Chapter 122 Cao Erlang's Evil Plan for Ximen
At the beginning of "Jin Ping Mei", the 27-year-old Ximen Qing is a poor young man from Yanggu County, Shandong Province. He lives in a large herbal medicine shop left by his father Ximen Da and a house with five front rooms and seven entrances.

We don’t know why his house has seven courtyards?
Anyway, the author also wrote that they had slaves and maids at home, and herds of mules and horses. Although they were not very rich, they were still a well-off family in the county.

This was Ximen Qing’s family background before he became rich. At best, he was just one of the local rich men in the county.

He didn't even have a single decent friend around him. People like Ying Bojue, Xie Xida, Yun Lishou, Sun Guazui, etc. were all paupers who were worse off than him, hangers-on, hooligans, and thugs.

Unlike Cao Jie, the great official Cao, who are the bodyguards he uses when he goes out: Chao Gai, the "Heavenly King holding the Pagoda", and Ruan Xiaoqi, the "Living Yama".

Who are the errand runners: "Red-haired Ghost" Liu Tang and "Flea on the Drum" Shi Qian.

Who are the brothers: Wu Song, the "Tiger Subduing Arhat", and Lu Zhishen, the "Vajra Master".

What does Ximen Qing have?
The only relationship he could show off was with his relative Chen Hong, who was said to be an official in Tokyo City, but in fact he was just a minor official under Yang Jian, the commander-in-chief of the 800,000 imperial guards.

The other was the biological father of his second wife, Wu Yueniang, who was Captain Wu of the Left Guard in the county.

At this time, Ximen Qing ate and drank the best food every day, and only knew how to have fun: eating, drinking, whoring, gambling, cockfighting, sleeping with prostitutes, inviting his friends to eat and drink all day long, and then listening to them flattering him, he felt that his life was very comfortable. When he couldn't sleep in the middle of the night, he would think about which brothel had a new prostitute, which young lady was beautiful and charming...

Ximen Qing's idleness does not mean that he has no ambition. He went from being a poor local rich man to a wealthy man who dominated Yanggu County in less than six years.

It is unclear how many people were forced to death.

If Cao Jie had not traveled through time, Pan Jinlian would have poisoned Wu Dalang to death at the beginning of the next year.

After Liu Tang's secret visit, his property has now become the following:

The family had a satin shop with a capital of 50,000 taels of silver, a woolen shop with a capital of 6,500 taels of silver, a silk and velvet shop with a capital of 5,000 taels of silver, a seal shop with a capital of 20,000 taels of silver, a herbal medicine shop with a capital of 5,000 taels of silver, a Songjiang boat with a capital of 4,000 taels of silver, a loan shark with a capital of more than 1,000 taels of silver, two houses across the street and Shizi Street, a large amount of dowry brought by Meng Yulou, and boxes and things brought by her daughter, son-in-law Chen Jingji, and Ximen Dajie...

Except for the herbal medicine shop inherited from my ancestors, all the other gains were ill-gotten gains.

Cao Jie enumerated his assets and came up with a huge number: "This guy's assets are worth more than 100,000 taels of silver!"

"Tsk tsk!"

Chao Gai grinned and made a knife-like gesture with his hand: "Do you want to rob this birthday gift?"

Cao Jie shook his head and said, "You can't calculate it that way. Most of his property is fixed assets, which can't be robbed!"

"This is a problem. It's a pity to waste so much stolen money. It would be great if we could use it to build weapons and ships!"

More than one hundred thousand taels of silver is really an exaggeratedly huge number.

And if Ximen Qing could continue to live, this number would continue to grow rapidly. The turnover of the silk shop alone on the opening day was more than 500 taels of silver, which could be said to be a huge source of wealth.

In a nutshell, Ximen Qing is really very rich now, extremely rich.

More importantly, he now had a lot of money but didn't know where to spend it, so he started bribing officials, managing the officialdom, and beginning to move toward power.

