According to the usual practice, Li Yuntian went to Yangzhou Wei's prison this time to inspect the suspects and their families in the cell, and those suspects and their families huddled in front of the wooden fence after seeing Li Yuntian, kneeling on the ground and begging for mercy, mixed with the cries of women and children.

Seeing this, Li Yuntian secretly shook his head in his heart, why did he bother today? Now the evidence of their crimes is conclusive, and they must be punished by the laws of the Ming Dynasty.

Different from previous officials, Li Yuntian not only inspected the prison, but also went to the prison room to check the prison food.

Although those suspects and their families were guilty, Li Yuntian gave them preferential treatment and personally formulated the food standards in the prison to ensure that these people could eat well and that the food would not be difficult to swallow.

Due to the large number of people involved in the Lianghuai Yandao case, Li Yuntian was ready to play Emperor Xuande at that time, and let these criminals and their families be exiled to Jiaozhi to enrich the population of the Ming army in Jiaozhi, which is commonly known as the immigrant Shibian, which is an important measure to strengthen the rule of the imperial court in Jiaozhi.

Therefore, Li Yuntian will definitely not let those criminals and their families collapse their bodies in prison, otherwise how can they adapt to the long journey to Jiaozhi?

It is worth mentioning that although those prisoners were locked up in Yangzhou Wei's prison, the prison was no longer under the jurisdiction of Yangzhou Wei at this time, and was temporarily taken over by the Jinyi Wei brought by Li Yuntian.

Two days later, when Li Yuntian organized people to count the property of those involved in the case, Li Manshan sent to Huguang to arrest Zhao Dengyu's subordinates and came back, and they brought bad news -- Zhao Dengyu did not go to Huguang's father-in-law's house, and his whereabouts were unknown.

After learning about this, Li Yuntian was not surprised, but smiled slightly, he had already been mentally prepared for this matter, and he could be sure that Zhao Wenju had a premonition that the shape was not good after Zhang Gui's accident, and then made arrangements in advance, so that Zhao Dengyu took his wife and children out to take refuge, so as to protect a bloodline of the Zhao family.

In Li Yuntian's opinion, this is actually a good thing, since Zhao Wenju let Zhao Dengyu's family escape, then he must have attached great importance to Zhao Dengyu in his heart, as long as he can find out the Zhao Dengyu family who is hiding, then Zhao Wenju, who will be disheartened, will have a great psychological impact.

Therefore, finding Zhao Dengyu has become Li Yuntian's first priority, and as for how to find Zhao Dengyu who is deliberately hiding in the vast sea of people, he already has a way to deal with it.

Lu Dezhong's home is located in the rich area in the south of Yangzhou City, is a courtyard with several entrances and exits, covering a vast area, magnificent, very magnificent, and there are more than 100 people in the family alone.

There are as many as twenty or thirty mansions in Yangzhou City of this scale like the Lu family, and the scale of Li Yuntian's Zhenwuhou Mansion in the capital is already large enough, but the area is only about eighty percent of the Lu family, and the wealth of Yangzhou merchants can be seen.

In recent days, the Lu family has been receiving a lot of guests, and those salt merchants in Yangzhou City have come to visit one after another, wanting to ask Lu Dezhong about Li Yuntian's attitude towards this investigation, but Lu Dezhong closed the door in the name of worshipping the Buddha and politely turned away those salt merchants.

Lu Dezhong has been up and down in the business sea for most of his life, so he naturally knows the intention of those salt merchants, but since Li Yuntian came to Yangzhou City, he has only seen Li Yuntian once at the reception banquet, so he doesn't know where Li Yuntian's bottom line for this investigation is, so naturally there is no way to sue those merchants.

What is particularly important is that although Lu Dezhong has left the business circle of salt merchants four years ago and transferred his business from the salt industry to other fields, he was after all the high-ranking vice president of the salt merchants association four years ago, and he has participated in many confidential matters of the salt merchants' association, so it is inconvenient to show his head at this time, so he chose to keep a low profile in the hope of surviving the turmoil of the two Huai salt roads.

That night, Lu Dezhong was leisurely in a small courtyard in the back house, shaking his head and listening to a new concubine singing a little song, beating rhythmically with both hands, and there were sumptuous dishes on the table in front of him.

Compared with the salt merchants who are always panicked, Lu Dezhong is calm in the face of the two Huai Salt Roads, with his understanding of Li Yuntian, Li Yuntian will definitely not involve him, after all, his elbows are turned in.

Moreover, four years ago, Lu Dezhong had already dealt with the matter related to the Lianghuai Salt Road, as long as Li Yuntian did not be ruthless to him, then there would be no evidence of his selling of illicit salt.

"Sir!" Suddenly, the door was pushed open by a middle-aged man, who was the butler of the Lu Mansion and hurriedly walked in.

Lu Dezhong was excited when he heard this, and was suddenly interrupted by the housekeeper, and immediately cast a dissatisfied look, and there was no reproach in his eyes, thinking that the housekeeper was acting too frizzy.

After the housekeeper leaned over and whispered a few words in Lu Dezhong's ear, Lu Dezhong's expression suddenly changed, and he didn't care about the concubine who was singing there, and left in a hurry.

In the hall of the back house, Li Yuntian, dressed in casual clothes, stood in front of a wooden shelf, admiring with great interest the antiques placed on it, including porcelain, bronze and gold, and high-quality items of great value at that time.

