Chapter 270 This general has slaughtered tens of thousands of Hu people before

"I have a question for you guys!"

"What's the connection between your Lan family and Prince Qing's Mansion?"

Yang Zhengshan asked.

Lan Buqi trembled all over, and a ripple appeared in Lan Buzheng's eyes.

"Why don't you want to confess?" Yang Zhengshan said.

Lan Buqi showed a bitter look, "General, our Lan family has no connection with Prince Qing!"

When he heard Yang Zhengshan's question, he understood why Yang Zhengshan came to Tenglongwei!

Before, he was wondering why Emperor Chengping issued an edict to appoint Yang Zhengshan as the commander of Tenglong Guard. Now he finally understood!

For King Qing!

"No?" Yang Zhengshan was slightly surprised.

"My Lan family became prosperous forty years ago!" Lan Buqi said in a hoarse voice.

Yang Zhengshan suddenly realized.

Yes, the Lan family came to Qinghua Prefecture a hundred years ago. After three generations of hard work, they began to rise rapidly about forty years ago.

Prince Qing was crowned king thirty years ago, and he was only five or six years old when he was crowned king.

By the time Prince Qing grew up, the Lan family had already dominated Tenglongwei.

"He should have tried to win you over?" Yang Zhengshan continued to ask.

"Yes, but we refused!" said Lan Buqi.

Yang Zhengshan nodded slightly, "Then how much do you know about Prince Qing? Or do you know some of Prince Qing's secrets? I think you should understand what I mean!"

Lan Buqi fell silent, but Lan Buzheng said, "We know something, but what can we get?"

"You are not qualified to negotiate terms now!"

"Yes, we have what you want! This is our bargaining chip!" Lan Buzheng said calmly.

Yang Zhengshan's mouth curled up slightly. This guy is really smart.

But unfortunately, this guy seems a little too confident!

"Did you forget something?"

"What's the matter?" Lan Buzheng asked.

Yang Zhengshan grinned, "This general has slaughtered tens of thousands of Hu people before. These Hu people include not only adult men, but also the elderly, women, children, and young children!"

"Your youngest son is only seven years old this year!"

As he spoke, he licked his lips with his tongue, looking as if he was talking about something delicious.

Lan Buzheng was completely frozen, unable to maintain his previous calmness any more.

He is definitely a calm person. No matter what happens, he can remain calm and composed. In this respect, he is better than Lan Buqi.

But facing Yang Zhengshan, looking at his faint smile and listening to his calm words, his calmness and composure completely disappeared like a wisp of smoke.

"You!" Lan Buzheng's face also showed anger.

He can be ruthless to anyone, but he loves his own children very much.

"Go ahead, tell me everything you know." Yang Zhengshan didn't care about his anger at all, and just spoke in a flat tone.

Lan Buqi sighed helplessly, looked at Lan Buzheng, and finally said: "We don't know much, we only know that the Qing Palace has many sea vessels."

"Ship!"

Yang Zhengshan raised his eyebrows, this information is quite useful.

Qinghua Prefecture is close to the sea, and there are many fishermen in the coastal areas. It is not difficult to accept that the Qing Palace has sea vessels.

"What is his ship used for?" Yang Zhengshan asked.

"I don't know. Our Lan family has never dealt with Prince Qing's Mansion!" Lan Buqi said in a deep voice.

For local officials and aristocratic families, the prince often represents trouble. Most people keep their distance from the prince and avoid dealing with him if possible.

"Then where do they dock their ships?" Yang Zhengshan continued to ask.

"In the Prince Qing Guard Department. The Prince Qing Guard Department is right on the seashore, and it also has a part of the navy." Lan Buqi said.

Yang Zhengshan nodded slightly and then fell into deep thought.

There are only two types of ships in Prince Qing's fleet: warships and merchant ships.

As for warships, since Prince Qing's Guard has a navy, there is no need to hide it and they can go to sea openly.

But if it is a merchant ship, it may be doing some shameful things.

Dayong’s maritime trade is not very developed, but there are still many maritime merchants, especially in the Jiangnan and Southeast regions, where there are many wealthy large sea merchants.

As for the north, there are also some maritime merchants, but most of them are concentrated in the Tianjin-Hai area. Although the Liaodong area is located on the coast, there are not many maritime merchants.

The reason for this is that the Liaodong region was poor and few wealthy businessmen had the ability to build seagoing ships, establish fleets, and go out to sea for trade.

It’s not a big deal that Prince Qing makes money from maritime trade, but will he really do business honestly?

After pondering for a while, Yang Zhengshan withdrew his thoughts.

Now is not the time to target Prince Qing. His top priority now is to build the framework of the Tenglong Guard and then train an elite force.

Standing up, Yang Zhengshan glanced at Lan Buqi and the other two again, "You know best what you have done. Don't worry, I will act according to the laws of the court!"

After saying that, he turned around and walked out of the room without waiting for the three brothers to react.

Just when Yang Zhengshan met the three brothers Lan Buqi, in the study of Prince Qing City, Prince Qing also received the news that the Lan family had been captured.

After listening to his subordinates' report, the corners of King Qing's mouth curled up slightly, "General Yang's methods are really fierce!"

"I originally thought that he would fight with the Lan family for a long time, but I didn't expect that he would take down the Lan family in just one day!"

The sturdy man standing in front of him frowned, "Your Majesty, I think it is better to get rid of Yang Zhengshan as soon as possible. If he really trains the Tenglong Guards, he may become your great enemy in the future!"

