Chapter 60 Enemies Everywhere

Chapter 60 Enemies Everywhere

Chapter 60 Enemies Everywhere
Sun Keding pondered for a while and said to Pei Yuan, "If what I guessed is correct, I'm afraid it will be difficult for this money to leave Suzhou Prefecture, let alone be delivered to the internal transport warehouse smoothly."

Pei Yuan was shocked when he heard this. "What? Could it be that the eunuch who is in charge of the Suhang weaving factory has also become one of their men?"

Sun Keding shook his head. "Eunuch Hu is definitely on the same page as Your Majesty. But since they are going to fight openly, the Suzhou prefect will certainly not sit idly by and watch the money leave Suzhou City like this."

Pei Yuan asked in confusion, "If I remember correctly, Suzhou prefect Zhai De'an should be from Shaanxi."

Sun Keding showed an ugly smile on his face.

"So what? No matter where he is from, as long as he is the prefect of Suzhou, there will naturally be people who will coerce him to follow the ideas of Suzhou scholars."

Pei Yuan also knew that these itinerant officials had no foundation and could easily be coerced by local forces.

Not to mention the local areas, when Pei Yuan was in Beijing, he heard many cases of people from the underworld using force to break the law and deeply interfere in the affairs of the court.

After that city inspector offended Zhang Heling, didn't Zhang Heling hire some gangsters to sleep with his daughter?
Fortunately, Shili Xiang, who took over the business at that time, didn't have the ability to do it, so he just pasted it and got the job done.

But didn't the city inspector give in afterwards?
Besides daring to spend money to hunt down the rapist Shili Xiang, won't he just avoid Zhang Heling when he sees him in the future?
But this Suzhou prefect was truly a "prefect who exterminated the entire family."

Pei Yuan couldn't help but frown and asked, "He is the prefect of Suzhou, a dignified fourth-rank official. Is there really someone so bold as to provoke him?"

Sun Keding sighed and said slowly, "One day when Magistrate Zhai was returning to the yamen, someone stopped his sedan chair to file a complaint. The guards around him were restrained in an instant, and then the man who stopped the sedan chair to file a complaint walked straight in front of the sedan chair and handed over the complaint."

"Prefect Zhai pulled himself together, opened the curtain of the sedan chair, and took the petition. But the man grabbed his left hand, pressed it to the ground, and cut off his little finger."

Pei Yuan's face turned pale, "Where did this villain come from? Why is he so rampant?"

Then he stared at Sun Keding and asked, "How come Beijing didn't hear anything about this big case?"

Sun Keding replied, "The man cut off Magistrate Zhai's little finger, and then slashed his throat right in front of Magistrate Zhai, with blood splattering all over Magistrate Zhai's official robe."

"Zhai was extremely angry and reported to the Nanjing Ministry of Justice. Unexpectedly, that night, he received a brocade box more than a foot long, which was filled with little fingers. In addition, there was a letter saying that if Zhai was not satisfied, he would let those people commit suicide at Zhai's home in Shaanxi to apologize for their crimes."

"Prefect Zhai was terrified and worried about implicating his family, so he could only swallow his anger and go to the Nanjing Ministry of Justice to withdraw the case. It is said that..."

Sun Keding paused and said to Pei Yuan, "It is said that when the Nanjing Ministry of Justice returned the document, it used the same brocade box as the thief. Since then, Magistrate Zhai has basically not been involved in official business except for his romantic affairs."

Pei Yuan already understood in his heart that the Suzhou prefect had been completely subdued.

Pei Yuan thought of his mission this time, and a fierce look flashed in his eyes.

In front of Sun Keding, he spread his hands and looked at them, and said with a fake smile, "It seems that someone might come to give me a warning, but I don't know which one they are interested in."

Sun Keding met Pei Yuan's gaze and said frankly, "You don't have to doubt me. I'm just a county magistrate. People don't take me seriously. Besides, I know what's good for me."

