"Everything should be carried out according to my arrangements!"
"Yes, we are leaving!"
After looking at the empty government office for a while, Liu Mingzhi looked at Jiang Lei beside him: "Go and summon Ning Zihan, the governor of Gongzhou, and tell him that I have something to ask him!"
"yes!"
"Qin Yi!"
"The end is here!"
"Lead fifty imperial guards and three hundred dragon warriors to surround the Governor's Mansion. No one is allowed to enter or leave the Governor's Mansion without my order!"
"With orders, Qin Yi resigns!"
Liu Mingzhi, who was drinking tea and meditating, heard the footsteps and opened his eyes and looked at Ning Zihan, the governor of Gongzhou who was following Jiang Lei: "Master Ning, please sit down."
"Thank you, Master Liu."
Liu Mingzhi put down his tea cup and slowly walked down the platform: "Mr. Ning, I heard from Governor Tong that all the governors of the state capital were threatened after their families were detained by the White Lotus Sect rebels. The porridge they gave was clear soup and lacked water. Why is it that only one of them was alone?
The porridge in Gongzhou is indeed thin. I just looked at your case file and found that more than 700 people were killed and injured in Gongzhou due to the locust plague. Can you tell me how you did it?"
Ning Zihan pondered for a while and looked at Liu Mingzhi who was standing in front of him in panic: "Reporting to your lord, I secretly asked the yamen to add rice to it. Gongzhou is the most remote, so the White Lotus Sect's detainees are quite large.
Lazy, as long as the people don’t leave the city, they rarely care about Gongzhou’s affairs!”
"I see, I wonder how many shi of food the Gongzhou treasury still has? Based on Qingzhou Xiazhou's emergency storage capacity, it should be 100,000 shi, right?"
"Yes, it is indeed one hundred thousand stones!"
"Then I wonder how much food is left in Gongzhou's treasury now?"
"I don't know for sure, I need to go back and investigate before I can report the number to you!"
Liu Mingzhi gently picked up his tea cup and fiddled with it for a while: "Master Ning!"
"The official is here!"
"Isn't it a good feeling to want to stay out of the situation but have to join in the other side?"
"What the Lord said is so profound that I can't understand it clearly!"
"Then let's change the topic to a simple topic. Why do Lord Ning think the White Lotus Sect rebels on the top of Qingzhou City gave up on the long-running Qingzhou Mansion before they even started fighting?"
"Perhaps the bandits were so shocked by the reputation of the Lord and the bravery of the Longwu Guards that they had to abandon the city and flee!"
"I can't bear this high-hat. Let's do this, Mr. Ning. You go back to Gongzhou to open a warehouse to provide food for the victims. At the same time, think about what is the right thing to do. Once you have figured it out, let me know.
The officer is always waiting for you!"
"Yes, I am resigning!"
Jiang Lei looked at the frowning Liu Mingzhi and asked in a low voice: "Master Liu, the rebels in Qingzhou have been defeated and fled, and what is left is to concentrate on controlling the locust plague. Why are you still frowning and only expelling the rebels to conquer Qingzhou?"
The great danger is a great achievement, shouldn't you be happy?"
"Happy?" Liu Mingzhi put down the tea cup in his hand and sighed: "Maybe, but everything that seems too reasonable is often the most unreasonable. It is wishful thinking to block my mind with great power!"
"Report, Mr. Liu, the flying pigeon in the capital is sending a message!"
"Send it over quickly!"
"yes!"
Liu Mingzhi took the bamboo tube handed by the servant and hurriedly opened it and started to read it. His deeply frowning brows finally relaxed and he smiled lightly: "Master Jiang, the Secretary of the Ministry of Revenue, is very generous. I am worried about something."
There was not enough food to exchange with the people for locusts, so Lord Jiang came to help in times of need!"
He handed the letter to Jiang Lei: "Look, three hundred thousand stones of food is not a small amount!"
