Rogue master in the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 104

Chen Wei gently opened the foot of the window, and sure enough, he saw the grooms in the stables or the servants sweeping the floor under the eaves looking towards his house intentionally or unintentionally. Without much thought, Chen Wei guessed that these must be the gentlemen of the Wang family. The eyeliner sent over to monitor himself and others.

Chen Wei didn't mind either, as long as the other party didn't act boldly and dared to do something beyond the rules.One day, to Chen Wei's surprise, the county magistrate Zhou Hong approached Chen Wei with a tray covered in red cloth.

"General Chen, you led the army to station in Yongning County to keep our people safe. In order to thank you, the gentry of the Wang family specially entrusted me to send you the funds for the labor force. I am very careful, and I hope you can accept it." Zhou Hong squinted at the mouse. Eyes, squeezed out a flattering smile.

Chen Wei lifted the red scarf from the tray, and seeing the silver bars piled up on it, he couldn't help squinting slightly.

Zhou Hong has been observing Chen Wei's expression. Seeing Chen Wei's expression, his narrow eyes flashed with joy, and then he lowered his voice and laughed: "This is just the intention of the gentry in Yongning County to clean up the general and protect the village from now on. They will also contribute a lot to the funds needed to drive out the bandits."

To put it bluntly, these silver taels are just small sweets, and more offerings will be made in the future.

Chen Wei couldn't help but secretly sighed that Wang and the others did not spare any effort in order to win over the officials. If Chen Wei only focused on the shortcoming, maybe he would accept it, but Zhou Hong, Wang and others underestimated Chen Wei's ambition.

"My lord, how can you collect the people's hard-earned money as an official for your parents?" Chen Wei said to Zhou Hong with a smile.

As the county magistrate of Yongning County, Zhou Hong had already colluded with the local wealthy Wang family. He himself did not know how much bribes he had collected from the other party. Hearing Chen Wei's words, Zhou Hong's beard moved up and down, and then his face was full of flattery. He smiled and said, "Of course, but General Chen still needs funds to station troops in Yongning County to suppress bandits..."

"The funds can be provided by the government bank..." Chen Wei laughed.

Zhou Hong's mouse eyes couldn't help but twitched slightly at this moment, obviously dissatisfied with Chen Wei's ignorance, but he still made a gesture on his face and said with a smile: "But..."

"Needless to say, you can thank Wang Shishen for my kindness. I, Chen, can't accept the money. Sun Hou, send it to Mr. Zhou!" Chen Wei turned and walked into the room, and Sun Hou walked over with a sneer.

The flattering smile on Zhou Hong's face became slightly blunt. Seeing the fierce appearance of Sun Hou in armor, he was so frightened that he hurriedly turned and left with the money.

In the evening, Chen Wei put on his casual clothes and quietly left the official office.Yongning County will be his place in the future, and Chen Wei naturally hopes to have a deep understanding of Yongning County.

Yongning County is close to Luoshui River and has the most developed water transportation.The Wang family occupies the largest wharf in Yongning County, and fishermen and farmers have to pay fishing tax and land tax to the gentry and wealthy family headed by the Wang family every month.Although Yongning County is not as prosperous as it was in its heyday, there are nearly [-] households in the county and the [-] surrounding townships.Every family has to pay all kinds of taxes, and the common people shoulder harsh and heavy taxes, but these clan gentry are fattened up in vain.

At dusk, Chen Wei came to the ferry in the east district of Yongning County. Seeing the fishermen returning from fishing, Chen Wei walked over to chat with several fishermen.At first, when the fishermen saw Chen Wei's face, they were not willing to talk to him.Later, seeing Chen Wei's kind face, approachable and approachable, the chat started.

Chen Wei first asked about the other party's harvest or fishing skills, and then intentionally or unintentionally mentioned the issue of tax payment.It's okay not to ask, but Chen Wei was taken aback when he asked.

