Chapter 128 The temple and the rivers and lakes are both romantic
Chu Zhenggao sat on the magnificent dragon chair, looking away from Su Wang, and then looked at the vast rivers and mountains of his Chu family outside the Jinluan Palace.
"Since Prime Minister Su has said this, let's see if the bellies of those corrupt officials can be filled after emptying the entire Dachu treasury! Tomorrow, all eight million dans of grain prepared for disaster relief will be released.
Beijing!"
Chu Zheng clenched his fist tightly. It seemed that he really hated those corrupt officials in his heart!
"Not a single grain left! Retreat from the court!"
"Long live my emperor! Long live!"
As all the ministers knelt down to see each other off, Chu Zheng waved his sleeves and angrily stepped down from the throne and strode away.
As each of the humerus ministers of Da Chu left in silence and with gloomy faces, Lu Xiangrui fell alone at the back of the team, looking dejected.
Outside the Jinluan Hall, Lu Xiangrui looked at the ninety-nine steps under his feet in a daze. He himself did not expect why the academy he wanted to build would become like this.
"Oh! I'm still thinking about that crappy academy of yours! In my opinion, it's too early to get old, why are you still messing around? I thought you could do something great! But you don't even look at what the academy teaches.
What kind of things are they, and they are not all beasts that can only bring disaster to the country and the people!"
Hearing the familiar voice of the visitor, Lu Xiangrui opened his mouth and wanted to refute a few words, but in the end he realized that there seemed to be nothing to refute in these words.
The visitor stepped forward and stood side by side with Lu Xiangrui. Their eyes looked beyond the Donghua Gate of the Imperial Palace and beyond the gate of the capital to an unknown place.
After a long silence, Lu Xiangrui spoke dejectedly, with a deep sense of loneliness in his tone. He seemed to be the only one who could think of this reason for his reading skills.
"No matter what, reading is always right."
"read?"
The person who came here did not accept this trick of his, and his tone of voice was somewhat frivolous and full of ridicule.
"Do you think there are still a few decent scholars in the world? Or do you think that those scholars, like you, value a scholar's etiquette, justice, wisdom, and trustworthiness more important than life? But you have to know that there are thousands of scholars in the world.
Lu Xiangrui like you is the only one here! Others can't live in a broken house like you for the rest of their lives! Others don't take your Confucian classics and sage principles seriously at all!"
After the visitor finished speaking, he patted Lu Xiangrui on the shoulder.
"I'm not saying that your idea is wrong, but if you take too long a step, you will stumble sooner or later. Study, study! But it's not like having an academy allows people who want to study to study. Instead of pestering the emperor all day long to study,
Academy, you might as well think about it clearly first, what exactly do you mean by a scholar’s study?”
After saying this, the man left. Looking at the man slowly leaving, Lu Xiangrui himself did not expect that it would be Cheng Yijie who came to say these words to him. However, just the word "reading" was really important.
He needed to think about it carefully.
The next day, as an imperial edict from Chu Zheng was passed down, a steady stream of carriages began to transport grain from the treasury granary in the southern suburbs of the capital, and then dispersed throughout the world.
According to Chu Zheng's decree, the 8 million disaster relief grains that were originally to be distributed in batches to various places were all shipped out of the capital at once, but not a single grain of rice was left behind.
But if this batch of grain still doesn't fall into the people's mouths, then Dachu will never be able to take out any grain of grain again.
…
Lingzhou Wanshan County, the county seat and county government.
"Quick, quick! Transport all these grains to the warehouse first, don't rush to distribute them, wait until I go to discuss with Mr. Liu and then make a plan!"
Master Chang Huan saw with his own eyes that the relief grains distributed by the imperial court had been put into the warehouse before he left with peace of mind and turned to go to the county governor Liu Shen to report.
"Hey, Mr. Liu, it seems that there is still a lot of food in the imperial court! According to my past experience, although this first batch of disaster relief food will come very quickly, it will never be that much. But this time in Zhoucheng
They directly allocated 200,000 dans of grain to us in Wanshan County. This was the result of layers of exploitation by the adults in Beijing and Zhoucheng. You see..."
