Since ancient times, the people have never fought against officials, let alone low-status merchants.

In fact, the most important thing is to figure out your own position. If you bring a lot of benefits to others, others will definitely protect you.

It is well known that for the nobles, their own power is the most important.

Money is something that is gone once it is gone, but as long as power remains, you can earn it back later.

When it came to silencing witnesses, the nobles were surprisingly unanimous. Those who had lent money at high exchange rates in prison, as well as those who had joined them in committing evil deeds, all died tragically in prison without exception.

"Drink it, and then get on your way soon, or our brothers will come in and do something to you."

"We've already killed dozens of people today. My hands are sore from carrying the bodies. If you do this again, I won't even have the energy to eat."

"Be smart and you can avoid a lot of pain. The ingredients in here are all increased in quantity. It will be gone in the shortest time possible and you won't be in pain for too long."

Outside the cell, several jailers were trying to persuade him earnestly.

They are really tired.

The stewards of various big bosses came to visit the prison one after another. Their ranks were higher than each other, and it was not something that these little minions like them could disobey.

Arsenic and other things are almost sold out in the nearby pharmacy.

All those people who have been caught in jail recently must be put to death.

The key is that after death, due to certain relationships, they have to carry the body out by themselves, which is a physically demanding job.

We have been working since morning till now and are all exhausted.

The merchant who heard this in the cell was horrified and begged for mercy: "I am following Minister Li. If you do this, Minister Li will definitely not let you go."

"Do you know how much money I gave him as a tribute? It's an amount you can't even dream of."

"Let me go quickly. I will definitely not pursue the matter after I get out."

The position of assistant minister may not seem very important in the imperial court, but looking at the capital, he is also a top-ranking official.

Basically, most things can be easily settled, without even having to show up yourself.

The jailer smiled and said, "What about the assistant minister? I don't care which assistant minister you are. Do you know the background of the previous one? He is already a minister. It's useless."

"Even if he has some connection with the palace, it's still the same. He can still save face if he drinks it himself. But if our brothers take action later, it won't be so easy."

"Besides, if you die in prison now, you will be the only one to die. If you really continue to struggle, then the whole room will die."

"We brothers are really out of energy. There are still hundreds of people behind us, and the superiors are pushing us hard."

"The bowl is placed here for you, please be more tactful."

"Remember, drink it all up when you drink it. If the dose is not enough, you will be the one suffering."

The jailer placed the bowl filled with potion on the ground, and after saying that, he walked towards the next cell, leaving the businessman with a deathly pale face and lifeless eyes.

After a long time, the businessman seemed to have figured it out. He walked to the cell door and picked up the medicine bowl tremblingly, fearing that it would spill.

Then he drank it all in one gulp.

Even the residue inside was licked clean.

Just like the jailer said, drinking less would only make it more torture.

After a moment, a miserable cry was heard. This was the last torture before death.

Throughout the prison, screams echoed one after another.

Those prisoners who had nothing to do with the incident were so frightened that they huddled in the corner of the cell and trembled constantly.

This kind of scene is truly a lifelong shadow in the hearts of ordinary people.

Even the jailers rarely saw such a scene, and they felt a little scared.

On the other hand, for those who were unwilling to drink, the jailers had no choice but to rush over and force them to drink, which took a lot of effort.

The jailers were not allowed to kill people privately, especially with external injuries such as swords and knives.

The most basic power of execution has nothing to do with them.

The swords worn at the waist are mostly just for display.

Entering the cell and slitting the prisoner's neck is not allowed by law, and most jailers don't have the courage to do it themselves.

If you take poison, it is also considered suicide.

This incident was so serious that the jailers had no other choice.

Fortunately, when people from above come to give orders, they will give a lot of rewards. After deducting the cost of buying medicine, the rest is their profit.

This wave can be considered as a windfall.

There are usually only a dozen or twenty prison guards in a cell, but now there are hundreds of people in each cell.

After death, even if they were carried out and handed over to the prisoner's family, each person would have to be carried dozens of times.

This turmoil in the capital was like a thunderstorm; it came quickly and went away even faster.

