Lin Xuan of the Red Chamber

Since ancient times, these two things, salt and iron, have been the lifeblood of the country, and they have always been monopolized by the imperial court. Once those private sellers are found out, no matter what the reason is and what status they are, it is a felony to beheaded.

But salt and iron have always been the most profitable, and compared with iron, which is strictly controlled by the state, it is also very heavy and difficult to transport.The cost and profit of selling salt are undoubtedly higher. Therefore, although every generation has never condoned the sale of illegal salt, there are still countless profit-seeking businessmen and officials who have rushed to this cause one after another.

Because of the large number of lakes and rivers, Liangjiang has been the main production area of ​​salt since ancient times. At the same time, it is also one of the most concentrated places where those who sell private salt are stationed.

People who have not been exposed to these things can't even imagine how many big salt gangs there are in the two rivers and regions that make profits from selling illegal salt, and how many officials there are who make money from those salt gangs every year.

It can be said that these people have formed a powerful network of relationships. If people without status and status rashly intervene in these matters, there is only one end to go.

However, Li Hong was obviously not included in this list. As the grandson of the prince and the grandson of King Qin, in his capacity, these officials who had profited from the private salt incident would not dare to jump over the wall in a hurry and do things that went too far.

Especially now that Li Hong is also serving as an imperial envoy, if something really happened in Liangjiang, from the governor of Liangjiang to the local officials, none of them could escape the responsibility.

With regard to the Liangjiang smuggled salt case, after a period of investigation, Li Hong and Lin Xuan focused on the Liangjiang Xi family. In fact, the two Xi families themselves were not big families, let alone aristocratic families.

However, Xi's father was a well-known Confucianist during his lifetime, so the Xi family was able to marry a relatively large aristocratic family in Liangjiang.

The tide is rising.

Moreover, according to Lin Xuan's understanding, the Liangjiang Xi family has very close contacts with the officials of the major families and officials in Liangjiang. Presumably, even if the Xi family is not the mastermind of the private salt case, it is definitely an important figure in it. .

This is not Lin Xuan's guessing out of thin air, but as far as he knows, among the big salt gangs in Liangjiang, several have very close contacts with the Xi family.

However, there is no way to determine whether a person is really guilty by guessing alone, and everything must pay attention to evidence.But at this time a strange thing happened. No matter how Lin Xuan and Li Hong searched, they couldn't find any clues except that they had closer contacts with those officials and the Salt Gang.

However, the more this happened, the more Lin Xuan was sure that there was definitely something wrong with the Xi family. Without him, the entire Great Zhou Dynasty, under the deliberate connivance of Emperor Longqing, was already greedy for ink, and there were not many in the entire court. A truly honest official.

Think about it, even the center of the imperial court is like this, not to mention these local officials, they are too clean, which is unusual.

Lin Xuan put down the data and materials in his hands, and rubbed his forehead with some headaches. There is no progress in the matter now. These salt dealers who were extremely active in the past are not moving at all, and they all shrink back.

Lin Xuan knew that it must be that the people on the side of the third prince had secretly revealed Li Hong's real purpose of going to Liangjiang to those officials and Yan Xiao.

Regarding this matter, Lin Xuan had long guessed, and also had a premonition that this time things might never go so smoothly, but when it really happened, he was still a little depressed.However, fortunately, the third prince sent someone here to secretly release the news, but the second prince was not idle, and he also made a lot of trouble in Fujian, and now the progress of the two sides is almost the same. Already.

The enemy hides very well, and it seems that they are all ready to fight a protracted war. As long as Li Hong and others don't leave, they will definitely not show up, but how could Li Hong leave? For small things, he shrank his head. I am afraid that even King Qin would look up to him.

Since you can't leave, you can only continue to investigate, and when you can't find anything, you can only use one trick to lure the snake out of the hole.

Lin Xuan secretly sent a few guards to the suburbs, the excuse he used was to get some evidence about the salt case.Then he pretended to leak the news inadvertently, and in private, he sent additional staff to closely monitor the movements of all parties.

It can be said that the method of leading a snake out of a hole is the best. After all, it is impossible for all people in this world to be smart people. What's more, even smart people will be suspicious, especially when these people are obviously not This is even more so when one is truly single-minded.

Sure enough, as Lin Xuan expected, those guards had just gone to the suburbs not long ago, when they met a group of people who were going to spy and intercept them. Needless to say, those people were all killed by the guards who had already ambushed behind them. Catch them, although they are all young men, but sometimes, you can get a lot of things from the young men.

Not long after Lin Xuan arrested all these people, in a hidden business firm in Liangjiang, several people in bunts started to quarrel loudly, and the topic of the quarrel was naturally because of what Lin Xuan had done. those moves.

I saw a gloomy man staring fiercely at the crowd: "Are you all fools? That kid's behavior is clearly trying to lure a snake out of his hole. You still have to send people there in a foolish way. If you don't think you die quickly enough , Grandpa, I may also fulfill you."

These words were harsh, but the person opposite the man was not afraid at all, and he sneered and said: "Come on, Yin Lao Liu, if others don't know you, how can I not know you, sir It’s high-sounding here, don’t tell me that you didn’t send people to investigate. It’s just that your people were lucky and didn’t get caught, so don’t show any sense of superiority in front of me.”

Just when Yin Lao Liu was about to refute, there was another strange voice from the side of the man: "Yes, Yin Lao Liu, we are all grasshoppers on the same rope now. It's impossible for you to get better than that."

Yin Lao Liu's face was uncertain for a while, obviously he was caught by the man's words, that's right, among so many people, only his people escaped by chance, and he would inevitably have some other small thoughts about this.Like, like now, wanting to stay out of it, not to get involved in these things.