The wind blows in through the window, carrying the breath of the mud and sand of the Yellow River, a refreshing feeling that is not annoying.

Xu Ping was wearing a kerosene lamp in front of the window, blowing the night wind, and looking at the letters in his hand.

The letter was written by Li Yue. He had already set out from his hometown on Jiangxi Road, picked up his mother and marched towards Fangcheng County in Tangzhou, and wrote to report his safety. After ten years of hard work, he had traveled half of the world, and it was time for him to harvest the fruits.

After reading the letter and put it on the table, Xu Ping sighed at the dark night outside. A hero and three helpers, no matter how capable you have, you still need help from others to accomplish things.

During these days in Heyin County, Xu Ping truly felt the embarrassment of not having any helpers around him. His main job here was to investigate the river channel. This matter was not tolerated, and most of his energy was spent on it. Correspondingly, although he knew that the situation in this county was strange, he really had no time to investigate. Although Lu Fang could trust him, he could not do these things, and his identity was not easy for him to participate in civil affairs.

Li Shen's attitude made Xu Ping uncomfortable, so he had to let him do this, spend more time not to let him use small tricks. From the local officials step by step, the benefits were shown at this time. Most of the following small tricks Xu Ping had experienced and could not easily hide them from his eyes.

After thinking for a while, spreading the paper on the table, Xu Pingshi Ju wrote a reply to Li Wei. From the beginning, he encouraged him to be diligent in government affairs in Fangcheng County, he unknowingly wrote down his experience as a local official. The more he wrote down, the more he could not stop writing. He wrote down all the things he wanted to do but couldn't take time to do in the letter.

While writing, I remembered what happened in Heyin County. I somehow thought of a famous peasant movement inspection report I read in my previous life. I remembered how to analyze the situation of local households, not mention class, but how to carefully analyze the proportion of the main households, the fifth-class households, who rely on whom to support them, and what their living conditions were, and wrote them into the letter little by little. I told Li Wu that after mastering these materials, I could understand the local approximation. Whether it is the local tyrants or the county clerks, they could no longer deceive him.

Mastering local situations and doing detailed investigations and research are the most important things that new officials should do when they take office. Although there is no such name in this era, many people still do similar things. Some capable officials still hold their troops after they take office, and wait until they understand the local situation clearly, and then suddenly take action to shock the officials and people under their jurisdiction in one fell swoop.

Unfortunately, most local officials are not trying to be good officials to take office, nor do they want to manage the local government well and promote their political achievements, but they have other ideas. This is the case in today's era, the same is true in previous dynasties, and the same will be true in future dynasties. Most people know how to be good officials, but few people want to do it.

"Dong, dong, dong" Suddenly, there was a knock on the door outside the door, neither hurry nor slow down.

Xu Ping put down his pen and was confused. There were people from the bridge road army guarding the door at the backyard of the Sanhuang Temple. It was impossible for someone to come in silently. If you knock on the door in the middle of the night, you must be the person living in the temple.

Who will it be?

Standing up, Xu Ping asked in a deep voice: "Who is knocking on the door outside?"

"Li Shen, the lower official, ask for advice and treat the system if you have any questions."

Thinking of Li Shen's attitude during the day, Xu Ping sat back in his seat and said in a deep voice: "The door is not locked, come in."

With the sound of the door opening, Li Shen's figure entered the room and bowed to Xu Ping: "Disturbate and wait for a break, forgive me for your crime!"

Xu Ping nodded: "It's still early, so it's okay. Come and talk about something. There is a cool breeze at night. It just so happens that the door should not be closed except for the heat during the day. Just keep it open."

Li Shen Yingnuo opened the door behind him and stood in front of Xu Ping.

Xu Ping pointed to the chair next to him and said, "Sit down and talk slowly if you have something to do, there is nothing to be reserved."

Li Chan Xie and sat down on the chair at the bottom.

After a while of silence, Li Shen said: "The officials came to see each other late at night, but for what they were talking about during the day."

"Oh, what did you remember again, why not say it."

Li Chan had a serious expression and pondered for a while before saying, "I'm right at the mercy, and the officials also know that it's basically impossible for a big man like Jiang Dayou to have no criminal offense at all. However, I really can't touch him now. No matter what, I'll talk about it after autumn."

"Oh, what's the reason, let's hear it."

"This year, several counties along the Yellow River have a severe drought. This disaster is strange. However, there are not many disasters around Heyin, but the disaster is particularly severe. When you are in the third department, you naturally know that it is difficult for local officials to deal with such disasters. It is not a major disaster to report to the court, and there will be no disaster relief grain and rice, but it is difficult to support it all by local governments. Mengzhou is not a wealthy place. There is not much grain and rice stored in the warehouse. Other money and grain are all

It is difficult to embezzle if there are any use. When Xiaguan was the magistrate of Yanshan, he also encountered a natural disaster. He mobilized local wealthy families to send grain and sent chaff to the poor, so he barely crossed. This path in Mengzhou was not feasible. For example, in Heyin County, there were only two wealthy families. Tong Qilang was a customer, and there were many reasons not to save the natural disaster. The remaining Jiang Dayou family was about to use the disaster to deal with the tenants in his family, but he refused to take out the grain and rice. Xiaguan had no choice but to "

"What's the matter? Could it be that you still borrowed food from Jiang Dayou's family?"

