Chapter 110 County Matters

Author: light purple astringency

Eight threshing machines may seem like a lot, but once they are allocated, they will not be enough.

Master Song sent one to the capital, one to the county government, one to Jiang Blacksmith, one to Hong Lizheng, two to Landlord Shen, and two to Aunt Jiang. In the end, it seemed that there was nothing going on with the Jiang family?

So there was an urgent need for a piece of iron, so early the next morning, Master Song took Jiang Changan, Li Shushen and Shen Shikang to the Yamen together. This time they took the Shen family's carriage.

Originally Shen Yujiao had to keep up with her life and death, but who allowed Li Shushen to be on the carriage? Even though he has become an orphan now, he is still very rare, but Shen Shikang resolutely refused to let him go.

Anyone with a discerning eye can see that Li Shushen's whole focus is on Jiang Changan, and his sister will only sink deeper and deeper into the situation. In the end, there will be no results, and she can only suffer.

Originally, they were all still children, so how could they understand that such illusory things as love and love were just temporary feelings that could not be obtained and turned into obsessions.

Therefore, it is better to rein in the situation and stop losses in time.

The carriage traveled smoothly and soon arrived at the county town. The streets were still very lively, and people from all walks of life were still running around for life and never tired of it.

But, is the atmosphere a little different today? Most of the pedestrians on the street look very serious, and they are walking in a hurry, and they feel a bit nervous.

Jiang Changan leaned against the window of the carriage and looked at the street scene, and expressed his feelings, "Is there something big happening that we don't know about?"

When they sent grandpa to the county town for medical treatment the day before yesterday, they might have been anxious, so they didn't notice the situation on the street at all.

Only now did I suddenly realize that few pedestrians on the street had smiles on their faces, which was very different from the scene when I came here for the assessment for the first time.

"I heard that a prisoner was beheaded by the magistrate at the market yesterday. The blood was splattered all over. It was scary. It is said that he stole the magistrate's treasures."

Old Shen, who was driving the car, covered his mouth and lowered his voice and said that he often traveled between the village and the county, so he was quite well informed.

Jiang Changan's eyes widened in shock, "Steal, steal something valuable, to the point of beheading." Is this criminal law too harsh?

Afraid that they had just stolen County Magistrate Chen's priceless jade, the old boy might be doing it because of this. Jiang Changan pulled on Li Shushen's sleeve.

Is it possible that the truth is like this?

Unexpectedly, Li Shushen sneered and said, "You think too highly of our county magistrate. As long as he is in a bad mood, he will not be able to kill anyone who is weaker than him."

This is a completely unprincipled county magistrate, and the people of Laichang County should be used to it.

Master Song agreed very much with Li Shushen's words, "People are indeed like this, but they still need a reason." No matter how arrogant and powerful an official is, he must make superficial appearances, otherwise he will not be able to convince the public.

It seems that this adult has been in a bad mood recently, and they seemed to have chosen the wrong time to come to visit him.

However, there was already some unhappiness between Shanshan Village and Magistrate Chen, especially Li Shushen. I don't know what leverage he had, so he directly threatened the parents of the local government. It's strange that they still greeted them with a smile.

At this moment, a loud voice came from the teahouse on the street, overcoming the noise on the street, and reached Jiang Changan's ears.

"Little Master! Little Master Jiang." A tall man in black shorts, with half of his body leaning out of the window, shouted to Jiang Changan, and kept waving his right hand, so enthusiastically.

The corners of Jiang Changan's mouth twitched, and for those who didn't know, he thought he was calling a little nun. Who else was this person, the escort chief Wang, who had given her eleven taels of silver? Didn't he deliberately keep a distance from her to avoid suspicion?

Don't you want to avoid it now? "Wang Escort Chief." Jiang Changan also greeted the other party with a smile, and she had to be polite. Was he once her big customer?

"Little Master Jiang, come up quickly. Let's get together first." It was just a sudden invitation, but the escort leader Wang also gestured towards Jiang Chang'an, as if he wanted to see her for something.

