Since the Grand Canal connecting the north and south was opened in the time of Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty, as an extremely important city on the canal line, the development of Yangzhou City has been very rapid, and it has been among the best in countless cities in the country by the time of the Tang Dynasty. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

For this reason, how many literati and have left popular poems in Yangzhou - 100,000 yuan around their waists, riding cranes down Yangzhou; Ten years of Yangzhou dream, welcome the name of Qinglou Bo; The world is divided into three bright moons, and two points depend on Yangzhou...... In these verses alone, it can be seen that this is a gold cave, a gentle township that can make it difficult for heroes to get out.

Therefore, when the Cao Gang sets the general rudder here, it is inevitable that they will slack off everyone's enterprising spirit, and they will be caught in the wind and snow, and they don't know what day and night. Among them, of course, the young gang leader of the Cao Gang, Yan Huan.

The Yan gang leader, who is less than thirty years old, looks handsome, has money and status, and is naturally favored by the red-card Oiran of the major green buildings in Yangzhou. And he is a pretentious young man, he can't resist the temptation from beauty, and under the indulgence of a long time, not only his body and bones have been hollowed out, but also the silver of the Cao Gang.

In fact, before he succeeded to the position of gang leader, the Cao Gang still had some savings, and with Luo Chengzhang, the deputy gang leader who is good at managing and doing business, presided over the situation, the Cao Gang never had to worry about silver. But no matter how much silver he has, he can't stop the Yan Gang Master from smashing it into the bottomless gold hole, he has only been in power for two years, and the treasury of the Yangzhou Cao Gang is a little stretched.

Under such circumstances, Yan Huan did not dare to reveal the real reason, and asked Luo Chengzhang and other elders for help. So in desperation, he came up with a crooked way to rob the passing ships on the canal to get money.

It's just that this is not the right way after all, not only can you not get too much silver, but also was quickly found out by Luo Chengzhang in Hangzhou, who naturally reprimanded him. At this time, the Cao Gang leaders who followed Yan Huan began to instigate it, hoping to get rid of Luo Chengzhang with the help of Yan Huan, the gang leader.

The reason why they did this was not only because they felt that Luo Chengzhang was too powerful and affected their status in the gang, but also because they were angry about the prosperity of Hangzhou and the power gold and silver that Luo Chengzhang held in his hands, so they always spoke ill of Luo Chengzhang around Yan Huan, describing him as a threat who intended to seize power.

In fact, Yan Huan still has some true minds. But he was an extremely suspicious and selfish person, and he was repeatedly instigated by everyone, coupled with the fact that Dongchang was still on the side at that time, and finally made the young Yan gang leader make the decision to split the Cao Gang.

After the failure of that conspiracy, the situation of the Yangzhou Cao Gang was even worse. After losing the financial assistance from the Hangzhou Cao Gang, they could only barely make ends meet by relying on their past friendships, and the prestige and status of the Yan gang leader naturally plummeted.

Because of this, Yan Huan, who is selfish by nature, completely forgot Luo Chengzhang's kindness in letting him go, but held a grudge against him, only thinking that one day he could kill this enemy and regain control of the Cao Gang in Hangzhou.

It's a pity that although Yan Huan thinks so in his heart, his strength is far from enough to do all this. And as the power of the Yangzhou Cao Gang continues to shrink, the number of people available to him is also decreasing, and the so-called No. 1 gang in Jiangnan has become a complete joke to him.

But just when Yan Huan himself was a little desperate, a seemingly reliable opportunity appeared in front of him again. The Huating Xu family, which was very powerful on the ground in Nanzhili, suddenly sent someone to contact him, hoping to join forces with the Cao Gang to deal with Luo Chengzhang in Hangzhou.

After getting the support of the Xu family, Yan Huan, who was already a little dead-hearted, had ambitions again, and soon formulated a seemingly well-thought-out plan with the help of Song Xingchu, who was still lurking by Luo Chengzhang's side. For this reason, Yan Huan even sent out more than half of the good hands that could be used under his hands, and in addition, the Xu family supported him with those masters who were good at assassination and assassination, so he launched such a conspiracy.

It's a pity that people are not as good as heaven, although he has thought about it very carefully, and there is no problem with the implementation of the plan, and he is only one step away from taking the Hangzhou Cao Gang. But he still lacked some luck, and the whole plan fell short under the sudden action of Yang Zhen and Jin Yiwei.

The plan failed completely, and more than 100 loyal elite subordinates were lost in Hangzhou, which naturally dealt a great blow to Yan Huan and the Yangzhou Cao Gang. This is not only spiritual, but also practical.

The large shortage of manpower is only secondary, and the emptiness of the bank's deposit in the gang is the most fatal. Because many brothers were killed in this incident, as the leader of the gang and Yan Huan, who issued the execution of this order, naturally had to bear the responsibility, and each brother's family always had to pay a lot of funeral and settlement expenses. As soon as the soothing silver of tens to hundreds of taels per person was taken out, there were really not a few taels of silver available in Yan Huan's hand.

