spy

Chapter 28: The Spy

The two arrowheads look exactly the same, but if you look closely you can see some subtle differences. The arrowhead of the broken arrow uses fewer iron impurities and is sharper, while the arrowhead of the long arrow is obviously much rougher, and the craftsmanship of the two is quite different.

The former is more like the craftsmen of Daxia deliberately concealing their shortcomings, while the latter is the craftsmanship level of Mongolia.

"Eleven confirmed that someone drugged the defecation area during the march and attracted the wolves. Did your men notice anything unusual?"

"The guards didn't find anything unusual. If they did, they would definitely report it." Xue Zhan and Qin Feng had not received any reports from their subordinates.

"Does the guard keep an eye on everyone, or does he or she turn sideways to avoid them?"

"Only generals above the rank of a thousand households would turn sideways and not look, but would use their peripheral vision to confirm that the person is there." Xue Zhan thought for a moment and replied.

"Then it makes sense. We'll set off for Youzhou tomorrow. Xue Zhan, you should secretly send people to visit all the blacksmith shops in Youzhou. Don't alert anyone and find out who made this arrow." Chu Huaibei was certain that the person who drugged and shot the arrow was the same person. Any coincidence that happens more than twice in this world is intentional.

"Yes, I will obey your orders."

"Qin Feng, you should take a rest. There are some things we can do when we return to Youzhou." After Chu Huaibei finished speaking, he went out and returned to his military tent.

Lying in bed, Chu Huaibei mentally reviewed the patrols of the past few years, carefully analyzing them for any useful information. "Hmph, he's always so pretentious, I really thought he was a coward. But that didn't make sense. If the Zhenbei Army fell, the Mongol army could march straight to Fengjing, and those pampered young men in the Fengjing Imperial Guard wouldn't be able to stop them."

In the original novel, five years later, the King of Zhenbei died in battle. When the news reached Fengjing, the emperor took his men to Jianye overnight, directly abandoning the northern border and the Zhongzhou area, and living by the Huai River.

Wait, she wants to see who wants to collaborate with the enemy and sell out the country.

The next day, the patrol army set out to return to Youzhou. Some of the seriously injured soldiers had already fallen into a coma and had a high fever due to lack of medicine. Chu Huaibei led the troops to march at the fastest speed that the wounded could bear.

Three days later, they returned to Youzhou. As soon as they entered the camp, they asked the military doctor to give priority to treating the seriously injured and unconscious people. Chu Huaibei had already asked Xiao Feng to send the distilled alcohol in the mansion to the military camp in advance.

In the military doctor's tent, more than a dozen military doctors were listening carefully to the principles of using alcohol and precautions. They were told that alcohol should never be drunk directly, and should not be allowed near fire. The former could lead to death, and the latter could cause a fire.

In order to prevent some people from smelling the wine and drinking it secretly, Chu Huaibei simply forbade anyone to drink it, and scared them that they would die if they drank it. This was not really a scare, as drinking too much high-concentration alcohol could indeed kill people.

The military doctor quickly treated the seriously injured person, cleaning the wound where necessary and wiping the wound with alcohol. The prince said this was called disinfection. Even though the person was still in a coma, the severe pain made the muscles at the wound site twitch constantly. Well, the prince said it hurt a little, it seemed to be very painful...

The medicine boys are using handkerchiefs dipped in alcohol to wipe the bodies of people with high fever, including the forehead, neck, armpits, palms of the hands and soles of the feet, to help reduce the fever.

Seeing that the military doctor's tent was working in an orderly manner, Chu Huaibei felt relieved. She took a small bottle of alcohol and went to the deputy general's tent to ask him to disinfect the wound. She saw that after so many days, there was still blood on the white cloth of the wound when the deputy general was riding a horse. It should be a little inflamed.

Lifting the door curtain, he happened to see the deputy general preparing to apply the golden wound medicine, "Wait, disinfect it with alcohol first, then apply the golden wound medicine."

The deputy general looked up at Chu Huaibei. He had heard that the military doctor's tent contained alcohol sent by the prince for the seriously injured soldiers. Thinking of his own skin wound, he decided not to go. With so many injured people, there might not be enough.

Seeing that the deputy general was looking at her without saying anything, Chu Huaibei ignored him and directly tore off a small piece of clean cotton cloth on the table, pulled out the stopper of the pot and poured alcohol on his wound. The deputy general was injured in his right upper arm, and was cut at an angle. The wound was not very deep, but it looked abnormally red and swollen. Tsk, the Mongolian army's knives were not clean, and I don't know what kind of dirty things they were stained with.

The moment the alcohol splashed onto the wound, the deputy general's voice trembled: "Your Majesty!!"

"Oh, it does hurt a little, just bear with it. I'll open your wound a little and rinse it." After saying that, he had already started to separate the wound with force, poured alcohol and rinsed it slowly until bright blood flowed out of the wound. He stopped, soaked the white cloth with alcohol, wiped the wound, and then snatched the deputy general's left hand holding the golden wound medicine, sprinkled the golden wound medicine, and bandaged him with white cloth.

"I'll have someone send you a small jar of alcohol later. Take it home and wipe the wound with it before changing the dressing. It will heal faster this way." Chu Huaibei patted his wound gently and said with a smile.

The deputy general was sweating profusely in the middle of winter, his jaw tightening as the muscles at the corners of his mouth vibrated constantly. He felt like his back teeth were about to break. After a long pause, he gritted his teeth and said, "Your Highness, I think this is no different from rubbing salt into a wound."

"How could I abuse you? You also found that your wound was red and swollen. It was because of the dirt on the Mongolian saber that remained on your wound. I was seriously disinfecting it for you." Chu Huaibei felt wronged. She was really kind-hearted, but she was not a medical student, so her method was a little rough.

