The Ming Dynasty's Spokesperson

Of course, faced with these thousands of people who suddenly appeared, Governor Yang's current state of mind was just surprise, not fear.

The first is because he is protected by elite soldiers, and there are thousands of Yangzhou guards in the city to support him, which is enough to ensure his safety in the event of a civil uprising.

The second reason is that he, as the governor, has just taken office and has never been to Yangzhou City before. No matter how big the accident is now, what responsibility can he have?

According to the Ming Dynasty's official rules, he may be forced to deal with the aftermath, but he certainly cannot be blamed for causing the accident.

If it has no impact on personal safety or career interests, then what does Governor Yang have to worry about?

Maybe you can turn a bad thing into a good thing and get some benefits from the disposal process. Old bureaucrats all know this.

However, Zheng Zhiyan, the salt merchant leader who accompanied the governor, was a little frightened. He even doubted his life for a moment. Whose territory is Yangzhou City?

If today's scene was secretly instigated and organized by Lin Tailai, should it be so exaggerated?

The mobilization of a few hundred people a few days ago was shocking enough, but today there was a scene involving thousands of people!

Where did these horse riders come from? Do you guys work for Lin Tailai for free?

So whose home field is Yangzhou City? Why could Lin Tailai, who came from out of town, be able to mobilize troops and mobilize people like this so casually?

Just when everyone was having different thoughts, among the thousands of people who blocked the city gate, someone suddenly shouted: "The Governor of Hecao is shielding the salt merchants and harming the Cao army!"

Everyone: "???"

Regardless of whether this slogan is correct or not, everyone can still understand the first half of it. After all, Governor Yang and Zheng Yanshang look like they are from the same family.

But what the hell is the second half of the sentence, "Cruelty of the Cao Army"?

Governor Yang gave a few instructions in the sedan chair, and then the flag officer came out with his sword drawn and scolded the crowd of thousands: "Who do you dare to gather people here to cause chaos?"

Suddenly a stone was thrown out of nowhere and hit the flag official on the head.

The flag official was used to being arrogant outside. After receiving such a blow, he immediately flew into a rage. He pulled out his sword out of habit and cursed: "You are the one seeking death!"

Then the crowd started to stir, and someone took the lead and swarmed up, punching and kicking the flag official.

Several of the surrounding governor's pacesetters wanted to come to the rescue, but they were also beaten up.

Immediately, the scene fell into chaos, and thousands of people started making trouble together. It was no joke.

The other governor's pacesetters quickly retracted and tightly protected the governor's sedan to ensure that the governor would not be violated.

But the governor's guard of honor in front was unlucky. Official flags and the like were either trampled or torn to pieces and thrown to the ground like garbage.

Fortunately, these gangsters seemed to have some sense of control. They beat up the flag officers and a few pacesetters, and then stopped after colliding with the governor's guard of honor.

Next, they did not attack the governor's sedan chair, nor did they harm innocent people or kill randomly around them.

This damn sense of proportion gave the melon-eaters in the distance a familiar feeling.

Last time at the crossroads near Xiaodongmen, when hundreds of Suzhou people beat up the Zheng family's thugs, they had the same sense of propriety!

Suddenly someone shouted: "Where is Zheng Salt Merchant!"

Zheng Zhiyan, the salt merchant leader in Yangzhou City, seemed to be frightened. He immediately abandoned his servants and squeezed into the governor's pacesetter.

Only under the protection of the governor's pacesetters can the scene feel a little safer.

Governor Yang's face in the sedan chair was livid. This conflict came out of nowhere! It's like a show of force from behind!

Ask yourself, he didn't do anything, why are these rioters making trouble against him like this?

Who can gather thousands of people and still be able to use their hands like an arm?

Everything was like a fog, making Governor Yang, an old bureaucrat in his fifties, completely unable to find Bei.

The blind flag officer had been beaten and no one knew who he was, so the middle officer in charge of the governor's pacesetters had no choice but to step forward in person.

He fully learned the lesson from the flag officer and did not shout or threaten. He just asked: "Has any leader come forward to speak? Who are you and what are your demands?"

No one in the crowd responded, but the Suzhou military attache Zhao Dawu and Zhao Baihu who had just persuaded the governor to release the people came strolling over from behind again.

Then he said to the Chinese officer: "These people are Cao Army brothers who came from Suzhou. I am so angry that Yang Junmen favored the salt merchants and arrested the Cao Army brothers indiscriminately!"

The governor generally also manages military affairs, and it is common for military attachés to address the governor as a military officer.

The Chinese officer looked confused. Even if it was a fabrication, could he be more professional?

Governor Yang had just gotten off the ship and hadn't even entered the city. Where did he get all this dirty information?

Zhao Baihu seemed to understand the doubts of the military officer, and took the initiative to explain: "When the Cao army returns, they can transport goods along the way. You also know that, right?"

