At night, the city of Yangzhou is silent, there is a small river passing through the city, the river flows quietly, reflecting the sparkling waves in the moonlight, Li Wei's temporary residence is not far from the river.

It was getting late, so he naturally fell asleep, but Wu Yong and the other guards were still on duty in turn.

"Bang!"

Suddenly, there was a soft sound, which was very clear in the silent night.

Wu Yong, who was on duty, was immediately alarmed and shouted, "What sound? Check it out! ”

"Yes!"

His guards immediately ran in the direction from which the voice came, and Wu Yong himself led people to follow.

"My lord, I found a rock, it should have been thrown in from outside the courtyard."

The guard who arrived first held a stone in his hand and said to Wu Yong.

Wu Yong frowned, took it and looked at it, and motioned to another guard: "You go out and have a look!" ”

"Yes!" The guards were ordered to run out quickly.

"Look again, if there's anything else nearby!" Wu Yong observed for a long time, but he didn't see anything unusual about the stone, so he ordered.

The guards searched the ground for a moment as they were told, and sure enough, they found something.

"My lord, here's a piece of paper!"

One of the guards picked up a crumpled piece of paper from the ground and brought it to Wu Yong, who took it, only to see that the paper was in the shape of a shell, obviously thrown in with the stone.

Wu Yong hurriedly tore the paper flat and saw that there were words on it, but the sky was dark and he couldn't see it clearly.

Seeing this, the guard next to him took out the fire fold very brightly and blew out the flames.

Wu Yong took advantage of the firelight to see the handwriting on it, and suddenly felt shocked, and hurriedly ran to Li Wei's room with the note.

"Bang ......"

The eager knock on the door woke up Li Wei, who had just fallen asleep, and Li Wei got up from the bed, put on a piece of clothing and opened the door.

"What's the matter?"

Seeing Wu Yong's figure clearly, Li Wei tightened his eyebrows and asked.

"My lord, Wu Xing is in danger!" Wu Yong didn't care about anything else, and said bluntly.

With that, he handed over the piece of paper.

Li Wei was shocked, and hurriedly took it and looked at it.

Didn't see clearly......

So he glanced at Wu Yong again, and said angrily: "Fire!" ”

"Oh!" Wu Yong reacted and immediately searched for it on his body, but he didn't find it.

Fortunately, at this time, those guards also rushed over, Wu Yong took the fire fold from the hands of his subordinates and lit the fire, and Li Wei finally saw the handwriting on it clearly by the firelight.

The meaning of this is very simple, that is, someone wants to kill Wu Xing, and the time is tonight.

Tonight?

Li Wei looked up at the moonlight, and instantly fell asleep, and was shocked into a cold sweat!

"Go, go to the prison quickly, you must save Wu Xing for me!" Li Wei shouted hurriedly.

"Yes!"

Wu Yong surrendered, leaving two guards to protect Li Wei, and took the others to hurry to the prison to save people.

Li Wei looked at the note in his hand again, and couldn't help but be annoyed: ", this whistleblower is also stupid X, don't you know if you want to say it earlier?" ”

After all, Wu Xing is an official of the imperial court, and if he dies inexplicably during his detention after being arrested, then he will also have a lot of trouble, and even the construction of the city will be delayed.

……

In the prison, two jailers untied Wu Xing's belt.

Their idea is very simple, that is, to make Wu Xing's death look like he hanged himself, since he hanged himself, of course he has to use his own things, and he will never take a rope from the outside to hang him, it would be too fake.

As long as Wu Xing's death is made into hanging, whether it is said that he commits suicide in fear of sin, or whether he is not humiliated and commits suicide, it has nothing to do with the two of them.

The two of them worked together to get the sleeping Wu Xing up, the belt wrapped around his neck, and the belt hung on the beam, so violently that he hung it up!

This time it came down violently, the severe pain and suffocation finally woke Wu Xing up, when he opened his eyes and saw the situation in front of him clearly, he immediately struggled in horror, and his two hands desperately tried to grab the rope around his neck to break free.

However, no matter how much he struggled, it was to no avail, and the rope tightened his neck and hung him from a beam.

The two of them stood in front of him for a long time, letting him dangle around, Wu Xing stretched out a hand to ask the two for help, but the two just watched quietly.

"Lord Wu, you can go with confidence, Lord Zhang will take care of your family." A jailer whispered.

Wu Xing's face was shocked, and he finally understood that Zhang Cheng was going to kill him, and he suddenly regretted it! Knowing this, why did he have to endure for so many days, how good it would be to recruit Zhang Cheng to die together!

No matter how much he regretted it, it was too late, and as time went on, his brain was starved of oxygen, and his consciousness began to blur.

The two jailers watched him slowly stop struggling, and a grim smile appeared on his face.

Bang!

Just when the two of them were complacent, there was a sudden loud noise, and the two turned around suddenly, and when they saw Wu Yong and the others rushing in, they were immediately shocked!

"How so? Impossible! ”

The two of them looked incredulous, and couldn't figure out why someone suddenly broke in on this big night, could it be that the deeds were revealed?

Wu Yong saw the situation in the prison clearly, suddenly pulled out the matching knife, and flew out with a whoosh.

