At the end of the Han Dynasty: a stingy husband from his hometown

Chapter 38
Zhou Qi hesitated not because he couldn't trust the Xu brothers.

As the saying goes, a gentleman does not build a dangerous wall. After all, this matter is of great importance. Even if the Xu brothers are loyal, there is no guarantee that the rest of the people in the stronghold will not have other ideas.

It's not that Zhou Qi judges the heart of a gentleman with the heart of a villain, it's just that he doesn't want to bet his life.

After pondering for a long time, Zhou Qi finally decided not to lie to the Xu brothers.

Whether it was for this gracious reception or for the two of them, this should not be done and could not be done.

But Zhou Qi had been in the officialdom for so many years in his previous life, and he was no longer a hot-blooded young man. Naturally, it was impossible to fight unprepared, so he planned to use the method of aggressiveness.

Now that he was concerned, Zhou Qi immediately said to Xiang Hong: "Brother, go find some ropes!"

Xiang Hong asked strangely, "Why does Ziyi need a rope?"

Zhou Qi smiled mysteriously, and said, "Brother, find out!"

Although Xiang Hong was full of doubts, he did not ask any more questions. After finding the rope, Zhou Qi said, "Brother, tie me up."

Xiang Hong was shocked and said, "Why?"

Zhou Qi said sternly: "As fugitives, we have done such a great thing in Xiangxian County, but here we are warmly entertained by the Xu brothers. If the news gets out, won't the Xu brothers be hurt?"

"If we wait to leave without saying goodbye, it will be even more unjust."

"Today, the two of us bound our hands and went to the Xu brothers to plead guilty. If he is a righteous person, he will let me go; otherwise, even if we hand over the two of us to the government, you and my brother will not be held responsible. The grace of rice!"

Xiang Hong looked moved when he heard this and said, "You are so righteous, but I can't match him!"

Zhou Qi secretly felt ashamed.

He has been in the officialdom of later generations for so many years, and he has experienced the era of the Internet, and the future society where the etiquette is broken and the music is broken. People's chivalry and shame are far inferior to those of the heroes of today.

Don't look at how tall Zhou Qiren set up, but he actually has his own selfishness and calculations.

Call him hypocritical or call him a villain.

But if you want to set off turbulent waves in such an era, if you don't use some means and some scheming, it's really extremely difficult.

However, Zhou Qi will stick to his true intentions.

Even if he has a plan, he will not treat those who treat him sincerely, nor will he kill innocent people indiscriminately.

It's like letting go of Wang Ji's wife and children. Some people may think that he is a bit of a woman, and he is pretending to be a bitch in this troubled world.

But as a future man, Zhou Qi, even if he has been in the officialdom for many years, he still can't kill women and children.

Besides, Zhou Qi also has his own pride.

Wang Ji's son is only four years old. If Zhou Qi is still afraid of the other party's revenge when he really has to grow up, then Zhou Qi is not qualified to compete with the heroes of the world.

The path chosen by Zhou Qi is bound to be extremely bumpy, and he will make grudges with more and more people along the way. He can't just eradicate everyone, can he?

There's really only one thing he needs to do.

That is to make oneself stronger and stronger, so strong that any enemy will have nothing to do even if they hate him so much.

Just like Cao Cao in history.

Countless people wished they could eat their flesh alive, but Cao Cao was able to save himself from danger every time, and in the end he lived better than all his enemies.

……

"Boom boom boom!"

Xu Chu, who was lying on the bed and was about to go to sleep, suddenly heard a hasty knock on the door.He shook his dizzy head, Weng Weng asked in a low voice, "Who is it?"

"Zhongkang, it's me!"

When Xu Chu heard that it was his elder brother's voice, he didn't dare to be negligent. He hurriedly got up and opened the door, and asked, "Brother still doesn't rest at this late hour, why come to my room?"

Xu Ding walked into the house, turned around, closed the door, and handed over a roll of bamboo slips.

Xu Chu opened the bamboo slip and after reading the contents inside, he couldn't help but praise: "I never thought that Zhou Ziyi and Xiang Bode would actually do such an earth-shattering thing in Xiang County."

"To be able to make friends with these two people is really lucky for three lives!"

Xu Ding was not so optimistic, instead he frowned and said, "Have Zhongkang ever thought about it, if I hadn't left spies in Xiangxian County, they would have sent this information back starry night. Without the slightest preparation, what will happen?"

Hearing this, Xu Chu recovered from his surprise, and his expression changed slightly.

The government has long been dissatisfied with Xu Jiazhai.

Especially during Wang Ji's tenure as Prime Minister of the Pei Kingdom, in order to increase taxes, the scrutiny of clan forces like Xu Jiazhai was very strict.

The same is true for the local government of Qiao County.

It's just that the people in Xujiazhai are colluding with each other and hiding from each other, and the government can't find any effective evidence at all, so there is no reason to take action against Xujiazhai.

As for resisting taxes or even beating officials to death, the government did not dare to pursue too much.

After all, Xujiazhai's official taxes were paid on time, and the taxes he resisted were exorbitant and miscellaneous taxes. If things were really going to get serious, the first ones to suffer would be the local officials.

Those guards who went to collect the messy taxes were beaten to death, but they could only die in vain. At least Xu Jiazhai had a reason.

As the saying goes: The law does not blame everyone.

Because the police officers were beaten to death for collecting taxes indiscriminately, if the government dared to pursue the case, leading to large-scale riots, it would be the government forcing the people to rebel.

Regardless of whether Xujiazhai will be unlucky or not, local officials will definitely be severely punished.

Compared with the reduction of government tax revenue, causing unrest among the people in the territory is a greater crime.Unless the ruling officials have a problem with their brains, they will never be confused about the importance.

Therefore, even if they knew that Xujiazhai was hiding their land and households, in the absence of conclusive evidence, local officials could only turn a blind eye.

However, the relationship between Xujiazhai and the government is naturally not very good.

This is why Xujiazhai has spies stationed in the villages within Qiao County and Xiangxian County.

They did this also to monitor the movements of the Peiguo government office and the county seat.

In case the government was preparing to investigate Xu Jiazhai, Xu Jiazhai was still kept in the dark, so that he was not prepared at all.

As time passed, no matter what major events happened in Xiangxian and Qiaoxian counties, the spies would quickly pass the news to Xujiazhai.

But if Xujiazhai was hiding the assassin who assassinated Prime Minister Pei, and the news was known to the government, the nature would be completely different.

The Han Dynasty did pay attention to the concealment of relatives, but the prerequisite was that crimes other than murder were allowed to be concealed. Zhou Qi's crime of assassinating two thousand stone officials was obviously not included in this.

The most important thing is that the Xu brothers are not related to Zhou Qi and Xiang Hong, so there is no prerequisite for them to hide from each other.

If the government uses this as an excuse to repay past grievances and insists on arresting the Xu brothers, even the clan will have no way to protect them, after all, the government has the right to do so.

If the clan dared to use this as an excuse to make trouble, it would be gathering people to plot against the law, which just gave the government an excuse to deal with them.

Now that the world is not in chaos, the majesty of the government cannot be offended. If the imperial court really wants to do something, the Xujiazhai with thousands of households in the area can be destroyed with a snap of its fingers.

What's more, it is impossible for the villagers to give up their lives to help the Xu brothers fight against the government because of this incident.

After figuring out the key, Xu Chu couldn't help being frightened and said: "The matter has come to this, how should we deal with it?"

(End of this chapter)