The sale of official positions and titles in the court became more and more rampant. According to the description in the book, he even established a relationship with Cai Jing, the Grand Tutor, not long after that.

Unlike Yang Zhi who bribed Gao Qiu and spent a lot of money on his subordinates, in the end he only got two jade bottles to meet General Gao.

It's no wonder that he was so unlucky. Compared with Ximen Qing, he was very different in his conduct and behavior. In order to curry favor with Cai Jing in one go, Ximen Qing spent a lot of money. Look at what birthday gifts he prepared for Cai Jing.
There were four silver figures holding longevity statues made of pure silver, each more than a foot tall; two golden longevity pots, two jade peach cups, two sets of bright red and five-color satin gauze python robes woven in Hangzhou; two pieces of black scorched cloth and bright red gauze pythons, both of which were woven with golden lotus and five-color python robes; soup, mutton and fine wine, all with sealed wrappers; exotic fruits of the latest season, piled high on plates and boxes.

If the silver man holding the longevity statue, the golden pot and the jade peach cup fully demonstrate the temperament of the nouveau riche, then the two pieces of black scorched cloth and the colorful python robe woven with golden lotus and bright red gauze were high-quality fabrics that were rare in the palace at that time and were already very noble.

When old man Cai Jing saw these good things, he was very surprised. On the one hand, he could feel that Ximen Qing had put a lot of thought into it, but on the other hand, he found it a little hard to believe. He thought that Ximen Qing, a country rich man, actually had the means to obtain such high-end things, which showed that he was a very capable person.

That's why he promoted Ximen Qing to be a fifth-rank official - the deputy captain of the Shandong Judicial Office, and also rewarded the two people who sent birthday gifts with the rank of captain and postmaster, directly arranging them to "eat the emperor's food".

Ximen Qing invested a lot this time and reaped a rich harvest. From then on, he transformed himself from a local rich man into an official and had the support of Cai Jing, a powerful backer.

Now that Cao Jie has come here, he will naturally not allow him to continue to be so arrogant.

Yanggu County cannot tolerate someone as awesome as him.

The only one who can be so awesome is me, Cao Jie, Cao Erlang!

"Brother, what are your plans?" Liu Tang asked, "I don't think you care much about your family property and shop."

Cao Jie threw the written paper into the brazier, watched the flames burn, and said with a smile: "In this chaotic world, money is the most useless thing. Ximen Qing is trying to curry favor with the magistrate of Yanggu County. If we want to gain a foothold in Yanggu County, the first person we have to face is Ximen Qing.

Our arrival will definitely infringe upon his interests. Rather than waiting for him to make the first move, it is better to strike first.”

"kill him?!"

Chao Gai used his hand to make a knife shape again.

"Brother Chao Gai, why do you need a knife to kill someone?"

"Brother, please stop keeping me in suspense."

"What do you think would happen if the jewels from the birthday gift appeared in his house and were discovered?"

"The family will be raided and their heads will be chopped off."

"In this case, Brother Shi Qian will have to work hard. We spent several thousand strings of cash, and it is not a loss except for this roadblock. Moreover, since it involves the birthday gift, the county magistrate will not have the opportunity to extort money from it. Without such a large income, with his greedy character, how can he stop us from corrupting the money?"

"Brother, what a great idea!"

“It’s called killing two birds with one stone.”

Cao Jie made a plan and everyone started to implement it.

Wu Song and Cao Jie talked together for a night, and Wu Song made a general plan for Dongping Prefecture, then he took his big cat to take up his post.

Although the man-eating tiger looks like a big cat now, it is still ferocious at heart. Only a brave man like Wu Song can tame it, so Cao Jie naturally doesn't keep it.

Moreover, if he raises it, he can only treat it as a pet, and then it will be wasted.

It is better to give it to Wu Song and fulfill his name of "Subduing Tiger Arhat"!
(End of this chapter)