Chapter 177: Private Interview with Weixin, Brother Huixin
Su He was wearing casual clothes and a mask.
Pretending to be a businessman from other places, I came to the industrial area to inspect. After using the steam engine, the situation in the industrial area changed.
The guard regiments protecting Suhe were all dressed in civilian clothes, and they hid their short muskets.
There were also soldiers from the guard regiment pretending to be patrolling around, guarding the surrounding area with their muskets straightened.
"Shanshui, don't be nervous, the industrial zone is very safe.
You need to relax, we are here just on a temporary basis, and there are so many people around to protect you."
Su He looked at Qin Shanshui, the newly appointed leader of the security regiment, and looked around cautiously. He didn't look like a businessman at all.
Li Dazhuang led the Guards and fought several very difficult battles, showing his style as a famous general.
Suhe decided to divide the Guards into two.
The first brigade, who was good at defending the city, served as the backbone to form a new imperial guard, and Qi Gangyi, who was good at defense, served as the commander.
This unit has the highest goal of guarding the Su River.
The officers of this unit rotate normally, and it will not be sent out to fight again unless Su He is ready to fight in person.
It serves as a teaching army, the new barracks is responsible for training new recruits, and the Guards is responsible for training officers, becoming an important supplement to the military academy.
Most of the troops of the Guards, plus some recruits provided by the new barracks, formed the Seventh Army, which was responsible for guarding Tongguan and other areas bordering Shaanxi and the Ming Dynasty.
After Li Dazhuang returns to Hanzhong to report on his duties, he will bring with him some officers from the First Army and the Sixth Army.
Starting from the establishment of the Seventh Army, the rotation of officers in each army was officially started.
When Qin Shanshui heard Su He's words, he restrained his eyes and pretended to be an ordinary businessman.
Along the way, Su He was quite satisfied with the industrial zone.
Neat streets, pedestrians and carriages on the road, all follow the rules and follow the lines.
There are queues at the entrance of every factory, and many businessmen are vying to buy the factory's products.
The industrial area shows extraordinary vitality, producing goods that are in short supply.
When Su He walked to Zhang's Bookshop, he saw many scholars queuing up to buy books.
"The prices of these classic books have dropped again, so hurry up and buy them. Books are treasures that can be passed down to families for hundreds of years."
"I heard that the price of paper has dropped, and now there are printing machines suitable for steam engines.
This has resulted in a much lower cost of books. A copy of The Analects of Confucius now only costs one hundred copper coins, which is really cheap."
The clerk at Zhang's Bookstore suddenly shouted: "The real exam questions for the two imperial examinations are only 500 copper coins. The real exam questions are limited. Buy it as soon as possible."
When Su He saw this, he shook his head. This was the merchant trying to deceive the scholars who had just arrived in Hanzhong.
The test papers for Jinshi will be made public after the scientific examination, and anyone can copy them.
Su He did this to prevent fraud.
The test papers are open to the public, and everyone can see whether the examiner is fair or not.
During this period, many scholars emerged in Hanzhong.
Many of them are for the purpose of obtaining scholar and scholar status in Hanzhong.
For the grassroots imperial examination of the Prince of Qin, there is no need to return to the place of household registration. If you take the imperial examination anywhere, the Prince of Qin will recognize it.
Admissions are based on scores in the college examination and the provincial examination, and there is no quota limit. The number of Jinshi is limited only by the joint examination.
There are rumors that Hanzhong has the easiest academic examinations and provincial examinations, and many scholars come to Hanzhong to take part in the imperial examinations.
The imperial examinations are all test papers of the same difficulty. There are five sets of test papers in total, which are transported to each province. The governor of each province selects one of the five sets as the questions for the current college examination and rural examination.
Su He stood in front of the Ding's Grain Processing Factory, chatting with businessmen who came to buy grain.
"My little brother looks strange, this is your first time here to buy food.
The quality of the Ding family’s food is very good, so it’s the right place for you to come here.”
Su He smiled calmly: "It's indeed my first time to come here, take over the family business, and lead the workers to find a flour supply factory.
I don’t know how the Ding family’s food is so good. I saw a lot of people here, so I came over to take a look.”
“It’s not that I praise the Ding family, it’s that they do business with their conscience.
There are many grain processing plants where new grains and old grains are blended together and processed into flour.
This is a reasonably conscientious business, but the flour taste is a little off.
The most filthy conscience is processing moldy wheat into flour and selling it to people who don’t know how to do it.
How can you do this with moldy wheat? The normal method is to process moldy wheat into noodles and sell them to knowledgeable shops.
Flour from moldy wheat is mixed with flour from old grains to make large steamed buns and sell them to workers.
Keep less moldy flour. As long as no one is killed on the spot, the merchant will be fine.
If you directly use flour processed from moldy wheat to make steamed buns, it is easy to kill people, and then there will be a big problem."
Su He's eyes widened, his voice became higher, and he asked in disbelief: "Can you still do this?"
The businessman said seriously: "What is this? This is not an industry rule, otherwise how would you make money.
