Yingguo Gong raises pirates?

Shen Lang was surprised:

"The Guogong Mansion is the founding of the country, the tree has deep roots, and some of them are ways to make money, can they be used to raise pirates?"

Mu Qingxue patiently explained:

"The benefits of sea trade are ten times or a hundred times that of agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry and mining.

"But the nobles have privileges, and ordinary maritime merchants can't compete at all. And the hereditary nobles are not as difficult to evade taxes as ordinary maritime merchants, and the nobles have a way to evade taxes in large sums of money, and no matter how much money they make, they will not pay much tax to the imperial court.

Therefore, for the nobles engaged in maritime trade, the imperial court was very dead. Like the Yingguo Mansion, only two boats are allowed to go to sea every year, and no more than one is allowed.

"Seeing that some ordinary maritime merchants can go to sea with several ships every year, and a small number of maritime merchants can go to sea with more than a dozen big ships a year and make a lot of money, how can the Yingguo Mansion be willing to watch others make a fortune?

Therefore, the Guogong Mansion secretly raised a group of pirates, roaming and plundering on the route from Yingzhou to the South Seas, and they were ruthless, not only robbing ships, but also killing people.

"Yingzhou maritime merchants are unbearable, so they can only offer a large amount of money to the Guogong Mansion every year, praying for the Guogong Mansion to open up. In this way, the government does not even have to do maritime trade, and it can make a lot of money by relying on pirates to collect tolls.

This move undoubtedly seriously disrupted the normal order of maritime trade and caused a large loss of taxes that belonged to the imperial court. As early as the beginning of this year, some maritime merchants risked their lives to report the matter to the imperial court, which attracted the attention of the imperial court.

"It's a pity that the pirate base is far away in the Thousand Star Islands in the South Seas, and the Yingzhou Navy and even the Nanyang Navy also have the eyeliner of the Guogong Mansion. Four months ago, the imperial court had dispatched sailors to exterminate the pirates, but the pirates received the news in advance and scattered to the Thousand Star Islands to take refuge, resulting in the failure of the encirclement and suppression, and only some inconsequential scattered peripheries were caught.

In addition, Duke Yingguo also has connections in Beijing and the imperial court, and secretly obstructs the imperial court's investigation, and the emperor's attitude towards this matter is also a little ...... It is difficult to say in a word, so that the imperial court has not been able to catch the ironclad evidence of collusion between the Guogong Mansion and the pirates. ”

The emperor's attitude is hard to describe?

Listening to the meaning of her words, the opinions of the emperor and the court do not seem to be unified?

But it seems normal to think about it.

In all dynasties, there seems to be a struggle for power between the emperor and the court bureaucrats.

After all, the one who can completely control the imperial court is either the founding ancestor who fought the world and killed it, and if the imperial court dares to be disobedient, it can be purged at will. Either he is the lord of Zhongxing who turns the tide, and he also has enough prestige to suppress the imperial court.

It is difficult for ordinary emperors to fully control the government, and there are even many emperors who are in turn hollowed out by the imperial court.

In terms of economic interests, things similar to the emperor wanting to dig out the treasury money and the imperial court wanting to dig out the emperor's small treasury are also endless.

As for who is in power between the emperor and the imperial court, it is more beneficial to the country......

Anyway, Shen Lang felt that except for emperors such as the Founding Taizu and the Lord of Zhongxing, other emperors who purely relied on the advantage of reincarnation, grew up in the deep palace, and were completely ungrounded, were either mediocre or unreliable, and it was difficult to produce a wise lord.

It's okay that the emperor is mediocre, but if he has a particularly unreliable person, it will really bring disaster to the country and the people.

Today's Great Chu Emperor doesn't know whether he is mediocre and incompetent, or he doesn't rely on special scores.

In short, Ying Guogong is digging into the corners of the country, and he still has an ambiguous attitude, which is difficult to explain, and it is true that people don't know how to evaluate it.

