After listening to Zhao Wenhua's narration and praise, Yan Shifan smiled proudly.
No wonder he was so proud, Xiao Feng's actions were completely within his calculations. He had already guessed that Xiao Feng would start with jade pendants, and he would definitely find the people who made these three jade pendants.
Zhao Wenhua originally wanted to hide Zeng Zaoban from Xiao Feng, but Yan Shifan scolded him for being stupid.
Although Zeng Zaoban is just a small Zaoban, he is after all a well-established and skilled craftsman in the Ministry of Industry. Even Jiajing has heard of him. How can you hide him if you ask him to?
What's more, at this juncture, if something really happened to Zeng Zaoban, it's hard to say what Jiajing would think.
Therefore, the surest way is to let Zeng Zaoban tell the truth. If Xiao Feng's clues are broken, it will be more difficult to handle. It will also make Zhao Wenhua bright and honest and have no evil intentions.
It is very important to get rid of Zhao Wenhua, because Zhao Wenhua represents the Yan Party, and the Yan Party supports King Jing.
Now Jiajing is more suspicious of King Yu. If Xiao Feng wants to overturn the case for King Yu, the best way is to arouse Jiajing's suspicion of Yan Dang.
Even if there is no conclusive evidence, as long as Jiajing can be made to think that Yan Dang's behavior is suspicious, Prince Yu may be able to get away with it.
Therefore, during this period, Party Yan cannot allow Xiao Feng to grasp any evidence or give Xiao Feng any excuse to obstruct the investigation.
Zhao Wenhua really admired his godbrother. He thought of Xiao Feng's devastated look when he walked out of the Works Department, and couldn't help but want to laugh.
After Yan Shifan was proud for a while, he remembered another thing and waved to Zhao Wenhua.
"I got news that Xiao Feng asked people from Shuntian Mansion to investigate the source of the rumors. You asked Zhao Er and others to hide and not show up recently."
Zhao Wenhua nodded repeatedly, but he felt that Yan Shifan was overly concerned.
"Don't worry, I asked them to hide in the countryside outside the city. Xiao Feng may not be able to find out the rumors they spread.
Even if we can find them, we can't find them. Even if we can find them, Zhao Er won't betray us."
Yan Shifan's one eye stared intently at Zhao Wenhua, making him tremble.
"Confused! Do you really think that Xiao Fenghui will honestly use Shuntian Mansion to interrogate him?
Although he didn't dare to mobilize the Jin Yiwei for this case, I'm afraid it wouldn't be difficult to learn a few tricks from the imperial edict.
Don't you know how strong Zhao Er is?"
Zhao Wenhua was so scolded that he no longer dared to refute other than nodding his head.
Yan Song habitually smoothed things over between the two of them: "Donglou, please be polite, we are all our own people."
Yan Shifan gave his father a favor: "I will send someone to keep an eye on Xiao Feng, but I can't keep an eye on Xiao Feng too closely. There are still Jinyiwei activities near his house."
Zhao Wenhua said depressingly: "This is really strange. Lu Bing so blatantly used the royal guards to protect Xiao Feng. Doesn't Long Live know about it and doesn't care about it?"
Yan Shifan's expression became very strange, as if he suddenly thought of something.
"When you say that, I realize that I have been ignoring one thing."
"What's the matter?" This was asked by Yan Song. If Zhao Wenhua asked, Yan Shifan might not be in the mood to pay attention to him.
"Lu Bing protected Xiao Feng, perhaps out of guilt for Xiao Wannian at first, but in this matter, he has always been too tough.
This is not his usual style. Could it be that there are other intentions?"
Everyone in the room fell into silence, each thinking. After a while, Zhao Wenhua thought of a new topic.
"Xiao Feng shouldn't go out tonight, Zhang Tianci has a shipment of goods arriving.
Ten boats loaded with dozens of carts. He drove several of the carts into Xiao Feng's mansion."
"What kind of goods?"
"I asked the water transport people and they found that it was shipped from sea.
Zhang Tianci opened a fish shop next to Tianci Food Store, which not only supplies live fish, but also marine fish."
Yan Shifan's eyes lit up, he took the wine glass and drank it in one gulp.
"Is there any salted fish in it?"
Zhao Wenhua understood what Yan Shifan meant, and he shook his head in disappointment.
"I thought of this and checked repeatedly, but there is no salted fish.
All fish have been inspected and the salt content is normal. The weather is cold now, so even if the fish is not salted, we can ensure that it will not rot during transportation."
Yan Shifan was also disappointed. He thought Xiao Feng was finally going to be tricked by his pig teammate Zhang Tianci.
You must know that the illegal salt trade has been tightened in recent years. Some businessmen pretend to sell marine fish, but in fact they bring salted fish and boil it to make salt for sale.
The government's response to this is also simple and crude - taxation.
You can eat salted fish at the beach and decide the price yourself. If it is shipped to the mainland, the price of salted fish cannot be lower than the same weight of salt!
As a result, the business of boiling salted fish into salt was unprofitable. So merchants began to mix salted fish with normal fish.