In today's Ming Dynasty, there is a special policy that allows water transport ships to load commodities when they return empty.

This policy is still very good. It has two benefits. The first is that it does not waste hundreds of thousands of tons of shipping capacity on the return trip and promotes the flow of goods between the north and the south.

The second is that the Cao army in charge of water transportation is too hard-working. In this way, certain subsidies can be given to the Cao army without increasing the court's expenditure.

The Chinese officer nodded. Of course he knew this policy, but what does it have to do with today's scene?

Zhao Baihu said calmly: "The dozen Suzhou people who were arrested by the military gate just now are all Cao soldiers who transported grain to the Yangzhou warehouse."

The Chinese officer couldn't understand this. After the Wu Tian family complained just now, but Governor Yang refused to accept it, a dozen more suspicious people showed up, carrying two "witnesses", and then they were all arrested by Governor Yang. .

Could it be that Zhao Baihu means that these dozen of people are from the Cao Army of the Suzhou Guard?

But why did the Cao army from Suzhou get involved in Wu Tian's complaint?

Zhao Baihu does understand other people's doubts very well. Most people can't understand this, or the layout of a certain high official is a bit complicated and must be explained in detail.

So he once again took the initiative to explain in detail: "Those dozen Cao troops had previously had a cooperation agreement with the Wu family, and they used air canal ships to transport the Wu family's salt back to Suzhou and make profits from it in partnership.

Unexpectedly, the Wu family was ambushed and annihilated by the Zheng family, and most of their members and goods were lost.

Now that the Wu family has been destroyed, the plan of a dozen Cao troops to join forces with the Wu family to make profits has naturally come to nothing.

Out of righteous indignation, they searched for two witnesses from the Zheng family and brought them to Yang Junmen today.

Unexpectedly, in order to favor the Zheng family, Yang Junmen arrested more than a dozen Cao soldiers indiscriminately. "

Hearing this, the lieutenant general was shocked and his eyes widened involuntarily.

Although the whole situation is not clear yet, I can feel intuitively that an accident is about to happen.

As usual, the Governor of Fengyang is also the Governor of Hecao. It can even be said that the Hecao affairs are the most important errand of Governor Fengyang!

But a river governor, in order to favor salt merchants, arrested the Cao army who completed the task of transporting grain. This already sounds like a "political scandal".

From a certain perspective, the Cao army worked hard in order to complete the errands of the Governor of Hecao.

It would be really ugly if the Governor of Hecao sided with "outsiders" like salt merchants and arrested the Cao army unreasonably.

Not to mention that these Cao troops were from the Suzhou Guards in the south of the Yangtze River, not from the Yangzhou Guards and Fengyang Guards in the north of the Yangtze River, and the jurisdiction did not belong to the Governor of Hecao, the governor of Fengyang.

Zhao Baihu was still very calm, pointing at the thousands of people making trouble, as if he was talking about something completely unrelated to him:

"Most of these people are from the Cao Army of our Suzhou Guard, transporting the first batch of Cao grain this year to the Yangzhou warehouse.

We Cajun brothers have always been very united when we are away from home. If one person is in trouble, there are thousands of Cajun brothers to help him!

Today, a dozen Caojun brothers who are also from Suzhou Guard are suing the salt merchant Zheng family. Of course, others will come to support them.

Unexpectedly, in broad daylight, in order to protect illegal salt merchants, Yang Junmen directly ordered the arrest of these dozen Caojun brothers!

The other Caojun brothers witnessed this with their own eyes, how could they not be filled with righteous indignation? How can you not get angry?

Therefore, it is completely normal for such a mutiny to occur when the patience is exhausted. What is there to be surprised about? "

Lieutenant Commander: "."

He finally figured out what was going on.

What I originally saw was that in the first step, Wu Tian filed a lawsuit against the Zheng family, and Governor Yang carefully avoided the trap and refused to accept the lawsuit. This is normal.

Then came the second step. More than a dozen people provided evidence of the Zheng family's crimes. In order to help the Zheng family, Governor Yang temporarily arrested these more than a dozen people in the name of investigation.

This is also normal. Both the complainant and the person providing evidence are small people and cannot make waves.

According to official experience, taking on such an inexplicable case is likely to be a trap and fall into other people's rhythm.

But I can use a different name, put myself first, and do things at my own pace, so that I can avoid pitfalls.

Then came the third step. Thousands of people gathered inexplicably to cause trouble. It was suspected that they were controlled and organized by mysterious figures from Suzhou.

However, this kind of trouble has no lethal effect on the governor at all. At most, it is superficially lively.

But it seems that someone has used a trick to deceive everyone's eyes. In fact, the truth is not as above!

The truth of the matter is: the governor and governor of the rivers and rivers broke the law and in order to protect the salt merchants, led to a large-scale mutiny in the Cao army!

