Chapter 2870
As the special envoy participating in the investigation on behalf of Haihan, Zhu Ziwu naturally had no choice but to work hard and stay up late to participate in the interrogation. However, due to the large number of prisoners to be interrogated, he and the several Haihan officers who came with him were unable to do anything at all. They could only focus on several places where the main prisoners were interrogated separately to avoid missing key information.
However, both the interrogator and the person being interrogated were Manchus. Zhu Ziwu could not understand the conversation at all, and someone had to translate it, which made the entire interrogation process unavoidable and extremely unsmooth. In the end, the Qing army officer in charge of the interrogation was too lazy to consider Zhu Ziwu's feelings and no longer asked the translator to actively ask for his opinion.
Although Zhu Ziwu didn't understand, he saw all the Qing troops' brutal torture. It was obvious that the senior management of the Manchu Qing Dynasty were extremely angry about this matter, so they continued to use torture methods during the investigation, without caring about the life or death of the prisoner.
At dawn, a Qing soldier brought breakfast, including porridge, pickles, and a piece of boiled mutton. But Zhu Ziwu watched the torture and confession all night long, his head was filled with the smell of blood, and he smelled the mutton smell, and he had no appetite at all. In the end, he just finished the porridge without touching a bite of the mutton.
On the contrary, the few Qing soldiers who took action ate with gusto, and finally killed the large pile of untouched boiled mutton for him. It seemed that the torture this night cost them a lot of energy, and they had to pass. Eat large amounts of food to replenish energy.
As the person in charge of this investigation, Suksaha also stayed up all night, reading the confessions submitted by various interrogation teams. The reason why we need to find out the truth of the case so urgently is because Suksaha also understands the urgency of the situation. The longer this matter drags on, the easier it will be for Haihan to find an excuse to start a war. Only by closing the case before the situation worsens can the Haihan people be silenced and prevent them from taking advantage of the situation.
After breakfast time, Suksaha reconvened the Haihan officers and announced to them the results of the current investigation.
In yesterday's operation, the Qing army captured a total of 247 criminals, and all other people in the town were regarded as accomplices, totaling 767 people. The bodies of the twenty-seven people killed by the caravan guards during the crime have all been exhumed from the cemetery outside the town, and their identities have been identified one by one. There are another twelve criminals who are visiting relatives and friends in other places outside the town. Yesterday, separate troops were sent to pursue them. It is believed that they will be arrested soon.
The thirteen main criminals who organized and directed the Qingyang Fort robbery have now been captured. Most of the robbed goods have been recovered and will be delivered to the original owners after being inventoried.
Suksaha also explained several issues that Haihan was most interested in.
Alin's source of information was one of his nephews, who was also one of the main culprits in the case. This man had stayed in Shenyang City for a long time, and during this period his job was as a coachman for one of the merchant houses that was robbed. He left his job and returned to this small town seven days before the robbery.
All intelligence information about the hijacked convoy was provided to Alin by this person. Alin was so greedy that he thought he could steal this property quietly and cash it in to use it to expand his tribe's military expenses. So he gathered his men and horses, took weapons and dry food, marched quietly for more than a hundred miles, and waited near Qingyang Fort for three days, and finally arrived at the convoy.
What happened after that, as everyone knows, Alin led the Niulu armed forces to raid the convoy, killed and injured many people, and robbed all the goods. After crossing the border, he abandoned the carriage and carried the goods back on horses. small town.
Alin took part of the loot as a reward and distributed it to each household participating in the operation. The purpose was of course to keep everyone secret. As for the subsequent division of the stolen goods, it will have to wait until these goods are liquidated on the black market. However, soon word spread in the border areas that Haihan officials had offered a high reward for information about the Qingyang Fort robbery. Alin did not dare to take the risk of finding a place to sell the stolen goods at this time, so he found a place outside the town to hide the stolen goods. However, he did not expect that the news would inevitably leak out. Within a few days, Suk Saha led the army to search for the stolen goods. Come to your door.
Based on the confessions of Alin and other principal criminals, Suksaha concluded that there was no other mastermind behind the case and that all actions were planned and implemented by this small tribe.
Since the chain of evidence is relatively clear, and the Haihan officers also participated in the entire process of tracing, arresting, collecting evidence, and interrogating, they did not raise any objections to Suksaha's conclusion.
This gave Suksahar a huge sigh of relief. What he was most worried about was not the trivial issue of being able to recover all the stolen goods and catch all the prisoners, but that the Haihan people, in order to take advantage of the opportunity to cause trouble, simply did not recognize the results of his investigation and then aggravated the situation. For example, if Haihan wanted to forcefully send troops to Manchu territory in the name of catching the murderer, he would be in big trouble.
However, it seems that this incident has not developed in the direction that Suksaha was worried about. At least the situation can be controlled within this small town, and there is no need to upgrade the target of the attack to a higher level.
However, the Haihan Observation Group immediately raised a new question to Suksaha, namely the follow-up treatment of the relevant prisoners. Chen Yixin originally wanted the Manchus to hand it over to Haihan after capturing the real culprit, but after repeated discussions with Geng Jimao, they finally agreed that the Manchus would implement the judgment and punishment measures. Of course, if the result does not satisfy Haihan, the matter will not be settled easily.
Suksaha had already prepared for this, so the answer he gave made it difficult for the Haihan Observation Group to make further bargaining.
Suksaha said that all direct participants in this case will be sentenced to death, and their heads will be placed at a key border point near Qingyang Fort as a warning to others. All the accomplices were demoted to slavery, sent three thousand miles away, and sent to the distant Sakhalin Island to work as coolies. All the properties of Niulu were sold off by the Manchu Qing official organization and later used as compensation for the aftermath.
However, Alin and other principal criminals need to stay alive temporarily, and Suksaha wants to escort them back to Hetuala City to report to Shunzhi. After being personally interrogated by Shunzhi, he will be escorted to the border of Sarhu, where the two countries will jointly supervise his execution. At that time, if Haihan wants to send someone to execute him, they can discuss it again.
As for holding Niulu's superior Xiangbaiqi accountable for supervision, this is beyond the scope of Suksaha's power. He must report the details of the case to Shunzhi, who will then decide what punishment to impose on Xiangbaiqi.
This treatment was extremely harsh. All those involved in the robbery were sentenced to death. Zhu Ziwu was secretly shocked when he heard this. But what made him feel very uncomfortable was that the Qing army frequently invaded the Ming Dynasty. There were countless similar incidents a year, but they had never been handled in a similar way. The actions of the Manchu Tatars were too bullying and fearful of the strong.
(End of chapter)