Lu Jing was not idle during Lin Ruhai's request for instructions from Emperor Yuanyong, he contacted Lu Jun and the forces that were friendly with him on the one hand, and acted secretly on the other hand, now Lin Ruhai is in the light, he is in the dark, and he can just help Lin Ruhai.

On the first day after entering March, the officialdom of the Lianghuai Salt Road ushered in a major earthquake, and Lin Ruhai first thoroughly investigated the officials in various parts of the Yamen of the Lianghuai Salt Road in the name of checking the salt introduction, and overturned the plate that the Lianghuai Salt Administration had been holding.

The two Huai salt administrations cover the four provinces of Jiangnan, Huguang, Jiangxi and Henan, and hold the lifeblood of salt merchants in these four provinces.

This dynasty implements the salt monopoly system, and if the salt merchant wants to do the salt business, he must have a salt introduction, and the salt introduction is approved by the imperial court, controlled by the imperial history of the salt patrol, and distributed by the salt transportation envoy.

Salt merchants can get salt quotes by paying salt tax silver, and for each salt quote, salt merchants can buy 400 catties of salt, and then sell them in the designated provinces.

Lianghuai salt can only be transported to the five provinces of Jiangnan, Huguang, Jiangxi, Henan and Guizhou, and the salt introduction is the voucher for salt merchants to transport and sell salt.

Lin Ruhai would hand over the salt to the salt transport envoy every year, and he was only responsible for accounting for the salt introduction and salt tax.

Lin Ruhai had long known that the salt transport had corrupted Gao Heng, but because Gao Heng and the Zhen family were in-laws, he had turned a blind eye in the past, as long as there was nothing wrong with the salt tax, he didn't bother to get involved in those dirty things.

However, if he wants to surrender to Emperor Yuanyong this time, he must get rid of Gao Heng, the head snake.

Gao Heng and Zhen Yingjia's younger brother Zhen Yingyu are sons and daughters, relying on the relationship with the Zhen family, Gao Heng has been rampant in Jiangnan in recent years.

What he is best at is to invite guests to dinner, and every festival Gao Heng has to feast on salt merchants, and the salt merchants will pay for filial piety every time in order to fight for more salt.

Sometimes, even if it is not a special day, Gao Heng will invite guests to eat for various reasons, and the salt merchants have gone to the banquet one after another, and they never dare to be absent.

Gao Heng also cried poverty to the salt merchants many times, saying that he had little at home and lived a very pitiful life, and the salt merchants immediately understood and raised money for him to buy farmhouses, utensils, antiques, calligraphy and paintings, etc.

Gao Heng not only treats the salt merchants in a variety of ways, but also wants to pull Lin Ruhai into the water many times, and he has repeatedly suggested that Lin Ruhai will distribute next year's salt in advance, but Lin Ruhai refuses.

Later, Gao Heng wanted to borrow money from salt many times, but Lin Ruhai also refused, so there was a lot of dislike between the two.

If it weren't for the fact that Lin Ruhai had been taken care of by Emperor Yan Kang over the years, and his seat was extremely stable, I am afraid that Gao Heng would have found a way to squeeze Lin Ruhai away.

Lin Ruhai was dissatisfied with Gao Heng for a long time, and when Gao Heng wanted to pull him into the water, he began to collect evidence of Gao Heng's corruption and bribery.

Before Lin Ruhai's operation, he sent all the evidence he collected to the capital, and Emperor Yuanyong was furious when he saw this.

Gao Heng has received more than 3 million taels of bribes in recent years, so Emperor Yuanyong gave Lin Ruhai a special decree, asking Lin Ruhai to thoroughly investigate the affairs of the two Huai salt politics, and at the same time sent many secret agents to assist Lin Ruhai in acting.

Lin Ruhai knew that Emperor Yuan Yong sent someone over to call him an assistant, but it was actually surveillance.

