Lin Meng didn't expect Lin Xie to ask this question so solemnly, and he asked in confusion: "Is there something about me that's not trustworthy? Is there some other secret?"

  "Meng De Shu, you're not a fool. You've seen everything that's been going on around here. Even if I don't say it out loud, you probably have your suspicions about many things. But there's a big difference between saying something and not saying it," Lin said in a serious tone. "Meng De Shu, let me ask you again: can I trust you? You should know that getting on the pirate ship is easy, but getting off is hard."

  Lin Mengde is not a fool, Lin is standing at the river mouth, so many doubts can deceive outsiders, but many things are entrusted to Lin Mengde to handle, if he can't see it, he's really blind.

  The first doubt is the identity of Zhou Pu, Wu Qi, Cao Zikang, Ge Cunxin and Ge Cunxiong. Not to mention Zhou Pu and Wu Qi, Cao Zikang, Ge Cunxin and Ge Cunxiong all came with the first batch of migrant workers, they were very capable and quickly gained Lin Shu's trust and reuse; when Lin Shu was not in the river mouth, many things that Lin Jingzhong could not decide on would go to Cao Zikang for consultation - this kind of trust and reuse has already exceeded the normal category.

  The second doubt is that among the more than 50 people on board Dongyang, only about 10 were officially armed guards, but from the brief battle with Liu Miao Zhen's troops in Shanglinli, Lin Mengde could see that these more than 50 people were all elite warriors. Among these more than 50 people, apart from over 20 who were black households, the others were selected from the first batch of recruited laborers and refugees. Lin Mengde was very clear about the situation of the first batch of recruited laborers and refugees. Who could casually recruit a hundred households of refugees and select out elite soldiers who had not yet received training?

  The third and biggest doubt is that the financial resources of Jiyun Society seem to be bottomless. At least Lin Mengde can confirm that when Lin Xuchu first came to Jiangning, he had very limited silver with him. During the most tense period of river mouth construction, Lin Jingzhong was worried about the problem of silver every day, but after a while, Lin Jingzhong no longer worried about silver at all. Jiyun Society spent no less than 60,000 to 70,000 taels of silver on buying land, building docks, building embankments, building houses, building bamboo halls, and resettling refugees in the river mouth area, and invested no less than 40,000 to 50,000 taels of silver in the prison island. The cost of building three thousand-stone fast and sturdy sailboats was not less than 10,000 taels.

  It's natural that outsiders can't see through the true and false of Jiyun Society, even the Lin family suspects that Madame Qi is secretly supporting Jiyun Society. Lin Mengde personally participates in many things, and before Lin Fu went north this time, the letters exchanged between Lin Fu and Madame Qi were all delivered by him or his trusted emissaries, so how could he not be clear about it?

  The Lin family in Shanglinli has a large business, and the people who are chosen to be in charge are unlikely to be law-abiding good men and women, and they will not have small guts.

  Lin Mengde also understood that Lin Xie wanted to achieve something, and it was impossible for him to be a good boy who obeyed the law. Not to mention what he did in secret, but after Lin Xie arrived in Jiangning, which of the things he did was not reckless? It was precisely these many things that made Lin Mengde gradually change from his initial opposition to expecting cooperation with Lin Xie against their own family, and now he had decided to assist Lin Xie in grasping control of the Lin family.

  Lin Xie's tone was so serious that Lin Meng also looked at Lin Xie's eyes seriously and said, "Even if you want to be the master of the house, I will follow you on the same path. What else are you not assured about?"

  "Things are more serious than that; Meng'er, you see the Lin family is in trouble and crisis, in fact, the whole world has fallen into difficulty and crisis," Lin Xie sighed and said, "Let's not worry about this for now, follow me to Prison Island."

  ***********

  Lin Mengde didn't know what was hidden on the island prison; Lin Xie returned to the grass hall and told everyone that there was an urgent matter on the island prison, he wanted to go with Lin Mengde immediately to handle it, and Lin Tingli's funeral would be discussed by the five madams and three clan elders first.

  The pier of Prison Island is located at the southwest corner of the island. All external connections to the prison island are through this pier. Lin Zexu's development of the prison island was also mainly concentrated on the western part of the island, and the only thing outsiders knew about the island was this pier.

  Lin Xie built an independent training camp on the eastern end of the deserted beach of Prison Island to train new recruits and guards. The place was separated from the western side of Jiang Island by a dense forest, and the riverbank as well as the shallow water were also overgrown with shrubs. In addition to opening up a small path in the dense forest to connect with the west end of Prison Island, Lin Xie also had a simple dock built in the shrubbery on the riverbank, making it convenient for the recruits to quickly depart from the training camp and head to Chao Tian Tang to support various places.

