That witness?

That witness was indeed a big problem, very big.

Huang Mengyu made a rough interrogation and learned that the man's name was Wang Peng, who was originally an employee of the Gao family, and he had been working in the Jinghua Kaiping Coal Mine less than half a year after the official establishment of the high-level and pragmatic Jinghua Kaiping Coal Mine until three months ago. Because this person is in a tough shape and does have a good strength, he was quickly selected into the Kaiping Coal Mine Mine Protection Team.

However, three months ago, he was fined 40 taels of silver by the mine for molesting the family members of a worker in the mine, and publicly apologized. Because he has signed the deed and pressed his fingerprint, there is no way to deny the fine of silver, and this guy is not verbose, and losing the silver on the spot is equivalent to him working for several months in vain.

However, he refused to apologize, and threatened, "Lao Tzu didn't her, and he didn't touch her, can he die if he molests a few words?" As a result, Gao Xiaozhuang, who went to inspect, was expelled immediately, and his whereabouts have been unknown since then.

According to his confession, Gao Xiaozhuang, the general office of the Kaiping Coal Mine in Jinghua, arranged the whole thing in advance, and Gao Xiaozhuang planned the whole thing in order to reasonably transfer Wang Peng from the mine.

As for what to do after the transfer, Wang Peng himself didn't know at first, he only knew that Gao Xiaozhuang told him, "There is a heavy responsibility entrusted to you".

As for what the important task was, he said that Gao Xiaozhuang did not tell him at the time, but only promised him that "after the deed is completed, if you return safely, you will be rewarded with 1,000 taels of silver, and if you are promoted to the foreman of the area, if you unfortunately die, you will be rewarded with 2,000 taels of silver, and if you are captured at home, as long as you keep your mouth shut, you will not be convicted, and after you return, you will still be promoted to the foreman of the area, and the reward will be increased to 2,000 taels." ”

When Huang Mengyu first heard this, he even felt that the reward was so generous, and he really had the demeanor of Gao Guan Zheng.

But if you think about it carefully, there is something wrong with Gao Pragmatic and rich, he dispatched more than 20 family members to kill Feng Bao at one time, and how much reward was clearly marked, he was crazy?

Huang Mengyu is not a person who stays in the palace all the year round and doesn't know the world, he stays in Datong all the year round, and he doesn't know a little "Jianghu affairs", who is worth a reward of tens of thousands of taels of silver? I'm afraid that even if he is a high pavilion elder, once he is on the bounty list of those people in the rivers and lakes, it will not be worth 10,000 taels of silver.

Because the people in the rivers and lakes kill people and ask for rewards, the price is never determined according to the identity of the target, but from the difficulty of killing him, the difficulty of escaping, and the size of the future trouble.

Feng Bao, as the commander of Dongchang, it stands to reason that it is difficult to kill, and the biggest problem is not that it is difficult to kill, but that it is more troublesome after killing.

First of all, he may not be able to escape on the spot, and secondly, even if he escapes at that time, he will have to face such a dangerous job as a long-term search and arrest by Dongchang, Jinyiwei, and even the military and yamen in various places, and I am afraid it is not easy to find someone to do it.

Unless these people are highly pragmatic and long-term dead soldiers, it is impossible for him to commit such a fool, and it is impossible for him to draw a few mine guards from his own family to do such a big deal.

However, Huang Mengyu's analysis was opposed by most of the big files in Dongchang, especially the previous head of Chu Zhiyuan Chu, who made it clear that Huang Factory's analysis was biased.

Chu Zhiyuan said, "Duke, our Dongchang is no better than other yamen, our code of conduct is that except for the emperor, we suspect anyone!" ”

After saying this imposing sentence, Chu Zhiyuan continued, "Besides, we Dongchang face any case, as long as the other party is suspected of being involved in the case, then we have to investigate to the end, we don't need to ask the other party why they did it, we just need to ask the other party if they can do it!" If you can, you're a suspect! ”

It's better to kill the wrong one than to let it go. Huang Mengyu is clear about this idea, and he also knows that it is not surprising that such a special institution as Dongchang has such an attitude.

