Without money, what is the point of being a traitor?

Chapter 125: The Ministry of Revenue in Nanjing cannot lose the printing house, just as the foreigners cannot lose Jerusalem
Since Lu Dahua came in person, Pei Yuan was still very respectful.

The two met and had a brief chat, and the topic came to what Pei Yuan was interested in.

"In order to give those guys in North Town a hard time this time, I've invested a huge sum of money and offered a reward of 100 taels of silver to each of them."

"Brother, you know me well. I have been poor since I was a child."

"I don't know where to get the thousands of taels of silver as reward. I heard that some idiots think we didn't fight hard enough. Damn it, I don't know who to ask for the money after such a fight."

"You can ask each one to see if there is such a reward."

Pei Yuan kept talking.

Lu Dahua vaguely felt that he was being pointed at.

Moreover, Pei Yuan was so confident in what he said and he had promised so many people, so it must be true.

Lu Dahua knew Pei Yuan's family background very well.

Even if Pei Yuan was sold, he wouldn't be able to come up with that much money.

Lu Dahua instantly felt that Xiao Fu’s request was not only excessive, but also abominable and disgusting!

He patted his chest and said, "Don't worry, brother! I will speak for you at the top. Although this amount of money is not small, it can't be left unexplained like this."

Pei Yuan was slightly surprised. When Lu Dahua came to show his strength, he only gave himself a V 50. How come he was so arrogant now?

Looking at Pei Yuan's astonished expression, Lu Dahua felt secretly happy.

Seeing that Pei Yuan was a fierce man on the battlefield, he wanted to borrow strength from each other, so he whispered, "Don't worry, someone will pay."

Pei Yuan first excluded Lu Dahua as the person who paid the money.

If he was so open and honest, he wouldn't have used a stack of white paper to impersonate an IOU.

Pei Yuan refused righteously, "Brother, don't say anything. If you still need to pay for such a small matter, how can I, Pei Yuan, face the world? Even if I sell everything I have, I will not spend your money."

Lu Dahua was startled at first, and then his heart was inexplicably touched, "Brother, you..."

In a state of excitement, Lu Dahua looked around with a sly look in his eyes and whispered, "Don't spread this story. The ones who paid were the salt merchants."

"Salt merchants?" Pei Yuan was surprised. He asked subconsciously, "Isn't the court targeting commercial taxes and mining taxes?"

Although the money Pei Yuan used to escort the tax silver this time came from the Suzhou and Hangzhou Weaving Factory, the source of the money was related to the murder of the tax inspector last time.

According to Pei Yuan's previous analysis, the imperial court launched this special operation just to see whether the Ming Dynasty's taxes could still be transported to the Ming Dynasty's treasury.

Why are the salt merchants involved?
Salt merchants have their own salt laws, which have nothing to do with commercial taxes.

However, Lu Dahua looked at Pei Yuan with an unfathomable expression, and told him the bits and pieces of things he had heard.

"In the final analysis, this matter is just a matter of one move affecting the entire body. Liu Jin has only been dead for half a year, and the court is still busy with the Bazhou rebellion. When the Bazhou rebellion is settled, shouldn't the court settle accounts with Liu Jin's new policies?"

Lu Dahua hinted, "This kind of thing... is hard to explain clearly, so naturally we have to find a loophole and overturn the whole thing."

After hearing this, Pei Yuan roughly understood what was going on.

After Liu Jin came to power, he launched a series of new policies, involving 24 matters in the Ministry of Personnel, more than 30 matters in the Ministry of Revenue, 18 matters in the Ministry of War, 13 matters in the Ministry of Works, a total of 85 items, which basically affected all aspects of society.

In order to make it easier for officials and the public to understand policies and prevent people from misinterpreting them, Liu Jin compiled these implementation methods into a book called "Jian Xing Shi Li".

In Pei Yuan's personal opinion, the reforms made by these reforms should be generally positive.

Because if it was a bad policy, with the mouths of the Ming Dynasty literati, they would have listed it one by one and criticized it.

But after brainstorming and studying for a long time, they finally came up with the charge of treason for Liu Jin.

Eunuch Liu is already sixty years old and he doesn't even have a penis.

In the first year of Zhengde, he was still managing the bell ringers in the palace. In the sixth year of Zhengde, he dared to become emperor?

Even the protagonist of a cool novel wouldn't dare to think like this, right?

Moreover, the ministers took Zhu Houzhao to Liu Jin's home and searched him in front of him and found a small fan. Wow, there were also two daggers hidden there.

Zhu Houzhao was a man recorded in history books as someone who dared to fight hand-to-hand with tigers and leopards.

An old man in his sixties must have taken some fake medicine to use a small fan to assassinate such a powerful emperor.

