Chapter 686 Da Huang and Er Huang are good dogs.
Thirty-four and Thirty-five climbed up the rope ladder that Severed Finger Three had lowered to the side of the ship onto the deck. Just as they stood up, they saw Scarface dragging a person by the feet from inside the cabin onto the deck.
When Thirty-Four took out a tinderbox from his pocket and looked up at the deck by its dim light, he discovered that several people were already lined up on the deck.
If we hadn't known beforehand that Scarface had put a sleeping potion in the food and water of the people on the ship, we probably would have thought the motionless body lying on the deck was a dead person.
"Don't just look at them, I can't move all these old things by myself."
After saying this to Thirty-Four and Thirty-Five, who were still standing and watching, Scarface put down the person he was holding and went back into the cabin.
Thirty-four and thirty-five nodded, then turned around and bowed three times to the man with severed fingers standing on the deck before walking toward Scarface.
After midnight, the four of them worked together to drag the sleeping people from the cabin onto the deck.
Thirty-four wiped the sweat from his forehead, looked up at the sky, and estimated the time.
Just as Thirty-Four was about to discuss with Thirty-Five whether they should send a signal, a sharp "squeak" rang in their ears, followed by a "bang," and red signal flowers appeared in the sky.
After this ceremonial flower appeared, a series of "bang bang bang" sounds rang out.
The pier, with its long coastline and hundreds of boats of varying sizes moored there, startled everyone present.
Seeing this, Thirty-Four took out his own tinderbox from his waist and lit it with a tinderbox.
After the "squeak" came a "bang," and the pure red added a touch of color to the inky night sky.
The flower appeared a total of eight times, which also represents that the eight teams, such as Thirty-Four and Thirty-Five, and Scarface and Severed Finger Three, all successfully completed their missions.
While the people on the other ships and on the dock were still trying to figure out what was going on, three Fujian-style ships sailed upstream.
The people on the shore, who had already lit torches, gradually made out the flags on the Fujian ship, which was getting closer and closer to the deep water bay where the large ship was moored, by the dim moonlight.
"It's the Du family army! It's the government troops!"
The people on the shore still don't know what happened at the dock.
This attracted an estimated several hundred government troops to come here.
The merchants whose ships were docked at the pier gathered together, all looking anxious, fearing that something terrible had happened.
"Someone from the governor's office has arrived! It's Registrar Yao."
While Yao Lushi summoned the shopkeepers and managers of the merchants, at Deep Water Bay, the naval commanders under Du Qinghui also led their troops to take over the eight large ships.
Of course, blood was shed in the process.
Because not everyone is like Scarface, the kind who uses underhanded tricks to drug people.
All I can say is that if they encounter government troops now, and dare to resist, then we certainly won't kill a single one of them.
Even without colluding with foreign powers, it must have violated the Tang Code.
Among those who came with the Du family's navy were also members of the Bad Guys. This time, the Bad Guys who came not only had people, but also dogs that had not been trained for long.
This dog was naturally chosen to sniff out the hibiscus ointment. It was a common local breed, a short-haired, tan-colored dog with a high level of obedience and a gentle temperament.
"Hey, that looks pretty good."
Thirty-four looked at the two yellow-furred dogs being led by the young man codenamed Forty-eight, and asked with great interest, "Are they any good? Don't just look like they are."
"Thirty-five and I, along with the Du family army, have been searching for over two quarters of an hour on this boat," Thirty-four said, bowing three times to Scarface and Severed Finger, who were now standing beside the government troops, "but we haven't found even a trace of what we're looking for."
Forty-Eight expressed his distrust of Thirty-Four by saying: "Big Yellow, Second Yellow, come on, let your Uncle Thirty-Four see that we are one of the best dogs."
Forty-eight squatted down, removed the leashes from Big Yellow and Little Yellow's necks, gave them commands, and then the two dogs lowered their heads and began sniffing back and forth.
Thirty-four and the people standing on the deck followed the two dogs with great curiosity, wanting to see if Big Yellow and Second Yellow could really find something on the ship.
What Thirty-Four said earlier was true. He, Thirty-Five, Scarface, and One-Finger, along with three or four others, had moved everyone out of the cabin and tied their hands and feet with ropes. Then they began searching the entire ship, inside and out, but they couldn't find a trace of the Hibiscus Ointment.
The cargo stored in the lower deck of the ship included grain, cloth, medicine, and various general merchandise. If there was anything out of the ordinary, it was just two loads of coarse salt.
But even after Thirty-Four poured the coarse salt onto the ground and carefully examined it bit by bit, there was really nothing inside; it was just coarse salt.
At this moment, Big Yellow took the lead and squatted down in front of a basket, barking incessantly at it.
Forty-eight quickly stepped forward and moved the stacked baskets one by one. He opened the lid of the bottom basket and saw that it was filled with stacked porcelain bowls after being lined with straw.
All forty-eight porcelain bowls were taken out, and the straw was also poured out, but there was no difference.
However, seeing that Forty-Eight didn't move, Big Yellow barked at the basket again.
Thirty-four, who had been following behind, sensed something was amiss. "Something's fishy!"
Thirty-four approached and took the basket from Forty-eight. As soon as he touched it, he realized something was wrong. "This weight is not right. Ordinary dry baskets are not this heavy."
Blinking, Thirty-Four seemed to realize something. He took out the dagger he had tucked into his waistband and ran it along the bottom of the basket. Sure enough, it felt like he had cut the silk thread. Then, with a forceful flip, he managed to lift the bottom of the basket out.
What came into view was a dense layer of strips of food wrapped in oil paper, covering the entire bottom of the basket.
Thirty-four used a knife to cut open a piece of oil paper, and sure enough, it contained cooked opium!
"What a good dog!" Thirty-Four praised Big Yellow, who was wagging its tail at Forty-Eight.
Then, everyone worked together to pry open the bottoms of all the baskets in the cabin and see that the bottom of each basket was indeed filled with wrapped hibiscus paste, which must have weighed dozens of kilograms (one kilogram in the Tang Dynasty was equal to 596.82 grams).
Later, with the help of Dahuang and Erhuang, they also found hibiscus paste in the interlayer of the wooden crates used to transport the goods. What shocked Thirty-Four the most was that under the bed boards in the two small rooms on the second floor of the large ship, which were reserved for the steward or the owner, they found more than 100 catties of hibiscus paste.
By the time all the hundreds of kilograms of hibiscus ointment were piled up on the deck, it was already broad daylight.
Looking at these things, the three of them, number thirty-four, thirty-five, and forty-eight, felt that they had done a great service this time.
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