Traveling through the ancient times

Lu Mingqian threw the letter in Wu Ming's face again, "Wu Ming, do you need me to help you list all the crimes you have committed?"

When Wu Ming saw the letter, his eyes widened in shock. He could make excuses for other things, but embezzling tax silver was a serious crime. He remembered that he had clearly burned the letter, so why was it still here?

"I beg Your Highness to show mercy for the sake of the Imperial Concubine. I was deceived by the Huai'an prefect, which is why I committed these mistakes."

Even now he was still quibbling. Lu Mingqian was amazed at Wu Ming's shamelessness. He even used the Imperial Concubine's face to save her. "You sent people to hack the Imperial Concubine's son to pieces. Do you still dare to use the Imperial Concubine's face?"

"I am innocent. I didn't know that was the Second Prince."

"So if you knew, you wouldn't send people to assassinate them?"

"Yes, oh no, I didn't send anyone to assassinate the second prince!" Wu Ming realized that he had spoken out of turn and quickly changed his words.

"Wu Ming, do you think that this prince is a three-year-old kid who you can tease at will?" Lu Mingqian would not allow him to quibble. "If that's the case, then drag him out and give him twenty lashes of the cane before you answer!"

"Yes!" The secret guard stepped forward and dragged Wu Ming out.

"Third Prince, please have mercy!"

"Shut your mouth..."

The twenty strokes of the cane were quickly completed, and Xingyi also returned from the Wu family and handed a list to Lu Mingqian.

There were fifty people on the list and thirty bodies at the dock, which meant there were still twenty dead soldiers left.

The twenty strokes of the cane were carried out by the secret guards themselves. They were not merciful and Wu Ming was beaten till his skin was torn.

After being dragged into the hall again, he was already dying. Lu Mingqian took the list and shook it in front of Wu Ming, "Where are the other twenty people?"

Wu Ming looked up at the paper handed to him. He was very familiar with the list. He was so disheartened that he confessed, "I went to Huai'an..."

"Why did you send them to Huai'an?"

"Go collect protection fees from Huai'an fruit farmers..."

It's bad enough that Wu Ming is bullying in Qidong County, but I didn't expect that he would extend his power to Huai'an. It seems that the prefect of Huai'an is not a good person either.

"Where did you get the torpedo? Tell us everything honestly, or you will suffer more." He was just a civilian, but he had torpedoes that were only available in military camps. This was a very serious matter.

"My people made it themselves. It's in a cave on the back hillside." Lu Mingqian asked the yamen runners to take the secret guards to check the cave immediately.

"Wu Ming disregarded human life, embezzled the imperial court's taxes, abducted decent women, colluded with officials to oppress the people, and even made explosives privately. His family property will be confiscated. Wu Ming will be beheaded at noon tomorrow and all members of the Wu family will be exiled three thousand miles away."

"The other managers of the Qidong Chamber of Commerce will each be fined three thousand taels of silver and given twenty strokes of the cane."

Immediately, the bailiffs came up and dragged Wu Ming away. Qin Wanniang kowtowed to Lu Mingqian and begged for mercy, "Sir, I was abducted by Wu Mingqiang. Please spare me for the sake of my meritorious evidence."

Qin Wanniang's husband was killed, and she was abducted by Wu Mingqiang. She came here with the determination to die, but she didn't want to be exiled with the Wu family. Even if she had to die, she wanted to die in front of her husband's grave.

Lu Mingqian nodded. "Considering that Qin has provided evidence and that there are reasons for his actions, I will rule him not guilty. Go back and pack your things and go back home."

"Thank you, sir!" Qin Wanniang left. She did not go back to the Wu family to pack her things. She no longer had a home. A married woman should obey her husband. She killed her husband, so naturally her in-laws would not tolerate her. She would go to her husband's grave to die and apologize.

Next up was the county magistrate. "Where is the county magistrate of Qidong County?"

When the county magistrate heard him being called, he immediately stepped forward and knelt down, "I'm here!"

"You condoned Wu Ming's oppression of the people. I sentence you to confiscate your salary for three years and order you to serve the people well in the future."

"Yes, thank you for your mercy, Your Highness!" The county magistrate thought that Lu Mingqian would dismiss him from his post, but he did not expect that he would only be fined three years' salary. It was truly a favor from heaven.

