The "tea lord" in the eyeliner mouth is the prince Fu, one of the top tea merchants in Xuanzhou.

Originally, when pacifying Huaixi and sitting in Huainan, Wang Zifu, who had a good relationship with Gao Yue, also donated a full 200,000 yuan to the imperial court military horses, and then Gao Yue opened a market and tax field in Huainan, traded extensively, and implemented the currency policy, Wang Zifu was confident in the future development.

But all this came to an abrupt end with the arrival of Li Qi.

Because Xuanzhou is an important place for tea production, Li Qi sent the field officials to occupy all the tea gardens, and when the tea was picked, the tea leaves in the hands of the tea farmers were all packed with a kind of bamboo cage, and placed in the field, and the tea merchants held the money to the field to exchange for "tea introduction", and as a result, the tea price stipulated by Li Qi was a pound of medium-colored tea, which was more than three times the price of Huainan Shoulu tea!

But this is not the end, Wang Zifu and the tea merchants spent a lot of money to buy tea leads, but when they went to the tea garden to prepare to change the tea, they saw that the tea leaves were all in the big bamboo cage, and there were military officials and soldiers guarding them, they held a short note in their hands, called "tea stickers", and said to Wang Zifu, you spend money to buy tea leads, you have to add this tea sticker to take the tea in the cage.

With the addition of tea stickers, the cost of tea per catty has risen to as much as 200 Wen.

Therefore, the angry Xuanshe tea merchants all called the bamboo cages that served the tea "bamboo insects", describing their cruelty of eating people without spitting out bones.

But Li Qi's exploitation was not over, and when Wang Zifu and the small and medium-sized tea merchants finally transported the goods to the ship, ready to go out of the quarry rock into the Yangtze River, and then went to Eyue and Xiangdeng to traffick, they found that Li Qi had set up a tax field in the quarrying, and the goods in the past had to be heavily taxed.

And this batch of tea, even if it is sold along the Yangtze River, the cost is too high, and it is completely beyond its means.

After the summer, Li Qi levied ten times the household tax on the tea merchants.

After a while, even if Wang Zifu's family is big, his property has evaporated by one-third in an instant.

And how can other tea merchants withstand such exploitation? Those who immediately threw themselves into the water and hanged themselves to death were seven or eight people in Xuanshu alone.

They had no choice but to appeal to Liu Zan, the assassin of Xuanzhou.

Liu Zan pleaded with Li Qi, the envoy of Jiedu, saying that the money for tea is too high, and it is difficult for businessmen to make profits.

However, Li Qi only cared about dividing the exploited money into three parts: one for raising false children, one for military banquets and squandering, and one for sending to Beijing to honor the emperor and the magnates.

Regarding Liu Zan's petition, Li Qi only asked the military government to reply to the letter, angrily reprimanded and intimidated, saying that the tea will not be cut for half a penny, and don't blame me for being rude to Liu Yuanjun when you mention this matter.

So Wang Zifu could only take the risk and engage in smuggling - directly spending money to buy tea from tea garden farmers.

But soon the matter was revealed, and the military officials of Li Qi's field came like vicious dogs, and arrested dozens of tea farmers who sold tea to Wang Zifu privately: beheading and showing the public for profits of more than 10 yuan, and those who made 5 to 10 yuan of profits were punished with rods, confiscated all family property, and their wives, sons and daughters were reduced to slaves and went to the government to do hard labor.

In addition, Li Qi's military officials also had to arrest the "mastermind behind the scenes" Wang Zifu.

Wang Zifu was immediately furious, after all, he was a person with a family fortune of millions, although he had never been an official and was not a well-dressed household, but he was far more powerful than the powerful households in the township. So the prince Fu simply put the floating money in the family more than 100,000 yuan, and also sold the fields and houses, all of them were scattered, and used his prestige to call on more than 100 local tea merchants and tea farmers who were also unbearable, and finally gathered more than 1,000 township parties and peers, and successively attacked the six tea farms of the town and navy, killed all the military officials inside, burned all the tea leads and tea stickers, and then directly transported the seized tea to the ship and sold it by water - in less than two months, the team of the "tea lord" Wang Zifu quickly grew to more than 3,000, and traveled in the wild streams of the Xuanshe Mountains, the government cannot be systematized.

