Chapter 1205: Lure the Tiger Away From the Mountain

Of course Cui Yuan knew that his son was involved in selling illegal salt. He even knew that his son was the mastermind behind the illegal salt group.

The reason why he indulged his son in breaking the law was certainly related to the huge profits. In just half a year, he made a profit of 300,000 yuan. The profits were so huge that it was hard to refuse.

On the other hand, it is also related to Cui Yuan's resistance to tax reform. The imperial court abolished household tax, business tax and all miscellaneous taxes, and only retained the field tax. The field tax was also reduced from 1 in 15 taxes to 1 in 25 taxes.

Then the salt and iron monopoly was used to supplement the tax revenue. Although in terms of total amount, the tax revenue did not decrease but increased, this was a benefit to the court, but it seriously damaged the interests of the local area, such as commercial tax and other miscellaneous taxes, which the local government could have retained. half.

Once the tax was changed, a piece of local revenue would be lost, but the court would not give any explanation, which made Cui Yuan very dissatisfied.

There is also a hidden reason that Cui Yuan was dissatisfied with Li Ye. Li Ye merged the two dynasties, reset the political affairs hall, and appointed nine prime ministers. He actually forgot about Cui Yuan. Isn't Cui Yuan qualified to join? Political Hall?

The thing is like this, there are too many monks and too little rice. If some people are satisfied, there must be others who are dissatisfied. Cui Yuan is the one who is dissatisfied.

So he allowed his son to sell private salt, and he also had the mood to take revenge on Li Ye.

Cui Yuan's carriage left Chengdu under the protection of more than twenty mounted guards and headed towards Jianmenguan.

Just as Cui Yuangang left, his son Cui Wei hurried to Shudu Restaurant. This was Cui Wei's property.

After waiting in a private room for a while, a middle-aged man with a dark and fat appearance hurried over.

The middle-aged man's surname is Tu. Not many people know his real name, but his nickname is famous in the world. The famous Salt Owl Tu Arhat is him.

Tu Luohan had a single line of contact with Cui Wei. Except for Tu Luohan, no one knew that the manipulator behind the scenes turned out to be Cui Wei, the son of Cui Yuan, the governor of Chengdu.

Originally, two officials of the Zhuan Prefecture who were involved in smuggling salt knew Cui Wei's involvement. In order to protect his son, Cui Yuan ordered Tu Luohan to kill the two officials.

But it was these two officials who left information for their families, allowing the internal guards to find out Cui Wei from their families.

However, the investigation by the inner guards was very secretive. Neither Cui Wei nor Tu Luohan knew that the inner guards were about to close the net.

Cui Wei said that of course he started selling sugar to coax his father. There is no way to make money selling sugar, as it is selling salt. You can eat sugar or not, but every household cannot live without salt.

It's just that Cui Wei used selling sugar to cover his selling of salt.

Cui Wei had a batch of salt seized by the government in Meizhou, but in the cargo list, their thirty ships were carrying sugar.

"How is it? Has the Meizhou government inspected the goods?" Cui Wei asked when they met.

Tu Luohan nodded, "We have already tried it. We bribed the sampler, and he took a sample from a bag of sugar we designated. The government concluded that what we were trafficking was sugar!"

"Since the conclusion is sugar, why haven't they released the ship yet?" Cui Wei said angrily.

"I've also asked about it, and I heard that there is news from the imperial court that sugar, like salt, must be sold exclusively by the government, and private individuals are not allowed to sell it without authorization."

"damn it!"

Cui Wei cursed hard and asked: "Then what do they want?"

"Now this is what the governor Zhou Xiangyang said. He has been unwilling to express his position. In fact, he is waiting for us to pay him a tribute."

"How much does he want?" Trevi asked.

Tu Luohan sighed and said: "I asked someone to find out, it will cost at least 30,000 yuan!"

"Thirty thousand strings?"

Cui Wei sneered, "Thank you for daring to say this, isn't he afraid of being strangled to death?"

"I guess we can get it done by bargaining for 20,000 guan. The key is whether we can pay it or not?"

