I'm really not the carpenter emperor

"If these Shanxi merchants dare to lie and say that the elders accept bribes, the procurator will never let them go!"

When Madam heard this, she understood her husband's position, and she had a backbone. She winked at the servant girl and said:

"Please come in, sir!"

Chapter 589 Start with their "backer"

"Did Honsuke come at a bad time?"

Seeing a person walking in with a smile from outside, Yu Hongbin and his wife, Zou Shi, hurriedly stood up together, and said with a smile: "Where is it, it's the honor of the next official to come to my house."

"Is this all Madam did?"

Hu Shiguang glanced at the table and saw that the food was not bad.

Zou Shi slightly bowed and nodded, but said nothing. She knew that it was better for women not to interrupt when discussing official business.

It seems that this lady is very familiar with the three obediences and four virtues of court wives, Hu Shiguang nodded secretly, intending to get straight to the point, his complexion turned cold instantly, and said:

"Humph!"

"It's a pity that you still recognize me as an old man. Don't you know that the imperial court strictly punishes Shanxi merchants? I came down this time to follow the emperor's order to investigate and prosecute Shanxi merchants."

"As the procurator of Shanxi, you should know everything about what Shanxi merchants have done, right?"

At this time, Yu Hongbin had already thought about his position clearly, and with a look of sincerity and fear, he cupped his hands and said:

"Elder Ge misunderstood his dismissal..."

"These days, the lower officials have been mobilizing the officials to search for criminal evidence of Shanxi merchants and captives. Although the criminal evidence has not been collected, they have found out that the Qi Gang is planning to mine the ocher mine in Jingyang Town."

"The imperial court strictly prohibits private mining, and the officials feel that they can start from here!"

This news coincides with what Cao Sanxi gave, which also proves that the Cao family did not lie to him. Thinking of this, Hu Shiguang's expression eased, and he said with a smile:

"Benfu has never been that small-minded person, otherwise he wouldn't be able to identify talents with sharp eyesight, and you will have an extra Jinshi in your family."

"Yes yes yes, Mr. Ge's kindness, the lower official and his wife will remember it in their hearts, and they never dare to forget!" Yu Hongbin heard the warning in the words, and hurriedly said:

"Master, please sit down."

"The lower officials found out that the battle of Hetao in the third year of Apocalypse was caused by the Qi Gang behind the scenes, so they hoarded grain and sent news."

"Right now, most of the grain and rice rich merchants in Jinzhong belong to the Qi Gang, and the Yuci Chang family also belongs to them. The official compradors for military supplies have the most hands through the Qi Gang. .”

Hu Shiguang narrowed his eyes and asked:

"What are you going to do?"

"If you want to run Shanxi Merchants, the Qi Gang will bear the brunt, and the Qu family must be the first. The property of the Qu family is more than tens of millions!" Yu Hongbin poured a cup of tea and said:

"Don't worry, Mr. Ge, if you want to arrest the Qi gang, the next official is Shanxi's inspector, who will preside over the joint trial. There are also many relatives and subordinates who can get in the way."

"If you want to arrest Qu's family, the Procuratorate will fully cooperate."

Hu Shiguang took the tea, took a sip, did not speak, put down the teacup and said:

"Since that's the case, it's inconvenient for Benfu to bother you with gossip!"

"Mr. Ge, go slowly—!" Yu Hongbin hurriedly escorted him out, until he watched Hu Shiguang turn the street corner, then he exhaled, came back and sat on the table, and said:

"You're right, Mr. Ge is here to test me."

"It seems that the two elders are going to fight, maybe the court has urged them?"

Zou couldn't figure it out either, but she was a little worried:

"Hey! Quite a few officials have collected money from Qu's family. This time, the imperial court wants to set up Shanxi merchants, which really blocks everyone's way of making money. It's easy to catch Qu's family, but it's not that simple to do it!"

After hearing what he said, Mrs. Zou sat quietly, not knowing what to say.

……

In recent days, news has spread in Taiyuan.

First it was the Fan family in Zhangjiakou, and now it is the Chang family in Yuci. The news that the imperial court is going to set up Shanxi merchants has spread like wildfire, and the more it spreads, the more evil it becomes.

