Chapter 433
Who would have known that after years of searching, by the time Hao Ren finally got concrete information, Sun Tongzhi had already become an official and had married a woman from a branch of the prestigious Bai family. His official rank and status were higher than Hao Ren, who was a rising star.
Since he couldn’t find a clean way to get rid of him for the time being, Hao Ren thought of a scheme—he planned to drag Sun Tongzhi into the mud.
As it turned out, Sun Tongzhi was no paragon of virtue. After a few years of corruption by the Ouyang Family, he was easily pulled into the mire, covered in filth.
“How deep was his involvement in the iron mine business?”
Feng Tang and Huang Xie exchanged glances. That was the real issue. The crimes Sun Tongzhi committed by abusing his power for his nephew’s sake paled in comparison to his complicity in the iron mine affair.
[Sun Tongzhi was Hao Ren’s—or rather, the Ouyang Family’s—biggest protector in Yingzhou Prefecture. He received dividends from the iron mine.
Although he didn’t know exactly what Hao Ren was doing with the iron ore, he dimly suspected it was for some illegal purpose.
At the very least, he guessed it was being sold to people planning rebellion or to foreign forces. But it never occurred to him that a mere county magistrate wanted to rebel himself.
If he had known it was that kind of capital offense, he would have done whatever it took to distance himself.]
In earlier years, when the Dayan Dynasty was in decline and its fall seemed obvious, there might have been officials entertaining treacherous thoughts, hedging their bets.
But in the past three years, Dayan had grown strong, showing signs of becoming the leading nation among the six. Wanting to rebel was about as realistic as wishing for a fart to turn into a feast!
What Sun Tongzhi didn’t know was that the Ouyang Family—or rather, the Tong family—had a burning desire to restore their former kingdom, no less urgent than Murong Fu’s obsession with reviving the Great Yan, and perhaps even more desperate.
“Isn’t Hao Ren dragging Sun Tongzhi down with him just biting the hand that feeds him?”
If she saw it correctly, Hao Ren was the most promising member of the Hao family’s current generation. Sacrificing a more talented relative for his own selfish gain was nothing short of repaying kindness with enmity.
The Hao family: We’re so lucky to have you!
[The Hao family had poured all their resources and connections into Hao Ren, which was how he had come to hold the position of county magistrate of a first-tier county. Naturally, he didn’t want to lose that support.
After the Yu family discovered the iron mine, they initially relied on their own servants for small-scale secret mining. But once Hao Ren found out, he coerced and bribed the Yu family, promising his eldest son and daughter-in-law positions, forcing his way into a stake.]
“So Li Qingxue was really a fool. She thought she was managing the estate, but in reality, she had already been sold out.”
[No kidding. Her dear Hao wasn’t just involved with his cousin behind her back, but her father had also arranged another marriage for him.
After Hao Ren meddled in the mining operation, he secretly ordered his men to cooperate with the Ouyang Family, abducting people from three villages deep in the Pinglang County mountains to work the mine.
Unfortunately, one of those villages was completely wiped out.]
Wu Yong’s hand froze. He had spoken with those captured villagers. Some of them had indeed said that the villagers from one hamlet had all vanished. It turned out Hao Ren had ordered it.
“As for the living, let them be settled well. For the dead, let Hao Ren go down and personally apologize to them.”
[Master, the Ouyang Family smelted the iron ore into swords, knives, and armor. They also colluded with the Southern Yue.
Before finding the Tong family treasure, the Ouyang branch relied on Southern Yue’s financial support for their daily expenses.
You see, they were once royalty and had grown used to a life of luxury. They couldn’t lower themselves to live like commoners. So, they were naturally grateful for Southern Yue’s backing. In fact, because of the Southern Yue influence, they had gradually split into two factions: one advocated for restoring the kingdom; the other wanted to attach themselves to Southern Yue, helping them conquer Dayan in exchange for credit and favors.]
“Is currying favor with a conquering lord that easy? Aren’t they afraid Southern Yue will kill the donkey once the mill is gone?”
[In the original timeline, not long after Southern Yue invaded Dayan, this branch of the Tong family was slaughtered by bandits, wiping out their entire clan.
Master, most of the three high-yield crop varieties that Southern Yue now possesses were smuggled out in secret caravans via the Ouyang Family.
Were it not for the strict government control over border trade and land production outputs over the past two years, making it impossible for the Ouyang Family to smuggle large amounts of seeds, Southern Yue might already be planting them on a large scale.
I also detected that, under cover of the drought, the Ouyang Family used grain to exchange for seeds from the common people, intending to send them to Southern Yue in a few days.]
Once the Guoshi seeds were mentioned, everyone present—except Yue Fuguang—started to feel restless.
Dayan’s current strength and stability, even in the face of internal drought, were half due to the contributions of these three high-yield seeds.
If other countries got their hands on them on a large scale, wouldn’t Dayan’s advantage be eliminated?
The men, who had long coveted their neighbors’ lands, could not let that happen!
Just as Shen Jian was itching to march out and wipe out the Ouyang Family right then, a single sentence from the system froze him in place.
[Master, in this whole affair, the Yu family appears to have been coerced by Hao Ren and the Ouyang Family behind him, but in truth, they did it all deliberately.]
“How so, Little Bead? Is there a story within a story?” Yue Fuguang said, realizing from the system’s tone that it had unearthed new information.
Though it spoke with confidence, what it was about to reveal couldn’t have come to it much earlier than it came to her.
[Master, guess who stands behind the Yu family?]
Who? Wei Shouyi, who was in charge of arrests, furrowed his brow and stroked his beard as he thought. To him, the Yu family was just a provincial landlord-gentry clan. Yesterday, when Huang Xie led the welcoming party for the young master in Yingchuan City, the head of the Yu family had been among them.
He was a coward. When taken into the prefectural prison last night, he spilled everything like beans from a shattered bamboo tube without even resorting to torture.
He was just a bloated, soft steamed bun, rich but weak and timid—did someone like that dare to toy with him, an imperial envoy?
Yue Fuguang squeezed the system again. “I won’t guess. You tell me yourself who’s behind them—”
She paused for a moment before blurting out her own theory: “Is it one of Dayan’s neighbors, or Peak Mountain? It can’t be Netherbloom and Heavenly Pavilion—those two guilds of executioners and assassins, right?”
[Master, don’t underestimate the small Yu family. Although their clan numbers less than a thousand, behind them stand the two major forces of Peak Mountain and Netherbloom.]
“Peak Mountain and Netherbloom? What could they see in an unheard-of family like the Yu family?”
[Because the Yu family has mines! The iron mine we’ve found so far is just a small bait to lure out Hao Ren and the Ouyang Family behind him, even Southern Yue.
They have larger mines elsewhere that they’ve never revealed—actually, no, it’s not that they didn’t reveal them. Even among the Yu family themselves, only a handful know the actual locations.]
“What do you mean? They don’t know where their own mines are?”
What difference did that make from hiding money so well that you yourself forget where you stashed it?
Impossible, don’t you think?