The Reborn Duke of Ming Dynasty

"What did you say?" Zhang Fan asked loudly after hearing what Liang Chao said, with a surprised expression on his face. He didn't know whether he didn't hear Liang Chao's words clearly, or he couldn't believe what Liang Chao said.

"My lord, I just said Fusang," Liang Chao could understand Zhang Fan's current mood.

"Are you sure?" Zhang Fan asked.

"Of course," Liang Chao said confidently. "That year when I first entered the guard, the first task I received was not to monitor any officials, but to meet foreign envoys. It was the envoys from Fusang. The things they paid tribute were not priceless items, this can be regarded as their tradition, but the humble official who knew about it for the first time still had a disdain for them in his heart, so the humble official remembered this matter very clearly , There are daffodils in their tribute.

"At that time, it was strange for me to be a tribute. I don't care whether it is precious or not. At least I have to send something that is in my own country but not in other countries. Although the daffodils sent by the Fusang people are beautiful, I also know that this is in my Ming dynasty. It's not a rare commodity. At that time, I thought that they wanted to bring this kind of thing to Daming to ask for more rewards from your majesty. But after inquiring about it, I found out from those Fusang people that they thought the daffodils were They are unique to Fusang, and they have no idea that there are so many narcissus in my Ming Dynasty."

After hearing Liang Chao's words, Zhang Fan's expression became more serious. Seeing Zhang Fan's appearance, Liang Chao added a sentence: "My lord, although I can't be sure whether there are daffodils in other countries, but I can be sure that besides me, Da Ming, Fusang definitely has one, "

"My lord, the matter of the poison now makes sense," Wang Meng said to Zhang Fan, "At first we couldn't understand why the killer would use such an obvious poison, but Liang Chao just said The words cleared our doubts. I also dealt with those Fusang people in my early years. Those Fusang people are now in the midst of a war of separatist regimes. Therefore, many of them have wanted to send people to Daming over the years. On the one hand, I want to see if I can get my Da Ming's support for them, and on the other hand, I want to exchange some worthless tributes for my Da Ming's rich last time, to support their army after returning.

"These Fusang people are very respectful to me, Da Ming, even a little subdued, but on the other hand, they are very arrogant, and they always like to show pride in some small places, such as this daffodil They are ignorant and ignorant, and they take it for granted that it is a flower unique to their country without doing any investigation. This is probably why they can blatantly use this kind of poison that experts can see at a glance to kill, because They think we don't recognize the poison at all," he said.

After Zhang Fan listened to Wang Meng's analysis, he also thought about it in his heart. After a long time, he said: "Wang Meng's analysis makes sense, but I also have a question, why did these Fusang people assassinate this Yangzhou city?" What about the gate officer at the east gate of Suzhou City?"

"My lord, we originally thought that the east side was facing the East China Sea, and there was no threat there," Liang Chao also understood this, and said, "But now it seems that the east side is the greatest threat."

"You said those Japanese pirates were planning to attack us," Zhang Fan said, looking at him in surprise, "They don't know any strategy, they thought we couldn't see through it, and they sent people to assassinate our door officials first, I can understand that. However, why did the Japanese pirates suddenly attack us? Judging from the current situation, the Japanese pirates must be aggressive this time, and the scale is not small. Otherwise, they would not have killed the guards in advance. After the incident, I have asked His Majesty to send warships to patrol the open sea, those Japanese pirates must have seen my Ming's warships, and they probably don't think their small boats can rush over, right?"

"But my lord, this fact is too strange now, and now all the clues point to the Japanese pirates who are about to attack my Daming." Wang Meng also frowned and said, "Do you remember what happened in Quanzhou? The Japanese pirates captured those returning to the sea. The owners of the merchant ships, at the time we all thought that they were arresting those owners for ransom, but there was no news about this. Now it seems that the Japanese pirates planned this attack long ago, and captured them. Those ship owners also deceived us by pretending that they wanted a ransom, and they might actually be arresting them to inquire about some news about us,"

"You mean that the Japanese pirates planned this very early on," Zhang Fan said as if he was self-centered, and then he thought about the possibility of this situation.

"But my lord, it would be a bit strange if the Japanese pirates really planned to invade my Daming on a large scale this time," Liang Chao said with a frown on the side. Every time they approached Yingtianfu, but in the past, no matter how many of them there were, they would only invade one province of our Ming Dynasty at most, and they would not cross two or even three provinces. Not enough people.

