Liu Jinchang looked sinister. He had been hunting geese all year, and in the end, he got his eyes pecked by a goose?
He was racking his brains to make money, but that unknown and hateful thief was easily taking advantage of him with some cheap drugs behind him. How could he tolerate this?
After the guards confirmed again and again that the government office was now safe, Liu Jinchang walked in, gritting his teeth and swearing in his heart that he would catch the shameless thief and skin him alive.
But the problem is, if determination was useful, Yu Zizhen would not have stolen from the mansions of most corrupt officials in the capital, and could continue to be the prince of Zhenbei without getting hurt.
With a gloomy face, he ordered his men to intensify the investigation. However, Yu Zizhen, who had taken away almost all the wealth in his house, had already taken advantage of this opportunity to help Hengtai Escort Agency transfer the families of the escorts.
When Liu Jinchang finally gave up and gave up the investigation, he turned to Hengtai Escort Agency, but the agency was already deserted.
Liu Jinchang realized that something was wrong and hurriedly sent people to chase the escort team that was responsible for transporting the relief money and food.
Then, his trusted guards brought him back some terrible news that shocked him so much that he vomited blood and fainted.
According to his trusted guards, although they and the soldiers entrusted by Liu Jinchang left the city to chase the team as soon as possible, they were still a step too late.
When they arrived, the escorts of Hengtai Escort Agency and the relief money and grain they were responsible for transporting had disappeared. The place where Liu Jinchang's trusted advisor had agreed to put the drugs with the traitorous grain transporters was left, and the only one left was the traitorous grain transporter who was tied up by the escorts of Hengtai Escort Agency.
The other innocent civilians who were implicated were dismissed by the escorts immediately. These people were originally temporarily captured by Liu Jinchang's minions to work for free. Now that such a change has happened, they are afraid of getting into trouble that they should not have gotten into. After the escorts signaled that they could leave, these people immediately turned around and ran away, quickly scattering like birds and beasts.
The disaster relief money and food disappeared, and the people originally designated to take the blame also disappeared. Liu Jinchang could not bear the blow and was so shocked by the bad news that he vomited blood and fell into a coma.
His minions, who had also realized what was going to happen, were uncontrollably filled with panic, but at the same time they had to pull themselves together and arrange for a doctor to come and treat Liu Jinchang.
Before he could finish his words, he witnessed with his own eyes the horrific scene of his master vomiting blood and fainting. After Liu Jinchang woke up, the guards did not dare to continue talking about the things that would undoubtedly make Liu Jinchang even more anxious and angry, but that part of the content was of great importance, and no one dared to conceal it on their own initiative.
The leading guards discussed with each other, and then took advantage of the time when Liu Jinchang finished drinking the medicine and started to rest to find Liu Jinchang's trusted advisor.
They told Mr. Wang, the wicked but highly trusted lawyer of Liu Jinchang, that "those escorts were so audacious that they actually put up a banner and falsely accused you by name."
According to them, the escorts of Hengtai Escort Agency not only took away the relief money and tied up the traitorous laborers, but also used the simplest language to describe how the Cangzhou prefecture office first forced Hengtai Escort Agency to accept the mismatched business, and then arranged for the laborers who transported the grain to put drugs in their food, intending to embezzle the relief money and frame Hengtai Escort Agency at the same time. The stories were written into banners, jokes and rhymes and spread everywhere.
Especially in the place where the escorts caught the traitor red-handed, there were so many banners that it seemed as if the cloth for making the banners was free.
When Liu Jinchang's guards rushed over with the Cangzhou garrison, the place was surrounded by Cangzhou people and disaster-stricken refugees who were pointing at the laborers and banners and discussing the matter angrily.
Although they quickly dispersed the people who were obviously in a bad mood, the rumor had obviously spread long ago. They could disperse the people who were watching and talking, but they could not stop the rumor from spreading like a plague in Cangzhou and even the surrounding counties.
On the way back to the provincial capital, the guards heard many people spreading and discussing this matter in private, and related banners, jokes and rhymes would float into their ears from time to time.
They were in a hurry to return and report the news to Liu Jinchang, and did not dare to delay any longer on the way. So the most they could do was to stop the people when they heard them saying these things, and destroy the annoying banners when they saw them. But they did not have time to do more.
This incident had a very bad impact on Liu Jinchang's official reputation, and timely countermeasures had to be taken to resolve it. Therefore, the guards did not dare to provoke Liu Jinchang, so they had no choice but to settle for the second best and chose to seek help from the bad-looking advisor that Liu Jinchang trusted the most.
Master Wang never dreamed that the group of crude warriors, whose combined brains were not even as big as a walnut in his opinion, would not only outmaneuver them when they were at an absolute disadvantage, but also knew how to control public opinion and retaliate by forcing them to take responsibility for the matter.
He waved his hand to drive away the guards, then began to pace back and forth in Liu Jinchang's yard with a frown.
He thought very clearly that there were two most important things at the moment. One was to suppress the terrible rumors that were unfavorable to Liu Jinchang as soon as possible, and the other was to capture those bodyguards as soon as possible and recover the disaster relief money and food.
As long as he does these two things well, Liu Jinchang can still keep his life and even his official position under the operation of the Lu family.
Master Wang had a clear idea and acted quickly enough, but the people he sent out to track down the whereabouts of the escorts and the relief money and grain were never able to find even the slightest clue.
There were also people who were previously ordered to track down the whereabouts of the elderly, weak, women and children from the Hengtai Escort Agency, but after so many days of tracking, there was no progress at all.
As for those terrible rumors that were unfavorable to Liu Jinchang, although Master Wang had racked his brains to find ways to suppress them, rumors were like banned books. The more you didn't want people to talk about them or read them, the more they would uncontrollably want to talk about them and read them.
If the rumors were spreading at the speed of the wind before he had time to take action, then after he started to take action, the rumors could be said to be spreading widely at the speed of light.
Moreover, because he adopted an iron-fisted approach to suppress rumors, many people were beaten and arrested by yamen runners and soldiers just for saying a few words of gossip. This simple and crude method of suppression not only made people feel fearful, but also inevitably made them dissatisfied.
They originally only believed 30% of the rumors, but soon they believed all of them because of the government's "guilty conscience".
In addition, rumors are bound to be distorted as they spread. With people adding fuel to the fire, whether intentionally or unintentionally, the rumors eventually developed into dozens of versions.
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