Chapter 409 A Suffering Businessman

"The great rat, the great rat, has no food for me..."

"You people are just greedy..."

In a Jinyiwei Hundred Household House in Xiangyang County, Xiangyang Prefecture, Huguang, Lu Wenzhao threw the document in his hand into the hall, and lying under the hall were two Jinyiwei officials who had been beaten into shape.

It was dark in the yamen. Lu Xiu walked into the hall, glanced at the two people who had been beaten into shape, and then bowed to Lu Wenzhao in the hall:

"Commander, all the family property has been taken out, and the cash in the mansion, fields and shops is about thirty-nine thousand five hundred taels in total."

"Dang——"

Lu Wenzhao put down the bloody gavel in his hand, stood up and walked down the hall with his hands behind his back, squinting at the two of them and saying:

"One hundred and twenty-seven people, nearly forty thousand taels of silver, you are quite greedy..."

After that, he looked forward and walked away. At the same time, when he missed Lu Xiu, he reminded:

"Dispatched to Nanzhou..."

"I humbly accept my order." Lu Xiu smiled contemptuously, looked at the two people on the ground, turned around, and followed Lu Wenzhao out of the Baihu Office.

After the two of them walked out of the Yamen and got into the carriage, Shen Lian and Lu Xian rushed back shortly after.

In this narrow alley, the two of them got on the carriage one after another, and then the Jin Yiwei who was in charge of driving shook the reins of the horse and drove the carriage away from the place.

The two got into the car and bowed in front of Lu Wenzhao:

"The Xiangyang County Government Office, the Royal Horse Supervisor, and the Imperial Store have all been thoroughly investigated. There are 297 people involved in the case. These people have been officials for nine years. They resold official warehouses of rice and wheat for more than 60,000 shi, and overcharged the people's taxes by more than 30,000 taels. ."

"Send the evidence of the crime to the Metropolitan Procuratorate and the Ministry of Punishment..." Lu Wenzhao said unhurriedly, and at this moment the carriage also left the civilian alley and headed out of the city.

Their next target was other counties in Xiangyang Prefecture. When the carriage drove out of Xiangyang County, it revealed a bustling construction site scene.

Stopping in front of the construction site, Lu Wenzhao and the others got out of the carriage, and then a guard in brocade came up from the base of the city wall leading a horse.

The four of them rested on the spot for a while, and then saw more than a dozen Jinyi guards coming from the city on horseback.

It seemed that everyone had not arrived yet, so Lu Wenzhao looked at the busy construction site next to him, looking at the civilian workers wearing straw hats and working shirtless in the hot summer and said:

"How many hungry people have been recruited by Huguang as husbandmen?"

"Fifty-seven million people, I just don't know if there are exactly that many." Shen Lian looked at the construction site and shook his head.

Lu Xiu looked at the appearance of the two of them and couldn't help but say:

"We have been providing disaster relief for three years. Wherever there is corruption and where there is money to be made, these corrupt officials know better than us. They reported 570,000 yuan, but maybe only 400,000 yuan."

"These days, the victims have become tools for them to make money." Lu Xian also spoke up, but the words of the three of them were particularly harsh in Lu Wenzhao's ears.

He knew how much pressure Sun Chuanting had been under in recent years.

He, Lu Wenzhao, only supervised the Jinyi Guards, the Imperial Store, and the Royal Horse Prison. He also investigated the embezzlement of corrupt officials in various places, but he was reminded over and over again by some people, and impeached over and over again.

God knows what Sun Chuanting endured as he investigated cases and dealt with people.

"We have inspected so many provinces, arrested more than 40,000 people, and exiled nearly 400,000 people. I don't know how long we can hold on. I don't know whether the corrupt officials who were investigated have been investigated by the Metropolitan Procuratorate and whether they have been sentenced. ."

"alright……"

Lu Xian was dissatisfied and continued to vent his emotions. Lu Wenzhao could only stop him, then turned his attention to the victims and said:

"After the things are handed over, it is their business whether to check them or not. If they don't check them, Your Highness will check them. We don't have to worry about this."

"Let's go..."

After saying that, Lu Wenzhao turned around, walked to the horse, and got on the horse in one go.

Without waiting for the Jin Yiwei to assemble, he took the lead in setting off with more than 30 cavalry.

Under the flying dust, only the peasants working under the bright sun were reporting the injustice of the world, and the hammers in their hands were hammering away at the stubborn hard soil...

"Since the beginning of the new year, the Metropolitan Procuratorate has investigated and punished a total of 2,700 local officials, including 32 officials of the fifth rank or above of the Chief Secretary level, 329 officials of the seventh rank or above at the prefecture and county level, and the rest

They are all eighth- and ninth-grade officials."

“The Ministry of Punishments seized more than 4,900 residences, more than 729,000 acres of farmland, more than 1,300 shops, more than 725,000 taels of gold, silver and jewels, and more than 320,000 stones of rice and wheat.

…”

"The local officials have implemented a clean government, and everyone in the local area applauds. It's really..."

"okay!"

In the Changchun Hall of Prince Qi's Palace in Dading Palace of Yanshan County, Chengde responded respectfully, but before he could finish speaking, he was stopped by Zhu Youjian.

Zhu Youjian was eating, and he who asked to stop rinsed his mouth with tribute tea afterwards. Chengde stood upright, but his eyes were on his nose, and his nose was on his heart, quietly waiting for Zhu Youjian's instructions.

"How many officials were involved in the case reported by Jinyi Guardian?"

Putting down the tribute tea, he spit out the tea he was gargling in his mouth and put it into the copper basin in the hand of the palace maid next to him. Zhu Youjian wiped his mouth before looking at the food on the table, and spoke to Chengde without looking back.