  This pier is built deep in the aquatic mangrove forest, and outsiders even if they pass by boat from the outside, unless they deliberately get close to observe, can't find that there is a small pier hidden in the shallow water beach of the eastern end of the prison island.

  Lin Mengde knew of the existence of this pier.

  Lin Xie and Lin Mengde sat on a sculling boat, which did not dock at the Prison Island Wharf but went directly to the Training Camp Wharf.

  The boat navigated through the dense thorny bushes. The outermost branches were denser, untrimmed for concealment, making it difficult to enter. After advancing a dozen or so steps, it suddenly opened up, and a waterway about six or seven feet wide led directly to the training camp dock. The dock made of sandbags and mud was very simple and could only berth small oar boats and Wupeng boats with a load of around 20 stones. At this time, four armed boats were berthed on the shallow beach on both sides of the dock.

  From the dock, it's just the school field, about two hundred steps square, with seventy or eighty armed guards practicing with wooden swords on the field. Lin Mengde knew that the newly recruited guards added to the Jiyun Society Martial Guard here for training totaled 150 men, but only half of them were on the field, and he didn't know where the other half had been taken for training.

  Zhou Pu and Zhao Hu were both on the school grounds, saw Lin Xie bringing Lin Meng over, looked a bit strange, walked over but didn't ask much.

  "What about Uncle Cao?" Lin Fu asked Zhou Pu.

  "In the meantime, I'll take you there," Zhou Pu said.

  The school grounds used to be a forest about 17 or 18 steps deep, and the three barracks were built on the empty land behind the forest. The barracks area was not large, and together they were roughly the size of a courtyard house. The walls of the barracks were made of bundles of cedar posts as thick as a bowl mouth and one person high, inserted into the ground in rows, with iron nails nailed to the top and middle of the wall for reinforcement.

  The three military camps are independent of each other, separated by seven or eight steps, with a narrow bridge on the wall for passage.

  Such a camp is simple and easy to set up, but also very practical.

  Lin Mengde knew this training camp, but it was his first time coming over.

  Seeing the layout of the training camp, school grounds and barracks, Lin Meng thought that such a hidden layout would allow the martial arts students to launch a surprise attack if there were bandits or pirates attacking the island. However, he also thought that the newly recruited martial arts students and the Ji Yun Society's guards were tightly controlled by Lin Xie, with strict discipline, and the two paths leading into the training camp were also strictly controlled, meaning that whatever Lin Xie wanted to do here, outsiders would not be able to find out.

  Judging from Lin Xie's tone just now, Cao Zi'ang seemed to be in the camp as well. Thinking that the answer was about to be revealed, Lin Mengde couldn't help but feel a thrill of excitement in his heart, and he didn't even bother to think about what kind of pirate ship he was about to board.

  Zhou Pu led Lin Daiyu and Lin Xiangru into the innermost camp, which was only about three or four mu in size. There were no guards outside the wall of the camp, but there were double sentries inside the wall, and the wooden plank bridges on the wall also had sharpened wooden stakes facing the other two camps to prevent soldiers from mistakenly entering.

  The camp was not just a simple wall made of fir wood, the houses inside were all simple wooden huts, with oilcloth and grass mats on top to prevent rain. Cao Zikang walked out from a wooden house in the upper left corner, saw Lin Shou bringing Lin Meng over, and smiled: "Why bring Lin Guanshi over?"

  "Lin Ting has made his move." Lin Xuan said.

  "Oh..." Cao Zi'ang was slightly stunned after hearing the news. He had gone to Prison Island early in the morning and didn't know about Lin Tingxuan's passing yet.

  Cao Zi'ang knew that as long as Lin Tingxuan was alive, the balance of power in the Lin family would remain subtly favorable to Lin Xie. With Lin Tingxuan's passing today, this balance has been instantly disrupted, and the reactions of Lin Tingli and Eldest Young Master Lin Xuwen will be crucial.

  Lin Xie is about to lift the last veil with Lin Mengde and thoroughly win him over.

  Cao Zi'ang guessed Lin Xie's intention and didn't say much, directly bringing Lin Xie and Lin Meng into the house to talk.

  The wooden house had two small windows on the wooden wall, and the light was a bit dim. Lin Mengde only saw a large table in the center of the wooden house at first, with five or six people holding large iron scissors cutting something. When Lin Mengde looked clearly, he was frightened, and there were four large silver pancakes on the table, each larger than a washbasin. These people were using iron scissors to cut the large silver pancakes into small pieces.

  Lin Mengde was about to turn his head and ask Lin Tie where these silver ingots came from, when he shifted his gaze again, he saw dozens of silver balls the size of pig's trotters piled up in the corner of the wooden house, as well as an iron forge platform, with two bare-chested men holding large iron hammers standing beside the platform looking over here.

