They slept in one room, all of them squeezed together. Li Cu had the privilege of sleeping on the bed, the leader and the merchants who arrived at midnight also slept on the bed, and the others slept on the floor. This once again confirmed Li Cu's assumption that these people were poor. There was no conversation that night. Li Cu usually slept well. It was only after 5 o'clock when he woke up. Fortunately, these people did not snore. Once they fell asleep, they were like dead.
Waking up so early was a bit strange. He thought he was thinking about the past, so he woke up early. But when he sat up, he saw that other people had gotten up early and even bought breakfast. It was flat noodles, which they said was a local breakfast and was quite delicious.
Li Cu got up to wash up, and then he remembered something. He said to the others, "Can you give me a name? I can't call you when something happens."
Several people looked at each other, and the leader said, "If you encounter any trouble, just shout for help. We will all save you. You don't need to establish contact with us individually. There is nothing you need to discuss with us."
Li Cu frowned, still feeling very strange in his heart. Although he could use his face as a guide in certain situations and talk to whoever he faced, this feeling still made him very uncomfortable.
But what the chief said made sense. In his current state, it seemed that he had no need to communicate with them alone.
After breakfast, the merchant went out to contact the tomb robbers, while the other people took Li Cu into the car and started wandering around the mountain.
The structure here is not a remote mountainous area. There are always small villages in the valleys. In some places, there is only a small river between villages. But outside the villages, apart from farmland, there are large tracts of wild forests. These forests are not big, and they are not large trees. The thickest tree is only as thick as a wrist, but it is strangely dense. There are many branches, tangled in the bushes, forming small pieces of wild forest divided by farmland.
The cement village roads almost extend to the bottom of all the valleys. They drove along them, passing through one village after another. Whenever they reached the hillside of a hill, they would stop and carefully look at the surrounding mountains.
There was almost no conversation, and there was no teaching Li Cu what he had said before. Li Cu wondered if they were just burning gasoline. What was the point of driving together like this? When they reached the fourth hill, Li Cu began to ask the leader, who told him that the mountains here had been destroyed by farming, and all the corners of the hills had been shoveled into terraces. It was impossible to see what it was originally like, so there was no way to teach him anything.
The method of searching for ancient tombs here is to use a Luoyang shovel and search mountain by mountain, but they obviously don't have the time to do so.
When they reached the sixth village, they decided to return. At this time, the merchant called and said that he would probably take action tonight.
The leader told Li Cu that they were not tomb robbers, and that these tasks were often done by real tomb robbers. They had previously been in contact with most of the tomb-robbing groups in Changsha, and it was easy to use these people as long as there was economic benefit. However, as a result of their struggle with Zhang Qiling's family, these tomb-robbing groups were also wiped out, and later they had to carry out such actions themselves.
However, even if they don't participate, they must have someone on site to monitor. Merchants say these tomb robbers are not veterans, but a low-class group in Changsha. Because all the organized tomb robbers have recently participated in the civil strife, most of the grave robbers who are still panning for graves are of this type, and their success rate is not high. They may not only monitor on site, but also take emergency measures.
The other party's plan was very crude. They would transport several pumps overnight, block the road out of the village with stones to prevent cars from passing on both sides, and then use four hours to pump out the water in the pond. They would pour all the contents of the red tank into black waterproof bags and then transport them away.
This plan requires a modified off-road truck that can go up a 60-degree slope, so that there is no need to start tomb robbery, and they can drive directly from other people's fields to the passable road, and then go to a forest farm in the west, where there is a cement house of the forest ranger, where they can sort the spoils, pay and share the money. Two Santanas with fake license plates will be prepared there. The trucks will be left at the forest farm after the job is done, and both sides will get in the Santana and leave the mountain. The group of people who went into the water will ignore them. Li Cu and his friends will abandon the car again at the place closest to the national highway on the outskirts of the county, and then walk through the terrain to the national highway in the dark, where they will be picked up by a local minibus.
This can prevent the off-road truck from being tracked by several cameras that must be passed by when entering the mountain, and also prevent the Santana from being checked by cameras after leaving the mountain. As long as they get on the national highway, it may be easy not to be caught by someone in three minutes, then it will basically become a headless case and cannot be tracked.
Li Cu listened to their plan and found it very interesting. There were many key points in their plan, and the people at these points were all small figures.
For example, the merchants in the antique market or the local minibus routes are also controlled by them, and some of them are among the illegal minibus drivers.
These little people have almost no power or ability, but they are the core members of their organization, which makes it very convenient for them to do things.
"The end of power is these little people. If you want to make something go in the direction you want unconsciously, the top of power is the most powerless. Even if you are an emperor, you don't know how your order is finally implemented at the end of the chain of orders. Chinese society has never lacked people at the top of power who want to do good things." Li Cu told his leader about his thoughts, and the leader explained to him: "But China lacks conscientious power implementers, so many things will get worse and worse. Let me give you an example. You can control ten generals, and your opponent can control all the squad leaders in the army. Basically, your opponent owns the army."
Li Cu felt as if he had suddenly realized something when he heard this. In fact, people never think about the nature of power. Power is worthless like paper money. The distribution of power in primitive society is very simple. I obey your orders because I can't beat you. However, when a leader has four or five subordinates, his military authority has basically reached its limit. At this time, four or five subordinates can easily kill the leader together.
However, this kind of thing often does not happen at this time, because everyone's individual interests will be in conflict, and a complex network of interests will be formed between everyone's own interests, other subordinates, and the leader. Suspicion and vigilance will prevent everyone from continuing to hope for stable interpersonal relationships.
They are afraid that after interpersonal relationships become disordered, their own interests will be less than they are now, so everyone will maintain such relationships within a small range of fluctuations, and thus power is formed.