Delong

Chapter 82 Cooking Crane Walk (11)

Because they were in charge of the palace, Duke Zhao of Beiya and Duwei Liu of the Jinwu Guard, who actually had great political power in Jiangdu, died suddenly. In addition, the Jing'an Taiwan patrol team officially took over the palace just two days after arriving, and dispatched fully armed The Jinwu Guard cooperated with the inspection team to cross the river to the south. In Jiangdu in early November, a huge political and public opinion turmoil quickly arose.

People in the official circles and the people were panicked and rumors continued. Most people aimed their targets at the newly arrived Jinyi patrol team, who had a very bad reputation. They believed that these people had killed the two heads of the palace and disturbed everyone. peaceful life.But at the same time, almost everyone also felt that there might be something wrong with the palace, and that the imperial court sent the Jing'an Taiwan inspection team to deal with the palace.

Especially some officials, they more or less knew that the previous Liu Jing died in a bizarre assassination that was unlikely to be related to the patrol team, so they thought more.

However, these things have nothing to do with Zhang Xing who closed the palace and hid in it to check the accounts.

Besides, in the world, people are most afraid of the word "seriousness" and "seriousness" in everything. Therefore, when Zhang Xing started to check the accounts vigorously, he quickly found a huge and obvious loophole in the accounts.

He found it very quickly. As soon as Bai Yousi crossed the river, he found out the clue, and then quickly confirmed, expanded, and identified it.

Moreover, this huge hole in the palace storage is not a weapon, not gold and silver, not the loss of war horses and ships, nor any timber or treasures, but food—it is the Luokou warehouse and Hanjia in the vicinity of Dahe and Dongdu and Xidu. There are countless grains in the warehouses, Changping warehouses, Liyang warehouses, and Yongfeng warehouses.

As long as the eastern capital needs it, it will only cost a few cents a bucket of grain for a little freight.

This result made Zhang Xing a little hard to understand, but his scalp was a little numb.

He thought about many possibilities, made up a lot of classical legendary plots of the feudal era that he saw in the last world, and even thought about why the daughter of the Emperor of Wei and Princess Chen was raised in the palace because of the vitality of the world and the spirit of the world. , and then under the vengeful operation of the Qionghua female saint, she became the female saint of the True Fire Sect, and she and Bai Yousi are half-sisters and other weird plots, but everything is not.

Even imagined, possibly because of the collusion with Yang Shen, there was no loss of weapons or ships.

is food.

The food that should have been piled up like a mountain in the warehouse city to the northeast of the Jiangdu Palace, reserved for the saints in case they go on a tour to accompany the capital, is almost empty.

Zhang Xing saw it with his own eyes, and there were only a thousand stones left for daily use.

This is simply too reasonable and too unbelievable.

It is reasonable because of such a big deficit, especially the empty warehouse city attached to the palace, which is too obvious. No wonder Liu Jing hesitated to report it. If there is too much food, it wants to be transported out and disappear. Even if it takes years and ants move mountains, it may not be able to hide it from people.

It's just a way of saying that you don't report what you know, and you are afraid of being implicated.

And it was unbelievable, but Zhang Xing still couldn't understand why it was food that was in short supply?

If it is corruption, at the current price of grain, compared with other things in the palace, the embezzlement of grain is too low-end-it always costs twenty shi, but the food here is expensive, and it usually costs ten or five shi Well, [-] shi of grain is only a thousand guanwen, two thousand guanwen!
A thousand guanwen... I said that there was a plague in the stables of the palace, and twenty horses died, isn't it good?
Twenty horses are nothing to a governor-general?Do you have to be greedy for ten thousand shi of grain?

Besides, which of the governors in the North Yamen of the Eastern Capital is not wealthy?
Wanguan is one hundred thousand stones of grain!

It was really hard for Zhang Xing to imagine that there would be a head eunuch who had become a duke and would be so stupid as to only grab a sheep's wool, and only his ass.

But the fact is happening right in front of our eyes. Although Dugong Zhao, who was born in the court of the Chen Kingdom and used to be a saint in Jiangdu, has a foot-warming concubine, although the private residence next to the palace is a bit luxurious, it is also reasonable... ...But in the palace of his governor, I don't know how many thousands of stones, anyway, the food that should have been filled is gone.

