At four o'clock in the afternoon, Jiang Feng, Zhang Zhengjie, Duan Qian and others all came to Wang Sheng's office one after another to meet.

First of all, Jiang Feng brought an exact message to Wang Sheng. It turned out that the interrogation officers were really not bragging, after Jiang Feng gave the order, several people immediately split up, and although the few people who were arrested were all hob meat, they carried it in front of them for less than an hour, and they all confessed.

It turned out that they went to the shop to make trouble, and they were indeed instructed by a door master of An Luo Hall, but why this door master instructed them to do this, I don't know. Because the organizational structure of Anluo Hall is to respect the hall master, under the hall master, there are four elders, but the elders generally don't care about practical things, but only set up for the respected old people in the hall, and the affairs of the club are divided into four internal and external doors are responsible, the inner four doors are mainly responsible for the business operation of the Anluo Hall, and the outer four doors are responsible for competing with other gangs for territory, defending their own interests, and collecting protection fees, etc., each door has a door director, and each door is in charge of affairs, deacons, service, Disciples and other high-level officials, and the troublemakers belong to the lowest level of personnel in Anluo Hall, and they have always only listened to the messengers in the past, and never asked the reason.

Wang Sheng said: "If all we can get is the confession, then we can't be completely sure that this incident is aimed at us, because it may also be the private behavior of this door master." ”

Jiang Feng said: "Why don't you arrest the master who instructed them to act, and then punish him, and ask him clearly?"

At this time, Qian said: "No need, according to the information we have, this is an operation against our Jinan government." ”

After more than three months of development, the intelligence department has made tremendous progress in the city of Jinan, and has initially established intelligence outlets in the city of Jinan, with more than 10 intelligence outlets arranged, and a number of informants have also been developed. However, the office of the intelligence department is not located in the prefect's yamen, no one knows where it is, but there is an office in the yamen, which facilitates the communication between the intelligence department and the administrative system.

Hearing Duan Qian say this, Wang Sheng immediately asked, "Stationmaster Duan, what news have you gathered?"

Duan Qian said: "We also this morning, all the information collected during this period of time to summarize and analyze, before we came to the conclusion, yesterday I reminded Mayor Wang, Jinan is a part of the local forces are planning to join forces against us, now can be confirmed that several of the main local squires are, Xu Chang, is to open brothels and restaurants as the main business, operating a total of more than 10 large and small shops, assets of about 130,000 taels of silver; Pharmacies are the main business, with a total of three pawnshops, two pharmacies, and three or four small shops, with assets of about 150,000 taels of silver; Zhao Pinghe, a super-large landlord, owns a total of more than 20,000 acres of land, with more than 500 tenants, and operates three grain stores in Jinan City. The influence of grain prices fluctuates greatly, and in good times it can exceed 500,000 silver, and when it is bad, it is less than 100,000 silver; Na Wu, full of people with blue flags, his main business is opium, he alone accounts for about half of the entire supply of tobacco in Jinan, he has opened three tobacco houses, and supplies about 20 other shops, such as restaurants, gambling houses, and brothels, and his assets should be about 300,000 silver. ”

"These 5 people are the most powerful squires in Jinan, and their power is much greater than the officials we punished, because the power of those officials is basically limited to the city of Jinan, and at most it radiates to the surrounding areas of Jinan City, and these 5 people have considerable influence in the entire Shandong Province, at least in more than 3 prefectures have business, and it is said that behind them, there are also backstage forces to support, but there are those backstage forces, we have not investigated clearly, but one thing can be confirmed, that is, the few officials who were killed by us generally do not dare to provoke them easily。 ”

Jiang Feng interjected: "In this way, it is too boring to be a prefect of Jinan, and the officials under him can't afford to provoke it, so these squires can't be provoked, so what kind of strength does this official have." ”

Duan Qian said: "You can't say that, the prefect doesn't dare to mess with the officials, mainly because of the officials, without the cooperation of the officials, he can't effectively govern in Jinan; If a local gang like Anluotang refused to pay the field tax, the officials had no choice but to follow them, and there was no direct restraint between the prefect and the squire, and the squires generally had big families and big businesses, and generally did not openly confront the government, so the squires were more respectful to the prefect than the officials. ”

Jiang Feng said: "It's a bit like a stick, a tiger, and a chicken, and it has become a serial set." ”

Duan Qian said: "It's a little similar, but it's not all sticks, tigers, chickens, this kind of chain of sets, because on the whole, the prefect is still at the weakest end, if the squire wants to be against the prefect, it can also make the prefect unable to continue, just like this time the squire wants to be our enemy, of course, under normal circumstances, these three forces should be able to reach a balance, and even combine into a community of interests, after all, this is the most in line with the interests of the three parties." ”

Jiang Feng said: "What can the squires do to make it difficult to know the mansion, or how are the squires of Jinan going to deal with us this time?"