At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the government and city tax was set at a ratio of [-] to [-]. In addition to the exploitation of tax collectors and the government’s additional distribution and purchase, the actual tax borne was much higher than the ratio of [-] to [-].

In Yongning County, because the wharf and fields belong to gentry such as the Wang family, in addition, the local people have to pay lijin to the gentry of the township, and they have to raise village braves to deal with the mountains within a hundred miles. There are thieves and bandits, so every family has to pay five shi of rice grain every six months.

These burdens weighed heavily on these poor people like a mountain, but they filled the private pockets of the wealthy gentry of the Wang family.

When the night was dark and the fishermen went home one after another, Chen Wei returned the same way.He walked slowly by the river, but in his mind he was thinking about how he would grow his power in Yongning County.

"To recruit soldiers and buy horses, you need money, but the source of money is in the hands of the powerful families headed by the Wang family. How can you bring the grass market into the official market and control it in your own hands?" Chen Wei thought about this question all the way, he Walking aimlessly on the streets in the night, I soon realized that I was lost.

Chen Wei smiled wryly, looking at the densely packed intersections, he forgot the way back.

But at this moment, suddenly dozens of masked men in black rushed out of the street, holding big knives and killing Chen Wei.Chen Wei had experienced hundreds of battles, so he would not panic in this situation. Although he was unarmed, he could directly overturn several enemies head-on.

"It seems that they are some thugs' teeth..." Chen Wei saw that these masked men were average, and they just fought blindly with viciousness.It doesn't matter if there are another 100 people for this kind of stuff.

Those masked people didn't expect Chen Wei to be so fierce, and dozens of people on their side didn't even touch Chen Wei's body with their knives.

In less than half a moment, most of the masked people had fallen down on the ground, all of which had their joints removed by Chen Wei.Seeing that the situation was not right, the rest turned around and ran away.

But the 30 to [-] people who fell could only fall on the ground and screamed for their mothers, and then Sun Hou, who heard the sound, took the soldiers and tied them all to the Fuya Prison.

"To be able to have such a large armed force in Yongning County is naturally the gentry and aristocratic family in the county. They saw Chen Wei that you didn't want to collect their money to join forces with them, and they went to investigate their excessive taxation, so they wanted to send someone to kill you. "Jia Xu said, "It's a pity that they underestimated your ability, and overestimated these wandering soldiers."

Chen Wei smiled and said: "This just gave me a reason to deal with them. I will bring someone to the door tomorrow to seek justice."

Jia Xu also nodded with a smile, "With these people testifying, these powerful gentry are also trying to shirk their responsibility. However, it may still be difficult to overthrow these deep-rooted wealthy families."

Chen Wei was stunned, the wealthy gentry headed by the Wang family were all local snakes in Yongning County, and they pushed the other party into a hurry. If there was a mutiny or something, it would be impossible for him to control the other party with only three hundred soldiers.Chen Wei couldn't help sighing secretly again in the troubled times, only power is the most important.

"Even if we can't overthrow them, we have to let them peel off this time!" Chen Wei said.

Just when Chen Wei was planning to take these murderers to seek justice from the Wang family the next day, Sun Hou entered the room with a gloomy face early in the morning and told Chen Wei that all the more than 20 murderers last night were poisoned and died.

"What?" Chen Wei's face changed drastically, he often did not expect that the other party would be so ruthless in order to kill people and silence them.

"How could they be poisoned?" Chen Wei said angrily.

Sun Hou said with an ugly face: "Someone poisoned the food, not only the murderers, but our brothers who were guarding them were also poisoned, and they all died suddenly!"

……

Before noon, the county magistrate Zhou Hong and the gentry from the Wang family came to express their concern to Chen Wei, and took the opportunity to shift the responsibility to the robbers and bandits who entered the city to rob.There was no proof of the crime, Chen Wei could only watch the deceitful expressions and deeds of these gentry.

(End of this chapter)