Thief Emperor

Chapter 303 Jiangnan Thief
The Second Prince took more than a month to return to the capital from Jiangnan.

The first half was fine. Li Yun kept his promise and asked Zhou Liang to escort him with the Yuezhou soldiers. After leaving Jiangnan, Zhou Liang took his men back.

The world is in chaos now.

Wu Yuanyou himself and his ceremonial guard consisted of only about 100 to 200 people, and they only took the official road along the way. They still encountered seven or eight robbers. Fortunately, these robbers were not very powerful, and in the entire Central Plains region, except for Henan Prefecture, the local government offices in other places had more or less recovered.

With the help of the local government, Wu Yuanyou finally stumbled back to the capital.

Of the more than one hundred people he took out before leaving, only more than seventy were left when they saw the capital.

Most of the grain that was escorted back was lost by him because it was too heavy.

However, the money that was pawned and valuables such as gold and silver were not lost much, and basically all of them were pawned back.

After finally reaching the outskirts of the capital, people from the imperial court immediately came out to greet him. They knelt on the ground and kowtowed to Wu Yuanyou: "Your Highness, welcome back to the capital!"

Wu Yuanyou sat in the carriage, looked out, and then cursed: "Get out!"

This official was sent by the crown prince to receive the money and grain. After being scolded, he did not dare to get angry. He just lowered his head and said, "Your Highness, I will be responsible for counting the money and grain you brought back from your inspection tour of Jiangnan!"

"Fuck your mother!"

Wu Yuanyou got even angrier after hearing this, and after cursing again, he gritted his teeth and said, "Send them all back to the Prince of Chu's Palace. Come to the Prince of Chu's Palace in a few days to get them!"

After that, Wu Yuanyou yelled and cursed. The driver did not dare to neglect it. The convoy continued to move forward. After a few steps, it stopped again. His Royal Highness the King of Chu leaned out of the carriage, looked at the official kneeling on the side of the road, and shouted, "Come here!"

The official hurriedly trotted forward, bowed and said, "Your Highness, please give your orders."

"You and I, go to the Prince of Chu's Palace together and count the money and grain. Damn it, don't let me risk my life to go out and work hard, only to be accused of stealing money from it in a few days!"

The official was dragged into the car by Wu Yuanyou's entourage while he was in a daze.

He was sitting on the shaft of Wu Yuanyou's carriage. Although he could not enter the carriage, he could vaguely hear the crying of His Royal Highness the King of Chu in the carriage.

The official from the Eastern Palace scratched his head, greatly shocked.

Your Highness the Prince of Chu, what kind of injustice did you suffer in Jiangnan?

…………

After His Royal Highness the Prince of Chu returned to the Prince of Chu's Palace, he slept for a day and a night, and then fought with the young ladies in the palace for two days. On the fourth day, he finally recovered from the fright he had suffered, put on a dragon robe, and was ordered to go to the palace to discuss matters.

After arriving at the Council Hall and sitting down, several prime ministers looked at the chubby Prince of Chu and found it a little funny.

Prime Minister Cui Yuan smiled and said, "Your Highness, you have had a hard journey."

Wu Yuanyou snorted, "It wasn't hard, I just almost died outside."

"Next time something like this happens, I will never go there even if I am beaten to death."

He looked around and continued, "Didn't my royal brother summon me to discuss matters? Where is my royal brother?"

Cui Yuan coughed and said, "The Crown Prince has gone to see His Majesty and will be here soon. Your Highness, don't be anxious."

"You went to see the Emperor?"

Wu Yuanyou's expression became a little strange, but he just nodded and didn't say much.

After waiting in the Council Hall for half an hour, His Royal Highness the Crown Prince finally arrived.

At this time, His Royal Highness the Crown Prince no longer had the high spirits of the past, and his face was already exhausted. After entering the government hall, he saw Wu Yuanyou and just said silently: "My second brother is here."

Wu Yuanyou stood up and saluted, then took out a list from his sleeve, placed it on the table, and said, "Brother Emperor, this is what I have earned after months of hard work in Jiangnan. It is a total of more than 50,000 taels of gold, more than 100,000 taels of silver, and 400,000 strings of cash."

"The rest are some antiques, calligraphy and paintings."

Wu Yuanyou gritted his teeth and said, "Originally, we escorted a lot of food back, but we ate a lot of it along the way, and we encountered bandits several times, so we had to abandon it all."

His Royal Highness took the list and looked at it, then handed it to several prime ministers, looked at Wu Yuanyou, and asked, "According to the report sent back by my second brother, these are only the gains from Mingzhou and Wujun?"

"Yes."

Wu Yuanyou replied: "Jiangnan is rich, especially the salt merchants. I have seized a lot of money from their properties."

The prince sighed, "From this point of view, if my second brother can tour all the prefectures and counties in Jiangnan West Road and Jiangnan East Road, the court's urgent needs will be resolved."

