Daming: My boss Zhu Yuanzhang

At night, the city of Yangzhou was silent. A small river passed through the city. The river flowed quietly, reflecting the sparkling light under the moonlight. Li Wei's temporary residence was not far from the river.

It was getting late, so he naturally went to bed, but Wu Yong and other guards still took turns on duty.

"boom!"

Suddenly there was a soft sound, which seemed particularly clear in the silent night.

Wu Yong, who was on duty, was immediately alerted and shouted: "What's the sound? Go and check!"

"Yes!"

His guards immediately ran in the direction of the sound, and Wu Yong himself followed.

"Sir, I found a stone. It should have been thrown in from outside the courtyard."

The guard who arrived first held a stone in his hand and said to Wu Yong.

Wu Yong frowned, took it and looked at it, then motioned to another guard: "Go out and take a look!"

"Yes!" The guard took the order and ran out quickly.

"Take another look to see if there is anything else nearby!" Wu Yong ordered after observing for a long time but not seeing anything unusual about the stone.

The guards followed the instructions and searched for a while on the ground, and they found something.

"Sir, here is a piece of paper!"

A guard picked up a crumpled piece of paper from the ground and brought it to Wu Yong. Wu Yong took it and saw that the paper was in the shape of a shell. It was obviously thrown in together with the stone.

Wu Yong quickly straightened the paper and saw that there were words on it, but it was dark and could not see clearly.

Seeing this, the guard next to him took out the fire stick and blew out the flames.

Using the light of the fire, Wu Yong could see the writing on it clearly. He was suddenly shocked and hurried to Li Wei's room with the note.

"Bang bang bang..."

An urgent knock on the door woke up Li Wei who had just fallen asleep. Li Weiqiang got up from the bed, put on some clothes and opened the door.

"What is it?"

Li Wei frowned and asked after seeing Wu Yong's figure clearly.

"Sir, Wu Xing is in danger!" Wu Yong said in a naive voice without caring about anything else.

After saying that, he handed over the piece of paper.

Li Wei was startled and quickly took it over to take a look.

Didn't see clearly...

So he glanced at Wu Yong again and said angrily: "Fire!"

"Oh!" Wu Yong reacted and immediately looked for it on his body, but couldn't find it.

Fortunately, the guards also rushed over at this time. Wu Yong took the fire folder from his subordinates and lit the fire. Li Wei finally saw the writing on it clearly by the light of the fire.

The meaning of this is very simple, that is, someone wants to kill Wu Xing and silence him, and the time is tonight.

tonight?

Li Wei raised his head and looked at the moonlight. He suddenly lost all sleepiness and was so shocked that he broke into a cold sweat!

"Go, go to the prison quickly, and be sure to rescue Wu Xing!" Li Wei shouted hurriedly.

"Yes!"

Wu Yong accepted the offer, leaving two guards behind to protect Li Wei, and took the others and hurried to the prison to rescue him.

Li Wei looked at the note in his hand again, and couldn't help but feel angry: "Fuck, this whistleblower is also an idiot. Didn't you know you should have told me earlier?"

After all, Wu Xing was an official of the imperial court. If he died inexplicably while in custody after being captured, he would be in a lot of trouble and even the construction of the city would be delayed.

……

In the prison, two jailers took off Wu Xing's belt.

Their idea was very simple, that is, to make Wu Xing's death look like he hanged himself. Since he hanged himself, of course he had to use his own things. They would not get a rope from the outside for him to hang with. That would be too fake. .

As long as Wu Xing's death is treated as a hanging, whether he commits suicide out of fear of crime or commits suicide out of humiliation, it will have nothing to do with the two of them.

The two of them worked together to get the sleeping Wu Xing up, put a belt around his neck, and hung the belt on the beam, so violently that he was hung up!

This came hard, and the severe pain and suffocation finally woke Wu Xing up. When he opened his eyes and saw clearly the situation in front of him, he immediately started struggling in panic, trying desperately with both hands to grab the rope around his neck and break free. Come on.

However, no matter how much he struggled, it was all to no avail. The rope tightened around his neck and hung him on the beam.

The two men stood in front of him calmly, letting him sway around. Wu Xing stretched out a hand to ask for help from the two men, but the two men just watched quietly.

"Master Wu, don't worry, Master Zhang will take good care of your family." A jailer said softly.

Wu Xing's face was horrified. He finally understood that Zhang Cheng wanted to kill him and silence him, and he felt regretful in his heart! If he had known this, why did he have to endure so many days? It would have been better if he had recruited Zhang Cheng and died together!

No matter how much he regretted it, it was too late now. As time went by, his brain was deprived of oxygen and his consciousness began to blur.

The two jailers saw him slowly stop struggling, with a sinister smile on their faces.

boom!

Just when they were feeling proud, there was a sudden loud noise. They turned around suddenly and were horrified when they saw Wu Yong and others rushing in! "How is that possible? It's impossible!"

The two of them looked in disbelief. They couldn't figure out why someone suddenly broke in at this late night. Could it be that their deeds were exposed?

Wu Yong saw clearly the situation in the prison, suddenly drew out his knife, and flew out with a whoosh.