While pondering, Mu Qingxue picked up the teacup, took a sip of tea, and continued:

"This time, I received news that the group of pirates secretly controlled by the Yingguo Mansion is distributing hero stickers, and they are going to hold a so-called 'hero conference' in the Thousand Star Islands to form a pirate alliance and make a fortune together.

This move can be regarded as the expansion of the ambitions of the Yingguo Mansion, which wants to annex those two groups of pirates and dominate the shipping route from Yingzhou to Nanyang.

"Not only were the two groups of pirates invited to join the alliance, but some of the single gang of pirates who were also businessmen and bandits also received the so-called 'hero stickers'. What I want you to do for me is to infiltrate a single gang of pirates, participate in this group of pirate alliances, and help me locate the pirate base!

"Actually, I should have been in charge of this matter myself. But Yingzhou Mansion has too many eyes staring at me all the time. Once I disappear for no reason, even if I don't show up for a day, it will cause many people to be vigilant. It's too late to transfer people from other places, so I can only send you to carry out this mission. ”

Mu Qingxue didn't know that Ying Guogong had actually made a mistake, knowing that she was going to check the news of the Guogong Mansion, and was cleaning up some things.

If it weren't for the fact that the pirate alliance had been prepared for a long time, the stakes were too big, and the arrow had to be sent on the string, and it was held far away in the Thousand Star Islands in the South Seas, even the alliance Ying Guogong wanted to cancel it.

However, fortunately, Ying Guogong did not completely shrink all his minions and cut off all external connections, so Mu Qingxue was given the opportunity.

After listening to Mu Qingxue's explanation, Shen Lang pondered for a while, and said slowly:

"Thanks to Lord Mu's trust and entrustment, I shouldn't have flinched in the future, but with my strength......

"In the midst of a group of thieves, if your identity is revealed, I am afraid that it will be too late to protect yourself, how can you complete the entrustment of adults?

"It's not that I'm afraid of death, I'm just worried that I'll live up to the trust of adults and ruin big things."

When he said this, he really didn't mean nice and beautiful words.

He really wanted to help Mu Qingxue with this-

Although the assassination of Zhao Mengshan was cleaned up beautifully, successfully misleading the attention of the investigators and pushing the matter to the head of the Blood Shadow Sect, since the Yingguo Mansion may have colluded with the Blood Shadow Sect, then Zhao Mengshan's sister, Mrs. Zhao, must know that the murderer is not the killer of the Blood Shadow Sect.

Moreover, it is impossible to find out that this matter was done by Shen Lang, but there are various extraordinary abilities such as Taoism and witchcraft that are beyond the conventional in this world.

This is always a hidden danger for Shen Lang.

Now that Mu Qingxue wants to investigate the Guogong Mansion, it is undoubtedly a good time for Shen Lang to solve the hidden dangers. Once the Yingguo Mansion collapses and Zhao Mengshan is assassinated, who else cares?

But just like he said, with his current strength, once his identity is exposed, I am afraid that not only will he not be able to complete the task entrusted by Mu Qingxue, but he may be directly gone.

"Don't worry, since I sent you on this dangerous mission, I won't let you die in vain."

Mu Qingxue said, taking out a small pendant.

Woven with white silk threads, this pendant has an unobtrusive and unobtrusive appearance:

"This is the 'Silk Shield', and when it encounters a heavy blow that can cause serious injury or death, it will instantly release dense translucent silk threads, wrapping them into a cocoon, protecting you from head to toe. It can resist three full-strength attacks by a four-rank true qi realm martial artist, or three attack spells by a fifth-grade Dao monk.

"Among the pirates of the South Seas, even if there are many strange people, and there are also murderers who have committed great crimes in various countries, absconded overseas, and are in the company of pirates, there will never be warriors beyond the fourth rank, let alone Taoist monks above the sixth rank."

After finishing it, he introduced Shen Lang to the information of martial artists above the third grade, as well as Taoist monks:

The realm of "upper three grades" is known as the "triple ladder", and breaking through from the fourth grade to the third grade is to climb the first ladder, which is very difficult, and even far exceeds the cultivation from the ninth grade all the way to the fourth grade.

