Chapter 301: Water bandits

"Regional Commander, that is how it is."

You Zi'ang felt some movement under his feet, tilted his body to add some force, the human body under his feet squeezed out a cry, and then there was no movement.

The lamp fire was flickering, reflecting the blood on the ground.

The building ship pressed on the water and moved forward slowly, the keel made a dull and subtle humming sound from time to time, the vibration was transmitted to the floor of the second floor, and ripples were shaken out in the wine glass on the table.

Cao Hanyan sat cross-legged on the left ground, Zheng Yi pointed at his several major acupuncture points with the scabbard, casually pointing out the barriers of his internal energy operation, but her peripheral vision had been glancing at You Zi'ang's side.

Li Miao sat in the upper seat, looking at the letters brought by You Zi'ang, reached out and picked up the wine glass and took a sip.

Today is the twenty-fourth year of Jiajing, October 8th, the beginning of winter.

It has been a month since the Profound Clarity Sect matter was concluded. It has been nearly half a month since You Zi'ang set off from the capital with the news.

Leaving Guangxin Prefecture, Li Miao and his party turned to water, entered Poyang Lake from the Xin River, crossed Poyang Lake to Hukou County. Found a big ship and went east along the Yangtze River, and now it happens to be in the jurisdiction of Taiping Prefecture, Nanjing.

You Zi'ang caught up with Li Miao here, but happened to meet a group of water bandits attempting to rob the ship.

The one under his feet was one of them.

As for the others, Gao Anyu is dealing with them outside.

Perhaps some people will find it strange, Nanjing is the auxiliary capital, and Taiping Prefecture is a node of the Yangtze River downstream, salt transport, how can there be water bandits?

There is a saying, "I come to ask the way, there is no other saying, my son also communicates with the Japanese."

When Zhu Zai and Li Miao sat and talked about the Tao, he said that the Great Ming is currently suffering from internal and external troubles. This "external trouble," one is the Tatars in the north, and the second is the Japanese pirates in the southeast.

The Yangtze River section of Taiping Prefecture is wide, with many sandbars and tributaries, and there are many hidden ports and reed marshes. Some Japanese pirates infiltrated the interior along the Yangtze River and took root here.

It happened that the Great Ming garrison system was lax, and the water division was even more useless, giving these water bandits a good entrepreneurial environment. By now, a complete ecosystem independent of the righteous Jianghu has been formed south of the Yangtze River.

The surface identity of Zheng Yi's mother in the Great Ming is one of the twenty-eight leaders of the Jiangnan waterway, to put it bluntly, she is a water bandit leader.

Li Miao's ship looks like the handwriting of a rich man, and they don't need to bring guards, except for boatmen and maids on the ship, it is not strange to be targeted by water bandits.

Let's go back to the eyes.

Li Miao held the stack of letters and looked at them for a while, and said to You Zi'ang casually.

"I am still at ease with Little Anzi's handling of things. Leaving the matter in the capital to him, plus Little Mei and Ruan Mei, and the people of Xiaolingwei, it should not be a problem."

"But I am a little worried about Little Four and Wang Hai."

You Zi'ang asked strangely.

"Regional Commander, Battalion Commander Wang is the one you cultivated from more than ten years ago, and Battalion Commander Li is your goddaughter. They—"

Li Miao waved his hand.

"It's not that they don't do things steadily, nor that they lack means. It's just that compared to Little Anzi in the capital, the cards in their hands are too few."

"In the end, martial arts are not hard enough."

"I also got some news here, but it happened to gather together with what they were investigating, maybe it will be connected... I am afraid they can't handle it."

Speaking of this, Li Miao pulled out a piece of paper and shook it at Zheng Yi.

"Little Yizi."

Zheng Yi had been pretending to be unintentional and peeking at his side, seeing him greet, immediately walked over quickly, took the paper and looked at it, and her brows furrowed.

This paper roughly recorded one thing.

