Lu Ming

Chapter 396
Laomulberry Garden is a Zhuangzi with a long history.The land in this village mainly produces mulberry leaves and cotton.

In the era before Emperor Jiajing, rice was mainly grown in the manor. After that, the land was gradually transformed into mulberry gardens and cotton fields, and no one grew rice.

So the fire last night directly put the tenants in the village into a desperate situation.

Four mulberry gardens ignited raging fire at the same time, which was originally impossible in Ming people's consciousness.Even if the weather is dry in winter, the mulberry trees in the mulberry garden are not lit at one point, and there is still a distance between each tree. How can they catch fire at the same time?

This kind of strange thing that had never happened before made the tenants who got up from the bed in a daze puzzled.However, there was soon no time for them to be confused, and the first thing everyone reacted was to run to put out the fire.The mulberry garden is the lifeblood, without these well-groomed mulberry trees, would everyone have to beg for food?

But fighting a fire is useless.The fire ignited by kerosene completely ignored the laws of nature. In a short period of time, a large area of ​​mulberry trees was burned through. The heat waves and fire debris scattered and ignited the remaining plants.

When people came running with wooden basins, all they saw were tree stumps braving sparks.

Unlike those tenants who were sitting on the ground crying and crying, the steward in charge of Zhuangzi quickly figured out what happened.

The steward's surname is Xu, and he is a distant relative of the Xu family.When the fire broke out, Guanshi Xu rushed out after hearing the sound of the gong to see the situation, and then grabbed the night watchman Yu Ding and asked him, he knew that the fire was man-made.

As for who Fang Sheng came to light the mulberry garden, Guanshi Xu also knew it well-ordinary thieves came and went in the middle of the night, it was all for money, why did they go to the mulberry garden if they had nothing to do, pick mulberries and eat them?It's winter now!

So this thing can't escape because of the gang of foreign country bumpkins in the private port in the south.You must know that in the past few months, Guanshi Xu has been assigned by the master to monitor the private port, and every once in a while, he will go to the master to report.

So Guanshi Xu, who is very aware of the dirty things between the Xu family and the private port, immediately guessed the murderer from the motive.

"Wait until I report to the Patriarch tomorrow, and then we'll see where the thieves go!" Standing outside the bright fire field, feeling the free warm wind, Steward Xu stared at the dark night in the south and began to swear.

However, the world is unpredictable without Guanshi Xu catching the thief. Early the next morning, the thief came to the door on his own initiative.

When the sun was just rising and the tenants in the village were still cleaning up the mess, a port construction team of 200 people came from the south.

These people lined up in a long queue, walking neatly, carrying high-priced kiln-made steel tools on their shoulders, and shouting slogans, they arrived at the junction of the port and Xujiazhuangzi, and then started construction work.

What kind of work do you do?Barrage and diversion.

Between the port and Zhuangzi, there are two small rivers that pass through the land of both sides, and one of them is the natural boundary river between the two sides.

The mission of these migrant workers today is to cut off the two small rivers and divert the water to other places.In short, the purpose of the construction is to cut off the water in Xujiazhuangzi. If the ancients did not have electricity, even the electricity would be cut off.

Of course, the activity of hundreds of people working was not small, and it was in full swing, so the tenants quickly figured out each other's intentions.

Furious, Steward Xu ran over in a hurry, rushed across a small wooden bridge on the river, and then found several supervisors on a small mound by the river.

Steward Xu, who has been in charge of monitoring the port for a long time, knew very well that these short-haired men in training uniforms were in charge of the other party, so after he ran up the mound, he yelled at the other party on the spot: "What do you want to do?"

The supervisor obviously also knew Guanshi Xu.Seeing the steward running up to him panting and furious, several people burst into laughter.Then one of the burly men stood up and said with a bit of Hangzhou dialect: "What are you doing, do you have to report it to you?"

"Bastard!" Manager Xu yelled, "This river is shared by two families, how dare you change the waterway?"

"This river was made by God, I can dig it however I want!"

"Okay, you gang of pirates!" Manager Xu now fully understands one thing: the other party came to make trouble on purpose today.So he stretched out a finger and pointed at the group of people opposite, and said through gritted teeth: "I did a big thing last night, and today I came to Duanhe again, and told the surname Xiong that I offended the Xu family. !"

"I'll fuck you." The next moment, a well-polished cowhide boot that had been meticulously cared for at first glance kicked Guanshi Xu's abdomen.

After the sound of "Ouch", Guanshi Xu rolled from the mound into the river amidst laughter.

The small river in winter was very shallow, so Guanshi Xu got up quickly after rolling into the water.At this moment, Guanshi Xu was covered in muddy water, standing in the river only knee deep, he was climbing up with the help of Yu Ding, and shouted: "Rebellion, rebellion, pirates rebellion, call people, call people! "

As a result, the villager fighting incidents that occurred almost every day in the Ming Dynasty were staged again soon.

