Travel through space and help the prince’s husband in construction

After some twists and turns, Mr. Wen finally discovered the black hand behind the tax system - a group of greedy officials who manipulated tax policies for their own interests, causing the people to suffer.

Mr. Wen decided to start a battle of wits and courage with this group of officials. He cleverly used various clues and evidence to gradually expose the officials' crimes.

During this process, Lord Wen also received help from some like-minded people. They worked together and jointly submitted a memorial to change the tax system.

Ultimately, they succeeded in overturning the unreasonable tax policy.

However, the new regulations will only be implemented in the area under the jurisdiction of Mr. Wen. If there is no expected resistance after implementation, the tax source that can be collected will be greatly increased, and then it will be implemented in other places.

The new regulations stipulate that the amount of land that local officials can register is limited according to their rank.

This amount was enough to subsidize the living expenses of his family, but it no longer brought in huge profits.

How could local officials honestly accept this fact when their interests were affected?

Then, men in black suddenly appeared in the territory under the jurisdiction of Lord Wen. Their target was Lord Wen and his daughter.

Miss Wen was responsible for taking care of her father and all matters in the mansion before her mother and brother's fleet arrived.

The housekeeper and other managers all reconciled accounts, reported expenses and asked for instructions from Miss Wen.

Those local officials wanted to kidnap Miss Wen and use her to threaten Lord Wen, but they never found an opportunity.

The man in black waited for five days in a row but did not see Miss Wen leave the house.

Those local officials sent out several groups of assassins to kidnap Miss Wen.

However, these people did not see Miss Wen step out of the door. So they tried to break into the house, trying to knock Miss Wen unconscious with drugs, and then secretly take her away.

But the Wen Mansion didn't seem to have many guards. When they entered, they were all hit by high-strength critical strikes.

Therefore, the assassins who were sent out were discovered as soon as they ran into Miss Wen's yard, and they were attacked with various moves before they knew what was going on.

Some of them were knocked unconscious, some were drugged, and finally their hands and feet were tied up and sent to Lord Wen's yamen.

When Lord Wen learned about this, he decided to use the enemy's trick against him. He asked his men to deliberately let an assassin go and let him go back to inform the enemy, while at the same time he arranged an elaborate trap.

Soon, another group of assassins received the news and attacked again. They thought they would succeed easily this time, but they didn't know that they had already fallen into Master Wen's trap.

When the assassins entered the Wen Mansion, they were surrounded in an instant. Lord Wen led the guards in a fierce battle and soon subdued the assassins.

After the interrogation, Wen Daren learned the identity of the mastermind behind the scenes. He decided to use this as a clue to conduct an in-depth investigation and completely eradicate these corrupt officials.

Lord Wen presented the evidence to the king, who was furious and ordered a thorough investigation of the case.

The officials involved in the case were dismissed one after another, and the whole government and the public were shocked.

Miss Wen also became famous because of this incident and became a heroine in the eyes of everyone.

However, Miss Wen did not become complacent because of this. She still focused on managing things at home and outside.

Thanks to her efforts, the Wen family's private business gradually improved, became more prosperous, and became famous.

Miss Wen's talent and reputation were also noticed by the wives of local officials. However, the prefect was the highest level of local officials. There was really no one who could marry the daughter of a prefect.

Besides, the wife of the Taotai had not yet arranged her daughter's marriage, so no one else could make the decision. So these wives of officials were all looking forward to the arrival of Wen Da Ren's wife.

However, the relatively safe waterways are not that safe.

Madam Wen was on the road with the two young masters, and even with the protection of many guards, they still experienced several very dangerous situations.

There was even one time when the bandits jumped onto the deck, but the guards fought to the death and hacked them to death, thus protecting the safety of the lady and the son, as well as the valuable large furniture and furnishings of the Wen family.

However, the water route was slow in the first place, and there were many attacks. The ships were secretly damaged by the boat ghosts at the ports along the way, and the journey had to be delayed.

Along the way, the supplies on the ship were coveted by pirates, who would always use a group of small boats to deliberately surround the Wen family fleet from the front and back in dangerous places along the way to block its progress.

A group of pirates shouted: "Listen, everyone on the boat, this waterway is under the jurisdiction of our brothers. The manager of the boat, come out and pay the toll to us immediately. Brothers also like to make money in harmony, so we will let you pass immediately.

If the owner of the ship is not sensible, then the ship and the people will be left behind. The women will be slaves of the brothers, and the men will either be ghosts or coolies. Tell me what you want to choose! My time is precious, so I will only give you one stick of incense to think about it. "

Madam Wen was in a state of fear all the way. Now the fleet was surrounded by dozens of small boats. If she didn't give them silver, the bandits would use flying claws to control the fleet, and they would soon climb all over the fleet along the ropes.

However, the pirates were not so easy to deal with. Along the way, every pirate group asked for at least 500 taels of silver, and some even asked for 10,000 taels of silver.

If he really wanted to avoid disaster by spending money, he would have to pay all of Mrs. Wen's dowry, and even if he sold all the furniture and valuables on the boat, it would still not be enough for these pirates to share.

Fortunately, after Miss Wen met Xiao Yunyan, she told her about his mother and brother traveling by water with the fleet.

Xiao Yunyan immediately arranged for people to protect them along the way, and equipped the guards on the ship with very useful self-defense weapons, which were crossbows with anesthetic needles.

Because there was cargo on the ship, they didn't dare to carry hot weapons such as Gatling guns and grenades.

Because these guards have not received professional training, if they get nervous and operate improperly during the fight, they may hurt themselves or even burn the ship, which is not worth the loss.