But a hundred or eighty civil and military officials, with their shirts off, surrounded the emperor and said in a very forceful manner, "Whether you believe it or not, we believe it anyway."

Zhu Houzhao thought about it and said, then I believe it too.

As a result, Eunuch Liu was cut into pieces with more than 3,000 cuts and became the person who died the most miserable death in the Ming Dynasty.

Many of Liu Jin's new policies were aimed at the salt administration.

Moreover, Eunuch Liu was particularly ruthless in his approach to salt administration.

The first major case he handled was to have the censor and the imperial censor investigate and sell off 1.16 million "Gezhi Salt Vouchers" in the name of Du Cheng and other merchants from the Lianghuai Transport Bureau in Yangzhou.

What is Gezhi Salt Yin?
That is the “residual salt” that the powerful can manipulate.

Listen to the term "residual salt".

So what is "residual salt"?

It is the good salt that is not recorded and can be taken away with a slip.

Then who is Du Cheng?

Those were the white gloves from the home of Zhu Houzhao’s uncle Zhang Heling.

Things are very clear now.

The second major case was that Yang Zhen used the name of supervising weaving to secretly buy and sell salt along the way and make a profit from it.

What about Yang Zhen’s identity?
He is the eunuch who holds the seal of the Imperial Household Department.

The third thing is that Liu Jin proposed an assessment method for compensating losses in the salt administration.

In other words, all civil servants in charge of salt affairs will be held accountable for life if they engage in corruption and suffer losses during their tenure, and must compensate the state.

——This is so fucking hateful.

Who in the world doesn’t eat salt?

If we just take a penny from every ordinary citizen, how much money would we have?

He blocked all the ways for the powerful, eunuchs, and civil officials to make money. This was subverting the Ming Dynasty, he was rebelling!

Now the traitor Liu Jin is dead, but the four evil laws and one major misdeed he left behind have not yet been cleared up, which is bound to cause concern among people of insight.

The four major evil laws are as follows:
1. Please exempt the salt and silver notes from the household registration in the world (so that the common people can pay less of a variant of the head tax)
Second, please ask the salt inspector to personally inspect it (the person in charge should go to the scene to take a look in person)
Third, please prohibit smuggling (no trucks are allowed when going on business trips in the future)

Fourth, please refrain from making empty quotations (from now on, no more mentioning salt in the notes)

These four evil laws are one thing, but the most crucial and major evil must be rectified urgently!

The most crucial misdeed was that Liu Jin moved the printing rights of salt permits from Nanjing to Beijing!

Is that a salt permit?
Whatever is printed is pure silver.

It is a pass to get money from 60 million people in the Ming Dynasty!
The Nanjing Ministry of Revenue cannot lose its printing plant, just as the West cannot lose Jerusalem!

So this time the imperial court secretly tested the waters with the money from the governor's weaving office, and all the interest groups immediately became involved.

What do you want to do?
What do they want to do?!

Is Zhu Houzhao planning to lead the people around him to rebel against the Ming Dynasty again?
The more Pei Yuan thought about this, the more he felt that his position was like dancing on the edge of a knife.

So he became more and more concerned about the Huai'an speculation. ——This money is what I should take!
Pei Yuan sent Lu Dahua away, and the battlefield was almost cleaned up.

Pei Yuan left a few wounded soldiers to guard the baggage and corpses, and took the remaining Jinyiwei, wearing only cotton armor and carrying bows and swords, and quickly headed towards Wuxi County.

With Lu Dahua, the local tyrant, around, Pei Yuan and his party no longer had to worry about finding a post station to stay.

This time they moved directly into a manor of the Hua family in Wuxi.

In the previous battle, everyone was beaten to a pulp by some evil demon who came from nowhere, and their bodies were covered in blood.

After simply settling down, Lu Dahua thoughtfully made arrangements and had hot water brought for washing.

Pei Yuan simply packed up and began to think about what to do next.

Now that he has reached a tacit understanding with both parties, the final step of entering Suzhou is no longer difficult.

The key is what happens afterwards.

Lu Dahua has basically believed his own words, but what will those people who are trying their best to prevent the tax money from going north think of?
If they are still stubborn and want to take action, what method will they use?

Pei Yuan thought about it for a while and came to a basic conclusion in his mind.

A blatant attack like Lu Ting's is unlikely to happen anymore.

Pei Yuan is not the unprepared tax inspector before.

He has fully demonstrated his abilities to both parties. Lu Ting cannot defeat him, and the people behind Lu Dahua are even less likely to do so.

Unless they really dare to risk the wrath of the world and engage in a flamboyant bombardment of Pei Yuan in Nanzhili!
If you can't defeat your own team, then the next step will be to target yourself.

As Pei Yuan thought about it, the pressure became even greater.

At present, the risk has shifted to him personally.

