crime, wouldn't it be easier to find it?"

Hei Fu's three years in the police academy in his previous life were not in vain. He did learn some criminal investigation methods. The current matter cannot be blindly guessed, but must be defined by the "Seven Whys" in criminal investigation.

The so-called Seven Whys are seven questions: when, where, by whom, based on what purpose, using what tools, to what target, and what consequences? They are referred to as the "Seven Whys" of criminal cases.

So first of all, he has to determine the time and place of the crime.

Heifu stood up, came to Ji Ying, patted his shoulder and said: "Ji Ying, you said you went to three villages today? Which ones are they?"

Ji Ying counted on his fingers and said: "I went to Xiaoqingli in the east first, then ran to Pinghuli in the west, and finally arrived at Chaoyangli in the south..."

"After you delivered the official documents sent from the township to Pinghuli, how many letters were left in the backpack?"

Ji Ying thought for a while: "One is a document written by Tian Zuoli in the township to Tian Dian in Chaoyangli."

"When was the last time you opened the backpack?"

"When I took this official document to Tian Dian in Chaoyangli..."

"There was no letter in the backpack at that time?"

Ji Ying shook his head and said: "No."

"Did you open the backpack again after that?"

"No, until I returned to the pavilion..."

The more Ji Ying spoke, the more certain Hei Fu was. He said, "Now it's clear. This anonymous letter must have been quietly dropped in after Ji Ying delivered the last official document to Tian Dian in Chaoyangli until he returned to the pavilion."

Everyone nodded. It could only be this.

Hei Fu began to interrogate Ji Ying again: "How long did you stay in Chaoyangli after delivering the official document? Where did you go? Who did you talk to? After leaving Chaoyangli, where did you rest? Did you put the backpack aside? Who did you meet on the way? Did you have any contact?"

Ji Ying answered one by one. After finishing his official business, he went to a person he knew in Chaoyangli and sat at his house for a while, drank some water, and chatted for a while. During this period, the neighbor of that family gave birth to a fat boy, and Ji Ying followed him to join in the fun. There were many people in the neighbor's house who came to congratulate him. At that time, people were coming and going, and the scene was very chaotic. Ji Ying suddenly had a stomachache, and he put down his backpack and went to the toilet...

After that, he stood at the gate of Chaoyangli and chatted for a few words. Several hunters came back from inside and outside and stopped to greet him...

What made Hei Fu relieved was that Ji Ying confirmed again and again that after he left Chaoyangli, he did not stop to rest, and his backpack never left his body. Although he met people on the road, he did not talk, but just passed by in a hurry...

"Unless there is really someone who can secretly put the letter into the covered backpack a few steps away in the middle of the road when Ji Ying was walking fast."

"Otherwise, there is only one conclusion!"

Hei Fu said firmly: "The person who sent the letter can only be inside Chaoyangli!"

"Yes!" Ji Ying clapped his hands: "When I was in Chaoyangli, I did feel that there was movement behind me, but I didn't pay attention to it at that time. Maybe someone sent an anonymous letter at that time!"

In this way, the time and place of the letter writer's crime were basically determined. Heifu looked at the other people and asked: "Second and third sons, do you have any objections?"

"The pavilion chief is really amazing!"

Dongmen Bao, Yuliang, Xiaotao's eyes were full of admiration, and Pu Zhang also nodded in praise.

Even Li Xian, who had just raised the question, had to admit: "The pavilion chief's thoughts are meticulous, and his words are like the county's magistrate's judgment..."

Dongmen Bao laughed immediately and said: "Heifu is a person who answered all 20 legal questions correctly! Even if he is a magistrate, it is enough!" He heard this when he returned to the county for a rest. Others did not live in the county, so they didn't know it yet.

"All 20 questions were correct... I didn't expect the pavilion chief to be so amazing." At this moment, Li Xian was stunned and also respected Heifu.

"It's all luck, luck."

Hei Fu smiled modestly. It would be bragging to say that he, a graduate of the police academy, had much ability to solve cases, but he had seen a lot of case files, which also trained his thinking logic.

Alas, he had no chance to be a people's policeman, and could only live out his addiction in this ancient police station.

It just so happened that this anonymous letter came at the right time, which was a chance for him to show his skills. If he succeeded, he would not only get a reward, accumulate his "achievements" as a pavilion chief, and pave the way for future promotion, but also make everyone in the pavilion convinced and obey his orders...

Of course, in addition to this, there was another difficult reason.

For someone like him with obsessive-compulsive disorder, it was intolerable to receive a letter but not open it... He had to catch the writer anyway, and then open the letter in front of him to see what it was.

Thinking of this, Hei Fu restrained his smile and said solemnly:

"The time and place of the crime have been determined. The person who sent the letter is likely to be from Chaoyangli and is still in the village! Tomorrow morning, I will take my two or three friends to Chaoyangli for a walk and take a look. I must make the person who sent the letter show his true colors!"

...

Early the next morning, Hei Fu divided the people in the pavilion into three groups: asking the thief Dongmen Bao and the pavilion guard Yu Liang to escort the scholar Wu Mao who had been locked up in the pavilion for a night to the township; Xiao Tao and the pavilion father Pu Zhang stayed in the pavilion; he went out with Ji Ying and Li Xian and walked to Chaoyangli in the south...