Therefore, Xiao Yunyan asked her men to give the guards a combo crossbow with an effective range of 15 meters.

The crossbow body is made of hard iron pear wood, which is tough and wear-resistant, small in size and moderate in weight.

Usually carry it on your back. When in use, load the crossbow with arrows. Release the folding hook on the crossbow chassis and hang it on your arm to fix the crossbow.

Use the other hand and eyes to aim at the target and press the spring to shoot. It can be a single shot or continuous shot, and can load ten crossbow arrows at a time.

It is also very simple to load the crossbow arrows again. You just need to click the crossbow arrows into the arrow slot without much effort.

Except for close combat, any shooting distance within fifteen meters is effective.

Bamboo crossbows are light and easy to make.

Even if the first batch of crossbow arrows with anesthetic effects were used up, they could still cut bamboo to make crossbow arrows themselves, and if they wanted to put some medicine on the arrowheads, that was also possible.

In addition to the crossbow arrows, there are also drug bullets. This thing is easy to pick up. Even if the people on the other ship are shouting and want to knock them out, just throw a drug bullet onto the other ship, and the scattered drug will knock out all the other parties in ten breaths.

Since they had these two treasures for self-defense, and the four guards sent by Xiao Yunyan to meet them along the way, Madam Wen, the two young masters and the guards on the ship felt more confident.

Mrs. Wen could eat well and sleep well. Unlike the previous journey, everyone on the ship was worried all day long, and the two young masters were always worried about the safety of the fleet.

They were worried that if the three of them could not reach their father's post safely and were robbed by pirates instead, wouldn't their father and sister be devastated?

They even felt a little regretful. They decided to follow their sister and travel by land. They could take care of each other and wouldn't have to worry about each other.

That night, the moon was dark and the wind was strong, with thick fog covering the river.

Madam Wen and her group were slowly heading towards the nearest town. Suddenly, a few small boats appeared in front of them and were heading towards them quickly.

"Oh no! They're pirates!" a guard exclaimed.

Mrs. Wen's heart tightened, but she quickly calmed down and ordered the guards to prepare their weapons to respond.

The pirates were getting closer and closer, waving swords and shouting that they wanted to rob.

At this moment, the guards quickly fired crossbow arrows and drug bullets. The crossbow arrows accurately shot at the pirates, and the drug also spread in the air.

The pirates were thrown into chaos; some were hit by crossbow arrows and fell to the ground, while others were knocked unconscious.

Mrs. Wen heaved a sigh of relief when she saw this. This experience made her more confident that with these self-defense treasures, they would be able to reach their destination safely.

It is easy to dodge an open spear, but difficult to guard against an arrow from the dark. It is easy to see that it is an enemy. No matter how powerful it is, it is still easy to guard against, at least you can take corresponding defensive measures.

What I’m afraid of is the kind of person who appears to be a friend but actually harms you.

The fleet arrived at a county town that day. There was a classmate of Mr. Wen when he was a scholar and a fellow villager. Now he was also a clerk in the county government.

This man's name is Hu Jiwen. He used to have a good relationship with Wen Yuanli. However, Wen Yuanli was only ranked fifth in the second class of the imperial examination. Later, he became more and more powerful, and finally became a third-rank official in the imperial court.

Wen Yuanli had been away from his hometown for many years and had no contact with Hu Jiwen for a long time. The only time Wen met Hu Jiwen was when he returned to his hometown to worship his ancestors.

Hu Jiwen learned from the grapevine that his former classmate Wen Yuanli was demoted to a local official. He didn't know why he felt a little happy.

Later, I received an official document and learned that Lord Wen was coming to Quanzhou to serve as the Taotai.

Although his rank was lowered, the third-rank official in the royal city did not have as much real power as the fourth-rank Taotai.

The Daotai is in charge of the government of a region. There is more profit to be made. If Lord Wen is a person who knows how to manage things, the Daotai can get more benefits.

Therefore, in Hu Jiwen's opinion, Lord Wen was demoted in name only but promoted in reality. Perhaps the king was giving Wen Yuanli real power so that he could go to the local areas to solve practical problems of official administration and taxation.

Although Hu Jiwen was just a small clerk in the county government, he was able to come into contact with the actual problems of corruption among officials and the tricks in taxation, and he was also one of the beneficiaries.

So he thought that if Wen Yuanli knew the current situation and did a good job on the surface, and at the same time, got along well with the local officials, he would be the king of Quanzhou.

Hu Jiwen was not reconciled to just being a small example. Since the clerk had come down to the local level and become the highest local official, shouldn't he, a former fellow villager and classmate, also take this path to move up?

But he was still a scholar and it was impossible for him to become a higher official.

However, if one could be transferred from the county government to the provincial government, even if he was still a small clerk, the monthly salary he would receive would increase several times.

Moreover, the small clerks in the provincial government still have face in front of the officials in the prefectural and county governments.

With the intention of currying favor with Lord Wen, Hu Jiwen started to think. He thought that with his status, if he went directly to Lord Wen Yuanli to ask for help, he might not even be able to enter the door of Lord Wen's mansion.

He learned that my wife and two sons were traveling by water and happened to pass by the dock of Weiyuan County where he was now.

So he asked for leave from the county magistrate and wanted to take his wife to visit Mr. Wen's wife in person to build a relationship.

The county magistrate didn't know why he wanted to take five days off, so he asked him to explain the reason.

Jiwen also wanted to use his power to say that he and Wen Daren were classmates and from the same hometown. Wen Daren's wife and son passed by the dock of this county, and he wanted to visit them with his wife. He also wanted to give some local specialties to express his feelings.