To say that this is a huge deficit is the fact that it is in front of our eyes, but if we say that this is corruption, it is an insult to Zhang Xing's IQ.

Could it be rebellion?
The forces of Chen Guofu, the tyrannical Jiangdong family, and the True Fire Sect are preparing to rebel, and they need a large amount of food reserves... Of course, it is very possible. They have indeed rebelled more than once... But anyway, it can't be Yang Shen, Yang Shen's mother What he is in charge of is the logistics of Erzheng Dongyi. If Yang Shen can ask for food from here, it will be called a real IQ.

In short, rebellion is very possible, but a huge logical loophole is that if the rebels need food and have already controlled Dugong Zhao, why do they bother to move food from the warehouse so hard?
If it comes to the day of rebellion, please ask Dugong Zhao to open the gate of the palace, let alone food, there will be no shortage of horses, weapons, chariots, and ships, okay?
Unless... the rebellion is to rebel on the other side of the river, and you don't have the guts to cross the river?And plan to put a long line to catch big fish, and first use food to support people in the mountains and temples?
This barely makes sense, but why not ask for money directly, and then buy food on the spot in the land of fish and rice?
Afraid of being discovered?

But if you evacuate the palace, you are not afraid of being discovered?The attitudes of the remaining two in Jiangducheng are also very strange. Zhou Xiaoming seems to have something to say. Could it be that these people are also involved?

They all participated, why didn't they chop up their own group at Yangzijin and set up a flag on the spot?

So, just stealing food without thinking too much, is it too stupid?

The more Zhang Xing thought about it, the more he felt a pain in his head.

In the next few days, he lived like a year, until he saw an old document that made people dumbfounded.

Bai Yousi took most of the elite patrol team and a whole team of 150 Jinwu Guards across the river. They walked for [-] days, and did not return until the weather suddenly turned cold and a light snow covered Jiangdu City.

Then, the female inspector saw her capable subordinate waiting for her in front of the side door of the palace.

"How many people have been arrested during the inspection?"

Zhang Xing, with his hands in cages and ear protectors, poked his head out from the side door, looked at the group of captives, and laughed on the spot, and as these people walked along, the streets had already been cleared up, as if to guard against thieves.

"77 people." Bai Yousi confronted him proudly.

"How many did you kill?" Zhang Xing couldn't ask in time.

"14 people."

"How many True Fire Cult strongholds have you pursued in succession?"

"Six and a half...seven?"

"Transfer to three counties within eleven days, pull out Qizhai, kill 14 people, and lock up 77 people?" Zhang Xinglong smiled with his hands up. "The inspection is a bit like Mr. Qiantang's."

"It's within nine days." Bai Yousi raised his eyebrows slightly. "Besides, what does this have to do with Daqian? Daqian has also acted with me, and is just behind us...or is Qian Tangjun someone else?"

"Mr. Qiantang is a real dragon." Zhang Xing smiled helplessly. "I once fought other real dragons in a fit of rage, and came back victorious in just one meal. By the way, I killed 60 lives and harmed crops for eight hundred miles."

"So it's a joke?" Bai Yousi was slightly puzzled. "Is it still persuasion? Do you think I killed too many people or came late? Zhang Xing, I received your subpoena, so I went to focus on sweeping up the surrounding strongholds, and it was what you said, don't worry about time, let me try to sweep up more More bases for verification."

"Yes." Zhang Xing suddenly became serious. "I said so."

"Then you laugh so weirdly!" Bai Yousi suddenly stamped his feet, turned around and walked into the palace.

Behind them, a long line of True Fire Sect activists were taken into the palace and resettled on the spot. It was not until the side door of the palace was closed again that the main road of Jiangdu City regained a little vitality.

First of all, the captured true fire sect rebels were carefully guarded, then rewarded to the Jinwu guards, and then a banquet was held to celebrate - obviously, the Xinggong got the news early and made preparations.

Most of the scouts and Jinwu guards were scattered to enjoy the banquet, while a few core elites climbed up to the gate tower of the outer city of the palace with Bai Yousi, and gathered here for a while and had a banquet. Meant for a final discussion.

But for some unknown reason, Zhou Xingfan, the youngest son of Zhou Xiaoming who was left behind by Deputy Jiang Du, was also here, while the others just didn't know.

"We are right about the information, and things are actually very clear."

