Chapter 163 Everyone Shows Their Magical Powers

Li An was woken up in the middle of the night. After learning that eleven guards in his house had died, he was so angry that he smashed a genuine Song Dynasty Ge Kiln artifact.

"It doesn't make sense! It doesn't make sense!"

Li An cursed loudly in the Xinghua Tower:
"You are so good, Ou Zanghua, you have no moral principles and you launched a sneak attack!"

"I was wondering why he had been so quiet for half a month. It turns out he was waiting for me with such a nasty trick!"

"Are you, the Minister of the Honglu Temple and the Editor of the Hanlin Academy, playing tricks like this?!"

"And you!"

Li An pointed at the Fatal Scholar and the six patrol officers and cursed, "I'm not targeting any one person. I'm saying that everyone here is trash!"

"Of course, the five most useless ones have already been killed. Wait a minute, why didn't I see the bodies of the four heroes?"

The six patrol officers looked at each other, and one of them stepped forward and said, "Sir, when we were chasing, we encountered four heroes. They said one of them ran to the south and they are chasing him."

"hiss!"

Li An took a deep breath, picked up the Song Dynasty Ru Kiln azure glaze round washbasin next to him and smashed it on the manager's head, "Don't you have a brain? Can't you see that they are fleeing for fear of crime?!"

The manager lowered his head, secretly rejoicing in his heart, fortunately he had practiced the Iron Head Kung Fu, so this time it didn't hurt at all.

"Scholar!"

Li An looked at the pale-faced fatal scholar standing beside him and said with gritted teeth, "Give the order, whoever can get the heads of the four heroes, I will give him one thousand taels!"

"Yes!" The Fatal Scholar responded.

Another person dressed as a scholar stepped forward and said, "Dongweng, at this moment, the most important thing for us is how to deal with Lord Ou. Other matters can be put aside for now. In fact, there is one thing I don't understand. Why is Dongweng so sure that Lord Ou is the mastermind behind this?"

"Yang Zheng is absolutely right!"

After hearing this, Li An calmed down and explained, "Because there are all kinds of rare treasures in Xinghua Tower, but only the account book on the third floor was taken away. Not many people in the entire Ming Dynasty know about that thing. Who else would want it except Ou Zanghua?"

"If that's the case, we can only strike first!"

Liu Fang's expression froze, and he cupped his hands and said, "Dong Weng should immediately submit a letter to the court, impeaching Lord Ou for using knights to enter private residences, attempting to frame Dong Weng for corruption and abuse of power, and bullying the people!"

"What a great trick of grafting flowers and trees!"

Li An's eyes lit up after hearing this. He patted Liu Fang on the shoulder and said gently, "If you can cultivate integrity, it will be like adding wings to a tiger! Cultivate integrity and feel at ease. After you pass this test, I will definitely recommend you to the court. If the impeachment is successful this time, Ou Zanghua's position as the deputy envoy of Jiangxi will certainly be lost. I will make some arrangements at that time and it is not impossible for you to take over."

"Thank you, Mr. Dong!" Liu Fang was happy in her heart but looked calm.

He always felt that he was talented, but was not good at the imperial examinations, which was why he failed repeatedly. Even in his middle age, he was still only a first-class juren.

In his opinion, someone like Ou Zanghua, who had ascended to the position of Junior Nine Ministers at a young age, was merely taking advantage of his success in the imperial examination. If the two of them were to compete freely.

Liu Fang did not think that he would lose to Ou Zanghua in terms of managing people's livelihood and leading the battle.

On the other side, on Poyang Lake, a black-sailed boat slowly approached a warship.

At this time, a type of Haicang ship was more common in the middle and late Ming Dynasty. The warship was about 25 feet (6 meters) long, about 8 feet (2.7 meters) wide, the cabin was about 8.3 feet (8 meters) deep, the board was 4.3 inches ( centimeters) thick, the rudder was about feet ( meters) high, and the rudder blade was feet ( meters).

If fully staffed, a Haicang ship would need two helmsmen, three sailors, two gantrymen, one boarder, four captains, and forty soldiers, a total of fifty-two people.

But this time Ou Zanghua was not here to fight, so there was only one captain with a team of ten soldiers. After Yue Buqun boarded the ship, he met Ou Zanghua under the leadership of Mu Gaoweng. He took out the half of the account book from his arms and said with some shame: "The situation was urgent at the time. I was worried that I would be entangled by the guards of the garden and couldn't get away, so I divided the account book into two. Senior Brother Feng and I each held half. In this way, even if one of us was arrested, we would not get nothing."