In just two or three days, more than ten thousand people lost their lives.

More than 10,000 people may seem like a lot, but in fact, it has no big impact on the entire city of Nanjing.

Perhaps the only noticeable thing is that almost all the money houses and pawnshops in the streets and markets have been closed and sealed.

According to the current laws of the Ming Dynasty, the deeds of these shops will be invalidated, confiscated into the imperial treasury, and entered into the emperor's private piggy bank.

This of course includes the other properties of these loan sharks, all of which will be confiscated.

Sometimes making money really is that easy.

Zhu Yuanzhang also felt a little sad.

It turns out that these businessmen have so much money. If I had known earlier, I would have targeted the businessmen more and would not have been in such an embarrassing situation before.

Zhu Ying no longer cares much about money.

His current idea is to develop domestic affairs on a large scale, as well as industrial bases in all aspects, and then expand the territory of the Ming Dynasty.

After three months, the Beiyuan Mercenary Guild had grown to a considerable size.

The current development direction is still on the protection of caravans, especially those traveling in the Western Regions.

Feeling that the time was almost right, Zhu Ying called Zhang Bo.

"If I remember correctly, there was a Mongolian member in our Chamber of Commerce earlier. He was a pretty good and powerful guy. His name was Batu, right?"

Zhu Ying asked after recalling.

Over there is the branch of the Chamber of Heroes in the Golden Horde, which is very far away. Between it and the Ming Dynasty, there is the Western Regions, the Eastern Chagatai Khanate, and then the Golden Horde.

The spread of news is naturally very slow.

At the beginning, Zhu Ying ordered all Mongolian chambers of commerce to evacuate to the Western Regions and then enter the Ming Dynasty.

The news from the Golden Horde arrived very late, and the losses were much greater.

Among them, when Zhu Ying was checking the intelligence, he was particularly impressed by Batu as described in the files.

In name, the Western Regions belong to the Ming Dynasty, so the Ming Dynasty cannot casually launch military operations in the Western Regions, as this will affect the Ming Dynasty's reputation.

The Mongols were different. They were notoriously ferocious, especially the small countries in the Western Regions, which had been attacked and harassed by the Mongol cavalry many times.

If one wants to stir up the water in the Western Regions, it would be more convenient for the Mongols to step in.

Zhang Bo replied: "After Batu and his Mongolian men withdrew, they have been staying in Qunying City in our Western Regions."

"If His Highness has any instructions, I think they will be able to do it."

Zhu Ying nodded and said, "Send them some money and food to support them, recruit soldiers in the Western Regions, and conquer everywhere to cause chaos in the entire Western Regions."

"Go to the Beiyuan Mercenary Guild and hire a team of 3,000 cavalrymen to help Batu gain more territory."

"Don't worry about logistics. If there's anything you don't like, just attack them."

"Timur should have a great advantage over the Golden Horde right now. Timur himself is very arrogant, and I think he will prepare to attack the Eastern Chagatai Khanate in the near future."

"Let Batu and his men go there. Once we have enough troops, we can clean up the border of the Eastern Chagatai Khanate at the same time."

"As for funding, we'll take 20 million treasure notes and gradually support them over two years."

The Western Regions are so lame.

Especially in the Western Regions today.

At the beginning, Zhu Ying had several thousand cavalrymen, and he could run rampant throughout the entire Western Regions. However, in the Western Regions, having more territory was meaningless, and the area was vast and sparsely populated, and you might not see a single person for several days.

Zhu Ying's original thoughts were all on business. Apart from building a city of heroes, he did not deliberately conquer several countries to demonstrate his military power. That was just for fun.

It’s different now. The integration of the Western Regions is of greater significance.

High-yield crops can still have very good output value in the Western Regions.

The Western Regions is located at the border with Timur and the Eastern Chagatai Khanate, and its geographical location is also relatively important.

Although Timur died on the march in history, some things have changed. Zhu Ying had no idea whether he would die that way.

It’s better to be safe.

There is no need to bet on something that has not happened yet.

The Western Regions is so huge that it is almost half the size of the current Ming Dynasty.

