The majestic sister-in-law of the Red Chamber

After the arrival of the new governor, Ning Lixin, in the Xuzhou Mansion, everything quickly got on the right track.However, he is worthy of being a talent that the emperor has taken a fancy to early on. Although his personality is sometimes a bit out of character, his ability to handle affairs is really not ordinary.

Relying on him alone and a group of guards temporarily drawn from the imperial forest army, he forcefully propped up the huge stall in Xuzhou Mansion, and it didn't take much for him to wait for the capable men from Jining County to arrive. With a lot of effort, all the affairs of Xuzhou Mansion are well organized.

Even, the entire Xuzhou Mansion is more prosperous than before. After all, the supply of cheap official salt is now open, and the people don't need to queue up to buy it.

At the same time, Situ Meng quickly sent people to search the grain shops of the Shen family and the Xue family that sold illegal salt, and directly designated all the rice and grain seized together with the illegal salt as stolen goods, and directly confiscated them to the granary of Xuzhou Mansion among.

The value of the seized private salt and grain alone has exceeded the annual taxes that Xuzhou government needs to pay. With these things as a foundation, the warehouses of Xuzhou government, which were not very rich, were filled to the brim in an instant. Ning Lixin The new governor has a lot more room to maneuver. Compared with the impoverished Jining County before, Ning Lixin immediately has more room to display.

Of course, this was also because of Situ Meng's status, which helped him resist a lot of pressure from all parties in the court. After all, reform was never an easy task!

Now the entire city of Xuzhou, under the suppression of Situ Meng, is like a small kingdom independent of the imperial court. Any order issued by the state capital above must go through him first, and all personnel appointments related to officials and so on , but all of them were directly answered by him.

Except for the Xuzhou garrison general and some officials in the army, the appointment rights of the eighth rank, ninth rank, and other minor officials under the Xuzhou government government were all directly delegated to Ning Lixin by Situ Meng.

With this absolute trust, Ning Lixin admired Situ Meng even more, and he had a belief that a man would die for his confidant. He worked hard day and night, and did not dare to neglect in the slightest. .

With the power that Situ Meng gave him, Ning Lixin easily won over some small local clans, local snakes, which allowed him to better control the situation in the entire Xuzhou Prefecture.

With the strong cooperation of these small local clans, many secret routes for transporting and smuggling salt and small hoarding places that were previously hidden by the Shen family, Xue family, and Cao gang were all investigated one by one in a short period of time. The entire Xuzhou mansion is full of turmoil, and the private salt dealers are completely extinct.

The common people clapped their hands and praised, because Situ Meng was extremely low-key on weekdays, so they took all the credit for the new governor of Xuzhou. When Ning Lixin took office for more than three months, he actually received it. The Wanmin Umbrella sent by the common people was even more touching and exciting for a while, with mixed flavors that are hard to express.

In the past three months, Ning Lixin has been busy dealing with all kinds of affairs in Xuzhou Prefecture, Situ Meng and Lin Tian have not been idle either, they are still continuing to investigate the big case of smuggling salt.

The Chief Manager Zhen Er who was captured alive by Lin Tian sent back in Yunlong Lake that day was a hobgoblin. No matter what the interrogator asked, he would either keep silent or talk about him. In short, he didn't say a word at all. truth.

Even the name is Li Er at one time, and Wang Wu at another time, and there are as many as three or four ID documents found on him, each with a different identity!

After asking urgently, he simply refused to open his mouth, and kept silent about the most basic things such as his real name and place of origin. The interrogator even threatened him that if he couldn't produce the real identity document, he would put him in prison. Treated as a fugitive slave, he didn't even react violently.

His psychological quality has already far surpassed the vast majority of ordinary people, and even those generals with a strong will may not have his concentration.

Obviously, he is definitely a guy who has received professional training in interrogation. After all, it is not difficult to keep silent during interrogation. Usually, even after many tortures in the yamen, he still has no special reaction.

After learning about Zhen Er's special situation, Lin Tian even participated in an interrogation in person, but she was not particularly good at this, so she could only leave him to the members of the Death Squad and continue to be the subject of the experiment.

As for the other person who was caught together with him, Cao Changrong, the deputy leader of the Cao Gang, it would be much easier to deal with, with a set of killing power sticks down, and before he could use other major punishments, he easily spat out, asking what to say What, even some things that he didn't ask, as long as he knows, he will say everything verbatim when he thinks of it, but he is not very organized, and he often goes here and there.

But it is precisely because he said too much, how much of it is true and how much is false, Lin Tian and Situ Meng need to judge by themselves.

Looking at the thick confession brought by the person who interrogated Cao Changrong, Lin Tian and Situ Meng's head grew bigger, but they still gritted their teeth. Each of them divided half of it, and quickly browsed it. The valuable things are briefly summarized, and finally integrated together.