He didn't dare to slack off, and directly arrested Gao Heng with lightning speed, and immediately questioned him, and he handed over all the interrogation of Gao Heng to the people sent by Emperor Yuanyong.

After arresting Gao Heng, Lin Ruhai pointed the finger at the salt transportation division Yuntong, the deputy envoy of the salt transportation department, the salt section promotion division, the salt class ambassador and others, and quickly wiped out Gao Heng's comrades.

Lin Ruhai knew that his advantage was to attack him unprepared, so he acted extremely fast, and it only took three days to complete this series of actions and clean up the high-level of the two Huai Salt Road Yamen.

Before the other forces in Jiangnan could react, they had already lost most of their forces on the salt road.

Later, Lin Ruhai began to thoroughly investigate the salt merchants who gave gifts to Gao Heng and other officials, hoping to use the salt merchants as a breakthrough point to obtain more evidence of corruption by officials in other places.

Lin Ruhai has been in charge of salt affairs for many years, so he naturally knows that in addition to honoring the officials of the salt road, the salt merchants also need to pay bribes to local officials in various places to ensure their salt transportation and sales.

Although official salt is legal, salt merchants do not make much money on the whole, except for the filial piety given to officials at all levels.

Therefore, they often carry illicit salt in the official salt, and selling illicit salt is where they make the most money.

Private salt is equivalent to buying and selling without capital, as long as it is good up and down, it can be used as an official salt sale, which is almost a million profits.

Lin Ruhai's vigorous and resolute initial results were remarkable, and after obtaining a lot of evidence through interrogating salt merchants, he directly united with Ge Yu, the prefect of Yangzhou, and eliminated half of the officialdom of Yangzhou Mansion in one fell swoop.

Lin Ruhai initially acted very measuredly, all against the Zhen family's forces, but slowly he found that the situation was beyond his control.

This storm has spread to Jiangning Mansion, Fengyang Mansion, Huai'an Mansion, Suzhou Mansion and other places, and many forces have participated in it, trying to fish in troubled waters.

Emperor Yuan Yong also used a lot of forces that secretly took refuge in him, wanting to purge some Jiangnan officials.

When Lin Ruhai found out that the other forces in Jiangnan were affected by the wave in time, and they were ready to send arrows, he couldn't do it even if he wanted to, so he could only continue to investigate.

All the forces in Jiangnan were initially caught off guard by Lin Ruhai, and many families suffered a lot of losses.

Among them, the Zhen family was deliberately targeted by Lin Ruhai, and the family suffered even more losses, and the Zhen family's power in Yangzhou Mansion was almost uprooted.

There are many forces in Jiangnan who saw Lin Ruhai so crazy, and even wondered if Lin Ruhai was crazy, and dared to risk the world's disapproval, first provoking the Zhen family, and then wanting to fight against the entire Jiangnan with his own strength.

After they reacted, they were furious and kept launching counterattacks against Lin Ruhai.

With the countermeasures of all forces in Jiangnan, Lin Ruhai's situation suddenly became difficult.

Because of the targeting of various forces in Jiangnan, many officials who followed Lin Ruhai also became yang and yin against Lin Ruhai.

The backstage of Jiangnan officialdom and salt merchants also began to act, and they accused Lin Ruhai of bullying his superiors and subordinates, reselling salt quotations, accepting bribes, etc.

even co-wrote a recital to participate in Lin Ruhai, putting a lot of stigma on Lin Ruhai's head, and he was determined to put Lin Ruhai to death.

Since Lin Ruhai started to act, Lu Jing has been paying attention to Lin Ruhai's movements, and now seeing that Lin Ruhai is getting bigger and bigger in Jiangnan, the situation has faintly gotten out of control, Lu Jing is worried.

Originally, according to his suggestion, Lin Ruhai only needed to do a good job of lighting the fuse of this storm, even if it was to cut off the relationship between the Zhen family and the Jia family, and get rid of a few officials from the Zhen family.

