1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 959
Sanya, as the base of Haihan, after nearly seven years of operation and management, the local security situation can be said to be quite good. Although it has not yet reached the level of not picking up lost items on the road and not closing the door at night, criminal cases, especially homicide cases, have indeed not been seen in the local area in recent years. It is rare, and this murder case happened to happen in the most prosperous area of ​​Sanya, so its nature is naturally more serious.This time, it happened that the inspection team came here again. As a senior member of the Ministry of Justice, Fu Li took over the case immediately.

Johnson’s conclusions after the autopsy brought valuable clues to the investigators. First, it was determined that the deceased entered the water after suffocation and death. , which basically ruled out the suspects of the deceased's followers; third, judging from the undigested food in his stomach, it is very likely that he enjoyed a delicious meal near the port area before his death.These clues provide investigators with a clearer direction for investigation.

"Give the victim's subordinates and other personnel involved in handling the case a secret order first, and don't leak the news to scare the snake away. The initial conclusion of the investigation is to use drowning as the initial conclusion. Who did the victim contact with after arriving in Shengli Port this time? Let's investigate." Fu Li's thinking is very clear, since Hassan was murdered and thrown away, but not robbed of money, there may be other secrets behind it, maybe it has something to do with the maritime trade he was engaged in before his death. .

"The instructions of Chief Yue must also be taken seriously. The restaurants and restaurants near the landscape avenue must also be investigated. If we can find the place where the deceased ate before the accident, there may be other clues." Lin Nan added without losing the opportunity road.

"The two of us should be in charge of one side!" Fu Li suggested: "Brother Lin, you are in charge of checking the restaurants at Shengli Port, and I will go to Sanya Port to check the movement of the deceased's ship after it arrived at the port. Director Huang originally I have a job, so I will be responsible for investigating the port area to see if anyone else witnessed the whereabouts of the deceased that night."

Although Fu Li is young, his qualifications and background are much stronger than those of the other two, and he once studied under Ning Qi, Ren Liang and others, and he has the style of a general in his calm and thoughtful actions.Neither Lin Nan nor Huang Tongyang expressed any objection to Fu Li's division of labor, and the three of them started their own operations the next day.

In the afternoon of the next day, after a day of investigation, the three of them gathered again in the meeting room of the Shengli Port Police Station and began to exchange their gains from the day.

The first is Huang Tongyang's report: "Today, Beizhi mobilized all the personnel from the police station and the nearby inspection department to visit the port area. It mainly includes all the staff working on the night shift at the pier on the day of the incident, and all the ships that were docked at the third pier that day. As long as the crew on board can be found, they have been questioned, but not much valuable information has been obtained."

Huang Tongyang flipped through his diary and began to describe the results of today's investigation: "We interviewed 320 seven people today, and we got two main conclusions. First, counting from the day the deceased arrived in Sanya to the night when the crime occurred, In the past few days, no one has seen the deceased appear near Pier No. [-]; secondly, none of the subjects we interviewed claimed to know the deceased. So I temporarily think that it may be just a coincidence that the deceased appeared near Pier No. [-] It is even possible that the murderer asked him to meet there for the purpose of committing the crime."

The fact that no one saw the deceased Hassan at Pier No. [-] did not mean that Huang Tongyang's investigation work was in vain.If the deceased had trade relations with a certain ship owner or cargo owner at Pier No. [-], it is very likely that he had appeared there during his lifetime, but in fact no one has seen him, so a contrary inference can be made from this.Of course, if someone deliberately wanted to kill Hassan, they might have taken this into account at the beginning, arranged to meet him outside the port area, and brought him to the pier to kill him after dark.

Huang Tongyang went on to say: "As we all know, there is no effective separation between the port area and the commercial area of ​​Landscape Avenue, so at night, there are no public lights on the wharf except for people on duty on the ship and some warehouses. In fact, there are no people. The deceased was active outside. If the deceased entered the port area from the landscape avenue, it is indeed difficult to have witnesses. In addition, we conducted a search in the area near where the body was found, and found no other items that may be related to the deceased on land or sea. gone."