Pei Yuan just now suddenly realized that Sun Keding had stayed in Nanzhi for two years, and might have been dragged into this. His words just now seemed to be a reminder, but who knows if they were a disguised threat?

Moreover, Sun Keding is going to board Gu Dayong's ship and may not be willing to tie his own interests to it.

Fortunately, Sun Keding also understood Pei Yuan's meaning and chose to face his words directly, which helped Pei Yuan to dispel a lot of his suspicions.

Pei Yuan thought for a while and asked, "Brother Sun, do you know which group of gangsters provoked Prefect Zhai?" Sun Keding shook his head.

"Those people are desperate criminals. They will do anything if you give them a few hundred taels of silver. As long as they leave Nanzhi, they can hide away and live happily. Where can we find them?"

Pei Yuan didn't expect to get any useful information.

Sun Keding seemed to be very frank with him, but all he told him were superficial things.

Pei Yuan thought for a moment and said, "So, Governor Zhai will definitely help those people to embarrass me?"

Sun Keding shook his head and said, "It is the imperial court's duty to escort the tax silver, and the one who paid for it is the eunuch who supervises the Suzhou and Hangzhou textile factories. Naturally, he has no right to stop it."

Pei Yuan frowned, "So, it is very likely that the people who came are those who are against him."

This time, Pei Yuan was not as defenseless as Prefect Zhai. Not only was he accompanied by elite troops from the Zhenxie Thousand Households, he could also recruit garrison soldiers and yamen runners as cannon fodder along the way. It would not be easy to launch a surprise attack on him openly.

Sun Keding pondered for a while, as if he had made a decision, and finally revealed some key information, "If it were me, I would spread rumors among the Suzhou craftsmen, instigate them to surround the convoy escorting the tax silver, and then let some underworld figures mix in with them, take advantage of the chaos to overturn the silver cart, and rob the tax silver. Maybe your mission will end before it even begins."

"When faced with tens of thousands of unarmed craftsmen, what will you do? If a civil uprising is provoked, who among you will dare to protect you?"

Pei Yuan's face suddenly turned ugly.

Pei Yuan naturally knew the power of inciting the masses and manipulating public opinion, but he did not expect to encounter such a tactic on his mission.

"I was only escorting tax silver for the imperial court. This money was not collected from the craftsmen. How could it arouse such public indignation? How can the Suzhou government explain this unreasonable thing to the higher authorities?"

Sun Keding sneered grimly, "It's not difficult. My dear brother, do you know what the eunuch who is in charge of the Suhang weaving factory does?"

Pei Yuan answered without hesitation, "Weaving embroidered silk fabrics in Suzhou and Hangzhou and handing them over to the court."

The Suzhou and Hangzhou Weaving Factory is a very important government office in the imperial court.

You should know that silk fabrics in this era were not only a valuable commodity, but could also be circulated directly as wealth.

The job of the eunuch in charge of the Suzhou and Hangzhou weaving factories was to purchase raw silk at low prices in areas with developed sericulture, and then use the craftsmen in service to produce silk fabrics in large quantities.

In a sense, it is not an exaggeration to say that this is the court's money printing machine.

Sun Keding lowered his voice and said, "If it were me, I would spread rumors among the craftsmen, saying that the court has tasted the sweetness of Suzhou and Hangzhou weaving and plans to expand the Suzhou weaving field. Those craftsmen were requisitioned to work in rotation, and the rewards were meager. Once the Suzhou weaving field was expanded, the time they would have to serve in rotation would inevitably increase significantly."

"Those artisans usually rely on doing work for others in their free time to make a living. Once they learn that the court is going to increase their exploitation, trouble will inevitably arise."

"When the time comes, we just need to find a few people to take the lead and make a call, haha..."

Pei Yuan's face was gloomy as hell. He didn't expect that Sun Keding's few words would make him realize the difficulty of this journey.

It’s so difficult to even get the silver out of the city, let alone the trek all the way north?
(End of this chapter)