426 Butcher Li came, Chongzhen's silence

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After Li Zixiao went ashore at the canal wharf north of Xuzhou, the first thing he did was to send Luo Chao to Yangzhou with a new cavalry battalion and take over the city gate of Yangzhou.

Then, led by Zhang Fugui's intelligence bureau personnel, according to a list that had been drawn up in advance, they rushed directly into the city and surrounded the mansions of the entire seven salt merchants, including Wanjia.

"Follow the list to arrest people, raid the house!"

With the officers of the White Dragon Army who led the team, after receiving Li Zixiao's order, they immediately forcibly rushed into these seven salt merchants to arrest people, and those who dared to resist were killed.

"Something's wrong?"

The first to arrive was Pan Ying, a fellow acquaintance in Yangzhou, when Pan Ying saw that team of soldiers with bright armor, sharp guns, and solemn faces.

As soon as he entered the city, he took over the gates, blocked the streets, and drove the people home, when he knew that something was wrong.

"Xiaobao, you hurry up and go to the prefect's yamen to invite Governor Lin to come over, Yangzhou is going to change."

Pan Ying said to an entourage beside him, and then led people to the north gate of Xuzhou, because he got the news that Li Zixiao's handsome flag appeared in the north.

The matter of arresting people and raiding homes will be done by his own hands, Li Zixiao had just entered the north gate of Yangzhou at this time, and he saw Pan Yuhuo coming in a hurry.

"Xiaguan Pan Ying, meet General Zhenguo."

After Pan Ying had the last meeting with Li Zixiao, she knew that this young man was not easy to deal with, so she saluted respectfully after coming at this time.

"Haha, it turned out to be Pan Tongzhi! It's been a long time since we've seen each other. Li Zixiao saw his acquaintance and said with a smile.

"It's been a long time, why did the general make such a big move when he came to Yangzhou this time?" Pan Yu asked with a smile.

Li Zixiao chuckled a few times, took out a fold and handed it to Pan Ying, and said: "Ben will receive a secret report, these Yangzhou profiteers on the list have done many illegal things, colluded with the Japanese and criminals, and committed extremely heinous crimes.

Now Ben will already find out the evidence and come to arrest people, and when Ben will clean up these national scum who collude with the Japanese bandits, he will send troops to exterminate the Japanese bandits. ”

Li Zixiao said a few righteous and awe-inspiring things, and the evidence he took out was all searched by Zhang Fugui's intelligence bureau.

Some of these people's charges are true, some of them are false, and Li Zixiao deducted them indiscriminately, just like colluding with the Japanese Kou, which was purely Li Zixiao's nonsense.

But these big salt merchants, which one of the butts is clean, have been cunning over the years, bribing officials, selling illicit salt, and even trading with the Tartars.

It can be said that as long as Zhang Fugui is attentive, he can give each of them casually, and find out twenty or thirty pieces of criminal evidence, which are all major crimes.

In this way, it is logical for Li Zixiao to casually add a crime of colluding with Japanese criminals to these people, anyway, they are 'not afraid to bite if there are many lice'!

In the past, no one dared to investigate these salt merchants, because they were all intertwined with local officials and even the nobles of the court.

But this time, it was Li Zixiao who wanted to move them, and Lin Yongnian and other court officials were afraid of it before, and Li Zixiao didn't need to be afraid.

The handle of the knife is in Li Zixiao's hand today, and no one who comes can save them.

Wanjia dared to beat Li Zixiao At this time, the idea of refining salt business is equivalent to moving Li Zixiao's forbidden belly, which is just used to kill chickens and set an example for monkeys.

The Wang family belongs to the scholar clan in Yangzhou, although the Wang family has also intervened in business over the years, but his power is mainly concentrated in the officialdom, responsible for providing protection for officials at the interface of Yangzhou.

And this time, in Li Zixiao's list of arresting people and raiding his home, the biggest salt merchant Qu Ping'an is also not small.

Qu Ping'an, a famous salt merchant in Yanzhou, has a family fortune of millions, and he has always called for wind and rain in Yangzhou.

Basically, all Yangzhou people know that this Quda salt merchant is so arrogant, it is because his background is too hard.

How hard is it, let's put it this way, there is a concubine in the saint today, who is the child of the Qu family, and at the same time, there is a woman in the Qu family who is married to a son of Yang Sichang and Yang Ge Lao.

In addition, the local Qu family even married with the Wan family and obtained the protection of the Wan family in the local area, and even Li Zixiao gasped after learning about the Qu family's background.

However, even so, Li Zixiao still ordered the Qu family to be raided and arrested, because it is also this kind of weighty big salt merchant that can play the role of knocking on the mountain and shaking the tiger.

As soon as Li Zixiao came to Yangzhou, there was such a big move, and there was a reason.

The complicated situation in the prefectures and counties of Yangzhou is far more complicated than that of Huai'an and Xuzhou, and Wanjia has been an official in Yangzhou for so long, and many local officials have ties with Wanjia.