But the strange thing is that this time, the supervisory department did not intervene.

You know, the most hated one is the Shanxi Governor's Office in Taiyuan Mansion. I'm afraid there are many officials and businessmen here.

The imperial court can completely rely on the supervisory department to arrest people directly.

But the imperial court didn't do this, instead they sent down two elders from Shanxi. What did the emperor have in mind when he did this?

After the Chang family was taken down, the rest of the Shanxi merchants were in a state of turmoil, clearing up customs and knotting everywhere, planning to resist stubbornly, but the news that followed completely panicked them.

This time it was not the supervisory department, but the serious judicial office, the Shanxi procuratorial department under the jurisdiction of the three judicial departments of the imperial court.

According to the inspector Yu Hongbin, a local official of the third rank, and a local official from Shanxi, his power is second only to the Shanxi chief envoy, and he is in charge of the judicial and criminal affairs of the entire province of Shanxi.

This position is very special. It was supposed to be the safest link after being taken care of by Shanxi merchants. Unexpectedly, it suddenly sang blush at this critical moment.

According to the news that came out, one night Hu Shiguang went to Yu's mansion, and after he came out, he was like this, and he didn't know what he said to him.

However, the Shanxi merchants can also guess that Hu Shiguang must be holding a handle, which is enough to make Yu Hongbin afraid to get rid of the Shanxi merchants.

It has been a long time since there has been such a big movement in Shanxi.

What is even more surprising is that Yu Hongbin's first arrest was actually someone inside the inspector's department, that is, his deputy, Chen Jiujing, the deputy inspector.

A few days later, after Chen Jiujing, Wang Xia, who was sick at home, was taken out and thrown into the prison of the inspector, because it was said that he had accepted bribes from Qi Gang merchants.

Some savvy people soon discovered that according to one point targeted by the procuratorate, the entire Shanxi merchants had quietly become the most prestigious and most widely spread Qibang merchants.

Obviously, before Yu Hongbin started to arrest the businessman, he wanted to clear out the officials who stood on the side of the businessman in the Procuratorate.

As the largest local judiciary in Shanxi Province, whether the internal tone of the procuratorate is consistent or not is related to whether the next joint trial can go smoothly.

The deputy inspectors and the inspectors are all senior members of the fourth and fifth ranks. Even if Yu Hongbin, the inspector, wants to arrest them, the procedures are extremely cumbersome.

The Shanxi merchants all guessed that there must be someone behind Yu Hongbin supporting him, and this person might be the two elders who came down.

According to the power of the current cabinet ministers, as long as there is evidence, it is still very easy to mobilize the local judicial office to arrest a few officials.

All of a sudden, people panic.

This is not over yet, the next action of the Procuratorate is even bigger, they start to arrest people everywhere, from the interior of the Procuratorate to the Taiyuan government office, all the officials in charge of justice are arrested.

These arrested officials were all interrogated by Hu Shiguang, a scholar of Dongge University today.

In the end, even Zhang Zhengan, the magistrate of Taiyuan, who was known as a small inspector, was arrested by the inspector and thrown into his own prison.

It wasn't until this time that Shanxi merchants felt a deep sense of powerlessness.

No matter how much wealth they have in the local area, or even how much local officials support them, compared with the power of the imperial court, they are nothing but paper tigers, which can be broken with a single poke.

According to Su Jing, the procuratorate, almost all officials who supported Shanxi merchants were arrested by Yu Hongbin one by one, and then Hu Shiguang wrote a memorial to ask the emperor for instructions.

But at this time, Emperor Tianqi was not in the Qianqing Palace in the Forbidden City, but ran out to listen to the opera.

Even if he is an emperor, he still has to go out of the palace for a stroll occasionally. Zhu Youxiao, who has read a lot of private interviews of later generations, likes this feeling of pretending to be a pig and eating a tiger very much.

5 Chapter [-] Private Interview with Apocalypse

"How did you sell this thing?"

Zhu Youxiao walked to the stall, picked up a jade hairpin, and asked while shaking his head.

"You have a good eye for objectivity. What you are holding is the best quality I have here. It used to be sold for 15 taels of silver. If you really want it, take it for ten taels!"

