Fenghou

He quickly opened the letter, and it was indeed the news he was looking forward to. The hundreds of thousands of stone ships needed had arrived in Jiangling City.

Chen Qing immediately wrote a reply letter, telling him that he would leave in ten days.

……

Three days later, the second Sichuan-Shaanxi imperial examination officially began. The examination was held in the Examination Yuan built last year. The Examination Yuan was built outside the city, covering an area of ​​[-] mu. It can accommodate up to [-] scholars at the same time. The largest examination house, due to its large area, has to take a horse-drawn carriage to pass inside.

The entire examination room is divided into ten areas: A, B, C, D, E, Ji, G, Xin, Ren, and Gui. Each candidate must first go to his own area and line up to enter the examination room. There are 4 candidates this time, so Five zones are opened.

Chao Kun's test number is District C. In District C alone, there are 1 people queuing up, forming ten teams. They can be searched to enter, and then find their own test area. There are 500 rows in it, and each row has more than [-] numbers. house, and then look for your own house.

The scale is too large. In fact, there were not so many candidates for the imperial examination in the capital. For example, in the Tang Dynasty, there were more than 600 states, and each state recommended more than [-] people. Take more than a dozen people, and then recruit a few more people from the Ming Jing Department and Ming Computing Department, and so on.

Chen Qing wanted the scholars to have solidarity with Jingzhao, so there was no limit to the number of places in each state. As a result, as long as they passed the state examination, they could come to Jingzhao to take the imperial examination, and there were subsidies for travel expenses and board and lodging in Jingzhao.

Scholars don’t need much money, so of course they are willing to take a cheap trip. Even if they fail the imperial examination, they can make friends, gain knowledge, and get some souvenirs to take home. Each scholar will be given a piece of sheepskin during the exam. After the exam, you can take it away, and a piece of sheepskin is worth several pennies.

As the saying goes, come to the imperial examination happily and return home happily.

Chao Kun's examination number is No. [-], Section [-], Examination Center C. It is a small room with only three square meters. Inside is a brick platform, where you can lie down to sleep, sit up, and put a wooden board on both sides of the door. After the bricks are installed, this is the table, and the curtain must be pulled up so that the patrolling soldiers and examiners outside can monitor it at any time.

The room is not soundproof, and the sounds from the next door can be heard clearly, but these are not important anymore. The first exam bell has already rung, and the exam house has begun to close the gates. The scholars are busy checking the exam supplies. There are pens, ink, paper and inkstones, as well as daily necessities such as candles, water cups, kraft paper bags, bedding, etc. From now on, they will stay in the numbered room for two nights and three days.

Some people say what do kraft paper bags do?In fact, it is used to put the papers. After the exam, put the test papers of several exams in the kraft paper bag, and then seal the kraft paper bag, so as to prevent the papers from being scattered and lost.

"Boom! Boom! Boom!"

The second round of bells rang, and the examiner began to hand out the test papers for the first subject. The first subject was posting scriptures, and the questions were printed on the test paper. There were three questions in total. Chao Kun hurriedly looked at the first question.

"In ancient times, my predecessors also only wanted to be governed by the old people. The king announced it, but he couldn't hide his finger. The king used Piqin; there was no gossip, and the people used Pichange. Fuzhi is the one to sue. It's not that I have lost my virtue, but you have virtue and don't be wary of giving it to someone. If I look at the fire, I will also plan and do it clumsily, which is futile."

Then there is a large blank in the middle, and the end of the bottom is: "Everyone, I would like to inform you: From now on to the future, everyone will be respectful to you, and you will be the one, and the degree will be the mouth. If you are punished, you will never regret it."

Chao Kun nodded. This is the article "Pangeng Shang" in "Shangshu".

The second question was "Mencius", and the third question was "The Book of Songs". They were not difficult. Chao Kun felt at ease, and he began to write his name carefully on the test paper with a pen.

8 Chapter Forty Interrogation

There is a large building near the North City Gate of Chengdu. The signboard is called Yonghe Commercial Bank. It covers an area of ​​about three acres. There are usually caravans, fleets, shops and warehouses under the commercial bank. The commercial bank is equivalent to the operating headquarters.

A few days ago, the inner guards had their eyes on this Yonghe firm. The clues were discovered by the case investigators of the Supervision Department. When they checked Li Xuemin's sentence in Chengdu, they found that Li Xuemin's youngest son, Li Feng, owned [-]% of Wanchuncha The owner of the village, Li Feng, is only eight years old this year. Obviously, these two members are owned by Li Xuemin, and Wanchun Tea House is one of the three major tea houses on Sichuan Road. It has a tea garden of [-] hectares, and the tuan tea produced every year occupies the market in Chengdu. As we all know, Wanchun Tea House was founded by Meng Wanchun, a famous businessman in Jianzhou.

