Just when Shen Faxing and Lu Yan were at a loss what to do, a servant broke into the study and said, "Alang, the second elder of the Xuanwu Gang is here, saying that there is something extremely urgent."
"Oh?" Shen Faxing was stunned for a moment, and then said: "Invite him."
The second elder of the Xuanwu Gang is named Liu Jian. This man is a veteran who fought with Wang Nianzu. A few years ago, he also attached great importance to righteousness and could not be bribed no matter how hard he tried. However, Liu Jian's eldest grandson was quite good at reading and was always regarded by Liu Jian as his hope to shine. However, because they had no official connections, the son had not been an official since graduating the year before last. This made those who were proud of him Liu Jian was extremely distressed and desperate. So Shen Faxing used his connections to arrange for Liu Jian's eldest grandson to join the Xinfeng County Yamen and serve as a clerk. In this way, Liu Jian was successfully bribed, making him the most senior agent of the Jiangnan League in the Xuanwu Gang.
Soon, the servant introduced Liu Jian into the study, and he bowed his hands to Shen Faxing and Lu Yan: "Leader Shen, Leader Lu, Mr. Liu's visit late at night actually has something to do with your life and death..."
As he spoke, he looked outside again.
When Shen Faxing and Lu Yan saw him facing a formidable enemy, they couldn't help but panic. Shen Faxing went out to take a look, then closed the door and signaled to Liu Jian, "Sit down and talk!"
"Yes, yes, yes!" Liu Jian said yes, but he couldn't sit down. He walked around anxiously: "The Jiangnan League has been too rampant these years, and finally attracted a big shot. General Ba There is a big change, a huge change! At this time, whatever you do is wrong, and even if you do nothing, you will be wrong! You are finished, you are completely finished, and none of you will survive."
Something happened at Shen Faxing's house just now, and his wife and children were taken away. At this time, he was frightened by Liu Jian. He felt cold and creepy all over, and asked in fear: "Elder Liu, we Bashang are just a bunch of dependants." You are a small character who lives for nothing, what kind of big shot is it that makes you so afraid of him?"
"Afraid? Afraid of shit! Do I deserve to be afraid? I don't have the right to be afraid at all!" Liu Jian sneered: "I have also been unlucky for eight lifetimes, and I actually boarded your pirate ship. If I am really unlucky, I will never be afraid." It’s not because they want to deal with me, but because I was slow to dodge and got hit by the tail of the wind. Let me tell you, I can’t wait to take my whole family and run away far away.”
"Is it one of the Guanlong nobles?" Shen Faxing asked.
Liu Jian glanced at him and sneered: "Could it be that you still count on the Yuan family and the Yuwen family?"
Shen Faxing was startled: "You know?"
Liu Jian chuckled: "That's what the other party said! But you'd better not have any hopes."
Shen Faxing said in shock: "Is the other party bigger than the Yuan family and the Yuwen family?"
"It's hard to say whether it's serious or not! The key is that the other party doesn't intend to play negative, but to play positive." Liu Jian saw his confusion and said with a wry smile: "You detained our ship on the Yellow River and burned it in return." Fall down and threaten us.”
Shen Faxing sat down slumped and said to Liu Jian silently: "To be honest, we are just talking. After all, it is official ration, and it is also urgent military ration. We don't dare to burn it at all! At most I’m just using the military’s urgent characteristics to force you to surrender.”
"I know, and the gang leader also knows. In fact, we are not afraid of being burned, but we are afraid that you will keep us captive." Liu Jian said slowly: "The problem is that all the Cao gangs know that you have detained our ship, and they also Threatening to burn the ships. They are preparing to burn all those ships using the news you spread."
"Name, crime, who will it be in the end? Of course it's you who threatened to burn the ship."
"And the opponent's strength is not necessarily worse than that of Yuanshi and Yuwenshi. Do you think that given the 'conclusive' evidence, Yuanshi and Yuwenshi dare to stand up for you 'arsonists'?"
When Shen Faxing and Lu Yan heard this, a chill ran from their spines to the roots of their hair, and goosebumps arose all over their bodies, and they all stayed there.
Shen Faxing was rarely involved in specific affairs in the Jiangnan League, but he was able to compete with Chao Tian who had thousands of Caoding thugs because he had a very special resource, that is, official power.
The Cao Gang is different from Jiangyang's thieves. Not only do they have a family, but their power is also obvious. Therefore, although they have solved many things on their own, they cannot and dare not break the law outside the "Colosseum". The larger the scale, The more the Cao Gang needs official power, such as the Jiangnan League, if they do not have a strong backing, they will be exploited along the way. The cost of transporting grain from Yangzhou to Daxing will increase several times, which will be difficult to maintain. Went down.
