Daming: At the start of the showdown, Lao Zhu was stunned

Chapter 1031 Shifting the blame
Zhu Junyu's words sounded very high-sounding, and Zhu Fu felt a little confused.

"But...but the people from the Maritime Department just went to look for that foreigner, and he died a violent death...what do you think the people from the Maritime Department will think?"

"What if Yang from the Maritime Affairs Bureau gets suspicious and follows up on me?"

"Dad, don't worry, is your son such an unreliable person?" Zhu Junyu interrupted his father impatiently, then laughed. "Someone will help me cover this up."

"In Yingtian, a brick can kill a whole row of officials. How dare Yang Shiqi be so presumptuous?"

"Someone helped you cover it up?" Zhu Fu asked, "Who did you tell?"

"Of course it's General Dong Ji from the Five Cities Army..."

Zhu Junyu said proudly, "We give this Dong so many benefits every year, it's time to let him do his job properly."

"This matter was taken care of by Dong Ji for me. No matter how powerful the people in the Maritime Affairs Department are, can they control the Five Cities Military Affairs Department?"

"Dad, don't worry. With General Dong here, this matter won't get out of hand!"

He was sitting with his legs crossed, swaying like a carefree person. Just at this moment, there was a cautious knock on the door.

"Who?" Zhu Fu roared impatiently.

"Master, Master, there are guests outside..." came the cautious voice of the butler.

"Can't you see I'm busy here? What kind of guest are you looking for? I won't see you!" Zhu Fu roared again.

"But...but sir, the person who came was Master Dong from the Five Cities Military Department. He wasn't waiting outside the door at all, he already broke in!" said the butler outside the door.

Zhu Fu was just talking about Dong Ji, but unexpectedly Dong Ji came uninvited in the blink of an eye. Zhu Fu's face suddenly changed. Even Zhu Junyu, who was fearless that day, looked a little surprised.

"Hurry, hurry up, come in!" Zhu Fu said, opening the door.

Without him saying anything, Dong Ji had already come here. He was used to coming to this garden, and when he heard that Zhu Fu was in the study, he rushed over on his own. When he appeared in front of Zhu Fu, he was followed by many servants from the Zhu Mansion.

"Dong, Master Dong, our master hasn't allowed you to enter the mansion yet, you can't..." the servant said anxiously.

"Get lost! It's urgent, and you're still waiting for your master's approval..." Dong Ji looked very angry and violent, which was very different from when he was in Zhou Wangfu just now. Just then, when he saw Zhu Fu opening the door, Dong Ji pointed at Zhu Fu and said, "Hurry up and get these men of yours to get out of here!"

"What a disaster!"

"...All of you, go out of this yard. No one is allowed to come in without my permission." Zhu Fu said. The servants stopped trying to stop Dong Ji and left in embarrassment. Seeing Dong Ji's anxious face, Zhu Fu's heart skipped a beat. He pulled him in and closed the door, then asked in a trembling voice, "What happened?"

"What's going on... a disaster!" Dong Ji didn't care about the mess in the house. Seeing Zhu Yujun was also in the room, he turned around and pointed at Zhu Yujun and said, "You dandy, you've caused me so much trouble!"

As he spoke, he informed Zhu Fu and Zhu Junyu, father and son, that Zhu Su had instructed him to thoroughly investigate Abigail's death.

"This...this matter actually alarmed the Fifth Prince?" Zhu Fu's knees went weak and he almost collapsed to the ground. Just as he held onto the table, he saw his precious son slide down from the chair he was sitting on with a "thump".

The young man, who had been so nonchalant and indifferent just now, now looked extremely pale, and he finally stood up by holding on to the legs of the stool.

He didn't care about the scratches on his palms caused by the porcelain shards when he fell, and said tremblingly: "General Dong... General Dong, you, you mean..."

"His Royal Highness Prince Zhou personally..."

Before he could even finish his words, his teeth were already chattering with fear.

"You, you're killing me, you're killing me!" Dong Ji was pacing around in the study room impatiently. "You have never seen the methods of the Fifth Prince."

"When the Fifth Prince was suppressing the Japanese pirates along the coast, he killed people to build the Jingguan. Once built, there were dozens of islands."

"Today, on each of the islands in the East China Sea, there is still a Jingguan built by Your Highness."

"If His Highness knew about that, then..."

At this point, this man who was used to seeing dead bodies in battle actually shuddered.