  Lin Mengde suddenly realized that the large silver disc on the stage, which was even bigger than a washbasin, was made by hammering these silver balls into shape on an iron anvil. He had also heard rumors that Qin Chengbo had cast all the silver he had collected over the years into heavy silver balls weighing several thousand taels before heading north to guard against theft. Lin Mengde turned his head in surprise and looked at Lin Xian...

  "Qin Chengbo's murder in Luyang Lake was not without warning, and it can be confirmed that the Xiao family has been secretly providing support to the Hongze Pu water bandits. The Dongyang Prefectural Governor Shen Rong has also been indulging in the development of the Hongze Pu crisis. I wrote two letters to Gu Wudian on my way to Shanglin, explaining this matter, and Gu Wudian remained silent both times," Lin said. "What can I do? Besides muddying the waters, we need to prepare for withdrawal from Shanglin. These are all spoils of war seized from the Hongze Pu water bandits, worth about 100,000 taels of silver, and over 80 sets of fine armor. What we need to do now is grind off the Qin family's private mark on the armor, melt the silver balls into silver ingots, and then cut them into small pieces..."

  Lin Mengde opened his mouth, but really didn't know what to say. He had long known that Lin Xie was not a man who would be content with a quiet life, but he never could have imagined that he would be so bold and daring as to go this far. His throat felt dry, and it wasn't until after a moment that Lin Mengde regained his composure and asked: "But I really don't understand, what kind of clever trick was used to snatch these things from the hands of Hong Ze's Clear Water Fortress?"

  "It's actually quite simple," Cao Zikang said with a smile, putting his arm around Lin Mengde's shoulders. "The Hongze Pu Water Fortress didn't plan to make a move on the Luo Yang Lake. We just lit a fake beacon fire in the Qingyang Gang direction before the fleet entered the Luo Yang Lake, prompting the Hongze Pu Water Fortress to ambush the Qin family's fleet ahead of time..." Cao Zikang told Lin Mengde the details of the water battle at Luo Yang Lake, and finally smiled again, "The only pity is that such a brilliant plan can't be publicly attributed to the East Sea Fox."

  Lin Xie shook his head and smiled, saying: "It's not that great, it's just that others didn't expect someone to dare to snatch food from a tiger's mouth. Rather than saying it's one stone three birds, it's better to say it's snatching food from a tiger's mouth..." He also said to Lin Mengde, "Mengde Shu, Cao Zijian's name is not known to outsiders, but 'Cao Xiaocai of Huai' is well-known. Zhou Ye's nickname is Lin Bao, Wu Ye's nickname is Black Sky Crow - I said the ship you're going to board is a pirate ship, and this really is a pirate ship."

  Lin Mengde rubbed his face with his hands, trying to clear his mind and said: "Before I came to Jiangning, I was in charge of Lin's cargo warehouse affairs north of Huai River to Luoyang. I know something about the Liu Ma Kao bandits on the south bank of Huai River. Five or six years ago, there were fifty or sixty gangs of Liu Ma Kao bandits on the Huai River, and I can still recall the names of those with big reputations. However, most of the Liu Ma Kao bandits had only one or two people with loud names in each gang. Qin Hu Zi's gang, Cao Xiucan, Baozi Ye, Wu Ya Ye, and later Si Niangzi, a total of twelve people were famous on the Huai River and even in Zhongzhou. If you say that Qin Hu Zi, Cao Ye, and Zhou Ye are horse thieves, they are also righteous bandits and chivalrous thieves. Not only do the common people on the Huai River know this, but also those who do business or travel on merchant roads in Zhongzhou understand this point; I have admired them for a long time. Later, it was said that Qin Hu Zi was eliminated by the thief-suppressing camp, and many people felt sorry about it." Lin Mengde asked Lin Fu again, "How did you get together with Cao Ye and Zhou Ye?"

  "It's a long story," Lin Xie briefly told Lin Meng about the many things that had happened since last autumn, and then said, "We have established ourselves on Changshan Island and made various arrangements in Jiangning. We won't do anything to harm the local people or cause trouble. On the one hand, we are forced by circumstances, and many lives are at stake, so I couldn't just mind my own business; every step of the way, I and Master Cao have been through thick and thin together, inseparable. On the other hand, the situation in the world is chaotic, the court is weak and corrupt, with internal and external troubles never-ending. How can we rely on those officials who wear official robes and pretend to be loyal on stage but stab each other in the back, or those officials and soldiers who only know how to visit brothels and extort money from civilians? As the situation develops, it will become more and more turbulent, and the lives of ordinary people will be worthless. We are just trying to survive in a chaotic world."

  ******************

  PS: Brother, it's a good habit to vote with red tickets.