Qin Lin's Lingbai boat sailed down the river from Nanjing, driving in the mighty Yangtze River, and when he arrived at Zhenjiang, there were three roads to choose from: continue along the main channel of the Yangtze River to the downstream direction, which is the Yangtze River and Nantong, until the Baishui Ocean at the mouth of the Yangtze River, and then the boundless Oriental Sea.

To the south from Zhenjiang into the Jiangnan Canal, Changzhou, Suzhou can reach Hangzhou Bay, this canal to and fro, almost all of the export of Japan, Goryeo porcelain, silk and copper coins, "which was originally produced in Jingdezhen, after crossing the ocean by the "Japan" himself called "Nanjing ......" can be sold at a very good price, at the same time, huā chic Goryeo celadon, Dongzhu, Japanese folding fans and Japanese knives are also from Hangzhou Bay in a steady stream of shipments, into the Chinese market.

There is no doubt that no matter whether the goods from China or the goods from Japan and Korea are the objects of smuggling in the sea trade, because the trade port allowed by the imperial court to open the sea in Longqing is the port of Yuegang in Fujian, "Hangzhou and Ningbo in Zhejiang are not legal foreign trade ports.

The boats on the canal full of smuggled goods are all wearing official lanterns, and the official ships and family boats are used as cover, and "behind them are either the squires who stand and give things" is a certain current Shangshu and Yushi.

Jia Fugui looked at these ships greedily, and his eyes were so slanderous that he was not qualified to go to the maritime trade business to get a piece of the pie, but if he got the concession through Zhang Juzheng's relationship, it would be a different matter.

Qin Lin pointed to the ships full of valuable commodities and asked Zhang Zixuan: "Look, the smuggling business is so prosperous, but the imperial court can't collect taxes from it" Isn't it ridiculous to let the rich businessmen evade taxes and evade taxes, but they want to loot from the sweaty peasants? ”

"Easier said than done!" , Zhang Zixuan smiled bitterly and shook her head, the current situation is that an iron-fisted figure like Zhang Juzheng also feels embarrassed about increasing commercial taxes, "Maybe Brother Qin doesn't know, the former Emperor Jiajing Emperor has sent eunuchs to collect mining taxes and commercial taxes many times" As a result, the civil officials of the Qingliu Dynasty of the Manchu Dynasty all cried their fathers and called their mothers' letters, saying that they should not do anything, and compete with the people for profit", and they should be lenient and kind, "they must be close to the gentleman and far away from the people, and they must implement the laws of the ancestors, and emphasize agriculture and suppress business" So the tax supervisor had no choice but to give up, "In the end, he did not receive much money.

"Competing with the people?" Qin Lin blinked in confusion: "Could it be that only rich businessmen are the people in Qingliu's mouth, and the farmers who sweat beads and fall eight petals are not the people?" ”

Zhang Zixuan smiled helplessly, "Brother Qin said...... the spoon is right, Qingliu said that it is not possible to "compete with the people", because the so-called "people" refers to themselves, accumulating wealth through various means, but they want to pass on the tax burden to the powerless people; As for the ancestral law, "in their view, the emphasis on agriculture and the suppression of business" means that the peasants are heavily taxed, and the taxes of the rich merchants are undercharged or not collected at all. ”

Qin Lin almost fell into the river, "It turns out that competing with the people for profits and valuing agriculture and suppressing business can all have opposite meanings in Qingliu's mouth, and sure enough, the official word has two mouths, how can you say that they are all abandoned!"

However, at present, as a xiǎoxiǎo Jinyi Wei Baihu, these things are not something he can manage" just sighed and said: "I finally understand why Wang Zhi was bī into a 偻寇." ”

Officials at all levels engaged in lucrative smuggling and maritime trade by virtue of their status beyond the law, and Wang Zhi, as a civilian maritime business group, was of course hated to the bone as their strong competitor; And Wang Zhi demanded the opening of the sea ban, that is, the people of the whole world could enter this industry freely, and the officials lost their monopoly advantage.

Zhang Zixuan originally looked at the ships full of smuggled goods in the distance thoughtfully, "Hearing this, he turned his head and looked at Qin Lin with eyes as bright as a morning star", pursed his lips and smiled: "Brother Qin is really smart this time." Praise me or hurt me? Qin Lin was speechless.

In addition to the downstream direction of the main channel of the Yangtze River and the Jiangnan Canal, the third waterway is the Jing Canal from Guazhou in the north of the Yangtze River.

In view of the fact that the scene of the crime was in Sanwan, the governor of Caoyun and the chief military officer of Caoyun both came to Yangzhou, Jiangbei, and Qin Lin naturally wanted to go to the Jing Canal.

The Yangtze River waterway can be rowed, boats, can borrow water power to go downstream, or can sail with the help of wind power", while the canal transportation relies more on manpower and animal power to pull fiber.

Jia Fugui waded with a leader-like jiāo, negotiated the price, and these slender men put ropes on the boat, and slowly dragged it from Guazhou into the Jing Canal with manpower.

This section of the canal is known as "a man-made curved river channel", an engineering measure taken to eliminate the ground height difference, reduce the slope of the channel, and slow down the water flow surface. ,

Qin Lin stood on the bow of the boat to observe the terrain, and Jia Fugui kept explaining to him.

Yangzhou Sanwan is a section of the Grand Canal flowing through the vicinity of Yangzhou, starting from Wantou Town in the northeast of Yangzhou, and meandering southwest to Guazhou where it joins the Yangtze River.

Although the distance in a straight line is only more than 40 miles, this section of the river turns into a zigzag bend, extending the river to more than 60 miles. This curved waterway not only increases the difficulty of navigation, but also prolongs the duration of navigation. So, why did the ancients do such a thankless job?