As the saying goes: It's not cold when it snows, but it's cold when the snow melts. Today is actually a sunny day. The snow that covered Anlu County yesterday has melted for the most part, making the surroundings particularly cold. As soon as he went out, Heifu took a breath of cool air into his lungs. The weather was cold and wet, and Ji Ying shivered with cold...

"Once the snow melts, the road to Chaoyangli will be even more difficult to walk. You have to go around a hill from Tudao and walk a few miles along the path. You will definitely be covered in mud..."

According to Ji Ying, it would be almost noon when they arrived at Chaoyangli.

So the three of them quickened their pace. After walking for half an hour, they finally got out of the road. They sat on a big rock at the fork in the road to rest for a while and eat something. Qin State did not allow civil servants to eat at the homes of the people in the village, and they killed chickens and ducks. When the senior officials were on business trips, they could eat public grain in the pavilions. Small officials like Heifu could only bring their own dry food.

"Let's have some dried fish and rice cakes for breakfast." Heifu brought some specialties from Sunset when he came. During the La Festival, Zhong taught the neighbors how to pound rice cakes. Many families pounded rice cakes and gave a lot to their family.

Li Xian took the food and thanked him, while Ji Ying chewed his food unceremoniously and muttered, "Brother Heifu, there is still one thing I don't understand."

Heifu nodded: "Go ahead."

Ji Ying said: "Although you are sure that the person who sent the letter is most likely from Chaoyangli, Chaoyangli is a large village with seventy households and nearly four hundred people. There were no less than twenty or thirty people who had contact with me yesterday and had the opportunity to send letters. How can I find the person who sent the letter from so many people?"

Heifu did not answer first, but looked at Li Xian and said, "What do you think, Li Xian? How should I narrow the search scope?"

Li Xian looked at Heifu's expression and knew that he was deliberately testing him, so he swallowed the food and said, "I took a good look at the letter yesterday. The wooden tablets used were short and the edges were not very neat. They were different from the two standard long and short bamboo tablets used by the government to write official documents. It should be made by himself. In addition, he can write and seal letters, which is not something that ordinary soldiers can do..."

He thought for a moment and added, "By the way, I smelled it, the material of the wooden tablet should be yellow pear wood."

"Yes!"

Heifu clapped his hands and said, "Being able to carve wooden tablets, write letters, and know how to seal letters, this is no ordinary common people. Even if he is not a small official in the village, he must be able to read and write... In this way, there are fewer people we need to find."

Although Qin State uses law as a teaching and officials as teachers, it is considered to have a higher literacy rate among the seven countries, but it is just a tall man among short people.

For example, in Xiyang, where Heifu's family lives, there are more than 50 households and 300 people, but only 20 to 30 people can read, mainly the officials in the village, and the children of the seven or eight households with titles. With a title, there is a certain amount of land and financial resources, and there are people to help with work, so that the children can take some time to learn to read and know the laws and regulations.

The 10% literacy rate in Xiyangli is already very high in the village, and this is because there is a retired official in the village, Mr. Lu Ying, who has taught many people. The same is true in the next door Bianli, where Yan Zheng's family has taught many villagers to read.

In other villages, a literacy rate of 5% is very good.

In this way, the number of people that Heifu and his team need to check has been reduced to single digits. The person who sent the letter should also know that this kind of thing is illegal, but he still has a fluke. When he made a move, he must not let others see it, so it should be sent by himself.

Heifu can even guess the place where the person committed the crime: it must be when Ji Ying was not very prepared and there was no one around...

You know, criminal investigation is a process of tracing back to the past from the aftermath, discovering the cause from the result, and discovering the suspect from the event. Its reasoning mode is retrospective, and its method is the hypothesis verification and elimination method that constantly approaches the truth.

The only thing left by the writer was a wooden tablet. If it were an amateur, he might be confused and have no idea where to start. However, Hei Fu was able to infer many facts from this thing.

But this is not enough. The difficulty of criminal investigation lies in how to discover the internal connection of things from the complicated appearances, and how to separate the true from the false, and the coarse from the fine from the fragmented and difficult to distinguish clues.

So on the way, Hei Fu began to ask Ji Ying in detail who the people who had contacted him in Chaoyangli yesterday were, when and where they were.

Ji Ying is also a genius. He is originally from this village. He likes to make friends on weekdays, so he knows a lot of people. After becoming a postman, he frequently travels between villages, and he gets to know even more people. Most of the people he had contacted yesterday could be called by name. Even if he couldn't remember the name, he could still recall whose relatives and family members they were, and he could always find them by following the clues.

"That's great!" Hei Fu was very surprised. If he could confirm those names, his plan could be implemented.

"When we get to Chaoyangli, we will pretend that nothing happened, just that the new head of the pavilion took office and came for routine inspection."

He instructed the two of them, "Let's go and ask the village gate first if there were people from other villages here yesterday. Then go to visit the head of the village and find out how many people in the village can read and write!"

"What if this was done by the village official?" Li Xian suddenly asked.

Hei Fu pondered for a moment: "Then when we ask, he will reveal his true colors, and then you can do this and that..."

Ji Ying clapped his hands and praised Hei Fu's plan when he heard it, and Li Xian was also amazed and thought it was feasible.

As they were talking, the path came to an end and was cut off by a low wall. Between the dense mountains and forests, a quiet village with curling smoke appeared in front of them...

Chaoyangli, here we are!

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