Xue Shu ate four plates of snacks neatly.
Obviously, she wanted to teach him a lesson, but Yin Chengyu felt extremely bored when he saw that he didn't frown at all the whole time. Especially when she thought of the date mud cake that she had taken a bite of and was eaten by Xue Shu, she was even more unhappy.
In his previous life, Xue Shu liked to feed him the food he had eaten. If he thought it was dirty and refused to eat, Xue Shu would use other means and feed it to him himself.
I don’t know what kind of habits they are.
Although he was a different person now, Yin Chengyu always felt as if he was repeating his previous life when he saw Xue Shu licking his lips with satisfaction.
The uncomfortable person becomes him.
Yin Chengyu was filled with anger and immediately lost interest in going on. He made an excuse that he was tired and went back to the inn.
Xue Shu followed closely behind him, and his presence was very strong. Even if Yin Chengyu didn't look back, he could guess that Xue Shu must be staring at him again.
This man is like a wild wolf, staring at you without any hesitation. You always feel like he will pounce on you and bite your throat the next moment.
Yin Chengyu paused at the door of the inner room, turned his head to look at him, and said in a cold tone: "You don't have to come in, tell Zhao Lin to come over."
Xue Shu could only stop and turn around to call Zhao Lin.
Zhao Lin was in his room reading the letter sent back by the spy. When he heard the call from His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, he quickly put the letter in order, thanked Xue Shu, and went to the main house to report.
"You're welcome." Xue Shu looked at him solemnly, his voice carrying an imperceptible coldness.
Zhao Lin did not notice his hostility, but felt that Xue Shu seemed to look at him for a longer time today. However, he was in a hurry to see the prince, so he did not think much about it and left in a hurry.
Xue Shu, who was lagging behind, fixed his eyes on him and clenched his hands that were hanging at his sides.
Isn't he more useful than Zhao Lin?
Yin Chengyu went back to his room and changed into light clothes before going to the study to see Zhao Lin.
"How is Fang Zhengke doing?"
Although he did not ask about Fang Zhengke's affairs on the surface, nor did he go to see him. But in fact, as early as when Fang Zhengke set out for Tianjin, he arranged for people to accompany him. One was to obtain timely information, and the other was to prevent Wan Youliang from doing anything bad to Fang Zhengke.
"He is still recovering from his injuries. We have people protecting him, so he is not in danger for the time being."
When Fang Zhengke was checking the archives of the Salt Commissioner's Office, the warehouse where the archives were stored happened to catch fire, and he was slightly injured. The fire in the archives room was certainly not a coincidence, but Wan Youliang did it deliberately to destroy the evidence. At that time, he wanted to prevent Fang Zhengke from escaping the fire, but it was the people arranged by Yin Chengyu who rescued him.
Afterwards, Fang Zhengke submitted another memorial to the court asking for help. He then used the excuse of recuperating from his injuries and stayed indoors, which prevented Wan Youliang from finding another opportunity to attack.
The two years he spent in the Salt Commissioner's Office had apparently made Wan Youliang bolder, and he acted very recklessly.
Yin Chengyu pondered for a long time and said, "Give the files that were rescued from the fire scene to Fang Zhengke and ask him to sort it out as soon as possible. As for the rest, don't act rashly for now."
If we act now, we can certainly kill Wan Youliang, but the salt administration officials are deeply intertwined with local forces. If the salt administration is not cleaned up, there will still be another Wan Youliang.
What he had to do was to use Wan Youliang as a loophole to break this deformed collusion between officials and businessmen and clear up the corruption and chaos in Dayan's salt administration over the years.
After the arrangements were made, Yin Chengyu continued to travel around Tianjin Wei in the next few days, still accompanied by Wan Youliang.
During this period, in order to show that he had nothing serious to do, he proposed to Wan Youliang to go to the Changlu Salt Field for an inspection.
When Yin Chengyu first mentioned this matter, Wan You's conscience pricked a little.
But after he made all the arrangements and led the person over, he saw that the man was just wandering around and soon lost interest, so he relaxed.
It's just a formality.
A nobleman who grew up in the palace probably can't even tell the difference between salt and sugar, so how could he know the ins and outs of the salt field?
Wan Youliang's heart was finally at rest, and he complained a few times, half-truthfully, "I have been the transport envoy for more than two years. Although I dare not say that I have worked hard, I have also been conscientious and have not dared to be negligent. Since I took office, the salt tax has increased by 10% compared to previous years. I didn't expect that Fang Yushi actually believed the words of the villain..." He sighed sadly, and the wrinkles on his face also shrunk down: "Your Highness, the Crown Prince is wise. When you return to the court one day, you must defend me in front of His Majesty. I am really wronged!"
Yin Chengyu's smile did not reach his eyes: "Of course, I will never let any of the members suffer injustice."
Wan Youliang laughed twice when he heard this, and walked forward quickly, holding his belly, to lead the way.
Yin Chengyu walked around the salt field and then left. When Wan Youliang sent him to the carriage, he saw that the attendant was Zheng Duobao again, but not Xue Shu. His eyes rolled around, and when he thought about the fact that Supervisor Xue had not appeared by the prince's side in the past few days, he became more certain of his guess.
There must be some major disagreement between these two people, and they don't even bother to put on a show of solidarity.
After watching the carriage slowly go away, Wan Youliang returned to his own house and personally wrote a visiting card and handed it to the housekeeper: "Go, deliver it to Supervisor Xue." He warned: "Avoid those people of the prince."