"Then let me talk about the results of today's investigation in the business district." After Huang Tongyang finished speaking, Lin Nan took the initiative to take over the conversation: "Maybe the news I collected here will bring you some inspiration."

"I led a team to visit more than 30 restaurants and restaurants in the business district today, and found some interesting things." Lin Nan's tone was low, and there was no "interesting" expression on his face: "Hassan arrived in Sanya. In the short few days that followed, before the accident, they dined in the private room of Zuixian Building for two consecutive nights. According to the memories of the shop assistant, Hassan seemed to be alone the night before, but there was a man on the night of the accident. I dined with him in the private room, and we left together after paying the bill."

"So this person is likely to be the last person to see him?" Fu Li immediately asked.Zuixianlou is a relatively well-known restaurant in the local area. Even if you haven't eaten in it, you have never heard of the name of this restaurant, so there is no need for Lin Nan to explain what it is.

Lin Nan replied: "I thought so too, so I questioned the guy in Zuixianlou carefully, but he couldn't tell what this man looked like, because he had never seen this man's face from the beginning to the end."

Fu Li frowned and said, "How could this be? The folks in Zuixianlou shouldn't make such low-level mistakes. Knowing people by face is the most basic professional skill in their profession."

Lin Nan responded: "Based on the situation described by the buddy, this person seems to be hiding his appearance intentionally or unintentionally. Every time he enters the room to serve food, this person's face is facing the direction of the window, so that he has not I noticed the face of this person. But the guy also mentioned a detail. On the day Hassan ate alone, according to his request, he served two people's bowls and chopsticks. Maybe the same person was the same person. Did not attend the appointment for various reasons."

"Or the guy in the store didn't notice that the person he was dating had appeared." Fu Li added: "The Zuixian Tower has a lot of customers, as long as the person hasn't touched the dishes after entering the room, he won't stay for a long time. It's too long, and it's probably hard for a guy to notice if someone comes in or out."

Lin Nan nodded and said, "The situation you mentioned is not impossible."

Huang Tongyang suddenly interjected and asked, "Did Master Lin ask the buddy how Hassan paid the bill after eating these two days?"

Lin Nan praised: "Director Huang is very careful. We have also checked the details. Hassan paid the bill in cash in the past two days, ten taels per ingot, and did not ask for change for the extra part. We checked The account recorded at the counter, after paying for the meal, there is not much oil left over."

Huang Tongyang said: "But we only found a few ingots of broken silver on the body of the deceased, but there were several circulation coupons with a face value of ten yuan. The broken silver brought by Hassan was probably used to reward people, but he obviously carried the amount Is it necessary to bring silver ingots with enough circulation coupons for consumption in restaurants?"

"So it might not be Hassan who paid the bill, but the person who met him?" Fu Li immediately understood what Huang Tongyang wanted to express.

Huang Tongyang nodded and said, "That's exactly what a humble job means."

Lin Nan pondered and said: "I also looked at the silver ingots. It is ordinary Daming official silver, the kind that can be exchanged at Haihan Bank at any time. Most people who can use this kind of silver to spend in restaurants are newcomers. Didn't adapt to the local circulation coupon system...or he just didn't use circulation coupons on purpose."

Huang Tongyang continued: "There are serial numbers and secret marks on the circulation certificates, and they may be traced to the source after the accident. If this is what we guessed, then this person's mind is quite deep."

"That's right." Fu Li replied with a nod, "I have checked the circulation coupons I found on Hassan's body today. They are the payment from the Ministry of Commerce after his arrival in Hong Kong. People from the Ministry of Commerce heard that After saying this, everyone was shocked, because Hassan just shipped a batch of valuable copper ingots three days ago. According to the quantity, it is more than the production of Shilu mine in a month. The Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Industry originally I also wanted to make an appointment with Hassan to see if the copper ingot trade could be developed for a long time, but something happened before the appointment was made.”

