As soon as Xiong Wei and his party reached the door of the Salt Gang, they heard the sound of a fight inside.

Xiong Wei frowned, and did not enter through the gate of the Salt Gang. He took a leap of stride and jumped onto the roof. Just stand firm, and look down, the inside of the Salt Gang is in a mess. Glancing at the fighting crowd, he didn't see the old gang leader.

"Oh no, is there something wrong with the Salt Gang?" Xiong Wei reacted immediately, he looked back at Xiaoyaozi, and jumped down from the roof again, "Master, something happened to the Salt Gang, find the old gang leader." ”

When Xiaoyaozi heard this, he shrugged his eyebrows and hurried over. "What does the old gang leader look like?"

Xiong Wei said, "Master, Miss Shi knows the old gang leader. You protect her and Ying'er, and I'll take Yun'er to look for her from here. ”

"Okay!" Xiaoyaozi nodded. ”

"Master, no matter what, we will meet here in the end. Xiong Wei said to Xiaoyaozi again.

Xiong Wei watched Xiaoyaozi and the three of them leave, and ran to the other side with Xia Yun.

"Xiong Wei, I guess the Salt Gang's troubles have something to do with Wang Dong. Xia Yun followed Xiong Wei closely.

Xiong Wei turned his head to look at Xia Yun and said, "I expected this, their deputy gang leader was originally in the same group as the government. It's just that this scene came later than I expected. ”

Xiong Wei took Xia Yun all the way to the backyard.

The deputy gang leader and the old gang leader are all in the backyard.

The deputy gang leader led a group of people and blocked the backyard door. The old gang leader and his hall masters stood with a small number of people, and the old gang leader and the deputy gang leader were facing each other, and the watch frame was about to break out.

Xia Yun was about to pounce over, but Xiong Wei pulled her and whispered, "Let's see what the situation is first." ”

Xiong Wei and Xia Yun hid far behind a big tree, listening to their conversation.

"Old thing, if you tie up your hands now, I can spare your life. The deputy gang leader yelled at the old gang leader.

The old gang leader clutched his hands to his chest, as if he was injured. His eyes squinted at the deputy gang leader, and he said sharply: "You unscrupulous person, you deceive the teacher and destroy the ancestors, and you can't die well." ”

"It's hard to say if I'm going to die well. The deputy gang leader said and walked to the old gang leader, and said viciously, "I think you are going to die now." ”

As he spoke, the deputy gang leader put the knife in front of the old gang leader's eyes, and shook it and said, "Old fellow, you have never looked at me unpleasantly. Do you think I'm doing this because of myself?"

The more the deputy gang leader spoke, the more excited he became, he looked up at the sky, and roared loudly: "Look at the brothers in our gang, they are tired and tired every day, and that family is living a prosperous life again. Look at those salt merchants, drinking wine and eating meat every day, stretching out a finger at will, they can crush hundreds of our brothers. ”

"Then you can't do bad things!"

"Why am I doing a bad thing? In this society, the bold are starved to death. All these years have passed, and nothing major has happened to me. ”

As he spoke, he turned his head and glanced at the people behind him again, then quickly turned back and said, "Look, old thing, there are still a few people in the Salt Gang who are willing to run away with you! If you beg me now, I'll leave you a whole corpse. Otherwise......"

As he spoke, the deputy gang leader suddenly flipped the knife, and the knife was placed on the old gang leader's neck.

"Rabbit cub, what do you want to do!

Xiong Wei saw that the deputy gang leader had already put the knife on the old gang leader's neck again, and if he didn't make another move, the old gang leader would really be in danger.

"Yun'er, you hit his hand with a knife with a golden needle, and I will catch him and entangle with him. Then you save the old gang leader and go. Xiong Wei jumped after speaking.

Xia Yun also hurriedly took out the golden needle and flew towards the deputy gang leader.

Xiong Wei stepped on the shoulder of the brother behind the deputy gang leader, and a sword crossed the neck of the deputy gang leader. Xiong Wei's sword doesn't need to be drawn, very quickly.

The deputy gang leader turned around cautiously, looked at Xiong Wei, and asked in surprise, "Why are you here?"