The financial backers behind the South China Sea pirates are actually businessmen like Zhu Fu and Liu Tianen.

Zhu Su was good at using the power of commerce to recruit merchants to develop a certain place. When Zhu Su led the Ming navy to sail far to assist Zhu Di and opened up the South China Sea route, he recruited these merchants to develop the South China Sea islands.

The imperial court was responsible for negotiating concession matters with various small countries, the Ming Dynasty's Nanyang Navy was responsible for maritime patrols and deterrence, and these concessions were contracted to merchants such as Zhu Fu for development.

Under the threat of the Ming Dynasty, as long as these merchants did not do anything wrong, basically, these concessions could be operated. These places were basically handed over to the merchants by the imperial court. The Ming Dynasty court did not need to invest extra energy in these places, but could set up bases on the Nanyang route. Merchants could also collect considerable income through the operation of these bases and the contracting of part of the tax revenue. This was a solution that Zhu Su made to ensure the Ming Dynasty's control over the Nanyang route.

However, greed is insatiable. As time went on, some of these merchants realized that the Ming Dynasty was out of reach of these places. Except for the Ming Dynasty navy that occasionally came for supplies, these places were basically controlled by them.

As a result, some people began to have some inappropriate thoughts.

They dared not to raise the port tax, although they were mostly in charge of this place, but the court had clear regulations on the amount of port tax and so on. If they arbitrarily raised the tax, the caravans would file a complaint with the Maritime Affairs Department or the Taxation Department after arriving at the mainland of Ming Dynasty, and they would be in big trouble.

Therefore, Zhu Fu and others wanted to do some business without any capital. As long as they intercepted the caravans loaded with goods, wouldn't the gold, silver and treasures on the ship go into their own pockets?
After all, the sky is high and the emperor is far away here. As long as we avoid the occasional patrols of the South China Sea Navy and do things in the vast ocean, there is no possibility of being discovered.

As it happened, because of the continuous expansion of the Ming Dynasty, many Japanese warriors and Korean rebels who had escaped by chance were forced to flee to the sea for survival, hiding in the corners like rats and trembling under the majesty of the Ming Dynasty. As long as they were willing to open the island to these people and provide them with shelter, they could immediately recruit a large group of loyal and tight-lipped desperadoes.

Then, let these desperate criminals rob merchant ships...

A perfect no-cost business industry chain was born.

The pirates contracted by Zhu Fujia were near Malacca Srivijaya, which was far away from the mainland of Ming Dynasty and the influence of the imperial court was weak. Therefore, Zhu Fu had gathered a group of desperate criminals under his command.

Most of these desperate criminals were Koreans and Japanese at first, but as they did business over the past few years, they robbed more and more ships, and their team became larger and larger. Many of the foreign sailors they robbed also gradually became part of their pirate gang.

With the protection of merchants like Zhu Fu, these pirates would directly resupply and sell their goods at the merchants' ports. If the Ming navy came, the merchants would inform them in advance, and when the navy came, the pirates would hide far away. Therefore, the Ming navy never found any trace of pirates here.

However, despite this, Zhu Fu and his men were frightened by the might of the Ming Dynasty and only dared to rob foreign ships from the ocean, and did not dare to touch the ships of the Ming Dynasty merchant caravans. After all, most of the Ming Dynasty merchants who were able to organize the merchant caravans had some background in the court. If they robbed them and the news leaked to the emperor, the court would send a large navy to attack them, and they would lose more than they gained.
Secondly, most of the merchants themselves are related to each other. If a flood washed away the Dragon King Temple and robbed their own people, it would be a disaster.

It is better to be safe than sorry. Zhu Fu was so careful that he thought this business with no investment and a lot of money could last forever. Who would have thought that after just a few years, he would attract the attention of the Fifth Prince?
He now felt as if the sky was falling and the earth was collapsing.

"Brother Zhu, Brother Zhu?" Dong Ji saw that Zhu Fu and Zhu Yujun were pale and frightened, so he stepped forward. He looked at Zhu Junyu and said, "If His Highness is determined, I'm afraid he will be able to find these melons in no time."

"Brother Zhu, why don't you just take action and put the blame on you, Master, for the death of that foreigner?"

"Just say that your son had a quarrel with that foreigner after drinking, and in anger he poisoned him to death..."

Hearing this, Zhu Fu turned his head away in disbelief, "You want me to send my son to die?"

