Gou was a member of the imperial family in the late Ming Dynasty

Chapter 538 No Choice

More than 100,000 taels was just a preliminary estimate, because when Zhu Qiuqi opened the other wooden boxes one by one to check, he was shocked when he saw that one of the wooden boxes actually contained five golden Buddhas about one foot tall.

He picked up a heavy golden Buddha and weighed it. It seemed to weigh more than two hundred taels. The gold and silver exchange rate in the Ming Dynasty used to be one tael of gold for ten taels of silver, but this exchange rate was during the Wanli period. The current market price is no longer the same as before.

Now, let alone exchanging 10 for 1, even 15 for 1 may not be possible. The value of gold has been rising sharply in recent years. In the capital, at least 1 tael of gold can be exchanged for 18 taels of silver. Therefore, a golden Buddha worth 200 taels is worth 3,600 taels of silver, and the total value of these five golden Buddhas is more than 18,000 taels.

As for whether there are similar things in other boxes, no one knows for the time being. After all, they don’t have much time, and it’s only a few hours before dawn.

Zhu Qiuqi signaled to people to move all the boxes out first, and it would not be too late to count them slowly after they were transported back.

Then, he continued to check the cellar. When he walked to the south of where the boxes were stored and looked carefully with a torch, he found that there were countless round things similar to stone mills piled there. Just as he was wondering why the Fan family brought these stone mills here and why there were so many of them, and there was such a large pile of them, his heart suddenly moved, and he hurriedly walked forward and bent down.

These stone mills looked gray and simply placed on the ground. A quick glance revealed that there were at least hundreds of them densely packed together, occupying almost one-third of the entire cellar.

Zhu Qiuqi looked at it carefully. After a moment's study, he took out his dagger and slashed at the stone mill in front of him. He only heard the sound of metal colliding. When he looked again, the surface of the stone mill that was scratched by the dagger actually revealed a shiny silver color. He hurriedly took a closer look and was stunned. He couldn't help but cursed "Cao!"

"What's wrong?" Liu Bo was directing people to move the boxes. He came over when he heard the noise. Seeing Zhu Qiuqi looking stunned, he couldn't help but ask.

"Look at this thing!" Zhu Qiuqi pointed.

"This is... a stone mill? Why are there so many?" Liu Bo was confused at first glance. Why did the Fan family hide so many stone mills in such a secret cellar? The Fan family is a merchant, not a farmer. Could it be that they have so many stone mills to grind flour or pickle pickles? Besides, even if they were farmers, they wouldn't need so many!
"Stone mill? Bullshit! Look more carefully!" Zhu Qiuqi pointed to the place where the dagger cut was made and reminded.

Liu Bo leaned in to take a closer look and was also stunned. He looked at it again with an expression of some disbelief, and reached out to touch it, with a look of astonishment instantly appearing in his eyes.

"This...is this...silver?"

"Yes! These are all silver, also called "Mei Nai He"." Zhu Qiuqi said, "I have heard that some Shanxi merchants like to hide silver, and they like to melt the silver they earn and cast it into a large silver ball weighing one thousand taels and hide it at home. Because these silver balls are too heavy, it is not easy to carry even if they encounter thieves, and ordinary people can't spend them directly after getting them, so this thing is also called "Mei Nai He", also known as "Ghost-Seeing Sorrow". I didn't expect to see this thing in the Fan family. Damn, I finally opened my eyes today. Lao Liu, count it, how many "Mei Nai He" are here? The family wealth of the Fan family is really incredible!"

Liu Bo was also dumbfounded after hearing this. At a glance, there were hundreds of densely packed Mei Nai He. If one Mei Nai He weighed a thousand taels as Zhu Qiuqi said, then ten would be ten thousand taels, and a hundred would be a hundred thousand taels?
Although Liu Bo was a hereditary Jinyiwei and had seen many big scenes, it was the first time he had seen so much silver laid out in front of him like a millstone. For a moment, his breathing became heavy and his eyes sparkled.

After careful counting, the Fan family had 473 thousand-liang Mei Nai He in their possession, which meant that there were 473 thousand liang of silver alone. In addition to these Mei Nai He, they also found two even bigger ones in another place. No one knew what the Fan family was thinking. These two huge Mei Nai He were several times bigger than the ordinary Mei Nai He. Even Zhu Qiuqi and Liu Bo could not move them at all. They could only shake them with great effort. Each one weighed about 10,000 liang, which was more than half a ton.

Looking at these two huge things, Zhu Qiuqi and Liu Bo were helpless. It would be fine if they were small, at least two or three people could carry it away, but this thing weighing more than half a ton was simply not something that could be moved by manpower, and it had to be moved with tools and some effort.

It would be fine if they had enough time, but the problem was that they simply couldn't stay at the Fan family for too long. They had to leave quickly before dawn at the latest.

You should know that Jiexiu is not far from Zhangyuan Village. It takes half a day to get there by fast horse, or one day at most to walk along the official road. When the Fan Family Courtyard was captured, the whole Zhangyuan Village was already alarmed. Now, the young and old in Zhangyuan Village should all know that strong men have come to the Fan Family Courtyard and have occupied the Fan family. So those who sneaked out to report the news, plus the guards and servants who escaped, no one can guarantee whether they will go to Jiexiu for help overnight. Even if the road is difficult to walk late at night, Jiexiu will know about the attack on the Fan Family Courtyard in Zhangyuan Village at most by noon tomorrow based on their strength. Once the local government reacts and sends troops to support, the two sides will be in big trouble.

