Chapter 339: Water bandits

"Commander, that is how it is."

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

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

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

Cao Hanyan sat cross-legged on the ground on the left, Zheng Yi pointed at his several major acupuncture points with the sword scabbard, casually pointing out the barriers of his true energy operation, but her peripheral vision was always glancing toward You Zi'ang.

Li Miao sat in the main seat at the top, 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 Kongming Sect matter was settled. It has been nearly half a month since You Zi'ang set off from the capital with the news.

Leaving Guangxin Prefecture, Li Miao's party turned to water, entered Poyang Lake from the Xin River, crossed Poyang Lake to Hukou County. They found a large ship and sailed east along the Yangtze River; now they are just 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 was dealing with them outside.

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

There is a saying, "I come to ask the way without saying anything, the Emperor's son also communicates with the Japanese."

The day Zhu Zai sat and talked with Li Miao, he said that the Great Ming was in internal and external trouble at this time. This "external trouble," one is the Tatars in the north, and the second is the Japanese pirates on the southeast coast.

The Yangtze River in the Taiping Prefecture section was already wide, with many sandbars and tributaries, and there were 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 had been formed south of the Yangtze River.

Zheng Yi's mother's public identity in the Great Ming was one of the twenty-eight leaders of the Jiangnan waterway, which is to say, a water bandit leader.

Li Miao's ship looked like the work of a rich man, and they didn't need to bring guards; aside from boatmen and maids, there were no others on the ship, so it was not strange to be targeted by water bandits.

Let us go back to the present.

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

"I am still at ease with Xiao Anzi handling things. Leaving the Shuntian Prefecture matter to him, plus Xiao Mei and Ruan Mei, and the people of the Xiaolingwei, it should not be a problem."

"But I am a little worried about Xiao Si and Wang Hai."

You Zi'ang asked strangely when he heard this.

"Commander, Battalion Commander Wang is someone you have cultivated for more than ten years, and Battalion Commander Li is your goddaughter. They—"

Li Miao waved his hand.

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

"Ultimately, their Wu Gong is not hard enough."

"I also got some news here, but it happened to gather together with the things they were investigating... I am afraid they can't handle it."

At this point, Li Miao took out a piece of paper and shook it at Zheng Yi.

"Xiao Yizi."

Zheng Yi was pretending to be unintentional and peeking at his situation, and when she was greeted, she immediately walked over, took the paper and looked at it, and her brows furrowed.

This paper roughly recorded one thing.

It said that Wang Hai and Xiao Si followed the confession of the little eunuch at the Moon-Gazing Banquet and finally got a definite clue a month ago.

Aside from the property brought out from the palace at that time, part of the property supporting this group of eunuchs came 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 the four great eunuchs appointed by the Emperor himself, positioned above the Nanjing Garrison, the highest military commander in Nanjing, to monitor and remotely control the Nanjing military.

They were high-ranking and powerful, deeply trusted by the Emperor, and were eunuchs. It was natural that the possibility of colluding with Liu Jin's group was great.

Wang Hai and Xiao Si tried to start from the four people's family property to see if there were any huge sums of property with unknown sources and destinations, which might be funds sent to Liu Jin for activities. But after checking, both were speechless for a while.

There was not a single silver tael in the homes of these four great eunuchs whose source and destination were clear.

All four were not clean, and it was impossible to distinguish which one was the accomplice providing property 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 attacking the side.

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

And what attracted Zheng Yi's change in expression was one of the clues—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.

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

Shi Wushuang.

One of the late twenty-eight leaders of the Jiangnan waterway, a famous female king of the green forest path, a water bandit leader colluding with garrison eunuchs.

It was also the alias used by her mother before she went missing.

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

"Officer, what do you mean?"

Li Miao pinched the wine glass and said unhurriedly.

"Just find it interesting."

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

"Before, when looking through Zheng Huaijin's relics at the Kongming Sect, the clues obtained were not many, only knowing that he had a sect member who was still communicating with him, hiding in Nanjing, which is why 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 this Jiangnan green forest path before."

"Then why could this Penglai sect member hiding in Nanjing live until now, and still be communicating with Zheng Huaijin a few months ago?"

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

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

"Penglai sect members are scattered everywhere, and your mother rarely went out since you started remembering things; it is probably very difficult for her alone to find out the locations of so many sect brothers."

"According to the news found by my subordinates, your mother colluded with the Nanjing garrison eunuchs and should have gathered quite a bit of property, but this property has gone missing—I think your mother should have a few accomplices who helped her spend this property."

"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 groups 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 all come together, it can be considered a good thing, saving us from running around in disorder."

Li Miao said to Zheng Yi with a smile.

"Go to Nanjing and see."

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

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 340 =====