There are many forces of the Zhen family in the Yandao Yamen, and Lin Ruhai dealt with them, which was enough to show his and the Zhen family's incompatible position in front of Emperor Yuan Yong, and it could also help the Jia family to alienate the relationship with the Zhen family.

Lu Jing didn't expect that after Lin Ruhai rectified the salt road, he turned the gun and began to deal with the Jiangnan officialdom, and he himself ended up with the Zhen family and the Jiangnan forces.

If Lin Ruhai only had room for maneuvering against the Zhen family, but Lin Ruhai actually provoked these salt merchants in Jiangnan.

Usually, these salt merchants are used to taking money to open the way, and for them, what can be solved with money is not a big deal.

Therefore, in the face of bribes from officials, they are unwilling to provoke government forces in the attitude that more is better than less, but this does not mean that they are easy to bully.

He also has one or two salt merchant friends around him, basically the salt merchants have a net worth of more than two or three million taels, and the salt merchants with a net worth of one million taels are all small salt merchants.

In order to preserve their wealth, these super-wealthy salt merchants would transfer benefits to officials at all levels every year in order to seek the protection of officialdom.

Therefore, behind almost every salt merchant, there are a few officialdom backers who are tied up by special interests, and even some salt merchants are the spokespersons of the powerful in Beijing, and Lin Ruhai provokes them, which is equivalent to provoking the umbrella behind the salt merchants.

Lu Jing naturally couldn't watch Lin Ruhai fall into this vast sea of power struggles, isolated, and planned to help Lin Ruhai.

Lu Jing recruited the two guards Wu Ze and Chen Ji beside him, Wu Ze was originally a thief in the rivers and lakes, he was as light as a swallow, coming and going like the wind, and the night was silent, and the most powerful stunt was to fly with a hanging bell and the hanging bell did not ring.

Four years ago, Wu Ze stole a salt merchant in Yangzhou Mansion, and the salt merchant paid the salt gang to deal with Wu Ze.

Wu Ze was chased and killed by the Salt Gang, and when he fled to Yangzhou, he happened to meet Lu Jing.

Lu Jing had several dealings with the salt gang, and he came forward to solve his grievances with the salt merchant, and under Lu Jing's persuasion, Wu Ze withdrew from the rivers and lakes and followed Lu Jing to do things for Lu Jing.

Chen Ji was born in a famous family, a lay disciple of Wudang, he was strong in martial arts, he was young and vigorous when he first came down the mountain, and his shots were not serious.

Because of a chivalrous mistake and killed someone, in order not to affect others, he voluntarily surrendered and confessed to his crimes.

At that time, Lu Yu was still the prefect of Yangzhou, and he talked about it with Lu Jing at home.

Lu Jing asked people to investigate what happened at that time, and found that Chen Ji was trying to save a woman who was raped by a bully, so he accidentally beat someone to death.

And in order not to implicate the woman, and in order to protect the woman's reputation, Chen Ji concealed the matter of saving people.

That bully usually does a lot of evil, and he is innocent of death, so Lu Jing negotiated with the family of the deceased many times, compensated the other party 1,000 taels of silver, and asked the other party to withdraw the complaint and save Chen Ji.

Chen Ji was grateful for the kindness of the Lu family's father and son, so he entered the Lu Mansion and became Lu Jing's guard.

Lu Jing's martial arts were learned from Chen Ji, originally Chen Ji was hindered by the door rules and could not teach Lu Jing the authentic martial arts of Wudang, but after Lu Jing wrote a few letters to the head of Wudang, Lingxu Daoist, Lingxu Daoist personally wrote to Chen Ji to teach Lu Jing Wudang's inner martial arts.

This incident also aroused Chen Ji's curiosity, and later he asked Lu Jing many times, and Lu Jing casually made up an excuse to fool the past.

In fact, Lu Jing only shared some later martial arts concepts with the Lingxu Daoist, but he was also recognized by the Lingxu Daoist, and the Lingxu Daoist allowed him to learn Wudang martial arts.