The Old Mulberry Garden is a historic village. The main output of the land in this village is mulberry leaves and cotton.

In the era before Emperor Jiajing, rice was mainly grown in the manor, and after that, the land was slowly transformed into mulberry orchards and cotton fields, and no one planted rice.

So last night's fire directly put the tenants in Zhuangzi into a desperate situation.

Four mulberry gardens were ablaze at the same time, which was originally impossible in the minds of the Ming people. Even if the weather is dry in winter, the mulberry trees in the mulberry garden are not dry firewood, and there is a distance between each tree, how can it catch fire at the same time?

This strange thing, which had never happened before, puzzled the tenants who got up from the bedside in a daze. However, soon there was no time for them to wonder, and the first thing everyone reacted to was to run to put out the fire. The mulberry garden is the root of life, without these well-tended mulberry trees, everyone is not allowed to ask for food?

However, firefighting is useless. The fire ignited with kerosene, the fierce flames of which completely ignored the laws of nature, burned a large area of mulberry trees in a short time, and the heat wave and fire debris scattered and surged, and ignited the remaining plants.

When people came running with wooden tubs, all they saw were sparkling slumps.

Unlike the tenants who sat on the ground and wept and choked, the steward in charge of Zhuangzi quickly figured out what was going on.

The steward's surname is Xu, and he is a distant relative of the Xu family. When the fire burned, Steward Xu, who heard the sound of the gong and rushed out, looked at the situation, and then grabbed the night guard and asked, knowing that the fire was man-made.

As for who came to light the mulberry garden, Steward Xu also knew it - ordinary thieves haunt in the middle of the night, it is all for money, what are you going to do in the mulberry garden, pick mulberries to eat? It's winter!

So this thing can't get out of it, it's the buns of foreign buns in the private port in the south who did it. You must know that in the past few months, Steward Xu has been given the task of monitoring the private port by the master's family, and every once in a while, he has to go to the master's house to report.

Therefore, Steward Xu, who is very aware of the dirty things between the Xu family and the private port, guessed the murderer from the motive at the first time.

"Wait until tomorrow to tell the head of the family, and then see where the thieves and others run!" Steward Xu stood outside the bright fire, feeling the free warm wind, gritting his teeth and staring at the dark night to the south and began to swear.

However, the world is unpredictable, and there is no need for Xu to catch the thief, and the thief took the initiative to come to the door early the next morning.

When the sun had just risen, and the tenants in Zhuangzi were still cleaning up the pieces, a 200-strong port construction team came from the south.

These people lined up in a long queue, marching neatly, carrying expensive steel tools from the kiln area on their shoulders, shouting slogans to the junction of the port and Xujiazhuangzi, and then began the construction work.

What kind of work? Barrage drainage.

Between the port and Zhuangzi, there are two small rivers that pass through the land of both sides, and one of them is still a natural boundary river between the two sides.

Today, the migrant workers are tasked with digging up two small rivers and diverting the water to other places. In short, the purpose of the construction is to cut off the water in Xujia Zhuangzi, if it weren't for the ancients who had no electricity, even the electricity would be cut off.

Of course, the movement of hundreds of people working was not small, and it was in full swing, so the tenants quickly figured out each other's intentions.

Enraged, Steward Xu hurried over, rushed over a small wooden bridge over the river, and then found a few overseers on a small mound by the river.

Steward Xu, who had been in charge of monitoring the port for a long time, knew very well that these short-haired people in training uniforms were in charge of the other party, so after he ran up the mound, he yelled at the other party on the spot, "What do you want to do?" ”

The supervisor obviously also knew Steward Xu. After seeing the steward panting and running in front of him to go crazy, several people immediately burst into laughter. Then one of the sturdy men stood up and said in a tone with a bit of Hangzhou vernacular, "What are you doing, do you have to report to you?" ”

"Bastard!" Steward Xu scolded, "This river is shared by two families, how dare you change the waterway without permission?" ”

"This river is laid out by God, I can dig it as much as I want!"

"Good for you pirates!" Steward Xu now completely understands one thing, and the other party is deliberately here to make trouble today. So he stretched out a finger and pointed at the group of people opposite, gritted his teeth and said, "I did a lot of big things last night, and today I came to break the river again, and told the surname Xiong that I provoked the Xu family, and waited for the autumn queen to ask for beheading!" ”

"I'll go to your mother's" The next moment, a shiny cowhide boot that had been carefully maintained at a glance kicked on Steward Xu's lower abdomen.

After a "oops", Steward Xu rolled from the mound into the river amid laughter.

The river in winter was very shallow, so Steward Xu, who rolled into the water, quickly climbed up. At this moment, Steward Xu was covered in muddy water, standing in the river channel only knee-deep, and while he climbed up with the assistance of Yu Ding, he shouted, "Anti-la, anti-revolt, pirates rebel, call people, call people!" ”

As a result, the incident of the villagers' armed fight, which occurred almost every day in the Ming Dynasty, was soon staged again.