"It doesn't matter how I'm here, what matters is that you're dying. Xiong Wei didn't give the deputy gang leader a good face, and kicked him hard in the popliteal fossa, and the deputy gang leader knelt on the ground at that time, "You're really going to die a bad death!"

He brought the sword closer to the neck of the deputy leader, and the side of the sword cut a bloody mark on the neck of the deputy leader.

Xia Yun helped the old helper up. "Old helper, are you alright. ”

The old gang leader nodded, and looked at the rebels again. "Arrest them all. ”

His five hall masters immediately arrested the people who were making trouble with the deputy gang leader.

The old gang leader sighed deeply and said: "At my age, I originally wanted to settle things, it seems that if I endure it any longer, my century-old foundation of the Salt Gang will be destroyed in the hands of these despicable people." ”

The old gang leader pushed Xia Yun's hand away, stood like a pine tree, and said confidently: "I'm going to clean up the portal today, take this ungrateful thing away, and lock it up." ”

Xiong Wei handed over the deputy gang leader to the five hall masters, and hurriedly went over to help the old gang leader, he said anxiously: "Old gang leader, we are here today for something to ask you." ”

The old gang leader made a gesture for Xiong Wei not to speak, and pointed in the other direction. "I'll definitely help you. ”

Xiong Wei followed the old gang leader to the old gang leader's room.

"Old gang leader......" Xiong Qi just spoke.

The old gang leader looked at Xiong Wei and said in a deep voice: "I know what happened to you. The ledger I gave you is in the governor's hands. ”

Xiong Wei looked at the old gang leader in amazement, and said in surprise, "How do you know?" ”

"Hehe, not all the thousands of disciples of my salt gang eat dry rice. The old gang leader sighed again, "I also know that a thousand envoys from Jingshi came from the capital and wanted to kill you." You have to check the salt tax again and have a conflict with the government, and the government has killed the water hibiscus. ”

"Otherwise, that rabbit cub wouldn't have dared to kill me today. ”

"Old gang leader, now that you know what I'm here for. Presumably, the evidence you have is not only the ledger. Xiong said tentatively.

"Haha!" laughed the old gang leader, "you kid has a good brain. At this point, I will point you out a few tricks, and helping you is also helping the salt gang. ”

As the saying goes, to catch a thief is to catch a thief, and to catch a traitor is to double.

The most important thing is to catch the evidence of their smuggling of smuggled salt, and catch them all with one blow.

Xiong Wei listened carefully to the old gang leader.

They smuggled five ships and ten ships of salt on weekdays.

The old gang leader recently learned a reliable news that it was the peak season for salt trafficking, and they were going to smuggle dozens of boatloads of salt.

Why are they in such a hurry to deal with Xiong Wei's affairs, that is, they can't get in the way of their opportunity to make money because of Xiong Wei's affairs.

In order to catch them, you have to figure out how they smuggled.

Each time, they first asked the salt merchant to buy the private salt, and then, after storing it, took out the salt from the salt road yamen, and the salt gang carried the salt to the ship. Later, when they used the Yangzhou boundary, the steward of the river defense battalion had to escort them through the checkpoint.

This smuggled salt then flows to the surrounding provinces.

"How much silver will be leaked this year!" said Xiong Wei in surprise after hearing this.

"Come with me!" said the old gang leader, taking them to the dark chamber where he had been imprisoned.

Xiong Wei glanced at the layout of the dark pavilion, he didn't look carefully last time he was in a hurry.

He watched as the old gang leader walked behind the statue of Guan Gong and activated the mechanism of another dark pavilion.

"Wow!" another door opened.

This dark pavilion is small, with only a few chairs. A wall, nothing on the wall. The old gang leader hit the wall again. Remove a wall tile and take out a box from the inside, the outer layer of the box is wrapped in a blue cloth.

The old gang leader put the box on the table, patted the box and said, "This is the last killer feature." ”

Xiong Wei frowned and looked at Xia Yun, and Xia Yun also looked at Xiong Wei.

"Killer?" Xiong didn't quite understand what that meant.

"This is a detailed account of the collusion between the salt merchants and the government to evade the salt tax in the past few years, and if you can recover it, there will be at least 20 million taels of silver. ”

Xiong Wei was shocked when he heard this, this amount was actually 20 million taels of silver. "And what about the account you gave me earlier?"

