Chapter 161 Take it all
It had only been a few minutes since the two met, but Hu Weiyong was already in a panic, which Yang Chen did not expect.

Before this, Hu Weiyong gave him the impression of being a calm guy. Now it seemed that he was a little flustered because Zhu Chong followed him to Zhenjiang Prefecture.

As expected, people are still people. It is impossible for them to have deep thoughts that cannot be guessed by others.

Judging from Hu Weiyong’s current condition, he has already won.

Faced with Yang Chen’s counterattack, Hu Weiyong immediately came to his senses.

Indeed, just as the other party said, I was so anxious after only being together for a short time. It seemed that my purpose was too clear, which was not a good thing.

Thinking this, Hu Weiyong immediately changed the subject and said with a smile:

“Hahaha! Nephew Yang is right, it was Uncle Hu who was being reckless just now!

Hey! Actually, nephew Yang, you should know that I, Uncle Hu, am an important minister of the court. When His Majesty and the Crown Prince are not here, I, the Prime Minister, have the final say in the entire court.

But Your Majesty is old and has not explained many things to me. In order to avoid unnecessary misunderstandings in the court, I asked directly before.

But you are right about some things. Today I am mainly here to help you practice them. The other things are for another discussion!
Come! This is the gift Uncle Hu gave you today. I know you will be traveling to this remote place in Zhenjiang Prefecture, close to the Yangtze River Basin. In order to find someone to take care of you, I specially asked some connections to ask the head of the Jiaofang Division to arrange a few obedient and sensible concubines for you. “

As he spoke, Hu Weiyong raised his palms to the air and clapped them, and the curtain on the right side of the two people slowly rose.

What caught Yang Chen’s eyes were several girls with graceful figures, elegant manners, outstanding temperament, and beauty like orchids.

Several people subconsciously felt extremely uncomfortable facing Yang Chen’s “man-eating” eyes, but when they turned around and saw Hu Weiyong’s sinister warning eyes, they instantly put on a smiling face again.

When they accepted their fate, they discovered that, apart from Yang Chen’s unfriendly look, the man was not only handsome, but also young and promising. Compared to falling into the hands of those old officials in their fifties and sixties, it seemed that being toyed with by Yang Chen was actually a win.

“Haha. What do you think of this gift, nephew?”

Hu Weiyong glanced at Yang Chen and found that this young man really could not resist the temptation. He couldn’t help himself just when he got there. If he handed the money to the other party later, wouldn’t he be able to do whatever he wanted?

In Hu Weiyong’s view, the current situation means victory is a sure thing.

Yang Chen picked up a glass of wine, drank it all in one gulp and said generously:

“Okay! I can’t think of a way to repay Uncle Hu for his kindness!”

“My dear nephew, you are too polite! In addition to these, I have also prepared some good things for you. After we leave, I will ask the butler to take you there. It will only be more than last time, and it will definitely not be less than last time.”

Hu Weiyong’s cheerful look was just like that of a senior who was looking after his junior on a long journey. He did not behave like an honest official at all, but was extremely corrupt.

Upon hearing the news, Yang Chen couldn’t stop smiling.

Wow, it turns out this guy is as shameless as the legend says.

It is natural for him to be corrupt. He dared to do so when Zhu Yuanzhang was not in the palace. What would happen if he came to power later?

“Why don’t you guys come over and toast Lord Yang with a few glasses of wine?”

Seeing that the time was ripe, Hu Weiyong thought of asking those concubines to come forward and toast him, which might have been a case of forcing him to drink.

Seeing that the concubines really followed orders and walked forward, Yang Chen quickly ordered them to stop:
“Alright! All of you go down, I want to talk to my uncle Hu about something, you are not allowed to eavesdrop!”

The two people’s orders were completely opposite. For a moment, Guan Ji was hesitant and stood there at a loss.

Hu Weiyong didn’t know what he was thinking, and then he said kindly:
“Since Master Lu has handed you over to Lord Yang, you must understand today that you must obey Lord Yang’s orders. He told you to leave, so what are you still doing here?”

One of the concubines, who looked like a married woman, was smarter and understood what to do next. She took the lead in paying her respects and then led everyone away.

The surroundings were cleared again, leaving only Yang Chen and Hu Weiyong.

Seeing that no one was around and the time was right, Yang Chen suddenly said to himself:

“Uncle Hu, thank you for your help. I toast you with this glass of wine!”

As he spoke, he finished a glass of wine by himself and then changed the subject.

“To be honest with you, Uncle Hu, I was originally planning to go to Zhenjiang Prefecture alone, but the Crown Prince, for some reason, suddenly arranged for the Prince of Qin to accompany me to Zhenjiang Prefecture.

