Chapter 46: Unintentionally Establishing Prestige

  Although it was very crowded, for the young salted fish, living in such a good house was still a first time. In this mansion at midnight, if you listen carefully, you can hear many whispers, all of which are excited conversations of salted fish who cannot sleep.

  Li Meng's residence was a separate house, naturally not so noisy. The house had already been carefully cleaned up by someone, with new bedding and fragrant incense sticks lit. It turned out that this place was the former residence of Mu Xun, the evil and cunning inspector who had been beheaded by Li Meng.

  But it had no effect on Li Meng, who was only thinking about how to thoroughly train these useless salt sticks in the future. Oh, no, they are now genuine salt nails.

  Xunjian was a ninth-grade official and also stationed to investigate private salt, so there was no special government office in Jiaozhou City. However, the successive Xunjians would not treat themselves unfairly. The courtyard adjacent to Li Meng's residence was the office of the Xunjian.

  In the late Ming dynasty, officials who were literati often did not understand practical matters and were often deceived by minor officials such as stewards and clerks. Li Meng seemed to have nothing to worry about in this regard, for even the stewards and accountants under Mu Xun's command were quite familiar with local salt routes.

  Since they were familiar with the local situation, they naturally knew what kind of people Li Meng and Yan Ganzi were. So after Li Meng's appointment, they made excuses to leave one after another. What Li Meng saw was just an empty courtyard.

  Following Li Meng's side, Zhao Nai first walked around the house excitedly and then worriedly said to Li Meng:

  "Director Li, we are just a few old rough men and don't know how to manage accounts, how can we start doing it?"

  Since having the token of authority, Zhao Neng's attitude has not been as natural as before. After the appointment of the inspector came down, it was even more so, with everyone calling him "sir". Li Meng felt very awkward and tried to correct them but was unsuccessful. Later, seeing that people like Zhao Neng were still being affectionate towards him, he just let it be.

  When Zhao Neng spoke, Li Meng didn't have much to worry about. Since they had already come, there would be a way when the car reached the mountain. Why think so much? He walked forward and casually took a rag to wipe the desk that already had a thin layer of dust. Hearing the commotion from the neighboring courtyard, he knew at once it was the lively scene of those 150 salt workers.

  Li Meng furrowed his brow and looked up at Zhao Neng and said:

  "Take out the silver found by those thieves yesterday and use it to buy this mansion and the two mansions on either side of where I live. First, arrange for my brothers to move in. Remember, don't be stingy with the money, and don't take advantage of others!"

  Zhao Neng nodded and was about to leave when Li Meng called out to him in a cold tone:

  "What right do these little brats have to be happy? Tell Ma Gang to lead them out of the city for training, intensify their training. From now on, unless there's something special, it'll be like this every day!"

  Zhao Nai also nodded in agreement and went out to make arrangements.

  Upon hearing the report from the county lieutenant, the governor of Jiaozhou also let out a sigh of relief, thinking that the salt delivery man Luo Xi had exaggerated, and that there were only a few people who had been injured, just six of them, perhaps they had encountered some daring bandits on the way.

  But the next morning, a report was sent from the inspection department, detailing the case. The governor of Jiaozhou thought to himself, "You've already taken office safely, why are you still causing trouble?" Was he going to throw a tantrum like a child? But then he thought about how he had borrowed 500 taels of silver from the other party when he took office, and now there was even a gift of 100 taels accompanying the report. It was rare to meet such a courteous and polite salt administration inspector, so he decided to give him face.

  At that time, three horsebacked scouts were sent out to investigate the scene. The so-called "horsebacked scouts" referred to mounted constables who had no combat power but were relatively fast.

  The Magistrate's intention is that these runners quickly go and return, to give a reply to the newly appointed Inspector, and this matter will be settled. The Prefectural Commander and the military men of Jiaozhou all rather look down on this Inspector, thinking that such a small matter has scared him so much, let's see how he conducts his investigation into private salt in various places from now on.

  The horsemen had just gone out in the morning and returned after lunch, but as soon as they saw the city gate, they fell off their horses. One of them vomited violently, another sat on the ground unable to speak, and another covered his face and wailed loudly, startling the soldiers guarding the city gate.

  These bailiffs were also familiar to everyone, and they quickly notified the yamen inside. Several yamen runners came over to support the people back, invited a doctor from the pharmacy to come and diagnose, saying that they had been frightened, and opened a soothing and calming decoction, after brewing the medicine, gave it to these three people to drink.

  These three people slowly calmed down, sent out in the morning, but returned like madmen in the afternoon. The officials of the prefectural government were all shocked and came to the back hall to see. At this time, one of the horses had somewhat recovered its spirit and stuttered:

  "Hundreds died, several hundred salt workers died..."

  After asking for half a day, no accurate number was obtained, but everyone was frightened. It turned out that the salt shop being besieged was true, but Li Meng's subordinates only injured three people, so how did those former salt workers die in the hundreds? Anyone knows that the people under Mu Xun's inspection are capable of fighting, and it should be said that the salt administration inspectors in various parts of the Ming Dynasty are very capable of fighting. In everyone's judgment, their combat effectiveness is even stronger than that of the war soldiers stationed outside the city.

  Li Meng was just a newly risen powerful family and had not yet recruited salt workers. Those people were all brought out from the military households, but those military household children were all honest and simple farmers, how could they have any combat effectiveness?

  In the afternoon, people came to report to the government office of Jiao State that eighty-five corpses were neatly arranged on both sides of a certain official road. Some people recognized them as salt workers under the former patrol officer, all with holes opened in their bodies, and the manner of death was extremely cruel.

  Thinking back to the long spears carried by Li Meng's men yesterday, the short weapons on their backs, and those bloodstains, all these clues led everyone to finally figure out what had happened. It turned out that the incident reported by Saladin was true - Li Meng had used 150 men to repel the attack of those desperate bandits, killing more than 80 people at the cost of six light injuries.

  What kind of combat power is this, the officials of Jiaozhou at all levels suddenly felt a chill down their spine, who would have thought that the young man with a smile and humble demeanor was actually such a killing star!

  The secrecy system in the officialdom has always been like a sieve, and things that happen in the government office are known to almost everyone in the city of Jiaozhou before nightfall. As a result, the mansion where Li Meng lived suddenly became deserted, and people would rather take a few more steps to avoid walking in front of the gate.

  When the salted fish returned to the city after finishing their practice outside the city, the soldiers guarding the gate had a smile on their faces and their waists were almost bent to the ground. As they walked through the streets, everyone dodged them.