After finishing all the letters, Zhu Houzhao handed the letter to Liu Jin and said with a serious face: "Find a few reliable people and send them to the capital quickly, and get the reply as soon as possible."

"Yes, Your Highness the Crown Prince, I will take care of it right now." Liu Jin agreed quickly, then remembered something and said, "Your Highness the Crown Prince, Liao Zhong, Commander of the Hangzhou Guard, would like to see you."

After saying this, Liu Jin waited for Zhu Houzhao's instructions.

"Let him come in." Zhu Houzhao said expressionlessly.

Zhu Houzhao was not surprised by Liao Zhong's arrival.

In other words, during this period of time, people will keep coming, because they are choosing sides.

Zhu Houzhao felt that this gentleman was doing one thing, and that was forcing him. Not only he was forcing himself, but he was also forcing Jiangxi.

It can be said that this gentleman's arrangement in Zhejiang was essentially to prepare for future rebellion. But something went wrong, that is, the affairs of the Nanjing Ministry of Revenue, which led to the prince himself coming to Zhejiang.

Now Zhu Houzhao has begun to suspect that all this may have been a conspiracy from the beginning.

This conspiracy had already started since I arrived in Nanjing. They did the Nanjing Household Affairs Bureau case deliberately in order to lure themselves to Zhejiang.

After arriving in Zhejiang, the other party used choices to stimulate him. Through extreme methods such as assassination, after he responded, the other party immediately chose to rebel. And through this simple method of coercion, he did not even conceal his purpose.

However, in Zhu Houzhao's view, this was not a successful plan and was destined to fail.

From a comparison of strength, there is no way they can beat themselves.

From another perspective, it is difficult for some people to follow them with such a threat. After all, the crime is not particularly serious, nor is it a serious crime of confiscating the family and exterminating the family.

Although he was more ruthless, he did not kill people like Han Tai, the chief minister of Zhejiang, and Zhou Yi, the inspector of Zhejiang. It is impossible that the officials in Hangzhou did not know about it. Therefore, this threat did not have much deterrent effect.

Under such circumstances, the other party still chose this approach. Why should they implement a plan that they knew was impossible to succeed?

The other party is not an idiot, nor does he want to fight to the death, so naturally he has other purposes.

If it is not directed at oneself, then it can only be directed at them internally.

In many cases, the best way to solve internal conflicts is to transfer internal conflicts to the outside. Apparently this gentleman did this. Maybe this gentleman was a little dissatisfied with Jiangxi, and he wanted to use this method

to stimulate the other party.

If your guess is correct, the other party will lead you to Jiangxi in the next step.

But how will the other party guide you?

Zhu Houzhao didn't expect it for a while.

The reason why Zhu Houzhao believed that the other party would not do such a stupid thing was mainly because of the incident in Beijing.

The planning of that time was so precise that he had no choice but to kill people in the palace.

And here in Zhejiang, the other party has been planning for so many years, and it can be said that it holds the entire Zhejiang in its hands.

Whether it was the military town, officials from top to bottom in Zhejiang, or even his own Qi Zhai, he had infiltrated them all.

People who can do these things are naturally not fools, and they cannot choose to do stupid things at this time.

Soon Liao Zhong walked in from outside, interrupting Zhu Houzhao's thinking.

Looking at Liao Zhong kneeling on the ground, Zhu Houzhao sat on the chair expressionlessly, tapping the armrests of the chair with his fingers, and said coldly: "What brings you to see me?"

"Go back to Your Majesty the Crown Prince, I'm here to apologize." Liao Zhong knelt on the ground and said.

"Then let's talk." Zhu Houzhao nodded. Apart from these words, he didn't say anything else.

Zhu Houzhao wanted to see what Liao Zhong would say, so he waited quietly.

As for how to deal with Liao Zhong, it depends on what he says.

"Back to Your Highness, the matter is like this..."

Liao Zhong told the whole story without any concealment. How did their family get involved with this gentleman, how did they start embezzling the fields, how did they start selling silk to them, every bit of it.

Said it out.

In Liao Zhong's narrative, the whole thing began to become clear.

After this gentleman arrived in Zhejiang, the first thing he did was to buy a large amount of silk at a price higher than the market price. So all the silk merchants in Zhejiang sold silk to him.

But even so, he is still collecting, and the price is very high. Under such circumstances, silk merchants who are not worried about sales naturally have to find ways to increase production.

Then the problem arises. Silk does not just appear. It needs to be produced and requires land to plant mulberry trees. So many businessmen began to change the land for growing food into land for growing mulberry trees.

But this is not feasible for local officials, because the court attaches great importance to food, which does not mean that you can change it if you want.

So someone started to mediate, and they used money to pay bribes, starting from county to county, and then to prefecture after prefecture. At the same time, the higher authorities did not stop, and bribery of high-level officials in Zhejiang continued. So a large group of

The officials were dragged into the water and turned a blind eye to their behavior of converting rice into mulberry.

As for the officials who wanted to expose this matter, they were all defeated by bribed officials for various reasons, and some even died of illness. In Liao Zhong's words, there were many people who died inexplicably.

