Chapter 452

Now that he stopped and came to his senses, he immediately felt hungry.

It could be said that Su Qiao's timing in bringing the porridge was perfect.

"Alright, drink quickly; don't worry about it not being enough, there is more!"

"Mm-hmm!" Liu Rushi nodded cutely and then began to drink in large gulps.

At this moment, Su Qiao picked up the blueprint she had translated and examined it carefully.

It was exactly as they had guessed before.

Hidden within this memorial was indeed a connection to the treasure buried by Emperor Yang of Sui.

This blueprint was the structural map of the underground palace.

Every checkpoint and every special mechanism was marked.

With this item, and after confirming the treasure was behind the Qiling Temple, Su Qiao would absolutely be able to retrieve the treasure easily.

Hmm, whether he got it or not made no difference to him.

It just so happened that Zhu Youjian was short of money, staring at the corrupt officials under him like a vicious wolf every day.

In fact, he had already stripped other ministers of quite a lot of silver and money beforehand.

He had tasted the sweetness!

This made Zhu Youjian even clearer that there was more money to be found among the officials underground!

The only thing he was somewhat curious about was exactly how much treasure there was.

Not only was Su Qiao curious, but Liu Rushi was extremely curious as well.

After eating the porridge, she chased after him and asked, "Is this blueprint the map of that treasure's underground palace?"

"Yes, the blueprint of the underground palace for the treasure buried by Emperor Yang of Sui!"

"So it really is! Doesn't that mean the treasure actually exists?!"

Before, when Su Qiao dragged her around the map of Yangzhou making random gestures, she had been somewhat confused.

Now she was finally clear-headed.

Her whole body became excited; Su Qiao could even see the flashing glint of light in her little eyes.

"Yes, wait until we go to Quanzhou first; after handling the matters in Quanzhou, we will go to Yangzhou!"

Su Qiao also very much wanted to fly straight to Yangzhou and take a look right now.

But he had not forgotten his main business.

The opium issue flowing out of the Quanzhou Maritime Trade Office had not yet been investigated clearly; how could he just leave like this?

Although Liu Rushi was very curious, she could also distinguish the urgency and importance of matters.

Therefore, she had no objection to Su Qiao's decision.

Since Su Qiao ordered all counties and cities to search for matters related to opium,

the effect could be said to be very significant.

Especially in various regions, originally everyone did not understand this thing.

The common people of Great Ming did not know what harm this thing caused, and many were deceived.

However, after the Yamen Runners, Constables, and low-level clerks of the government offices popularized it and posted announcements to introduce it,

the people of Great Ming suddenly understood that this thing was called "drugs."

It was extremely harmful to the body, equivalent to a slow-acting poison.

If you told the poor common people other things, they might not understand.

But if you told them this was a slow-acting poison that could kill people,

hey, they immediately understood!

Moreover, the common people also took the opportunity to help report many traitors selling opium, or the Franks.

Even the Maritime Trade Office had detained several of them.

Now the Franks were protesting in Quanzhou.

The complaint letters had been delivered to Sun Chuanting, who was working in the Fuzhou Prefecture.

For this reason, Sun Chuanting also sent the letters into Su Qiao's hands.

On the surface, it expressed support for Su Qiao, but the hidden chill deeper down was to urge him to leave quickly for Quanzhou and handle the matter.

After understanding this, Su Qiao and Liu Rushi packed their things and planned to set off.

Additionally, before leaving Fuzhou, Su Qiao also attended the farewell banquet hosted by the Fuzhou officials.

As for the matter that the Qiling Temple in Yangzhou might have Emperor Yang of Sui's treasure, Su Qiao did not hide it; he instructed Ma Kui to send the news to the capital via an eight-hundred-li urgent courier, plus carrier pigeons.

Since Su Qiao left the capital, Zhu Youjian had been unable to muster the spirit to handle affairs; not that he couldn't muster spirit, but rather he was always scolded by Zhu Yuanzhang until he was dizzy.

It seemed that without Su Qiao standing by to give him advice, he would always make small mistakes, which Zhu Yuanzhang and others disliked.

Zhu Di had previously followed Su Qiao to Jiangnan for nearly a month.

Court affairs were delayed quite a bit; Zhu Gaochi and Zhu Gaoxu were almost worried to death.

Zhu Yuanzhang did not indulge him either, and scolded him soundly as well.

He made Zhu Di properly clean up the accumulated government affairs.

So Zhu Di could not get out for a Yishiban Society.

Of course, do not think that because Zhu Di could not follow Su Qiao, it meant Zhu Youjian and others were unaware of what Su Qiao was busy with in the southeast.

In Suzhou, the complete annihilation of over three thousand Japanese pirates led by Fujita Goro yielded a great victory.

Zhu Youjian was keeping track of this merit for Su Qiao!

If there weren't people in Su Qiao's residence, the rewards would have been issued long ago.

Because Su Qiao took Liu Ruyi south together and had no parents himself, they could only wait for Su Qiao's return to issue the rewards together.

307, Re-establish the Eastern Depot!

People from both the Embroidered Uniform Guard and the Eastern Depot have been monitoring news about Su Qiao.

Almost every two or three days, someone would deliver reports to Zhu Youjian's desk.

That's right!

The Eastern Depot has resumed work!

This was the first major thing Zhu Youjian did after Su Qiao left.

How to put it? The Embroidered Uniform Guard is indeed spread throughout the Great Ming, with people almost everywhere, inside and out.

However, compared to the Embroidered Uniform Guard during the eras of Zhu Yuanzhang, Zhu Di, and others back then, it has fallen far behind.

It's not that it fell behind; it should be said it has rotted quite a bit.

In the early days, the Embroidered Uniform Guard stood with straight backs; there were many who truly did their jobs, and those who took bribes were as rare as phoenix feathers or unicorn horns.

But later, it got worse and worse.

Taking money, extortion, coercion, killing the innocent to claim merit—everything happened.

Under these circumstances, the number of people in the Embroidered Uniform Guard who could truly remain pure grew smaller and smaller.

Moreover, the situation of the Embroidered Uniform Guard now is different from the eras of Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Di.

Wanting to clean and review it oneself is very difficult.

Sand has truly been mixed in everywhere; the Embroidered Uniform Guard is extremely complex.

After Zhu Youjian noticed something was wrong with the Embroidered Uniform Guard, he helplessly sought advice from Zhu Yuanzhang, the Laozu Sect.

Zhu Yuanzhang first asked about the situations of the several Emperors in the chat group, then considered it, and finally decided to have him re-establish the Eastern Depot.

Regardless, the controller of the Eastern Depot is the Eunuch.

Although the Eunuch has this flaw and that flaw.

They are easy to control!

All their power comes from the Emperor.

Back then, Jiajing pushed the Eunuchs out for this very reason, to facilitate balance.

Zhu Yuanzhang's purpose in advising Zhu Youjian to release Eunuchs and re-establish the Eastern Depot was to supervise and balance the Embroidered Uniform Guard.

Of course, the scale of this balance rests on Zhu Youjian.

Now, the Donglin Party on the court has been mostly purged, and corrupt officials plus other inactive officials have also been purged in large numbers.

Those remaining are basically all promoted by Zhu Youjian.