Abandoned Prince Survival Guide

The recruitment of private soldiers made the local tyrants very dissatisfied, because they were all hired or bought with money, and now they accept it as they say, who would be willing?

But they have not been able to resist, because legally, they are untenable, and private individuals have no right to raise soldiers, which is illegal.

Even if you want to fight, you can't fight. The [-] elite soldiers brought by Pei Linzhi are all soldiers who have experienced bloody battles on the battlefield. Each of them is like a sharp knife drawn out of its sheath.

The number of private soldiers raised by the tyrants in these places is also quite large, but they are too scattered, lack organization, and have no courage to contend with the court, because that is treason, and the loss will not only be private soldiers and fields, but also It's his life.

Pei Linzhi acted resolutely, while investigating the case, he recruited private soldiers at the same time.Within half a month, all the private soldiers in Jingzhou were recruited.

The case is still in stalemate. This is obviously done by local tyrants. The government has covered them, but Pei Linzhi still can't find any evidence.

According to the investigation, after Cao Mian promoted the land equalization system from Jiang'an County, he left Jiang'an and went to Songzi by boat.It rained a little that day, but it was not heavy rain. Someone saw the boat walking in the river, and it started to sink very fast. The boatman yelled, "The boat is leaking," and jumped off the boat to swim to the shore. go.

No one came down from the boat, and the people on the shore thought that there was no one on board.It wasn't until the boatman swam to the shore that people realized that there were still people on board, but the boat had already sunk into the water.

Two days later, someone found more than one floating corpse on the shore, only to realize that there were quite a few people on board, but why no one disembarked.

Those remains were collected by the government for disposal.

Pei Linzhi found Chen Qian, the county magistrate of Jiang'an who handled the remains of Cao Mian and others, and asked him why he burned all the remains of the soldiers.

Chen Qian said that he received a report that there were many floating corpses in the river, and he ordered people to salvage them. He found that it was the Juntian pusher sent by the capital, and quickly reported it to the Jiangling County Sheriff.

The weather was hotter, and the corpses were already swollen and rotted, and the original shape could not be recognized at all. Fearing that there would be too many dead, it would easily cause plague, so the county guard ordered him to burn it.

Chen Qian said: "The lower officials thought Mr. Cao and the others died strangely. No matter how fast the ship sank, there was absolutely no time to jump out of the boat and escape. Some people may have done something wrong, but the lower officials did not investigate the specifics. Come out, the boatman who abandoned the boat and fled for his life also disappeared.”

Pei Linzhi stared at him sharply: "Then why did it report that the boat capsized due to heavy rain?"

Chen Qian lowered his head: "This official is not very clear. It is Lord Inspector who reported to the court. I think Lord Inspector said that because he was afraid that His Majesty would blame him."

"So Mr. Chen is completely unaware of this matter?" Pei Linzhi looked at him coldly, but Chen Qian had a good hand in throwing the blame.

Chen Qian hurriedly said: "The lower officials know everything, and they can't stop talking. It's the lower officials who are incompetent and failed to find out the truth of the matter, which made Mr. Cao's death unclear."

Pei Linzhi said: "You also think you are incompetent, right? Well then, you don't want to be the county magistrate. I'll arrange someone else."

Chen Qian was taken aback, and quickly knelt down: "General Pei, I don't know what is wrong with being an official?"

"I came here to investigate this matter out of holy will. His Majesty has delegated all powers to me to handle the matter. In addition to Mr. Cao, there were fifty of my subordinates who died. They were born and died to defend their home and country. They did not die at the hands of soldiers, but They died in Jingzhou for no reason. Master Chen, do you think they died unjustly?!" Pei Linzhi said through gritted teeth, staring at Chen Qian, as if he was about to swallow him alive.

Chen Qian didn't dare to breathe.

Pei Linzhi laughed back angrily: "Very well, you are so capable, covering the sky with one hand, turning the clouds and rains, you don't pay attention to Wang Fa and His Majesty, and you become the emperor of the land. Then I will dismantle you earth-level teams. Here If you can't find out the case in three days, then it will be assumed that you are covering up the murderer, and then don't blame me for being rude."

Chen Qian lay on the ground: "Your officer obeys!"

Pei Linzhi turned to Xie Yun, the governor of Jingzhou, and said, "Master Xie, all my soldiers and Lord Cao died in the border of Jingzhou for no reason. You closed the case so lightly, aren't you afraid that my brother Quanxia Youzhi will come to ask for your life?"

Since Pei Linzhi arrived in Jingzhou, Xie Yun has been controlled by him, and has been kept by his side, not allowing him to contact other people, just to see how long he can carry it, who is he going to cover up for, or is it just him himself behind the scenes.

Xie Yun said: "General Pei's words are serious. The lower officials are also very saddened by Master Cao's death. The reason why the lower officials reported to the court like this is because they are afraid that your Majesty will blame the lower officials for their ineffective governance, and let the court order the official to die in office."

Pei Linzhi sneered: "It seems that you also know that your governance is not effective. I suspended your post. Is it wrong?"

Xie Yun shook his head: "No injustice, no injustice, it was the negligence of the subordinate officials, which caused Mr. Cao to die of hatred."

"Then you haven't re-investigated the case?"

Xie Yun licked his lips: "The lower officials are incompetent."

"You said it yourself, you are an incompetent person, right? Very good, you don't want to be the governor, I will take care of Jingzhou for you for now." Pei Linzhi suppressed his anger.