These people have been doing this kind of thing. Over the past few years, they have held the entire Zhejiang Province in their hands.

This is a huge network, and people like Liao Zhong are just small figures in it. They just annexed the farmland and changed it into mulberry field, and then planted mulberry trees, raised silkworms and weaved silk.

There is another very important reason why this plan can proceed so smoothly. That is that this group of people can ensure Zhejiang's food supply. They provide Zhejiang with a large amount of food every year. This is very surprising.

Liao Zhong was also worried about what to do with the food. Once there was no food, things would get serious and no one would be able to escape.

But they are able to send grain here every year, which is very surprising. Although some of it is old rice, most of it is fresh rice, and the quality is high.

This made Zhejiang officials including Liao Zhong gradually lose their guard, and at the same time they were dazzled by the interests, and things became bigger and bigger.

"Your Highness, the matter is probably like this." Liao Zhong knelt on the ground and said: "Later, His Royal Highness arrived in Nanjing, and a case like that occurred in the Nanjing Ministry of Household Affairs. Many people knew that Zhejiang was involved, so everyone began to panic. However,

There is no good solution at the moment.”

"I have also looked for that gentleman, but I can't find him anymore."

Having said this, Liao Zhong kowtowed a few times and said with an ugly face: "I am guilty and should not have acted like this. I am ashamed of your majesty's cultivation and my ancestors. I am willing to give up all my land and property.

, I just ask His Highness the Crown Prince not to involve my family. As for me, I just ask His Highness the Crown Prince to leave a complete body for me."

Zhu Houzhao stood up, passed by Liao Zhong expressionlessly, and then walked to the door, looking at the sky outside, with a smile on his face.

Maybe this is part of this gentleman's plan?

If he ransacked Liao Zhong's house and killed his people, then someone outside might actually follow him to rebel.

The reason is also very simple. The risk of confiscating the property is worth the risk.

The other party is forcing themselves, and the previous stimulation may also be for this step, in order to make themselves lose their minds and kill these people. By then, the generals outside Hangzhou will definitely be panicked.

It can be said that this is a huge layout. From the earliest time they entered Zhejiang, their purpose was to control it.

Zhu Houzhao could imagine that if one day they wanted to rebel, they would cut off Zhejiang's food supply in advance. Once there was no food, there would be chaos.

What will people do when they have no food to eat?

They will rebel.

This is not a natural disaster, this is a man-made disaster!

The grain is in their hands. As long as they encourage it, the whole of Zhejiang will become a flash point. Then they will set out from Jiangxi and bring the grain. So what will be the result?

Coupled with their internal support, the whole of Zhejiang will fall into their hands.

Occupying Jiangxi and Zhejiang, you can take Nanjing directly to the north and capture Yingtianfu; you can capture Fujian and Guangdong to the south; and you can capture Huguang to the west.

By winning over a wave of people in Zhejiang, a large number of troops can be gathered. This is a very clever strategy, and it is a big plan.

Once this plan takes shape, it will be a huge disaster.

By then, this rebellion will surely sweep across the whole of Jiangnan, and its scale will definitely be much larger than in history, and it will definitely be more difficult to put down.

It was obvious that an expert was planning this. As for whether it was this gentleman or not, Zhu Houzhao couldn't tell.

But obviously something went wrong within them, and perhaps the suicide in the capital was caused by some of them.

There are some factions among them, and Zhu Houzhao is not surprised at all. The last suicide in Beijing and this time in Nanjing seem to be the work of the same person, and maybe this time in Zhejiang is also the work of the same person.

Because when I arrived in Nanjing, once I investigated the matter, I would definitely trace it to Zhejiang. Because I was just here to investigate taxes and conduct land accounting.

As soon as he arrived in Nanjing, he called all the Qizhai shopkeepers from all over the country. This was a very bad signal, and things in Zhejiang could no longer be hidden.

So they took a desperate risk and hired someone in the household department. Maybe it was to delay time, maybe it was for other purposes, but they chose to do this.

But they may not have expected that the prince would rush to Zhejiang immediately, so they were caught off guard.

After this incident, they made a plan. Should they rebel now or abandon Zhejiang?

If he, the prince, were allowed to investigate further, all their plans for many years would be exposed and all their efforts would be in vain.

Obviously some people were unwilling to give in, so they took the next step, assassinating and irritating themselves, causing them to betray their relatives in Zhejiang, and letting the people of Zhejiang stand by their side.

To launch a rebellion at this time, they were obviously not prepared.

Even Zhu Houzhao couldn't guarantee whether what happened this time was ordered by people in Jiangxi.

Although my guess may not be accurate, the general context has been sorted out.

They went to find Liao Zhong's people to rebel, but the purpose was not really to make them rebel. It was also impossible for them to really believe that Liao Zhong and the others would cooperate with him, because once someone whistled the truth, the entire plan would be leaked. That's not how it happened.

.

They just wanted to provoke themselves again and let them kill Liao Zhong.
To be continued...