Chapter 42: The Cook Enters the City
Ma Guoyong continued, "Originally, there was Cheng Jiming, who was a minister of the Ministry of Personnel. His words carried some weight, but a while ago, a family member came back from the capital and said that this old man was transferred by the emperor to Datong to serve as some bullshit military supervisor. We can't contact him for the time being."

"And since the emperor has sent Wei Zhongxian to Jiangnan to collect taxes, it won't be of any use if there are fewer people impeaching him. The emperor will be fooled only if all the civil and military officials in the court impeach him! So, I have no choice but to take a risk."

Wang Fuguang flattered him a little, then looked at the courtyard behind him with some concern and said, "Brother Ma, do you think this will not lead to a civil uprising? That would kill a lot of people."

Unexpectedly, Ma Guoyong actually chuckled and said viciously: "To be honest with you, this time I am going to cause a civil uprising!"

"What!" Wang Fuguang was shocked and said in horror: "Brother Ma, don't scare me. If the court finds out, he will be chopped off as the leader of the bandits!"

"What are you afraid of? I can't help it!" Ma Guoyong said, "You know who Wei Zhongxian is. Even the bitch Donglin couldn't beat him. If you want to fight, you have to be ruthless and defeat Wei Zhongxian in one go!"

"As long as he stirs up a civil uprising, even the emperor can't protect him! When the time comes, let's see who dares to come to Jiangnan and take money from our brothers' pockets!"

Wang Fuguang was still worried: "What if Kou Shen spreads what we said today? Isn't that..."

Before Wang Fuguang could finish his words, Ma Guoyong interrupted him and said, "He doesn't dare. Do you think I really care about those hundreds of useless yamen runners? It's just to drag him down. Even if we make some mistakes, he has to take the initiative to help us."

"If he tells others about what happened today, won't the court kill him as an accomplice?"

Wang Fuguang suddenly understood and couldn't help but give Ma Guoyong a thumbs up in admiration.

Ma Guo used an excuse to let Kou Shen not move and the three shifts of yamen runners just stood by and watched, but in fact it was all to paralyze Kou Shen.

The purpose was to make Kou Shen their accomplice to a certain extent. They were all responsible for the civil uprising and the imperial court would hold them accountable. In order to prevent Ma Guoyong and others from telling others that he knew in advance that the stove owners were going to cause trouble, Kou Shen would definitely help these salt merchants to clean up the mess.

This is more effective than directly bribing him with money, and Kou Shen is not someone who can be bribed with money.

However, neither of them expected that at this moment, behind the door of the villa, there was a young servant with his ear pressed against the door, listening to their conversation.

Outside Suzhou city, on the official road.

Seven or eight men, young and old, in ragged clothes, supported each other and approached Suzhou Prefecture step by step.

On the official road, there were people like this group of people, ragged and in poor clothes, mostly men, with almost no women to be seen.

"Dad, Suzhou Prefecture is just ahead!" A young man in the crowd supported a white-haired old man and said hopefully, "I heard from Ma Erleng that the prefect Kou is the reincarnation of Justice Bao. When Wei Zhongxian was trying to arrest Zhou Gong last year, it was this prefect who stopped him!"

"Let's go directly to Suzhou government office to find Lord Kou. He will definitely be able to stop Wei Zhongxian from raising the salt tax! My family depends on that little bit of surplus salt to exchange for food. If we are not allowed to sell the surplus salt, it will be like forcing us to die!"

Upon hearing this, the others echoed the words and indignantly accused Wei Zhongxian of being cruel and ruthless.

At first, they only accused Wei Zhongxian of not allowing people to sell surplus salt. Later, someone said that Wei Zhongxian wanted to reduce the cost of regular salt.

Gradually, the common people on the street began to criticize and denounce Wei Zhongxian, listing the crimes they had heard from others. The most basic ones were "harming loyal officials" and "disrupting the imperial court". Some even said that Wei Zhongxian liked to kill people for fun in the capital during these years, and he would kill at least a few loyal officials who had impeached him every day to vent his anger. He was extremely cruel.

It is said that there were thousands of corpses of loyal officials killed by Wei Zhongxian hanging on the beams outside his mansion.

As for what he was angry about, no one could tell clearly.

No one cares what kind of house has beams that can support more than a thousand people.

Other fantastic accusations such as "suppressing scholars" and "colluding with the Qing army" are also very plausible.

However, the old man supported by the young man did not join the crusade against Wei Zhongxian. Instead, he grabbed the young man's arm and said worriedly, "Sanwa, no matter what, don't rush to the front when you get to the government office. Remember that your wife is still pregnant!"

Sanwa said indifferently, "Ma Erleng said that Lord Kou is a great judge. We can be fine as long as we find him! Ma Erleng is the brother-in-law of the son of the cousin of Shopkeeper Ma. He is well-informed and what he said must be right!"

"Alas, you are good in every way, except that you are too honest!" Seeing that he could not persuade them, the old man sighed and said, "What do you think that Ma Erleng and Ma Zhanggui are good people? If I was not worried about you, I would not come to the capital city!"

Sanwa said indifferently, "Dad, look at all these villagers, even the cooks from other villages are here, what can go wrong with so many of us?"

"You!" The old man said nothing else, but just looked at the cooks who were heading towards the city one after another on the official road, feeling a little uneasy in his heart.

Sanwa heard from others that Suzhou is a big city, and that when entering the city there will be soldiers checking and even extorting money and property.

So when entering the city gate, he lowered his head, for fear that those soldiers would cause trouble.

But what made Sanwa strange and happy was that there were indeed soldiers guarding the city standing at the gate, but these soldiers seemed not to see the endless stream of cooks coming and going, and just tilted their heads and did not look at them.

Although he didn't know what was going on, Sanwa felt that being able to enter the city smoothly was a good start.

After entering the city, Sanwa was like Granny Liu entering the Grand View Garden. He was immediately attracted by the prosperity of Suzhou City. The tall archways, magnificent restaurants, and even the bluestone paved streets all attracted Sanwa's attention all the time.

But soon Sanwa had no time to look at those new things, because he saw Ma Erleng standing on the street and constantly guiding the direction of the government office to the moving cooks.

"Ma Zhangui, why are you here?" Sanwa came over to say hello.

Although Ma Erleng has a rustic name, he is the brother-in-law of the son of the cousin of the big salt merchant Ma Guoyong. He is responsible for purchasing the salt from their village. He has the final say on the quality of the salt and the purchase price. If someone offends him, he will not even buy the other party's salt.

In today's situation where the government salt fields hardly collect surplus salt, if the Ma family doesn't collect it either, almost no one would dare to collect it, and the whole family would be starving to death.

(End of this chapter)