Chang Huan made his judgment based on previous disaster experience, but he didn't know that this time the situation was different from the previous ones.
Food is not distributed in batches. It is in Beijing and Zhoucheng.
All the senior officials had their own secret sources of information, and they all knew that Chu Zheng had just finished his anger in the capital, so no one dared to touch this batch of grain.
And these 200,000 tons of grain will be the only batch of disaster relief grain in Wanshan County in the next six months.
"Master, shall we withhold 30% of the food according to the previous ratio?"
After tasting the sweetness last time, Liu Shenzhen found that no one would come down to investigate, including the six doors that used to be frightening, and there was no movement, so he became bolder.
"Thirty percent? Sir, I'm not telling you that in two months at most, officials from all over the country will reach out to the court for food. Then we will just follow them and shout! We are not afraid of not being able to get food. We have eleven people in Wanshan County
It is enough to distribute 10,000 dans of grain and 10,000 dans of chaff to each county, and the rest is all ours!"
"This is...good!"
Liu Shenchun thought to himself whether this was too cruel, but the words changed their taste again. Thinking of those white coins turned from grain, who could not be moved?
In this way, the eight million burdens of disaster relief grain distributed by the Chu government were carefully processed by various counties and counties, and not a single bit was left in half a month.
On the first day after receiving the food, I cooked a pot of rice porridge for the victims, but on the second day it was half mixed with bran. After half a month, there was no trace of the rice and everything was just bran.
It is a strange thing to say that in this year of drought and famine, the first thing that grain stores and major commercial houses sold out was chaff for livestock instead of rice for humans!
…
Taopu County, South China County, Bianzhou.
Taopu County is located in the south, so the grain output is relatively large. Even now, some farmers still have surplus grain secretly left in their homes without knowing where it is hidden.
Although these people are ignorant, they become extremely smart when it comes to food. Now there is obviously food from the court to eat, so why should they eat their own food?
Besides, there is a lot of food given by the court. The Taopu County Yamen provides two meals a day, which are white porridge. Although it is not enough, it is more than enough for food and clothing.
If they occasionally find wild vegetables, they can sprinkle some salt on them to eat with their meals. This makes them feel that this is a meal that they can eat in times of famine!
In the county government office, Shi Linwu, who is now the top leader of Taopu County, is sitting in the lobby. His subordinates are Zhang Bozhou, the chief secretary, and Jiang Hanlin, the county captain.
Shi Linwu and Zhang Bozhou were drinking tea with relaxed expressions. Among the surrounding counties, they were the only victims in Taopu County who did not make a fuss. No wonder they still had the leisure to sit in the county government office and drink tea!
However, compared to Shi Linwu and the other two, Jiang Hanlin seemed a little restless. Not only did he not touch the tea on the table, but even the chairs seemed to be on fire, making it difficult for him to settle down. Neither did he turn left or right.
.
"Sir Jiang, what's wrong with you? It's already May, and our Taopu County is still as stable and harmonious as ever. Is there anything Mr. Jiang is dissatisfied with?"
If Su Ruyu can sincerely praise a smart person, how can Shi Linwu not understand the thoughts of this military man who only knows some martial arts?
However, he did not point it out directly, but planned to tease this boring gourd Jiang Hanlin.
County Lieutenant Jiang Hanlin saw that his deliberately scorching hot gesture had an effect and finally caught Shi County Cheng's attention, so he immediately turned to Shi Linwu and said.
"Master Shi, I'm not telling you, I've already given you some advice, asking you to replace 30% of the rice with chaff! Why don't you understand?"
Shi Linwu pretended to be surprised and said.
"Master Jiang, I changed it! Not only did I change it, I also changed 50% of the rice into bran! What? I haven't satisfied your wish yet?"
Jiang Hanlin had actually seen that Shi Linwu was playing tricks on him, but he had no choice but to let him lead him by the nose.
"Master Shi, I think you don't understand. You are pretending to be confused because you understand! I asked you to change the rice into chaff. Is that to provide food for the victims? I...sigh!"