However, the officials of the Supervision Department discovered that two months after Li Xuemin entered Sichuan as a general judge, Wanchun Tea House became the proprietor, and the proprietor became Wei Jinguang, and Li Xuemin also got two members, named after his son Li Feng. Down.

The Supervision Department had enough information in hand, and soon found out that this Wei Jinguang was Wei Tong, the uncle of the country, and Jinguang was his name.

The officials of the Supervision Department then discovered that the stewards and accountants who run the Wanchun Tea House are all from Yonghe Commercial Bank, and all the tuancha from Wanchun Tea House is sold to Yonghe Commercial Bank, and then Yonghe Commercial Bank has a large shop and The warehouse wholesales tea cakes in the market, and at the same time transports the goods from the warehouse to various tea shops and restaurants.

The investigation by the Supervision Department has come to an end. Li Xuemin has been dismissed from office, and the internal guards will take over the rest of the investigation. The internal guards are not investigating Li Xuemin, but Wei Tong.

The inner guard soon discovered a shocking situation. The original owner of the tea house, Meng Wanchun, and his family suddenly disappeared three years ago. The Jianzhou ancestral house said that they had moved to the Chengdu mansion. The gatekeeper of the Chengdu mansion said that since After the transfer of the tea house, Meng Wanchun's family returned to their hometown in Jianzhou and never came back, but it is also possible that they moved to places other than Sichuan.

However, if you leave Sichuan, you have to apply for a certificate from the government. If you leave by water with a large ship of more than [-] shi, you need not only the government’s certificate of departure from Sichuan, but also the approval of the military before the boat can leave by the Yangtze River. Otherwise, you will be arrested in Xiazhou. Interception, this is already common sense, and most people know it.

But Meng Wanchun's family did not apply for any certificates, that is to say, they did not leave Sichuan.

Zhong Huan, the new Commander of the Tenth Division of the Internal Guard, decided to use the disappearance of Meng Wanchun's family as a breakthrough point to find out the expansion of Wei Tong's forces in Sichuan.

At noon, a short and fat middle-aged man came out of Yonghe Commercial Building. He looked around for a moment and waved to the distance. A bullock cart slowly stopped in front of the man.

"Go to the market!" The middle-aged man got on the bullock cart and ordered.

"Okay, I'll send these two guests to the pier, and then I'll take you to the market."

Of course, an ox cart cannot be a taxi, but more like a minibus. It is impossible to transport only one customer. Usually there are several people, and they have to take turns to different places, but the directions are similar. The pier is not far from the market. Middle-aged The man agreed with an 'um' and closed his eyes.

The middle-aged man, surnamed Qiao, is the deputy manager of Yonghe Commercial Bank, a native of Chengdu, which is a characteristic of Yonghe Tea House. Their senior managers are all from Lin’an, and the deputy manager is hired from the local area. The status and treatment of the two are different. Deputy manager Qiao didn't have a special carriage to pick him up, and he had to go to the street to hunt cattle by himself.

The other two people on the bullock cart made Qiao Guanshi a little uneasy. These two people were too tall and strong, and they stared at him with gloomy eyes, which made him tremble in his heart.

The bullock cart went out of the city and turned to a small road. At this moment, the man sitting opposite suddenly got up and sat on the left side of Qiao Guanshi, clamping him from left to right. Two sharp daggers pressed against his waist at the same time.

"Dare to move, I will kill you!"

Manager Qiao was stunned. Today, he met a robber.

"You...what are you going to do?" Steward Qiao's voice was trembling.

"Please go somewhere!"

The two started together, tied Guanshi Qiao behind his back, gagged his mouth, put a black bag on his head, and walked for a while. The bullock cart finally stopped, and the two directly pulled Guanshi Qiao out of the bullock cart and pushed him into the middle of a house. inside the gate.

After a while, Manager Qiao's eyes lit up, and the hood was taken off. He found himself in a dark room surrounded by burly men with bare upper body and various instruments of torture hanging on the walls. He was terrified. He was shaking.

At this time, a tall young man stepped forward and tore off the rag from his mouth.

"You are Qiao Yannian from Yonghe Commercial Bank?"

"The villain is right, may I ask if you are..."

"We are internal guards of the Western Army!" The young man replied coldly.

Qiao Yannian buzzed in his head, he knew that the inner guards were ruthless and ruthless people who specialized in dealing with the enemy spies hiding in Sichuan and Shaanxi.

"I'm not a spy. I'm just an ordinary citizen. I earn a little money to support my family. You must be mistaken."

