Back to the end of Ming Dynasty to be a warlord

Chapter 297
After finishing the negotiation with Zheng Hongkui, Yang Chao severely reprimanded He Mingyu in private, annoyed that He Mingyu didn't tell him about Zheng Hongkui in advance.

He Mingyu is a well-connected person, and now he almost relies on the Jinchai Building Exchange, and his career has reached a new level. With this alone, he can't afford to offend Yang Chao, so he explained with a smile, saying that he didn't know in advance, and he didn't Thinking that Zheng Hongkui would come forward in person.

Then he explained Zheng Hongkui's situation to Yang Chao in detail.

Zheng Hongkui used to be called Zheng Zhifeng. It was the dragon and phoenix combination that matched Zheng Zhilong, and was obviously the core figure of the Zheng Group.

But in order to participate in the martial arts exam, he changed this Zheng Hongkui so that he could get rid of the pirate mark on his body.

Relying on the martial arts skills developed by hard work at sea, and the secret escort of the Zheng family's financial resources, Zheng Zhifeng was admitted to the Wu Jinshi as he wished.

Then he got the false title of Commander of the Jinyiwei Capital in Nanjing. The Commander of the Jinyiwei Capital seems very bluffing, but it just sounds good, and the status may not even be comparable to a real-time hundred households.

But the daughter of the Zheng family just wanted to find a position for Zheng Zhifeng in Nanjing, so she only needed a false job, and didn't plan to really get him an official position, and then go to make money.

The Zheng family tried their best to install Zheng Zhifeng to Nanjing, obviously with other plans, and the plan was nothing more than the stable supply of goods he had controlled.

But Zheng Zhifeng has not been going well in the past few years. Other things are easy to talk about, but when it comes to interests, the wealthy families in the south of the Yangtze River will not give in at all. In the final analysis, the wealthy family of noble gentry at the core still looked down on the strength of pirates like the Zheng family.

But Yang Chao suddenly came out and wanted to cooperate with the Zheng family. Although he didn't know Yang Chao's intentions at the beginning, being able to establish a relationship with a local force like Yang Chao was exactly what they had been looking for, so Zheng Hongkui came out personally. In fact, they also attach great importance to it.

After listening to He Mingyu's introduction, Yang Chao suddenly realized. No wonder Zheng Hongkui agreed so simply and accepted his price increase in the end, but only showed a little dissatisfaction. Obviously they also need Yang Chao, so this time the two sides hit it off, and both need each other.

It's just that Zheng Hongkui also left a list of prisoners for Yang Chao, and asked Yang Chao to fish them out, saying that they were all brothers from the past who were arrested by the government.

Regarding this list, Yang Chao has two guesses. First, this is a test for the Zheng family. They want to see Yang Chao's true ability, and they don't blindly believe in Yang Chao's name. Second, the Zheng family hopes to see Seeing Yang Chao's sincerity, I want Yang Chao to do something for them first to prove that Yang Chao doesn't just want to use the Zheng family, but is sincerely willing to cooperate with the Zheng family and really values ​​the Zheng family.

As for the list given by Zheng Hongkui, it was captured by the government after supplying the Zheng family a few years ago.

There are four groups in total: the first group is two people from Huizhou, Wang Youde and Qiu Shangqing; the second group is Yang Mingfeng and Zhang Yu from Suzhou; Yu, Lin Zhixian, boatman Sheng Youen, sailor Wang Er, Zhou Yi, Fang Sichuan; the fourth batch is the boat owners Shi Qiaohe, Shi Yuheng, Cheng Wuwei, Wang Yanggeng, sailors Li San, Li Da, and boatman Wu Shiliu.

These four groups of gangsters were all accused of using the Japanese. In fact, they were returning the goods to the sea. The Ming Dynasty was extremely prejudiced against those who were engaged in maritime trade. Anyone who went abroad was given a discriminatory charge of using the Japanese.

Another similarity is that these people were all arrested by the same person, and Yang Chao is still familiar with this person. It is Zhang Guowei, the governor of the ten prefectures. A few years ago, Zhang Xianzhong invaded the south of the Yangtze River. , Shi Kefa went home to attend the funeral, and this Zhang Guowei succeeded him.

To be honest, Zhang Guowei's ability to lead troops is much stronger than that of Shi Kefa. At the most critical time, Zhang Xianzhong fought to Jiangpu on the north bank of Nanjing. Nearby, it can be said that he has the talent to lead troops.

And Zhang Guowei also arrested these Japanese criminals at that time. He took soldiers from the Suzhou area in his hand and supervised the Yangtze River line. As a result, many smugglers were caught, and these four batches were only a small part.

But these four batches happened to be the local forces developed by the Zheng family. Obviously, the Zheng family wanted to enter the south of the Yangtze River and control the supply of goods. It had already started. After the failure last time, they chose to let Zheng Hongkui, a senior official, take the martial arts exam directly. , and then personally sit in Jiangnan.

After Yang Chao read these lists carefully, he immediately felt that there was a deep sense of conspiracy in them.

It is an open secret in Jiangnan that the wealthy families in Jiangnan have access to the sea, but they do not directly return goods to Japan. It is too dangerous. Sitting and eating Zheng's.

The rich people enjoyed their food, so they naturally didn't want to see the Zheng family come in and control the supply of goods by themselves, that's not bad.

