It's night, Jiangning City, Jiangning Fuzhong.

Outside, Jiangning City is as prosperous as ever. The streets are bustling with pedestrians. The teahouse on the side of the street, the restaurant is full of people. At the door of the Qinglou on the other side of the street, scholars and students kept coming and going, the girls wore gorgeous clothes and makeup, swayed the champas in their hands, and showed off their youthful demeanor, attracting those passers-by, full of saliva, looking at the white skin exposed by the girls, and then wiped off their saliva, shook their heads and said some immoral words, and left.

Later, the girls looked at these people disdainfully, snorted, scolded Yingying Yanyan, and then continued to smile, put on the shoulders of the guests in and out, and smiled.

In Jiangning Mansion, it is a different scene.

In the past, Jiangning Mansion, which was extremely prosperous, was a depressing and murderous scene at this time.

The night is silent, in front of Jiangning Mansion, the road that is full of lights and pedestrians is crowded with pedestrians, but now there is not a single pedestrian. Everywhere you look, heavily armed sergeants with steel knives in hand, patrolling back and forth. Occasionally, when pedestrians walked by, the sergeants stared at these people with cold expressions, raised their hands and slowly grasped the hilt of the knife at their waists.

The pedestrians, suddenly sweating coldly, lowered their heads, pretended that I didn't see anything, and the big brothers continued, and then left with their heads bored.

Outside the gate of Jiangning Mansion, hundreds of Jiangning garrisons surrounded this quaint mansion tightly, and the water could not be leaked. They spear in hand, staring murderously at the closed door.

Inside the house, in the hall.

Although it is full of delicacies and elixir and jade liquid, all the guests present are all iron-blue. They dared to look at Hong Quan, who was sipping a little wine on the opposite side of the throne angrily.

These people are all the leaders of the Salt Gang in Jiangning City, who are rampant in black and white. In peacetime, they are all great people who occupy one side of the power. However, at this time, in the eyes of many murderous sergeants around, they were just a group of meat that had been put on the cutting board, and moreover, it was still a very fat lump of meat.

Just now, they suddenly received an invitation from Lord Yin Hong, saying that Lord Hong was holding a banquet in the mansion today to invite the salt merchants who had contributed to the people of Jiangning City.

These people didn't know what it was, and they thought it was an ordinary banquet in Pingyueli, drank two glasses of wine, and after a few words, the meeting dispersed. As a result, these people did not contact each other, and came to Jiangning Mansion in one go.

However, when they came, they found that things were completely different from what they had thought.

First, the family was pounced on and disarmed by a group of tigers and wolves. Then, they were pushed into the gate by a group of fierce sergeants, and then they were led into the hall by several strong men.

The angry salt merchants, just thinking about coming in, pointed to Hong Quan's nose and asked him, what do you mean by this. However, when I came in, I found that the hall was even more murderous than the outside. So these people lowered their heads very knowingly, and didn't dare to say half a word of nonsense.

In the wide hall, the lights were bright, and Hong Quan was alone, sitting at the table, sipping a small wine. After seeing these salt merchants come in one by one, a sincere smile appeared on Hong Quan's chubby face, and he raised his glass and stood up and said, "Oh, everyone has arrived, hehe, this official has been waiting for you for a long time, come, you're welcome, hurry up and take the seat!" ”

Then the maids brought a sumptuous meal.

Lord Hong smiled, raised his wine glass, swept these strange-looking salt merchants, smiled, and said, "Hehe, don't panic, everyone, an extremely bad thing happened in Jiangning City today. Hey, speaking of which, it's all due to the ineffectiveness of the official's rule. I didn't expect that under this bright and prosperous situation, in Jiangning City, which has always been stable and peaceful, there would be a large family fornicating with foreigners, trying to put my Great Zhou and the water in dire straits. In desperation, the official issued an order to block the major streets in the city with Prince Ning, and today I invite everyone to come, first, to thank you for your support to the official, and secondly, to help you clear your suspicions. ”

Seeing Hong Quan's fake smile, the salt merchants were dumbfounded.

Damn, I've seen shameless, I've never seen you so shameless.

What curfew, what blockade streets. ** thought that Lao Tzu was blind and deaf. When I came, the people who were playing all over the streets were ghosts?

If you want to put Lao Tzu under house arrest, you can say it clearly, and there are so many twists and turns.