"Huh..." Lin Tian let out a long breath, put down the simple quill in his hand, then stretched his waist greatly, and said with some depression: "Let's find someone else to do this job in the future! No more! This is more troublesome than exterminating that private salt lair!"

"Hehe, Xiaotian, don't worry too! Look, don't you have this clue?" Situ Meng said with a smile, and at the same time, handed a piece of paper with clues sorted out to Lin Tian.

"Well, let me take a look! The official salt transported from Yangzhou will be stored on a small hidden island in Taihu Lake first, and then dismantled and transported in batches by small boats to designated locations in various counties in Jiangsu Province. , and then sold as private salt?

He also suspected that he was not the only one in the Cao gang to cooperate with the chief executive?He also discovered that there are other forces in the canal waterway that are also doing the same private salt business, but their source of supply does not seem to be official salt...

Those who are responsible for transporting private salt are all the Green Forest Army under the Governor of Liangjiang, and they are still using naval warships?That's why we can go all the way unimpeded, and dare to check without any checkpoints? "

The more Lin Tian looked at it, the more frightened he felt. Even if Cao Changrong said these things, he could not produce any solid evidence, but the confession obtained by relying on the facts he knew and some reasonable speculations was credible. The degree is still very high.

"Mengmeng, what are you going to do next? Although we successfully destroyed the private salt warehouse here this time, it is impossible to be so easy every time. Moreover, this time we have already scared the snake, and after they Doing things will definitely be more secretive, and the defense will be more powerful!

Maybe the location of the warehouse that Cao Changrong knew had already been moved by them!Also, who is behind this other group of people who suddenly appeared?Is it really the governor of Liangjiang? "

Lin Tian scratched her head a little irritably. This situation of not being able to fully control the information really made her a little crazy.Compared with always comparing tricks and tricks with people in the dark, what she prefers is the direct confrontation with open swords and bright guns.

"Well, I actually have a guess!" Situ Meng thought for a while, and then slowly said: "I think these people are probably the same as the guys who sell official salt privately! It's just that they have mutual I just don't know!"

"En? How do you say that?" Lin Tian looked at Situ Meng in a daze.

"Xiao Tian, ​​do you still remember? The previous salt censor was my cousin, the youngest son of my aunt and Li Guogong Liu Biao! The salt tax was suddenly reduced by half in his hands! It stands to reason that the annual output of this salt farm is fixed, and the amount of salt sold is also fixed, so the salt tax cannot change much, but the salt tax has been reduced by more than half..." Situ Meng In the middle of speaking, he suddenly stopped.

"So, do you suspect that he actually only sold half of the salt, and the rest was taken away from the salt field, and then sold as private salt? Hiss..." Lin Tian couldn't help but gasped when he said this Taking a breath, they looked at Situ Meng, both of them saw shock and disbelief in each other's eyes.

"Although, I don't want to think so, but all the clues in our hands point to him!" Situ Meng sighed and continued:

"It's actually not difficult to prove this matter. We just need to go to Mr. Lin and ask him to check the output of the saltworks and the sales of Yanyin over the years, and all the puzzles will be solved immediately!"

"Then what are we waiting for here? Let's go!" Lin Tianxiang was vigorous and decisive in his work, and as he spoke, he stood up and was ready to go out.

At this time, Ning Lixin hurried in from the outside, his clothes were messy, and the sweat on his cheeks dripped down his chin without noticing it.

"My lord, my lord, I'm in big trouble! Before that, the governor of Liangjiang sent many official letters to inquire about the detention of all the officials in Xuzhou Prefecture, and he also notified the subordinate officials to report the specific case! He also issued several eight-rank, The letters of appointment of the ninth grade were all rejected by the subordinate officials according to the prince's wishes!

This time, the governor of Liangjiang was really impatient, and actually brought people over from Jinling himself. The official ship is about to arrive at Xuzhou Wharf!Moreover, he also brought a lot of naval warships and more than a thousand Green Forest Army!No matter how you look at it, it is aggressive, and the visitor is not good! "

While Ning Lixin was talking, he wiped the dripping sweat with his sleeve indiscriminately. Obviously, after he got the news, he ran over to report it non-stop. Up to now, he was still out of breath and panting non-stop. It's rough!

"Hehe, the governor of Liangjiang! What a majesty!" Situ Meng sneered, and said, "Don't worry, this king was going to find him, but he came to the door by himself!"

"Mengmeng, it seems that what you guessed before is probably true! The two governors Jiang are likely to be the collaborators of your form! Otherwise, he wouldn't have to be so anxious at all, even knowing your identity. There are so many Green Forest Army rushing over!"

As Lin Tian said, his eyes flickered fiercely, and he told Xiaotao beside him, "Put all the Death Squad on standby immediately, and wait for my signal later!"

"Yes, master!" Xiaotao quickly turned and left after responding.