Three large white-flour steamed buns for one copper coin can only be made from moldy flour, and even sweet potato flour cannot reach this level."
Seeing the shocked look of the young man across from him, he felt very happy and helped the Ding family get another customer.
Su He bought a large amount of grain from the Ding family grain processing factory under the introduction of this businessman.
He saw that this man also served as a broker.
Su He chatted with this businessman about a lot of inside information about the grain industry.
He learned that with the development of industry, many unscrupulous businessmen came up with various operations.
Without strict management, it will soon reach the magical level of the early stage of the Western Industrial Revolution.
Current laws and regulations have not kept pace with industrial development.
Su He was going to ask Wang Zhongce to tighten control and crack down on these black-hearted businessmen.
At the same time, let Wu Donglin promptly formulate relevant laws.
Su He ordered the guards to donate the grain he purchased to the Hanzhong Welfare Institute.
"Brother Wang, give me this cart of coal, my boiler is about to stop working.
We are all in the same chamber of commerce and should help each other."
"Brother Yang, I'm really sorry. What I make is canned fish. This is canned fish supplied to the military.
The delivery date is very tight, I will never let this truck of coal go."
Su He was surprised. Why is there a shortage of coal in the industrial zone now?
Sichuan's coal is difficult to transport and has always been supplied locally.
Shaanxi Shenmu and Hetao Ordos, these two places have super large coal mines.
Nowadays, it is too dangerous to dig coal mines, so we are still accumulating technology.
When mining coal mines, priority should be given to finding shallow coal mines and directly removing the soil above them.
A large amount of coal is mined through open-pit mining.
After the coal mine is mined, the pit is backfilled with slag and the top layer is covered with soil.
Open-pit mining requires simple technology, and there is no need to worry about water penetration and explosion in the coal mine.
The Ordos coal mine is under planning, and a small part of the Shenmu coal mine has been mined.
The steam engine has just started here in Hanzhong, and the coal transported by Shenmu is mainly used for steelmaking and making briquettes.
In order to cope with industrialization, Suhe has made preparations in advance. The coal transported every day is enough for major factories, so there will be no shortage of coal.
Su He acted as a bystander. He deliberately pretended not to know, and asked a wealthy businessman watching the excitement: "I heard that the output of coal is abundant, how come their factory is short of coal."
"Younger boys, at first glance, it seems that they have little experience.
The food grown in the entire Ming Dynasty is enough to feed everyone in the Ming Dynasty.
Why so many people starve to death every year is because of unfair distribution.
Some people get more, some get less, and some get nothing.
Shaanxi is rich in coal mines, everyone knows this.
Coal is piled high in the warehouse, but there must be a quota when buying coal.
There is no quota and the purchase limit is one car per day, which is simply not enough.”
"You still need to use quotas to buy coal." Su He asked pretending to be surprised, "In the policy issued by the Qin Palace, I didn't see that quotas were used to buy coal."
“Looking at you, a young boy, you’ve never done any business in your family.
The county magistrate is not as good as the current one. The supply of coal in the warehouse exceeds the demand. Of course, if you want to pull coal, you have to be willing.
At the Hongsheng Grocery Store on Central Street, no one wants the broken tea there for even one tael of silver per catty, but it sells for ten thousand taels of silver per tael.
Take the shopping receipt to exchange for coal, this is the indicator.
You have to be a sensible person to engage in this kind of business.
In order to prevent some people from jumping to the wall in a hurry, he also introduced purchase restrictions. There is a limit on the purchase of one car even if there is no quota.
In this way, most poor people and small manufacturers will not work hard to expose this matter."
When Su He heard this, he understood that this was officials taking bribes in a different way.
He left here immediately. He knew about the bribery of officials and had to deal with it.
This private visit through incognito has yielded some results.
When Su He returned to Prince Qin's Mansion, he first asked the Secretariat to write down the problems discovered during his private visit on Weibo and send the problems that needed correction to the relevant departments.
Then he asked the secretariat to immediately call for Prime Minister Wang Zhongce and Youdu Censor Li Yuanzheng.
Wang Zhongce and Li Yuanzheng hurried to Lingyun Palace.
When Wang Zhongce saw Li Yuanzheng coming, he had a bad feeling in his heart.
In addition to normal court meetings, every time Su He summoned Li Yuanzheng, something big happened.
"The humble minister Wang Zhongce has met His Highness the King of Qin."
"Weak minister Li Yuanzheng has met His Highness King Qin."
"No gifts, just a seat.
Today I went to inspect the industrial area and found someone selling coal through quotations.
One tael of tea costs 10,000 taels of silver coins, and West Lake Longjing and Dahongpao are not worth the price.
The Metropolitan Procuratorate will investigate this matter as soon as possible and don't let anyone go.
Coal needs a monopoly, but it does not need to be a complete monopoly.
Coal refers to the salt franchise, and the coal company becomes the general distributor, responsible for the production and wholesale of coal, and does not participate in terminal sales.
The cabinet will issue policies as soon as possible, and I will ask the Young Master to cooperate with the cabinet."