Because of this, the four-rank true qi realm martial artists are quite common in the rivers and lakes. But the number of three-rank martial artists has decreased dramatically. Even with the population base of 500 million in Great Chu, there are only more than 100 third-grade martial artists.

With the preciousness of a three-rank martial artist, it is impossible to be reduced to being a pirate.

Even if he commits an unforgivable crime in Dachu, he can run away to sea, find a small overseas country to claim hegemony and prestige, or defect to an overseas big country, or even the Mobei barbarians, and be a distinguished guest of honor.

Not to mention the Taoist monks.

Martial arts can be practiced with hands, and there is a huge threshold for the introduction of Taoism.

Basically, for every thousand people, there can barely be one Dao skill qualification.

And most of these people with Taoist qualifications are mediocre, and they can barely cultivate to the eighth or seventh grade.

As for Daoist monks above the sixth grade, they can make a lot of money by refining some pills and making some magic weapon talismans, and it is extremely difficult to recruit Daoist monks above the sixth rank by idle and wealthy businessmen and eunuchs.

Even the century-old nobles of the Yingguo Mansion have only one Taoist fifth-grade and two sixth-grade Taoist monks, who have been trained by their own families since childhood.

The identity of a Taoist monk is so noble, why bother to fall into the company of pirates?

The same is true of the wizards on the Western side.

Any little wizard of the lower third order can be a guest of honor for small and medium-sized nobles. A powerful wizard above the fourth order can easily get the respect of the great nobles.

Of course, this is not to say that there are no people in the pirates who know how to do magic.

However, most of the people who fell into mixed pirates were just some coincidences, and they had mastered a few unstructured miscellaneous Dao arts, miscellaneous wild cultivators of witchcraft, or those with lowly talents, and their strength was limited, so they were not to worry.

After saying this to Shen Lang, Mu Qingxue handed him the "Pull Shield", retracted his hand into the big gun, and took out a pair of almost translucent light soft armor:

"This is the golden silkworm soft armor, which is woven with the silk thread spit by the golden silkworm Gu, which is as light as a feather, not afraid of swords, and can effectively resist the sword splitting and sword stabbing of the six-rank martial artist, and also has a strong defensive power against the external internal force of the five-grade martial artist.

"Even the military muskets could not penetrate them when they fired at close range. The only flaw is that it is afraid of fire, and once it is directly burned by the flames for more than ten breaths, it will be reduced to nothing. ”

She handed this armor to Shen Lang:

"You can sew this nail into the underwear compartment to avoid people's eyes."

Shen Lang took the "Golden Silkworm Soft Armor" and was happy in his heart.

He also has a "shark silk soft armor", because the way is not right, he doesn't dare to take it out and wear it for the time being, and only puts it in the space of a fine pen to eat ashes. But when you get overseas, of course, you can wear it.

When the time comes, a layer of golden silkworm armor, a layer of shark silk armor, plus the "silk shield", and collide with a five-rank martial artist, he will have the confidence to face a wave of toughness.

What's even better is that although the soft armor of the shark silk is not as defensive as the soft armor of the golden silkworm, it has the ability to avoid fire and water. Put the shark silk soft armor on the outside of the golden silkworm armor, can't even the defect of the golden silkworm soft armor be afraid of fire can be avoided?

Seeing that Shen Lang unceremoniously took over the soft armor, the corners of Mu Qingxue's lips were slightly raised, and a shallow smile appeared, knowing that he had accepted the task, he immediately asked:

"What else do you need? Just speak out. ”

Shen Langxin said then I'm welcome!

Present said:

"I have a prescription, and I hope that Master Mu can help me catch the medicine according to the prescription and refine a batch of medicinal oil."

"Ten steps and one kill, is it a supporting medicinal oil for the realm of 'refining muscles and bones'? No problem. What else? ”

"Hmm...... I also want a good sword. ”

[Ask for a ticket~! ] 】