Reborn in the last years of Kangxi

Chapter 1224

Cao Yong's heart suddenly raised: "So serious?"

Jiangnan is a tax-heavy place in the world, and because of the bloody crimes committed by the Eight Banners Army in the south in the early years, the imperial court has focused on appeasing Jiangnan for decades.

Only in the past two years, when the emperor implemented the New Deal, did he become stricter on Jiangnan.

Li Wei sneered and said: "It's been a long time, and some people don't know what to do. There is no court law in their eyes, and they are happy to be their own local emperors. I have also been to Yunnan and Guizhou, and there are also 'grouping' and 'exclusive' in official circles there. , but they will not be as unscrupulous as the Jiangnan officialdom. If they are in line with their wishes, they will stay; They thought they could cover the sky with one hand." At the end of the speech, there was already a bit of excitement.

Although Cao Yong had known for a long time that the local gentry in the south of the Yangtze River had great energy, he was not as angry as Li Wei.

"The reason is that the officials and gentry will never confront each other for no reason. And even if there is a 'Jiang Bandit' to suppress, it is not the turn of the general soldier to go to battle in person. How could he be injured?" Seeing Li Wei excited, Cao Yong was calm instead. Come down and ask lightly.

"There is indeed another story." Li Wei replied with some embarrassment.

He was about to continue talking when he heard movement in the back room.

Cao Song realized later that it was not good to tell these official secrets in front of his wife and children. If the children are not sensible and learn the past in front of others, they don’t know what troubles will happen.

"Brother, it was Jinghui who brought the children to see the elder brother, because the elder brother was not there just now, so go to the back room and wait first." Cao Song explained to Cao Yong, and then raised his voice: "The elder brother is here, madam, come out."

Jinghui responded in the back room and came out with the three children.

"Uncle." Nongchao took Nongyu with him, and the two little sisters greeted him crisply.

Tianwang tugged on Jinghui's sleeve, stared at Cao Yong curiously with big round eyes.

Speaking of which, this was the first time uncle and nephew met.

Looking at his tiger-headed and tiger-headed appearance, Cao Yong couldn't help but smile a little more on his face.

This little guy looks familiar, it is clearly a reprint of Cao Song's childhood.

Cao Yong was so rare that he bowed and picked up Tianwang.

"Come on, call your uncle." Cao Yong said.

Tianwang was not afraid of life, so he reached out and grabbed the button of Cao Yong's collar, entertaining himself, but refused to speak.

When Cao Yong yelled at others again, he still didn't give face, turned his head, looked at Li Wei, and called out childishly: "Uncle, uncle..."

"Hey, baby, uncle is here..." Li Wei smiled openly, waved his big hands, and looked up at the sky.

Seeing Li Wei's "little man succeeds", Cao Yong snorted softly, but he understood in his heart that Li Wei walked too close to the General Military Mansion, and he didn't avoid staying at home, otherwise a three-year-old child would not remember Li Wei .

Looking at the two sisters Nongchao and Nongyu, both of them are well-behaved and pleasant, Cao Yong said to Jinghui: "The children are well-educated, and the younger siblings are troubled."

But Jing Hui blushed, and said anxiously: "Uncle, it's all the fault of my concubine's recklessness. I didn't understand the seriousness, so I wrote a letter asking for help, and I made my uncle travel thousands of miles."

Cao Yong shook his head and said: "I can't blame you, if you weren't so frightened, you wouldn't make people gallop back to Beijing to deliver the letter."

When their relatives were talking, Li Wei couldn't sit still, and wanted to get up to leave, but Cao Song winked and stayed behind.

Cao Song is feeling guilty at the moment, how dare he face his elder brother alone, he will not allow Li Wei, the "culprit", to slip away.

Li Wei didn't move, Jinghui couldn't stay any longer, and took the children back to the inner courtyard on the pretext of preparing the wine for Cao Yong.

There were only three people left, and Li Wei explained the reason for the confrontation between the officials and gentry in the south of the Yangtze River.

But because of the word "interest".

The emperor valued the salt tax in the south of the Yangtze River, so he reused Li Wei.Li Wei did not disappoint Shengen either. After arriving in Jiangnan, he confiscated several large private salt workshops.

He more or less meant to "kill chickens and scare monkeys", which also showed the court's determination to let those private salt dealers take it easy.

They didn't dare to attack a few salt merchant families in the south of the Yangtze River. Most of them were families with no deep roots after investigation.

Although there is a suspicion of "bullying the weak and fearing the strong", it is also a helpless move. After all, he came to the south of the Yangtze River to serve as an errand, not to fight in the south of the Yangtze River.

Unexpectedly, there are backers behind the two workshops.

Even the Yangzhou Cheng family was invited to act as an intermediary to talk about the project, but they were so secretive and refused to reveal their identity, which made Li Wei suspicious.

When he was in Yunnan, he also investigated and dealt with illegal salt.It is not surprising that the salt dealer asked someone to ask for love.

Since ancient times, there has been an old saying, "the people do not fight with the officials".There is another saying, "collusion between officials and businessmen".

After all, whether it is doing business or becoming an official, it is mostly for the word "money".

However, the backers behind the two workshops were only willing to spend a lot of money to clear up the relationship and redeem people, but they didn't mention the confiscated private salt workshop.

A private salt workshop, there are tens of thousands of packs of private salt that have not been shipped out, which is very valuable.

Even a family of salt merchants like the Cheng family would feel pain if their workshop was confiscated.

This unknown "Wan Fu" didn't seem to care at all.

Abnormality is a demon, so Li Wei drew people's attention. When investigating the details of this "Wanfu", it turned out to be the same as something that popped out of the ground.

Those two private salt workshops were owned by two small salt merchant workshops in the early years, and they were transferred to Wanjia one after another ten years ago.