Haihan's long-term import of copper from the outside world is not news to Lin Nan and Huang Tongyang. One of them works in the intelligence agency, and the other is in charge of the port area. Naturally, they are well aware of this.Although they don't know exactly how many copper ingots Shilu Mine can produce in a month, as the main copper and iron ore production place under Haihan's rule, it is said that there are thousands of miners, and the output must not be too low. And the number of copper ingots that Hassan transported at one time is almost equivalent to one-tenth of the annual output of the mine, which will naturally attract the attention of the business department.

Lin Nan said: "The rest of the payment..."

"I found them all in his room. There are both checks and negotiable notes, and the amounts match. It's unlikely that his subordinates colluded with outsiders to seek money and murder." Fu Li knew what Lin Nan wanted to ask, so he didn't wait. After he finished speaking, he answered: "I talked with the people from the Ministry of Commerce, this Hassan has also come to Sanya for trade in the past, but the goods he shipped in the past were mainly leather, but he never shipped a large amount of copper. precedent."

Huang Tongyang frowned and said, "Do you know where he shipped these goods from?"

Fu Li nodded and said, "The leather and copper ingots both come from the same place, Manila."

"Then he is actually running errands for the Spaniards?" Huang Tongyang's knowledge is not bad, as soon as he hears Manila, he knows Hassan's camp.Although there are also Ming maritime merchants who travel between Sanya and Manila, it is impossible to purchase such a large number of copper ingots from the local area.This thing is a strategic reserve material in any country. Hassan was able to buy so many copper ingots from Manila and transport them to Sanya for sale. If there is no private transaction between him and the Spaniards, then the three people here must be I don't believe it.

Lin Nandao: "Whether Hassan's identity is a businessman or has other properties, and whether he came to Sanya for other purposes besides trade, we still lack evidence. But he and the unknown person were in the private room of Zuixian Building The purpose of the contact is likely to be related to the cause of his death. As of now, the last person we know who had contact with him is probably this mysterious person, and if we find this person, maybe everything will come to light.”

Huang Tongyang scratched his head and said, "But no one can clearly describe this person's appearance. How can he be dug out from the tens of thousands of people in Sanya? And if he is a non-Han nationality, he may have already left here by boat." .”

Fu Lidao: "Let me go over the timeline again to see how much we have now. Hassan arrived in Sanya five days ago, and he completed the copper ingot transaction with the Ministry of Commerce immediately and received the payment." But he was not idle in Sanya Port that day. We found the train ticket to and from Sanya Port and Shenglibao Station in the room where he lived. According to the confession of his subordinates, he did leave Sanya Port alone that day. After one day, Hassan appeared alone in Zuixian Tower again, and we found the round-trip train ticket for this day in his room. On the fourth day, which was the day of the incident, Hassan appeared in Zuixian Tower for the last time. But we did not find a ticket for this day on the body. Of course, it is also possible that he hired a horse-drawn cart or ox cart to complete this journey, so out of careful consideration, I also checked all the operating means of transportation and found that No one took Hassan’s business at Sanya Port that day, and he couldn’t have walked ten miles here, so he should have come here by train.”

"So it is very likely that the murderer hid the train ticket on purpose...but for what purpose?" Huang Tongyang asked puzzled.

"Let me assume that the purpose of Hassan's coming to Victory Port is to meet the murderer, but the murderer has a certain purpose and doesn't want anyone to know that Hassan has traveled back and forth between Sanya Port and Victory Port many times. He I didn’t know that Hassan still kept the train tickets from the previous two days, so he only collected the tickets on the day Hassan was killed, and tried to confuse the public with this.” Fu Li slowly explained his reasoning: “If we If the abnormality is not discovered in time, Hassan will definitely be treated as an unlucky ghost who fell into the sea drunk. And he does not have a train ticket, so we probably will not invest manpower and time to expand the scope of investigation to Sanya Port ten miles away for a drunk Go over there. Director Huang, how do you usually deal with such cases of falling into water and drowning in the past?"

Huang Tongyang's face turned red, because at the beginning he thought it was just an ordinary drunken stumble and drowning, and he didn't expect that there was something tricky about it.Hearing Fu Li's question, he replied honestly: "Usually, the corpse will be buried for about three days, and a notice will be posted on the pier. If no one recognizes the corpse by then, it will be cremated as an unowned corpse."

(End of this chapter)