The military officer found that he was no longer qualified to reply to Zhao Baihu at this time. The only thing he could do was to quickly turn around and report to the governor!

Yang Junmin, the governor of Fengyang and the governor of Hecao, who was in the sedan chair, was immediately shocked when he heard the report from the military officer.

And I was immersed in the most profound philosophical questions and couldn't extricate myself for a long time.

who I am? where am I? What am I doing?

When I gave the order just now, I just wanted to arrest a dozen Suzhou people, and I could follow the clues to find out the shady background of these Suzhou people.

But what I didn't expect was that these dozen people were actually Cao Jun, and I didn't expect that there would be a rapid chain reaction behind it!

After getting off the boat, every step I took was to avoid pitfalls, but unexpectedly, every step I took was to step on pitfalls!

If he had directly accepted Wu Tian's complaint and initiated judicial proceedings, there wouldn't have been so much trouble!

If he had accepted the witnesses provided by more than a dozen Cao troops, it wouldn't be that much trouble either!

The governor of Hecao triggered a mutiny in the Cao army. Which bastard made up this script?

Governor Yang couldn't sit still any longer. He got out of the sedan chair and looked up and saw Zheng Zhiyan.

He directly expressed his anger: "This is the trouble you caused! What do you think we should do now! Can you go and solve the problem?"

Zheng Zhiyan couldn't figure out what he had done wrong.

Big fish eating small fish happens every day, let alone a capital-intensive industry like the salt industry.

If you kill the Wu family yourself, what big deal is that? Why is this so?

In fact, Zheng Zhiyan's idea is not wrong from the perspective of a big salt merchant. The phenomenon of land annexation also exists in the salt industry.

To give an example from another time and space, why do the great salt merchants of the Qing Dynasty seem to be ten or dozens of times wealthier than the salt merchants of the Ming Dynasty?

In addition to factors such as the increase in population and output, the biggest reason is that the salt industry developed to the Qing Dynasty and became a monopoly.

In the late Ming Dynasty, there were one to two hundred salt merchants in Yangzhou, but by the middle of the Qing Dynasty, the Yangzhou salt merchants were monopolized by the Twenty-Four General Merchants, and all other small and medium-sized salt merchants were dependent on the Twenty-Four General Merchants.

Therefore, in this industry with fierce mergers and acquisitions, Zheng Zhiyan, who is determined to consolidate his position as the number one salt merchant, really does not think that getting rid of the Wu family is a big deal, and he has never taken it seriously.

Even if Wu Tianshi ran into Lin Tailai's house, from Zheng's point of view, it was just a merging of enemies.

But he never expected that someone could use the Wu family's affairs to make such a fancy article!

Such a layout has exceeded his cognitive ability and has also dragged down his most critical backer, the governor.

Now that the governor is directly taking the blame, how should he solve the problem?

The key is who should he talk to? He does not have the ability and prestige to face thousands of "rebellious troops" from other places.

After thinking about it, Zheng Zhiyan cautiously came not far from Zhao Baihu and asked, "Can Master Zhao restrain the Suzhou Cao Army?"

Zhao Baihu glanced at Yuan Zheng sideways and declined, "Even if I were a Baihu official, I wouldn't be able to disobey the wishes of all the Cao army brothers and forcibly suppress their anger, right?"

The main reason is that a certain official who planned the script only gave him the power to arrange the scene, but did not give him the power to negotiate and conclude.

In fact, the relationship between a certain high-ranking official from the mixed society and the Suzhou Guards was just like that. He was hunted down by the Suzhou Guards officers and soldiers, and even beat up the children of military families in the Wu Scholar Examination.

Zhao Baihu, who transported grain from Suzhou to Yangzhou warehouse, was originally a proud man, but a certain high-ranking official gave him too much.

After returning to Suzhou City, Jiangnan Governor Zhao Zhigao will report to promote Zhao Dawu to deputy Qianhu!

Moreover, Zhao Dawu will be transferred from the Cao Army system, which is hard and tiring, traveling all year round, and easy to bear responsibilities, to a more relaxed city defense system, or to the governor's standard camp, where he can choose freely.

Zhao Baihu could not refuse these conditions, so he took his brothers from the Cao Army to cooperate with Lin Daguan.

Anyway, his military status was under the Suzhou Guard and under the jurisdiction of the governor of Jiangnan. The governor of Fengyang in the north of the Yangtze River had no authority to punish the military attachés in the south of the Yangtze River.

Just when Zheng Yuanwai was frustrated with Zhao Baihu and didn't know who to talk to, suddenly a tall figure rushed between the mutinous Cao army and the governor's pacesetters, and shouted anxiously:

"They are all hanging out in Jiangzuo. Don't look down and see each other. Don't hurt your harmony. Peace is the most precious thing!"

I have a bit of self-doubt. Is it a good read to explain a lot of chapters like this?