The few people Wan Fu wanted to redeem were the stewards of the two private salt workshops, none of whom had the surname Wan, and were called cousins ​​by name.

The more detailed investigation, the more you can find that these people are not like ordinary people.The origin is unclear, the accent is different, and there is no clear relative.

At first, Li Wei thought that these people were eating at sea, and those who returned to the south of the Yangtze River for the elderly were more wary.

Looking back, I checked the house selling the private workshop, but there was no trace.

Li Wei was so frightened and angry that he let him go easily.

If such a person was really a pirate, the owners of the two private salt workshops might have been killed.

Although making and selling private salt is a violation of the court law, he may not be a good person.But if he was killed indiscriminately, as a parent official, he couldn't just ignore it.

The Cheng family was just acting as a middleman, seeing that Li Wei would not let go, there was nothing they could do, but in private they had to remind Li Wei that "it is better to offend a gentleman than to offend a villain".

Li Wei has a chivalrous spirit in his bones. He dared to offend the Iron Hat Prince many years ago when he was only a six-member officer; not to mention that he is now a provincial official, so how can he take a few "villains" to heart? .

He refused to give in, and those people were also stubborn. They refused to take a step back, and the matter stalemate.

In Li Wei's view, if it is really found out that Wanfu and the others are "pirates", then even if all of them are dealt with, it will still eliminate harm for the people.

I don't want to, but the next development is weird.

In addition to the Cheng family, there are other big families in the south of the Yangtze River who came forward to intercede for these people.

Although the tone of the message was still humble, there was a lot of commotion in the governor's yamen every now and then.

Li Wei somewhat understood the intention of the Cheng family's reminder. These people are desperadoes, so be careful of them jumping over the wall in a hurry.

Li Wei has a stubborn temper, but he is not willing to give in. Being provoked by these people, he gritted his teeth even more and wanted to "cut the weeds and root out the roots" and restore the peace in the south of the Yangtze River.

After investigation, these people are hiding in two places, one is Longshan Island in Qiandao Lake in Chun'an, Hangzhou, and the other is Pangjia Village, Shannan Township at the southern foot of the Zijin Mountains in Jiangning.

Although the governor's office in Zhejiang is located in Hangzhou, Li Wei also knows that the office is not monolithic, otherwise he wouldn't let those brats make trouble.

In order to keep it secret, he did not do anything in Hangzhou, but found a way to go to Jiangning, in the name of investigating and dealing with illegal salt, and asked Cao Song, the general of Jiangning, to encircle and suppress Pangjia Village together with the [-] bids he brought.

Because there was something unclear about it, it was difficult for Cao Song to explain to his subordinates, so he had to go out in person and accompany Li Wei.

Five hundred town bids are the same as two hundred Fu bids, and seven hundred officers and soldiers encircled and suppressed a village with more than 100 people.

Unexpectedly, after the officers and soldiers surrounded the village, in addition to the people in Pangjia Village taking up weapons, the two neighboring villages also dispatched men to attack the officers and soldiers.

The other party had a few sharp masters behind them, probably thinking of "capture the thief first and capture the king", and they all rushed to Li Weitong Cao Song.

Li Wei has been in the south of the Yangtze River for two years, and he has been on the go. He has hired a few masters to be guards by his side; Cao Song is guarding the yamen of the general army.

As a result, Cao Song was cut off from his horse.Fortunately, there is a soft armor to protect him, otherwise something big will happen.

Li Wei saw that something was wrong, and in the name of Cao Song's serious injury, he gathered his soldiers and horses, made a gap, released a small part of those people, and arrested the rest.

Only in this way can the situation be controlled and there will be no tragic battle.

The men in several villages all have hidden weapons, and the old and weak, women and children can swing knives at the officers and soldiers.

On the one hand, Li Wei wanted to follow the vine, and on the other hand, he wanted to report secretly to Beijing, waiting for the emperor to show him, so he detained Cao Song and released the news that he was seriously injured and dying, so that the other party would not be suspicious.

After all, they were caught and suppressed before, but now they suddenly stopped, which is also suspicious.

Unexpectedly, after torturing the captured people, they actually asked out some inside information.

"That Wan Fu is none other than the son of Wan Yunlong, the bandit leader of Hongmen in Fujian many years ago. After the civil strife broke out in Hongmen, he was still in his infancy and was taken out of the sea. He returned to Jiangnan after he grew up and closed the Hongmen. The old department hides among the people." Li Wei said.

When Cao Yong heard this, he couldn't help frowning and said, "Isn't this ten thousand years old?"

"Yes, it's a few years younger than Fu Ruo, and I'm less than thirty this year." Li Wei replied.

Cao Yong became more and more puzzled. When he met Wan Yunlong, Wan Yunlong was over 60 years old.If it is said that there is a two- or three-year-old child left, it cannot be said that it is impossible.It's just that in that case, it shouldn't be mentioned before dying.

Besides, he later asked his father about Hongmen, and he never heard the news that Wan Yunlong had a son.

Seeing Cao Yong's surprised expression, Li Wei asked: "What's the matter, but what's wrong?"

Cao Yong nodded and said: "Wan Fu appeared for no reason. I only heard that Wan Yunlong was a monk and never married. How could he have a son?"

"Huh?" After hearing Cao Yong's words, Li Wei couldn't help being surprised, looked at Cao Yong and said, "Fu Ruo still knows about Wan Yunlong?"

Although there were some disturbances in Hongmen's early years, it was mainly in Fujian and Zhejiang areas. At that time, Cao Yong was just a child.

Cao Yong nodded and said: "I heard from Mr. that Wan Yunlong was born in Southern Shaolin. He has no direct nephew, only two adopted sons..."

(End of this chapter)