The more powerful Yang Zhengshan is, the greater the threat to King Qing. King Qing naturally understands this, but he sighs and says, "We can't do anything to him now!"

Yang Zhengshan cannot be killed. Once Yang Zhengshan dies, Emperor Chengping will definitely be even more worried about him, and may even imprison him directly or summon him to Kyoto to be watched over, which would be even more disadvantageous to him.

As for other methods, winning over? Coercion? Inducement?

It's not that Prince Qing hadn't thought about these things, but he had analyzed Yang Zhengshan and found that he was definitely not that easy to deal with.

Thinking back to Yang Zhengshan's past, Prince Qing felt like he was facing a hedgehog.

It would be bad enough that you don't know where to start, but you also have to be careful about getting stabbed by him.

"Forget it, let's act according to our plan first. You just need to keep an eye on the Tenglong Guards!" Prince Qing finally gave up on dealing with Yang Zhengshan.

Although Yang Zhengshan may become an obstacle to him in the future, for now Yang Zhengshan cannot influence him.

He needs time to plan his plans, as the plans he is making are more important than dealing with Yang Zhengshan.

At this time, Yang Zhengshan didn't know what Prince Qing was thinking. If he knew, he would probably feel a lot more relieved.

After meeting the three brothers of the Lan family, Yang Zhengshan came to the study room of the front yamen.

Zhou Ren and Lu Wenhua have tidied up his study, and he can now work in the yamen.

"Sir, the Lan family's assets have been sorted out. Please take a look!"

As soon as Yang Zhengshan sat down in the study, Zhou Ren came over with a document.

Zhou Ren's ability to do things was quite good. In just one day and one night, he had calculated the assets of the Lan family.

Yang Zhengshan took the document and started reading it.

There were quite a lot of things on it, including the Lan family's fertile fields, tenants, slaves, servants, gold and silver, food, real estate, etc.

One hundred and eighty-six hundred acres of good farmland.

There were 2,320 households of tenants and servants.

There were 765 servants and 368 retainers in the mansion.

There were about thirty-eight thousand taels of gold.

About 220,000 pieces of silver.

There were about 34,000 copper coins.

There are seven houses and twenty-three shops.

One hundred and sixteen warehouses of grain!

Yang Zhengshan looked up in astonishment, "Sixteen grain warehouses?"

"Yes, sir, I just checked and the warehouse is full!" Zhou Ren said.

The corner of Yang Zhengshan's mouth twitched slightly.

He had visited the Lan family's grain and fodder before. There were sixteen granaries in the east of the Lan family mansion. Each one was built with blue bricks. They didn't seem big from the ground, but Yang Zhengshan knew that they were underground round granaries, and Dayong's official granaries were like that.

"If I remember correctly, an underground round warehouse can store 10,000 shi of grain!" Yang Zhengshan said somewhat dryly.

Zhou Ren nodded repeatedly, "My Lord, I am not mistaken, that is the granary that stores 10,000 dan of grain!"

Yang Zhengshan took a deep breath. Sixteen towers, wouldn’t that mean there are 160,000 stones?
How much food is this?

But think about it, the Lan family has 100,000 acres of good farmland, and each acre of good farmland produces about two to three shi of grain. After deducting the money given to the tenants, the remaining amount is actually almost 160,000 shi.

And don’t forget that the Lan family also controls the grain trade in Tenglongwei.

"Damn, this Lan family is nothing!"

Yang Zhengshan couldn't help but swear.

The richer the Lan family is, the more they can plunder Tenglongwei.

The Lan family had so much food, but the military households of Tenglongwei couldn't even get enough to eat.

huh~~
Yang Zhengshan exhaled heavily and said, "Give this to Xie Yuan and ask him to draft a document and submit it to the Central Military Governor's Office. Also, tell Song Dashan to arrange for someone to keep these gold, silver and grain for me."

The amount was too large, so Yang Zhengshan had to report it.

"Sir, report truthfully?" Zhou Ren asked in surprise.

"Well, report truthfully. Food is easy to deal with, but we can't handle so much gold and silver by ourselves!" Yang Zhengshan nodded and said affirmatively.

It stands to reason that as the commander of the Tenglong Guard, he could deal with the Lan family within his authority, because the Lan family was a military household of the Tenglong Guard, and the highest official position of the Lan family in the Tenglong Guard was only a few thousand households.

He still has the authority to deal with a few thousand households, and he only needs to report to the Central Military Governor's Office and the Ministry of Justice in the end.

But since so much gold and silver was involved, he had to be cautious.

Especially since he had just taken office, the emperor might have arranged for someone to keep an eye on him.

The old emperor probably won't monitor him, but he will definitely keep an eye on him.

It's better to be careful.

The higher the official position and the greater the power, the more cautious one should be.

Now that he has caught the emperor's eye, he must be even more cautious in what he does.

The old emperor could kill people, and Yang Zhengshan was still in awe of him, and was also afraid that he would chop off his head.

"Yes, I will go find Lord Xie and Lord Song right away!" Zhou Ren saw that Yang Zhengshan had made up his mind and said no more.

After he left the study, Yang Zhengshan thought about it and decided to write a memorial to the emperor.

This was the second time he wrote a memorial. The last time was after he received the imperial edict, he wrote a memorial of thanks.

However, the letter of thanks is just a procedure, and I guess the emperor won’t even read it carefully.

But this memorial was different. He had to write in detail about the situation of Tenglongwei, the Lan family, and the gold, silver, and grain seized from the Lan family.

Since you have raised the emperor's banner, you must at least give him an explanation.

(End of this chapter)