In addition, it would take time for Zhu Qiuqi and his men to evacuate, especially since they had to move all the valuables found in the Fan family. Therefore, they had to leave the Fan family compound before dawn. If they waited until dawn, their whereabouts would be easily discovered, which would be more difficult for them to hide later.

Helpless, they could only give up these two huge things. Zhu Qiuqi, Liu Bo and others hurried to move the things hidden in the cellar. It took two hours to move all these things out and load them onto the carriages. They had brought some carriages with them, but they didn't expect the Fan family's wealth to be so great. Fortunately, the Fan family already had a lot of carriages, so they used the Fan family's carriages as transportation tools. They loaded dozens of carriages in total. After the things were loaded, they ordered to retreat.

Before leaving, Zhu Qiuqi did two more things. One was to gather the men of the Fan family together and order them to be killed. As for the women and children, he did not touch them. It didn't matter if the women were alive anyway. Killing the men of the Fan family was enough.

Then, Zhu Qiuqi set a fire in the Fan family compound and deliberately poured vegetable oil and lamp oil on it. Soon the flames shot up into the sky and several places in the Fan family compound were burning.

After doing all this, Zhu Qiuqi led his men to evacuate. In the raging fire, they left the Fan family compound in a carriage and left quickly under the cover of night. In a short while, they disappeared without a trace. At this time, the Fan family compound was in a panic. The women and children who had escaped by chance saw the fire everywhere and cried and were at a loss. Some servants, including the guards, helped to put out the fire, while others took advantage of the fire to rob and stuffed the valuables of the Fan family into their arms. Others looked at the delicate appearance of the women of the Fan family and became even more lustful. They not only took advantage of the situation to plunder the Fan family's things, but also pounced on them regardless of their struggles, dragged them aside with a grin, and started to do things...

The retreat route had been arranged long ago. Zhu Qiuqi and his group first went west, then made a half circle and headed straight north.

They arrived at a pre-arranged stronghold, dispersed the carriages and split up, heading north and straight to Taiyuan Prefecture.

Along the way, people were arranged in various places to meet him. The people who met him had no idea about Zhu Qiuqi's origins and just thought he was transporting goods from the merchant company. Afterwards, the scattered carriages joined the merchant company's caravan, hid in it and arrived at Taiyuan Prefecture safely under the name of Hengtong. A few days later, when all the carriages arrived at Taiyuan Prefecture one after another, Zhou Anmin had been waiting for him. There was a manor on the outskirts of Taiyuan Prefecture, which was the territory of the Jinyiwei. Once the wealth and goods entered here, no one could find out.

The next day after the Fan family compound was looted, Jiexiu County received the news. The Jiexiu County Magistrate was shocked when he heard about this. He never thought that there would be strong men going to the Fan family in Zhangyuan Village to do such a thing. Especially when he heard that these strong men were so fierce that even the hundreds of Fan family guards could not stop them, he was even more frightened.

At present, the territory of Shanxi is not peaceful. Not only are the Shanxi troops who mutinied before causing trouble everywhere, but Wang Jiayin and Gao Yingxiang have occupied Ningxiang and Shilou in the west. The magistrate of Jiexiu County suspected that this group of strong men might be the rebels or rebels from Shanxi. If so, it would be a death wish for him to go there with all his soldiers and yamen runners.

The Jiexiu County Magistrate hurriedly asked the provincial government for help and passed the news to the garrison, informing them of the death of the Fan family in Zhangyuan Village and requesting his superiors to send troops to assist.

In this way, it was delayed for two full days. By the time the provincial government and the garrison reacted and sent a thousand households with hundreds of people to check the situation, Zhu Qiuqi and others had already delivered the things to Taiyuan Prefecture.

When they arrived at Zhangyuan Village, the huge Fan family compound was in shambles. All the male members of the Fan family had died, and only a few female members were alive. The female members who survived by chance were all mentally ill, especially the stepmother of the head of the Fan family, Fan Yongdou, who had her eyes half covered by her clothes and muttered "retribution... retribution..." When asked what was going on, she didn't answer a word.

After the fire, nearly half of the Fan family compound was destroyed. Only a few servants were left, and the guards had basically all run away. When Zhu Qiuqi and others left, the Fan family compound was in chaos. First, the servants and guards of the Fan family took advantage of the fire to rob. Soon, even the villagers of Zhangyuan Village could not hold back and rushed into the Fan family to take whatever they saw. In their opinion, the Fan family was robbed by bandits anyway. Who can tell how much the Fan family lost? What's wrong with taking advantage of the chaos? As long as I don't say anything and you don't say anything, and put all the blame on the bandits, can the Fan family still know the truth?
For this reason, the subsequent investigation was very difficult, because no one could tell exactly how many strong men came, how they broke into the Fan family compound, and how they plundered the Fan family.

Each person has his own story, and it is hard to tell the truth from the false. Some say that the person who came here is a strong man who occupied a mountain and became the king of a certain place. Some say that they are rebels who fled back to Shanxi, and some say that they are rebels who came from the west. Some even say that there are no outsiders at all, and that this is all due to the internal strife of the Fan family, and that the Fan family members fought against their own people, which led to this result.

(End of this chapter)