After learning that setting the fire and breaking the river were the work of the private gang, all the tenants in the village were outraged.Hundreds of people quickly gathered on the bank of the river with hoes and dung forks, and the two sides began to scold each other across the river.

Cursing and cursing, after finding out that the migrant workers were not involved in this matter, the tenants in the village uttered a cry, and rushed over in a mighty manner stepping on the river.

Then a firecracker with white smoke exploded above the heads of the crowd.A certain force has accumulated rich experience in responding to the extremely common armed riots in rural areas in this era: capsaicin tear gas bombs lead the charge, and then sticks are enough to serve them.

The battle was soon over.

Dozens of port "security guards" easily defeated hundreds of tenants, and then the victors unceremoniously began to "whip the corpses"—even the old man who lost his combat effectiveness and was lying on the ground coughing was severely beaten. Hit two sticks on the lone crutch.

There is a saying that hits you, hurts my heart.

The miserable howls of hundreds of tenants lying on their beds resounded through the sky, reaching Xu's house thirty miles away.

Xu Jin, Master Xu, didn't wait for lunch when he saw Guanshi Xu, who was riding a fast horse with his head wrapped in a white cloth and his face covered with bruises to report the news.

After asking about the situation, Master Xu, who felt that he had suffered a major provocation, was furious, and immediately used the common tactic of scholar-bureaucrats: take my film to the county government, and arrest that bastard surnamed Xiong to speak for nothing.

Then the Jiading county government sat down.

To be precise, all the fast-track government servants who came from the main hall of Jiading County to Fang Wei and below had all died.

Before coming to the county magistrate, he had contacts with Xiong Dao, so the magistrate came to have a certain understanding of someone's strength.Although I don't know what happened to the General's Mansion in Fujian and Guangdong, even the dealers who support Xiongdao at the moment are not something that the county magistrate can afford.

You must know that there are also many poets and books among those dealers.The Xu family and Xiong Dao faced each other. Perhaps everyone was not able to intervene because of the situation. However, he came to the county magistrate as a third party. Talk!

Lai Xianye was a county magistrate in Fujian at the beginning, and he is not a fool in the officialdom.So when he saw the post from the Xu family, and asked a few words about the slaves sent by the Xu family, he came to the county magistrate and felt that he was going to sit down today. The Laoshi army will support it.

The Xu family's post ignores this fact, trying to use the inertia of the power of the gentry for hundreds of years to deal with the White Body Xiongdao.However, this method with the lowest cost is usually only able to deal with grassroots people on the street. The county magistrate who has figured out the situation now has a splitting headache, because he is caught between two huge forces, and if one is not good, he will eat melons. fall.

Lai Xianzun had a premonition: he would not be able to do well in this matter anyway, it was nothing more than a matter of how much he lost.

After yelling at the Xu family who cheated him in his heart, the county magistrate finally issued a check.

This is impossible.First of all, the county magistrate is an official scholar-bureaucrat after all. Even if there are people behind Xiong Dao, he is a white body after all. On the spot, Lai Xianzun couldn't turn a blind eye to that post, even if he hated the Xu family deeply now.

Secondly, although the people don't raise officials and don't investigate, but after all, Xujiazhuangzi had a case of fighting and arson under the jurisdiction of the county.Now that Ming Dafang has sued the court, according to the law, the county magistrate also needs to summon the original defendant and others to the court for questioning.

Then it's time for the fast class head catchers to have a headache.

After the county magistrate issued the check, he had to arrest the head to execute it.However, the headhunters had lent their manpower to participate in the demolition of Xiongdao in private. Besides, in the past six months, everyone was very familiar with that private harbor, and everyone had benefited there, so the headhunters were more Starting from the magistrate of the county, he understood more clearly what a terrible task he was facing.

In the end, Butou Bian, one of the top three catchers in the fast class, lost to the other two in the dice roll, so he had no choice but to admit that he was unlucky, and picked up a few cronies under his command, and they all set foot on the road to the port in desolation. path of.

Butcher Bian didn't bring many people this time, not a single one of the white handymen: Master Xiong who was summoned had fast guns under his command, and he brought so many people there, it would be bad if he was misunderstood.

However, Catcher Bian was finally shot: when the group arrived at the commercial area outside the port in the evening, they found that the intersection of the empty commercial area had already been set up as a horse.The next moment, Bian Tutou was hit by a row of lead bullets from a musket, and then he was so alive that a ricochet went into his apprentice's calf, bleeding profusely on the spot.

"Who is coming?"

"Grandpa, don't shoot, don't shoot, it's me, it's me, old Bian of the county government!"

"Old Bian? What are you doing here?"

"This... By the county order, come to invite Master Xiong to drink tea and appreciate Fengyue!"

(End of this chapter)