Chapter 2947 Suspicion
Bai Shan received the news the next day, and Inspector Luo immediately sent someone back to the county town to report.
The new salt field was indeed very important. After receiving the news, he took a group of yamen runners to Dadawa.
They arrived in half a day. Inspector Luo and his men were at the checkpoint. When they saw County Magistrate Bai coming on horseback, they immediately waited by the roadside.
Bai Shan reined in his horse and saw two people lying on the side of the road. He frowned and jumped off his horse and asked, "What happened to them?"
Inspector Luo said hurriedly, "He was knocked unconscious yesterday and still has a headache today, so I asked them to rest on the side of the road."
Bai Shan went forward to see that the people lying on the grass were not asleep. When they noticed Bai Shan approaching, they tried to get up. Bai Shan held them down, squatted down, looked at their faces, and asked, "Where does it hurt?"
The two men touched the back of their necks and said, "I still feel a little dizzy."
Bai Shan frowned. Zhou Man said that if you don't chop someone's neck well, it will easily cause problems.
He said to Inspector Luo, "Send a few people to take them back to the county town and have them checked out at the hospital. These injuries could be serious or minor, so I hope nothing serious happens."
Inspector Luo was stunned for a moment before agreeing.
Bai Shan stood up, looked around, and asked, "Is this where people came in?"
"Yes, it's a good thing that Master Zhou met someone on the mountain. Otherwise, if they were knocked unconscious, we wouldn't have received any information. I'm afraid we wouldn't have been able to find them even if they had managed to get to the saltworks."
"Has he been caught?"
"No," Inspector Luo said, "We searched the mountains again after daybreak, but still couldn't find him."
This mountain is quite big, and it is connected to other mountains. With more than a hundred people, there will always be gaps. Moreover, they dare not transfer all the manpower to the mountain, as they must guard the salt field.
Bai Shan raised his head and glanced at the mountain beside him, and fell into deep thought.
County Magistrate Lu chose to locate the new salt field here for two reasons: firstly, brine had been dug out here, indicating that the salt output of seawater was not low; secondly, because this place was easy to defend but difficult to attack.
There is only one road left to enter Dajiawa. There are high mountains on both sides. The roads to other mountains are blocked. Maybe you can pass through the mountains, but not here.
Because the mountain facing this side is very steep and has many rocks, not to mention humans, even monkeys may not be able to climb up, so as long as a checkpoint is set up at the intersection, no one can slip in.
Inspector Luo not only set up a checkpoint at the intersection, but there were three checkpoints in total from here all the way to the new salt field.
However, they did not expect that the other side would send so many people at once. They knocked their people unconscious and slipped in. They slipped into the mountains without waiting for the next checkpoint, hoping to pass through the mountains to reach the salt field.
Inspector Luo admitted his mistake and said, "Sir, this is due to poor arrangements by this official and the negligence of my subordinates. This is why someone took advantage of the opportunity and slipped in."
Bai Shan nodded and said, "Fill the gap and let's go to the salt field."
Soon a car came and carried the two soldiers who were very dizzy onto the car and sent them back to the county town.
Bai Shan watched them go away and asked, "How many people did you release at each checkpoint?"
"There are five people at this intersection, and three people are guarding the other two." He felt that it was enough when he made the arrangements. First, he did not expect the other party to be so bold as to attack the soldiers; second, even if the other party wanted to investigate, they would not send too many people.
Inspector Luo regretted, "All five were hit, and there was no time to light the signal fire. The other three were fine, just a little sore neck and bruises, which will heal after rubbing. These two are more serious, dizzy and blurry, so..."
Bai Shan said he understood and that he didn't need to explain too much.
He first went to see the salt fields.
Zhou Liwei also didn't sleep all night. He had just come back from a patrol and was now dozing off against the wall.
Bai Shan reached out and patted him.
Zhou Liwei woke up instantly, and his eyes lit up when he saw Bai Shan, "Uncle-in-law, you're here?"
Bai Shan nodded, "If you are really sleepy, go back and take a nap first. Otherwise, you will be so groggy and exhausted that you won't be able to do anything."
Zhou Liwei nodded, but didn't leave. Instead, he said, "Uncle-in-law, we didn't catch him, but we wandered around the mountains with torches for quite a while last night. He must have been scared away."
Bai Shan said, "Where can they go by foot? Dajiawa is surrounded by the sea on two sides and mountains on two sides. If they want to get out, they have to walk across the mountains. But do you think it's possible to go across such a vast mountain range?"
He said, "People will get lost in such a dense forest, let alone at night. If I were them, I would find a place to hide and wait until the crisis is over before coming out."
Zhou Liwei: "But what do they eat and drink in the mountains?"
Inspector Luo also said, "Sir, this mountain is actually very dangerous. There are many poisonous insects and ferocious beasts, especially poisonous insects. No one knows whether a bug crawling across your feet is poisonous or not. Therefore, no one would stay in the mountains for a long time. Three days at most."
Bai Shan: "So you suspect they left?"
The two nodded together, because they had searched. Although they couldn't really search every place, they could guarantee that there was definitely no one hiding in the places they walked through last night, so the people could only have been scared and ran away.
Seeing Bai Shan's look of disbelief, Zhou Liwei said, "Uncle-in-law, you can't use your own imagination to think about them. They are just ordinary people, not that smart, nor that tough."
He said, "Just think of me. If I wanted to steal something and on the way I saw the owner holding a torch and shouting, 'Catch the thief, catch the thief!' Wouldn't I turn around and run as far as I could?"
Bai Shan thought about it and actually felt that what he said made sense, so after a moment of silence he said, "That's right, but no one left on the road, and the forest is dangerous. How did they get out? They couldn't have jumped into the sea and swam out, right? Wouldn't that be even more dangerous?"
Zhou Liwei and Inspector Luo looked in the same direction and then at each other.
Zhou Liwei: "Actually, I had a suspicion last night."
Inspector Luo: "I have one too."
Zhou Liwei: "But that road is difficult to travel and long. We are short-staffed. I am afraid that if we pass the salt pan, it will be empty and someone will come up and find us."
Bai Shan: "Divert the tiger away from the mountain? The other party is so powerful? What is that place?"
Zhou Liwei pointed in that direction and said, "Uncle-in-law, look over there."
Bai Shan squinted his eyes and looked over, then nodded and said, "I see it, it's a sea."
"The other side of this mountain faces the sea, and it's a steep cliff. I've seen it before. It's very high, with a protruding corner surrounded by the sea on three sides. It's an extremely high cliff."
Bai Shan: "You suspect the person is hiding over there?"
Zhou Liwei hesitated for a moment and said, "Maybe he's not hiding, but he's lost."
Bai Shan looked at the saltworks and said, "I'll take the yamen runners with me to take a look. You guys stay here at the saltworks."
See you at 6pm
I'm so scared. Everyone has been talking about a burst of updates this morning. That's just a sign that there will be 8,000 words updated daily. It doesn't mean there will be a burst of updates.
(End of this chapter)
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