Chapter 50: Why

(Begging for 80 more chapter reads, and also asking for a bookmark; bookmarks are truly terrible...)

Watching Li You, this scholar, eat, Wu Zhuge felt extremely delighted in his heart.

He had slipped up and had no intention of stopping, because he loved seeing the stunned look on this scholar Li You's face...

"To be honest, this iron mine originally had a large share for the Cao family; it was only because the world was chaotic that they cooperated with me. However, regarding the production volume and prices of salt and iron, I am completely in the dark,

so, as you say, if we remove Cao Er, wouldn't I, Bai Bai, also lose a piece of flesh?

Moreover, when our bandit camp usually robs roads and captures people, where do the government officers come to intervene even a fraction?

Even after entering the city and destroying the Luo family, in the end, wasn't it all dropped? No need to say, the Cao family must have lent a hand!"

After Wu Zhuge spoke rapidly like a cannonade, his lips curled in mockery as he sneered: "So, what you say is, how to centralize power? How to remove Cao Er? If we remove Cao Er, isn't that removing myself?"

Li You tried his best to keep his "expression unchanged," although a huge wave had already surged in his heart. After learning some things from Wa Qingyun, he thought he had seen through the essence; he used to say "official bandit, official bandit" all day long,

but regarding what official bandits actually do, how exactly they connect with officials, and what kind of benefit transfers and umbrellas of protection they have, he truly had no concept!

Today, Wu Zhuge gave him a harsh lesson, truly opening his eyes wide; this information was something that even Wa Qingyun, a humble commoner, and he, this "foolish commoner" and "difficult commoner," could not possibly know the inside story of.

Seeing the eloquent Li You silenced, Wu Zhuge continued to add fuel to the fire: "What I told you is only about the Cao family; there are countless other families of various kinds. Anyway, in this current world, which powerful rich merchant that has managed to survive does not have a bit of bloodstain on their hands?

Truly honest and decent people would have been bankrupted by the government long ago...

Not to mention the distant past, just take Cijiaoping nearby as an example; resisting the oppression of the government and surviving the purge of the bandits, the one who survived is Sun Shucai of Cijiaoping. He started as a slave trader; from Hu County in the north, to Baihe in the east, to Jiezhou in the west, and to Ningqiang in the south, all the brothels and pleasure quarters basically get their girls from him. Even in recent years, a 'thin horse' worth thirty thousand taels was sold to the residence of the Duke of Wei in Southern Zhili...

And as for the Leimen Temple, the lands they now control across three townships and four dams are all the temple's family property. Where is there any true Buddhist sound left in the temple now?

I heard that at the Shaolin Temple on Mount Song, it has reached a point where, during the tenure of a certain Abbot, the more houses and fields the Abbot acquired, the larger the pagoda built after his death.

The behavior of the monks, big and small, has long been no different from that of ordinary local tyrants and evil gentry... The mud-legs who scratch a living from the fields all year round either starve their mothers to death or sell their daughters, yet the monks in the temple, who eat vegetarian food and chant scriptures, are all fat-headed and big-eared, full of strength, dragging some women, smearing them with lamp oil, and studying the Buddhist teachings.

However, these people cannot be provoked. As for the Golden Light Monk of the Leimen Temple, Prince Rui is his loyal believer; provoking a monk is equivalent to provoking Prince Rui's father... As for the dog officials in Mian County and Baocheng, there is no need to say much; those who can thrive and live in those positions, which one does not have the ability to reach the heavens and a heart of snake blood?"

"From officials, monks, merchants, nobles, gentry, to scholars, how can they all be rotten to the point of being unbearable?"

Li You thought to himself, feeling only a gust of pungent, coarse air stuck in his throat, unable to spit it out and unable to swallow it down...