If, if you don't bring down Wanjia, there is this-stirring stick in Yangzhou, Li Zixiao will not rest assured.

Although the destruction of Wanjia may trigger a more serious chain reaction, making those officials close to Wanjia in Yangzhou counties oppose Li Zixiao.

And what Li Zixiao wants is to let these people jump out, and then he can easily recognize those who are enemies and those who can stay and continue to use.

For these opponents and officials, Li Zixiao will soon use tough means to eradicate them one by one, and then replace them with his own people.

In the past two years, Li Zixiao has also cultivated a group of civil officials who are loyal to him and have good ability, just let these opponents go down and make room for the civil officials in their hands.

After all, when he took over Xuzhou and Huai'an, he chose a peaceful transition, and the local officials were more knowledgeable about current affairs, and not too many people opposed him.

Therefore, Li Zixiao did not carry out a major purge of the officials of the two governments, so that the civil officials under him could not be placed, and they could only study in the two government offices as deputies.

Now, the situation in Yangzhou is completely different from that of the two prefectures, and in order to control Yangzhou as soon as possible and avoid more and bigger troubles in the future, Li Zixiao can only use more violent and tougher means to take over Yangzhou.

If the situation is different, it should be treated differently!

Today, when Qu Ping'an, a big salt merchant, was at home, and when he was prostituting himself with the newly acquired fifteenth concubine during the day, he was taken directly from the bed by the white dragon sergeant who suddenly broke in.

Those members of the Qu family were used to being arrogant in Yangzhou on weekdays, and they tried to resist twice at first, but they were killed by the White Dragon sergeant in a burst, and after cutting down more than a dozen people, they were all honest.

In the face of a war machine like the army, these Qu family members who can deal with local ruffians and hooligans are not enough to see at all, and to resist is to seek death.

Including Wan Jia, there were also six other heads of salt merchant families in Yangzhou, and within half a day, they were all tied up by the White Dragon Army.

In particular, the Wan family and the Qu family also directly shocked the entire Yangzhou City in this arrest operation of officers and soldiers.

Then, Li Zixiao announced their crimes in public, without giving these people the slightest chance to justify, and then announced that all the property of the seven families was confiscated.

What's more, Li Zixiao directly beheaded the heads of two salt merchants who had little background or did not have a hard background, and then put all seven of their families in prison.

Li Zixiao's thunderous storm scared the people of the entire Yangzhou City, and Lin Yongnian, the prefect of Yangzhou, did not show up until the end of Li Zixiao's operation.

Nonsense, Lin Yongnian is Li Zixiao's father-in-law, and Li Zixiao gave Lin Yongnian a pass in advance.

Lin Yongnian actually disagreed, Li Zixiao's violent methods, but he couldn't stand Li Zixiao's decision, Lin Yongnian knew that he couldn't stop it at all.

Instead of forcibly stopping it and getting into trouble with his good son-in-law, Lin Yongnian wisely chose to go out of the city to inspect the water conservancy, and it was not until the end of Li Zixiao's operation that Lin Yongnian returned to Yangzhou.

Pan Ying didn't know that Lin Yongnian had quietly left the city, and he sent someone to the prefect's yamen to pounce, and he didn't dare to go up to stop Li Zixiao sending troops to arrest people.

Soon, a news spread in Yangzhou City: Butcher Li entered the city, and the Wan family and the Qu family were arrested, and even the family property was confiscated.

Sealing the city, arresting people, killing people, and raiding homes, Li Zixiao simply copied his home and copied out his experience, and the soldiers of the White Dragon Army copied out their experience, and a set of actions came down, like flowing water.

As Butcher Li entered the city, the news spread that the Wan and Qu families had been imprisoned and raided their homes.

Yangzhou City for a while, chickens and dogs jumped, the mountain rain was coming, many officials and salt merchants in the city could not help but feel sad about the death of rabbits and foxes, and people's hearts were panicked.

But Lin Yongnian, the prefect of Yangzhou, followed Ben and ignored the requests of the officials of the Yangzhou Association, and even the White Dragon Army blocked Yangzhou City, allowing them to enter but not to leave, so that the news could not be spread at all.

However, paper can't contain the fire, and on the third day of Li Zixiao's operation in Yangzhou, the news finally got out, and it reached Jinling half a day later.

Lu Yuanqing, the current governor of Nanzhili, immediately drafted a memo and reported Li Zixiao's atrocities to the imperial court, and a day later, the imperial court was shaken.

After Chongzhen got the news at the beginning, he was even more angry and dropped the cup directly, and immediately convened a meeting of his ministers to discuss Li Zixiao's matter.

The ministers of the DPRK and China were very angry about what Li Zixiao had done in Yangzhou, but there were disagreements on how to deal with the matter.

A group of officials headed by Chen Xinjia believed that Li Zixiao must be severely punished, and Li Zixiao's behavior was simply lawless and tantamount to rebellion.