The important people in the gang all know who Shen Faxing has made friends with in the official circles, but it does not mean that they can skip Shen Faxing and contact this person directly.
Just because of the unspoken rules in the government, the biggest feature is the word "hidden". Those officials who have the ability and qualifications to open the door for them do not actually lack sources of gray income, so what they need is absolute safety. , once something happens to someone who comes to deliver money, they must not be implicated. Therefore, the matchmaker must be someone they trust, otherwise they will never be able to borrow the "power" from them.
The reason why Shen Faxing is qualified to meet some big shots: First of all, his origin is clear and obvious. The Shen family of Wuzhou is his biggest weakness. If he dares to betray those big shots, he and his family will be the first to suffer; Secondly, he has stayed in the Jiangnan League for a long time and everyone has cooperated for a long time, so everyone has enough leverage to kill him.
If each Cao Gang does not go through this special "broker", but directly carries a large box of gold and silver to visit, those officials with a little foresight may not even see them. This is not to say that such officials are not greedy for money, but they know that everything they have comes from the "power" granted by the court. If their appearance is too ugly and too obvious, they will easily be caught by political opponents and competitors. Once they lose Quan will have to spit out all the hard work he has put in before, and it will even be difficult for him to stand up for generations. Therefore, the "brokers" they receive are often "brokers" with good reputations in the circle.
Shen Faxing is a person in the "broker" business, so he naturally knows the thoughts of "Caokou". These people are all generous when taking money; as long as the money is enough, they are not stingy when helping them clear various passes. Many of them are generous. Sometimes, they will also help them suppress those petty officials who are too greedy. However, if a certain Cao Gang provokes a person whose power is comparable to or not much different from the "Caokou", these "Caokou" will all stand by and watch to avoid Set yourself on fire.
When behemoths like the Yuan Clan and Yuwen Clan go to war with rivals of comparable strength, their entire bodies are often affected by a single move, which has a huge impact, so they must be careful when colliding with each other.
Now the person who runs the Jiangnan Alliance is a powerful person who can be compared with the Yuan family and the Yuwen family. Then, next, the Yuan family and the Yuwen family will definitely not go to the Jiangnan Alliance for the "petty profit". A powerful opponent goes to war. If the Jiangnan League is also accused of "burning military rations", it would be great if the Yuan family and the Yuwen family did not add insult to injury and verbally criticize them, let alone expect them to help.
Without these backends, the Jiangnan League, which is guilty of arson, will surely perish. As the most active deputy leader of the Jiangnan League, Shen Faxing, even if he escaped the "black and white" test, how could he survive the court test?
He can live on the run, but what about his wife, children, and clan members?
Thinking of this, Shen Faxing felt as if he was dead.
Lu Yan was also heartbroken. He couldn't help but ask Liu Jian: "Elder Liu, who is this person or this force? Do you know?"
"I know!" Liu Jian glanced at him and sighed, "But I won't say it. It's not that I don't want to say it, but that I dare not say it."
"Your mother!"
. . . . . .
At this moment, in the back house of Prince Wei's Mansion, the lights were bright. Dugu Min was wrapped in a better-than-nothing bath towel and lying on a beauty couch, enjoying the careful massage of a female sumo wrestler. She was feeling relaxed and lazy, and quite a bit drowsy. It felt like sleeping, but when I heard Liu Xing standing next to me introduce what "Cao Quan, Cao Kou" was, I suddenly sat up from the beauty's couch.
"Interesting, a little bit interesting." Dugu Min's full breasts wrapped in a white bath towel trembled slightly, and then she realized that she was losing her composure and quickly calmed down her emotions, but the turmoil in her heart could not be completely calmed down.
She has been at the top of the pyramid since she was a child. After her husband died, although he built a huge business empire, she didn't know much about the ordinary people living at the lowest level of the "food chain".
Although she pays close attention to the most important and critical family members of the soldiers and the families of the dead soldiers in the King Wei family, these people live close to the big tree of King Wei's Mansion and have been living a good life with no worries about food and clothing and a family full of descendants. How is it possible to know the hardships of ordinary people who have no background?
Even they don't understand and don't know what kind of life the miserable Caoding lives. How can Dugumin learn the true and dark social status quo from their mouths?
If it weren't for Zhang Zhongjian's assassination of her son, and the government's behavior in this matter that made her very dissatisfied, how could she pay attention to a low-level society like the Caobang?
And her caravan was blatantly using the banner of Prince Wei's Palace. Who would dare to embarrass any official or ruffian?
So, how could she, Dugu Min, know the 'professional term' of "Caokou"?
"The way you act, the Xuanwu Gang's mouth in the future will be us... uh, Su Wei?" Dugu Min asked.
