When it was just dawn, Ma Kuo was lying in the warm quilt, hugging his two concubines, and fell asleep comfortably. Suddenly, there seemed to be a thunderclap, which made him wake up suddenly.

Then he heard countless people shouting in the yard, running around in panic.

"What's going on?" He quickly got up, put on the wool coat he had just bought, put on the fox fur hat, put on the cotton shoes his wife knitted for him, lit the oil lamp, opened the door, walked outside, grabbed the butler who ran over in a panic and asked, "What's wrong?"

"A gentleman, a gentleman... something is wrong..."

"A large number of officials came outside and said that Junzi, you should go out and explain..."

Upon hearing this, Ma Kuo's face immediately sank: "What are you telling me?"

"I said I want you to explain the whereabouts of the three thousand pieces of cotton cloth and two thousand five hundred pieces of wool cloth prepared in the official warehouse for disaster preparations in the past ten months..."

Ma Kuo listened, his expression darkened, and his heart was filled with a warning.

He is the household guard and the Ku Ling of Huaili County, and is in charge of the county's treasury and national reserves.

Huaili is the largest transit station in Youfufeng's jurisdiction, responsible for taking over various orders, documents and materials sent from Chang'an.

Relying on this identity, since Ma Kuo took office, he has been embezzling the treasury supplies to make profits for himself.

Therefore, in just a few years, the Ma family in Huaili was as rich as three thousand servants, with three large carboniferous farms and hundreds of armored servants.

Even there are thirty iron armors!

Not to mention suppressing slaves, even the township soldiers of Huaili County are no match for the Ma family at all.

Therefore, he was the minor official and was overthrown.

He is a bit successful, Ma Kuo is very involved in his connections and knows that he must find a thigh to hug him.

So, he racked his brains and held the thighs of Zong Zhengqing Liu Xian, one of the ruling rulings, and gave all his three sisters to the royal family who was over 60 years old as their concubine.

Every year, he sent beautiful Western Regions beards and well-behaved Korean maids. He even spared no expense to build a female courtyard in Huaili County. He hired a famous singer female teacher from Handan to come back to train and cultivate beauty for him to enjoy the ruling ruling except lustfulness.

With this royal family in power, Ma Kuo successfully climbed to other royal family members who were expected to rule in the future.

It is really a worry-free place to do things with confidence.

So Ma Kuo abused his power even more unscrupulously.

Two months ago, in order to buy a batch of slaves transported from the Western Regions, he directly embezzled half of the supplies in Huaili Prefecture's treasury.

Originally, this was a foolproof thing.

The verification of treasurys in various places is regular.

As long as you rush to make up for the deficit before the next inspection official comes to the door, you will be happy, I will be happy, everyone.

I didn't expect that a snow disaster suddenly came and disrupted all his plans.

The court kept urging the Huaili authorities to immediately rescue the disaster and open the treasury.

But where could he take out the supplies that should be in the treasury?

Fortunately, the county magistrate and county magistrate of Huaili were like him and took the things from the treasury to do their own business.

Everyone is a grasshopper on the same rope, so they unite and deceive the superiors and hide the subordinates.

On the one hand, the report to the court - the snow disaster in Huaili was very small, and the people lived and worked in peace and stability.

On the other hand, the slaves and rogues were sent to guard the road specifically to prevent those disobedient mud legs from running out, so that Chang'an could know the reality of the Huaili.

Their abacus is excellent.

As long as you hold on and hold on until the beginning of spring, farmers will be busy with farming and workers will be busy with work, no one will have the energy to investigate why the materials in the treasury disappeared.

As long as you get through it, it will be a sunny day.

By then, it really won’t work. At worst, I will find a way to resign!

Anyway, Ma Kuo felt that he had made enough money, and it was time to leave.

But at this moment, the prime minister took charge and began to dispatch troops to rescue disasters.

Start with Chang'an and Xinfeng first, and then quickly expand to the entire Guanzhong.

This made Ma Kuo and the whole Huaili burst into cold sweat!

Because, over the years, it has not only been the officials who have been working on their own, but also holding the state supplies in the treasury and meat forests as their own investment or capital for their own investment.