"No!"

Cui Wei insisted: "When my father comes back from Lizhou, he promises to stand up for me. If I don't pay a penny, he has to hand over the ship obediently."

Tu Luohan sighed, "I hope Fu Yin will come back soon! I'm afraid of long nights and many dreams."

Since Cui Wei refused to give him any money, Tu Luohan said goodbye and left.

Tu Luohan came out of the restaurant, got on a carriage and headed south. An old man riding a donkey followed his carriage from a distance and watched it enter a village outside the south city.

The leader of the internal guard who is currently in charge of Chengdu is Deputy Capital Commander Xie Sen. He has been in Chengdu for two or three months, but the manipulator behind the scenes has never been found. There are more than a dozen salt lords in the Bashu area. Xie Sen also estimates that among them A certain salt owl contacted the mastermind behind the scenes, but it was difficult for them to find out who this salt owl was, and they did not dare to take action. Once they did, they would alert the snake.

Until a month ago, two officials in charge of the ships in the transfer embassy died mysteriously one after another. A fisherman discovered their bodies. Xie Sen accidentally discovered that the two officials died in the same way as the salt owl's murder method. They were strangled. Afterwards, he tied himself with big rocks and sank into the Minjiang River.

The internal guards found out the identity of one of them, Wang Chang, the director of the Shipping Department of Jiannandu Transit Mansion.

After Xie Sen visited Wang Chang's home, his wife gave Xie Sen a letter, which was Wang Chang's suicide note. He knew that he would be killed.

Through this suicide note, Xie Sen found out that the real person behind the scenes was Cui Wei, the son of Cui Yuan, the governor of Chengdu and the transfer envoy of Jiannandu. Cui Yuan arranged for the killing of two of his subordinates in order to silence him, which shows that Cui Yuan was He knew that his son was selling illegal salt.

Now Xie Sen is waiting for news from Lizhou. Once Lizhou captures Cui Yuan, he can take action and catch all the salt owl and Cui Wei.

The Meizhou ship seizure incident was actually arranged by Xie Sen. Meizhou Governor Zhou Xiangyang was a student of Li Linfu and had a feud with Cui Yuan. He was also a spy planted by Li Ye in Jiannan Road to monitor Cui Yuan for him.

Zhou Xiangyang seized Cui Wei's 30 salt ships just to keep them as evidence.

After listening to his subordinates' report, Xie Sen nodded and said, "Continue to monitor Tu Luohan and wait for my order to arrest him!"

Since it is known that Tu Luohan is Cui Wei's contact person, as long as Tu Luohan is arrested, we can get evidence to arrest Cui Wei.

Cui Yuan arrived in Miangu County and lived in the VIP Post Station. With his special status, he must live in the best post station, unlike other governors.

He was the only one living in the VIP Post Station, and the Du Yunyunshi of Shannan West Road was still on the way.

After packing up and staying, Cui Yuan got up and went to the camp to visit Li Xian, the Minister of Works.

The Tang army set up a dredging camp in Miangu County. All kinds of money, food and supplies were piled up in the camp, and soldiers from the firearms camp also lived here.

Li Xian was in the camp, and Cui Yuan was led into the camp by Jiang Xi, a doctor in the Ministry of Works. Horses and carriages were not allowed in the camp, so Cui Yuan's dozens of men waited outside the camp.

When he came to a big tent, Jiang Xi bowed and said, "This is the guest tent of Minister Li. Please wait for a moment, Minister Cui, the Minister will be here soon!"

"Doctor Jiang, go and do your work! I'll just wait a while."

Cui Yuan lifted the curtain and walked into the guest tent, but was stunned. There were more than 20 internal guards in the big tent, surrounding him.

The leading internal guard general raised a golden plaque and said, "In accordance with the order of the Regent King, please ask Cui to return to Beijing to assist in investigating the illegal salt case in Jiannan Road."

Cui Yuan felt dizzy and unable to sit down. He was deceived to come to Lizhou and was fooled.