Confused country poison concubine

Chapter 171 The truth (3)
These two have always belonged to the official sale. Once involved in private traffickers, they will be sent thousands of miles away, beheaded Ling Chi, or even exterminate the nine clans. In short, they will die without a place to die!

Once it has something to do with salt and iron, it is absolutely impossible to settle it without a large number of life-threatening lawsuits.

Qiu Yebai stared at him, and said coldly: "Old partridge, do you know what you are talking about now?"

Although the profit of private salt is high, but the Mei family was originally an imperial merchant, and they make an untold amount of profit from the royal family every year. How dare they take the risk of exterminating the nine clans to make this money?
The old partridge gritted his teeth, slammed his head on the ground again, and raised his head again, there was already a blood mark on his forehead!

"If there is even a half-truth, the old partridge will die, and the sky will be struck by lightning!"

Qiu Yebai looked at him for a while, and seeing his determined expression, she nodded and said slowly, "I believe you, how much salt is there?"

The old partridge's expression also became serious: "A lot, there are three boats in total, and there are account books. I looked through it and found that it is definitely not the first time that the Mei family has done this!"

She closed her eyes, only feeling a little headache, and then continued to ask: "What about those things, where are they now, the report received by the imperial court did not say that they had received any stolen goods, so they should still be with you. "

A smug gleam appeared in the old partridge's narrowed eyes: "Oh, in fact, these stolen goods were originally in Shu Jin's hands. After he hijacked them, he asked his brothers to take the money away, and then he said that according to the rules-thief No matter if we robbed the Mei family’s boat or not, since we have done it, we have to get the goods, but the boat is useless, and the salt is even more uncontaminated. It will still sink into the river without leaving any traces. He asked the brothers to move the silver first, and he went to sink the ship, and I felt something was wrong at the time, so I followed him secretly."

"I watched him throw the boat in an obvious place. His expression was very strange, like he was very proud, but also like he was very angry. He said that the Mei family must pay for it with blood. I knew there was something wrong. There was a problem, so after he left, I used some means to secretly get the boat and account books back, and hid them in a water stream that is rarely visited by people!"

Qiu Yebai nodded, and praised him once again: "It's rare that you really have some brains, and it's not in vain to be the head of the family."

The fat on the old partridge's face also trembled with a smug smile: "Thank you, sir."

She thought for a while: "Maybe you can find something now?"

The old partridge nodded immediately: "Of course, but I have one condition."

Qiu Yebai narrowed her eyes dangerously: "You want to negotiate terms with me?"

The old partridge looked at the cold evil spirit in her eyes, shuddered, and said bravely: "If I can't rescue my wife and children first, I won't take adults to find those things!"

At the beginning of the moonlight, the evening wind brought moist water vapor on the Grand Canal, and the heat dissipated a lot.

Qiu Yebai stood in the courtyard with her hands behind her back, quietly looking at the bright moon, and hearing the sound of footsteps behind her, she said lightly, "Is it settled?"

Zhou Yu walked up to her and said respectfully: "Yuanze has been settled, and the old partridge is also ready, and we can set off immediately."

Qiu Yebai nodded, and suddenly said: "Tell Xiao Qi there to arrange the old partridge's wife and children well, and don't let anyone find out."

Zhou Yu nodded, and immediately said, "Don't worry, my lord."

After he hesitated for a moment, he still asked: "My lord, the Mei family seems to have no reason to smuggle salt. Could it be framed by others?"

She snorted lightly: "The Mei family has no reason to smuggle salt, but if it wasn't for the Queen Mother and the Du family to support them, where do you think a businessman would have such courage, and all the performances of the supervisor of ceremonies are unreasonable?" It proved that the possibility of this matter is very high, when I read the case files, I thought that there must be more than tributes on board."

She said indifferently: "You just think that the Mei family and the queen mother are not short of money, so you think they won't do these things."

Zhou Yu nodded immediately: "Yes, if these things break out, even the Empress Dowager may not be able to explain to the civil and military officials of the Manchu Dynasty."

Qiu Yebai narrowed his cold eyes slightly: "As the saying goes, 'the endowment of the world, salt benefits half of the population'. Since the Spring and Autumn Period, Guan Zhong, until now, the reason why salt is as monopoly as iron is nothing more than because it is easy to come by. , refining is not difficult, but there is no shortage of people, if the salt mine is monopolized by merchants privately, the country will be rich, and no imperial court will allow such a rich man who can compete with himself."

She paused, and continued: "And under overall control, the price of salt can be raised at any time to collect taxes, maintain the government's expenses, raise troops to fight wars, but only in this way will there be cheaper private salt, even if you know how to sell it. Illegal salt is a capital offense, but it has been repeatedly banned because the profits are too high, and the Mei family seems to have no reason to get involved in this matter, but what if the Queen Mother needs the money or the Du family needs money?"

Zhou Yu heard the words, thought carefully in his heart, and couldn't help but turn pale in shock: "You mean to conspire..."

"It may not be what you think. After all, His Majesty has the blood of the Du family in his body, but it doesn't mean that other royal blood will be willing to lose the right to inherit the throne because it didn't come from the belly of the daughter of the Du family. In order to maintain their status in the imperial court, the Empress Dowager and the Du family will probably spend a lot of money in the small treasury." Qiu Yebai interrupted Zhou Yu.

A flash of inspiration flashed in Zhou Yu's mind, and he suddenly said in shock: "Could it be that Shu Jin is not from the Mei family?"

Qiu Yebai nodded, looked at him and sighed softly: "You are a smart person, Shu Jin is indeed not from the Mei family, at the beginning I was lured by Mei Su and made a wrong judgment, the reason why he hid The purpose of opening Meisu is not to communicate with Meisu privately, but to avoid Meisu, because Meisu probably knows him, and he should be an enemy of the Queen Mother and the Du family just like that certain general of the frontier army , the existence of Qiongqi Village and the robbery of the ship were to expose this matter to others, and the purpose was to deal with the Du family and the Queen Mother."

Although she didn't want to admit it, she was distracted by Mei Su, because he showed his familiarity with the Huainan waterway underworld, which made her consciously think that Qiongqizhai must have something to do with him, so she acted at that time Forcing Shu Jin.

Mei Su, probably expected that she would strike from Qiongqi Village, and maybe even have his eyeliner arranged in Qiongqi Village, or the entire east coast. As soon as Su arrived on the east bank, he might have received the news immediately, so he rushed here. His purpose was not only for Mei Xiangzi, but also to give her the illusion that Qiongqizhai had colluded with him!
"He knows that I will definitely avoid him, but he will not be willing to get nothing before, so he will definitely attack the people in Qiongqi Village. The people in Qiongqi Village are very worried about his arrival and will definitely avoid him in a hurry. So this conflict cannot be avoided, he is just using my hands to get rid of the threat of Qiongqi Village." Qiu Yebai said flatly.

(End of this chapter)