It is said that Wang Hai and Little Four followed the confession of the little eunuch at the Moon Appreciation Banquet and investigated all the way, and finally got a definite clue more than a month ago.

The property supporting the activities of this group of eunuchs, in addition to those brought out from the palace at that time, also had a part originating from Nanjing.

The first people the two suspected were the four "Nanjing Garrison Eunuchs."

Liu Chun, Shou Xia, Shang Qiu, Cun Dong.

These four eunuchs were appointed by the Emperor himself, ranked above the Nanjing Garrison, the highest military commander in Nanjing, and were the four big eunuchs used to supervise and remotely control the Nanjing military.

High-ranking and powerful, deeply trusted by the Emperor, and eunuchs. It is natural that the possibility of colluding with Liu Jin's group is very high.

Wang Hai and Little Four tried to start from the family property of the four, to see if there were any huge amounts of property with unknown sources and destinations, which might be funds sent to Liu Jin for activities. But as they checked, both were speechless for a while.

In the homes of these four big eunuchs, there was not a single sum of money with a clear source and destination.

All four were not clean, and it was impossible to distinguish which one was an accomplice providing financial support to Liu Jin.

Helpless, the two had to check from the large sums of stolen silver to see if they could find some clues by side-attacking.

The matter written on the paper ended here, and some clues that might be important were listed below for Li Miao to view.

And the clue that attracted Zheng Yi's attention was one of them—the four garrison eunuchs seemed to be colluding with the Jiangnan green forest path, providing protection for their looting on the Yangtze River waterway, and collecting money.

Among the twenty-eight leaders of Jiangnan, the four garrison eunuchs each collected seven people—one of the names attracted Zheng Yi's attention.

Shi Wushuang.

One of the twenty-eight leaders of Jiangnan who had passed away, a famous female king of the green forest path, a water bandit leader who colluded with garrison eunuchs.

It was also the alias of her mother before she disappeared.

Zheng Yi slowly raised her head to look at Li Miao and said softly.

"My lord, what do you mean?"

Li Miao held the wine glass and said slowly.

"Just find it interesting."

"The people we are investigating now have three waves—Penglai sect members, Eastern Depot eunuchs, and your mother."

"Before, when looking through Zheng Huaijin's relics at the Profound Clarity Sect, there were not many clues, only knowing that he had a sect member who was still communicating with each other, hiding in Nanjing, and it was precisely because of this that we came toward Nanjing."

"But there is a problem here."

Li Miao stretched out a finger.

"We have been able to confirm that your mother is the murderer who hunted down the Penglai sect members, and she was hiding in the Jiangnan green forest path before."

"Then why can this Penglai sect member hiding in Nanjing live to this day, and was still communicating with Zheng Huaijin a few months ago?"

"Compared to Xue Bangzhu, he was right under your mother's nose, wouldn't it be smoother to kill him?"

Li Miao paused, waiting for Zheng Yi to digest what he had just said, and continued.

"Penglai sect members are scattered in all directions, and your mother has rarely gone out since you remembered things. I am afraid it is very difficult for her to find out the location of so many sect members."

"According to the news found by my subordinates, your mother colluded with the Nanjing garrison eunuchs and should have gathered a lot of property, but these properties have unknown destinations—I think your mother should have a few accomplices who help her spend these properties."

"This Penglai sect member hiding in Nanjing is likely one of them."

"Penglai sect members, Eastern Depot eunuchs, and your mother's accomplices. —The three waves of people we are investigating have gathered in Nanjing."

"You say this is a coincidence, or is there a hidden secret?"

A final scream came from the deck outside the door.

"Uncle Li, finished killing!"

Gao Anyu pushed the door and walked in.

Li Miao pointed to the seat on his right, and he walked to that side and sat down obediently.

"In short, since things have come together, it can be considered a good thing, saving us from running around."

Li Miao said to Zheng Yi with a smile.

"Go to Nanjing and see."

"I have a premonition that the truth about your mother hunting down the Penglai sect members will come to light in Nanjing."