After learning that the two things of arson and breaking the river were the handiwork of the private gang gang, all the tenants in the Zhuangzi were outraged. Hundreds of men soon gathered on the bank of the river with hoes and dung forks, and the two sides began to curse each other across the river.

After scolding and scolding, and finding that the migrant workers who were working were not involved in the matter, the tenants in the Zhuangzi shouted and rushed over the river.

Then a white smoke erupted above the heads of the crowd. For the extremely common armed riots of the villagers in this era, a certain force has now accumulated rich experience in dealing with capsaicin tear gas bombs, and then the stick is waiting.

The battle was soon over.

Dozens of port "security" easily broke up hundreds of tenants, and then the victors unceremoniously began to "whip the corpse" - even the old man who had lost his combat effectiveness and was coughing on the ground was severely beaten twice on the lonely crutch.

There is a saying that if it hits you, it hurts in my heart.

The miserable howls of hundreds of hard-hit tenants lying on their beds resounded in the sky and reached Xu's house thirty miles away.

Master Xu Jin didn't wait for lunch, but he saw Steward Xu who was wrapped in a white cloth, his face was bruised, and he was riding a fast horse to report the news.

After asking about the situation, Mr. Xu, who felt that he had suffered a major provocation, was furious, and when he took my film to the county government even if he was out of the general trick of the doctor, he detained the bastard surnamed Xiong and spoke in vain.

Then the Jiading County Ya sat down.

To be precise, from the main hall of Jiading County, the fast shift officials below Fang Wei are all sitting on the wax.

I had dealings with Xiong Dao before coming to the big county order, so I still have a certain understanding of someone's strength when I come to the county order. Although I don't know what is going on in the General's Mansion in Fujian and Guangdong, even those dealers who support Xiong Dao at the moment are not something that can be provoked by coming to the county order.

You must know that there is also no shortage of poets and books among those dealers. The Xu family and Xiong Dao may not be able to interfere because of the situation, but he came to the county order as a third party, if he sends a sign to summon someone surnamed Xiong, this is tantamount to breaking through the bottom line, and those people must have something to say!

The county lord came to Fujian when he was a county magistrate, and he was not a dumbfounded official. So when he saw the post from the Xu family, and asked a few words about the Hao slaves sent by the Xu family, he came to the county order and felt that he was going to sit on the Bear Road today, and he was not a white body in essence, and there were big families and Naraush soldiers behind them.

The Xu family's post ignores this fact and attempts to borrow the inertia of the gentry for hundreds of years to deal with the white-bodied bear road. However, this lowest-cost method is usually only a way to deal with the grass people on the street to figure out the situation, and now he has a headache, because he is sandwiched between two huge forces, and if one is not good, he will eat melons.

Lai Xianzun had a hunch that he would not be able to end well in this matter no matter what, it was nothing more than a question of how much he lost.

After scolding the Xu family in his heart, he finally came to the county order and reluctantly issued a tick.

There's no way around it. First of all, after all, the county magistrate is a genuine doctor, even if there is someone behind Xiong Dao, he is a white body on the bright side after all, and the county master still has to defend the Xu family in terms of showing - the Xu family has rolled up their sleeves and personally left the game, and the county magistrate has no way to turn a blind eye to that post, even if he hates the Xu family now.

Secondly, although the people do not prosecute the officials, after all, there were cases of armed fights and arson under the jurisdiction of the county. Now that the people have generously sued the court, then according to the law, the county magistrate also needs to summon the original defendant and others to the court for questioning.

Then it's time for the headcatchers to get a headache next.

After the county magistrate issues a tick ticket, he has to catch the head to execute it. However, the headhunters had privately lent people to participate in the demolition of Xiongdao Road, and besides, in the past six months, everyone has been familiar with that private port, and everyone has benefited from it there, so the headhunters know better than the county magistrate what a terrible task they are facing.

In the end, Bian Zhutou, one of the three major catchers of the fast class, lost to the other two in the dice roll, so he could only consider himself unlucky, and he picked up a few cronies under his command, and everyone set out on the road to the port in a sad and panic.

Bian Zhutou didn't bring many people this time, none of those white-clad handymen brought the summoned Master Xiong's subordinates have fast guns, he brought so many people over, it would not be good if he was misunderstood.

However, Bian Zhutou was eventually shot, and when the group came to the commercial area outside the port in the evening, they found that the intersection of the empty commercial area had been set up with horses. The next moment, Bian Zhutou was hit with a row of lead bullets by a musket under his feet, and then he couldn't die, and a ricochet got into his apprentice's calf, bleeding profusely on the spot.

"Who's coming?"

"Grandpa, don't shoot, don't shoot, it's me, it's me, county magistrate Bian!"

"Old Bian? What are you going to do? ”

"This is on the order of the county, come and invite Master Xiong to drink tea and evaluate Fengyue!"