Although, in fact, Jiang Changan didn't quite understand what it meant.

However, perhaps it would be better to get useful information from the mouth of the escort leader Wang than to blindly rush into the county government office, right?

"Then go." Master Song had the same idea.

Recently, he has been busy learning drawing, making salt from alkaline soil, reading glasses, giant wheel carts, pottery making, carpentry, new iron-making processes to improve the hardness and wear resistance of iron, and threshing machines.

There are all kinds of techniques that you can't think of, and there is nothing that his little disciple can't do.

Of course, these things cannot be handed over to the capital all at once, otherwise Jiang Changan will be easily snatched away by his superiors. At present, Master Song only lets his superiors know that alkaline soil salt production and threshing machines, as well as iron smelting, must be pushed back.

In any case, others cannot tell the quality of iron tools with the naked eye. Only people who have used tools for a long time and blacksmith Jiang will know, as long as other people do not notice these details.

Being busy with these things, Mr. Song has not explored the news about the county for a long time. Now he really doesn't know what the situation is in Laichang County.

Master Song led several people out of the carriage, walked towards the teahouse, and went directly to the second floor. Head Guard Wang greeted them at the door.

"Mr. Song, long time no see, please come soon." Of course Mr. Wang doesn't have to avoid suspicion now, because the mountain village also offended Magistrate Chen.

The escort leader Wang had a dispute with County Magistrate Chen, so of course he always paid attention to each other's movements, so he received the news immediately.

In the private room of the teahouse, Wang's companions were cleared out by him. "Everyone, sit down. You're welcome. I've heard everything about your village. As the saying goes, the enemy of my enemy is my friend."

So we are already friends, and with the last life-saving grace, we are now a family, haha."

Captain Wang laughed loudly and looked very confident. It seemed that he later won another battle with Magistrate Chen.

"Haha, what Wang Biaotou said is true, but the life-saving grace is exaggerated." Wang Biaotou is a loyal man, and Master Song still admires him very much.

"Hey, it's really a life-saving grace. If it weren't for Jiang, my little master would have called me Chang'an, right? It's so affectionate. Can uncle also call you like this?" Wang Biaotou really likes Jiang Chang'an.

The little girl looks delicate and soft, and has great abilities, but she is so rare that she is so rare. Why is she not her own child?

Jiang Changan nodded, as long as you are happy, it's just a greeting.

"Okay, okay, Chang'an, come and have some snacks. You two kids will also have some. Mr. Song, please have some tea."

Actually, I'm a simpleton who doesn't understand tea at all, so I ordered the most expensive one in the store so that I could drink it even if I wanted to." After that, Mr. Wang drank the tea in the cup in one gulp, showing off his good mood without hesitation.

"Haha, it seems that Mr. Wang is in high spirits during happy events." Master Song knew tea well and tasted it carefully.

"Haha, it's not that something happy happened to me, but I feel happy when I see my enemy being unlucky." Well, being able to keep his own escort agency is a happy event for him.

He had given up hope at first, but unexpectedly, things took a turn for the worse. Magistrate Chen was so anxious that he had no energy left to deal with himself, and the Escort Bureau went back to its original state.

"Oh? I'd like to hear the details." This is the reason why they came here to drink tea.

The escort leader Wang also wanted to let Master Song know. They needed to exchange information so that they could better guard against Magistrate Chen's counterattack.

At this time, the escort leader Wang finally became cautious. He looked around and saw no one was around, so he spoke in a low voice.

"A big event happened in the Yamen. It should be said that something happened to County Magistrate Chen. He seems to have lost something very important. Recently, many people have been dispatched to search frantically.

First, they killed a gangster, and then closed down several casinos, stone gambling dens, and dock shipping. This caused several major merchants to complain and suffer heavy losses, so they joined forces to fight back. Now they are in a hurry.

Therefore, he has no time to take care of the local salt in your mountain village. Compared with those small profits, it is obvious that the objects he lost are more valuable or human lives are at stake.

