Chapter 439 You will know after reading the content
"I thought you weren't coming back. I couldn't find anyone after the incident at the Chen family, so I was counting on you to come back and look for Miss Chen!"
After a pause, he continued.
"You know Gu Yanchen. This is his wife, Ran Qingxuan. After we met some time ago, I asked them to come to Cangzhou with me in advance."
Duan Ling stood up and greeted Ran Qingxuan. Ran Qingxuan returned the greeting and said, "Miss Duan and Sister Chen are good friends?"
"Yes, a few years ago during the Lantern Festival, I lost a purse. The things inside were very important to me, and by the time I found it, more than half an hour had passed.
Unexpectedly, the purse was picked up by Sister Chen. When the old woman went back to look for it, she was still waiting there and refused to accept the gift of thanks given to her. I saw it was too cold, so I invited her to have a cup of tea. After a few visits, we became familiar with each other. ”
With some heartache, he said, "I was not in Cangzhou when the Chen family incident happened. I rushed back as soon as I got the news. I also sent a letter to my cousin asking him to help take care of the family."
"It's just that my cousin hasn't met Miss Chen yet, and he sent me two letters in a row urging me to come back."
Duan Yi was a little embarrassed about this and said, "I originally wanted to help the Chen family as much as possible, but I have been avoiding assassins for the past two months until your people found the person this time."
"Assassination?" Gu Yanchen frowned slightly. The first thing he thought of was that Emperor Mingde was going to take action against the Duan family.
"Is it that dog emperor Mingde?"
Ran Qingxuan was still quite direct. Duan Ling looked at her in shock with her lips pursed, thinking that it was no wonder that Gu Yanchen liked it, this was very much to his liking.
“No, Emperor Mingde, Brother Gu asked me to help investigate the kidnapping of children in the city yesterday.
The reason why I called you here is because my assassination is closely related to the disappearance of children in the city. ”
"What is it?"
Duan Yi took out the secret letter he had just put away and handed it to Gu Yanchen, saying in a deep voice: "You will know after you read it."
Ran Qingxuan came closer, but since she didn't recognize most of the words, she could tell the content was not simple just by looking at Gu Yanchen's shocked expression after reading it.
"The people of the Salt Gang are a bit too arrogant. They actually colluded with Qi Jing to kill you to avoid future troubles?"
"What, what Salt Gang?" Ran Qingxuan became more and more confused the more he listened.
After taking a deep breath, Gu Yanchen explained the contents of the secret letter to Ran Qingxuan.
“Half of the salt in Northern Qi comes from Cangzhou, and Tianchi City in Cangzhou has the most salt fields.
Half a year ago, a salt field was discovered in the town between Tianchi City and Yinyue City. After it was reclaimed, it was found that it could produce snow-white refined salt.
Due to the division of land, half of the salt field belonged to the fiefdom of Zhenbei Hou, and half belonged to Tianchi City. Qi Jing was in charge of the salt transportation, and after discovering the salt field, he had been sending people to keep an eye on it. ”
Speaking of this, Gu Yanchen couldn't help but shook his head.
"The problem is that the Salt Gang is entrenched in the mountains behind Xianshui Town where the salt fields were discovered. It may be difficult for the two cities to divide the salt fields equally."
Ran Qingxuan thought about it and had the answer in his mind.
"That means half of the salt fields belong to the government, and the other half belongs to the Marquis of Zhenbei. The Salt Gang wants to have a piece of the pie, so they are colluding with Qi Jing to kill Duan Yi?"
"I think that should be the case. After all, once Duan Yi dies, as long as he plots against the Marquis of Zhenbei, I'm afraid that not only the salt field, but all of the private soldiers in the Marquis' fiefdom will be taken back. It can be said that it kills two birds with one stone."
"But what does this have to do with the missing child?"
Based on the injuries she saw on Huahua at noon, she and Gu Yanchen had guessed that the dam burst was human-related, but this was only a preliminary speculation.
Now after hearing what Duan Yi said, she suddenly had a bad feeling in her heart.
......
Sure enough, the next second, Gu Yanchen continued.
"Duan Yi accidentally discovered when he was investigating who had assassinated him that the Salt Gang initially only purchased children around five or six years old from human traffickers.
After he left for a while, for some reason these people started to have more children in their hands, and then children started going missing in the surrounding villages.
The Marquis of Zhenbei was caught up in the war on the Yigui border, and he also had to prevent Duan Yi from being assassinated. Apart from taking precautions, he had no way to go look for the child immediately. ”
Having said that, Ran Qingxuan told Gu Yanchen what he and Gu Yanchen had seen at the Charity Bureau.
The matter might really be related to human factors, so Ran Qingxuan had to mention it carefully.
"In fact, I suspect that those kidnapped children were being used by someone. Maybe there was some treasure at the dam, and those children were small enough to get in and search for it, so they were taken away."
Duan Yi frowned and said, "What can be there at the dam? There is a reservoir between the two mountains, and the surroundings are basically salt fields. What else can there be..."
"Salt fields?" Ran Qingxuan suddenly asked, his heart pounding.
"Is the salt pan under the dam part of your father's fiefdom?"
Duan Yi seemed to realize something and said in a deep voice: "Yes, it occupies half of the entire salt field in Cangzhou!"
"Hiss...It's broken." Ran Qingxuan took a breath and stood up suddenly.
"If all the water in the dam is released, won't all the salt pans downstream be flooded?"
"Are you saying that the Salt Gang, because they can't get the salt field they want, wants to destroy other people's salt fields?"
"No, I guess he wants to dominate the market. As long as the salt fields in Tianchi City are still there, their income will definitely be several times what it is now."
Scarcity makes things valuable. The total salt production of the Northern Qi Dynasty was not enough to feed the people of the Northern Qi Dynasty. If half of Cangzhou was destroyed, the rest would surely be snatched up.
If the Salt Gang wants to control the private salt trade in Cangzhou, they will inevitably start with the hardest bone to chew.
The salt fields in Tianchi City belong to the government, so only the 30% is in the hands of Marquis Zhenbei.
"Don't rush this matter, let me think about it..."
Ran Qingxuan stood up and muttered to himself. Gu Yanchen thought of something and said to Duan Yi, "Did Qi Jing collude with the Salt Gang?"
Duan Yi took a deep breath, pursed his lips and nodded.
“My people intercepted a pigeon letter from the Salt Gang, and the content on it only said that something was not enough, but it was not clear what it was yet.
The place where the carrier pigeon landed is in Xianshui Town. This morning my people came to report that Qi Jing appeared in the courtyard and seemed very angry. In order to avoid being discovered, my people tried to stay in the surrounding areas. ”
"As for whether Qi Jing will deliver what the Salt Gang wants, it is still unknown at this time."
Ran Qingxuan immediately said: "I want to keep an eye on it."
Duan Yi felt that her body movements were good, but what could he do even if he stared at her?
There was no reason for Gu Yanchen to let her go alone, so he simply nodded.
"I'll go with you. Qi Jing can come in person, which means the things are more important to both sides."
Duan Yi didn't expect that Gu Yanchen would indulge her and let her do whatever she wanted, and for a moment he couldn't say anything to stop her from going.
"Then I'll follow along!"
"no."
"no!"
Two voices sounded at the same time. Ran Qingxuan and Gu Yanchen did not want Duan Yi to leave, and the reason was self-evident.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
