Zhou Chenyang said with an unhappy expression: "What's wrong?"
Liu Tianwen knew that he had failed at the Lin Mansion tonight, and talking about it would only make him feel even worse, but it was too important not to talk about it.
Liu Tianwen had no choice but to bite the bullet and said: "The iron block was robbed, and the man we sent there was killed!"
"What!" Zhou Chenyang stood up suddenly, his eyes widened: "What did you say?"
Liu Tianwen replied: "Someone came back covered in blood just now to report that the iron blocks had been stolen and all our people were killed."
Zhou Chenyang's eyes were full of disbelief: "Kill them all? How is this possible!"
Liu Tianwen also thought it was impossible, but the person who came back to report the news was covered in blood, so it was impossible for him to lie.
He said: "I have sent people to the scene to check..."
"I'll go there myself!" Zhou Chenyang's eyes were full of anxiety, for no other reason than this batch of iron pieces was too important to him.
Things that were once foolproof turned into this, how could he not be anxious.
Liu Tianwen immediately found the horses, and then they left the city overnight.
About three hours later, they arrived at the place where the accident occurred, where several ships were stranded on the shore and bodies were scattered everywhere.
The blood dyed the river in this area red, making it look very tragic.
Zhou Chenyang ignored the corpses and went straight to look at the cargo on the ship. The iron pieces inside were long gone.
Zhou Chenyang said coldly: "They will definitely not be able to go far with the iron block, so go after them immediately!"
Liu Tianwen and his men looked around and said with some embarrassment: "City Lord, there is no way to pursue him."
Zhou Chenyang asked with a cold face: "Why can't I chase you?"
Liu Tianwen replied: "Those bandits didn't use our boat or our boxes, and we didn't see any rut marks around them."
"Go forward after this bend, and you will be outside the scope of our city of Chongqing."
"It took too long from the time something happened to the time our people went back to report the incident to the time we arrived."
"At this time, they are traveling along the waterway, and they may have arrived at Gale Wind City where Prince Pingnan's palace is located."
Zhou Chenyang: "..."
As long as the iron blocks reached Gale Wind City, he would not be able to take them away even if he found them.
Unless he can lead his people to destroy Prince Pingnan's Mansion now.
But now he doesn't have such strength.
Zhou Chenyang's expression was very ugly, and he asked coldly: "Do you suspect that King Pingnan's people stole our iron?"
Liu Tianwen replied: "In Liefeng State, no one except King Pingnan can kill all of us."
"The city lord has been stumbling upon King Pingnan a lot these days. I'm afraid he has long been displeased with the city lord."
"This time he did this, probably to beat the city lord."
Zhou Chenyang's expression changed several times.
Liu Tianwen's statement is true. King Pingnan has been in Liefeng Prefecture for many years. No one except him can kill so many people in the territory of Yucheng.
He cursed: "Wang Pingnan, this old man! Prince Pingnan is so shameless!"
At this point, he could fully suspect that Prince Pingnan had forced himself to stay in his city lord's house before, just to pretend to be a pig and eat the tiger, in order to deal with him.
All the discord between Ping Nan and Wang was all lies to him!
The more he thought about it, the angrier he became. He felt like he was being plotted against, and he felt extremely aggrieved!
Liu Tian asked him: "City Lord, what should we do now?"
Zhou Chenyang didn't know what to do.
Ever since he and Jiang Xinrou set their wedding date, everything has been going wrong. He strongly suspected that she was a troublemaker.
He said coldly: "Let's hide this matter for the time being, speed up the mining progress of the mine, and find a way to report to the court first."
Liu Tianwen was a little worried and said: "But the mine has been almost exhausted."
"Even if all the iron ore is mined now, I'm afraid it won't be enough in terms of quantity, and it won't be in time."
Zhou Chenyang took a deep breath and said: "I have a way to deal with this matter. Now I just need to mine a batch of iron nuggets."
Liu Tianwen nodded, but reminded him of another thing: "There is not much money left in the mine, so we must find a way to solve this problem as soon as possible."
Although Zhou Chenyang monopolized the most profitable gambling houses and brothels in Chongqing after arriving in Chongqing, the amount of money was limited after all.
The annual output of Chongqing City is limited. Under such circumstances, even if gambling houses and brothels make money, they will not be able to support the huge amount of iron ore mining.
Not to mention that he had selfish motives, secretly raising an army of soldiers and horses, and secretly forging weapons, all of which were extremely expensive.
This is also the fundamental reason why he wants to get all the Lin Mansion's money.
Zhou Chenyang said a little irritably: "Money, money, money, money needs to be used everywhere!"
Liu Tianwen said softly: "City Lord, if the Lin Mansion's money cannot be obtained through gentle means, perhaps force can be used."
Zhou Chenyang looked at him and he said softly: "Anyway, we said some time ago that a gangster had entered Chongqing."
"When criminal thieves enter the city, they usually pick on wealthy households. The city lord doesn't have to just rob the Lin Mansion. He can also rob the wealthy households in the city as well."
"This can not only cover up people's eyes and ears, but also solve the city lord's urgent need."
Zhou Chenyang felt that Liu Tianwen's idea seemed to be a solution, but if something like this happened to the city under his rule, he would be held accountable.
If one person is not good enough, he will not be able to keep his position as city lord.
But if he cannot resolve the money issue, his privately maintained troops and horses will not be saved, and there will also be very serious consequences.
He was still a little undecided for a moment, so he said, "Let me think about this first."
Liu Tianwen bowed and said, "I would like the city lord to make a decision on this matter as soon as possible."
Zhou Chenyang nodded irritably. He regretted sleeping with Jiang Xinrou at this moment. He didn't have these worries when he married Lin Xiuyan directly.
Thinking of this, he cursed Jiang Xinrou, a bitch, for seducing him and causing him so much trouble.
When he returned to the city lord's mansion exhausted, the steward of the gambling house saw him coming back and rushed to greet him: "City lord, something happened!"
Zhou Chenyang heard this sentence several times that night, and every time he heard it, he got angry.
He said angrily: "What's the matter?"
The steward said tremblingly: "I don't know why, but many gamblers came to the gambling house last night to exchange their chips."
"I didn't pay much attention at first and just let them cash it. Later I found that there were too many people coming to cash it and it was too late to stop them."
"Now all the gamblers in Chongqing City are gathered in front of our gambling shop, asking the city lord to make a decision."
The total chips that need to be exchanged in the gambling house are nearly one million taels!
They knew very well where these chips came from. They were the ones they lost in the last fight.
But there is not so much money to exchange in the gambling house.
Because under normal circumstances, many of those chips are transferred in the gambling house and do not need to be exchanged.
Since the opening of the gambling house, there has been no large-scale exchange of chips, so the management did not pay attention to it at first.
By the time he realized something was wrong, it was already too late to stop him because the entire Chongqing City was full of ghosts!