But the problem is that he hasn't received news from Gao Pragmatic yet, and he doesn't know if this matter really involves Gao Pragmatic, if it does, he doesn't mean to act impartially, and he must have to think of a way to cover up the truth for Gao Pragmatic as soon as possible, so he can't follow the train of thought of this group of people in Dongchang, who knows how many of them are not Feng Bao's people?

Fortunately, Huang Mengyu didn't hesitate for long, and news came from outside, saying that the master of ceremonies Bingbi and the eunuch Chen Ju came with a group of pure troops.

Huang Mengyu breathed a sigh of relief, he knew that Chen Ju must not only come to help with Jingjun here, but also bring high pragmatic news, so he immediately announced a temporary adjournment and went to receive Chen Ju.

The so-called net army refers to an army composed of castrated people, which is a characteristic army of the Ming Dynasty.

The Ming Dynasty claims to rule the world with filial piety, and as the saying goes, "no filial piety is three, and no queen is great", so the Ming court has repeatedly ordered five times not to allow the people to castrate themselves. Most of the eunuchs used in the Ming court and the prince's mansion also came from young children captured in the war.

However, with the passage of time, some princes and ministers also used eunuchs privately in their homes, and some people even castrated themselves in order to live, and some even castrated themselves in order to enter the palace. However, these people are all illegal eunuchs, so after being discovered by the imperial court, most of them will be used in various garrisons.

Since these people were eunuchs, they were called "pure army". In addition, there is another source of the "clean army", that is, the eunuchs in the palace were demoted to the guard to serve as the "clean army" because they lost the trust of the emperor. For example, Shang Ming, the great eunuch in the Chenghua period, was demoted to the net army in Nanjing by the emperor because he sold his official beard and did everything.

Although there are pure armies everywhere, but the two capitals are the most, and the number of pure troops in the Beijing division varies in each period, and even as high as tens of thousands in many times, for example, the eight thousand female ghost Wei Gonggong once made a terrifying 40,000 pure army. However, the number of net troops in the Longqing Dynasty was relatively average, and the left and left of the Beijing division could add up to about 3,000, and they were not handed over to the Beijing camp for management, all of them were under the command of the Imperial Horse Supervisor.

Due to the particularity of the East Factory, although Chen Ju was also the chief eunuch of the Inner Court, he still stayed honestly outside the Yamen of the East Factory and waited until Huang Mengyu personally greeted him.

As soon as the two of them met, they didn't even have time to say a polite word, Chen Ju said loudly, "Governor Huangchang, our family is here to assist you in handling the case by the order of the queen, the order of the imperial concubine and the emperor's holy decree." Duke, our family has brought you three hundred pure troops, and in addition, we have also sent a net army to blockade the two cities in the north and south of the capital division, if the duke still needs anything, you can also say it directly, the two palaces and the emperor have explained that this matter must be investigated! ”

The oracle is also an edict, Huang Mengyu first received the order to thank him, and then took Chen Ju's hand, seemingly saying something grateful, but in fact, he hurriedly asked, "I said Lao Chen, what is the situation in this matter, does Gao Guanzheng have any words to bring over?" ”

Chen Ju replied quietly and quickly, "Gao Guanzheng said, he suspects that Feng Bao intends to plant false accusations, you can rest assured and boldly investigate, and you must investigate thoroughly." Then he suddenly raised his voice, "The two palaces and the emperor have said, if this matter cannot be handled by the Dongchang family, whether it is Jinyiwei or the three law divisions, you can assist the Huangchang Governor, the task on your shoulders is very heavy!" ”

Huang Mengyu also replied loudly, "Yes, yes, our family understands." Ask Duke Chen to play the two palaces and the emperor, and say that the ministers must do their best to solve the case as soon as possible! ”