He didn't even notice his newly opened escort agency. Following the last time he tampered with the furniture, he arranged for bandits to ambush our escort agency.

However, the bandits' manpower was more than half less than expected, so our Huwei Escort Agency won, and this battle actually raised our Huwei Escort Agency's status in the world to another level."

They were all forced out. It would be impossible for Mr. Wang to be grateful to County Magistrate Chen.

Master Song sighed, "Do you know what was lost?" Isn't it related to Li Shushen's handle?

Master Song was wondering whether he should have a good communication with Li Shushen, otherwise County Magistrate Chen would go crazy and be accidentally injured.

"I don't know. I heard that he has connections with high-ranking officials in Fucheng. Even most people in the yamen don't know about it." This shows the seriousness of the matter.

Jiang Changan and Li Shushen looked at each other. In the past few nights, Baishi Mountain had been quiet. It must have been County Magistrate Chen who took people to see the jadeite.

Then they find that something is missing. With such a huge fortune, who can swallow this sigh of relief?

Oh, yes, there is also population registration and land survey. During the day, there are police officers and clerks going door to door to confirm the population, and they also go to the fields. It is really unprecedentedly serious, busy and responsible.

Have you ever seen yamen officials go to the countryside to work? Those people are all big men, waiting to be served every day.

Of course, County Magistrate Chen didn't find any clues in the mountain village, so he went in a general direction. Maybe he was just messing around, just to muddy the water, take advantage of the opportunity to fish, divert attention, and disturb his opponents.

By the way, did you put away some things you didn’t like?

Magistrate Chen's plan is unknown. Anyway, he will definitely not find the jade, but he doesn't know what it has to do with Fucheng.

It doesn't matter anyway. Jiang Changan and the others don't have any need for jade at the moment. They can just build a Jinyu Square in the future and consume the jade.

The old god Li Shushen is here, so Jiang Changan is not worried.

"Salt and saltpeter are produced in our mountain villages, but the quantities are not large. It may be gone after a period of firing, and the ashes can also be used to burn salt.

I have written to Datian to listen to this matter. I believe that the formula will be popularized soon, and the profit is really not big." After all, everyone knows it, but this will also reduce the court's income a lot.

Many people must not be happy, right? But the emperor must be willing, because most of the salt is controlled by aristocratic families, and local salt can increase the tax revenue of the treasury.

"Really, that's great. I think the price of salt in our south will come down." It won't go down too much. Not all soil can burn salt, and not every household has time to burn salt.

Only the people at the bottom who can't afford salt do this work, and they don't account for much of the market.

At least Wang was the first escort, so he didn't have time to burn salt, and he couldn't sell it for money, so it was really not worthwhile to waste time.

"Haha, when we came to the county town for this matter, we actually developed new farm tools and wanted to report them to the Yamen and apply for more iron blocks.

Mr. Wang's family also has a farm. Let me show it to you. Maybe it can be of great help." Master Song took the drawings out of the bookcase and spread them out on the table for Mr. Wang to take a look at.

When Wang Biaotou saw the drawings, his interest was immediately aroused. He could see at a glance what the farm tools really looked like. The drawings looked really similar. He is a very good scholar.

But, "Huh? Such a big farm tool? What is it used for?" Wang Biaotou looked at it for a long time and couldn't understand the function of this big farm tool. The iron knot is indeed used a lot, but if it is not practical, it will be a waste.

It's not as good as a sword.

"This is a threshing machine. You can use your feet to make the barrel roll. You can put the ears of rice up on the rice stalks to thresh the grains. You don't have to work hard to thresh the grains. You can save at least 60% of the work.

Master Song carefully explained it to the head escort Wang.

People treat them as a family, so of course they have to reciprocate. To maintain the relationship, there should be regular exchanges.

"Oh, it looks pretty good. How much does it cost? I'll buy a few of them." In fact, Captain Wang couldn't see the actual object, didn't know how big it was, and couldn't tell the value. He just wanted to take care of Jiang Changan's business.
To be continued...