Li Xin immediately conducted an in-depth investigation of this creditor, but the result made him vaguely feel that this person's identity may not be simple. This creditor was also a perennial trader who specialized in transporting goods such as leather and tea, but the year before last he suddenly stopped running out of the mouth, saying that he had earned enough money on his belt for many years, and that he would have a peaceful birthday in a few days, so he became a money lender. At first, people did not believe that he had enough money to be a money lender, but with the release of several large sums of money, this concern gradually dispelled.

Over time, it is difficult to know the details of their family's financial resources in the lending industry, and they are all secretive. As for the source of his property, there are different opinions in the market, some people say that he made a fortune in the years when he ran a business, and some people even say that he found the treasure buried by the Mongolian Tatars, all kinds of rumors are varied, but one of the most reliable theories is that he climbed the rich side of the Lu family.

In fact, this person has always obeyed Lu Jinji's words, and just before the disaster in Taiyuan, he also cooperated with Lu Jinji to use money lending as a trap in the name and annexed a large amount of land outside the city. Due to the disaster this year, there is not enough manpower to take care of those lands, and more than half of them are still deserted, but it is the owner's land, and Li Xin is naturally inconvenient to dispose of it.

Continuing to go deeper, even Tian Fuzhen smacked his tongue again and again, "Tian has never seen such a rare situation in his decades as an official, and six or seven out of ten merchants in the city have borrowed the hands of one person, which is very strange!" ”

Li Xin deeply agreed with what Tian Fuzhen said: Private loans are normal for non-governmental business exchanges, but it is not normal for half of the loans to come from one person.

"Tian Fuzun, immediately send your soap subordinates to take confessions one by one according to this loan list, there are two main points that must be clear, one is whether these loans have anything to do with the Lu family, and the other is whether Lu Jinji has ever blackmailed them on the grounds of collecting money, as for the details, the more detailed the better."

After half a day's effort, the results of the investigation made Li Xin secretly frightened, almost the vast majority of people were unanimous, this person responded to the strike under the pretext of collecting debts, and they all did not disclose that Lu Jinji was behind the scenes, if you want to intercede, you can only go to him, but who is qualified to contact the head of the Lu family?

The order seems to be clear, and all the spearheads are almost directly aimed at Lu Jinji, Master Guo grinds his fists and Huo Huo, "This thief is very hateful, now that the human and material evidence are there, he should be immediately arrested and brought to justice, dealt with according to law, and restored order to the public!" ”

Tian Fuzhen disagreed.

"Don't be in a hurry, the current evidence is all about oral evidence, there is no substantial direct evidence to prove that Lu Jinji has a subordinate relationship with the money lender, and others have heard from the mouth of the money lender, and acting rashly is tantamount to startling the snake, which prematurely exposes our purpose and determination to clean up his preparation, and also gives him time and opportunity to prepare."

Li Xin agreed with Tian Fuzhen's idea, but he had a strong sense of frustration, he never thought that the Shanxi industry and commerce he had been trying to support was actually the current virtue, the big oligarchy relied on the collusion of officials and businessmen as a strong capital backer, to the vast number of small merchants to take what they wanted, life and death, in the long run, his preferential policies not only can not really let the majority of merchants get benefits, but will become the accomplices of these oligarchs with a deep power background to accumulate wealth.

Thinking of this, Li Xin was shocked into a cold sweat, he canceled the tax cards in various places, changed them to new tax collection regulations, and put the yamen in charge of industry and commerce in charge of this matter, which was originally a good thing, so according to the current situation, it is impossible for these oligarchs to take advantage of loopholes to evade taxes and make a fortune?

He suddenly realized that starting from here was a key opportunity to investigate and deal with the Lu Mansion, and after thinking about it, he had an idea.

"At present, there are two major things to be done, one of which is to ask Tian Fuzun to immediately instruct a special person to enter the industrial and commercial yamen to investigate and deal with tax evasion, among which the three families of Lu Zhou Wang of Taiyuan Mansion are the main suspects. Second, this matter must be handled by a trading company, Master Guo, you can take it upon yourself, and in the shortest possible time, at any cost, at any cost, open at least 20 or more shops in Taiyuan City, covering the needs of food and clothing, so as to alleviate the supply panic caused by the strike. ”

Tian Fuzhen and Master Guo were both in the eyes of the general when they heard this, and the general came up with a good idea. If the Lu government only targets the boycott, it is tantamount to a headache and a pain in the feet, and if it finds another way to investigate the illegality of its behavior, then it can change from passive to active, and the initiative will immediately return to the hands of the government.

Master Guo clapped his hands and said: "The general has a two-pronged approach, first punishing the Lu family's lawlessness and cutting off the root cause." Then open more shops and cut off his conspiracy to disrupt the situation. In this way, the current dilemma can be solved immediately. The shop will be wrapped up in the villain, and the shops of our trading company will bloom everywhere in Taiyuan City within three days! ”

At the beginning of its establishment, according to Li Xin's vision, the United Trading Company did not intend to get involved in the retail business at all, but focused on the trading and transshipment of large quantities of salt, iron and grain, so that it would not compete with the small and medium-sized merchants in the city in this regard. But no one could have imagined that the fat was in front of him, Li Xin couldn't bear to eat it, and someone would salivate. Lu Jinji is one of them, who wantonly used various means to seize and seize almost the entire industrial and commercial resources around Taiyuan Prefecture.