Subsequently, Lai Yunfan, a salt merchant in Xuanzhou, organized the "Salt Kou", also in groups of hundreds of thousands, with their own staff and weapons, flocked out of the country, and returned to Huainan County to buy salt, and then sold it back to the people of Xuanzhou at a low price.

Li Qi was furious and ordered Xuan, She, and Wu to purge the tea lords and Yankou during the assassination period.

But Liu Zan's assassination history and county orders completely turned a blind eye, and even secretly bought and sold the tea and salt of Prince Fu and Lai Yunfan to reduce the burden of the people.

In the end, the quarrymen stationed in the local area, in order to buy cheap tea and salt, also came to trade with the tea lords and salt kings.

The quarrying army knew that Wang Qizhen, the soldier and horse, sighed angrily and said: "Runshuai Li Qi does not sympathize with us and others, if you buy in the military market, the children's annual money is not enough to buy ten catties of tea, and if you don't buy it from the tea lord, what can you do?" So he sent several ships to make a deal with the prince.

Li Qi, who learned of this, was furious, and someone said to him: "Wang Qizhen believes that he is a veteran of the Han and Jin Dynasty, and he has never accepted the festival, and the assassins of various states are also detached from the festival. ”

When he knew that Lu Zhen and other prime ministers in the court were all deposed when they were giving advice to the emperor, and Gao Yue was about to be recalled to the court, Li Qi was even more arrogant: "Quickly let Wang Qi command the quarrying army to exterminate the tea owl and the salt kou, otherwise the commander will send a hard army and a soldier to carry out the law with a sword!" ”

The text was delivered to the quarrying army, and Wang Qizhen's intention to deviate was even more resolute, so he secretly wrote secret letters to Liu Zan, the assassin of Xuanzhou, and Bai Liangqi, the soldier and horse envoy of the Danyang army in Runzhou, respectively, saying: "Gao Weigong and Li Qi are in the same boat, and the holy lord has been deceived by Pei Yanling, Li Qiyun and other traitorous ministers. If Li Qi gains power, we will die without a place to be buried, it is better to take the initiative, introduce Wu Yijun, capture and kill Li Qi, follow the story of Han Jin Gong, take charge of the southeast Cao Yun wealth, persuade the holy lord to change his mind, and then enter the master of the Zhongshu Gate, recall the loyal and virtuous, Qingjun side, and recreate the world. ”

A few days later, Bai Liangqi replied: "The public is very true, I have written to Li Shangrong, the soldier and horse envoy of the Yuezhou Yisheng Army, and agreed to raise troops at the same time, kill the thieves, and save the people of Xuanrun 15 Prefectures from hanging upside down. ”

So Wang Qizhen made up his mind, he ostensibly led the order to enter and suppress Wang Zifu, but secretly agreed with the other party, if Gao Wei Gongwu Yi's army can cross the river from Hezhou Liyang, I am willing to offer the heavenly danger quarrying and lead the Wu Yi army to capture Jinling Stone City!

Prince Fu was overjoyed, and immediately sent people to cross the river, and first got in touch with the 300 town garrison troops stationed in Liyang.

Then the garrison army hurriedly reported to Gao Yue in Yangzhou.

During this time, although the court was fighting to the death, bloody and bloody, and Gao Yue himself was in the middle of the storm whirlpool, the entire Huainan and Wu Yi army were terrifyingly quiet.

It was only because Gao Yue firmly held the level of military academies and battalion generals that ordinary soldiers were unaware of the situation in Beijing, and they insisted on training outside the city every fixed time, and most of them were ready to "conquer the cave barbarians in the south" at any time - the martial arts students who served as the captain of the building, in addition to training, let the soldiers sit down, not only gave them a detailed introduction to the situation of the Huangdongman in Lingnan, but also explained to them why they wanted to conquer and how to conquer these two core issues.