At the same time, with this failure, Yan Huan's prestige in the gang plummeted again, and many brothers in the gang had no hope for him, and left the Cao Gang to find another way out, which made the already crumbling Yangzhou Cao Gang even more stormy.

And the house leak happened to be rainy, and at this time, a new trouble found on the head - the Xu family, who had promised to give Yan Huan full help, sent someone again. But this time, they didn't come to help, they came to ask for sin.

At this moment, in the guest hall of the mansion where the Cao Gang was still quite magnificent, there was Xu Lide, the chief steward of the Xu family, who was full of sneers on his face: "Gang Master Yan, although our Xu family has said before that they will do their best to help you deal with Luo Chengzhang and them, but we have lost so many manpower, and your Cao Gang has to be responsible." And I can also tell the Yan Gang Master that those masters are not our Ming clan, but from overseas Wa countries, and our Xu family spent a lot of money to invite them. ”

"What does Steward Xu mean...... Let's accompany the silver? As soon as Yan Huan heard this, his heart tightened. Now that the gang is already very poor, since the Xu family has come to collect debts, how can they not open their mouths? But in the face of the people of the Xu family, whose power was far above him, he didn't dare to turn his face, so he could only make a bitter face and take one step at a time.

Xu Lide smiled: "Do you know how much money we spent on inviting those masters?" With a sky-high price of nearly 100,000 yuan, do you think the Cao Gang can still get such a large sum of silver now? ”

"What?" As soon as he heard this, Yan Huan almost jumped up from the chair: "Steward Xu, don't you open your mouth like this!" "At this time, don't talk about 100,000, it's 10,000 taels of silver, and he Yan Huan can't take it out.

Looking at his anxious and panicked appearance, a trace of contempt flashed in Xu Lide's eyes. But soon, he hid this expression again, still with an indifferent look: "Gang Master Yan, our Xu family naturally knows your difficulties, even my master, and he also knows that you can't come up with 100,000 taels of silver no matter what." ”

"If that's the case, then why do you say that?" Yan Huan snorted coldly in his heart, but he looked very grateful on his face: "Thank you Xu Ge for your understanding of my Cao Gang, as long as our situation improves a little, Yinzi will definitely accompany you without you." ”

"Yan Gang Master's words are out of sight, our Xu family is definitely not a person who takes advantage of people's danger. However, our Xu family didn't want to suffer too much loss in this matter, so we came down. Xu Lide continued unhurriedly.

"If Steward Xu means anything, just say it." Talking in circles like this, Yan Huan couldn't hold back a little, and immediately asked bluntly.

"The Yan gang leader deserves to be the leader of a gang, and he is really happy. Okay, then I'll say it. What our Xu family means, since your Cao Gang's current situation is very bad, why not cooperate with our Xu family to earn some silver? In this way, you can solve your immediate crisis, and secondly, you help my Xu family do things, and you can be regarded as giving the previous account. I don't know what you think, Gang Master Yan? ”

"Let me help the Cao Gang cooperate with the Xu family to make money?" Yan Huan asked back in disbelief, thinking that he had heard it wrong. You must know how many people on the ground in Jiangnan want to be related to the Xu family, let alone cooperate. Why did the Xu family find such a good thing on their heads?

Although Yan Huan is young and conceited, he is not stupid enough to think that pie will fall from the sky on his head. So after thinking about it for a while, I realized that there must be another mystery in this, and immediately asked, "But I don't know what kind of business this is?" ”

"Well...... In the south of the Yangtze River, silk, tea and other things are abundant, and my Xu family has hoarded a large number of materials. We want to sell these things, so we want to use the Cao Gang's means of freight. ”

As soon as he heard that this was the case, Yan Huan's heart suddenly relaxed: "This is easy to do, I don't dare to say anything else, things on the canal can still be done." But I don't know which province in the north you want to transport these goods to? Since he had found himself, he thought that the other party naturally wanted to transport the goods to the north through the canal. In addition, presumably the Xu family thought that the taxes of the imperial court were too high during the transportation, so they wanted the Cao Gang to help evade taxes, and he also had some ways to do this.

But Xu Lide shook his head again: "If it is only transported to the north for sale, our Xu family will not find your Cao Gang." ”

"Where is that going?" Yan Huan was stunned again, and at the same time finally convinced that this time things were not so easy to handle.

Sure enough, I heard Xu Lide lower his voice and said, "It's going to sea." The silk and tea of the Ming Dynasty in overseas countries are extremely rare, and as long as they are transported and sold, they can obtain ten times or even a hundred times the profits in China. So we hope to borrow your boat to send the goods to sea! ”