Wu Yuanyou was furious in his heart, but he also suppressed his anger on his face. He gritted his teeth and said, "That's easy. Brother, please send me 50,000 troops. I will go to inspect Jiangnan immediately and solve this urgent problem for the court!"

While the two brothers were fighting, several prime ministers were just watching from the sidelines. No one spoke. Some did not dare to interrupt, while others were gloating.

The prince frowned and said, "I know your difficulties. Why are you so angry when I just said that?" "This is the government hall. Is there still any respect for seniority?"

Wu Yuanyou's face turned red with anger.

He survived a life-threatening situation in Jiangnan, and most of the time he had to be humble and modest to gain Li Yun's protection.

After going through so much trouble to return to the capital, he received such a reply. How could he not be angry?

The prince did not look at his brother's expression again, but put the list into his sleeve, and finally looked at everyone and said slowly: "We have discussed the matter of Wei Quanzhong coming to the capital two days ago. Father also said today that it is impossible to let 10,000 Shuofang troops enter Guanzhong, and he must issue an edict to reprimand Wei Quanzhong."

"Today, let's talk about the autumn tax."

The prince sat in the main seat, looked at everyone, and said, "How much autumn tax can be sent from all places this year?"

Hearing this topic, Wu Yuanyou yawned and said, "Brother, Prime Ministers, I can't stand listening to these boring things. It's too boring. I'm going back to sleep."

The prince glared at him and cursed, "Sit down!"

"I'll ask you something later."

Wu Yuanyou looked at Crown Prince Wu Yuancheng with some dissatisfaction, but still sat down angrily.

Several prime ministers looked at each other, and Prime Minister Min Fang said: "The autumn taxes from all places are being collected. There is no problem with Guanzhong, and there should be no problem with Bashu either."

Having said this, he stopped talking.

This means that apart from these two areas, there may be problems elsewhere.

Several other prime ministers also spoke up and repeated the information.

The prince reached out and knocked on the table, interrupting the prime ministers, and then said, "Let's take a look at the autumn tax in Jiangnan East Road."

He pulled out a document from his sleeve and said, "In the East Road of Jiangnan, there is a group of thieves called Hexi bandits. The governor of Taizhou reported that the autumn tax of Taizhou was robbed by this group of Hexi bandits when it was halfway to the destination."

"In the past few days, I have received reports from the governors of Mingzhou, Muzhou, Huzhou, Changzhou and other states. The tone of their reports is almost exactly the same. They all said that the autumn taxes in their states were robbed by bandits."

Prime Minister Min Fang sneered, "I'm afraid these states have lost their conscience. Seeing that the court is in some difficulties, they even embezzled the autumn tax and put the blame on the Hexi thieves!"

The prince had a blank expression on his face and said, "In the entire Jiangnan East Road, there are only two states that are exceptions. One state, Yuezhou, requested last year to reduce this year's taxes and grain. Several prime ministers..."

Having said this, he glanced at the prime ministers and said calmly, "Okay."

"The other one is Wuzhou."

"All the money and grain from Wuzhou has been paid and is on its way to the capital."

"what."

As soon as the prince finished speaking, several prime ministers frowned, and His Royal Highness the Prince of Chu, who was listening at the side, could not help laughing out loud, but he only uttered one byte before covering his mouth in time.

The prince took a deep breath and looked at his younger brother, but he didn't say much. Instead, he continued, "Based on this, it will be difficult to collect the autumn tax in the entire Jiangnan East Road this year."

Prime Minister Cui Yuan suddenly said, "Gu Yuan sent a letter back some time ago, saying that Wuzhou has a lot of troops, far more than three or four thousand. The troops sent to Luzhou before were only a part of Wuzhou's troops."

"Gu Yuan also said that the governor of Wuzhou is very ambitious."

The prince looked expressionless at Wu Yuanyou and said, "Second brother, you have met Li Zhao before, tell me what you think."

Wu Yuanyou lowered his head to drink tea, then calmly put down the cup and said calmly, "I don't know about other subjects, but I only know that Li Zhao brought more than a hundred people and wiped out the four hundred government troops of Wujun in one hour."

"With more than a thousand Wuzhou soldiers, we swept through Wujun and had no rivals."

Upon hearing this, Prime Minister Min Fang suddenly whispered, "It seems that if there is indeed this Hexi bandit in the East Road of Jiangnan, he must be related to Wuzhou."

Cui Xianggong nodded and said, "The Hexi bandits came from the Hexi Village case in Shidai County, Xuanzhou two years ago. This Wuzhou governor Li Zhao is from Xuanzhou."

The prince gnashed his teeth in anger and slammed the table fiercely: "Thief!"

After cursing like this, he angrily said: "Isn't Gu Yuan still in Wuzhou? Send him a letter and ask him to ask Li Zhao what he wants to do and what he wants!"

"Other…"

"Send Zheng Yu, who recommended him to be the governor!"

His Royal Highness the Crown Prince was filled with murderous intent.

"Imprison and severe punishment!"

(End of this chapter)