The consequence of doing this is that if you are caught, you will be directly charged as selling illegal salt!
At the beginning of the execution, if the number is large, they can be beheaded directly!
Zhao Wenhua hesitated and then added his own news. He was worried that the news was boring and might be laughed at by Yan Shifan.
"Two of the ships carried sea vegetables. After careful inspection, there was no excess salt. Some were dry and some were wet."
Yan Shifan didn't laugh at him, but he didn't care either.
"Although there are not many sea vegetables in the capital, they are not a rare thing. Could it be that his Zuixian Tower is going to research new dishes?
No matter how new it is, it’s just a sea vegetable, how delicious it can be.”
Seaweed is the collective name used by people in the Ming Dynasty for kelp, seaweed, and seaweed.
This stuff is very cheap at the beach, because mainlanders eat very little, and merchants are unprofitable, so naturally they are not willing to sell it.
Zhang Tianci's purchase of two ships was a bit unexpected, but it was nothing worthy of attention, especially at this juncture.
The lights in Xiao's Mansion were brightly lit. Zhang Tianci and Zhang Da transported all the sea vegetables into Xiao's Mansion and placed them in the cabin.
Then Xiao Feng held a banquet for Zhang Tianci to drink, and called Zhang Yunqing, Wang Yingxiang and Qiaoqiao out to eat together.
As for Qiao Niang and Wang's wife, they both refused to come, but they didn't stop their daughter from serving the table.
They knew Xiao Feng's character and Zhang Tianci was not an outsider, so there was nothing to worry about.
Zhang Tianci kept asking his daughter to pour wine for Uncle Xiao. Zhang Yunqing was so angry that he gritted his teeth and gave him some food, gagging him.
Wang Yingxiang was also not happy, because although Zhang Yunqing was not satisfied with his father's title, he still sat next to Xiao Feng in the name of pouring wine for Xiao Feng, while he was forced to sit at the far end with Qiaoqiao.
Only Qiaoqiao didn't care, eating meat with big mouthfuls and drinking soup from a big bowl.
Xiao Feng doesn't let Qiaoqiao drink because she is too young.
If Zhang Yunqing and Wang Yingxiang wanted to have a drink, Xiao Feng would agree, but it must be the lightest kind of rice wine, not the yellow rice wine and white wine that Xiao Feng and Zhang Tianci drank.
Zhang Tianci looked around, a little surprised.
"Brother, I heard that General Qi and Guard Zhan are living at your house. Why don't you invite us to have a drink with you? They are not outsiders."
Zhang Tianci was very grateful to these two people for fighting bloody battles in his home. Although he knew it was Xiao Feng's face, he was protecting his daughter.
Xiao Feng smiled and raised his glass: "There are too many girls, it's inconvenient. I'll invite them to drink alone another day."
Zhang Tianci felt that this was a bit uninteresting, but obeying Xiao Fengyan was engraved in his bones, and even the thought of refuting felt guilty.
So with a sense of guilt, Zhang Tianci drank three drinks in a row and put the matter behind him.
In the darkness, on a big tree in the distance, someone was staring at Xiao Mansion. In the swaying shadows of the trees, one could vaguely see a tall figure with a graceful figure.
Her red eyes were so wide that she shed tears, and she stared at Xiao Feng without blinking, for fear that Xiao Feng would slip away if she couldn't see him at a glance.
Zeng Zaobao's family lived in the capital. Although it was the area closest to the city wall, it was still the thing he was most proud of.
Being able to live in the city indicates social status, at least not comparable to those in the countryside who have to queue up to enter the city gate.
Even if you are a landowner in the countryside, if you want to enter the capital, you have to wait until dawn when the rooster crows, and if you want to live in the city, you need a letter of guarantee for a place.
As a craftsman, being able to do this is considered a light in the industry!
So before entering the house, Zeng Zaoban bought a piece of braised pork and planned to have two drinks in the evening to celebrate his narrow escape from trouble today.
Between the butcher's shop and his home, there was a long, dark alley. Zeng Zaobao walked in the alley carrying meat and humming a little tune.
A man stopped him, wearing a flying fish suit and an embroidered spring knife hanging from his waist.
Zeng Zaoban immediately collapsed. The man grabbed his arm and helped him stand up, his voice was low and cold.
"I only want to ask you one thing. This sentence doesn't matter to you, but if you dare to tell others, I guarantee that you will not be able to die!"
Zeng Zaoban nodded desperately, not daring to say anything.
"If you still had the same craftsmanship as before, how long would it take from getting that jade pendant to polishing and engraving it?"
Zeng Zaoban had no intention of lying, and Zhao Wenhua never reminded him to lie on a certain issue, so he must tell the truth.
"It will take ten days at the earliest."
"Where is your apprentice?"
"It will take fifteen days at the earliest. No matter who you look for, it can't take less than ten days!"
There is a hint of pride in Zeng Zaoban's trembling voice, this is the spirit of craftsmanship!
There is no doubt about the ability of a skilled craftsman! In my field, I am the king!
The man didn't question it at all, he turned around and disappeared into the darkness.