The young man was Zhong Huan, and he planned the whole plan. Today was his first presiding interrogation, but he had seen a lot of Han Zhengfu's interrogations, and he had learned a few tricks.

"Whose property is Yonghe Commercial Bank, as the deputy manager, you must know!"

"I know this, it's Uncle Wei's property, but it has nothing to do with me! I'm just a small steward they hired, and there are 13 deputy stewards like me!"

Zhong Huan said indifferently: "I just came to ask you something, I hope you will answer everything, but if you dare to hide or deceive, even if you escape to Anyue County, your two sons who are studying in Chengdu Gengshan Academy will be ashamed." Can't run away, understand?"

Qiao Yannian nodded again and again, and his back was covered in cold sweat. The other party actually found out his details. He even knew his wife's hometown was in Anyue County, Puzhou, let alone his two sons.

"You are in charge of connecting with Wanchun Tea House, right!"

"I'm not in charge of the tea house itself, I'm only in charge of selling tea cakes from Wanchun Tea House."

"But you were involved in the sale of the tea house with Meng Wanchun back then, right?"

"Yes! I participated, but I'm not the main character." Qiao Yannian's voice lowered, obviously a little guilty.

"Tell us the truth, don't turn yourself into Wei Tong's accomplice. What happened to the deal back then? I promise to keep it a secret for you."

Qiao Yannian hesitated for a long time and said, "I can tell, but you must keep it secret for me."

"You want you to tell the truth and cooperate with us, we will definitely protect you."

Qiao Yannian sighed and said: "I know that sooner or later there will be a day when Wei Tong's heinous crimes committed back then will definitely be liquidated, I say!"

He plucked up his courage and said: "Back then Meng Wanchun didn't want to sell Wanchun Tea House at all, so they chopped off the head of their youngest son Meng Huan in front of him. Meng Wanchun was frightened and had to sell it for [-] yuan. They bought Wanchun Tea House and all the tea gardens, but after signing the contract, they erased the characters in the contract and sold Wanchun Tea House for [-] yuan, which was tantamount to forcibly taking away Wanchun Tea House. "

"and after?"

"Later, Meng Wanchun couldn't hold back this breath, and he also felt hatred for his son's murder. He filed a complaint with the Chengdu government, but Li Xuemin refused to accept the case because of insufficient evidence. Later, he heard that he wanted to go to Lin'an to file a complaint, and then suddenly disappeared. .”

"What happened to the sudden disappearance?"

Qiao Yannian trembled all over, and wept bitterly: "The eighteen members of Meng Wanchun's family were all killed by them, and the bodies were burned into ashes and thrown into the Minjiang River."

Rao Zhonghuan was mentally prepared, and was shocked by such a tragic event. After a while, he asked, "How do you know so clearly?"

"The coachman is my brother-in-law. He transported the bones to the river and watched them thrown into the river. He told me later."

"Your wife and brother are still in Yonghe Commercial Firm?"

"Not anymore. He broke his left leg last year and went back to his hometown in Anyue County, but he is innocent. He is just a driver and did not participate in the murder."

"I know, in the end I need you to provide us with another piece of information."

"what's the situation?"

"I need a list of all industries under Yong'an Commercial Bank, that is to say, I need a list of Wei Tong's industries on Sichuan Road, you should get it!"

Qiao Yannian nodded, "It should be possible, I have a complete list in my hand, I will go back and copy a copy, and give it to you at noon tomorrow."

Chong Huan asked the bullock cart to continue to take Qiao Yannian to the market, pretending nothing happened, Qiao Yannian thanked him and left.

Then Chong Huan ordered Liu Qin, the head of the capital, to say, "Take more than a dozen brothers and rush to Anyue County immediately. Be sure to find Qiao Yannian's wife and brother. I want a list of murderers who participated in the killing of Meng Wanchun's family. He must remember."

Liu Qin clasped his fists and said, "Let's go now!"

Chapter 841 Infighting

Chengdu Tongjuan Li Xuemin has been dismissed by the Supervision Department for conniving riots, but the new Chengdu prefect Zheng Ainong is more polite and still lets him live in the official residence temporarily.

But Li Xuemin didn't want to live in the official house anymore. He was eager to leave Chengdu and return to Lin'an. But the problem was that Zheng Ping, the army, refused to approve him to leave Chengdu. Without Zheng Ping's approval, his family would not be able to pass the checkpoint in Xiazhou. .

Li Xuemin scolded his mother in his heart, and leaned his head back on the chair angrily, revealing his too broad forehead, he was only in his early 40s, his head was already bald, and he had to wear a hat at home.

After Li Yi was assassinated, Li Xuemin thought that he could take over. After all, he didn't belong to the royalist faction, let alone the Chuanli faction, but a relatively moderate middle faction. He believed that Chen Qing needed himself, the middle faction, to take the top position in order to maintain the stability of the situation.