But before Chengde could answer, Zhu Youjian said again:

"If I remember correctly, there are four officials of the third rank, seventeen officials of the fourth rank, 69 officials of the fifth rank, and two hundred officials of the sixth rank..."

Zhu Youjian told the ranks and number of officials involved in the case reported by Lu Wenzhao one by one. Chengde listened quietly during the process, and finally Zhu Youjian said:

"The total number of these people is 6,437, right? How come there are only 2,700 people here at the Metropolitan Procuratorate?"

"Are you trying to protect me? Or are the people and officials below protecting you?"

Zhu Youjian's words came out, but Chengde was not flustered or anxious. Instead, he bowed and bowed in return with a calm expression, and then replied in a calm tone:

"The students did not protect themselves. As for why there are only such a few people, it is because the inspection censors in some places have not investigated the case clearly. The Metropolitan Procuratorate cannot let any corrupt official go, but it cannot slander any official..."

Chengde's words were neither humble nor arrogant, and there seemed to be nothing wrong with him on the surface, but there was something behind his words that he wanted to express.

He answered Zhu Youjian as a "student" and said that he did not protect him, but he avoided Zhu Youjian's question about "officials protecting each other".

This meaning is obvious. He is telling Zhu Youjian that he is serious about handling the case, but it is hard to say whether the people below take it seriously, and the phenomenon of officials protecting each other also exists.

These are three points, and the fourth point is that he said that the local inspection censor has not investigated the case clearly.

He was wrong about this, because the local governor had already reported the case, which meant that there was nothing wrong with the local officials and it was the Jin Yiwei who made the wrong investigation.

Of the more than 6,400 corrupt officials, only 2,700 were identified, and the remaining 3,700 were fine. Who believes this?

In this situation, officials can only protect each other. Cheng De said that the cases that have been reported have not been investigated clearly, which means that he does not approve of the inspection censor who investigated these cases, and he will continue to investigate.

In general, Cheng De did not cause any trouble for Zhu Youjian, but put all the responsibilities and pressure on his shoulders.

These words were very pleasant to the ears. Even after Zhu Youjian heard it, he couldn't help but put away his temper and said calmly:

"The Metropolitan Procuratorate is currently under the control of the police. Sometimes the Metropolitan Procuratorate not only needs to conduct external investigations, but also needs to conduct self-examinations."

"What should I do..."

"The student knows clearly." Cheng De rushed to answer, but when Zhu Youjian saw this, he felt even more satisfied and could only ask:

"How did the Ministry of Punishment determine the sentences for the two thousand, seven hundred people who have been convicted? How many homes were confiscated?"

Faced with the inquiry, Chengde responded respectfully:

"One hundred and twenty-seven people who committed serious crimes were beheaded, and all the remaining officials and more than 36,000 family members involved were sent to Nanzhou."

"As for the results of the house raid, the Ministry of Punishments reported that there were more than 16,400 taels of gold, more than 1,329,000 taels of silver, 300,000 taels of silver from various residences, shops, antiques, calligraphy and paintings, and 20,000 taels of rice and wheat.

More than 1.6 million stones and more than 970,000 acres of farmland."

"The Ministry of Punishment has ordered people to escort gold, silver, antiques, calligraphy and paintings northward, rice and wheat are deposited in the local official warehouse, the fields are temporarily given to the former tenants for farming, and the mansion and shops are handed over to the Royal Horse Supervisor's Yaxing for sale."

Chengde told everything about what the Ministry of Punishment had done. Zhu You was very satisfied after hearing it, and asked by the way:

"What do you think of Zhou Yanru's position?"

"Zhou Shangshu behaved in an orderly manner and handled the case appropriately. The students thought there was nothing wrong." Cheng De did not resent Zhou Yanru and others for taking away his credit, at least he did not behave like this in front of Zhu Youjian.

Zhu Youjian looked at his mature behavior and couldn't help but nodded in his heart, but he said:

"Xu Guangqi, Minister of the Ministry of Industry, completed the management of the Yellow River six days ago and requested the imperial court to become an official."

"Long Live has approved his appointment, and I am going to let Wen Tiren serve as Minister of the Ministry of Industry. What do you think?"

Xu Guangqi proposed to become an official, which meant that another member of the Donglin Party was about to withdraw from the court, but this time no one blamed Xu Guangqi.

After all, although Xu Guangqi was the minister of the Ministry of Industry before, he was busy working on the front line. In addition, he was already sixty-eight years old, and he had indeed reached his old age, so there was nothing wrong with becoming an official.

The problem is that after Xu Guangqi took office, the position of minister of the Ministry of Industry became vacant.

Zhu Youjian had previously asked Bi Ziyan to take charge of the position of Minister of the Ministry of Industry, but later he was unable to take charge of it, so Zhu Youjian asked Zhou Yanru to take charge of it.

It's just that there are many things in the Ministry of Justice now, and with Xu Guangqi's appointment, the Ming Dynasty also needs a minister of the Ministry of Industry who will stay in the court for a long time.

There is no doubt that Wen Tiren is very suitable for this person, and Zhu Youjian asked Cheng De not to rub salt into his wounds, but to see the other person's attitude.

However, Chengde's attitude did not disappoint Zhu Youjian.

Faced with the news about his opponent's promotion and salary increase, Cheng Deping replied calmly:

"Students are not familiar with Wen Hanlin, but if His Highness thinks Wen Hanlin is good, then Wen Hanlin should be able to do it."

"Well..." Zhu Youjian responded. At this time, he probably felt that Chengde could be entrusted to him, so he said:
To be continued...