allonlinenovel Chapter 305 Raid
Chapter 305 Raid
This person was one of the two guards who followed Zhou Sanniang's brother Zhou Chaogui's caravan all the way west.
The mission they received was clear and simple - to quietly follow the caravan, see what they were going to do, and where they would cause trouble in the end.
Cui Bianxu and Jiang Shangxian had the same idea, they both felt that the Zhou family was trying to cheat people out of money by doing a pig-killing scam!
According to the two people's speculation, even if the Zhou family wanted to do something, they would definitely be on their way back.
Given the general tendency of merchants to value profit, if something really went wrong, Zhou Chaogui would most likely start taking action only when he was closer to Chang'an.
In order to carry out this mission, the guards in Cui's mansion had a private fight, and only the winner could go on this mission.
The Tang Dynasty has a complete travel reimbursement system with good benefits for civil servants traveling on official business.
The upper class leads by example, and the lower class follows suit. Generally, when a clan sends their subordinates on business trips, they will not be stingy and will reimburse them in full and give them bonuses.
The mission sounded simple: following the caravan and observing the situation secretly. What a great job! From the beginning, both guards thought this would be an easy task—just riding a horse and hanging around. What a big deal.
And this errand was indeed as they had guessed at the beginning. Except for the time when the caravan was rushing along, it would stop to replenish supplies, rest and purchase goods every time it passed a big city.
The two of them could also take a break. Although they still had to keep an eye on people, they were just watching.
Who knew that something would happen after just four months!
You have to know that a caravan traveling for business is different from traveling to a certain destination. When the infrastructure is extremely backward and the safety level is low, the caravan can make money mainly by constantly buying and selling along the way.
After the Zhou family's caravan set out from Chang'an with the goods, they first arrived in Luoyang, and then took the Tongji Canal and quickly arrived at Shanyang (now Huai'an, Jiangsu) along the waterway. After stopping in Shanyang to purchase goods, they re-boarded the ship and disembarked in Guangling. The water route came to a temporary end.
Zhou Chaogui's caravan continued to purchase in Jiangdu, Yuhang, Jian'an, Yuzhang and other places. After completing this round of purchases, they returned by water and disembarked in Luoyang, ending their water travel and embarking on the more risky route of the Hexi Corridor.
When they were in the south, everything was safe and the speed was fast, so they became a little lax.
As we all know, there is a law in work - when you relax, things will go wrong.
Just when they were about to reach Guazhou, something unexpected happened.
That day the caravan camped in the wild, so the two of them let the horses go and let them find food on their own, and each of them found a tree to rest under.
They don't really like sleeping in trees. As the saying goes, the higher you stand, the farther you can see. It's just that the location is convenient for hiding and observing the situation.
The place where the accident happened was almost at the intersection of Longyou Road, Shancheng and Western Regions. Since it was still within the Great Wall, they had nothing to worry about.
The two of them even thought about whether they should go and pay a visit to the Zhao family of Dunhuang since they were already here.
After all, it is Jiulang's maternal grandparents' home! Although the Zhao family has rarely sent people to the Cui family in recent years, after all, the surname of my wife is Zhao, right?
There are so many guards in the mansion. As subordinates, they have to consider the master's interests in order to have a chance to leave an impression in the master's mind, right?
Who knew that something would happen at the beginning of the Yin hour that day!
Since there were only two of them, they took turns resting in the first and second half of the night. Originally, they wanted to keep an eye on Zhou Chaogui and his group to see if they were doing anything, but unexpectedly, they noticed a little movement in the caravan.
The noise was not loud, and the fire was already dim by that time. At first, the guards on duty did not really see a figure moving quietly, and thought it was someone from the caravan getting up for the night.
In order to maintain secrecy, the two sides maintained a distance of about twenty feet between them. The guards at night did not stare at these people without blinking. In addition, many people in the caravan got up at night every night, so the guards did not realize that something was wrong.
What made him realize what was happening was that in the faint light of the fire, a stream of liquid in the shape of an arc quickly rose and fell. There were already birds, beasts and insects chirping in the forest, and at this distance, he could not hear many sounds.
But experience told him that this should be human blood.
This discovery instantly dispelled his sleepiness, and he threw the stone in his hand accurately into the slightly open mouth of his sleeping companion.
They all discovered it, and naturally the caravan also discovered it. Soon, heart-wrenching screams, the crisp buzzing sound of cold weapons colliding, the piercing sound of sharp blades piercing clothes and flesh, and warm blood splattering everywhere were heard.
As long as a wound larger than the width of a little finger appears on a person's body, blood will spurt high in an instant, and the amount of blood spurted out is definitely not more than imagined.
Neither of the two guards had any intention of going down to help. Their mission was only to follow and monitor, not to provide escort.
As a traveling merchant, Zhou Chaogui naturally hired someone from the escort agency to escort his convoy. Regardless of whether this night attack was true or false, they would not move as long as this place was not completely quiet.
Fortunately, the people who came moved quickly, and the fight stopped in just a stick of incense. There were nine people in the night attack. They all looked like martial artists, but their behavior looked a bit like bandits.
After killing the people, they immediately counted the goods brought by the caravan, searching the bodies of the people on the ground one by one. In the end, they spent more than half an hour just to collect the property...
By the time this group of people had finished moving all the belongings of the Zhou family caravan, it was already dawn and the people in the caravan had long since died.
This was the reason why Cui Bianxu frowned - he was a little unsure, was it a real robbery or was it Zhou Chaogui who staged it himself?
If this was a self-directed performance, wouldn't it be too early to start? According to the geographical location of the day, the journey westward had just begun at this location.
Of course, this doesn't rule out the possibility that Zhou Chaogui is a beast who doesn't value human life, but the question is, if he wants to make money, shouldn't he make a lot of money before killing people? If he starts trouble so early, wouldn't it be a waste of money?
Besides, this Chamber of Commerce belongs to him. Even if he wants to cause trouble and embezzle his neighbors' money, there is no need for so many of his men to die, right?
Traveling merchants are different from regular store employees. They not only need to know what local specialties are produced in different places, what local people like most, and which products can be sold at the highest prices in different places.
Therefore, it is not an easy task to train a few experienced traders.
Cui Bianxu asked himself, if he was asked to send his guards to death for a little money, he would not be able to do it.
The reason why he was hesitant was that the letter said that Zhou Chaoyang's body had not been found.