After Xue Shu received Wan Youliang's invitation, he immediately went to find Yin Chengyu.
——He hasn't been summoned by His Highness for several days.
These days, Yin Chengyu never took him with him wherever he went, and never called him to serve him when he was at the inn. He could only glance at him from a distance when he went out or came back to the inn.
It would be fine if he couldn't get close to her like before, but he had been so close before, so close that he could touch her with just his hand.
So the sudden estrangement becomes hard to bear.
Whenever he saw Zheng Duobao and Zhao Lin following His Highness, he couldn't help but have countless dark thoughts in his heart.
Why can't he be the one around His Highness?
Your Highness, why can't your eyes just look at him?
Violent emotions swirled in my heart, and the dark thoughts restrained by reason roared unwillingly again and again.
Xue Shu stepped into the inner room, lowered his eyes to hide the haze in his eyes, and respectfully presented Wan Youliang's invitation.
A slender jade-like hand reached out, took the invitation from his hand, and unfolded it.
Xue Shu raised his eyes, his dark gaze fixed on those delicate and beautiful hands.
Yin Chengyu didn't notice. After reading it, he sneered and threw the invitation to Xue Shu: "Go to the banquet. No matter what he says, agree to it first to keep him calm."
"Yes." Xue Shu put away the invitation, his voice a little hoarse due to nervousness.
Seeing that he accepted the invitation but still stood still in the hall, Yin Chengyu frowned and said to him, "You can leave now."
Xue Shu raised his eyes and looked straight at him, his eyes were dark and hard to read, like a hunting beast, with strong aggression. But in the end, he still said nothing, squeezed out a "hmm" from his throat, and slowly retreated.
Yin Chengyu stared at his back, frowning.
I don’t know if it was his illusion, but he always felt that Xue Shu in this life seemed to be more and more like the one in the previous life.
But how is that possible?
At this time, Xue Shu was young and immature, not even eighteen years old.
There are still five years between now and the mysterious nine thousand years old in the previous life.
For the next few days, Xue Shu was invited by Wan Youliang to drink and have fun.
Wan Youliang invested a lot of money to win him over. Xue Shu brought back four or five boxes of gold and silver from the inn.
Yin Chengyu pretended not to notice the two men's interactions, and every day he led his servants and guards to travel around Tianjin to enjoy the sights.
Wan Youliang arranged for officials to accompany him for the first two days, but later, because Yin Chengyu said that it was not necessary to accompany him every day, and he saw that Yin Chengyu did not behave abnormally, he stopped sending anyone to accompany him.
Yin Chengyu finally shook off his tail and stopped wandering around the streets. Instead, he went to the streets and alleys where ordinary people lived.
These alleys are winding and narrow, with dirt everywhere on the road and an indescribable salty smell.
Yin Chengyu did not mind giving up and walked through the houses one by one. When he saw a house with its door open, he would stop and look for a long time.
After spending most of the day and looking at five or six streets and alleys, Yin Chengyu finally returned to the inn.
The clothes that had been fumigated with perfume in the morning were already stained with odor. While helping him bathe and change clothes, Zheng Duobao asked in confusion: "Your Highness is of noble status, why would you go to such a filthy place?"
"Of course, I'm going to find evidence of selling contraband salt." Yin Chengyu soaked in hot water and slowly exhaled a foul breath.
The rampant smuggling of salt in Tianjin was even more serious than when he investigated it in his previous life.
In the previous life, the Yu family was implicated, and the prime minister ended up in disgrace and expulsion, which ultimately shocked the salt administration officials in various places. Five years later, when he went to Changluo to investigate the salt administration, the situation was much better than it is now.
At least it wasn't like it is now, where every household has a bamboo pot or an iron pot for boiling salt in their yard.
Private salt trading was rampant and could be divided into several categories: market private salt trading, commercial private salt trading, official private salt trading, neighbor private salt trading and syndicate private salt trading.
Salt smuggling refers to salt field "smugglers" who secretly monitor and steal salt and collude with salt merchants to sell official salt; salt smuggling refers to salt merchants smuggling; official smuggling refers to salt officials who use their official positions to resell official salt; neighbor smuggling refers to violating the policy of "exclusive sales on the shore" and selling salt in neighboring areas other than the exclusive sales area; and salt smuggling refers to some of the larger bandit forces in the area who recruit ordinary people to sell private salt. Powerful salt smugglers even dare to confront the local government. [1]
The current situation of Tianjin's salt policy can be described as full of the five evils.
Salt officials got involved, making things easier for the government; salt merchants colluded with the transport gangs to transport official salt to the south for sale; and salt smugglers were also rampant.
And these people who boil salt are just the details of the entire chain of selling smuggled salt.
The government, salt merchants, transport gangs, salt smugglers and other powerful forces colluded with each other to share the profits. Not only did the people who boiled salt fail to earn much money, but they were also oppressed.
If private salt is abundant, the public salt will be stagnant; if the salt tax is not high, the national treasury will be empty. If the national treasury is empty, taxes must be increased.
In the end, the rats are fattened and the people are the ones who suffer.
Yin Chengyu closed his eyes and pondered for a long time before changing into clean clothes, letting his long hair fall behind him, and walked to the side room, saying, "Go and call Xue Shu."
If we want to break the iron wall of Tianjin Wei, we need to disintegrate it from within.
The author has something to say:
Gougou: lemon.jpg
Note [1] See “Rampant Smuggling of Salt during the Ming and Qing Dynasties”