Late Ming Dynasty: Oops, I am surrounded by the Donglin Party

Under Zhang Shikang's order, except for one hundred of the one thousand guards who were left to protect Zhang Shikang closely, the rest were divided into thirty search teams of thirty people at the command of Sun Dasheng.

On the other side, Kong Yinzhi was not to be outdone. He gathered three or four hundred servants and divided them into thirty teams, who were specifically responsible for keeping an eye on Zhang Shikang's search team.

Kong Yinzhi was very angry just now. Now that the relationship had fallen out, he no longer cared about Zhang Shikang's thoughts and began to reprimand his servants in front of Zhang Shikang.

"This matter concerns the reputation of our Kong family. You must do your best to guard against it and not give them any chance.

Especially those who are wearing armor, if you find them daring enough to take off their armor to frame me, report to me immediately.

As long as you try your best, each of you will be rewarded with 50 taels of silver after the task is completed. If you report these soldiers who framed me, you will be rewarded with 1,000 taels of silver!"

The reward offered by Kong Yinzhi was quite high. You should know that the monthly salary of an ordinary servant was only one or two taels of silver.

The hundreds of servants were extremely excited upon hearing this, and they stared at the soldiers from the Beijing camp with shining eyes, as if they were not seeing people but piles of silver.

One thousand taels! If you save a little, it will be enough for a family to spend for half a lifetime.

The servants were full of confidence, and so was Kong Yinzhi.

He had observed long ago that most of the soldiers led by Zhang Shikang only wore cotton armor, and only a few middle and low-level generals wore lamellar armor. He did not find anyone wearing double armor.

Armor is not a light object, which means that he only needs to keep an eye on these soldiers and not give them the opportunity to take off their uniforms and frame him, and he can remain invincible.

This is what he thinks and does.

Being deliberately framed is a great humiliation to the Kong family. As long as the boy in front of him cannot find the armor, he will immediately go to the capital to file a complaint.

At the same time, he will also use his own network of connections. As long as he can bring down this playboy, the prestige of the Kong family in the court will surely reach a new high. At that time, it may not be a bad idea to compete with the Donglin group.

"Hmph." Kong Yinzhi glanced at Zhang Shikang and found that the boy was looking at him with a teasing look, so he snorted coldly.

Zhang Shikang didn't care about it. Kong Yinzhi felt that he was on the fifth floor, but Zhang Shikang was in the atmosphere.

The Confucius Mansion was very large. After half an hour of work, the thirty search teams had only searched less than half of the area of the Confucius Mansion.

The teams did not report any news of finding any armor, which made Kong Yinzhi even more proud, but Zhang Shikang did not care.

Another half hour later, the search team searched the two cellars of the Confucius Mansion in succession, one of which was actually a silver cellar. The armor was still not found, but they got a glimpse of the Confucius Mansion's wealth.

"One silver cellar contains more than 300,000 taels of silver. The Kong family is really rich!" Zhang Shikang joked.

"That's just the income from my Kong family's generations of business. So? Can a large amount of family wealth be considered evidence of guilt?" Kong Yinzhi retorted without hesitation.

At that time, there was no crime of having large amounts of assets of unknown origin, and how much silver someone had in their home had nothing to do with others. Kong Yinzhi certainly had reason to refute.

Zhang Shikang had no intention of setting a trap in this regard, but he still said sarcastically:

“I remember that when Your Majesty initiated a fundraising campaign two years ago, the Kong family pledged more than two thousand taels.

The Kong family is so wealthy, but they are unwilling to help the court solve its problems. They are truly a model of loyalty to the emperor and patriotism! "

Kong Yinzhi turned his head away and pretended not to hear.

"Oh, it was my misunderstanding. I'm so sorry!" Zhang Shikang tapped his forehead and pretended to wake up.

Kong Yinzhi frowned and turned his head again.

“Of course the Kong family won’t have this kind of trouble. After all, the lineage of Duke Yansheng has always treated all previous dynasties equally and never gave a penny.

Anyway, no matter who is in power, there must be a Yansheng Duke, right?

How can I expect you to donate more silver to the Ming Dynasty?

Hey, old man, isn't that right?"

After Zhang Shikang finished speaking, he did not forget to stick out his tongue at Kong Yinzhi.

This once again raised Kong Yinzhi's blood pressure, which had been suppressed with great difficulty.

Isn't this just pointing at a monk and calling him a bald donkey?

Kong Yinzhi lived to be fifty years old, but he had never suffered more humiliation in his entire life than he had today.

But what made him most uncomfortable was that Zhang Shikang was so arrogant and he didn't know how to refute him.

After all, no one ever dared to mention old things in front of the Kong family.

"Hmph, Marquis Guanjun, you are only good at talking and are not worth consulting with. I don't bother to pay attention to you!" Kong Yinzhi automatically filtered out the unpleasant words said by Zhang Shikang.

Although bad words hurt people, they cannot shake the Kong family.

This has been the case for nearly two thousand years.

After another half an hour, the search team still found nothing, and Kong Yinzhi became even more proud.

Tian Jingwen, who followed Zhang Shikang, asked to participate in the search. After getting approval, he immediately took the East Factory's men to various places.

Kong Yinzhi was not to be outdone and sent out his servants to keep an eye on them.

However, neither Kong Yinzhi nor the servants cared much about Tian Jingwen and his group.

The guards from the Eastern Depot didn't even have cloth armor, and they weren't wearing military uniforms, so there was no possibility that they could frame the Kong family for hoarding armor.

As the sun was approaching noon, the search teams returned one after another. They did not find any armor, but they did get a rough idea of the Kong family's assets.

Not counting real estate, land, and shops, the Confucius Mansion had no less than six million taels of gold and silver.

This was just a rough estimate made by his subordinates based on the silver vaults they had searched. As the saying goes, a cunning rabbit has three burrows. Zhang Shikang felt that there must be more hidden silver vaults.

But he doesn't care about these for the time being.

"Marquis Guanjun, how is it? Do you want to continue investigating?" Kong Yinzhi sneered.

He had been patient for the entire morning, just waiting for this moment.

Even though Zhang Shikang was extremely powerful, not everyone from the lineage of Duke Yansheng could challenge him.

Humph, you dandy, I will make sure you know the price of humiliating my Kong family.

Seeing that Zhang Shikang remained silent, Kong Yinzhi became even more proud and was mentally prepared to lose his temper.

At this time, Tian Jingwen, the head of the Dongjishi Factory's sub-section, came over with a serious look on his face. He was holding a tray in his hand, and on the tray there seemed to be a roll of fine rice paper.

Kong Yinzhi immediately frowned.

Tian Jingwen walked up to Zhang Shikang and whispered something to him. Zhang Shikang then unfolded the roll of rice paper and looked at it.

Although Kong Yinzhi felt something was wrong, he thought that as long as it was not armor, it would not be a big deal. After calming down, he was about to question Zhang Shikang.

Unexpectedly, Zhang Shikang was shocked when he stared at the roll of rice paper.

"You are such a good person, Kong Yinzhi, no wonder you and your family of Kong family are unwilling to be loyal to the court despite having so much wealth!

It turns out that your Kong family has even written a letter of surrender!"

……

PS: I just came back from out of town today. I will start updating rapidly tomorrow. This post is a testament to this.