"Then I thank Your Highness for your kindness." The deputy general looked unhappy.

Chu Huaibei fled tactically: "You have a good rest, I have something else to do, so I'm leaving first~" After that, he stood up and walked away like a gust of wind.

The deputy general stared at the swaying door curtain, raised his hand to touch the wound that had just been bandaged, retracted his gaze, lowered his head to place a light kiss on the cloth, then retracted the smile on his lips, and carefully thought about the people and things on the patrol road. He was determined to find this spy who dared to attack the prince again and again. He deserved to die.

After Chu Huaibei left the room, she thought for a moment and realized that there was another injured person who needed her attention. She turned around and went back to the military doctor's tent to get a small pot of alcohol, and then went to Eleven's tent.

When he entered the room, he found Eleven lying on the bed in a daze, so he called out to wake him up: "Eleven, I got some alcohol, let me see your wound."

When Eleven saw Chu Huaibei, he wanted to get out of bed and salute, but Chu Huaibei quickly stopped him with a gesture. Well, the Hu family has so many rules...

"Your Highness, I can do it myself." Seeing Chu Huaibei ready to reach out and untie the straps for him, Eleven hurried to do it himself. He didn't dare to let the prince untie it for him, it was too scary.

Eleven untied the bandages, and Chu Huaibei took a closer look. The wound was in much better condition than Qin Feng's. Riding a horse inevitably pulled the muscles of the shoulder armor, and it was still a little red and swollen. "It's a little painful, just bear with it." After saying that, he pressed the wound with one hand and poured alcohol down with the other. Eleven's chest muscles were trembling with pain, and he couldn't help but think that he didn't seem to have offended the prince.

Chu Huaibei wiped the blood from the wound, took out the golden medicine and poured it on Eleven, then bandaged the wound himself. "Eleven, come back to the palace with me tonight. I'll take care of things. I'll leave the golden medicine for you. There's plenty of alcohol in the palace, so you don't need to take it with you."

"Thank you, Your Highness!" Eleven clasped his fists in thanks, tears streaming down his face. It turned out that the favor from the Prince was not something that ordinary people could accept.

Chu Huaibei returned to her tent and met with the two captains and ten squadron leaders of her personal guards. Although they had already passed the information to her during the patrol, she still wanted to hear their report in person, perhaps she could dig out some more details.

The three generals who stayed behind hadn't exchanged letters with anyone during her patrol, nor had they left the barracks to return home, so the guards didn't notice anything unusual. Chu Huaibei didn't get any useful information, so he waved them off and told them to continue watching over the barracks.

Chu Huaibei held his forehead and pondered for a while, then called Xue Zhan over.

"Xue Zhan, the prefect has a list of all the blacksmith shops in Youzhou, which contains records of craftsmen and apprentices. You can retrieve the files and check them one by one according to the list. I want to see who customized the arrowheads." Chu Huaibei decided to start with the arrowheads.

"Yes, I understand!" Xue Zhan took the order and went out to arrange the secret investigation.

That night, Chu Huaibei brought Shiyi back to the palace and arranged for him to live with Jin San and the others. He confessed to Huzhi that he had injured his guard. Sun Mingsi hugged her and simply said it was okay, not to feel guilty. Shiyi had done a good job, and he would reward him. His safe return was the most important thing.

It was New Year's Eve when Chu Huaibei came back. This year everyone celebrated the New Year together happily and arranged the duties of the palace soldiers. Chu Huaibei allowed everyone to drink some wine when they were not on duty and rewarded the palace soldiers with three jars of fine wine.

In fact, the palace soldiers had long been intoxicated by the aroma of wine wafting from the yard all day long. They all wondered when the prince would reward them with some fine wine, but they didn't expect that happiness would come so quickly.

Chu Huaibei sent several jars of fine wine to the deputy general and Xue Zhan's homes, and also gave a small jar of alcohol. This was given after they were used up, because alcohol would evaporate quickly if not stored properly.

Unlike Xue Zhan, who would make arrangements for his mother whenever he received anything from the palace, Qin Feng's first reaction when he received the wine was to drink half a jar himself. Unfortunately, he was caught by his elder brother, who used the excuse of his arm injury to take the entire jar of wine to his father's yard.

Once the wine reached General Qin's courtyard, it couldn't leave. Only a small pot was served to each table at the New Year's banquet, and each person only had two glasses of wine in a small glass. Furious, Qin Feng would run to the palace whenever he had nothing to do, but unfortunately, he could only satisfy his craving. Chu Huaibei had issued a decree prohibiting injured people from drinking more than three glasses of wine, and the wine on the table was limited.

After a rare and lively New Year, shops on the street began to open for business on the tenth day of the first lunar month. Xue Zhan ordered his men to disguise themselves and search each blacksmith shop one by one. However, they found no information.

Xue Zhan figured that since the arrowhead was simple, the old blacksmith didn't need to do it, and his apprentice could do it too. He ordered his men to carefully investigate which shop had an apprentice who had been away for an extended period of time. They finally found a blacksmith shop in the north of the city that specialized in making tools for hunters. The apprentice had left two months ago and hadn't been back since, leaving the old blacksmith fuming for half a month.

Following this line, he found the young apprentice's home, but he was not there. Not wanting to alert others, he began to search the empty houses. Forging iron requires a place, a furnace, and tools.

Finally, the dead apprentice was found in an empty farm on the southern outskirts of the city. A furnace and a complete set of smelting tools were built on the farm. The apprentice had been lying on the ground and had been dead for at least a month. No arrowhead was found in the farm, but perhaps because they left in a hurry, they did not destroy the mold.

Xue Zhan did not touch any place here and told his men to go back, telling them not to worry about this matter anymore.