There has always been a saying in China: If you want to be rich, build roads first. In order to attract people from Yingtian Mansion to Suwangzhuang, Zhu Su once spent a lot of money to repair the official road from Yingtian Mansion to Suwangzhuang with cement for free.
Although no definite economic benefits have been seen yet, and in Zhu Su's eyes, this cement road is still very rough, but at this time, he was able to return to Zhuangzi from Yingtian Mansion very quickly, all thanks to this cement road. The result of Tao.
Seeing that it was Zhu Su, the night guard immediately opened the gate of the village, and a group of people rushed in like a gust of wind. Zhu Su did not dismount, and rushed directly to the cement kiln on the back mountain. From a distance, I can see that the cave dwellings on the mountain look like large rocks arranged neatly in the night. There were two groups of people confronting each other on the road. One group was led by an official in a green robe, it was Mei Ying, a fifth-rank member of the Ministry of Industry.
"It's His Highness the Fifth Prince!"
"Your Highness is here!"
someone shouted. Zhu Su reined in his horse and dismounted under the protection of Di Meng. Yao Guangxiao, who had put on his black clothes, came up to meet him and said to Zhu Su in a low voice: "Your Highness, this man is guarding this place and won't let me wait for a look in the kiln. He must be there." Something strange happened."
Zhu Su's heart skipped a beat. Seeing that Mei Ying looked stern even though she was stuck in the road, he had some bad suspicions in his mind. Nodding and ignoring Mei Ying, she walked around him and headed towards the cement kiln.
"Your Highness!" Mei Ying stood in front of Zhu Su with a pale face. "The fire inside has not been extinguished. Your Highness is worth a thousand pieces of gold. I dare not let Your Highness put himself in danger!"
"Your Highness, please wait a moment until my men put out the fire..."
"...The fire is not out?" Zhu Su sneered and turned his head to look inside, only to see that there was no light in the dark hole inside. A sneer appeared at the corner of his mouth, "Mei Langguan, are you trying to make me blind and deaf?" ?”
"There is neither fire nor shouting inside. Are you telling me that the fire has not been extinguished yet?"
"This guy surnamed Mei clearly has something up his sleeve! Our son just entered the cement kiln, and he kicked him out on the pretense that the rebels had already fled and they were chasing him quickly." Li Rong was furious. "We led people to chase him in the direction he pointed for a while, but there was no thief anywhere? This guy has obviously done something bad and is afraid that we will catch him!"
"Oh?" Zhu Su raised his eyebrows. This guy actually dared to deceive Li Rong? He turned to look at Mei Ying, and the more he looked at her, the more he felt that he must be hiding something. He shouted in a deep voice: "Mei Ying, get out of the way!"
Mei Ying's face was covered in cold sweat. The monk surnamed Yao had no official position, so he had no problem suppressing him; the man surnamed Li was a warrior with thousands of households, so he could barely stop him with his face.
But the person in front of him is actually His Majesty's most beloved legitimate son and a serious prince. Although this prince usually speaks well and doesn't have much authority, but a fifth-grade worker from the Ministry of Industry, how can he have the guts to show off in front of a prince?
But thinking of the disaster she had committed, Mei Ying could only bite her lip. Although her legs were shaking like chaff, she still said: "Your Majesty... Your Majesty has a body of gold..."
"Although there is no fire inside, the poisonous smoke is... I really can't..."
"Capture him." Zhu Su didn't waste any time talking to this guy and ordered directly to Wu Wangwei. Di Meng agreed behind him and came over directly to cut Mei Ying's hands behind his back. Ignoring Mei Ying's loud shouts and struggles, he directly said to Li Rong: "Li Qianhu doesn't have to worry too much in the future. If anything happens in this imperial village, I will naturally take care of it. Now go into the kiln with me to see what happens!"
Li Rong responded loudly. He was temporarily lent to Zhu Su by Li Wenzhong, but he was not a direct descendant of the Zhu family. He was naturally more worried about people who went to the court. Hearing the slight blame in Zhu Su's tone, I felt a little ashamed, but now I couldn't care less about those thoughts, and led dozens of sergeants into the cement kiln together with Zhu Su's Wu Wangwei.