But the officials headed by Xue Guoguan, the first assistant, thought that they should not be so reckless, Li Zixiao was the general of Zhenguo who held the seal after all, and he had tens of thousands of troops under him, so how could he be easily convicted.

They suggested that Chongzhen send someone to Yangzhou to investigate the situation, and ask Li Zixiao for a judgment before making a judgment, and finally Chongzhen adopted the suggestion of Xue Guoguan, the first assistant.

And Chongzhen didn't send someone to Yangzhou to question Li Zixiao, Li Zixiao sent someone to the capital to send off the people, and they arrived in the capital.

When Chongzhen looked at Li Zixiao's recital, the crimes committed by the Wanjia family and these salt merchants over the years had been made up by him, which made Chongzhen even more angry.

The angry Chongzhen dropped several cups again, this time he no longer scolded Li Zixiao, but scolded Wan Hongsheng for these chaotic ministers and thieves, lived up to his high expectations, and scolded those salt merchants for being national moths.

Next, Chongzhen even stopped mentioning the matter of punishing Li Zixiao, and even the old man of the Wan family who was in the capital at this time asked to see him, but Chongzhen directly refused to see him.

For a time, Li Zixiao made a fuss in Yangzhou, and the impeachment proceedings initiated by Yangzhou officials were piled up on Chongzhen's desk.

Even many ministers in the court, under the movement of the old man Wan for days, also wrote to impeach Li Zixiao, but in the face of these impeachment twists and turns, Chongzhen did not issue anything.

Even, there was news in the palace that Concubine Qu went to Chongzhen to cry, but was directly driven away by Chongzhen.

For a while, the ministers of the DPRK and China couldn't figure out what Chongzhen's attitude was towards Li Zixiao's actions in Yangzhou this time.

Many people are smart enough not to speak, but to wait and see.

Many ministers even thought that Li Zixiao's action in Yangzhou was instructed by Chongzhen, which made them even more afraid to speak out on their own.

In fact, Chongzhen's actions towards Li Zixiao in Yangzhou were created, and he maintained this attitude of not asking.

On the one hand, it was Chongzhen who was angry at Li Zixiao's various crimes related to thousands of families and several salt merchants, and even supported Li Zixiao's approach.

But more importantly, Li Zixiao wrote at the end of the recital that he raided these salt merchants in Yangzhou this time and copied out millions of silver, and the specific amount is being liquidated.

Li Zixiao told Chongzhen that after he finished copying the property of these salt merchants, he would send soldiers to send the silver to the capital and hand it over to him as soon as possible.

Now, Chongzhen, who is about to go crazy with a shortage of silver, heard that Li Zixiao was able to copy so much silver from these salt merchants, which further confirmed the crimes of these salt merchants.

Otherwise, how could they be so rich one by one.

At this time, the Ming Dynasty was about to die of poverty, and those princes and ministers in the capital did not have much silver in their homes.

A mere foreign salt merchant has amassed so much wealth, wouldn't it be directly convicted of these people's crimes?

Of course, this is all wishful thinking on the part of Chongzhen.

If Li Zixiao knew Chongzhen's idea, he would definitely tell Chongzhen: If you let me copy it in the capital, Lao Tzu can copy a few gold and silver mountains for you.

But Chongzhen's sorrow was collectively fooled by his subordinates, and he could only understand the situation outside from a piece of compromise.

In the face of Li Zixiao's impeachment and twists, none of them are as useful as Li Zixiao's excerpts, or more precisely, they are not as useful as the last sentence of Li Zixiao's excerpts.

No matter how many impeachments the ministers have, they can't help Chongzhen solve his biggest worries, silver, no silver will have no military salary, how can he maintain the Guanningjin defense line without military salary, and how can he support the domestic bandits.

And Li Zixiao doesn't care if it's appropriate or not to do it this time, but if Li Zixiao can really send the millions of taels of silver he copied, Chongzhen doesn't plan to pursue Li Zixiao in his heart.

At this time, Chongzhen even supported Li Zixiao in his heart, and had already determined that Wanjia, the Qu family, and those salt merchants were all national moths.

What made Chongzhen so resentful, he remembered that a few years ago, the Tatars entered the customs for the third time and surrounded the capital, although they finally retreated, but it also made Chongzhen tremble.

Afterwards, he raised money from those imperial relatives and wanted to rebuild the Beijing Guard Army, who knew that the Qu family only donated 30,000 taels, but at that time, among the major imperial relatives, they were relatively large.

Even, Chongzhen personally praised Qu Ping'an for this, and also gave the Qu family a royal plaque.

But now, when he got Li Zixiao to copy at least one million taels of silver from the Qu family, he felt a breath of fire in his chest.

Chongzhen used silence to support Li Zixiao this time, and I have to say that Li Zixiao is also enough to spend blood, and he is willing to take out millions of taels of silver in one go.