"This... Mr. Jiang, your suggestion to replace the rice with bran is not because you are worried that the victims will not have enough food to eat? But there is still enough food now! When only 30% of the food is left, we will not mix in some bran.
Late
ah!"
The less anxious Shi Linwu was to pierce the window paper, the more anxious Jiang Hanlin was to speak unclearly, while Zhang Bozhou on the side was already smiling with a teacup in his hand.
"Master Shi, at this point I don't care about face anymore, let's make things clear! Look at other counties, they all put the extra grain in their pockets after replacing the rice with chaff.
, but what about us? Not to mention being greedy for food, we also helped ourselves a lot! What is this all about!"
After saying everything in his heart at once, Jiang Hanlin seemed to feel much better. He not only took a long breath, but also picked up the tea cup on the table and drank it in one gulp.
But Shi Linwu and Zhang Boxu looked at each other and laughed. There was little fun in the small town, and for the two of them, teasing Jiang Hanlin in their free time was one of the few fun they had.
After laughing, Shi Linwu patted Jiang Hanlin on the shoulder.
"Okay, okay, I won't tease you anymore. Do you think that batch of food is easy to get? They released all the relief food at once. That is the result of the emperor being angry. If we don't show our tricks now,
At one point, once the disaster is over, it’s time to move our heads!”
Jiang Hanlin was still unconvinced after hearing Shi Linwu's words, and angrily slapped his hand off his shoulder.
"Just brag. How many places in the country are not greedy? We are the only ones in Taopu County. Officials from several counties around here are laughing at us. People in Taopu County don't know how to be officials.
, they didn’t dare to be greedy even though they could easily get the money. They were all greedy, but they didn’t see anyone from above coming to trouble them! What are we afraid of!”
"Hey... calm down, Mr. Jiang, calm down. If you believe me, don't bother with that batch of grain. That thing will definitely be a hot potato in the end!"
"snort!"
Jiang Hanlin only knew that his pocket had not increased, but had shrunk a lot, so he couldn't listen to Shi Linwu's consolation. He turned his head to the side in anger.
Shi Linwu happened to be a good-tempered man. Seeing that he was still sulking alone, he went around to the other side of him and continued talking.
"Okay, okay! Let's not talk about the court's investigation. Even in the end, the court really has so much food that there is no place to put it. It really doesn't care about anything and allows the officials below to commit corruption. Let me ask you
One word!"
Shi Linwu slowly brought his mouth to Jiang Hanlin's ear.
"Can you feel at ease when you eat the food used for disaster relief?"
Hearing Shi Linwu's words, especially the tough men in the army like Jiang Hanlin, they lowered their heads in shame and even spoke in a lower voice.
It’s not that he doesn’t understand some things. Rather than saying he cares about the batch of grain, it’s better to say he wants to compete with his colleagues in several surrounding counties!
"Actually, it's not that I really care about the one or two thousand tons of grain, it's just that... just seeing everyone being greedy makes me feel itchy in my heart. If you say there's too much grain, even my family can't finish it.
Also, my mother-in-law doesn’t like me always taking things from the government at home. I just like to be competitive. I, Chiang Kai-shek, want to have a share of what others have!"
"Hahaha!"
Seeing Jiang Hanlin acting coyly like a little lady, Shi Linwu and Zhang Boxu laughed again.
"Jiang Hanlin, you don't want to think like this. Although we are scolded as idiots by the officials around us, the people of Taopu County don't praise us for our integrity! They have even forgotten the money we embezzled in the past."
After Zhang Bozhou smiled, he comforted Jiang Hanlin. Since everyone acted like a little lady admitting her mistake, he couldn't hold on to the 'little lady''s pigtails too much.
After Zhang Boxi finished speaking, Shi Linwu took over his words and continued.
"That's the truth! Although we are greedy, it was in peacetime. At that time, everyone could at least have enough to eat. But if we still reach out to be greedy under the current situation, it would be too much.
It’s worse.”
Shi Linwu stood up from his seat and took one last look at Zhang Bozhou and Jiang Hanlin before walking out of the county office.
"Remember, we can be called corrupt officials by the people, but we can never be called dog officials by the people! There is no reason why we should be dogs instead of being good people!"