Jiang Lei looked at the content on the letter in surprise and smiled lightly: "I have long heard that this Lord Shangshu is simply a miser who does not pull any money, and no one in the civil and military circles of the Manchu Dynasty can see eye to eye. In fact, it is rumored that the general will read.
Wrong, isn’t this quite generous!”
"Generous? Jiang Lei, let's bet a tael of silver. These 300,000 shi of grain are definitely not for nothing. Jiang Shangshu must have encountered some trouble and asked me for help. But what can be worth 300,000 shi of grain? Forget it.
Let’s take a step and see!”
"Master Liu, you arranged it like this for Jiang Shangshu, aren't you afraid that he will get angry with you?"
"If you have money, you won't be in a hurry. Let's go see the bodies of people like Gu Zhiheng first!"
"Yes, sir, please come this way. The general has already arranged their corpses in the backyard of the governor's Yamen!"
"No one is approaching, right?
"Don't worry, my lord, the general has ordered thirty people to guard the place, all of whom are the best of the best!"
"Well done, go to the Governor's Mansion immediately!"
"yes!"
Liu Mingzhi left the Governor's Mansion with hundreds of dragon guards and went straight to the Governor's Yamen, and hurriedly walked into the backyard.
"See Mr. Liu!"
"No need to be polite!"
After throwing the riding whip to Jiang Lei, Liu Mingzhi squatted down and carefully inspected the bodies of Gu Zhiheng and others.
After half a stick of incense, Liu Mingzhi stood up full of doubts. Gu Zhiheng's body showed no traces of disguise, which proved that it was indeed the person he was.
Glancing at the lotus tattoos on the arms of Gu Zhiheng and others, Liu Mingzhi was a little puzzled. When he had not yet obtained the title, he did not look down on the White Lotus Sect, which the imperial court called rogues. Gu Zhiheng, as the fourth-rank governor of Zhongzhou,
Member, why did he not sit properly in his position as a feudal official and instead went to seek refuge with the White Lotus Sect?
That day, Gu Zhiheng obviously had a Jiangnan accent. She deliberately asked him if he was from Yangzhou, Jiangnan, but he said no. Afterwards, Qinglian said that Gu Zhiheng spoke with a Jiangzhou accent.
Liu Mingzhi would not doubt Qinglian's words. Although she was twenty years old, she had a miserable life and had been wandering around the world since she was a child. She would not be wrong about this.
"Jiang Lei, what's the reason why someone would abandon his position as a fourth-grade official and join the gangsters of the White Lotus Sect?"
"This, even adults can't think of it, let alone the general!"
"It's okay, let's just have a casual chat, just say it!"
Jiang Lei pondered for a while: "Unless someone catches you, you have to do this!"
"What kind of handle would that be?"
"It's enough to be beheaded, and it's intolerable to the imperial court!"
"Go on!"
"Sir, could it be that Gu Zhiheng was caught in some conspiracy to deceive the emperor and had to succumb to conspiracy with the White Lotus Sect? Anyway, he will die sooner or later. In that case, why not choose the path of living a little longer?"
Liu Mingzhi wandered around with his hands behind his back. Sooner or later, he would die, so it was better to choose a way to survive. In this way, we could work together. The key point was why the three governors, Gu Zhiheng, and the long history were caught by the White Lotus Sect at the same time!
"See Commander Song!"
Liu Mingzhi was awakened by Long Wuwei's voice and looked at the panting three Song Qings who came up to him: "How are you? Have you brought them back?"
Song Qing shook his head in despair: "After we arrived, in the courtyard you mentioned, except for some victims, there was no trace of Qiao Changjing and others."
"No? How could it be? Did you go to the wrong place?"
"Of course not. All the victims you mentioned are here, but there is no trace of a few of them. The victims said they didn't see them come out today!"
Liu Mingzhi took a long breath: "Have you found any traces of Chang Yunfeng?"
"No, it seems to have disappeared out of thin air!"