The canal flows through the Yangzhou Sanwan area, "since the Southern Song Dynasty when the Yellow River was diverted to the south to invade Si, Huai, Whirlpool, Ying, and the lower reaches of the Duowei River into the sea, the Yellow River's repeated outburst and flooding caused sediment accumulation, changed the original topography of this area in the south and low in the north, and constituted a three-level ladder of high in the north and low in the south, resulting in a short 20-mile river section, the height difference is as high as five zhang, in such a disparity in the river section, if it is opened into a straight road" It is difficult to ensure the smoothness of the canal water surface.

In order to solve this problem, the builders of the canal, after unremitting exploration and efforts, finally found a way to "straighten the road to make a curve", that is, to deliberately open a curved river channel according to the topography, and by increasing the length of the river, so as to achieve the purpose of reducing the slope of the river bed to adjust the water level difference, and building a winding road on the high mountain to reduce the slope of the mountain.

Qin Lin looked at the terrain and felt that it was indeed a little suspicious, this section of the river was very slow to navigate, and it was turning around, "If the White Lotus Sect takes advantage of this, it can indeed make some trouble."

But how did they move the ingots? There are also a lot of soldiers in the Cao fleet at night, and more than 30,000 catties of silver are not easy to carry!

The Sanwan Canal is high in the direction of Yangzhou and low in the direction of Guazhou, and the slender men pull the boat upstream, and it is not a lot of effort, Qin Lin stood on the boat and saw them sweating profusely.

After turning a big bend, the accident boat team stopped in front, and the flat-bottomed boat of Qingyi sè looked exactly the same, "Many heavily armed soldiers were closely guarded, and even a fly could not fly over."

"Damn, there must be an inner jiān!" Lu Fatzi shouted, "Brother Qin, look, the defense is so tight" If it weren't for Neijiān, there would be a ghost! Qin Lin nodded, and shook his head again: "The conclusion is good, but the inference is wrong." No matter how tightly defended it is, it is not without gaps, but the appearance of these cao ships is all exactly the same, if it is not for the inner jiān, how can the White Lotus Sect know that the ship is loaded with grain, and that ship is loaded with silver? The fat man was very thick-skinned and grinning, although we inferred that the basis was wrong, but the conclusion was finally crooked.

Qin Lin carefully observed the position where the cao boat was parked and the situation guarded by the soldiers, and soon noticed that the seventh ship from the front was the most closely guarded, presumably it must be the ship loaded with the stolen silver.

The canal is much narrower than the Yangtze River, and these boats are parked on the shore" The white boat almost brushed the side of the boat, and Qin Lin took the opportunity to take a cursory look at the situation on the other party's boat.

The fat man also stared at a pair of eyes, sighed in disappointment after a while, and asked, "Brother Qin" did you see anything? I didn't find anything. Zhang Zixuan lowered her head and smiled.

Only then did the fat man react, recalling that when he solved the murder case of Aunt Zhao of Wang Bengu's family not long ago, Qin Lin had said that nothing was also a clue.

"Then, I'll test you", Qin Lin smiled and patted the fat man on the shoulder: "The ship carrying the stolen silver has basically not found anything" What kind of conclusion can we draw from this? ”

The fat man counted with his fingers: "There are no traces of fireworks, knives and arrows, or collisions, which means that the ship has not encountered any violent attacks, and those Caoyin are completely in peace, and they have been robbed unconsciously." ”

Qin Lin nodded, the fat man's answer was exactly the same as what he thought, just looking at the appearance of the ship without any kind of damage at all, it showed that the White Lotus Sect's method was to take it by trick rather than by force.

Suddenly, there was the sound of gongs on the shore opening the way, and people in the distance shouted and neighed.

It turned out that the deputy envoy of the Qin mission came to check, and Huo Chonglou kept Huang Gonggong in the middle, "Chen Wangmo, the chief military officer of Caoyun, accompanied him, but Li Qiu, the governor of Caoyun, did not come.

Qin Lin asked the slender man to pull the boat and leave quickly, Huang and Huo learned about the situation from the official face, and Han Feilian would come to report in the evening.

The boat stopped at Yangzhou Wharf" Jia Fugui led the way, and everyone found a Tongji Inn to stay.

After dinner, "As soon as the night came, Han Feilian touched it."

"Li Qiu, that guy" is really not a thing! Han Feilian spat on the ground indignantly, and said, "Fortunately, Chen Wangmo gave back face." ”

Lu Yuanzhi, Niu Dali and others looked at each other in shock: Zhang Zixuan had already expected the reaction of the two civil and military forces, and what she said in the morning was completely consistent with the current situation!

Zhang Zixuan smiled slightly: "This is a common thing, not surprising. ”

Li Qiu "is the right deputy capital of the imperial history title, the governor of Caoyun and the commander of the military affairs, Fengyang and other places, is the third rank of the imperial court; And Chen Wangmo is the chief military officer of Pingjiangbo and Caoyun, and he is a noble military minister. The division of labor is that Wenchen is responsible for collecting the requisitioned grain together with the provincial grain routes according to the regulations, and then the Wuchen is responsible for escorting it into Beijing, that is, the so-called, "Wendu urges" Wudu Yun".

Now that Caoyin had an accident in the process of liberation, it was mainly Chen Wangmo's responsibility, and Li Qiu certainly didn't care much.

"So, did you find any clues from the officials?" Qin Lin asked again.

"There are no clues, completely blind, the Jinyi guard here has also investigated, and there is no clue at all" Han Feilian scratched his head, looking a little confused: "By the way, there is a veteran who gets up drunk and gets up all night is very suspicious."