After looking around, I found that only the shacks where some craftsmen lived had some traces of fire, but they were generally harmless. Didn't it look like there had been any fire?
Deep in some small workshops used to develop Jenny machines, the first version of the Jenny machine that was finally made was indeed missing. It was still a mess inside.
Soon, Li Rong caught a few sneaky men with torches, tied his hands and took them to Zhu Su.
"You guys are so sneaky, what are you planning to invite?" Zhu Su asked in a deep voice.
"Unjustly accused! Unjustly accused!" Before Zhu Su could use any torture methods, the men started shouting. "We are all good craftsmen registered in the Ministry of Industry! Master Mei asked us to set fire to the shed, but we haven't done anything yet!"
"Prince Su, we were wronged..."
After asking, I found out that before Mei Ying hurriedly stopped Li Rong's military households, he had asked several of their close craftsmen to use torches to burn down the sheds where the craftsmen usually lived. But they are all honest craftsmen for generations, and they are not ruthless military thieves. If the fire goes down, not only the shed they live in will also be implicated, and they don't know if people will be burned to death, so how can they be so cruel as to commit murder and arson?
While he was still hesitating, Zhu Su led his men in.
"Mei Langguan." Zhu Su took a long breath, and his face looked more and more uncertain under the torch. "It's just a small fire, why do we have to say it's a big fire?"
"What are you trying to cover up by letting people set fire to the house in such a hurry?"
"Your Highness! Your Highness!" Mei Yi, who was thrown to the ground by Di Meng, could only kowtow continuously. "My uncle is the Marquis of Runan, and he is of the same faction as you and Prime Minister Hu in the court!"
"You can't kill me, you can't kill me!"
Zhu Su only felt a little irritated. The bad premonition grew stronger and stronger in my heart, and finally I could no longer maintain the attitude of His Highness who ignored worldly affairs, and shouted loudly at Mei Ying:
"Shut up! If you dare to say nonsense again, I will chop off your head!"
Mei Ying froze, finally not daring to beg for mercy anymore, her whole body was shaking with tears and runny nose.
"Tell me. What are you hiding? What happened at the kiln tonight?"
"Kiln on the kiln... kiln on the kiln..." Mei Ying seemed to be extremely frightened by Zhu Su's sudden outburst. She couldn't speak clearly and didn't know what to say. Li Rong was quite experienced. He picked up Mei Ying like a chicken and slapped her twice. Mei Ying's cheeks puffed up, but she could speak fluently again.
"Today on the kiln... there are refugees who are causing trouble. They are the refugees who have been recruited into the kiln these days."
"They burned several shacks and ruined some cement. When the official rushed from where he was staying, General Li and others were also there, but the rebels had disappeared."
"Those cements will be sent to the north these days. Your Majesty... Your Majesty is worried that the court will blame you, so you want to make the matter bigger to cover up this crime..."
"Refugees causing trouble?" Zhu Su narrowed his eyes. "The refugees are making trouble, why did they take away my new loom?"
"How could those refugees know what's so special about that loom? Are you..."
"Your Majesty..." Mei Ying pursed her lips a few times and continued:
"The lower officials once complained in front of them that Your Highness did not care about us, but he valued a loom for women so seriously."
"Perhaps...perhaps they want to destroy the loom that His Highness values so much. It's unknown if they express their resentment..."
Zhu Su's face brightened slightly. This barely makes sense. The biggest worry is that things like cement recipes are leaked out, but cement production has strict assembly line procedures in accordance with its own regulations. Each worker in the assembly line only knows the process he is doing, and it is impossible to know all the recipes. It doesn't matter if there are just a few new refugees, as long as they don't know the entire cement firing process.
Next, I just need to go back to the small workshop and confirm whether there are any damaged pieces of the Jenny machine, and I can rest assured.
Just as he was about to interrogate Mei Ying again, he caught a glimpse of a dog galloping towards her on a horse. He dismounted and trotted to Zhu Su's side, and said a few words to Zhu Su.
Zhu Su's face turned pale, and his mind suddenly became enlightened.
He suddenly turned his head and looked at Mei Ying, who seemed to be breathing a sigh of relief.
"Mei! Tell me honestly!"
"Have you followed the assembly line rules set by this king truthfully?"
(End of chapter)
