Chapter 70 Wushen lost the black hat of Chen Qimai, a fellow from the same country and the same age

Zeng Guofan's personal arrival surprised Que Yukuan, the magistrate of Ruizhou, and he led Wenwu out of the city gate to greet him.Zeng Guofan ordered Que Yukuan to call Shanhouzi, Kading who was present at the time, the family members of the two families, and the boss of the boat, and he and Liu Rong interrogated them one by one.The first thing to bring to the hall is the mountain monkey.Liu Rong shouted: "Zhao Yousheng, Lord Zeng personally interrogated you today, you want to tell the truth about how to kill Gao Shanhu from the beginning, so you won't have to lie!" When the mountain monkey heard that Mr. Zeng was sitting in the hall, he knocked his head against the brick floor and shouted: "Master Zeng, you always want to avenge the villain!"

The mountain monkey told the story of the incident with tears and snot, but he didn't mention the four hundred taels of silver he wanted.At the end, he repeated: "Lord Zeng, this case is wronged. First, Gao Shanhu is indeed smuggling opium, with a total of two hundred catties. The villain has personally tested it, and Kading can testify. Second, Gao Shanhu It is true that I bumped into death on the iron pier, not by a villain. Mr. Zeng, I beg you to always let the villain decide.” Zeng Guofan called Xia Zhen to the court.Xia Zhen knelt down and said: "Students have the trust of their teacher, so they shouldn't ask Zhao Yousheng to do the housekeeping. However, the students have also heard that Gao Shanhu's boat did contain opium. He has been smuggling opium for half a year. Please ask your teacher Mingchao."

Then Kading was interrogated again.The Kadins proved that there was indeed opium on board, but the quantity was unknown.He also interrogated Gao Shanhu's buddy.The clerk first denied it, but couldn't help Zeng Guofan's stern questioning, and finally had to tell the truth about opium smuggling, and confessed that Gao Shanhu was Li Hao's brother-in-law. After leaving the court, Liu Rong said: "It seems that Gao Shanhu's smuggling of opium is true. As long as this matter is confirmed, the case will be easy to handle. The key is to find the two hundred catties of opium."

Zeng Guofan said: "Judging from the situation at that time, nine out of ten opium sank to the bottom of the river. Send people to salvage it tomorrow." The next day, two local boatmen were sent into the water to salvage. After a day of salvage at the place where the boat was parked, no trace of opium was found.The magistrate of Ruizhou was secretly proud.Zeng Guofan and Liu Rong felt strange; where did the opium go?Under the lamp, the two of them thought hard to no avail.After a long while, Liu Rong suddenly laughed and said, "We are repeating the same mistakes of waiting for a sword!"

Zeng Guofan suddenly realized.The boss of the boat was brought up.Zeng Guofan parted his broom eyebrows and raised his triangular eyes. Seeing this ferocious appearance, the boat boss was so frightened that his whole body trembled like sifting grain.Zeng Guofan stared at the face of the boss of the boat, and remained silent for a long time. The boss of the boat was frightened away, so he kept kowtowing.Suddenly, there was a thunderclap: "You are telling the truth, how far did your boat travel after Zhao Yousheng landed that night?" The captain of the boat replied tremblingly: "Responding to my lord's words, after Zhao Yousheng went ashore that night, Gao Shanhu accompanied Zhao's family to drink, and later asked me to move the boat more than twenty feet downstream."

"Are you telling the truth?" "A villain has a few brains, dare to lie in front of adults." Zeng Guofan locked the boat boss in a small room and refused to let him go out.After dawn, Zeng Guofan took the boat boss to the riverside.The boss of the boat pointed to a place and said, "The boat was originally parked here." The two boatmen got into the water and quickly brought out an oiled paper bag.Open it and see that it is opium!After the opium was found, Zeng Guofan was relieved.He bid farewell to Que Yukuan and went straight back to Nankang Mansion.He ordered Xia Zhen, Lu Lun and others to separately collect what Chen Qimai did when he came to Jiangxi.That night, he sorted out the materials he had obtained, and personally sent a memorial to Emperor Xianfeng "Zu Shen Jiangxi Governor Chen Qimai", and listed several charges against Chen Qimai:

One is Zhao Ruchun, the retired general, who pretended to be rewarded for his meritorious service, the other is Wu Xiguang, who was ordered to guard against the law, and Wu Xiguang falsely reported his military exploits. Together with his brother-in-law, he smuggled opium and made huge profits. Six times he lost more than 20 counties in five prefectures in Jiangxi. After these six crimes were written, Zeng Guofan expected that Chen Qimai's black hat would not be able to be kept. In order to show his public heart to the emperor, he wrote a few more sentences: Chen Qimai and Chen Qimai are from the same country, the same year and the same official in the Imperial Academy, so there is no suspicion.When I was in Beijing, I saw that he was diligent and conscientious in his work, and he came to Jiangxi for several months. I saw that he was quite wrong and absurd.

Thinking of Yun Guangchen blindly following Chen Qimai and tortured Peng Shouyi abhorrently, Zeng Guofan added another stroke at the end of the story: Yun Guangchen doesn't care about the merits of the matter, and severely tortures the gentry who run the regiment in order to serve the boss's joy and anger, which is also flattering Shameless, unbearable to hold such an important position. After the entire manuscript was written, Zeng Guofan read it word for word and sentence by sentence carefully, and only after he admitted that there was no flaw in a single word did he ask the Secretary to copy it overnight.At this time, Liu Rong came in.After reading the memorial, Liu Rong said, "Happy! We must be so strict with this kind of mediocrity." After a while, he said to Zeng Guofan, "Chen Qimai has already reported the matter to the imperial court. You may wish to attach another piece. State the difficulties of having to set up a tax bureau, and explain that there is currently no tax bureau in southern Jiangxi. Please order Jiangxi Province to quickly build a bureau in southern Jiangxi to help the army; All returned to Jiangxi. This will not only reassure the court, but also facilitate getting along with the new governor."

"You are so thoughtful!" Zeng Guofan admired this idea very much. Zeng Guofan knew that Deyin Hangbu was also angry with Chen Qimai, so he showed him the memorial and asked him to fulfill his promise to testify to the court.Deyin Hangbu also made a plan, and sent Chen Qimai and the Jiangxi officials to swear, and sent it to Aling'a, Shangshu of the Ministry of War, and asked him to play it on his behalf.Just as Zeng Guofan was relieved to express his grievances, Kang Fu came in and reported: "The admiral of the tower is gone in Jiujiang!" It was like a thunderbolt on a sunny day, Zeng Guofan was so shocked by the sudden bad news that his eyes were dazed, and he lost his mind.