The distant shadows in the high sky are gone in the blue sky, and the white sails are waving in the Jishui River.
Seeing that everything went well, the pavilion chief Sun Xun was very happy.
He sat on the horse on the bow of the boat, humming an unknown Qingzhou tune, slapping his thighs and beating time.
He waved his hand and motioned for Zhang Chong to come closer.
Zhang Chong took a few steps and stood respectfully aside with his hands lowered, listening to the teachings of Chief Sun Ting.
"Second son, I've known you since I was little, and you're just like my nephew. When I saw you volunteering to take the lead yesterday, I felt that you could be successful and do things in the future.
But just having the heart to do things without knowing the joints of doing things is also a recipe for disaster.
As an uncle, I will tell you about the scenery and customs of our Jishui area, so that you can know the pros and cons when you go out to explore in the future.
We will arrive at Zhu'a in the afternoon, and I will first tell you about Zhu'a's favor.
There are three wealthy families in Zhu'a, namely the Zhang family, the Chen family, and the Gao family. Let's talk about the Chen family and the Gao family first. They are all military heroes of this dynasty.
The Gao family was a hero during the reign of Emperor Taizu of the former Han Dynasty and was granted a title in Zhu'a. Although they committed crimes and were expelled from the country within two generations, they were still a powerful family in Zhu'a.
The same goes for the Chen family. This family was a military marquis during the Guangwu Zhongxing. They were originally Nanyang County officials during the New Dynasty. Later, they went to Hebei to join Guangwu and became the Twenty-eight Yuntai Generals.
Later, Zhu'a was assigned to our Jinan Kingdom, and the Chen family was transferred to another place, but a branch of Zhu'a was also left here.
In addition, the children of their family are still practicing crossbows and martial arts are prevalent, so I wish you that the Chen family is still a powerful one.
But no matter how grand these two are, they are nothing compared to the first one.
This Zhu A Zhang family should be called Zhu A Hou to be precise, and he was granted the title during the Xiaoshun period.
In terms of wealth, it has only been sixty years old, and it is not comparable to the latter two. But in terms of power, it has to be this one.
Why?
Just because this family is of the eunuch lineage and one of the nineteen princes who supported Emperor Shun.
At that time, the Yan family, a foreign relative, controlled the government and established a new emperor.
At that time, there was a man named Zhang Xian in the Zhang family who was serving as a small yellow gatekeeper in the palace. He and eighteen other eunuchs swore an oath under the bell tower to support the then deposed prince.
It turned out to be true.
Zhang Xian was directly granted the title of Marquis of Zhu'a, with a settlement of 4,000 households. You must know that Zhu'a is a small county, with less than 10,000 households.
Among them, the taxes of 4,000 households belong exclusively to the Zhang family, which shows that Zhu A basically belongs to the Zhang family.
Although Zhang Xian later fell out with the eunuch Cao Jie who succeeded him, his settlement was reduced to 3,000 households.
But in Zhu'a, you still have to look at the Zhang family.
The three families are united here, and the rich people in the village also support the three families, so the county chiefs are not looked down upon by them.
There was a time when Zhu Achanglai took office. He asked his subordinates how powerful I was.
The assistant mentioned these three families.
Who would have known that Zhu Achang would be angry and say that these are some rotten fish and shrimps? The powerful ones I am talking about are the relatives of Fan, Yin, Ma, and Liang.
After saying that, he drove away the assistant officials.
But guess what, later on when Zhu Achang visited the county, he was stabbed to death on the road and his head was placed at the intersection.
From then on, no one who took office later did not show respect to these three families.
This is the favor of Zhu'a. Just as officials need to know the favor of the local people, we who transport water must also know it. Otherwise, if we offend randomly, we will die without knowing how.
As you have just seen, the old Chiang Kai-shek who holds the pole is bald. Despite his plain appearance, he seems to have no martial arts skills. He seems to be an ordinary person.
But you must know that this man is a cruel and ruthless desperado, and he has countless murders in his hands.
He wasn't like this before, but then he was clamped for a trivial matter, and then he became like that.
But if a big thief like this is on the run, he will be taken in if the Zhang family says he will take him in. If he dares to offend him, he will be tortured at night.
But there are advantages to this. I hope that with a family like this, we can walk on the water, have a safe mind, and know who to look for in case of trouble.
I'm just afraid of chaos, because if it gets disrupted, this business won't be able to continue."
"Cough cough~ cough cough"
After all, it was because of his age that the river wind in February was still biting. By the time Sun Xun finished speaking, he was already feeling a bit overwhelmed.
He wanted to say more, but his body didn't allow it, so he ordered Zhang Chong to keep an eye on him, and then he was helped into the warehouse by his handsome disciples.
Watching Sun Xun leave, my little dad came up to him.
He also said to Zhang Chong:
"Second son, Lao Sun is okay with you. I wish I had some familiar friends, and it's exactly what Lao Sun said.
Zhang's family is the local emperor in this area. Let alone ordinary people, even this two thousand stone family cannot be offended.
Not because of the weight of the title, but because of their status as eunuchs.
As someone who grew up in the countryside, he may not know how heavy the imperial officer is.
They seem to be only a few dozen people in one generation, but from generation to generation, the number of party members, relatives, friends and guests who rely on them may be hundreds of thousands. These people are all over the government and the public, looking for people and money.
In the past, the Qingliu Party members could not defeat these people. Later, when these people suffered the consequences of the Party's imprisonment, the power of these eunuchs became even greater."
Zhang Chong was surprised by what he said.
