"Your Majesty, Li Ruolian, is here to see you!"
Looking at Li Ruolian who was dressed in casual clothes, Chongzhen waved his right hand.
After Li Ruolian stood up, Chongzhen continued: "Tell me about the specific situation during this period!"
"Your Majesty, based on the information your Majesty told me, I have determined after a thorough investigation that the heads of the eight major families in Shanxi are...
They are Fan Yongdou of the Fan family in Jiexiu, Shanxi, Wang Dengku of the Wang family of Luliang, Wang Dayu of the Wang family of Xinzhou, Jin Liangyu of the Jin family of Datong, Liang Jingbin of the Liang family of Hongdong, Shenglan of Tianjia of Qixian County, Zhaitang of the Zhai family of Qinxian County, and Huang Yunfa of the Huang family.
Because they were afraid that the investigation would alert them, they did not conduct an in-depth investigation. Some time ago, they just investigated Wang Chengyin pretending to be a bandit and hijacking a caravan.
We simply disguised a group of bandits outside the Datong Great Wall and hijacked a caravan of the Fan family led by Fan Yongdou's third son Fan Shimin.
Fan Shimin was tortured and the general origin was obtained.
"Where's Fan Shimin?"
"In the carriage in the backyard, does your Majesty want to see him?"
"Forget it, it doesn't matter whether you see someone who doesn't matter or not!"
Chongzhen was too lazy to respond and gestured towards Li Ruolian, who continued to report what he knew.
"Your Majesty, they were originally merchants responsible for transporting supplies and ordnance to the Ming Dynasty's border army.
But because the military's equipment is slowly updated, payments are often in arrears, and prices and profits are low, they want to find another way;
Then Nurhachi issued a decree to encourage Han people to stay in the Northeast for development, high salaries to seduce aspiring Han people and purchase at high prices, and offered prices several times ours, and they..."
When Li Ruolian said this, his voice lowered a little: "First, selling food solved the urgent need of establishing slaves.
Then they started with ironware, arms and military products. Ironware was mainly delivered in the form of iron pots and farm tools, and carriage wheels were also replaced with iron ones.
Then many blacksmiths were hired from the Ming Dynasty to help build weapons for the slaves..."
Li Ruolian continued to output the results of Jin Yiwei's investigation during this period. The more Chongzhen listened, the colder his face became.
"Your Majesty, every time the caravan goes out, it only takes a very short time to return to Ming Dynasty, or even never returns at all.
At least in the past three months that we have monitored, at least seven or eight caravans with about five or six hundred people have not returned to the Ming Dynasty. "
"So, what's your guess?"
"Your Majesty, I guess it may be the people from Jiannu who disguised themselves as people from the Ming Dynasty and followed the caravan into the Ming Dynasty.
Then the supplies prepared by the eight merchants were escorted out of Datong or Zhangjiakou by the leaders of the eight families, and were taken away directly by the slave builders. "
Hearing this, Chongzhen felt a chill in his heart.
He didn't expect that the Eight Families had reached such a crazy level that they would even dare to do such a thing.
I never thought that Jiannu could penetrate the Ming Dynasty to such an extent. It was simply pervasive.
Since they can pretend to be a caravan, maybe there are people sent by the slave establishment to lurk in Beijing.
After all, the original Jiannu tribe was the Jurchen tribe in Jianzhou, which launched many wars against the Central Plains and captured a large number of Han people.
Later, these Han people gradually integrated into the Jurchen ethnic group and intermarried with the Bohai people for a long time.
The appearance of this part of the Jurchens is no different from that of the Han people. If you don't look carefully or don't know about it, you can't tell whether they are Han people or slaves.
"Apart from these, did they pass on information or anything else?"
"Back to Your Majesty, I did not get any relevant information from Fan Shimin. It seems that the information was transmitted through another line!
Not only intelligence, but also the transportation of grain, salt, iron, tea, munitions, etc. are all on their own routes.
They don't know each other, except for their respective heads who know the details. "
After hearing this, Chongzhen's pupils tightened again. He was sure that the eight major families must have passed on the information.
But as Fan Yongdou's biological son, he didn't know about it, which shows how deep the other party hid it.
"Your Majesty, these eight families not only do business with Jiannu, they also do business with various Mongolian tribes, such as Tumote and Chahar Lindan Khan. As long as you give money, they will give it."
"According to Fan Shimin, in November of the fifth year of the Apocalypse, when the river froze and the grass was not dead, Lin Dan Khan contacted Khalkha to suddenly attack Horqin. The two sides fought near Kaiyuan because the Fan family had transported five thousand shi to Lin Dan Khan. Food and grass as support.”
"It's unclear how much grain the Fan family sold, but Fan Shimin took over the grain transport caravan in the second year of Tianqi and sent out about 50,000 shi of grain."
"Fifty thousand stones?"
Murderous intent surged in Chongzhen's eyes again.
Fifty thousand shi is equivalent to 7.5 million catties. Calculated as three catties per person per day, it is enough to feed 30,000 people for nearly three months.
This is only what we know, and it is only one family. We don’t know how many there are in the remaining seven.
If calculated according to this ratio and the number of people in the various Mongolian tribes, as well as the time when the eight families became rich, at least five million stones, grain and grass were transported out in these years.
A severe drought in Shaanxi killed so many people, and these idiots actually sold food and grass to the enemy.
If Jiannu did not have the support of so much food and grass, if there was so much food and grass in Liaodong, and if there was so much food and grass in Jiubian, would there be a mutiny?
If I don't cut you into pieces, I will be sorry for the dead soldiers of Jiubian.
After suppressing the murderous intention in his heart, Chongzhen continued: "Have you found the person behind it?"
Hearing the emperor's question, Li Ruolian's face immediately became serious, he looked around, and then lowered his voice: "Your Majesty, the person behind the scenes has not been found yet, but I guess that Prince Jin may also be involved.
When we were following the heads of the Eight Families, the heads of the Eight Families would occasionally come to Taiyuan City.
Then they entered a restaurant one after another and stayed there for two or three hours, or half an hour.
This morning, Fan Yongdou of the Fan family, Wang Dayu of Xinzhou, and Tian Shenglan of Qixian County entered the restaurant again. The restaurant was only about a hundred feet away from the Jin Palace.
If it was just a normal gathering, there was no need for them to dress up in disguise, let alone choose an average-grade restaurant, and King Jin was too settled.
I asked my men to go in and look at it several times. On the surface, no problems were found. But the strange thing was that the backyard was not open to the public, but the heads of the eight families went in again.
Therefore, I speculate that perhaps there is a secret passage connecting the restaurant to the Prince of Jin's Mansion, just like the passage to the secret vault of the Prince of Qin's Mansion. "
After hearing that Li Ruolian said that King Jin was involved, Chongzhen didn't have much emotional fluctuations. This was to be expected.
"Your Majesty, in addition to this, the Taiyuan General Soldier, the Datong General Soldier, and the Dai Wang may all be involved.
Otherwise, it would be impossible to transport such a large amount of materials without leaking any information, and it would last for so many years. "
Regarding Li Ruolian's speculation, Chongzhen did not respond, but said: "How many people under you are monitoring the Eighth Family?"
"After I had a premonition of the seriousness of the matter, I have secretly transferred two thousand-household Jinyiwei to be secretly distributed around the eight families. They can take action at any time!"
Chongzhen walked in the courtyard with his hands behind his back, thinking for a long time.
"Did you just say that Fan Yongdou and the others are in Taiyuan City?"