As far as I know, didn’t His Royal Highness the Prince of Qin make a mistake some time ago? In order to make the Prince of Qin make amends, the prince asked him to go with me to Zhenjiang Prefecture to eliminate the environment where local bureaucrats were rampant and overbearing.

Uncle Hu, to be honest with you, I think this is a test for the prince.”

“Oh? How do you say this?”

“Think about it, as a censor from the capital who was parachuted into Zhenjiang Prefecture, I have almost no connections, and it is difficult for me to do anything. Now the King of Qin is following me.

On the one hand, it would allow the King of Qin to gain some merit with me, so that His Majesty would not be disliked by the mistakes he made before.

Secondly, the King of Qin is a martial artist, ruthless and even more decisive than me. He will definitely not be soft-hearted when dealing with the local bureaucrats and gentry who are blocking the implementation of the policy. In short, the King of Qin’s trip to Zhenjiang Prefecture will inevitably cause a bloody storm. How many people will be implicated by then is not up to me to decide. “

After saying this, Yang Chen reminded Hu Weiyong intentionally or unintentionally to see how the other party would react.

Unexpectedly, Hu Weiyong remained calm and did not seem to be panicked.

This is a complete reversal of the previous interaction between the two people.

Looking at Yang Chen’s relaxed and composed appearance, Hu Weiyong had a lot of thoughts in his mind.

First of all, he judged from Yang Chen’s words that Zhu Chong’s purpose of following him was just as he said.

Taking credit, and serving as a killing knife. Who to kill, how to kill, and who to kill all depend on the decision of Yang Chen, a civil servant.

In other words, he did not find the wrong person. Yang Chen was still the key figure in this matter. Now, as long as he could deal with him, he could handle the affairs of Zhenjiang Prefecture and would not implicate himself. He could even save Zhou Shizhong, the prefect of Zhenjiang Prefecture.

Having made a decision in his heart, Hu Weiyong said in a solemn tone:

“It seems that the prince has put a lot of effort into this King of Qin, but it’s hard for your nephew. I heard that King of Qin has a bad temper. You will definitely suffer a lot if you work with him.”

“Uncle Hu, please rest assured. Although the King of Qin is a prince, he cannot tell me what to do. His Royal Highness the Crown Prince has made it clear to me. We will investigate who is obstructing the implementation of the policy. Unless I give the order, the King of Qin cannot kill innocent people. This is an iron rule. Not only did the Crown Prince say it himself, but it also has the support of His Majesty. If you don’t believe me, look at this thing!”

As Yang Chen spoke, he took out the token Zhu Yuanzhang had given him. When he saw the token, Hu Weiyong couldn’t help but twitch his eyes. Only Yang Chen noticed this, and even Hu Weiyong himself didn’t realize why he had such a subconscious action.

If you think about it carefully, you will understand that since Hu Weiyong took office as prime minister, he has been claiming to be the most trusted subordinate of His Majesty.

Faced with any resistance and distrust from any official, he simply took out the purple bamboo scratcher given to him by Zhu Yuanzhang and combined it with that line of poetry.

He could instantly suppress most officials, and even Liu Bowen was killed by him in this way.

Now that Yang Chen took out a token that was more influential than the tickler, Hu Weiyong felt a mixture of emotions, as if all kinds of seasonings were added to rice.

It took him a long time to recover.

Realizing that something was wrong with him just now, Hu Weiyong quickly changed the subject.

“It seems that His Majesty still trusts you very much. Even I could only get His Majesty’s token by doing some special things before. Now, in order to let you calm down the King of Qin, His Majesty actually promised to let you wear this token for a long time. Your future is limitless.

By the way, nephew Yang, since you are going to Zhenjiang Prefecture, do you know who the prefect of Zhenjiang Prefecture is?”

“The prefect of Zhenjiang Prefecture? I don’t have much impression of him. Anyway, I only know one thing, that is, there is a high probability that this guy is going to get into trouble.

As the pilot location for the Crown Prince’s three strategies, I will communicate with him as soon as I go there tomorrow. If he is ignorant and refuses to implement the pilot project, then he will know the iron-blooded methods of His Royal Highness the Prince of Qin. “

Yang Chen’s frank words shocked Hu Weiyong. Although this guy looked greedy, he was also a man who was used to life and death and did not take the lives of ordinary people seriously at all.

Fortunately, I met the other party in advance, otherwise Zhou Shizhong would definitely have died miserably.

Pouring a glass for the other party, Hu Weiyong said apologetically:
“When you go to a place to work, how can you not know something about that place? It’s embarrassing to say that this is what nephew Yang is like.

The prefect of Zhenjiang Prefecture was a person of my lineage. His name was Zhou Shizhong. He used to be a scholar in the Yuan court. Later, when Your Majesty rebelled, he obeyed Your Majesty’s edict and entered the Ming Dynasty.