Zhang Xing did his part, before he had time to eat, he opened the scene on the table first.

"First of all, there is a big shortage of food in the palace;
Then we arrived in a hurry. That night, the captain of the Jinwu Guard, Liu Jing, the only northern nobleman in Jiangdu who was at odds with other officials from the southern region, was assassinated in a daze, probably not by the assassin, but by other experts present;
Then, the assassins used are undoubtedly some radicals in the True Fire Sect, rebels who want to rebel;

Another day later, Eunuch Zhao committed suicide by taking poison on the spot;
Then the inspector took everyone to the south of the Yangtze River to sweep away many True Fire Cult rebel strongholds, found food in the strongholds, and the captured people also searched for people, and confirmed that the assassins were from the True Fire Cult. They often come to move food, and they have confirmed that they have direct contact with Eunuch Zhao...

Are they all right?What does Brother Hu think? "

"I think that's the case. There are not so many flowery ways. Because Dugong Zhao is an old man from the Nanchen court, he naturally got involved with those rebels in the True Fire Sect. Those rebels set up strongholds in the mountains to seek rebellion. , hoarding and training manpower required a large amount of food, so Dugong Zhao let these rebels cross the river to dump food all day long, and dumped all the food for years. Liu Jing found out about this, or he thought Liu Jing After discovering this...then thought we came here to investigate him, so he killed Liu Jing in fear that day, and then committed suicide after we came to the door one day later...There is nothing messy about it." Hu Yan simply said Having made a conclusion, he took another long breath. "And now we have some witnesses that have been linked together, and we can explain it to anyone, right?"

"It should be." Qian Tang, who was drinking hot soup, put down his bowl and frowned. "But there is a problem, the quantity is still wrong...According to these people's confession, every time they come to transport grain, they can only take away one-twentieth of the quantity transported from the palace to Yangzijin, and the twenty One of them is enough for their own use, and it can be returned to the nearby Zhenhuo Temple for use, and some of them can even be taken home to help them."

"That's why Eunuch Zhao is playing big, a palace warehouse supports the entire Jiangdong's True Fire Sect rebels." Li Qingchen said disapprovingly. "Think about it, the rebels from the True Fire Sect in Jiangdu, Wujun, and Danyang took one-twentieth of the food, Jiangdong, Jiangxi forty or fifty counties, plus the cost of transshipment, isn't it right? Why put it in Yangzijin? It is for the convenience of transfer. Why are the rebels from these three counties responsible for transferring out from the palace? Because these three counties are the three closest to the Jiangdu Palace."

At this point, Li Qingchen thought of something again, looked around: "Do you still remember the hero on the river we met when we came here? Maybe the boat was loaded with granary at that time."

"That's all right, but it's a pity that it's hard to sweep farther places, and the credit doesn't fall to us." Someone sighed with emotion.

"It's such a simple thing, but the assassination and the eunuch's suicide made me so disgusted. I almost thought that we forced a good man to death." Someone was angry, but he stared at Mr. Zhou.

But Mr. Zhou had no choice but to smack and drink the soup with his head down.

Bai Yousi frowned slightly, as if he wanted to say something, but he still chose to stare at Zhang Xing first, but unexpectedly the latter just shook his head slightly and didn't say a word. When I got back to the gate of the Xinggong, I felt that the other party had something waiting for me, but I never got it.

However, even so, the female inspector suppressed this feeling of irritability and waited until after the dinner.

And after dozing off for an hour, he waited in the room for the knock on the door that he wanted to wait for.

When he opened the door, Zhang Xing was dressed neatly, not to mention a winter coat and a mink fur hat, as well as cotton ear and neck protectors, standing in front of the door with his hands folded.

"Come here now, do you have anything to say?" Bai Yousi was a little annoyed.

"Yes." Zhang Xing stared at the other party with burning eyes. "Inspection, the snowy night is long, I don't want to sleep, can you please take me to fly across the sword, enjoy the plum blossoms by the river, and enjoy the snow across the river, fulfilling my long-cherished wish... At that time, the next official will definitely have a big reward."

Bai Yousi, who had already gone to Xiaoguan, tilted his head and looked at the other party for a while, then finally nodded: "Okay! I will accompany you to the end tonight!"

Zhang Xing immediately showed his face.

PS: Good night everyone.

(End of this chapter)