These two jailers are just ordinary people, they have never even been on the battlefield, how have they seen such a scene, and when they saw the steel knife shooting, they subconsciously held their heads to dodge.

However, the target of the steel knife was not them, but the belt that hung Wu Xing.

With a pop, the belt was torn by the steel knife and broken in two, and Wu Xing fell directly.

"Take them down!" After Wu Yong rescued Wu Xing, he immediately shouted.

"Yes!"

Several guards rushed into the cell, they were all elites selected from the personal guards, naturally not two little jailers could resist, and they subdued these two people in three or two strokes.

One of the jailers saw that things were not going well, and suddenly his mouth moved, and in a moment blood spat out of his mouth.

Seeing this, the other jailer froze in horror for a moment, and did not immediately follow the poison to commit suicide, but the guard reacted immediately, pinching his chin and leaving him with no chance.

Wu Yong walked in quickly, didn't pay attention to the two jailers, but looked at Wu Xing's situation first.

Fortunately, Wu Xing was only temporarily unconscious, and he was not cold yet, and Wu Yong was relieved when he confirmed that he was not dead.

"Hurry up and invite Langzhong!"

"Yes!"

Wu Yong hurriedly ordered his men to call Lang Zhong to save people.

After a long time, the guards forcibly tied up a Lang Zhong to treat Wu Xing.

Li Wei also followed and hurried over, and if this happened, it was impossible for him to continue sleeping at home.

"How?" Li Wei asked immediately when he entered the door.

Wu Yong asked the guards and Lang Zhong to continue to treat Wu Xing, walked out of the cell by himself, and said to Li Wei:

"My lord, I'm not dead yet."

When Li Wei heard this, he relieved himself and muttered, "It's good that you're not dead." ”

After relaxing, he couldn't help but feel angry, he really didn't expect that these people would be so bold, Wu Xing was an official of the imperial court, and even he didn't take it without permission, but these people said that they would kill and kill, and they didn't take Wu Xing seriously at all!

"Hmph, when this Wu Xing wakes up, if he doesn't confess honestly, he will torture me! MD！ ”

Li Wei scolded angrily, he is an honest man, but others do not follow the rules, since this is the case, then he will also be ruthless, it is not a big deal, at most he will be punished by Zhu Yuanzhang.

The next day, when Tian Qing, who got the news, hurried to the prison, Li Wei had already asked Wu Yong to get a bunch of torture instruments and put them in front of Wu Xing.

Under Lang Zhong's treatment, Wu Xing finally escaped death and picked up a life, but his face was still a little pale at this time.

Seeing this situation, Tian Qing didn't dare to say more, and silently stepped aside.

Li Wei picked up a red-hot soldering iron and pressed it on the pork prepared next to him, and the pork suddenly smoked, exuding a burst of meat fragrance.

"Wu Xing, do you want to confess now or do you want to try this thing later?"

Li Wei held the soldering iron and said lightly.

Wu Xing, who finally escaped death, suddenly looked like ashes when he saw this.

His current situation is really a wolf and a tiger, Zhang Cheng wants to kill him, and Li Wei wants to torture him to extract a confession, and he has no way out.

"No need, just ask what you want to ask, the lower officials know everything." Wu Xing said discouragedly.

"That's pretty much it!"

Li Wei chuckled, put the soldering iron back into the charcoal fire and continued to burn, returned to his seat and sat down, and asked:

"Let's talk about it, if you have any collusion with Zhang Cheng and those big families, and what bad things you have done, tell me about it!"

Wu Xing took a deep breath and said slowly: "Actually, it's nothing special, it's just some common little things, such as modifying the Yellow Book, hiding Dingkou fields, and apportioning their conscription to ordinary people......"

Wu Xing told the story of what he had participated in.

The Ming Dynasty inherited the system of the Tang and Song dynasties, and implemented a two-tax system, that is, the land tax levied according to the acres of land, and the Ding tax levied according to the Dingkou.

There is a fish scale book on the acres of land and a yellow book on the Dingkou, and the information recorded in these two books is used as the basis for taxation.

Zhu Yuanzhang was born poor and knew that the people were difficult, so the tax rate was still very low.

Not only that, but according to the number of acres of land, the strength and weakness of the people, he divided the households into upper and lower classes, with the rich levied more and the poor levied less.

This was originally a good thing, but under the operation of officials such as Wu Xing and Zhang Cheng, the 10,000 acres of fertile land of the Haoqiang family became inferior fields, and the inferior fields and even raw fields of the poor people became superior fields, and there were also those who hid their fields, and those who became sick and weak, and so on.

Under this operation, the taxes that should have been imposed on the rich fell on the ordinary people, making their lives more and more poor.

After listening to what he said, Li Wei gritted his teeth with hatred, no wonder people like Yang Laosan, who obviously don't have any land, think that the taxes are too heavy, it turns out that these bastards are making trouble from it!

"Anything else?" Li Wei asked in a cold voice.

Although he hated Zhu Yuanzhang's ruthlessness, he very much agreed with Zhu Yuanzhang's cruel methods in dealing with corruption.

"There's nothing else, it's just to forcibly occupy fertile land and shelter them from some illegal things." Wu Xing said lightly. (End of chapter)