"That account is only for this year. I was accidentally discovered by the rabbit cub, who actually locked me up and rebelled, and asked if I had any other evidence. ”

Xiong Wei held his right hand with his left hand and his chin with his right hand, looked at the old gang leader with a puzzled face and said, "You are too tolerant." Is the contents of this box really that useful?"

"You come to check the salt tax, do you know why the imperial court investigates the salt tax, and why the salt merchants don't pay the salt tax?" the old gang leader asked rhetorically.

"Of course I know this!" said Xiong Wei proudly, "the war on the frontier is urgent, the treasury is empty, and the imperial court urgently needs to use this salt tax as military pay." The salt merchants evaded the salt tax, of course, to make more money. ”

"Then let me ask you again, do you know that the salt merchants actually bribed the court officials every year, which is enough for them to pay a few more layers of salt tax. In the last governor of Yangzhou, the salt merchant sent a jade carved cabbage, worth two million taels. ”

"Ah! so much silver. Xiong Wei was shocked again when he heard this number, and he calculated, "The account book you gave me is a total of 20 million taels of tax silver for several years, and this time it is 2 million taels." Then they can raise the salt tax one more level. ”

Xiong Wei looked at Xia Yun again, he really couldn't think of a reason.

Xia Yun didn't know the truth either.

The old gang leader said a lot of things slowly.

In recent years, Yangzhou has evaded so much salt tax. Actually, there are many reasons. Why don't they pay it, and they have to contend with the imperial court? This is a countermeasure that they collectively discussed.

The salt tax they paid to the imperial court each year was only three, and sometimes less. The remaining layer of salt tax was used to bribe officials of all classes.

There is also a layer that they use to distribute to the Salt Gang, to socialize a little, as a daily need. In fact, they earn five tiers.

Of these five layers, they have to pay another layer of cost. In this way, they occupy four floors.

If you continue to fight against the imperial court. As soon as the imperial court compromised that day, maybe they would give them a concession and pay it to the imperial court in the future according to the five-tier salt tax. They can sit on the five layers of profits in a bright and bright way.

The officials they had previously raised were also fed by them, and even relied on them to climb to a higher position, and naturally spoke for them.

The old gang leader said, and looked at Xiong Wei again. "Do you know that every Yangzhou prefect, before taking office, who else has to agree with?"

Xiong Wei looked at the old gang leader with a puzzled expression.

The old gang leader smiled again and said, "The president of the Yangzhou Chamber of Commerce." ”

"What?" Xiong Wei was very surprised, "The imperial court appoints officials, what does it matter to the president of the Guanyang Chamber of Commerce?"

"These prefects are all from the Zhejiang Party and Kundang, and they take turns to do it. In recent years, more people from the Zhejiang Party have taken office, and the power of the Kunming Party has gradually weakened. ”

"What do you mean?" "Xiong Wei didn't know anything about this.

Xia Yun knew something, and she added, "Are you talking about the partisan struggle within the Donglin Party?"

"The girl is also a member of the imperial court, otherwise, how could she be so familiar with the Donglin Party. The old gang leader immediately realized that Xia Yun was not an ordinary girl.

"Yes, I am also a member of the court. ”

"There is an official government behind the salt merchants, and there are their masters behind the official government, and they are handed over layer by layer, and their master's position is secured, and they can earn more money. ”

Xiong Wei seemed to understand something. "You're saying that some officials bribe their superiors with the money they get from salt merchants, and then work their way up?"

"This can only be understood, not spoken. ”

"The imperial court has taken the benefits of salt merchants, and it will naturally think about them. Even if the prefect of Yangzhou is changed every time, the prefect of Yangzhou can become the governor of Zhejiang, and the governor can become the governor. The Governor can go to Gyoshi and become a Cabinet Minister. As long as his roots are in Yangzhou, he will continue to maintain Yangzhou. ”

When Xiong Wei heard this, some cold sweat not only broke out on his forehead. It's too complicated. No wonder the emperor drew up a list to eradicate these people. Otherwise, eradicating only one will still not have much effect.

"Then what if the Yangzhou prefect is changed, and it's not their own people?" Xiong Wei suddenly thought of this question and asked curiously.

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