Just relying on dereliction of duty is not enough to punish these dog officials for much crime, it must have some real materials.As soon as Pei Lin turned his head, he ordered someone to investigate the integrity of the local officials in Jingzhou.

Except for the few people around Xiao Yu, Pei Linzhi has never seen anyone who can be an official with a clean sleeve.Especially in the place where the emperor is far away today, there are no local officials who are not corrupt and accept bribes, so check it out to be sure.

To Pei Linzhi's surprise, they found 10,000+ taels of silver and countless jewels in Xie Yun's house.Xie Yun, Jingzhou Inspector's one-year salary converted into silver taels will not exceed 200 taels of silver. He has only been in Jingzhou for three years, and his annual salary converted into silver taels will not exceed 1000 taels.

It stands to reason that Xie Yun is not from Jingzhou, even if he bought land in Jingzhou, he would definitely not be able to earn so much silver taels, let alone bring so much silver taels from his hometown to the post, which would be tens of thousands of catties of luggage .

Xie Yun was full of loopholes when explaining the ins and outs of these silver coins.Under Pei Linzhi's interrogation, Xie Yun finally began to explain the ins and outs of the money. It was all the money accumulated in Jingzhou over the years, including the embezzled military pay, and the money paid by local tyrants in various names.

The most recent sum was 5 taels of silver sent by Qu Qing, a powerful man in Jiang'an County, a month ago.This time was the time when Cao Mian had an accident.

This Qu Qing has a lot of background. He is the largest famous family in Jingzhou. His family owns ten thousand hectares of fertile land. Eighty percent of the fertile land in Jiang'an County is owned by his family. He is very rich. It is also majestic.

When Pei Linzhi heard the name, he said, "The Qu family? The Qu family who recruited [-] private soldiers from his family some time ago?"

The lieutenant at the side replied: "Exactly. At that time, many private soldiers of the Qu family resisted, and they were beaten up by the brothers before they became honest. By the way, general, the school lieutenant in charge of training the private soldiers came to report yesterday, and a group of The private soldiers absconded and were arrested. They seem to belong to Jiang Anqu's family."

Pei Linzhi said: "Go and search Chen Qian's house to see if there is any silver of unknown origin." He felt that he might have found some clues.

"Yes."

Soon, they also found tens of thousands of silver taels of unknown origin in the home of Chen Qian, the magistrate of Jiang'an County.When I asked, it was indeed a gift from the Qu family, and the time was about the same as when Xie Yun accepted the bribe.

The Qu family's motive for committing the crime was too obvious.The biggest losses from the land equalization system are such local tyrants, how could they be willing to hand over the wealth accumulated by their ancestors.

Chen Qian was uncovered as evidence of accepting bribes, and Pei Linzhi sent him directly to prison.

It wasn't until this time that Chen Qian began to confess the facts he knew.After Cao Mian arrived in Jiang'an, he had many contacts with the Qu family, and they were not very happy.When he left, the problems of the Qu family had not been resolved, so he greeted Chen Qian and said that he would return to Jiang'an to deal with it after he had finished dealing with Songzi's land equalization problem.

Pei Linzhi guessed that Cao Mian should have realized that the fifty soldiers he brought with him were completely unable to fight against the three thousand private soldiers of the Qu family.So a retreat was taken.

Pei Linzhi asked: "Before Master Cao left, did you hand over a memorial to the imperial court?"

Chen Qian said: "There is a letter sent from the post."

Pei Linzhi asked: "What about the letter?"

"The villain doesn't know, the next stop should be Jiangling."

Pei Linzhi sighed. He guessed that Cao Mian realized that this problem was not something he could solve, so he wrote a memorial to the court and handed it over, but the memorial was intercepted before it left the boundary of Jingzhou.

"Then who killed Mr. Cao?" Pei Linzhi asked.

Chen Qian shook his head: "This villain really doesn't know."

"Who sent them away?"

"It's a villain."

"Tell me about the situation at that time."

"It was raining lightly that day, and the villain personally sent Mr. Cao aboard. I advised them to wait for the rain to stop before leaving, but they insisted on leaving, which seemed more urgent."

"Were there any wounds on their bodies?"

"Wu Zuo said there was no external injury on his body, but his nails turned black, and he seemed to have been poisoned."

Pei Linzhi closed his eyes, there was nothing wrong with that, he must have been poisoned, so he didn't respond at all when the ship sank.Someone scuttled the ship after they were poisoned, so who was the one who poisoned them?Pei Linzhi clenched his fists.

Pei Linzhi had someone bring the Patriarch of the Qu family over, and began to question him. He didn't directly ask about Cao Mian, but asked about Juntian.

Qu Qing said: "An adult came to discuss this matter with the villain before. The villain has too many acres and couldn't count them all. I couldn't figure it out for a while. The adult said to wait for him to come back."

Pei Linzhi said lightly, "Oh, that lord has passed away, don't you know?"

Qu Qing pretended to be very surprised: "Really? That's a pity. Do we have to wait for the imperial court to send someone to carry out the matter of land equalization?"

Pei Linzhi said expressionlessly: "No need, I have the final say. Hand over the deeds for all the land in your family, and start measuring the land tomorrow."

Qu Qing's expression froze, and he said in a dull voice, "Is your lord the new official?"

"I'm not, but I can take care of this matter." Pei Linzhi said, "There is one more thing to confirm with Master Qu. Recently, you gave 5 taels of silver to the governor of Jingzhou and 1 taels to the magistrate of Jiang'an County. Why did you bribe the court officials? What kind of poison did you poison Lord Cao and his followers?"