Ou Zanghua said with emotion: "Master Yue is really thoughtful."

He flipped through the half of the account book that Lao Yue had taken back and found that it was a record of the wealth that Li An had collected through various means of extortion in Jiangxi in recent years.

Ou Zanghua felt that he had already gone too far in using Yao Yuan's rebel army to kill local gentry and local tyrants, but he never expected that Li An would be even more adept at playing games than he was.

For example, Fengxin County, which is close to Ruizhou Prefecture, was not touched by the Hualin bandits at all, but in Li An's account book, the best paddy fields in Fengxin County were included in his name. The reason behind this was that those gentry had joined the Hualin bandits, so they were wiped out by Li An to serve as a warning to others.
There were also money houses in Jing'an County that were taken over by Li An in the name of "aiding in suppressing bandits".

In addition, Jianchang County, Xingzi County, and Dechang County did not escape Li An's plunder. On the contrary, Poyang County, apart from joining forces with two generations of generals and thousand households to fleece the navy, did not take any action against the wealthy households in the county.

However, the previous general used various means to take over the fields around Leting Town, and then passed the mess to the new general Qiao Zhongyou.

Soon, Zuo Lengchan sent Feng Buping to the Haicang ship.

When Feng Buping saw Yue Buqun, his eyes nearly bulged out in anger. He took out the remaining half of the account book from his pocket, handed it to Ou Zanghua and said, "If someone hadn't interfered, I would have delivered the complete account book to Lord Ou long ago."

Ou Zanghua took the account and flipped through it while asking gently, "Thank you, Mr. Feng. What do you mean by someone messing with it?"

Feng Buping looked at Yue Buqun fiercely and said, "Some people are weak, so they use some tricks. Fortunately, I am here to cover their retreat. I rely on the authentic Huashan swordsmanship to fight my way out!"

Yue Buqun stood where he was, looking at his nose and his heart, as if what Feng Buping had obtained was not his.

Ou Zanghua looked up at Feng Buping before he said, "Mr. Feng's swordsmanship is indeed extraordinary."

Feng Buping raised his head slightly and showed a 'little arrogant' smile, but he quickly suppressed it.

What's there to be happy about if one's swordsmanship surpasses Yue Buqun's?
His swordsmanship is originally better than Yue Buqun!
It’s just that Lord Ou finally realized this.

Ou Zanghua was flipping through the lower half of the account at this moment and finally found what he wanted.

Li An did collect money and gave it to the Imperial Stables, but he divided it into three parts. The largest part was handed over to Liu Jin, the smallest part was contributed to the Imperial Stables, and he kept a part for himself.

This way, things will be much easier.

Ou Zanghua immediately wrote two memorials, one of which impeached the eunuch Li An, who was in charge of Jiangxi, for his greed and oppression of the people, which led to the people's miserable lives and widespread resentment in various parts of Jiangxi. He suggested that Li An should be arrested immediately to restore peace to the people of Jiangxi.

A private letter to Emperor Zhengde, telling the boss that when someone makes a lot of money in your name, not only does he give you less, but he also puts the bulk of the money into his own pocket. This is called cheating money and feelings. As a messenger of justice, he, Ou Zanghua, will never allow the simple Zhengde boss to fall for this evil trick!
After sealing the two memorials, Ou Zanghua glanced at them and finally his eyes fell on Zuo Lengchan.

Ping Bufeng has ability but no brains, while Yue Buqun has ability but too many brains.

In comparison, Uncle Zuo, who is powerful and upright, is the most reassuring.

Ou Zanghua handed the memorial to Zuo Lengchan and said seriously, "Uncle Zuo, please send these two memorials to the capital immediately. Give this one to the Tongzhengsi, and this one to Zhang's house in Dongzhimen. Tell the owner that this is very important!"

"Yes!"

Zuo Lengchan responded and was about to go out, but Ou Zanghua stopped him again, looked at Feng Buping and said, "Please come with us, Mr. Feng! We should respect Uncle Zuo along the way."

Feng Buping was a little confused, but seeing Ou Zanghua so serious, he agreed.

When sending Zuo Lengchan off the boat, Ou Zanghua approached him and whispered, "If you see Li An's men delivering memorials, let him rest for a few days."

Zuo Lengchan understood and said immediately: "Don't worry, Lord Ou, I know what to do."

(End of this chapter)