However, the salt merchants secretly glanced in all directions. I saw that around the hall, the soldiers holding steel swords, bows and arrows were all staring at them with cold faces.

Moreover, many people's hands have already held down the handle of the knife. It seems that as long as Hong Quan gives an order, he is going to kill here.

Hey, who told people to have hard fists? People are under the eaves and have to bow their heads. Let's do it first, it's important to save your life!

After hearing Hong Quan's words, the salt merchants immediately made a flattered look, raised their wine glasses one after another, and hurriedly said with a smile: "Your Excellency is polite, hehe, it is my honor to help the lord solve problems!" ”

"That's, that's it, the adults say so, but they look down on me and wait, although we have a few spare money, and there are people to help, but, after all, we are the people under the rule of adults, hehe, to be able to solve problems for adults, the villains are very honored!"

In the crowd, most of them said good things, but there were also people who said that they were sharing their worries with adults. But between the words, the threat brought out is self-evident.

The boss of the salt gang of the Jiangning salt merchants, Kong Longming is one of them.

The bottom of the empty dragon sound, Hong Quan naturally knows. This person used to be the head of the household of an official in Tokyo, and five years ago, he came to Jiangning and started buying and selling official salt. With the support of various people, coupled with the ruthlessness of this person, within five years, he became famous. He became a representative of Jiangning salt merchants. Moreover, according to the news from the eyeliner, this person is the boss of the Jiangning Salt Gang.

And he is the person that Lu Gongzi personally sent someone to tell him, and he must pay special attention to tonight.

At this time, he held the wine glass, looked at the fat Hong Quan without smiling, and smiled: "That's right, although there are often nobles above who tell me to wait, saying that you don't have to be afraid, who dares to bully you, Lao Tzu let him die without a body." However, adults will never bully us, and everyone knows that, right?

"That's right!"

"That's it!"

……

As soon as Kong Longming spoke, many salt merchants echoed him. Most of the people are holding the expression of watching the excitement and looking at Hong Quan on the front. Look at him, what the hell to do,

Scold. Everyone knows who the person above the empty dragon is and everyone knows it. The salt merchants who are doing it don't believe that Hong Quan has the courage to touch the empty boss.

The Yangtze River salt merchants have existed since ancient times, and these people are either overtly or covertly related to some people in the imperial court, otherwise, the previous imperial courts all knew that the salt gang sold illegal salt, but it was repeatedly prohibited.

Clear-sighted people know that a large part of the beneficiaries of the Salt Gang's business are those big officials in the court.

Hehe, cut off your own financial route, and a fool will do it.

And the successive emperors also knew that the ministers of the court and the central government were involved in it. Moreover, these ministers who can control the Salt Gang are often representatives of the big families.

In the consideration of the stability of the society and the eternal stability of the country, the emperor was also helpless against the salt gang who had been repeatedly banned, and in the end, he had to turn a blind eye.

After all, the Salt Gang can sometimes play a positive role.

Every time they went to war, these salt gangs would often make some gestures to show favor to the imperial court, such as issuing private salt in the market. Or, directly donate a huge amount of private salt to the imperial court.

This amount is often more than the amount of official salt in the hands of the imperial court.

Therefore, the successive governors of Jiangning Mansion knew this trick, so they turned a blind eye to these salt merchants and let them go.

However, in recent years, more and more evidence has shown that the boss behind the Jiangning salt merchants is likely to be the current crown prince and the future emperor.

Therefore, even Hong Quan, more than ten years ago, ignored these salt merchants who were engaged in illegal trading.

However, as things developed in an uncontrollable direction, the family began to blatantly deal with the children of the Han family, and the battle for the crown prince was staged again in Ouchi.

And the emperor has not said a word. It seems that he doesn't care about the current princes' struggle for the throne.

As a result, various forces began to seek their own spokespeople.

Of course, as a member of the cold family, Hong Quan, who has always lived in Jiangning and does not care about court affairs, also deeply felt the depth of the water, and after deep consideration, decided to join this battle for the crown prince.

However, he was on Wu Ningyuan's side.

And Prince Ning was the backbone of urging the emperor to depose the crown prince back then.

Hehe, as for who Prince Ning supports to come to power, and who will be the future Majesty of Da Zhou, it doesn't matter. The important thing is that as long as you win this battle, at least your own life will be saved.

Of course, Hong Quan had hesitated before. Do you want to be part of this unfathomable melee? He was originally indifferent and didn't want to be drawn into this political battle.