"That's not. The officials used the state's money-saving food. When Qinghuang was not accepted, they lent it to the people of Heyin County and forced Jiang Dayou to protect his family. Now that the households are fleeing, the debt repayment after the autumn falls on the Jiang family. If he is dealt with now, the officials really don't know what to do after the autumn? It's money-saving food. When the transshipment envoy finds Mengzhou, how can I explain it? The interests between these will naturally be clear in my heart."

After hearing this, Xu Ping narrowed his eyes slightly and analyzed in his heart that Li Shen's words were indeed true and false.

Changping was inherited from the Tang Dynasty. In the harvest year, rice prices were harvested at a price slightly higher than the market. In the disaster year, grain was short of food and was sold at a price lower than the market to stabilize the price of grain, so it was called Changping. In terms of nature, the national protection price of Xu Ping in his previous life was also a variant of Changping.

This is naturally a moral policy, but because it is under the jurisdiction of local officials and does not have a strict management charter, the management level is uneven in various places. When one official leaves another, the officials who are good at accumulating work hard to fill the warehouse with all means. It is easy for the next official to squander it, but it is difficult to accumulate it again. Over time, the grain in this warehouse becomes less and less. In addition, in recent years, some places occasionally use less money and grain to use less soldiers and have been misappropriated from Changping Warehouse. In many places, Changping Warehouse became an empty warehouse, and it can no longer play the role it originally gave to it when it was established.

If the local officials do not have this large item of money and grain in their hands, it will be difficult for them to do anything major in the local area. Although there are military funds in the state and there are a lot of money and grain saved in it, it belongs to the central government and the third department, which is called money-saving goods. With the strength of the third department, any local official can't get rid of these things without the approval of the third department.

Li Shen's meaning was very clear. Because of disaster relief, there was no surplus grain in the Changping warehouse that he could use, so he embezzled the money-saving goods belonging to the Sansi and lent them to the affected people. If he wanted not to be investigated by the Sansi, he had to fill the vacancy before the transshipment commander inspected Mengzhou to check the accounts. Otherwise, the Sansi would not have the patience to listen to his magistrate's statement.

This principle makes sense. As for letting Jiang Dayou family protect it, it is inevitable. Only his family in the county has the ability to repay debts. Without him, it is impossible to collect it if it is borrowed. And the Jiang family sent people out to pursue and flee, so they had a reason to not recover the people. The Jiang family wanted to help them pay back the debt.

Opening his eyes, Xu Ping asked Li Chan: "Official loans are not a good thing. What is your name?"

Li Shen smiled bitterly and said, "Where is the name? Because it was borrowed when the Qinghuang was not accepted, and the Qinghuo in the private households was used as collateral, so the officials called Qinghuo Loan. It was originally a good thing for the private households, but this year was different from the past. After the disaster, the green seedlings in the field turned into nothing, and they must not be collected and could only be settled on the insured households."

"Qingmiaodai? Qingmiaodai! Isn't this the first year?"

"There is no way to work in Mengzhou. It is close to the Yellow River. There are floods almost every year. Once there is no flood, the drought will be severe. There are disasters every year, so I have to use this method to accumulate money and food for disaster relief."

Xu Ping closed his eyes and thought about what Li Shen said. If he remembered correctly, isn’t this the “Qingmiao Method” in Wang Anshi’s reforms he learned in his previous life? Although he knew that the “Qingmiao Method” was not thought of by Wang Anshi, but was summarized from the actual actions of previous officials, he did not expect that the first person he did was Li Shen, the Mengzhou Tongzhe, who was in front of him.

Although the general saying is that the "Qingmiao Law" touched the usury interests of the major landlords and bureaucrats, and was eventually destroyed by their opposition, Xu Ping, who had lived in the countryside in his previous life, knew that it was not just that.

The cost of micro-loans, especially for decentralized farmers, is extremely high. In fact, not to mention that they are targeting farmers one by one, they are not willing to lend to small businesses and banks, because these loans are too expensive compared to large customers, and they are very good at losing money.

"Qingmiaodai? I ask you, how much interest do you charge for people to pay back the money and grain in the autumn?"

"The officials dare not violate the law and discipline, and only charge 20% of them."

"Twenty percent?" Xu Ping smiled and shook his head.

Li Shen felt nervous and asked hurriedly: "Does the interest rate be too high when waiting for control?"

"No." Xu Ping just shook his head.

20%? In his previous life, rural micro-loans with an annual profit of 30% could not be continued. In this era, 20% of the interest rate must be a loss, and of course the government will not lose money, so we have to find insurance households and Jiang Dayou. In history, as soon as the "Qing Miao Law" was promoted nationwide, the interest rate immediately doubled to 40%. In this way, the households had to be stripped of the law to ensure that the implementation of this law would bring positive returns. Is it a joke that the "Qing Miao Loan" with 20% interest? Li Shen is now in a difficult situation.

This is not a human problem, but in this era, the cost of small loans in rural areas is there. These officials do not have the concept of cost accounting, so they should naturally suffer this loss. In this era, officials like to make decisions and say it is very clear, but in fact it doesn't work. To be continued.
Chapter completed!