This meeting was very brief. Wang Zhongce and Li Yuanzheng left Lingyun Palace and went their separate ways.
Li Yuanzheng came to the Metropolitan Procuratorate and called the censor Zhang Shengbei.
He introduced the situation of the coal quota case.
"Shengbei, I'm very optimistic about you. You can lead people to investigate this case as soon as possible."
Zhang Shengbei immediately mobilized manpower and began investigating the case.
We must not let go of any clues and make this case a solid case.
In the process of handling the case, he encountered a lot of resistance, but he got to the bottom of it.
…………………………
Su He met with Li Dazhuang who returned to Hanzhong to report on his work.
Su He and Li Dazhuang chatted a lot.
He listened to Li Dazhuang's suggestions about the army and learned from him about the situation in the Hetao area.
After they finished chatting, Su He said:
"Da Zhuang, New Year's Eve is coming soon. After this festival, we will go back to form the Seventh Army.
Most of the troops in the Seventh Army are old units from the original Guards, and they will be formed very quickly.
You haven't been home for a long time, and now we don't have much war with the Ming Dynasty and Mongolia.
I just want to spend more time with my family at home.”
Li Dazhuang nodded, then he had something to say, hesitant on his face, and finally made up his mind and said: "Your Highness, King Qin.
On the night I joined the army, during the grievance campaign, I told about my life experience.
My whole family was forced to death by the Ming generals, and one of my sisters was even sold.
During this time, I have been looking for my sister.
Now the war is in chaos, many clues have been cut off, and this person cannot be found at all.
I want to ask His Highness the King of Qin to use the power of the government to help me find my sister.
I got the news that she was sold to the junction of Sichuan and Shaanxi.
As long as it is not resold, if it is still alive now, it should be under the rule of the Qin Palace."
Li Dazhuang never stopped looking for his sister. He searched for more than two years and found no valuable information.
He couldn't help but ask Su He for help. If he couldn't find it by mobilizing the power of the government, then he would give up.
When Su He heard what Li Dazhuang said, he also remembered that young man at that time. One of the purposes of joining the army was to find his sister.
"Da Zhuang, I can help you.
Do you have any clues? The more clues you have, the greater your chance of finding it.
Otherwise, it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack, and the success rate is too slim.”
Su He promised his wife Li Huixin to help her find her family.
He arranged for Su Changsheng's secret guards to search for him, and so far they have found four or five similar people, but none of them fit the bill.
Among them, there were also people pretending to be Li Huixin's family members, but they were directly discovered by Su He and put into prison.
One sheep is driven, two sheep are herded.
When Li Dazhuang heard Su He agreed, he immediately took out several portraits from his pocket.
"Your Highness King Qin, I have a portrait of my sister when she was a child.
This is the image drawn by Master Liu Feizui based on my description.
He also drew a few pictures of what my sister will look like when she grows up."
Su He had heard of Liu Feizui, a famous semi-immortal magic stick in Hanzhong City.
The best method is to predict the future of a child based on his or her appearance.
It's nonsense to look at the future, but he can draw what a person will look like as an adult based on what he looked like when he was a child.
He relied on this skill to thrive in Hanzhong City.
This person charges little, is not very harmful to society, is very self-aware, and uses his skills to help the Criminal Department solve cases.
Su He did not deal with this person.
He took these portraits from Li Dazhuang.
The first picture is of an ugly-looking little girl, and several of the portraits are of ordinary people.
But one of them shows the characteristics of a woman's eighteenth transformation.
"Huixin."
When Su He saw the person in the portrait, he screamed in surprise.
The person in the portrait is 99% similar to Li Huixin.
When Li Dazhuang saw Su He's appearance, he asked excitedly: "Your Highness, King Qin, are the people in this portrait the same as the princess?"
He asked anxiously, and Su He blurted out the name Huixin, and Li Dazhuang could only think of Princess Qin Li Huixin.
Su He nodded and said, "Yes, the person in the portrait looks so much like my wife.
She was also born into a military family and was sold to Hanzhong since she was a child."
Li Dazhuang stood up and said excitedly: "This must be my sister, this must be my sister.
It’s good to be alive, it’s good to be alive.”
Su He said with a serious expression: "Your experiences can match, but in order to be more precise.
Da Zhuang, do you know some more specific situations?
For example, does your sister have any special marks?"
Li Dazhuang blurted out: "There is a scar on my sister's back between the shoulder blades.
My sister was bitten by an evil slave and a dog, and I personally applied the medicine."
When Su He heard the news, he finally confirmed that Li Dazhuang was Li Huixin's brother.
Except for family members, no one else will know the condition of this private part.
Su He told Li Dazhuang that Li Huixin was due to give birth these days.
In order to prevent her from being agitated and causing dystocia, the brother and sister would not recognize each other until some time later.
Li Dazhuang said happily: "Your Highness, King Qin, I know it's good that my sister is alive, so there's no rush to recognize each other."
Secretary Qu Qingyi suddenly opened the door and walked in.
"Your Highness King Qin, Princess Li suddenly has a stomachache and she is about to give birth."
