The White-haired Queen

Chapter 153 Hostage Exchange

When Beiming Yu saw Wen Lanyue entering the tent, he immediately said, "Royal sister, there may be a fierce battle at night, so you just stay by my side." Wen Lanyue nodded to indicate that she understood, but she still had some doubts in her heart.

She turned her eyes to Bei Mingyu and asked, "Brother, I just heard from your adjutant that the other party initially asked for a ransom of one million taels, but considering that we don't have that much silver on us, now we only need 400,000 taels, is that true?"

Bei Ming Yu frowned and sighed, "That's right, although four hundred thousand taels is a lot less, but even if you give me one day, I will find it difficult to collect so much money." There was a hint of helplessness and anxiety in his tone.

After thinking for a moment, Wen Lanyue's eyes flashed with cunning, and then he whispered: "Royal brother, in this case, why don't we tell the other party that we only have 100,000 taels. If they accept this price, we will hand over the hostages in exchange for the money. If they don't agree, they won't get a penny. And if anything happens to the hostages, we will send troops to attack them!"

However, a trace of worry appeared on Bei Mingyu's face again, and he said helplessly: "The problem now is that we don't even have 100,000 taels..." Wen Lanyue smiled slightly and whispered a few words into Bei Mingyu's ear.

After hearing this, Bei Mingyu's eyes lit up, a smile appeared on the corner of his mouth, and he nodded and said, "Good idea, sister! I will send someone to discuss it immediately. We also need to start preparing the 'silver' quickly."

So, Bei Mingyu began to give orders to the soldiers to cut wood to make boxes and look for "silver". Everyone got busy, carrying out the preparations in a tense and orderly manner.

An hour later, the person who went to negotiate finally returned, but the news he brought made everyone silent. It turned out that although the other party agreed to exchange people for 100,000 taels, they also put forward a condition - they should not be held responsible afterwards, and emphasized that they became bandits because they were forced to do so by life and the local government.

At this time, the second group of scouts also came back. They showed everyone a simple map of Wumenglaso Mountain and described the conditions on the mountain in detail. It turned out that the mountain was not as steep and difficult to climb as imagined, but there was only one passage to the top.

There are not only healthy and strong people on the mountain, but also the old, weak and disabled. The overall feeling is more like a quiet and peaceful mountain village, rather than a heavily guarded bandit stronghold.

After listening to the report, Bei Mingyu frowned slightly and fell into deep thought. Then, he said to the adjutant beside him with a firm look: "If the negotiations fail, we must be prepared for both situations."

The adjutant nodded in understanding, indicating that he understood what the prince meant. Next, Bei Mingyu began to discuss with the adjutant how to deal with the worst possible situation - if the other party did not cooperate in the negotiation, they could only take tough measures to solve the problem. They divided the plan into several stages to ensure that it would be foolproof.

Finally, the adjutant left with a mission and began to deploy the personnel and resources required for the second plan. Bei Mingyu continued to think about future development trends and response strategies in order to better cope with the upcoming challenges.

However, after combining the two statements above, Bei Mingyu and Wen Lanyue could not help but feel soft-hearted and sympathized with these bandits and mountain people. So, they decided to empty the box full of stones and use the empty box to stabilize the other party.

Since he is a kind person, carrying an empty box would be considered an act of mockery, so what should be put in the box?

Just when Bei Mingyu and Wen Lanyue were in distress, Wen Lanyue suddenly had an idea and came up with a solution. She said, "Wait a moment, I'll be back soon." Then she hurried back to her tent and took out a booklet and some tea leaves. This booklet was the instruction manual she had studied before on how to process milk into various dairy products.

Afterwards, Bei Mingyu and Wen Lanyue led 40 soldiers and carried 20 boxes to the place agreed with the bandits. The first box contained silver, the second box contained some tea, and the other 18 boxes were empty.

Bei Mingyu and the others looked at the kidnappers in front of them, thinking about how to deal with them. If they were sure that the kidnappers were not unforgivable, they might be able to entrust the milk processing to them; but if the kidnappers were not kind, then these forty men would definitely not sit still and wait for death. These people were carefully selected and would kill the enemy without mercy.

At this time, the other party came over with four investigators from the first batch. When they saw the boxes neatly stacked on the ground, they immediately shouted: "You can release them, but you are not allowed to report to the police! Otherwise, you will bear the consequences!"

Bei Mingyu quickly responded: "Don't worry, we will never report it to the police."

The other party warned again: "If you dare to break your promise, I will not let you off easily!"

Bei Mingyu assured again: "I will definitely not report it to the police."

After Bei Mingyu's repeated promises, the other party said, "Okay, then you leave the box behind and everyone step back!"

Bei Mingyu did as he was told and retreated more than ten meters with his men.

Seeing that Bei Mingyu and the others had retreated to a safe distance, one of the other party shouted, "Let them go, and lift the boxes."

However, when the kidnappers began to lift the box, they found that the weight of the box seemed different from what they had imagined.

"What's going on?" one of the kidnappers screamed.

They realized something was wrong, so they captured another hostage. Unfortunately, the investigator who was walking at the back was caught again and brought back to the original place.

"How dare you deceive us!" the kidnappers roared angrily.

Bei Mingyu quickly explained: "We didn't deceive you."

"Stop talking nonsense! You actually used empty boxes to deceive us. Are you trying to play some tricks?" the kidnappers said angrily.

"I never said there was silver in it." Bei Mingyu answered innocently.

"You are still quibbling!" The kidnappers became even angrier.

"However, the things in here are much more valuable than silver." Bei Mingyu continued.

"Oh?" The kidnappers couldn't help but feel curious when they heard this.

"If you don't believe it, you can open it and take a look." Bei Mingyu suggested.

"Hmph, let's see what tricks you can come up with." The kidnappers opened the box designated by Bei Mingyu with half belief and half doubt.

I saw that it was filled with small paper bags.

"What is this?" the kidnappers asked in confusion.

"You'll know if you try it." Bei Mingyu said with a smile.

The kidnappers hesitated for a moment, but still opened a package and tasted it.

"Hmm...it tastes good." The kidnappers said in surprise.