This is also the Chongzhen period to crack down on private mining, otherwise the coal and iron resources of Taiyuan would have been in its pocket.

"The only problem at the moment is time, Liu Lingyu and Li Yuefu are always staring at us, and such a shocking thing as a boycott will inevitably be cited as a handle, so as to write to the imperial court to participate in the high-pressure violence of the general to provoke a popular uprising, if the statement of the popular rebellion is confirmed, I am afraid, I am afraid it will be very bad."

Tian Fuzhen said his hidden worries with a worried face, and Li Xin smiled with a smile: "You and I do our best, why bother with gains and losses, it doesn't help the result much." ”

The strategy was set, and Tian Guo and the two acted separately.

Tian Fuzhen's efficiency was really fast, and within a morning, he organized all the financial experts in the prefect's yamen and stationed them in the industrial and commercial yamen. The so-called industrial and commercial yamen is actually a half-official and half-commercial organization, and Li Xin certainly does not have the power to set up an official office and appoint officials, but he is good at compromise, so he asked Tian Fuzhen to hire and appoint a large number of recruited non-governmental people to take up business positions in the name of the Taiyuan prefect's yamen, and then the prefect's yamen sent personnel to supervise and take charge of this matter.

Therefore, it can also be said that this so-called industrial and commercial yamen is actually subordinate to the prefect's yamen, and Tian Fuzhen's financial experts are not very dry, and it only took an afternoon of work to find out a thick stack of various tax evasion and tax evasion.

There may be no procedural flaws in the method of tax evasion and tax avoidance, but in terms of the Ordinance, it is easy to determine whether the other party has maliciously evaded tax by referring to the household registration information. The new tax collection regulations are implemented to rely on household registration information as the only identification credential for tax payers to pay taxes independently, and the vast majority of tax evaders use household registration information that has nothing to do with them, and they are discarded when they buy and sell, and never pay taxes, so that the cycle goes back and forth, and the amount of tax evasion is so large that Tian Fuzhen is smacked.

As a result, Tian Fuzhen was furious, these things should have been verified in accordance with the regulations, reported to the prefect's yamen, and then the yamen soap was responsible for recovering the tax arrears according to the household registration information, but they were inexplicably suppressed, obviously even the auditors he sent every month on weekdays were afraid that they were all in a league with the lawbreakers, and secretly determined that after the matter was over, it was necessary to carry out a cleaning in the prefect's yamen to clean up those greedy silverfish.

Looking at the mountains of household registration information in front of him, the corners of Tian Fuzhen's mouth twitched. That night, the prefect's yamen soap was out in all directions, and the whole city and outside the city searched for tax evasion suspects, and for a time hundreds of people were arrested inside and outside Taiyuan. After statistics, these people are basically some unemployed bankrupts, some yeoman farmers and even tenants. Isn't it strange that such a group of people have registered the circulation of hundreds of thousands of taels of silver goods in the industrial and commercial yamen? It makes people laugh and laugh their teeth, no wonder Lu Jinji dares to unscrupulously coerce merchants to boycott the market, or underestimate that there are no capable people in the government.

These people were interrogated overnight, and they all confessed, and they all confessed that the three families of Lu Zhouwang paid for their household registration information, and there were black and white handprints, as well as a transaction contract.

Zhou Mazi was transferred from the auxiliary barracks by Master Guo and was responsible for transporting goods. When planning the shop, Master Guo found that this was not a simple matter, and the lack of manpower was the first problem in front of him.

At first, Zhou Mazi was reluctant to come, but when Master Guo offered a monthly reward of ten taels of silver, he immediately nodded in agreement.

Although these people have no experience in running shops, they are better at knowing the roots and being reliable, and Master Guo also fully understands the general's intentions, and the purpose of opening the shop this time is not to make money, but to break the panic and resentment that has gradually accumulated in the city caused by the boycott. Therefore, as long as the shop is opened, even if it is half the success, as for the goods, let alone whether they make money or not, even if they are given away for free, he will not object.

It took only two days to complete the high-priced plate and the daily goods at a high price, and the firecrackers were set off all over the city early in the morning on the third day, and the opening of the big reward was also announced, and the price of all commodities and goods was halved on the first day.

As soon as the news spread, it immediately caused a sensation in the whole city, and the first batch of 20 shops was almost crowded, and the purchasing power accumulated in the past few days was very large, until sunset, and a large number of shoppers were still crowded outside the closed shops.

At the time of the evening inventory, due to various reasons such as unfamiliarity and price confusion, although the first day of the market was hot, the shops ended up at a loss. This made Master Guo feel distressed to the core, because these holes in his forehead were his personal work omissions, and he was personally responsible for them, but he finally lived up to expectations, and it was worth the pain.

In the past three days, some people laughed and some people were worried, and Lu Sizhen, the procurator of the criminal prosecution, sneered again and again after hearing about Li Xin's various responses, and finally made up his mind.