The two of them left the General's mansion. Li Haitian left all his subordinates in front of Gao Qiqian.
After leaving Jizhen alone on his horse, he rode for seven or eight li and stopped at a small village.
Entering the village, Gao Qiqian wound his way through a dilapidated courtyard, pointing to a pile of firewood in the corner.
"It's here, one hundred thousand taels, no more, no less!"
Li Haitian nodded lightly. "Dig it open. If you see the silver, I'll let you go."
Gao Qiqian thanked him repeatedly, walked over, moved the firewood, found the tools hidden by his subordinates in the yard, and began to dig.
The silver was buried very deep. It took half an hour of digging before a crisp "clang" was heard.
He jumped into the excavated pit, bent down, and took out a wooden board. Beneath it was a cellar.
Gao Qiqian jumped back out of the pit and pointed to the cellar below. "Lord Li, the silver is down there. Take your time. I'll be going now?"
But Li Haitian walked over, confirmed that there was indeed silver below, and sneered, "Going? Where are you going?"
Gao Qiqian quickly retreated a few steps and pointed at Li Haitian. "The silver is all down there. We agreed you'd let me go after I took the money!"
"Oh! Is that so? Then you go ahead," Li Haitian waved his hand indifferently.
Gao Qiqian heard this and bolted towards the courtyard gate, but in the next moment, he was kicked flying back.
The Jin Yi Wei who had held the imperial decree had, at some unknown time, brought people with him, and without even hearing the sound of horses!
After kicking Gao Qiqian away, the man revealed a cold smile. "Eunuch Gao, you're not being honest! You gave my lord one hundred thousand taels, but what about us brothers?"
Gao Qiqian was stunned, pointing at the cellar. "Th-there's one hundred thousand taels, no more, no less. You brothers can split it!"
"Split? Hehehehe, one must know their place! However, it's good. With this silver, your crimes are confirmed, and I'm not afraid you won't confess. Take him down and interrogate him thoroughly. Let's let Eunuch Gao experience the methods of the Jin Yi Wei!"
The man waved his hand behind him, and several people rushed towards Gao Qiqian. "No one believes you only have this much money. Let's take it first!"
Although Gao Qiqian had guessed this outcome, he was only trying to seize a chance to survive. Now that his plan had fallen through, he could only surrender.
Unreconciled, he said to Li Haitian, "Let me die knowing why! We were the only two who left the city, so how did they find us!"
Li Haitian took something from his waist and let Gao Qiqian see it clearly. "Let me show you a treasure. This is called a walkie-talkie. Within twenty li, it can transmit voices through the air."
*Pfft!*
Gao Qiqian spat out a mouthful of angry blood, then muttered blankly, "No, no, this is impossible!" He remembered hearing Li Haitian speaking softly while digging, and he hadn't realized Li Haitian was relaying their exact route to someone else!
Soon, all the silver in the cellar was brought out. After an inventory, it amounted to a full one hundred and twenty-eight thousand taels!
The Jin Yi Wei were adept at torture. Under their hands, there was no confession they couldn't extract! Especially from someone like Gao Qiqian, who feared death. In less than an hour, they obtained the desired confession.
In Beijing alone, this scoundrel had three more hiding places. In Gouza Hutong, he hid twenty thousand taels of gold! In Sigua Hutong, he hid eight beautiful maids, plus seventy thousand taels of silver! In Niaoqiang Hutong, he hid over fifty thousand taels of silver, along with a large quantity of precious jade and artifacts. Besides this, he owned a private residence in Changhua.
The price of extracting these confessions was that Gao Qiqian was tortured to the brink of death.
Jizhen was a military town. After Bai Guang'en led his troops out of the pass, only some old and weak soldiers and their accompanying families remained in the city. The system of garrisoning troops allowed families to stay at the garrison.
When the Jin Yi Wei brought Gao Qiqian back to Jizhen, the news of his arrest had already spread throughout the city. Seeing the usually haughty Gao Qiqian tied up like a zongzi, everyone gathered to watch the spectacle.
In front of the General's mansion, Li Haitian stood on the steps and announced loudly to the gathered soldiers and their families. "Gao Qiqian, the Supervisor of Liaodong, has received immense imperial favor but failed to be loyal! He harmed soldiers, was corrupt and lawless, killed good people to claim merit, and treated national law as nothing! Now, by imperial decree, he is investigated, his crimes are confirmed, and he is to be executed by Lingchi!"
*Hiss~~~*
As soon as he finished speaking, a collective gasp of admiration swept through the crowd. A man from the Jin Yi Wei stepped forward and took a gray bundle from his back. Upon opening it, it revealed a fishing net woven from extremely fine silk threads.
Gao Qiqian was stripped naked, exposed to everyone.
"Huh? Eunuchs are like this underneath?" A child of three or four years old pointed at Gao Qiqian in surprise.
The woman behind him quickly covered his eyes. "Child, don't look at this, close your eyes quickly!"
The child broke free from the woman's embrace and shouted loudly, "No, I want to look! Mommy, why is he all bare? It's so strange~~"
An old man next to them patted the child's head, his eyes fixed on the woman, and chuckled. "Kid, tell Grandpa quickly, what's different between him and your mommy??"
The woman blushed and rolled her eyes at the old man. "Uncle Mi, do you want me to tell everyone what your wife looks like?"
The castration of eunuchs was a taboo. Now, being stripped naked and paraded before a crowd, Gao Qiqian, who had already resigned himself to death, turned pale and fainted directly upon hearing their discussions.
"Heh, want to faint? Did you ask my knife first?" The Jin Yi Wei, seeing this, took out a knife as thin as a cicada's wing. With a flash of cold light, Gao Qiqian shivered and was instantly awakened by pain.
He wanted to scream, but his gagged mouth only emitted muffled sounds, his eyes wide open, his expression utterly monstrous. The executioner was deviously clever. According to the rules, Lingchi should begin with cutting off the ears and nose, then gouging out the eyes and tongue, but this first cut was made at Gao Qiqian's groin.
"Wow~~~ Mommy, that's so scary!" The child, seeing the blood flow, was immediately frightened and burrowed into his mother's embrace.
The others, however, watched with relish. Gao Qiqian had caused considerable trouble for the military and the people in Jizhen.
With the glint of the blade, on the first day, only three hundred and sixty cuts were made, each slicing off a piece of flesh as thin as paper. After the execution, Gao Qiqian was escorted back to the General's mansion. The executioner used the ginseng he had brought to make a soup to keep him alive. "Lingchi with three thousand six hundred cuts, this is a rare event that comes once in many years. We can't let him die so easily!"