Duan Qian said: "Generally speaking, if the squire wants to deal with the prefect, the easiest way is to use the forces behind him to complain to the prefect's superiors such as the governor and the governor, and through the governor and the governor to drive the prefect away, although the governor and the governor do not have the power to directly appoint and dismiss the prefect, but if the governor and the governor report to the court to impeach the prefect, the court will generally act according to the will of the governor and the governor." But this trick obviously didn't work for us, because the governor was also our man. But the squires had other means of doing so, and according to the information we had gathered, the original plan of the squires was to call for a strike by the shops of the city to deal with us. ”

Wang Sheng also suddenly froze and said: "If they really do this, it will deal a devastating blow to Jinan's economy, and it will also be quite unfavorable to us." However, this is also a lose-lose solution, if the city's shops go down, for the merchants, it is also a big loss, and for small merchants, I am afraid it is also a nerve-wracking. ”

Duan Qian nodded and said: "It is precisely because of the great self-loss of this trick that it has also been strongly opposed by many small and medium-sized merchants, and after we took over Jinan, we immediately ran more than 10 officials of Jinan Prefecture, and it was indeed a shock to many large and medium-sized merchants, and they did not dare to blatantly deal with us in the open, but in the end this trick was useless." Instead, it was changed to prohibit all shops from registering, which is not a direct confrontation with us, and other merchants are more acceptable. ”

Jiang Feng said: "Aren't they afraid that they will be ordered to close down by us without registration?"

Wang Sheng understood this and said: "The law does not blame the public, if all merchants do not register, can we still order all merchants to suspend business?" On the surface, this trick is more relaxed than the previous one, but in fact it is more powerful, because if it really develops in the end that all the merchants do not come to register, it will make us very difficult, and order all the merchants to close down, which will cause a devastating blow to the economy of Jinan, and if they are not ordered to close down, it will also be a serious blow to our prestige, it seems that they have a master to point out. ”

Duan Qian said: "That's pretty much it, so we have to deal with it very carefully." ”

Zhang Zhengjie said: "But there is one thing I can't understand, that is, why do these squires go against us, can it be said that we executed a few officials and did not threaten them? To be honest, although their method will make us very difficult, it does not mean that we have no way to deal with it, if we are simple and rude, arrest these people at the head, raid their homes, and kill them in public, I don't believe that other merchants dare not come to register." ”

Jiang Feng said: "It is estimated that it is because of our land reform, these people must have a large amount of land, and they are afraid that their land will be taken by us, so they will fight us to the end at all costs." ”

Wang Sheng shook his head and said, " This explanation seems to be reasonable, but it can't stand up to scrutiny, as far as the five people in the lead, only Zhao Pinghe is a big landowner, and mainly relies on land for profit, and others may also have a lot of land, but they also have a large number of other industries in Jinan, even if they don't rely on land, they can also get huge benefits, live a rich life, there is no need to confront us at all, because this is a doomed failure, just like we use the suggestion of head Zhang, they have no room for resistance at all. ”

Duan Qian shook his head and said, "Regarding this, we also have suspicions that there is a reason for it, but we can't find a clue for a while. ”

Jiang Feng said: "Do you still need to worry about this? Isn't it just that the head was kicked by a donkey, and the brains of rich people are different from normal people." ”

Duan Qian said: "Those who do these things, in addition to being bold and ruthless, must definitely have a good brain, and they must be exquisite, not to the point of being absolutely unwilling, and they will not make a fight to the death." Therefore, there must be something in this that we do not understand, after all, we are not people of this era, and there is a considerable generation gap between us and this era in terms of thinking. It's best to find someone from this era who is familiar with the rules of officialdom. ”

When Wang Sheng heard this, a flash of inspiration flashed in his mind, and he said, "Yes, we should indeed find someone to ask." ”