In terms of time, we can only think in the long term.

On Timur's side, the overall situation is now similar to what Zhu Ying expected.

When Timur got the formula of cement, he naturally started a large-scale construction without hesitation.

Timur himself attached great importance to cavalry, and there were a large number of post stations distributed throughout Timur's territory, which was similar to the idea of ​​the Mongols.

Timur was now in high spirits. He used his powerful army to fight recklessly on many fronts and won consecutive victories.

At present, Timur is already the undisputed overlord in the entire Central Asian region, and none of the surrounding countries can defeat him.

The Timurid Empire had a territory roughly the same size as the current Ming Dynasty's actual territory.

The number of troops there is about two million, not much less than that of the Ming Dynasty.

Unlike the self-sufficient Wei Suo system of the Ming Dynasty, Timur's was a slave system, which meant that slaves were forced to support his own army.

A large part of the army was also a slave army.

The method of using war to support war meant that Timur did not have to worry about lacking manpower. He was always thinking about how to consume the slave army he had.

Because if it is consumed too slowly, it will become a burden to oneself.

Led by the Mongolian cavalry, these slave armies also had very considerable combat effectiveness. Although they were called slaves, in fact, many of them were the backbone of the surrounding small countries in the early days.

It’s not that these small countries are not well developed, but compared with the Mongol Khanate, they are indeed far behind. The Mongolian cavalry’s quality in all aspects is equivalent to a natural gap.

There are many plains here, and on the plains, hundreds of Mongolian cavalry can easily slaughter thousands of infantry.

The gap is ten times.

In addition, the number of Timur's cavalry is greater than that of the infantry of an ordinary small country, so what can they resist?

If we say that it was more than a hundred years earlier, the areas where these small countries were located were once conquered by Genghis Khan.

In Timur's words, this was not invasion, but recovery.

Of course, Timur was only the king in Central Asia.

There is the Ming Dynasty in the East.

In name, Timur was still a vassal of the Ming Dynasty.

In the West, there is the Ottoman Empire, which is now at its peak.

The Ottoman Empire was located at the intersection of Eastern and Western civilizations and controlled the land transportation lines between them for hundreds of years.

Shortly after Kublai Khan moved to the Central Plains, that is, four years after his death, the Ottoman Empire was established.

The Ottoman Empire, which had been developing for a hundred years, was in its rising period.

The ancient Byzantine Empire further west was completely defeated in the face of the newly born Ottoman Empire.

Today, the Ottoman Empire spans three continents: Europe, Asia, and Africa, and its influence is extremely powerful.

Even Timur was cautious when facing the Ottoman Empire.

Of course, as Mongolians, we naturally have a strong psychological advantage over Western European countries.

Because since the rise of the nomadic peoples, the West has never lost a war in this world.

This is not an exaggeration.

It’s not just the Mongols, either.

For example, the former Xiongnu Empire was the most powerful and extensive empire on the Asian continent. It once roamed across the country, plundering everywhere, and became a terrifying civilization-destroying force between the East and the West.

However, the invincible Xiongnu Empire in the West almost never won when it encountered the Han Empire from the East.

He was chased and beaten all the way.

It is said that the final demise of the Roman Empire had a lot to do with the Han Dynasty.

The Huns who surrendered in various ways in the East were strictly speaking the Northern Huns, who were driven out of the Mobei Plateau by the Han Dynasty.

The Northern Huns gradually retreated westward to the Don and Danube River basins, using the southern Russian steppes as their base, and finally launched a war against the Roman Empire.

The Northern Huns, who had experienced the hell mode in the East, finally found that they could easily defeat everything in the West.

So in the end, the Huns never returned to the East, and slowly integrated into the Western countries.

Although they are of different nationalities, the Mongols and the Huns are both nomadic peoples.

The situation of the Mongol Empire after the Xiongnu Empire was roughly the same.

Timur could pay tribute to the Ming Dynasty, but in his heart, he had no fear at all about the powerful Ottoman Empire next to him.

I have been thinking recently whether I should have a fight with them first to test the situation.