"But this time, the situation is a little different. The Japanese pirates actually started kidnapping people directly from the sea in Fujian. Obviously, Fujian is also where they invaded. In addition, Yangzhou and Suzhou have similar deeds now. It can be seen that this The scale of their plan at one time is really incomprehensible, "

"In my opinion, I don't know yet, maybe Shandong will also become their target," Zhang Fan said worriedly, "At the beginning of this year, General Qi and his Qi family army had just been transferred from the southeast coast, and the Japanese pirates were about to It really makes people feel that there is something suspicious about the large-scale invasion, "

"My lord, could it be that someone is going to inform the Japanese pirates?" Liang Chao understood what Zhang Fan was about to say, and he was very surprised and shouted in a low voice, "This...My lord, this is an act of collaborating with the enemy and treason. Anyone who wants to know about this kind of thing It must be an official of the imperial court. Ordinary people have been deeply abused by the Japanese pirates. Even if they knew that General Qi was transferred to the north, they would not go to the Japanese pirates to inform them. But who among the imperial court officials would do such a thing? "

"Naturally, ordinary people would not do this kind of thing. After all, if someone exposes it, they will suffer eternal infamy," Zhang Fan said. , A person who has no scruples in doing things, but suddenly encounters some fatal ending, and wants to die, then at that time, he may want to pull a few more people into the water for a moment of revenge, so he will do this. kind of thing,"

"Do you already have a candidate in your mind?" Wang Meng asked immediately seeing Zhang Fan's words so clearly.

"There is such a person," Zhang Fan replied, "It's just that the person is dead now,"

"Liu Shan," "Liu Shan," Wang Meng and Liang Chao said in unison.

"That's right, it's Liu Shan," Zhang Fan nodded, affirming what the two of them said, "Liu Shan is ruthless and merciless in his work, and he is definitely the kind of person who will make things difficult for others if something happens to him. People, I still remember that day, after I got his whole book from Liu Shan Mansion, I immediately asked you to rush in and prepare to arrest him, but he didn't want to be tortured in prison, so he committed suicide directly, but Do you still remember what he said before he died, "

"It seems to be saying..." Wang Meng recalled, "The sentence 'the matter here is not over',"

"That's right, that's exactly the sentence," Zhang Fan nodded and said.

"At that time, I thought it was just a cruel statement from Liu Shan before his death, but I didn't take it seriously," Wang Meng said. How could you imagine that Liu Shan would talk about something related to Japanese pirates?"

"Now it seems that none of us thought it would be like this," Zhang Fan said with a sigh.

"But my lord, I have some doubts in my humble heart," Liang Chao suddenly said with a puzzled expression on his face, "Liu Shan didn't know that the lord was going to deal with him before, and even until the lord got Liu Shan's account books, he was about to arrest him." At the moment when he was arrested, Liu Shan thought that the Lord wanted to cooperate with him, so how could he contact those Japanese pirates so early? Isn't this inconsistent?"

"Otherwise," Zhang Fan did not agree with Liang Chao, shaking his head and said, "I think that although Liu Shan didn't see that I wanted to arrest him wholeheartedly, he must have made these preparations first, after all. At that time, he was also risking his life, if something happened to him, the hidden danger he planted would have an effect,"

"If Liu Shan is really responsible for this incident, then how did he persuade the pirates?" Wang Meng seemed to be asking, and he seemed to be talking to himself, "You know, my lord, from the current signs Look, the Japanese pirates attack this time will definitely not be small-scale, how did Liu Shan persuade the Japanese pirates, I'm afraid it won't work just by using money."

"It's not money," Zhang Fan said affirmatively, "Liu Shan's account books are not much different from the silver we found out, so it is impossible for the Japanese pirates to work so hard with such money, it must be that Liu Shan has given them some benefits, "

Several people fell silent, and after a while, Zhang Fan said: "Now all this is still conjecture, we have no evidence yet, Liang Chao, hurry up and go to Suzhou and Songjiang with Li Yang to check, and report back if you have any news. Wang Meng, you send someone to secretly protect the gate officials of the Dongcheng Gate in other nearby counties, if possible, bring back the assassin, and after interrogation, you will understand the mystery of it."

"Of order," the three of them said in unison and turned to leave.

Zhang Fan looked at the sky alone, and said to himself: "I hope we don't guess the matter, otherwise we will be in big trouble."