The carriage bumped all the way, and soon came to the gate of the courtyard where Yanque settled the Yang family.

Chu Luoci looked at it slightly, and there were many soldiers around here, surrounded by airtight.

Chu Luoci turned his gaze to Yan Que: "The prince also brought soldiers with him this time?" ”

Yan Que nodded, "Although it is said that it is a patrol on behalf of the Son of Heaven, in fact, it is inevitable that there will be dangers along the way, so when you set off, the guards are full of them." ”

As he spoke, he couldn't hold back, and leaned closer to Chu Luoci's ear and whispered, "But the people who are guarding here are all I planted in the escort team, and my own people can be trusted." ”

He was so close that the hot breath sprayed behind Chu Luoci's ears, and Chu Luoci was a little unaccustomed to it, so he leaned aside.

Disappointment flashed in Yan Que's eyes, but he quickly put away his emotions.

It was a long process for Chu Luoci to accept him again, and now that Chu Luoci did not contradict him, he was already very happy.

The guards guarding outside saw that it was Yan Que coming, and automatically made way for Chu Luoci and Yan Que to go in together.

The two children followed and went into the courtyard.

This courtyard is quite large, because in addition to an old lady in the rich merchant of Yang Xing, there are two sons below, both of whom are married and have children.

There are more than ten people in the family, and thanks to the spacious courtyard that Yanque found for them, it doesn't look crowded.

Soon, a guard greeted him and asked if Yan Que needed to invite the old lady out.

Yan Que shook his head, "You don't have to work the old man, let's go by ourselves." ”

Walking indoors, an old lady with gray hair was drinking tea.

Chu Luoci learned from Yan Que that this old lady was over seventy years old, which was considered a long life, but although she looked gray, she was in good spirits, and she was very stable when she held the teacup, and she didn't tremble at all.

Seeing that Yan Que and Chu Luo were coming, she wanted to get up and salute, and Yan Que hurriedly stepped forward a few steps to hold her hand.

"The elderly don't have to be like this."

The old lady did not refuse, and sat down again with Yan Que's hand.

"When my lord was alive, he especially liked to drink the tea I made, and today I show my hand, and I ask the prince and distinguished guests not to dislike it."

When she talked about the distinguished guest, her eyes turned to Chu Luoci on the side.

Chu Luoci felt a pang in his heart, this old lady is by no means an ordinary person!

In order to hide people's eyes, she followed Yan Que when she went out, and she wore ordinary clothes, and she was also easy to look at, and her appearance was mediocre.

But this old lady can see at a glance that her identity is not ordinary, and sure enough, such a powerful person can preserve the bloodline of the Yang family in the chaos of the year, and it can continue to this day.

was recognized, Chu Luoci didn't explain, and sat down with the two children.

The old lady saw a pair of twins following her, and the smile on her face became even more loving.

"It's my negligence, I didn't expect two little guests to come today, a few days ago, the people sent by the prince found goat milk from Orion, add some sugar, add some peanut foam, it's very sweet, grandma asked someone to bring a bowl to you to drink, okay?"

When the two children heard this, their eyes lit up, and they wanted to nod their heads in agreement, but they glanced at Chu Luoci again, and seemed to ask her with their eyes if she could do it.

Chu Luoci nodded, "Thank you, grandma." ”

The two children thanked the old lady sweetly.

After a while, the hot goat's milk was served.

Yan Que motioned to the dark guard on the side to take the two children out to play for a while, and the two children were still a little hesitant when they left, and when they saw Chu Luoci nodding at them, they followed the dark guard.

After the two children left, Yan Que directly expressed his intention.

"Old man, I came here this time to ask you about Mr. Yang's raising of grain and grass back then."

The old lady sighed, "Alas, I've been hiding for so many years, but I still can't hide!" ”

"Old man, it's not clear that your husband died back then, don't you want to avenge him? Obviously you did a good deed but ended up where you are now, don't you have a little resentment in your heart? ”

"How could it not be?"

Maybe it's because when it comes to her dead husband, a trace of loneliness flashed in the old lady's eyes, "When he died, he was still in the prime of life, and he took care of the property left by my father-in-law in good order, so many years have passed, he went to Huangquan, but I can only live in this world......"

She babbled a little, and when she came back to her senses, she found that tears had wet her eyes, and the two juniors were looking at her silently.

"Let the prince smile, people are old, and there are more words."

She wiped her tears: "Lord Wang, it's not that I don't want to tell you what I know, but I told Lord Wang, and Lord Wang himself will get into trouble, do you understand?" ”

Yan Que nodded: "I understand, but it's too late to withdraw now." ”

He thought about it for a while, and told the old lady about his assassination.

The old man was shocked when he heard this: "These people are really bold, you are the prince!" ”

"That's why this king wants to thoroughly investigate this matter to the end, no matter what, this king has already been in this troubled water, and there is no reason to give up halfway! I just ask the old man to help me and tell me everything you knew back then. ”

"That's it, it's come to this, even if I don't say it, I can't avoid these disputes, besides, after so many years, our family has endured enough!"

An expression of determination crossed the old man's eyes, and he looked at Yan Que seriously.

