The first rumor was not so bad. After all, Zhao Chenhan's reputation had already spread. He was also the prince of Zhenbei Marquisate and the brother-in-law of Prince Yu. With these two identities, everyone gave him face when he went out on business.
The second rumor was more vicious and directly caused Zhao Lin to be killed.
First, his flattery of the powerful eunuchs was enough to make him be ridiculed and ostracized by the whole world. Secondly, he even belittled the ministers in the court, which offended everyone except Zhu Zhongyan.
Not to mention that Zhao Lin is not an official yet, even if he really becomes an official, he won’t be an official for long.
This is to ruin his future.
"You've made a big mistake this time. Everyone is condemning you. What are you going to do?" Li Xingye asked.
Zhao Lin smiled and said, "Of course I'm going to cling to Zhu Zhongyan's thighs. After all, I ended up in this situation because of writing poems for him."
Li Xingye frowned and said, "Are you really going to join the eunuch party?"
Zhao Lin said, "No venture, no gain. Your Excellency, haven't you always wanted to get rid of the eunuchs? If you don't join them and gain Zhu Zhongyan's trust, how can you get evidence?"
Li Xingye sighed, "So what if I have evidence? As long as His Majesty still trusts him, no amount of evidence will be of any use."
Zhao Lin smiled and said, "That's not necessarily true. What if he did something that disappointed or even angered His Majesty?"
Li Xingye's expression changed: "What do you mean?"
Zhao Lin said, "Your Majesty's birthday celebration is extremely important, and the person in charge of collecting the Flower and Stone Tax is Zhu Zhongyan, whom you have always trusted. This will definitely make Zhu Zhongyan very unhappy. What if he deliberately sabotages the Flower and Stone Tax to win favor, thus delaying the construction of the garden?"
Li Xingye gave Zhao Lin a deep look and asked, "Can you do it?"
Zhao Lin said: "Everything depends on human effort."
"Okay!" Li Xingye said immediately, "If you can do this, I will risk everything to clear your name and restore your innocence."
Zhao Lin said, "I just hope you won't forget what I said today."
Leaving the Shengjing government office, Sudi frowned and said, "You're taking too much risk. You really shouldn't be doing this. With Lord Li's support, your career is definitely going to be good. Why take this risk?"
Zhao Lin sighed, "Time is running out, I have to take risks."
Sudi asked, "For Miss Fu?"
Zhao Lin said: "On the one hand."
Part of the reason was for Fu Liqing, but the bigger reason was to deal with Zhao Chenhan.
Zhao Lin was sure that the three assassination attempts were definitely carried out by Zhao Chenhan.
If Zhao Lin does not gain sufficient status and position as soon as possible, he will be in great danger.
Even though Zhao Lin didn't give Jiang Yichen and Bai Shicheng face, they had no choice. Those were just minor fights between young people. Once the two of them used their own strength, Zhao Lin would have no power to fight back.
So Zhao Lin must climb up as soon as possible.
If one Li Xingye is not enough, then add Zhu Zhongyan, who is at the peak of his career.
As for the fact that Zhu Zhongyan was a eunuch, Zhao Lin didn't care.
Which of the Jiang Party to which Li Chengqian belongs and the Chu Party to which Fu Chengwang belongs is better than the Eunuch Party?
As long as Zhao Lin doesn't do anything against his conscience, he doesn't care what organization he joins.
"You've really risked everything for Miss Fu," Sudi said with a hint of bitterness. "I can't help you with anything else, except money."
Zhao Lin was delighted: "Are you back?"
"Yes. Didn't we make tens of thousands of taels of silver last time? We invested it all in, including the principal and interest, and transported a batch of tea, salt, silk and porcelain. This time, we didn't go through Zhenbei Pass, but smuggled them directly into the grassland and sold them to the Beidi people, making a net profit of 200,000 taels of silver." Sudi said.
Zhao Lin was shocked: "Two hundred thousand taels? That much?"
Sudi smiled and said, "It's not much. We have little capital and send little stuff. Otherwise, we could have given more."
Zhao Lin sighed, "That's already a lot. It's hard to imagine how much Zhao Jingzhou earns annually by monopolizing all the operations at Zhenbei Pass."
Su Di said, "Someone has estimated that Zhenbeiguan's annual revenue from commission alone is over a million taels of silver. If you add in the gray income, it's definitely not less than that."
Sudi stretched out his right hand and raised five fingers.
"Five million taels? No one's jealous?" Zhao Lin was surprised, then suddenly realized: "He can't eat it all himself, so someone must be sharing the profits."
"You are right. According to my family's understanding, Zhao Jingzhou only took 20% of the income of Zhenbei Pass. Of the remaining 80%, 20% was given to the emperor, 20% was given to Prince Yu, and of the remaining 20%, 10% was secretly given to Zhu Zhongyan, and the other 10% was distributed among other ministers. This allowed him to firmly control Zhenbei Pass, otherwise he would have been impeached long ago." Sudi said.
Zhao Lin nodded.
That's right.
Zhenbei Pass is no longer a world-famous checkpoint, but a golden hen that lays golden eggs. Countless people in the government and the country are jealous of it. If Zhao Jingzhou relied on himself, he would have been wiped out long ago.
But even so, Zhao Jingzhou's annual income was one million taels.
This is one million taels of silver.
The treasury of the Great Qi Dynasty has been increasingly empty in recent years. The total annual revenue of the treasury is only about 20 million taels of silver, and it is still decreasing.
But the Zhenbei Pass alone could generate an income of five million taels of silver.
It's just terrible.
No wonder the emperor trusted Zhao Jingzhou so much and let him lead the 200,000-strong Zhenbei Army for a long time.
It is said that the Zhenbei Army is the most elite army in the entire Daqi Dynasty.
You can imagine the level of trust.
Sudi added: "Of Zhao Jingzhou's 20%, half was actually given to Prince Yu Li Jingzhong."
Zhao Lin nodded. "For Zhao Jingzhou, making a lot of money isn't as important as having his son-in-law become emperor. But how can he be sure that Li Jingzhong will trust him more than the current emperor after he becomes emperor? Wouldn't Li Jingzhong take Zhenbei Pass back and give it to someone he trusts to guard it?"
Su Di smiled and said, "First, of course, they're father-in-law and son-in-law, so they're more trustworthy than others. Secondly, besides Zhao Jingzhou, who else can lead 200,000 Northern Guarding Army soldiers? Are they really not afraid of chaos? It's not that no one wants to touch Zhao Jingzhou, but with 200,000 Northern Guarding Army soldiers there, who would dare to touch him without absolute certainty? It's already a great achievement to be able to suppress him and prevent him from becoming a Duke."
Zhao Lin sighed, "He's only a marquis, yet he's already so difficult to control. If he becomes a duke or even a king of a different surname, wouldn't he rebel?"
Sudi said, "Yes, this is what many ministers said to the emperor. So even though the emperor trusted Zhao Jingzhou very much, he didn't dare to continue to confer titles on him. He only occasionally rewarded him with some strange and unusual things."
Zhao Lin frowned and said, "I don't know how to kill Zhao Jingzhou and seize Zhenbei Pass."
Sudi was slightly startled: "You want to kill Zhao Jingzhou?"
"Yes." Zhao Lin did not hide anything from Sudi. There was no need to hide anything.
Zhao Lin said, "Zhenbei Pass has both soldiers and money. It would be a waste to leave it in Zhao Jingzhou's hands. If we can seize Zhenbei Pass, even if we declare ourselves king, what can Qi Dynasty do?"
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