At night, inside Muchengzhou Warehouse [Yizhou General Warehouse], two middle-aged men were walking inside, carefully looking at each step for those who were not doing anything aboveboard. One was holding a lantern, and the other was holding a notebook and jotting down something.
.
The one holding the lantern looked like he was not an ordinary person. The other one followed him, two steps behind him and slightly bowed his body. At first glance, his status was lower than the one in front.
These two people were Tan Lei, the magistrate of Muzhou, Shi Ye and Chang Wen.
He Changwen walked away holding the account book and whispered: "Sir, we should have five hundred thousand taels of silver, two thousand bags of rice, five thousand bags of corn, and three thousand bags of coarse flour. Not bad."
Magistrate Tan stroked his beard and nodded inexplicably, "Isn't this the most complete disaster relief silver ration sent to us?"
Master He was stunned when he heard this. He couldn't quite guess what the prefect meant. However, in this case, it would not be wrong to follow the adults' words.
"Yes, since we were hit by the disaster, the imperial court has allocated a total of eleven times of money and grain for disaster relief. Six times it was less than half of it, two times it was none at all, and three times it disappeared halfway, and one time we only allocated one
Ten thousand taels of silver."
Thinking of the difficulties faced by adults over the past two years, Master He sighed silently in his heart again.
The country is large and transportation is inconvenient, so when local news reaches the imperial court and reaches the emperor, many of them are already difficult to distinguish between true and false. When it reaches the ears of the people, it is even more difficult to tell whether one out of ten is true.
Already.
Let’s talk about the floods in the south. The disasters in the south that ordinary people know about were first reported in Youcheng, a subsidiary of Bacheng in Haizhou. It was rumored that the entire city was flooded, with numerous casualties and numerous casualties, and the entire city had to flee their hometown.
But the real fact is that when it comes to disasters in the south, Muzhou is the most serious and the first place to be hit by the disaster.
The imperial court received the first report of the disaster in the south, and it was the magistrate Tan in front of him, Jing Yuange, who passed the report to the emperor.
There are three cities in a state. The highest official in a city is the prefect. Above the prefect, there is also the prefect who is the lord of the three cities.
Memorials were uploaded step by step. The county magistrate handed it over to the county magistrate, and the county magistrate handed it over to the prefect. The prefect's memorial had to go through the hands of the prefect.
As for the magistrate Tan Zhifu, he is a person who takes credit for himself and is unwilling to bear any responsibilities. The first few memorials that Magistrate Tan sent about the disaster in Mucheng were all suppressed by this magistrate.
Later, it was said that the magistrate tried his best to offend Shangfeng, which is one of the most fatal "mistakes" for an official. It was equivalent to cutting off his official career. He went beyond the magistrate and wrote a letter and attached a memorial to make people hurry up.
Sent to the mansion of his mentor Yuan Ge.
After that, the imperial court sent people down to check and found that it was indeed as written in the memorial, and even what was written in the memorial was already in the Qing Dynasty, so the imperial court began to allocate money and food for disaster relief.
The disaster relief silver and grain allocated by the imperial court will be notified in advance to the place where the disaster relief silver and grain is allocated, and the amount of money and grain will be clearly informed.
But Mucheng, the city that suffered the most, has never received enough. Every time the prefect asks the magistrate for something, there is either one reason or another, and they either don't give it, or they only give a little bit after a long delay.
.
This is also the reason why the two of them came to Zhoucang overnight. They didn't give enough every time. If they didn't give more this time, Mucheng would really not be able to survive. So Mucheng's boss and his first younger brother were in Yinliang.
On the first night when I entered the warehouse, I wanted to take back Mucheng's share before Master Zhizhou had time to seal the warehouse or move it.
Know the law and break the law?
Damn it, there's nothing you can do about it, okay!
Otherwise, they would have to watch the people of Mucheng starve to death one by one.
Magistrate Tan touched the bulging grain sack, gritted his teeth and said, "Go and ask someone to move it."
The master hesitated for a moment, then sighed and ran out.
After a while, a group of government servants came in sneakily.
The master shouted in a low voice: "Quick, move quickly, here is the grain, and the five boxes of silver over there are ours, we only move five boxes..."
The government officials came one by one obviously well prepared, and silently followed the master's instructions without saying a word. Two people carried a sack, and four people carried a silver box and left.
Little did they know that this whole scene fell into the eyes of the two gentlemen above their heads.
-
Early in the morning, the tranquility of the inn was broken by a burst of ghostly crying and howling.
Qi Bao'er and others were having breakfast in the lobby, when the cries outside the door got louder and louder, heading towards the lobby.
A soldier hurriedly came over and said, "Your Majesty the Chief Envoy, Your Majesty the Deputy Envoy, the General, and the magistrate of Muzhou are asking to see you. They say that something big happened last night and the disaster relief silver and grain that were put into the warehouse yesterday were stolen."
"What?" Prince Li stood up in shock.
This is the last stop, why is everything going okay all the way? Even after handing over, something happened?
Fang Qi and the others also looked solemn, looking at each other with bad expressions.
Only Qi Kangan and his daughter acted as if they heard nothing, even holding the chopsticks in their hands for a moment.
Fang Qi, who already knew them well, glanced vaguely at the father and daughter, then calmly picked up the buns and continued eating.
The princess is stable, the general is stable, and now Lieutenant General Fang is also stable. The other three lieutenants communicate silently with their eyes and continue to eat breakfast as if nothing is wrong.
In this way, it seemed that Prince Li, who had just screamed, was in a fuss and was standing there in an unexpected way.
Fortunately, Prince Li didn't notice. He was currently focused on the theft of relief money and food, and his eyes were fixed on the soldiers who came in to report.
The soldier was so stressed out by him that he was sweating profusely on his head, and his words were stuttering: "Pawn, I don't know what happened."
He just worked at the inn gate in the morning. Who knows what happened last night?
But there was no need for him to explain. As soon as he finished speaking, a fat man who had eaten well in recent years rolled in like a ball.
He was fat, but he was not slow at all. He was running and crying, "Please, sir, please make the decision." He ran to the door of the lobby with a clear goal and knelt down in the direction of Qi Bao'er's table.
"Disaster Relief Envoy, Deputy Envoy, please make the decision for me and the people of Muzhou. Tan Lei, the prefect of Mucheng, dared to lead his government servants to steal disaster relief money and food grains last night. If he hadn't gotten the information earlier,
After making preparations, it is estimated that there is not even a tael of silver left in the warehouse, nor a grain of grain left.
It can be said that Tan Lei’s move is to disregard the people of Muzhou, and his heart is to be punished, my lord."
This incident of Fat Zhizhou made Prince Li unable to deal with it.
Asking them to make the decision, but does that mean that the person has already been caught?
Thinking so, he also asked the same question.
Fat Zhizhou cried even more miserably, as if he had been wronged so much. If she was a beauty, she would at least be able to see, but she was so fat that she couldn't even open her eyes, and she was grinning.
The tears were caused by runny nose, which really... hurt my eyes.