These two jailers were just ordinary people. They had never even been on the battlefield. How could they have seen such a scene? When they saw the steel sword coming, they subconsciously hid with their heads in their hands.

However, the target of the steel knife was not them, but the belt holding Wu Xing.

With a pop, the belt was torn by the steel knife and broken into two pieces, and Wu Xing fell directly.

"Get them!" Wu Yong shouted immediately after rescuing Wu Xing.

"Yes!"

Several guards rushed into the cell. They were all elites selected from the personal guards. Naturally, they were not able to resist the two little jailers. They subdued the two men in a few seconds.

Seeing that something was not going well, one of the jailers suddenly moved his mouth and spit out blood in a moment.

Seeing this, the other jailer's eyes froze in horror for a moment, but instead of swallowing poison and committing suicide immediately, the guard reacted immediately and grabbed his chin, giving him no chance.

Wu Yong walked in quickly, not caring about the two jailers, but first took a look at Wu Xing's situation.

Fortunately, Wu Xing was only temporarily unconscious and was not cold yet. Wu Yong breathed a sigh of relief after confirming that he was not dead yet.

"Go and ask the doctor!"

"Yes!"

Wu Yong quickly ordered his men to call the doctor to come and rescue him.

After a long time, the guards forcibly kidnapped a doctor to treat Wu Xing.

Li Wei followed closely and hurried over. After this happened, he could no longer sleep at home.

"How is it?" Li Wei asked immediately after entering the door.

Wu Yong asked the guards and doctors to continue treating Wu Xing. He walked out of the cell and said to Li Wei:

"My lord, I'm not dead yet."

After Li Wei heard this, he felt relieved and murmured: "It's better that I'm not dead."

After relaxing, he couldn't help but feel angry again. He really didn't expect that these people were so bold. After all, Wu Xing was an official of the imperial court, and he didn't even execute him without permission, but these people killed him at will and didn't take Wu Xing seriously at all!

"Hmph, when this Wu Xing wakes up, if he still doesn't confess honestly, he will torture me! MD!"

Li Wei cursed angrily, he was an honest man, but others didn't follow the rules. In this case, he should be a little cruel, it's not a big deal, at most he would be punished by Zhu Yuanzhang when he went back.

The next day, when Tian Qing hurried to the prison after receiving the news, Li Wei had already asked Wu Yong to get a bunch of torture instruments and placed them in front of Wu Xing.

Under the doctor's treatment, Wu Xing finally escaped from death and saved his life, but his face was still a little pale at this time.

Seeing this situation, Tian Qing did not dare to say anything and quietly stepped aside.

Li Wei picked up a red-hot iron and pressed it on the pork prepared next to him. The pork suddenly sizzled and smoked, giving off a burst of meaty aroma.

"Wu Xing, do you want to confess now or do you want to try this thing before confessing?"

Li Wei held up the soldering iron and said calmly.

Wu Xing, who had finally escaped from death, turned pale when he saw this.

His current situation is like a wolf in front of him and a tiger in the back. Zhang Cheng wants to kill him to silence him, and Li Wei wants to torture him to extract a confession. He has no way out.

"No need, sir, just ask whatever you want. I will tell you everything I know." Wu Xing said frustrated.

"That's pretty much it!"

Li Wei chuckled lightly, put the soldering iron back into the charcoal fire and continued to burn it. He calmly returned to his seat and sat down, and asked:

"Tell me, what collusion did you have with Zhang Cheng and those aristocratic families, and what bad things have you done?"

Wu Xing took a deep breath and said slowly: "Actually, it's nothing special, just some common little things, such as modifying the yellow book, hiding the Dingkou farmland, and allocating their corvee labor to ordinary people..."

Wu Xing talked about the things he had participated in.

The Ming Dynasty inherited the system of the Tang and Song Dynasties and implemented a two-tax system, that is, land tax levied based on acres of land, and Ding tax corvee levied based on Dingkou.

There is a fish scale book for the farmland and a yellow book for the Dingkou. When taxing, the information recorded in these two books is used as the basis.

Zhu Yuanzhang was born in poverty and knew the hardships of the people, so he set a very low tax rate.

Not only that, he also divided the households into upper and lower classes according to the size of the land, the strength and weakness of the people, and the rich were taxed more and the poor were taxed less.

This was originally a good thing, but under the operation of officials such as Wu Xing and Zhang Cheng, the ten thousand acres of fertile land of powerful families became inferior farmland, and the inferior fields and even raw fields of poor people became superior farmland, and some hidden fields , strong men become sickly and weak, etc.

Under this operation, the taxes that should have been increased on the rich have instead fallen on ordinary people, making their lives even more impoverished.

After listening to what he said, Li Wei gritted his teeth with hatred. No wonder people like Yang Laosan, who obviously didn't have much land, felt that the taxes were too heavy. It turned out that these bastards were causing trouble!

"Is there anything else?" Li Wei asked in a cold voice.

Although he hated Zhu Yuanzhang's ruthless methods, he very much agreed with Zhu Yuanzhang's cruel methods when it came to dealing with corruption. If these people are not killed, why are the people angry?

"There's nothing else. It's nothing more than occupying fertile land and sheltering them from doing some illegal things." Wu Xing said calmly. (End of chapter)