Lu Mingqian also saw that the county magistrate did a lot of practical things for the people except for people like Wu Ming, whom he could not control. Since his merits and demerits offset each other, he only fined him his salary.

"From now on, the dock will be managed by the government. You must formulate a set of rules and regulations, and don't let this prince and the people down."

"Yes, I will live up to the high hopes of Your Highness and the people of Qidong." The county magistrate said, and kowtowed to Lu Mingqian several times.

"Get up!" Lu Mingqian said and went to the backyard. He didn't know whether Nian Chuhua and the others had woken up.

When the people of Qidong learned that Wu Ming was beheaded by Lu Mingqian, they cheered outside the yamen, expressed their gratitude to Lu Mingqian, and kowtowed to the yamen to express their gratitude.

Wu Ming has been able to control everything in Qidong County in recent years. Most of the people's income goes into his pocket after a year of hard work.

Now that the wharf is under the management of the government, the county magistrate is quite good to these common people. Their lives will surely get better and better in the future.

Lu Mingqian went to the painting room to check on her at the beginning of last year. The maid said she had not woken up yet. Lu Mingqian sat by the bed for a while and then went to check on Lu Mingcheng.

Lu Mingcheng was also seriously injured, but fortunately, he had not fallen into a coma when they arrived. The maid said that Lu Mingcheng drank medicine and fell asleep.

The doctor said that they were all seriously injured and had to be well looked after. They were not allowed to move or slack off at all. If the wounds became infected, their lives would be in danger.

Especially those women, they may develop chronic diseases in their bodies, and if the old diseases relapse in the future, they will suffer.

Lu Mingqian told the doctor to take good care of them and treat them. If they needed any medicinal herbs, just tell him and he would find a way to get them for them.

Lu Mingqian did not disturb him too much. He was injured so badly that it was painful even when he was awake. Sleeping a little longer would help the wound heal.

Lu Mingqian did not stay in the county government for too long. Since everyone was injured and unable to move, he took the letter provided by Qin and Wu Ming's confession and went to Huai'an.

While everyone was recovering from their injuries, he went to settle things over there, and they could go back to Qunan together after everyone's injuries had healed a little.

Faced with the evidence that Lu Mingqian threw in his face, the Huai'an prefect was unable to defend himself and directly pleaded guilty.

He said that Wu Ming came to him on his own initiative and said that he could help him speak in front of the imperial concubine and get him a promotion, but it would require a lot of money to bribe people, so he kept asking him for money in the past few years.

At the beginning, the Huai'an prefect was willing to give it, but as time went on, his official position did not move, but Wu Ming's appetite became bigger and bigger.

The prefect of Huai'an was not satisfied, and slowly he realized that Wu Ming was not trying to help him at all. It was obvious that he was just using the title of the Imperial Concubine to ask for money from him, so he wanted to call it a day.

Little did he know that Wu Ming actually used the letters they exchanged to threaten the Huai'an prefect. If the prefect didn't obey, Wu Ming would hand over those letters to him, causing him to lose his job at the least, but lose his reputation at the most.

The Huai'an prefect had no choice but to compromise again and again, which caused the situation to become increasingly out of control, leading to today's disaster.

After hearing this, Lu Mingqian did not sympathize with the Huai'an prefect. If he had not wanted to take a shortcut by relying on Wu Ming, he would not have left the handle in Wu Ming's hands and been threatened by him.

Therefore, Lu Mingqian dismissed the governor of Huai'an and asked him to arrest the twenty assassins sent by Wu Ming to Huai'an.

The fact that Wu Ming could blatantly collect protection fees from merchants and fruit farmers in Huai'an was tacitly approved by the Huai'an prefect. Therefore, the Huai'an prefect knew about the people sent by Wu Ming and quickly summoned them back to the prefectural government office.

Lu Mingqian sent secret guards to capture all those people, and without exception, all of those assassins committed suicide by taking poison.

Lu Mingqian appointed a person in the prefectural government to temporarily handle the affairs of the county government, and wrote a letter to the king, asking him to arrange an official to take over Huai'an as soon as possible, and then rushed back to Qidong County without stopping.