"That's right!" Liu Xu seemed to be worried that Dugu Min had misunderstood something, so she quickly added: "Concubine, I was just talking casually. The purpose was to get Wang Nianzu to cooperate with us so that we can better deal with Zhang Zhongjian and the Jiangnan League. No. He said that he must be the mouth of the Xuanwu Clan in the future."
"If you promise, you must do it! We can't be so shameless." Dugu Min rolled his bright eyes and said to Liu Xu: "Water transport can often be driven day and night on many sections. Compared with land transport, It has the characteristics of large shipping capacity, fast speed and low cost. I have also thought about building my own fleet. However, my focus has always been between Guanzhong, Liangzhou, Central Plains and foreign lands. In addition, there is no one familiar with water transportation. , therefore, water transportation has never been built.”
"Since the Xuanwu Gang has so many veteran boatmen and is in a difficult stage, what's the harm if we invest some ships to serve as its canal?"
Dugumin thought for a while and said: "If we can control it, we can not only transport our own items in the future, but also help others transport goods. It can be said to be a killing of two birds with one stone. However, the scale of this Xuanwu Gang is too small and the background is too shallow. , I’m afraid it will be difficult to shoulder the heavy responsibility in a short period of time.”
Liuxu thought for a while and said tentatively: "Tiffany, when the young master asked us to form Tianmen, in order to form a 'combat strength' in the shortest possible time, he asked us to collect and integrate Daxing's large and small gangs. After this period of hard work, Tianmen has been able to exert its full power. It works. Since there are many Cao Gangs in Bashang and they vary in size, we can also integrate those small gangs. With the addition of these small gangs, the Xuanwu Gang can quickly grow."
"This method is very good, so let's do it!" Dugu Min said lightly.
Liuxu hesitated for a moment, and then said: "Tiffany, as far as I know, although the various canal gangs also carry private cargo, they are always mainly transporting grain. Since the grain they transport is closely related to hundreds of thousands of Daxing people, so The imperial court does not allow the Caobang to be unified in the hands of one person. There were also people who tried to unify the Caobang, but they all ended badly and were annihilated by the imperial court's troops."
Liu Xu put a lot of effort into dealing with Zhang Zhongjian, so she dug out many things that happened to the Caobang that the public didn't know about. She was worried that Dugumin didn't know this and rashly unified the Caobang and I wanted to challenge the imperial taboos, so I told them one by one.
Dugumin naturally knew the taboo of not being able to control food, but she didn't want to dampen other people's enthusiasm, so she nodded, as if she was reminded by catkins. Then he said with a smile: "I know about this, but I am not asking you to unify the Cao Gang, but to at least make the Xuanwu Gang one of the strongest."
She pondered for a while and then asked Liu Xu: "What is the origin of Nianzu, the king of the Xuanwu Gang? He comes from an ordinary family, or a child from a poor family."
Liu Xu hurriedly said: "Reporting to the concubine, Wang Nian's ancestral home is in Qi County, Bingzhou. He is a branch of the Wang family in Taiyuan. His ancestor is Wang Gui, the Duke of Tan Kingdom in the Zhou Dynasty. Since Wang Gui was killed by Emperor Zhou Xuan, the Wang family in Taiyuan was afraid of being implicated. They were kicked out of the clan, and now Wang Nianzu has completely declined. However, according to the information we have gathered, he has always hoped that the Wang family can restore its former glory. Not only can he be civilized and martial, and he is familiar with the art of war. The same is true for his son Wang Tao."
"It turns out that she is the queen of a famous general!" Dugu Min was originally worried that Wang Nianzu would be out of control in the future, but when he heard that he was the descendant of Wang Gui and had the ambition to regain his lintel, he immediately had a way to control them.
LiuXu nodded and said: "Exactly."
"What is Wang Tao's ability?" Dugu Min asked, and then added: "I'm talking about his battlefield combat skills and ability to command troops."
Liu Xu thought for a while and then said: "Wang Tao doesn't seem to have much experience in land warfare, but he has rich experience in water warfare, and is especially good at fighting water pirates."
"Is that so?" Dugu Min frowned and said, "Well! When you get the money tomorrow, tell Wang Nianzu: As long as he is willing to comply with the arrangement, our 'Su Family' can arrange Wang Tao to be with King Wei To do things; as long as Wang Tao has the ability and military merit, promotion is guaranteed to us. If Wang Tao does not have the ability to be a general, he can also join politics in Liangzhou. After making political achievements, he can also climb up. As for whether to join the army or politics, They’d better think it over first so they don’t embarrass themselves later.”
"Here!" LiuXu responded.
Dugu Min yawned and said lazily: "Send a few eagle letters to Vajra Slave tomorrow and tell him what happened here and our plan in detail. If there is anything else to add, , then reply to me immediately.”
"Here."
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