Pei Yuan then remembered that he forgot to ask Lu Ting last time what secret he had found about Yue Qingfeng.

Otherwise, with a great master like Yue Qingfeng as his dog, Pei Yuan would have more room to maneuver.

Thinking of Yue Qingfeng, Pei Yuan was a little worried that this guy might starve to death.

But the falconets were not there at the moment, and the bows, crossbows and muskets were left behind, so Pei Yuan really didn't dare to let him out.

Pei Yuan thought for a moment, then left the courtyard that had been arranged for him and said to the servants standing outside the door, "Go, have someone make me some drunken shrimps, and bring them here while they're still alive."

The servant already knew that there was an important guest in the courtyard.

Moreover, the armor and blood-stained clothes of Pei Yuan and his men were washed by people from Huafu, so the servant respected and feared Pei Yuan and hurried back to pass on the message.

Pei Yuan went to the next yard and knocked on the door again.

Song Chunniang also finished bathing and changed into the clothes provided by the Huafu. Her hair was wet, but she looked quite fresh.

Pei Yuan looked at him and asked, "Where is my cassock?"

Song Chunniang turned back to the courtyard, took Pei Yuan's bag and threw it to him.

"Tsk."

Pei Yuan didn't care about Song Chunniang's little emotion which came from nowhere.

He was about to leave, but after thinking for a while, he stopped and asked, "Is the life of a Jinyiwei different from what you thought?"

Song Chunniang has been following Pei Yuan these days and has seen some big scenes.

There were several times when I almost died.

In the past, she followed her father on escort missions, and whenever she encountered trouble, it was nothing more than losing some valuables, and it was rare for them to end up with a situation where everyone was killed.

Song Chunniang rolled her eyes and answered lazily.

"At least I can be buried in a dry, sunny place, wearing my official uniform!"

People who live in misery don't seem to have much expectations.

Pei Yuan laughed and threw out a big pie, "Work hard, and your future will be sweeter and sweeter."

Song Chunniang felt that Pei Yuan had some malicious intentions, but she couldn't put it into words.

He looked at her with a frown on his face.

Not long after Pei Yuan took the cassock and returned, someone brought him several large pots of drunken shrimps.

According to Pei Yuan's request, the fish was pickled for a short time and was still alive and kicking.

While the drunken shrimp was still alive, Pei Yuan quickly fed it to Yue Qingfeng who was trapped in the cassock.

Pei Yuan didn't expect Yue Qingfeng to be sentimental, just that he didn't starve to death in there...

As dusk approached, Sikong Sui came running to report on the aftermath.

"Now those bodies have been cleaned up, and the artillery, bows and crossbows, spears, swords and shields we left behind have also been loaded onto the trucks."

People from the Wuxi County Government went to check the scene and were quite cooperative when they came back.

After all, hundreds of corpses were just thrown there. Even though the Jinyiwei who came to the door looked friendly, their friendly attitude could not be taken seriously.

Pei Yuan thought of the incident of blackmailing Lu Dahua.

He promised again, "I've made some progress in getting money for you guys. I found a fat sheep. The one hundred taels I promised you guys before shouldn't be a problem."

Sikong Sui was overjoyed when he heard this.

He had thought about it before. It might just be Pei Yuan's way of boosting morale on the battlefield, and maybe it would just drag on and on and on.

I didn't expect Pei Yuan to actually admit this.

Pei Yuan thought that revealing something to Sikong Sui might be more beneficial to his plan, so he said, "I am currently negotiating with both sides of the fight, and maybe there will be a good result."

Sikong Sui has always had a sensitive sense of smell, otherwise he wouldn't have wanted to give up at the beginning.

Seeing Pei Yuan's confidence, he was overjoyed, "Really?"

In joy, he quickly asked, "Then what can I do?"

Pei Yuan was not polite either, "Watch your mouths and stop holding me back."

Sikong Sui nodded repeatedly, "I understand."

Pei Yuan thought of something and asked, "Can you contact Duan Min and his men? They should be following the orders of Captain Han to meet us and have already arrived in Wuxi County."

Sikong Sui said, "The Qianhu Office has some means to find Duan Min."

Pei Yuan said, "Let them meet up here as soon as possible."

"If my prediction is correct, we are unlikely to encounter a similar strong attack as before. The follow-up will definitely be based on various Jianghu methods or strange arts."

Pei Yuan said vaguely, "I don't know much about these things. I need help from someone who knows the subject."

Captain Pei knows more than just a little.

He just grew up in the city and had heard some legends.

If you really encounter all kinds of weird tricks, it will be completely useless.

As for the interest groups behind Lu Dahua, they definitely have many tricks up their sleeves that have not been used yet?

Putting aside other things, after all, Mei Qinnan, who had a positive record against Pei Yuan, has not made a move yet!
(End of this chapter)