On this day, the eunuch Wang, who was favored by Emperor Chongzhen, received a visitor, who was Hu Mengfei. In terms of Hu Mengfei's status, he could never meet the powerful Wang Chengen. However, Hu Mengfei's family was rich, and the Huizhou salt merchants who had united with him were even richer. These big salt merchants had always remembered to show their respect to the eunuchs in power.

Wang Kuncheng, a cousin of Wang Chengen, was in charge of the salt industry in several southern provinces. Although Wang Kuncheng gained a lot of benefits from it, most of the benefits went to Wang Chengen. When Tang Qi's men smuggled salt, they originally robbed Wang Kuncheng, but a few days ago, under the instigation of Hu Mengfei, Wang Kuncheng became greedy, so he brought Hu Mengfei to see Wang Chengen.

"So, the general named Tang really made a lot of money in these few days?" Wang Chengen asked with half-open eyes and expressionless face, as if this matter had nothing to do with him.

"Yes, Prime Minister Wang En, the salt that General Tang has smuggled in the past few days is worth 30 to 40 million taels of silver. Not only that, General Tang also set up many workshops, each of which can also earn tens of millions of taels of silver. Our scholars also found out that General Tang secretly expanded the size of his army and recruited a large number of Japanese soldiers, with a total of more than 200,000 people, occupying the entire sea area, and each time he looted the merchants, he could earn tens of millions of taels of silver." In order to appeal to Wang Chengen's greed, Hu Mengfei deliberately exaggerated what he knew about General Tang.

Wang Cheng'en didn't like people calling him Eunuch Wang or Steward Wang, so those who worshipped Wang Cheng'en generally called him Prime Minister Wang En. This man who secretly compared himself to a minister couldn't help but raise his eyebrows when he heard the number mentioned by Hu Mengfei. Such a huge number, even if it was halved, was still shocking. In fact, although Tang Cheng'en was very profitable now, the money he earned was only about 10 million taels of silver. The main part of it was from overseas, and the income from smuggling salt was only more than 1 million taels of silver per day. In order to support his army, most of the expenses were spent on it. He also had to spend money on construction, ships, cannons and immigration, which made Tang Cheng'en very tight on money.

However, compared with the poor Emperor Chongzhen, Tang Yu's income was still a lot. The Ming Dynasty's treasury only collected this much, and most of the money in the treasury fell into the hands of corrupt officials. Historically, after Zheng Zhilong and the Dutch joined forces to monopolize the overseas trade between Japan and Southeast Asia, their profits were also on the scale of millions of taels of silver.

It was impossible for Wang Chengen not to be greedy after hearing the sensational number, but he was also a little scared when Hu Mengfei said that Tang Qi had twenty Japanese soldiers under his command. He was even more worried that this General Tang would rebel. In fact, Tang Qi had more than 200,000 Japanese and Korean laborers under his command, but there were only about 60,000 Japanese allied troops.

Wang Chengen naturally wouldn't reveal his thoughts in front of Hu Mengfei. After a few thoughts in his mind, he said to Hu Mengfei, "What you said is unfounded. This General Tang is an important official in the court no matter what. You shouldn't talk nonsense about such things. Since you are in the capital this time, you should enjoy yourself in the capital for a few days."

The soldiers under Tang Qi were all recruited from refugees, and there might be spies arranged by the East Factory among them, but once they joined the Tang army, they were all sent overseas for the next two days. No spy had the chance to return to the land of the Ming Dynasty. Tang Qi also had the intelligence organization controlled by Liu Yisaburo, and they strictly checked for traitors. It was also difficult for merchants going overseas to have any contact with Tang Qi's army. This resulted in the Ming Dynasty not knowing about Tang Qi's situation, and the little information Hu Mengfei knew was just the speculation of those sea merchants.

As for the several battles between Tang Mo and Huang Taiji, because Tang Mo kept a low profile and Zu Dashou and others liked to take credit for them, although the army knew how powerful the musket was, the Ming court was controlled by the officials and did not know why the musket was so powerful. Therefore, Wang Chengen did not know that Huang Taiji of the Jiannu army had been defeated by Tang Mo and had no power to fight back.

After Hu Mengfei gave Wang Chengen the message, he also knew that Wang Chengen had left a clue about the matter in his mind. Now he just had to wait and see how the situation would develop, so he said goodbye and left. After Wang Chengen told Hu Mengfei to leave, he asked Wang Kuncheng to find Zhang Zhiqing, the commander of the Jinyiwei.

Zhang Zhiqing was Wang Chengen's adopted son. Originally, he was not taken seriously in the Jinyiwei. After Emperor Chongzhen came to power, Wang Chengen gained power, and Zhang Zhiqing, who worshipped Wang Chengen as his adoptive father, rose rapidly from then on and became the deputy commander of the Jinyiwei.

As Zhang Zhiqing stepped through the gate, a conspiracy that shocked the entire Ming Dynasty followed.

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