However, as the forces of all parties come to the door, all kinds of means are close, coercion and temptation, and everything is used. And among these forces, the envoys of the prince's family are particularly annoying.

Damn, thinking of the way the envoy's nostrils were facing the sky, Hong Quan was shaking with fat all over his body.

What a! Isn't it just a prince who was almost deposed?

So, the next day after the prince's family came to the door. Hong Quan felt that he could not get out of this chaos. In desperation, he jumped onto Wu Ningyuan's thief ship. Since then, it has fallen into the rivers and lakes.

Now, he already knew that this empty dragon was the crown prince's person. However, he is already a barefoot person who is not afraid to wear shoes, and seeing the threat implied in his words, he has a sinister smile on his face. Hong Quan naturally wouldn't be afraid of him except for despising him in his heart.

Hong Quan smiled, ignoring the threat of the empty dragon song, but holding the wine glass, after taking a sip, smashed his mouth, and then, in the eyes of everyone breathing fire, he picked up the chopsticks again, took a piece of meat, and enjoyed it. Only then did he speak: "Speaking of this suspicion, this official originally thought that no one who could be present today would participate in this kind of lack of morality. It's just, hey, it's really sad and indignant. You are all the pillars of my Great Zhou, and this official can't believe that among you, there will be someone who will do this kind of lack of virtue that is poked in the backbone by the descendants of the younger generations! What a tragedy! ”

As he spoke, Hong Quan shook his head and sighed with deep hatred, the grief on his face, the death of his father was just like that.

Kong Longming listened to this fat man, and said something pointed. Suddenly, his eyes narrowed, and an indelible cold light flashed in his eyes. He picked up his wine glass, looked at Hong Quan with a smile, and said in surprise: "What do you mean by this, my lord?" Does it mean that we and others are collaborating with the enemy and treason? ”

Hong Quan was stunned for a moment, then raised his head and laughed. Then, I saw this fat man, very elegantly wiped his mouth with a handkerchief. After putting down the handscroll, he looked at Kong Longming with a smile, raised his chin, and said happily: "Yes, this official is talking about you, didn't Boss Long hear it?" ”

As soon as the words came out, the whole house was shocked!

Kong Longming was stunned for a moment, then stood up suddenly, patted the table and pointed at Hong Quan, who was sitting opposite, and shouted: "Hong Quan, what do you mean by this?" ”

】

The empty dragon roared violently, and the table with a palm slammed trembled. On the table, the plates vibrated and rattled. Even the wine in the glass was spilled everywhere.

Hong Quan had a sincere smile on his face, looked at the empty dragon whose face had changed greatly, and said, "This official is not interesting, I just want to kill you!" ”；

Hong Quan smiled, suddenly put away the smile on his face, stared coldly at the frightened Kong Longming, and said to the warrior behind him: "Come on, Kong Longming collaborates with the enemy and treason, and the crime deserves death." Take it down for this officer! ”

Kong Longming took a step back, looking around for a way to break through, but was disappointed to find that all corners of the room were guarded by heavily armed sergeants.

At this time, these soldiers, holding steel knives in their hands, were approaching them step by step.

Kong Longming still did not give up resistance, he held the last trace of life-saving straw, and threatened Hong Quandao: "The surname is Hong, don't say that Lao Tzu didn't warn you." Three days later, the Qin mission will come to Jiangning. Do you dare to touch Lao Tzu, believe it or not, you are all finished? ”

Hong Quan's face froze, but he quickly regained his composure, and he took a sip of his wine glass. sneered: "Believe, of course believe." How can this official not believe your empty words. However, heh, everyone who is doing it can prove that you are treason with the enemy with the sound of empty dragons. Right, folks? ”

Hong Quan sneered and stared at the others on the table. Fingers tapped lightly on the tabletop and asked in a deep voice.

"My lord, my lord is right, we will testify for my lord!" Seeing that the surname is in danger, he may be cut off at some point. The rest of the salt merchants, seeing that the situation was not good, turned their rudders one after another. threw himself to Hong Quan's side.

Hong Quan nodded with satisfaction, stroked the mustache on the corner of his mouth, and shouted to the empty dragon on the opposite side: "How, empty boss." You are dead, and you deserve to die. Chincha won't avenge you! Oh, go with confidence! ”

Hong Quan smiled, and the raised palm fell suddenly.

At this moment, ten thousand arrows are fired!