Red Mansion is so charming

Chapter 78: Capture the Caobang and return to Beijing (Please collect and read)

Under the hazy moonlight, Su Ran came to what the man called Zhouying River.

Zhouying River is an inland river, but its width is not small, more than ten meters wide.

It is precisely because of this that such a large ship can be stopped on the river.

The moment Su Ran saw the boat, she couldn't help but feel secretly happy.

He had never expected that he could find the ship so easily.

There are no lights on the boat, but when you get closer, you can hear a few voices above.

Taking advantage of the darkness, Su Ran jumped onto the ship, but the movement immediately alerted the people on the ship.

Before Su Ran could react, five or six men with dazzling knives had already surrounded him.

One of them snorted coldly: "Are you a brother on the road or a member of the government?"

Seeing this, Su Ran said in a calm voice: "What's the difference? After all, I'm here to get the things on this boat."

"If you are a brother on the road, give me, Mr. Cai, some face and give you 50 taels of silver for a cup of tea. But if you are from the government, then I have no choice but to be sorry."

Su Ran heard this and sneered: "Unfortunately, I am the latter. I want to see why you can't forgive me?"

"Don't push people too hard. We brothers wouldn't take the risk of beheading if we could, but since we took the risk, we don't take death seriously."

When Su Ran heard this, he said with some confusion: "You have arms and legs, and you can survive on your own even if you eat with your own strength. If you put it like that, I don't quite understand. What do you mean you can't help it?"

After hearing Su Ran's words, the man was silent for several seconds, and then sighed heavily.

"When Lord Qingyong was the emperor, our family only had to pay five taels of silver in tax every year. But now that the new emperor has ascended the throne, our family has to pay ten taels of silver every year, and we farmers only earn a few dollars a year. Son, do you think you can still survive today?"

When Su Ran heard this, the doubts in his heart became more intense: "Where do you start with this? Since the Holy Emperor ascended the throne, he has been promoting tax reduction and exemption. To say that the tax burden has increased, only the wealthy businessmen, the common people's taxes should be reduced. Twenty percent is right, how could it be possible to double the tax burden as you said?"

"I don't know about this. I don't know whether the taxes handed over to the lords in Beijing have been increased or not. However, the money that the government asks us people to ask for has indeed doubled. They can all testify to this."

As soon as this statement came out, several other people followed suit.

When Su Ran saw this, he thought that there should be something in this, but the top priority now was to chase the salt ship back, and other things could only be discussed later.

Thinking of this, he smiled and said: "I'm not afraid to tell you that I'm from the capital. Even if you tell me lies, you shouldn't rob this salt ship. This is a capital crime of beheading!"

As soon as Su Ran said these words, the men immediately fell silent.

After a while, the leading man said: "In this case, there is no need to talk about this matter. Either you will kill us and chase the salt boat back today, or we will offend you."

As soon as he finished speaking, Su Ran heard the whistling wind in his ears, which should be the sound of weapons waving.

Although there were no lights and only dim moonlight, Su Ran had no problem dealing with these people.

But because they seemed to have unspeakable difficulties, Su Ran did not kill them. Instead, he subdued them and made them responsible for sailing the ship.

In addition, Su Ran also told them that if what they said was true and they cooperated in investigating the truth, the matter could be given a lighter sentence.

Several people knew that they had committed a serious crime, but they felt guilty.

Now that he had a chance to survive, but couldn't be beaten, he had no choice but to listen to Su Ran.

……

At dawn, Su Ran took the salt boat back to Yangzhou Ferry.Seeing that the lost salt was recovered, Lin Ruhai was so excited that tears filled her eyes, and she immediately agreed to hand over the future salt transportation to Caobang.

Of course, there are still necessary documents, and Lin Ruhai understands this.

Su Ran took the entrustment document and left Yangzhou with Hongshuang without waiting any longer.

As for those who robbed the salt ship, Su Ran did not give them any trouble. After arriving at the ferry, he talked to Lin Ruhai and let them go.

After verification, these people are indeed right. The tax burden on the people of Jiangnan has indeed increased.

However, these taxes were not imposed by the court, but were assessed privately by local officials.

These local officials are basically disciples of the Zhen family.

In this regard, Su Ran had no good solution for the time being. He could only bring the matter back to the capital and let Emperor Qingyong decide.

Leng Xingyun herself was very repulsive to the Zhen family. When she saw Su Ran coming back with a letter of authorization for salt transportation, she was in a good mood and immediately ordered people to serve wine to celebrate.

Unable to resist Su Ran's hospitality, he had no choice but to have a few more drinks with the people in Caobang.

At this point, this trip to Jiangnan is relatively complete.

However, when I met Chao Heng before, I forgot to ask him one thing, and that was about He Meier's younger brother He San.

So, early the next morning, Su Ran found Chao Heng again.

It wasn't until this time that Su Ran knew that He San went to the capital alone after his sister left Jinling.

However, his whereabouts have not been found so far.

When Su Ran saw the situation, she thought that as long as she knew where someone went, she would find it one day, so she was not very worried.

After all, He San is a big man and he is not worried about being abducted.

As long as there is no serious illness or disaster, it is estimated that nothing major will happen.

After the matter here was settled, Su Ran took the harvest of the trip, a pile of account books, and the book of hundreds of officials and set off back to Beijing.

Originally, I brought Hongshuang out because I wanted to take her to Jiangnan to relax and develop a relationship.

But along the way, because there were too many things to do, Hong Shuang spent most of his time in the inn, which made Su Ran feel very sad.

Therefore, Su Ran was not in a hurry on the way back to Beijing. Instead, he took Hongshuang on a sightseeing tour, stopping to visit places with pleasant scenery.

In this way, by the time Su Ran returned to the capital, it had been nearly 20 days since he left Jinling.

Of course, during this period, the intimacy between the two is also increasing day by day.

When there was still one day's journey from the capital, the two of them finally came together, and in a field filled with flowers, they completed a sublimation of their intimate relationship.

At this point, Hongshuang, who had accompanied Su Ran on a trip to the south of the Yangtze River, was finally satisfied, and the inexplicable worries in her heart had disappeared.

After returning to Beijing, the first thing Su Ran did was to report to Emperor Qingyong.

However, he knew very well that Emperor Qingyong would definitely not be in a good mood after learning something about his trip to Jiangnan.

(End of this chapter)