The local tyrants and great businessmen are also not idle.

In order to make money and seize the market, they have never done anything?

If you really want to pursue it, almost everyone has to go to the Tingwei prison.

Therefore, local merchants, especially mine owners, are more afraid of what they have done than officials like Ma Kuo, and are known to the above.

So they combine inside and outside and collude with each other.

Is the court sending personnel to rescue the disaster?

Yes, the people sent from the higher authorities had already been clearly understood by them before they came.

They dealt with the three waves of messengers.

But no one thought, the prime minister was worried at all, and could not even trust anyone.

Below the messenger on the surface, there were also Jinyiwei, who quietly made a secret visit.

Fortunately, Ma Kuo once paid a lot of money to a noble man. At the critical moment, the noble man gave him a reminder, allowing him to discover the Jinyiwei who was disguised as a secret visit.

In order to protect himself, Ma Kuo was so cruel that he and the Huaili County Magistrate killed the Jinyiwei as bandits.

This happened three days ago.

After doing this, Ma Kuo finally made up his mind to resign.

After the incident, he was planning to resign as an ill person and forced the county magistrate and county magistrate to make up for the deficit in the treasury and finish it clean up.

Then, with the wealth accumulated over the years, whether you go to the Western Regions or North Korea, you can be free for a lifetime.

but……

Now this beautiful dream seems to be about to wake up.

Ma Kuo looked at the torches raised outside the door and listened to the barking of dogs in the yard.

He simply made up his mind and scolded the servants and servants who were panicked and at a loss in the yard, "What are you doing?"

"Putting armor!"

"Send someone out to tell the people outside that if the beauty is not clear today, according to the system, if there is no emperor's edict, this official has the right to refuse to meet!"

He ordered people to take out all the powerful bow, crossbow and iron armored halberd hidden in the house.

This is to resist by force.

Ma Kuo knew that at this point, he had no choice but to force himself.

Only when you win will you have a chance and hope.

If it was after dawn, the powerful and powerful men in the county discovered that the matter was exposed and in the crisis of life and death, maybe he could rush his arms and take a blow!

Ma Kuo remembered his backer again and sent someone to tell him what he was doing.

The determination in my heart is stronger.

"Heaven listens to himself and the people listen, and the heaven sees himself and the people look at him!"

"We are good and loyal ministers, and we are not worthy of treacherous ministers and traitors for a long time!"

"The righteousness of the Spring and Autumn Period is to respect the king and seek evil!"

Ma Kuo looked in front of him, and under his command, the armed private soldiers gradually gained confidence.

Over the years, in order to suppress slaves and to demonstrate family background.

He raised more than a hundred private soldiers and even hid some criminals.

These people were also equipped with armored weapons that were almost the same as regular army, powerful bows, crossbows, and iron armored steel shields. They were all available.

He usually suppressed those slaves and miners, and was very skillful and skillful.

At the same time, since the Ma family was outside Huaili County, it had to face various problems and challenges, he built the Ma family manor into a solid stone-made Wubao.

The courtyard wall alone is as high as three meters high, and the corner tower and arrow tower are almost comparable to a small obstacle in the past.

Three or five hundred people were unable to defend the Wubao.

Two years ago, more than 2,000 Hu Nu from a carbonite mine in Huaili County rebelled under the clamor of dozens of local people in Huaili, killed the supervisor and rushed towards the Majia Wubao, hoping to take his head.

As a result, under the high walls of his Fortress, corpses were everywhere.

Then, the Huaili official army came to help, and the center blossomed, suppressing all the rebellious slaves.

When Ma Kuo thought about it, even the elite of Yingyang Army would not be able to do anything to him for a while.

Thinking of this, Ma Kuo said loudly to his servants: "Now the chaos of the army is a disaster. I am a Han minister and I should protect the territory and the people. If you follow my orders, we will jointly control the chaos of the army. After dawn, the imperial army will come and everyone will make contributions!"

"In addition to this, I will also use gold and silver to benefit you from the treasury!"

"Everyone who follows me will be rewarded with hardware! Silver is eight taels!"
To be continued...