"Why not? Brother Zhu, you can find a few more concubines in the future, and your son can have more children..."

Before he finished speaking, Zhu Junyu heard that Dong Ji wanted to sell him out. Blood rushed to his head, and his sore hands and feet miraculously regained strength. He suddenly jumped up from the chair and yelled, "Dong, you actually want to sell me out!"

"Don't forget! It wasn't me who did it, it was you, Dong Ji!"

"If you are going to die, you, Dong, should die! What does it have to do with me?"

"What does it have to do with me?" Dong Ji jumped up excitedly. "If it weren't for helping a playboy like you, why would I..."

For a moment, the two men's faces turned red, and they were swearing at each other in the room through Zhu Fu. The scene felt like a dog-bite-dog fight.

From the insults they exchanged, Zhu Fu pieced together the general course of events.

It turned out that although the matter was discovered by his good son Zhu Junyu, it was Dong Ji himself who poisoned the foreign man.

That day, Zhu Junyu accidentally discovered that the people from the Maritime Affairs Bureau had invited this foreign ghost to the yamen, and he became curious. When the foreign ghost came to the restaurant to drink again the next day, he invited him to drink a glass of wine and pretended to ask him casually about the Maritime Affairs Bureau's request for him to go to the yamen.

This foreign devil named Abigail was a man who spoke without restraint. After a few drinks, he told the Maritime Affairs Department all the questions he had asked him and the reasons why he ended up here. Upon learning that this man had escaped from his own pirates, Zhu Junyu immediately wanted to kill him. His first reaction was to contact his father Zhu Fu and discuss with him how to shut this foreign devil up forever.

However, Zhu Fu was entertaining Zhou Wang Zhu Su at Fuleyuan at that time. When Zhou Wang was at the banquet, the Fuleyuan area was naturally guarded by police, and the servants sent by Zhu Junyu could not get close at all. He thought of Abigail's big mouth that talked nonsense when she was drunk, and he felt even more uneasy.

This time the Maritime Administration found out about it, but what if it’s the Royal Guards next time?

Thinking of this, Zhu Junyu's murderous intent could no longer be concealed.

However, he still had some self-awareness. Although he had the intention to kill, he knew that he would not be able to do it without leaving any trace. At this time, he happened to meet Dong Ji who came to patrol the city with his men, and he instantly became determined.

Dong Ji and his father Zhu Fu were close friends. In order to gain a better foothold in Yingtian, Zhu Fu found ways to bribe many officials and generals... Most of them did not dare to have much contact with Zhu Fu because of Zhu Fu's threat of skinning and stuffing them with straw. However, Dong Ji was not afraid of this and always accepted all gifts from Zhu Fu.

In order to completely tie Dong Ji to the same ship, Zhu Su even gave a share of the stolen silver from the robbery to General Dong. Since both of them had taken the stolen silver, Dong Ji and his Zhu family were naturally on the same boat. Now that the Zhu family was in danger, who else could they turn to if not him?

Dong Ji was also extremely shocked after listening to Zhu Junyu's narration. He knew that Zhu Fu was secretly organizing pirates, and he also knew that some of his silver was stolen from Zhu Fu's robbery. So he simply accepted Zhu Junyu's suggestion.

Dong Ji was a brave general on the battlefield, but he never thought that killing a foreigner was a big deal. He had worked in the Wucheng Army for so many years, so he naturally knew how to kill someone in a way that would not attract any attention. So he directly poisoned the foreigner to death and faked that he had died of drunkenness. He then notified the Yingtian Prefecture Government and had someone mention that the foreigner must have died of drunkenness.

Although the public security in Yingtian has improved a lot in recent years, in the past few years, there were always people dying in the shacks outside the city in winter? Although it was not winter now, and the dead person was a foreigner, the Yingtian prefect was even less interested when he learned that it was a foreigner. In addition, there was no victim, so the case was settled directly.

They didn't even hire a coroner, but only found a few yamen runners to hastily wrap the drunkard in straw and bury him.

Originally thought that the matter would just pass, but never imagined that it would attract the attention of King Zhou Zhu Su... Dong Ji subconsciously felt that His Royal Highness King Zhou would definitely find out the clues, and would definitely follow the clues to discover his shameful deeds behind the scenes... Thinking of those high-ranking officials who were skinned and flogged by the emperor for corruption and bribery in the early years, how could Dong Ji not be afraid?
(End of this chapter)