Seeing her son lying in a pool of blood, Dugu Shi turned pale with fear, staggered and fell to the ground, crying hysterically: "Liu Lang, my Liu Lang."
Chu Nanzhi never thought that Ji Rongheng would be so reckless and kill Mu Liulang directly.
After all, they have an iron ticket to avoid death. If they don't give face to the Mu family, they have to give some face to the court.
As the queen of the dynasty, she did not have such courage. This directly disrupted all her plans.
Fortunately, now that she has figured out how the noble family in Qinghe Land supports her, she no longer has to swallow her humiliation and work as an undercover agent.
Now that Ji Rongheng has opened this hole, he only needs to use the Mu family, Sun You, Sun Li and his son to test Ji Huaizhang. If he really has different intentions, he will first use Dangyang City as a base so that everyone can advance or retreat.
After making up her mind, she glanced at Li Sanmu silently and asked in a low voice: "How many people did you bring with you this time?"
Li Sanmu came closer to her and replied in a low voice: "Your Majesty ordered General Mo to lead two thousand elites from the Xiaoqi Battalion disguised as businessmen and have been lurking in Tanzhou. As long as the Queen gives the order, General Mo will take over Zhoukang County immediately."
"good."
Chu Nanzhi smiled slightly and nodded.
Together with the powerful team led by Ji Rongheng, it is enough to solve the urgent need.
At this moment, there was another commotion in the crowd.
Chu Nanzhi looked along where the noise came from and saw that it was Ji Huaizhang leading Sun You, while Sun Li and his son arrived late.
Seeing the chaotic situation on the street and Mu Liulang's missing body, the three of them were shocked.
After discovering Ji Rongheng's blood-stained saber, Ji Huaizhang immediately understood what was going on and scolded dissatisfied: "Rong Heng, you are so brave. After the Mu family has made great contributions to loyalty and good deeds, even if there are faults, it should be decided by His Majesty. You
How can you kill someone?"
Ji Rongheng knew that his actions just now were a bit reckless, but he did not regret his decision.
What he hated most in his life was this kind of bullying of the weak and good people. He said righteously:
"I am going to eliminate harm for the people today. Mu Liulang is innocent and deserves to die. When your Majesty comes to your Majesty for his sins, my nephew will ask for forgiveness. But uncle, I want to ask, as the governor of a state, you do not work diligently and care for the people. How can you?
I allow the nobles and powerful men to kill the common people wantonly and treat human life as nothing, can my uncle be able to live up to His Majesty’s trust and to the martyrs of our Ji family?”
"What are you talking about, General Rong Heng?"
Sun You hurriedly came over to excuse his brother-in-law.
Then looking at Dugu who was crying hard and Mu Liulang lying in a pool of blood, he secretly glared at his son Sun Li and couldn't help but reveal a bitter look on his face.
The original intention was to use Mu Liulang's hand to get rid of the Zhao family's caravan. Unexpectedly, the shopkeeper Mu and his team were unscathed, but Mu Liulang was killed first.
"General Rong Heng, Liu Lang of the Mu family is usually a bit flamboyant, but he will not end up like this. Besides, there are many unscrupulous people in Tanzhou who want to use the famine to deceive people. He will get rid of these miserly people on behalf of the imperial court.
It’s not a bad thing to set an example by setting an example to others. General Rong Heng doesn’t want to see the land of Qinghe being used by people with ulterior motives to cause trouble again.”
"Prefect Sun is really eloquent."
Ji Rongheng looked at the refugees, grinning slightly and sneering: "Open your eyes and take a good look at them. They are just hungry people who are oppressed by you and can't eat. They just want a way to survive. What's wrong with them?"
Dugu collapsed on the ground, crying so weakly that she felt even more upset when she heard the arguments among the people. She glared at Ji Huaizhang, Ji Rongheng and the Sun family father and son, and shouted sternly: "Master Governor, my son has been raped by this bastard of your Ji family."
The killing was witnessed by everyone with their own eyes. All members of my Mu family died in the service of the country. Liu Lang is the only bloodline of my Mu family. If you don’t uphold justice for my son today, don’t blame the slave family for turning their backs and denying me."
Ji Huaizhang was also extremely embarrassed at this time.
On one side is the imperial envoy who is his nephew, while on the other side are the nobles of the imperial court, prominent families in Tanzhou City who cannot afford to offend.
After thinking deeply for a moment, he had to throw the problem to his brother-in-law Sun You: "How do you govern Dangyang County? What did Mu Liulang do that made Rong Heng deal with him so cruelly? Is there some misunderstanding?"
"Since the Governor doesn't know what the Mu family has committed, then let me explain it to you."
Chu Nanzhi was a little curious about Ji Huaizhang's sudden arrival, and was even full of doubts about many things that happened today.
It was just a temporary decision to come to Zhoukang County. Why did Ji Rongheng and Ji Huaizhang come here together as if they had already discussed it?
This really puzzled her.
Could it be that the person behind the scenes is causing trouble again?
Unable to think about it in detail, she looked intently at Ji Huaizhang, who was in a lazy posture, and first asked: "The governor has taken charge of a state, but he doesn't know how the people of this state make a living?"
"Who are you? Why do I need to tell you about my administration?"
Ji Huaizhang dismissed this unknown person who suddenly appeared. He sneered coldly and immediately turned his head away, continuing to think about how to deal with this matter.
Chu Nanzhi continued to challenge unhurriedly: "As a humble merchant family, we really shouldn't ask about this matter, but when we see injustice, we can't help but want to ask more questions. This Tanzhou population of five
More than one million, but there are only more than eight million acres of cultivated land, and the total amount of various taxes and silver each year is less than two million taels. Hasn’t the governor never thought about the reason?"
"Why, you still want to question my ability to govern the state and county?"
Ji Huaizhang yelled angrily.
"I don't dare. I just want the governor to take a closer look at what's going on in the state."
With that said, Chu Nanzhi looked at Old Man Wang and signaled: "Old man, today you will tell me how the Mu family taught you to hide their fields and how they exploited you."
After Old Man Wang pondered for a long time, he told the truth about the Mu family's forced merger of household registration and occupation of everyone's land and refused to return it, and then continued:
"In order to pay less taxes, the Mu family also underreported the number of people in each household in the merged household registration. The law of our court stipulates that unmarried men can have their household tax reduced by half, and minors and the elderly do not have to pay taxes.
The grassroots are nearly forty this year, but the grassroots listed on the tax books are still just eighteen years old."
Hearing this, many people present blushed.
Sun Huai also smiled coquettishly, and sighed softly in front of Chu Nan Zhi'er: "Well, this is not a strange news. Brother Yu, his grandson can already walk now, but isn't he also single in the government's household registration book?
.”
"Listen, listen."
Chu Nanzhi narrowed his eyes slightly and sighed repeatedly: "Master Ji, as the governor of a state, indulged the noble family in this way, letting them deceive the superiors and subordinates, not only stealing the imperial tax money, but also exploiting the people layer by layer under clever pretexts.
The treasury was empty and the people had no food left, and the people were enslaved by the nobles and became a bargaining chip that could only rely on them to fight against the imperial court."
At this time, Ji Huaizhang realized that the recent rumors about Tanzhou's support of the tribe were not groundless. He looked at Sun You with a sulkiness on his face: "Is what they said true?"