While talking, the peddler used his hands back and forth to drive away the flies that did not exist in the stall.

Zhu Youxiao took another look at the jade hairpin and said with a smile:

"Do you tell everyone that?"

The peddler was stunned and asked:

"say what?"

"Just this hairpin, I don't think it's too much to give you five cents, but 15 taels, do you really think I'm a fool with too much money?" Zhu Youxiao threw the hairpin, turned around and left.

The peddler muttered behind him, his face full of reluctance:

"I thought he was a rich and noble son, but I didn't expect to be so stingy with money when he looked at Huagui."

Zhu Youxiao, who had walked a few steps, paused when he heard this, turned his head and said with a smile:

"No matter how rich the master is, he can't buy your broken hairpin!"

"In this way, you can also see that with my servant, I will not be short of money! If you can really bring out some good things, I will buy more."

"Well, no?"

The peddler asked suspiciously, "Is it true?"

Zhu Youxiao let out a sigh of relief, and said:

"Why do you still have it?"

While talking, the peddler sneakily took out a set of jewelry from under the stall, and just about to put it on, happened to pass by a team of Shuntian government office servants.

After the guard left, he put it out and said with a wicked look:

"Look at the young man who knows the goods, this, the quality is not bad, right?"

Zhu Youxiao looked down, but was really surprised, and asked:

"Isn't this something from the palace? How did you get it?"

"Hey, you really know the goods!" The peddler was overjoyed and said:

"My lord, don't ask so many questions, just tell me if you want to buy it or not!"

"Is this money enough?" Zhu Youxiao smiled and threw out two coins, and asked again:

"How did you get this product? The palace's products are easy to buy and not easy to wear. If the man in my family is taken away by the government because he bought your product, I can't spare you."

The peddler quickly collected the money, smiled and said:

"Young Master, you are so small that you don't know Taishan. I offended you. Don't take it to heart. These are all goods from the inner city!"

"Inner city?" Zhu Youxiao was taken aback.

"My lord doesn't know?" The peddler looked him up and down and said:

"There is an inner market in the palace. It only opens a few days a month. People in the palace trade with each other. Some of the products that come out are of the highest quality!"

"It's just not easy to let go..."

"Understood." Zhu Youxiao smiled slightly, stretched out his hand and threw out a silver ingot, saying:

"Your set of twelve pieces should be missing one jade carving boy, but I think it looks good, I accept the original price, so I don't need to look for it."

The peddler finished the bread and said with a smile:

"The shot is really generous, which family's noble son is it?"

Zhu Youxiao was stunned for a while, but he really didn't think about this question before leaving the palace, so he smiled and said:

"Believe in the palace."

"It's...His Royal Highness Xin Wang!?"

The peddler was a little unbelievably authentic, and now he looked at the attire of the noble young man in front of him, and it became more and more like him, and he was about the same age.

Zhu Youxiao nodded casually, raised his eyes and saw a person walking into the brothel, he always felt familiar, so he raised his heels and followed him in, leaving behind the terrified peddler.

This brothel, called Guichunfang, is a well-known place in the capital, and most of the literati, poets and some wealthy children come and go.

As soon as he entered the door, the procuress greeted him eagerly, as if he saw his own father, his face was flushed with blush and powder, and it was still falling off.

Zhu Youxiao smelled an indescribable strong smell of powder, shrunk his neck, and subconsciously retreated a few steps, keeping a respectful distance.

Unexpectedly, the old bustard took two steps forward, and smiled coquettishly at this side: "Oh my goodness, which family's noble son is here, why haven't I seen him before?"

Zhu Youxiao didn't want to stay with her any longer, so he stretched out his hand to show the jade pendant only available to the royal family, and said lightly:

"Those who believe in the palace, don't say anything, arrange a clean and spacious place for me, I'm tired."

The old bustard was a person who had seen the market, so he knew at the first sight that this jade pendant was owned by someone who was either rich or noble. When he heard that it belonged to the palace, he immediately thought of who it was.

Not surprisingly, it is His Royal Highness Zhu Youjian, the younger brother of Emperor Qi today, a son of the royal family, this is a big shot!