In just a few days after Yangzhou Zhizhou became famous, the gray hair on his head gradually increased a lot, his brows were frowned, and his face was sad.

Yangzhou has been plagued by disasters during this time, and he is overwhelmed, which makes him tired of coping.

In the past, there was a case of the assassination of a horse, a case of capsizing a boat, and then a case of escape from a prison in the state capital.

This time, these major and important cases all happened when important officials of the imperial court came to Yangzhou to inspect, and most of them happened under their noses, so they couldn't hide or delay it.

Sheng Ming also feels that this year is unfavorable, and in less than two or three months, he will leave his post and is very likely to go to Beijing to take up his post.

I didn't think of these bad things, and no matter how properly I deal with them, I will be dealt with by the imperial court, and there is little hope of entering Beijing.

But under the watchful eyes of these court bigwigs, they have to deal with it as soon as possible, and after they deal with it before they return to Beijing, their responsibilities will be reduced, and Lu Xianggong can also protect them.

Yangzhou sentenced Huang Qian and Liu Quande, the prison officer, to be dead, so Sheng Ming found Liu Kunlin, the deputy pacification envoy of Huainan East Road, and Hu Tingju, the assistant of the prison commissioner, to come to assist, in fact, these three cases are relatively easy to handle, and the spearhead is pointed at the Yangzhou Boat Gang.

Therefore, Sheng Ming transferred 500 state soldiers to assist the government in thoroughly investigating the Yangzhou Boat Gang, arresting the leading figures in the Yangzhou Boat Gang, and confiscating the assets and belongings of the Boat Gang.

Under his order, the brigade marched towards the station of the Yangzhou Boat Gang, and also alarmed many people in Yangzhou along the way, who followed and watched, all to find out.

The station of the Yangzhou Boat Gang soon arrived, and the officers and soldiers quickly surrounded the various passages in and out of Tangkou, and set up checkpoints here, strengthened patrols, and were only allowed to enter but not leave, and this place has entered a state of martial law.

The officials of the government, with the assistance of the officials, seized the boat gang and registered their assets for evaluation.

Search for confidential things, such as the list of people in the boat gang, transaction books, asset details, etc.

Arrest the leading people in the gang, such as the gang leader, helmsman, hall master, deacon, etc.

The lobby was in a mess, with tables and chairs staggering, four feet to the sky, and worthless small objects scattered all over the ground.

Most of the people who confiscated were rummaging through the boxes and cabinets, and they were carefully searching.

There is also an old man with a lot of experience in raiding a cylinder in one hand and a hammer in the other, knocking on the wall and the floor while listening.

At last a secret hole was found in a corner, and everyone struggled to open the entrance, and the old man asked everyone to flash aside, and brought a hanging basket, in which candles were filled, and then put the hanging basket at the bottom of the cave for a while, and saw that the lamp was still on, and then let people go down to check it.

In the end, a large amount of money was found inside, as well as valuables such as jewelry, calligraphy and paintings, and silk.

In this raid on the boat gang, a total of 600,000 yuan of money and various materials were confiscated, such as: 10,000 quintals of sea salt, 1,000 quintals of jaber, 20,000 quintals of grain, 1,000 horses of silk, 5,000 horses of linen, and a box of jewelry, with a total value of about 1 million yuan, which exceeded the taxes paid by Yangzhou to the imperial court in a year.

Sheng Ming looked at some mountains of materials, and was a little dumbfounded, he didn't expect the Yangzhou Boat Gang to be so rich, it was just a way to make money.

The famous clerk came to the account office to register the materials, and then sealed them, and counted them into the warehouse.

It took a whole day to count, register, and carry into storage, and five or six hundred people were mobilized to complete the task.

The exact value of the seized assets was 1,259,630 yuan.

In fact, what they didn't know was that these were only a quarter of the real assets of the boat gang, and the rest were transferred by Chang Yilin.

The crowd did not find the ledger, nor did they find the list of people in the gang, but they arrested a few employees and miscellaneous servants, who were only low-level personnel, and were not members of the boat gang, or they knew a few deacons.

According to their confessions, five deacons were finally arrested, and two hall masters were arrested; Although they were tortured, the two hall masters just didn't find a confession, and one of them even bit his tongue and committed suicide, so the clue was broken.

This means that most of the big fish of the Yangzhou Boat Gang have slipped through the net. The backbone of the Yangzhou Boat Gang is still there, it has not broken its muscles and bones, and it will definitely resurge soon.

Lu Yijian, Qian Weiyan, Lu Zongdao and other court officials also came to the site of the seizure of the Yangzhou Boat Gang, and they were also shocked that the Yangzhou Boat Gang had huge assets, and they all thought that the Boat Gang was a cancer parasitic on the boatmen and sailors, and these assets were all ill-gotten gains of the boat gang to loot the boat owners and should be banned.