Because the knowledge involved here is definitely not something that a landless refugee can have.
He knew that his little dad had gone out to work a long time ago, but he never knew what he was doing outside. Looking at it now, his little dad probably had a story.
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The water transport fleet arrived at Zhua in the afternoon.
They arrived at a pier in Jishui called Chaoyang Ferry.
When they arrived here, there were already five 100-stone cannons parked on the pier. At this time, slaves, under the command of the warehouse officials, began to load the ships with grain.
There are special warehousemen on the dock who are here to count the quantity of goods shipped.
Their responsibility is to let Chief Cancao know the data on the rice sent to Xingyang every year, so as to cope with the annual budget.
But in fact, these real data will never be known to Shangguan.
These warehouse officials will keep two records. One contains the real data, but is only kept for internal records, and the other is for the Cao officials who lead the Cao team.
Only one seal will be stamped on this official book, and the specific number will be filled in by the Cao officials based on the specific amount of rice on board when they arrive at Aocang.
Why do you do that?
If you ask a warehouse official like this, he will definitely teach you in the tone of an old official:
"This water transport is subject to losses. The millet and beans eaten by the porters on the ship are all on the ship, and when they arrive at the place, the Aocang officials have to inspect them, because they will find that the millet is too old or too damp, so they will
Let them take it to dry.
After going back and forth, the amount of corn at the time of departure and the actual amount of corn arrived were wrong.
At this time, if you give the official list of the statistics at the time of departure to Ao Cang to be stamped, they will not recognize it. They will stamp it based on the actual arrival of corn in the warehouse.
In this case, the magistrate would have to go back one more time, which would waste time.
Therefore, in actual government affairs, we give the magistrates a blank seal and let them go to Aocang and then actually write it."
If you are a new official, you may be deceived by the words of this old official. You really think that this is because of actual implementation, but you don't know that this is all to facilitate the river and corruption up and down.
At this time, the dock was full of ships, and the fleet could only anchor in the center of the river.
Afterwards, five or six storekeepers and their assistants came closer with oars and oars. They wanted to inspect the fleet's cargo and identity symbols.
Just when everyone was putting down ropes and preparing to pull them onto the boat.
There was a sound of fighting on the dock, followed by flames shooting into the sky.
It turned out that the hayyard on the dock was set on fire.
Duman and Zhang Dan also went on the deck at this moment.
They had united around Zhang Chong since they boarded the boat. They had been rowing below and only came up when they heard the call from above to check the talisman festival.
As soon as they came up, they saw the pier with flames blazing into the sky. The concubines who were weaving rice figurines by the forage yard had already ran away crying and screaming, but most of them were killed by a group of country soldiers.
Under the firelight was a pile of humanoid corpses. They were called humanoids because these concubines were tortured by a miserable life. They were all like skinny monkeys and no longer looked like humans.
But because of this, those country soldiers were even more brutal in their killing.
They chopped the concubine's body into pieces, cutting off her hands, heads and feet, and some even had a sword stuck in her severed head.
After killing the concubines, they then killed the warehouse officials.
The closest person was the warehouse clerk who was recording the records, and he was beheaded immediately.
There was a country soldier who was wielding a gun. He hung the warehouseman's head on the gun and kept shouting wildly.
Panic spread like a tide, and the entire dock was in chaos.
The porters and porters ran to the canal like crazy, and the boatmen on the boat were also panicked. They subconsciously wanted to push the boat away.
But when I heard someone shouting below, I stopped hesitantly.
Several fellow men who were close to him immediately seized this opportunity and climbed up along the cable.
But after climbing a few times, their legs were grabbed by someone behind them, and they fell into Jishui together.
Everyone was going crazy. They had no idea why the country soldiers who were used as guards started killing people like crazy.
The boatman on the boat didn't care about the people on the shore. Seeing that the boatmen were still hesitating, he drew his sword and pointed at them to punt the boat.
But the boat was stretched too fast and collided with the boat next to it.
One of the five boats overturned directly, and everyone on the boat was covered under the water.
At this time, the water transport fleet in the middle of the river saw the soldiers killing people and robbing ships, so they all weighed anchor and tried to escape.
But at this moment, a group of people came out of the pavilion not far from the pier.
They were carrying a flag with the word "Chen" and numbered about twenty people. They were led by a knight on horseback and rushed over.
The country soldiers who were still killing people randomly had no formation at all. When they encountered this organized team, they were immediately killed and dispersed.
A rustic soldier with disheveled hair waved his sword wildly, shouting at the top of his lungs.
But the knight on horseback took out a crossbow from his saddle bag, cocked the arrow, and hit the soldier's forehead with one shot.
The soldier looked into the distance and opened his mouth to say something, but seven or eight knives came down on him and reduced him to a pulp.
The chaos started suddenly and was quickly resolved.
Except for those who were hacked to death, the rest of the group of country soldiers were dragged to the knights on horseback.
The warrior looked down from a high position and asked:
"Why the rebellion?"
When a soldier whose face was covered with blood and whose right hand was cut off heard this, he spat blood and shouted:
"That bastard warehouse officer took our wages and rice to load the ships, leaving us with Chensu that even dogs can't eat. The rest of my grandfather's family has nothing to eat. If you don't kill him, who will he kill?"
The warrior immediately sneered:
"I gave you all the new millet, so who will eat the old millet?"
After saying that, without even looking a second time, he waved his hand to have the random soldiers dragged down and chopped down.
Suddenly, by the Jishui River, heads were billowing and a fishy smell filled the air.