Unexpectedly, in the end, Zheng Ainong came out and took the seat of prefect abruptly. Needless to say, it must be recommended by Zheng Ping. The Sichuan-Shaanxi faction, also known as the hardliner, is a staunch supporter of Chen Qing, and it is not surprising that he is in the top position.

Although he did not get the position of prefect, Li Xuemin did not stamp his feet and beat his chest, full of remorse. He still looked down on the prefect of Chengdu. What he burned was the incense of Queen Mother Wei. This line is well maintained, so why not worry about high-ranking officials?

However, he never dreamed that Chen Qing suddenly shot him off the horse, and for a reason that didn't count, he took off his official hat, why?I am an official appointed by the imperial court, what does it have to do with you, Chen Qing, and what right do you have to remove yourself.

Li Xuemin wanted to point at Chen Qing's nose and yell, 'What do you mean by supporting a riot? ', Thousands of people are lurking under the nose of your army, can your own confidant general not see?

Thousands of them lurked with Wei Tong's secret support, so what does it have to do with me?

But the cold swords of hundreds of soldiers are the reason. If he doesn't leave the government office, he will be killed with a single knife.

Thinking of this, Li Xuemin was upset for a while, scolding the court was useless, and was kicked away like a dog by a local warlord.

At this time, the housekeeper reported in the courtyard: "Your Excellency, Wang Lin is here."

Li Xuemin was refreshed, and said quickly: "Quick! Please come to my study."

Wang Lin is the manager of Yonghe Commercial Bank. Wei Tong's confidant is Wei Tong's top supervisor on Sichuan Road. All of Wei Tong's businesses on Sichuan Road are under Wang Lin's control.

Even though Wang Lin was just a businessman, Li Xuemin didn't dare to neglect him at all, not to mention that he has been dismissed from office now, and he is just a common man.

"Li Tongpan is looking for me so urgently, what's the matter?"

Wang Lin's voice was very feminine. Many people suspected that he was an eunuch. He was tall and thin, with a pale face and a pair of triangular eyes hanging from his eyes. From the outside, he was not a kind person.

"Hey! Now I am no longer a judge."

Wang Lin waved his hand, "Who says you are not a general judge? You are the Chengdu general judge appointed by the government. Who can dismiss you except the government?"

"It's useless to say these words now. If you have the ability, the court will send troops. If you don't, we can only get out!"

"You can't say that. If the mountains don't turn, the water will turn back one day."

Speaking of this, Wang Lin looked around again and asked, "Is no one watching you?"

Li Xuemin shook his head, "Zheng Ainong is better at this point. He didn't send anyone to monitor me and let me go. Zheng Ping didn't care about me, but he knew I couldn't escape, so he didn't care."

"I know they won't, but what about the others?"

"Who else? Supervision Department, they have dismissed me, so they won't care about me anymore."

"I'm not talking about the Supervision Department, I'm talking about the inner guard?"

Li Xuemin still shook his head, "I have never dealt with the inner guards, including their investigation of Li Yi's death before, and they have never looked for me. I should not belong to their scope of responsibility."

At this time, a subordinate came in quickly and whispered a few words to Wang Lin. There was no one around to watch, so Wang Lin let go of his heart.

"Let's talk about business, what does Brother Li Xian want me for?"

"I want to leave Sichuan Road and go back to Lin'an, I beg Manager Wang to think of a way for me."

Wang Lin was taken aback, "Can't you leave now?"

"As I said just now, Zheng Ping refused to allow me to leave. If I leave with my family, I will definitely be stopped in Xiazhou."

Wang Lin took a sip of tea and said calmly, "Of course there is a solution, but I think that since Brother Li is going to leave, the two members of Wanchun Tea House may not be of much use to Brother Li."

It turned out that there were conditions, and Li Xuemin didn't want to get back the two components in his hands!The back of this Wanchun tea house is too bloody, and sooner or later something big will happen.

"Okay! I'll give it to you right now."

Li Xuemin took out a contract from the bookshelf, which indicated that two components of Wanchun Tea House belonged to Li Xuemin, and the contract was signed by Wei Tong.

"Take it!" Li Xuemin handed the contract to Wang Lin.

Wang Lin was also polite, and directly accepted the contract. His master repeatedly urged him to find a suitable opportunity to get these two people back, and now is a good opportunity.

"In fact, it's easy to leave Sichuan. It's still easy to go by water. They can't check every ship, especially small boats. They basically don't care about it. Now we have a business. First, take a big boat to the Three Gorges, and then transfer to a third boat in the Three Gorges. Baishi's small boats will be exchanged for larger boats at Jiangling."