However, the boat owners and gangs in the boat gang were screaming bitterly, hating the government's seizure, but they dared not speak out.

Because the money confiscated by the government contains the wages, freight and commissions of many ship owners, as well as the materials of many merchants. Therefore, the raid on the boat gang is just to fatten the government and pit the boat owners and merchants.

Meng Ming also wanted to remind Sheng Ming, seeing Sheng Ming's eager appearance with golden light in his eyes, he swallowed his words back, after all, Sheng Ming would not be greedy for these money, he just wanted to perform positively in front of him, and the purpose was just to be eager to make meritorious contributions.

When the water is clear, there are no fish, and when people are observed, there are no fugitives, and blocking people's wealth is like killing their parents, what if they are official roads? So Meng Ming shut up in recognition of each other.

At present, Shengmingyang has planted an unstable dark mine under the state, and the seizure of the Yangzhou boat gang is too hasty, and the aftermath work has not been thought of, which has damaged the interests of the most grassroots boat owners, and will inevitably cause public indignation, but it is just "pressing the gourd to float the scoop".

Chang Chuanming walked along the waterway, stopping and stopping, and staggering. However, his whereabouts have attracted the attention of some.

In fact, the underground waterways in Yangzhou are wide and can accommodate many people, so there are many people living here, such as beggars, homeless, fugitives and other people.

There are also hostages taken by underworld forces, and most of the stolen goods stolen by thieves are hidden here. It is full of filth and dirt, full of strife and danger, so this is a hidden underground world in Yangzhou.

Chang Chuanming knows the details of this, and the boat gang also has several strongholds here, so he doesn't care about the tracking behind him, he speaks black words and code words from time to time, so he travels unhindered.

Chang Chuanming seemed to have arrived at a familiar place, a little excited, he turned a corner along the waterway, there was no other space, there was about a dozen zhang in size, there were tables and chairs, wine and food under the dim oil lamp, two half-full glasses.

There are several curtains hanging on the surrounding earthen walls, and it seems that there is no space.

He said the secret words of the gang outside, and saw two people coming out of the curtain, these two people were of medium stature and couldn't see their faces clearly, but there was a fierce aura on their bodies, and they surrounded Chang Chuanming at once,

One of them asked in a deep voice, "Who is down there, how do you know such code words?" I can't tell if you have a back and forth," I saw another person holding a steel knife and gesturing on the side.

Chang Chuanming said: "I'll give you something to see if it can be used as a certificate." He took out a bronze medal from his waist and threw it to the questioner, who took it, and then motioned to the other person to let him look at Chang Chuanming.

He took something to the oil lamp and looked at it, only to see that he was startled at first, and then he was overjoyed, and hurriedly ran out and bowed to Chang Chuanming on one knee and said: "The subordinate Shunyi Hall deacon Kang Liangnian participated in the helper, and the subordinates didn't recognize the helper just now, and his words were offensive, please forgive the helper." ”

He then gave a look to another person who was on the spot and asked him to come and pay a visit, and that person hurriedly came to bow when he saw this, and Chang Chuanming immediately helped the two of them up.

I saw Kang Liangnian said eagerly: "My subordinates have heard the bad news of the gang in the past few days, in order to avoid the investigation, so I went to the underground stronghold here to avoid the wind, but I ran into the gang leader, the gang leader can get out of trouble, it is really a fortunate thing for my gang, if everyone knows, they will be at ease, only the gang leader is here, and I will not worry about the comeback." ”

Chang Chuanming felt warm in his heart when he heard Kang Liangnian's words, and he was immediately impressed by him.

Chang Chuanming said: "Deacon Kang, I am very pleased with this insight, with you and other talents, I can help the revival hopefully, I am injured now, please go out and get me some knife medicine, and then see if you can contact the young helper." ”

When Kang Liangnian heard this, he hurriedly looked forward, and he saw that his helper was scarred and bloodstained, and he was immediately shocked.

So he first put the helper in a cave with better conditions to live, then boiled a bucket of water for him, and then scrubbed his body first, he found some knife medicine, painted Chang Chuanming, and finally found a clean dress for him to change.

After the outfit was arranged, he invited Chang Chuanming to the table to eat, and Chang Chuanming was also hungry at this time, so he was not polite, he ate quickly, and finally he was full of wine and food.

Chang Chuanming asked Kang Liangnian about some of the situation on the ground, and entrusted him to find his son Chang Yilin, and after explaining, Chang Chuanming went to bed to rest.

At this time, Chang Chuanming already felt that he was safe, and he didn't need to worry about it, so his body and mind relaxed, and finally fell asleep.