No one knows whether Mr. Wang regrets it later or not, but now in the southeast, everyone is starting to panic.
This is especially true for the aristocratic families.
Because they have been doing maritime business for a long time, and the imperial court prohibits maritime trade. There was even a saying before that no one could go to sea. However, the wealthy and powerful families were unwilling to give up. It is understandable that the wealth and glory they have now all came from the sea. Who would give up such a business easily
It is precisely because of this that they are extremely united and keep in touch with each other. They are always the first to know about the policies of the imperial court and they also have their own special channels for obtaining information in the capital.
All the news that was sent back time and time again was not good news. No matter how patient everyone was, they gradually began to feel uneasy.
At this time, something even more unsettling happened to them.
News came from the capital that Master Wang was imprisoned, followed by the search and seizure of the homes of Yuan Pei and Hu Enyou, and then, right after that, the search and seizure of the Tao family.
These people are the eyes and ears of their southeastern faction in the imperial court. With the imperial court's current actions, it is hard not to wonder if they have other ideas.
No one could sit still. There were a total of nine big families in the southeast, plus Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Guangdong. These nine families divided the fruits of maritime trade. Not to mention those that were far away, those that were nearby, such as the Qiu family and the Wei family, began to put pressure on the patriarch, asking them to ask the Chi family what was going on.
How could the business in Beijing be so prosperous and suddenly suffer such heavy losses
With the loss of so many high-ranking officials, they not only lost the money, manpower and material resources invested in these years, but more importantly, they lost their source of information.
From now on, their news will be much slower.
Uncle Qiu and Uncle Wei were also very worried about this. They were busy with the things Xiao Yuan had told them before and had no idea that such earth-shaking changes had taken place in the capital. But when they were unable to find Xiao Yuan.
Xiao Yuan didn't take it seriously at all. Instead, he just smiled coldly and asked them, "What? Did it implicate you? Did any of your people die?"
Master Wei San had even less patience and said bluntly: "What's the difference between this and losing one of our own? We have been running the business for so many years and finally have so many people. Now, the whole army is wiped out!"
The successive failures have caused people to doubt Xiao Yuan's deployment capabilities and overall vision.
After all, this was not the first time. Xu Shun and Xu Yonghong were the best among the civil servants and nobles. How much effort was spent to get them on board? But what was the result? They all fell.
The current situation is that Xiao Heng's side is thriving and enjoying a glorious time.
But they got off to a bad start and suffered repeated defeats.
No one can stand this.
Uncle Qiu was more talkative than Uncle Wei San. He coughed and said, "He is also anxious. Everyone is anxious too. After all... don't blame us for being unsure. The Wang family and the Yuan family both control a lot of our affairs. Now they are all down. Even if there are still people left in the capital who can cover up some of it, they can't cover up everything. Next, I'm afraid the court will take action against us."
If we don't take action against them, wouldn't it prove that the court itself is useless
Xiao Yuan was still leisurely playing with his fluorescent ring, and he said with a click of the tongue: "Okay, tell me something useful. How is the task I asked you to do last time going?"
In his eyes, what is useful? Master Wei couldn't help but feel anxious. He moved his lips and wanted to persuade him to consider the interests of everyone. However, when the words came to his lips, he saw his eyes and stopped talking with a pale face.
Xiao Yuan killed people like crazy with cruel methods. Even compared to the Jinyiwei, his methods were more powerful. In fact, everyone was a little afraid of him.
Seeing the situation, Uncle Qiu stepped aside to ease the atmosphere: "Yes, yes, we dare not delay what His Highness has told us to do. We have already sent someone to inform Wang Erlangzi. If Shen Hai's relatives had restrained themselves, it would have been fine. But after what happened to Shen Hai's daughter, Shen Hai sent people to take many relatives away. Now the only ones left are the children of Shen Hai's first wife. They all relied on the money given by Shen Hai to do some evil things. Of course, this is not a big deal and it will not implicate many people. But the terrible thing is that they now want to follow their father into the sea..."
This was naturally the result of Xiao Yuan's instructions to Uncle Qiu and Uncle Wei.
Xiao Yuan knew it well, and said lazily: "Then what are you waiting for? Can Wang Erlangzi be so patient?"
Of course Wang Erlangzi couldn't tolerate this. The reason why he was called Wang Erlangzi was because of his stubborn character. He was determined to be an honest official and never succumbed to the powerful.
In fact, the officials in Zhejiang knew that Shen Hai's family was in Zhoushan, but no one touched them. Of course, it was not because the court did not want to touch them, but because the officials in Zhejiang were particularly stupid. It was just because they all wanted to maintain a delicate balance.
After all, fighting against the Japanese pirates is indeed a long and arduous task, but we have to see if we can recruit the pirates and then think of other ways to slowly subdue them.
The most important thing is that if they are touched, it is likely to anger Shen Hai, and the situation will be out of control.
But the problem is, although they knew what they were doing, Wang Erlangzi did not know. Wang Erlangzi only knew that Shen Hai had done all kinds of bad things, and many ordinary people who went out to sea died at his hands. It was also because Shen Hai repeatedly sold arms to those damn Japanese pirates that led to the deaths of countless people in the Great Zhou.
Wang Erlangzi hated evil and had no good face towards the relatives of these pirates. What's more, these people even dared to lend money at high interest in Zhoushan. Not only did they lend money at high interest, but the pirates couldn't pay it back. They even dared to capture the pirates' daughter to pay off the debt, and forced the whole family to death.
Wang Erlangzi expressed his anger in a particularly direct way. He sent people to capture Shen Hai's eldest son, and used his power as an inspector to kill the man without reporting to the emperor later.
When the news reached the sea, Shen Hai was furious.
He may not be a good man, but he is definitely a good father.
First he lost his beloved little daughter, and now he lost his eldest son. Shen Hai was extremely angry at the court's actions.
And the way he expressed his anger was also very direct - he secretly instigated the Japanese pirates to launch a large-scale invasion. The Japanese pirates landed in Songshan in large numbers, killing more than 3,000 civilians and abducting more than 10,000 people, shocking the government and the public.
The Governor of Zhejiang wished he could eat Wang Erlengzi alive.