But the Zheng family dared to strike directly, and they would definitely not be cruel. The people they were looking for, whether they were Huizhou people or Su Zou people, were all big local forces. Moreover, there were some desperadoes doing things for these people. If the wealthy family really wanted to do it themselves, they had to consider the damage, so they simply borrowed Zhang Guowei's hands.

Zhang Guowei obviously didn't want to see the seriousness of Tongwa, and he happened to be holding a heavy army to supervise Jiangnan. The wealthy clan only needed to disclose a little news to Zhang Guowei through various channels, and Zhang Guowei would just lead his troops to arrest people.

Yang Chao also went to the Ministry of Criminal Justice to check the files, and found that it was very close to what he had guessed, because when Zhang Guowei arrested these people, many of them were captured directly on the boat, and there were sailor guards along the river at that time. Officers and soldiers are escorting,
Among them, Zhang Guowei left the words "Wang Xian, the inspector Wang Xian, can't be arrested early, and he will be escorted out of the country". Obviously, the Zheng family has already opened up the officers and soldiers of the local guards and established a stable cargo chain. In the end, they were still killed by the rich. .

However, Zhang Guowei later returned to Suzhou to sit in the town after the supervision of the teacher. These people have been imprisoned in the Nanjing prison. They were neither sentenced nor exiled, and they stayed there for five or six years.

This must be another battle between the Jiangnan Hao family and the Zheng family. As long as the Zheng family does not give up running Jiangnan by themselves, the Hao family will never let go of these people, and will let these guys who cooperate with the Zheng family go to jail to give others a warning.

If the Zheng family wanted to run Jiangnan, they had to get those people who had worked with them out, otherwise no one would be willing to cooperate with them in the future.

"The intrigue is very powerful!"

After understanding the inside story in detail, Yang Chao couldn't help sighing.

It seemed that he was involved in a fierce power struggle again, but this time it was not political power, but commercial power, wealth power, but Yang Chao had to be involved.

Simply hand over this trouble to Shi Kefa, let Shi Kefa mediate, and release these people. Anyway, Shi Kefa pulled Yang Chao into this vortex, and it is unreasonable not to ask him to help.

It's not that Yang Chao didn't dare to find people by himself, but that Yang Chao didn't have so much leisure time, because Yang Chao's recruits came back, and he wanted to sit in the barracks and train these elite soldiers as soon as possible. , I am afraid it is not so easy.

But in this way, Yang Chao will not have to fight against the Jiangnan wealthy family in advance, because Shi Kefa secretly helps the emperor to do things and help the court earn money. It is impossible to reveal that Yang Chao wants him to take action. Other ways to do this matter, in the eyes of outsiders, I am afraid that Shi Kefa will do it himself. Why did Shi Kefa make the move? Is it because the Zheng family opened up Shi Kefa's door, or the families of those criminals are old with Shi Kefa, let those wealthy families guess Even if they were killed, they would not be able to guess that Yang Chao was behind the scenes.

When these powerful families really know about Yang Chao, they will probably face the pressure of Yang Chao's thousands of elite soldiers.

Before returning to the barracks, Yang Chao drank tea with Dong Xiaowan and Chen Yuanyuan in the Jinchai Building, and then went to the Meixiang Building the next day, and invited Li Xiangjun and Gu Mei to have a chat, not Yang Chao I am interested in flirting with these women, but since Yang Chao returned to Nanjing, they have invited them many times. Yang Chao has no time and is going back to the barracks. I am afraid that he will be busy for a long time, so he took the initiative Be the host and give them an explanation.

But this time, Yang Chao finally felt something was wrong. Dong Xiaowan's intentions towards Yang Chao were already obvious, and he was short of expressing his willingness to be Yang Chao's concubine. Yang Chao's meaning was not surprising. After being protected by Tian Wan, Dong Xiaowan began to win over the young and old of the Yang family behind the scenes, coaxing Yang Chao's family to be very satisfied.

Yang Chao is not a fool. In his previous life, he was also a veteran of flowers. He was good at loving his children. Knowing that Dong Xiaowan had gone through twists and turns, he felt a strong sense of crisis about his own life, and wanted to find a strong arm to rely on. Yang Chao His arms were apparently thick enough to protect her forever.

But Yang Chao was a little puzzled about Li Xiangjun, how could Li Xiangjun take a fancy to him, after sorting out the relationship with Li Xiangjun, Yang Chao found that he had once walked a long way with this little girl, and Li Xiangjun was not very friendly to him , Why did he suddenly change his attitude.

Since Yang Chao returned to Nanjing, Li Xiangjun held several poetry conferences and invited Yang Chao, but firstly, Yang Chao was really busy, and secondly, he really didn't dare to make a fool of himself, so he plagiarized a few poems himself, but in terms of The true talent and learning of poetry is really not comparable to that of a scribe like the fourth son.

So I declined Li Xiangjun's poetry meeting, only to find out later that Li Xiangjun's poetry meeting was actually held for Yang Chao, and it was not about romance at all, but about gold and iron horses.

This made Yang Chao feel, could it be that because no one loves heroes, Li Xiangjun, a young girl who has not yet arrived, has developed a good impression of him?

At this time Liu Rushi came to the door, and Yang Chao planned to ask this friend of Li Xiangjun.

(End of this chapter)