After the founding of the People’s Republic of China, he originally worked in the Ministry of Personnel. Later, he was possessed by the evil spirit and did some wrong things. After I saved him, Your Majesty pardoned his death penalty. Some time ago, many officials of the Ming Dynasty were dismissed because of the empty seal case.

Those local governments lack talented people, so Your Majesty arranged him to be the prefect of Zhenjiang Prefecture. I know this guy Zhou Shizhong. Apart from his dirty hands, he is absolutely loyal to the Ming Dynasty.

When Nephew Yang goes to this place to do something, I will let him listen to you, but I still hope that Nephew Yang will show some leniency and not kill him.”

During the week.

How could Yang Chen not feel familiar with this guy’s name? Since he was about to go to Zhenjiang Prefecture, he naturally sent someone to inquire about the situation.

He originally thought that Hu Weiyong had called him here today to discuss not implementing the Crown Prince’s Three Strategies, but he did not expect that he wanted him to let Zhou Shizhong go.

If Yang Chen wanted to let him go, it would only take a word from him.

At this point, Zhu Chong would do whatever he said. It was just a matter of a word to spare or kill someone. He just agreed to Hu Weiyong so easily, which made him seem too easy to talk to.

Yang Chen was thinking about how to maximize the benefits of this matter.

During this period, Hu Weiyong added:
“My nephew Yang, although you are valued by His Majesty and the Crown Prince is also interested in training you, the way for any official to be an official is to leave a way out for future encounters. Before becoming an official, all scholars in the world are determined to become a good official with integrity, but after becoming an official, they all rack their brains for promotion in their official careers. For thousands of years, different people have been competing for the same official position. If you want to leave your name in history, you must not only do your duty, but also be flexible.

This court seems to have nothing to do with each other, but in fact, everyone is inseparable from each other.

As the prefect, Zhou Shizhong will definitely leave some traces. Uncle Hu hopes that you will not go too far when the time comes.

Uncle Hu knows that you are in trouble, but you are the main person in this matter. His Majesty not only gave you his token, but also let the King of Qin listen to your orders. Without your order, Uncle Hu believes that the King of Qin will definitely not act recklessly. “

When he asked for the second time, Yang Chen was already certain that Zhou Shizhong must have some connection with Hu Weiyong.

This clue is extremely fatal, so he certainly won’t push these things to a dead end.

So Yang Chen pretended to be very embarrassed, touched his chin and said:

“Hiss~ Oh! Uncle Hu, it’s not that I don’t want to, but this matter is indeed a little inconvenient to do. You also know that His Majesty and the Prince value me, and the King of Qin is by my side. In addition to these people, there must be some eyes that I can’t see. These eyes are very smart. If I don’t pay attention, they will inform His Majesty of this matter. By then, let alone protecting others, I will be like a clay Buddha crossing the river, unable to protect myself!

But Uncle Hu, I will definitely do what you told me to do. I have a plan, which is to be kind and generous. Only by distributing all my wealth can we connect everyone together. In this way, we are all on the same boat, and no one will overturn this boat, don’t you think?”

I originally thought that Yang Chen would argue with me about some trivial matters, but I didn’t expect that this guy was such a greedy money-eating beast, and he kept saying that he was short of money.

You must know that the last time Hu Weiyong gave the other party a gift worth hundreds of thousands of silver coins.

In addition, he has given a lot more now, and the total amount is nearly one million taels of silver, but it still cannot satisfy the other party’s appetite.

To be honest, Hu Weiyong likes such people very much.

In his opinion, things that can be solved with money are not problems.

Greedy!

These four words have become Hu Weiyong’s stereotype of Yang Chen.

“Nephew Yang is right. All crimes are built on money. How about this, to reassure you, nephew? Please give me some time to prepare. Tomorrow I will send someone to deliver the generous gift to the back door of your mansion. Is it convenient for you?”

“It’s convenient! Of course it’s convenient. As long as you don’t feel uncomfortable, Uncle Hu, I can do it!”

“Okay, okay! Nephew Yang is really a straightforward person. In that case, I will send someone to give you a generous gift of this amount tomorrow. I wonder if it will work?”

As he spoke, Hu Weiyong opened his palm slightly, revealing the shape of a five.

Seeing this number, Yang Chen’s eyes lit up immediately!

“Uncle Hu means that in addition to this amount tomorrow, there will be another generous gift waiting for me downstairs later? That adds up to a hundred. Ahem.”

Yang Chen took the lead, which shocked Hu Weiyong.

I thought that this kid was not just greedy, he was eating and taking things, he had no sense of shame at all!
Fortunately, Hu Weiyong did not feel anything about it. This amount of money was just a drop in the bucket of the family’s inventory. At most, he could collect more by the end of the year and make his money back.

It’s better than letting Zhou Shizhong, this time bomb, fall into the hands of the court.

(End of this chapter)