My God, I am the emperor, the lord of mankind.

Chapter 357 Mermaid Tears

Fan He also got on his horse and started on the road following Guo Xun.

The journey is long, and even if you change horses at the post station along the way, it will take several days to travel quickly.

Everyone must speed up and try to arrive at Niumaoshan before the black market opened by Jurchen North Korea and Ming Dynasty smugglers this month closes on the border between the three countries, and investigate what the Taoists from the Qintian Prison who were suddenly summoned are doing.

……

"My lord? My lord! Wake up! Wake up!"

Along with a violent shaking of his body, Gao Lin felt a splitting headache.

He opened his eyes and saw the dilapidated beams in front of him.

The woolen blanket beneath him was worn out, and the windows of the farmhouse not far away were shaky, making an overwhelming creaking sound as Fan He moved beside him.

"How long have I been sleeping-"

he asked as he tried to hold himself up.

As his consciousness gradually recovered, Gao Lin felt a splitting headache, and the last memory in his mind was the ruined temple outside the small town that he followed all the way to after pursuing something -

Strange, what kind of temple is that?

Gao Lin thought seriously and frowned.

But the news about the ruined temple in my mind was as if something had deliberately erased it.

There was no trace left at all, only a large blank space.

Gao Lin couldn't even remember why he wanted to explore that weird little temple.

"How did I come back..."

Gao Lin took the clear water from Fan He who looked worried in front of him, raised his head and drank it in one gulp.

The cold water he had just fished out of the tank made his mind clearer.

The strange thing is that Fan He in front of him had a strange look on his face when he heard this.

"General, when I came to deliver the military talisman to you this morning, I couldn't knock your door, so I couldn't pry the window in..."

Fan He pointed to the broken wooden window that was swaying in the air by the strong wind.

"I'll ask the herders who raise cattle nearby to repair it for you..."

"No, I can do this myself. By the way, was the door locked when you came in?"

Just after he finished speaking, Gao Lin raised his head and glanced at the crossbar still hanging on the door latch, knowing that he had said nonsense.

Looking around, he saw that the house he rented from a farmer in the town was very small. Except for the east window that was damaged by the Fan River in front of him, all the doors and windows were intact and locked from the inside.

Could it be that I was too tired last night and closed the doors and windows by myself, only to forget when I woke up?

Gao Lin couldn't help but doubt his own memory.

He looked at Fan He who handed the military talisman to him in front of him, and casually took the military talisman that could recruit the warriors of the Jurchen tribes in the Northeast.

asked.

"What's the result of Commander Guo's investigation into "Merman Tears"?"

"I had some clues, and I caught several local shamans in Liaodong who took the lead in running private markets. I saw that the local heads of thousands of households who protected them were also arrested. Before Eunuch Feng asked, they took the initiative to recruit them all."

Fan He replied. On the border of the Ming Dynasty, in addition to the market for transactions between the two countries established by the government, there were also various private markets run by smugglers wandering around the border.

There are some contraband items for sale that are strictly prohibited by the imperial court.

For example, ironware, firearms, salt, etc...

Along the long border between the Ming Dynasty and Mongolia, most of the Shanxi merchants colluded with border generals to smuggle tea, silk, salt and liquor, and iron and gunpowder from Han to the Mongols.

It is used to collect sheep skins, foals, cattle and sheep and the skins of various wild animals from Mongolian herdsmen.

However, the borders of the Jurchen Three Kingdoms in the Ming Dynasty were more complicated due to the greater number of goods, greater profits, and more forces within the Ming court were involved.

The general logic is the smuggling trade network of the three countries of Ming Dynasty-Jurchen-Korea.

In addition to the smuggling of weapons, beast hides and luxury goods.

The dignitaries of the Han Dynasty also particularly liked to purchase seaweed from the Jurchens for their hunting purposes, and purchased rare medicinal materials such as ginseng and Ganoderma lucidum from North Korea to resell them at high prices domestically.

Because of the sea route, unlike northern wealthy families who often use Shanxi merchants as cover.

The bosses behind the smuggling trade in Liaodong had a higher level within the Ming court. Because smuggling in the Ming Dynasty could also avoid government investigation by sea and land, most of their white gloves were Lu merchants from Shandong and the Jiangmen Group from Liaodong.

Although Zhu Houcong had previously ordered to deal with a large number of court officials involved in this matter.

But it was obvious that the Ministry of Rites, which had just taken over the overseas trade of the Ming Dynasty, could not control such a huge market with its own merchant ships and navy.

And if there is profit, some people will naturally choose to take risks.

Although the officials of the Ministry of Rites deeply hate these smugglers who compete with them for business, they have written many times to express their hope that the court and these smuggling groups will stop talking nonsense and authorize themselves to let the fleet under the Ministry of Rites directly shoot the trouble. There is no need to go through legal procedures and open trials to waste the country. of human and material resources.

But then the Ministry of Punishment, which came after hearing the news, dismissed it on the spot and asked whether the Ministry of Etiquette was a bit too extreme.

Have you forgotten that your true job is to educate the people?
  I really don’t know what a huge blow you gang of dangerous elements who shout for gunfire and execution every day will cause to our country’s education!
  Is this how you show our students the words and rituals of saints by example?
  brutal! Violence! horrible!
  This is a regression of the Ming Dynasty’s legal system!

With you guys like this, I really can’t even think about what students will be taught by you.jpg
  The jpg of the Ming Dynasty’s education going back a hundred years
  Of course, the Ministry of Rites is not to be outdone, saying that you know nothing about the sages of Confucius and Mencius. Even the descendants of Confucius dare not argue with us in the Ministry of Rites for fear that we will expel Confucius. Old man.

After a period of wrangling, the final result was that both parties took a step back. The Ministry of Punishment no longer forced the Ministry of Rites to hand over all smugglers to itself, and the Ministry of Rites also agreed to accept regular supervision from the Ministry of Punishments and ensure that each ship carried a This is the law of the Ming Dynasty, and we must strictly abide by the law after going to sea.

Maybe it was because the Ministry of Rites had promised well verbally, but secretly it didn't take the Ministry of Punishment's warning to heart at all.

Perhaps the Ministry of Rites has such a deep understanding of the Ming Dynasty Law that some of them took not the current abridged version that has been revised many times by Yingzong, Xianzong and Xiaozong, but the super-enhanced plus version personally ordered by Zhu Yuanzhang of the Hongwu Dynasty. Carry out maritime law enforcement.

As a result, when Feng Bao caught the smuggling Jurchen shamans and Han merchants, he just poured beans out of a bamboo tube without asking them. He said everything that should be said and should not be said.

Feng Bao and others were dumbfounded. After the final files were sorted out, they looked at the long list, which even implicated some former members of Prince Xing's Mansion and some relatives of the Jiang family.

Feng Bao, Guo Xun and others looked at each other, suddenly feeling something bad.

However, for Fan He, he didn't recognize any of the names on the list. Although he felt that the faces of the adults were a bit strange, he didn't think much about it.

Tong Gao Lin said truthfully.

"Those smugglers confessed that they purchased the Shark Tears in a place called Qingshui Village under the jurisdiction of Dingzhou near the North Korean border."

"And according to what they said, it has been almost fifty years since the last time there were Mermaid Tears, and the amount this time was particularly large, and there were even some top quality ones..."

Fan He placed a white ball the size of the nail of his index finger on Gao Lin's hand.

"No, this is what those White Lotus sect monsters said in the Maitreya Sutra, the treasure that can bring life and death to human flesh and bones—"

(End of this chapter)