"Lord Wang, if I say this matter, you have to decide to investigate, that is, you are an enemy of the world, or even an enemy of the current saint, are you really sure you want me to say it?"

Chu Luoci and Yan Que glanced at each other, and the two had different expressions in their eyes.

Chu Luoci was shocked, shocked that this matter would even involve the emperor.

And Yan Que knew it in his eyes.

When he was in Kyoto, he had already guessed that there must be the emperor's acquiescence behind this matter, otherwise it would not have gone so smoothly, and no one dared to question it for so many years.

"Old man, this king hereby swears that he will protect your family, please tell me everything you know."

Eventually, the old man told everything she knew.

"My husband did die in an unknown way. At the beginning, we learned that Mobei was in an emergency, and the country was about to be broken, and it happened that at this time, Liang Wenhua suddenly found us. ”

"That year, Liang Wenhua just came to Jiangnan to serve, not yet the Jiangnan Jiedu envoy, but a small official in the county, he had a deep relationship with the Jiangnan Jiedu envoy at that time, and was his disciple, with the Jiangnan Jiedu envoy as a guarantee at that time, Liang Wenhua quickly contacted several wealthy businessmen in Jiangnan, and asked us to contribute generously and donate grain and grass to support the army in Mobei."

Speaking of this, the old lady sneered.

"Back then, you didn't know what kind of style Liang Wenhua was! In order to persuade us to come up with the money, he moved out of the country's righteousness, and lobbied many times, talking about how difficult the situation in Mobei was, and when General Chu was guarding the city gate in Mobei, he was in the main hall of my house, fainting several times, almost crying blood and tears. ”

"He said that he only hated that he was a civil official and couldn't go into battle to kill the enemy, and he hated that he was born poor, otherwise even if he used the strength of the whole family, he would have to do something for Mobei."

"At that time, my father-in-law was no longer there, and my husband was in the prime of life, and it was when he was full of enthusiasm that he was bewitched by his few tears and took out all the belongings in the family. It's not just my family, it's the other two. ”

Speaking of this, her brows furrowed fiercely, "I wonder what the amount of grain and grass was when the prince found out that the batch of grain and grass back then, and finally it was not used and reclassified into the treasury?" ”

Yan Que thought about it, converted the value of that batch of grain and grass into silver, plus the cash, and reported a number.

After hearing this, the old lady's brows furrowed even tighter, and then she sneered, "The sky has no eyes, the sky has no eyes!" How many good people are there in this world? ”

"Why did the old man say that?" Chu Luoci couldn't hold back and asked.

The old lady shook her head, "The number is wrong, do you know how rich the Yang family in Jiangnan was back then, our Yang family and the other two are called the three giants of Jiangnan, and the number reported by the prince is only the silver taels donated by our Yang family!" ”

Rao Yanque guessed that there was something strange in it, but when he heard the old lady say this, he couldn't help but be surprised.

"How can there be such a big difference, old lady, what you said is true?"

"Why should I lie to you? Do you know that our Yang family was doing silk business, the silk in the south of the Yangtze River is famous, and our family monopolized more than eighty percent of the goods in the market, before the start of the battle of Mobei, our dynasty and foreign countries still have trade, our Yang family only sells silk to foreign countries every year, which is a number that mortals dare not imagine! ”

But the old man listened to Liang Wenhua's words, believed his tears, and donated almost all the family property, and even embezzled half of the capital of doing business back then! These are the wealth accumulated by the ancestors of the Yang family for several generations! ”

After hearing this, Chu Luoci and Yan Que glanced at each other, and they both had guesses in their hearts.

The figure reported by Yanque is indeed the number that was charged to the treasury that year, and this cannot be false.

What about the rest of the money?

Did the emperor hide it, or did someone benefit from it?

Such a big sum of money, how do they work?

No matter what they guessed in their hearts, the old lady continued.

"When we handed over the money to Liang Wenhua, he and the officials in Jiangnan rushed to Kyoto with the money. We don't know what happened after that, but then we heard that there were peace talks between the Gentiles, and that the taels of silver we donated were to go in and out of the treasury. ”

"Of course, none of this matters, when I took out the money, I didn't think that the money would come back, but what I didn't expect was that after the money was filled into the treasury, several of our families began to encounter various accidents one after another."

"The three of us are all wealthy businessmen in the south of the Yangtze River, and Zhong Ming is the home of Ding Food! But only a year has passed, and the dead are dead, and the reasons are incredible. ”

"There are those who are upright and in the prime of life but suddenly die of illness, there are those who are good at riding horses, but they fall to death because of the sudden madness of horses, and even some people are found drowned in the room by the maid, and they actually died in the little water in the basin."

"All of us found out that something was wrong, and we thought about protecting ourselves, but since ancient times, the people did not fight with officials, we were all businessmen, and we had no support in our hands, so we could only watch the people around us die one by one......"

"The first to be unbearable was the Zhao family, there was only one side line left, moved out of Jiangnan, and there was no news, and then the Li family, only the youngest son of the Li family who was studying abroad escaped."

"That old lady, how did the descendants of the Yang family survive until now......" Although cruel, Chu Luoci still asked this question.

Hearing this, big tears fell from her old eyes......

"The reason why we who are alive is that we are able to survive is filled with other people's lives......"