"Stand down." Lu Dezhong walked into the door quickly, and when he saw Li Yuntian, he was overjoyed, and hurriedly waved his hand at the maid and the servants who were waiting in the house, it was obvious that Li Yuntian had something to do with him this time, and these things were inconvenient for outsiders to hear.

At the beckoning of the butler, the servants immediately withdrew from the room, and the butler closed the door with amusement and stood guard at the door to prevent anyone from eavesdropping.

"Boss Lu, they all say that the businessmen in Yangzhou are rich in the world, and now it seems that they really live up to their reputation, and the things that are placed here alone are worth two or three hundred thousand taels." After the people left, Li Yuntian pointed to a few wooden shelves with antiques in the hall, and said to Lu Dezhong with a smile.

"Master Hou has good eyesight!" If other officials said this kind of thing to Lu Dezhong, Lu Dezhong knew that the other party wanted to ask him for money nine times out of ten, but Li Yuntian was not the kind of person who was greedy for money, Lu Dezhong knew that Li Yuntian was just talking about things, so he said with a smile, "What is the face of the people in the business field, so I put these things here to support the façade." ”

"This official is here to ask you for advice." Li Yuntian smiled when he heard this, sat down on the seat next to him, and then stretched out his hand and pointed to the seat next to Lu Dezhong to sit down, and said straight to the point.

"Hou Ye has everything to ask, and he must know everything in the future." Lu Dezhong knew that Li Yuntian had nothing to do but go to the Three Treasures Palace, and it must be related to the matter of the Lianghuai Salt Road, so he bowed to Li Yuntian after he sat down and replied in a deep voice.

"What is your relationship with Zhao Wenju?" Li Yuntian smiled and nodded, very satisfied with Lu Dezhong's attitude, and then asked quietly.

"Zhao Wenju is Vice President Wei's person, and his relationship with him is acceptable." Lu Dezhong's eyes flashed with a look of surprise, as far as he knew, Zhao Wenju had been arrested and put in Yangzhou Wei's prison, and now he must have truthfully confessed his crimes, and he didn't understand why Li Yuntian was interested in him.

Vice President Wei is Wei Deguang, vice president of the Salt Merchants Association, and Wei Zhennan, who molested Zhou Yuting in Yangzhou City and imprisoned Zhou Yuting in the Yamen Prison of Lianghuai Salt Road, is his second son.

"Does Zhao Wenju have any particularly trustworthy friends? Preferably the kind of friend whose existence is rarely known! Li Yuntian naturally knew that Zhao Wenju was Wei Deguang's person, and he also knew that Zhao Wenju had a good relationship with Lu Dezhong, and after hearing this, he asked seemingly casually, this is the purpose of his visit this time.

"Master Hou, if Zhao Wenju is the most trusted friend and the outside world usually doesn't know, then it is a cloth merchant named Chen Lan in Shaoxing Mansion, Zhejiang, as far as I know, Zhao Wenju seems to have saved Chen Lan's life more than ten years ago, and the relationship between the two is irreversible."

Lu Dezhong frowned when he heard this, and immediately understood what Li Yuntian meant, he wanted to know Zhao Wenju's close friends in private, so he frowned and thought about it, and then said to Li Yuntian in a deep voice.

If it weren't for Li Yuntian reminding Lu Dezhong that "few people know about his friends", then Lu Dezhong would really find it difficult to think of Chen Lan for a while, when he drank with Zhao Wenju, Zhao Wenju once told him about Chen Lan after he was drunk, but Lu Dezhong, who was already a little drunk, didn't take it to heart, and now he was suddenly reminded by Li Yuntian.

"Chen Lan?" Li Yuntian's eyes suddenly flashed with joy when he heard this, if he didn't guess wrong, Zhao Dengyu's family must be hiding in Chen Lan's house, it seems that Zhao Wenju has already left a way back for himself, and arranged such an unknown foothold for the Chen family, once the Zhao family is in trouble, they can hide from Chen Lan.

The reason why Li Yuntian guessed this was not a whim, but an inference based on the current situation, in ancient times, transportation was inconvenient, so the mobility of the people was not large, as long as they did not encounter natural and man-made disasters, they would die of old age in one place, which also made it very conspicuous once there was an extra family in a certain place.

Moreover, the Zhao family is in the salt business, and if he leaves the salt industry, Zhao Dengyu will be a cross-bank operation, the so-called across the mountains is like a mountain, and the business in other industries is not so easy to do, and Zhao Dengyu is still a foreigner, so it is obvious that he will be troubled by the local ruffians and bullies.

Therefore, in Li Yuntian's opinion, since Zhao Wenju let Zhao Dengyu's family escape from Yangzhou for refuge, he will definitely arrange the aftermath for him, and nine times out of ten he will entrust Zhao Dengyu's family to a friend to take care of, so that Zhao Dengyu can gain a firm foothold in the local area.

Of course, with Zhao Wenju's sophistication, he naturally knew that the friend he was looking for must not be known to the outside world, otherwise the government would definitely send someone to investigate, so he could only be a secret friend like Chen Lan.

The salt merchant who knows Zhao Wenju best is naturally the salt merchant of the Salt Merchants Association, Li Yuntian can't go to find other salt merchants, and even if other salt merchants know, they will definitely not sue him, and it is also possible to startle the snake and make Zhao Dengyu escape.

Therefore, Li Yuntian had to come to Lu Dezhong, Lu Dezhong, as the vice president of the Salt Merchants Association, must know that many salt merchants, especially the interpersonal network of salt merchants at the level of Zhao Wenju, might provide him with useful information, and now it seems that this is the case, Chen Lan is the person he is looking for.