Full text, no ads, Chapter 25: Initial investigation of Qi County
The so-called "Jiejie Inspection" is actually an imperial minister, but the term is different. He represents the emperor to supervise a party, and he is also a censor, with more power than the sky. Therefore, when Yang Yuanqing set out from Zhuojun, he visited the counties of Hebei, Yanzhou, and Qingzhou. County officials were panicked. Full text without ads
Things in the officialdom are never white and black, but more gray. No one is really clean and spotless. Even if some officials themselves are not greedy or greedy, their family members and relatives may not be willing to be poor. question.
Therefore, when the news came out that Yang Yuanqing, the censor who had overthrown Zhang Yunyi, the governor of Jiangdu, in a ruthless way and was ordered to supervise, the officials in all counties and counties were very nervous, but the degree of nervousness was different. The gray one was whiter, mainly considering the reception issue, and the gray one was whiter. For those who are darker, it is as if a disaster is about to happen. Some spend the night revising their accounts, some discuss bribes, some plan to send gifts, and even worse, they start packing their things and prepare to abandon their official positions and run away.
The three prefectures of Hebei, Yan, and Qing that Yang Yuanqing inspected were not administrative divisions, but supervisory divisions. Each prefecture had a special supervisory governor. The system was very sound, but the problem was, when maintaining this supervisory system in other places When the links begin to break, this kind of supervision of the governor gradually becomes useless.
In early June, Yang Yuanqing came to the first stop of his supervision, Qi County.
Zhu'a County, Qi County, is the county closest to the Yellow River. The county seat is more than 30 miles away from the Yellow River. In the evening, 300 soldiers and more than 100 personal escorts guarded Yang Yuanqing and 12 supervisors on the official road. By the way, June is the season when summer grain is about to mature. In everyone’s mind, the wheat fields should be filled with undulating wheat waves and endless yellow wheat ears. The weather has eased a lot, but what they see is still large areas of bare crops. Occasionally, a scarecrow wearing a tattered straw hat could be seen standing alone in the wheat field. A group of crows flew over the field with a "quacking!" sound, which was a desolate and dilapidated scene. They crossed the Yellow River and walked ten miles along the way. , but not a single farmer was seen, nor a single pedestrian.
Everyone was a little numb to this situation. They went all the way south along the canal. Almost every county was desolate and dilapidated. There were floods to the north of the Yellow River and drought to the south of the Yellow River. With the outbreak of war, the people's hardships had reached the point. pole.
"Yang Shijun, I think there is really no point in us coming to supervise!" One of the youngest supervisory censors let out a long sigh.
"Why doesn't it make sense?"
Yang Yuanqing asked with a slight smile. They went all the way south. The relationship between Yang Yuanqing and the twelve censors had become very good, and everyone could talk freely. All text without ads.
"It is obvious that there is a natural disaster and everything is in ruins. The top priority now should be to open warehouses to release food and provide relief to the victims so that these poor people can survive, instead of investigating official corruption."
An old censor next to him laughed and said: "Xiao Wang censor, you don't understand. The more disasters occur, the more officials must be monitored. For example, the court ordered ten buckets of rice for disaster relief, but the county magistrate only provided one bucket, and then He compiled a report and said that ten measures of rice had been provided for disaster relief, but in fact he pocketed nine measures of rice. It was disaster relief anyway, and the victims were scattered around, and there was no accurate record. Who would know how much the county magistrate had provided for disaster relief? At this time, We need a supervisory censor to monitor the disaster relief. In fact, we should have sent people down last year to monitor. The Holy Spirit only sent us down at this time. To be honest, it is a bit late and there is no way to verify it."
"Zhang Yushi, shouldn't there be records of food receipts for disaster relief? How come it can't be verified?" Yang Yuanqing asked strangely.
The old censor smiled bitterly and said: "Mr. Yang, that record of receiving food has no meaning. It is just tens of thousands of fingerprints. Generally, the government's practice is to only press fingerprints when receiving food. As for how much has been received,
Grain is filled in by the government slowly afterwards, calculating the deficit and shortage, and finally making up the account. Officials with a better conscience will make up for the losses of their predecessors, while officials with a worse conscience will make enough for themselves. This was done as early as the Northern Zhou Dynasty.
Yes, everyone knows it."
"According to what you said, all the government offices are busy focusing on paying for the debts!"
"That's exactly what happened, so I said it's a little late for supervision now."
Yang Yuanqing smiled and said, "It doesn't matter. Supervision is better than no supervision at all!"
In fact, Yang Yuanqing doesn't attach much importance to this inspection. Yang Guang's intention is simply to reduce the harm done by officials to the people and ease the conflicts between the officials and the people. However, this is actually a typical self-deception. If the underlying problems are not solved, no matter how hard you investigate the officials, it will be useless.
As the old censor said, there are decrees from above and countermeasures from below. Yang Yuanqing just wanted to know about the rebellion of the victims in various places.
At this time, the guard leader Zhang Sheng rushed to report: "General, this is still more than twenty miles away from the county seat. There is a village in front. Let's go there to rest for the night!"
Yang Yuanqing saw that there was a rather large village not far away, and it seemed that there were still some people there, so he nodded, "Okay, let's go camp in the village and find some water."
Everyone turned their horses and ran directly onto the fields towards the village. This was a large village with more than 200 households. It looked quite clean. There was no rotten stench in the air, and no people or livestock were seen.
There were corpses, but most of the houses were empty.
The soldiers found a well and a dozen clean houses, where they all sat down to rest, drink water and eat dry food.
At this time, several soldiers brought an old man to Yang Yuanqing and said, "Your Majesty, this old man is the local chief."
The old man knelt down and kowtowed, "This humble citizen pays homage to the general!"
Yang Yuanqing nodded and asked: "How many families are left in the village?"
"There are more than fifty households!"
"There are so many more?"
Yang Yuanqing was a little surprised and asked: "There are barren fields all around, how do you make a living?"
"To be honest, General, we have actually planted some wheat and we have cut it a few days ago. We cannot wait for it to mature. If we cut it after it matures, we will lose our share."
Yang Yuanqing pondered for a moment and then asked: "Have you not been attacked by bandits here? From what we have seen along the way, most of the refugees have fled to the city. Why are there still people here?"
The old man smiled bitterly and said: "Our place is called Mengzhuang. Meng Rang, the bandit leader in Qi County, is from our village. He was an official in the county and rebelled for some reason. Anyway, the thieves saw it in his face.
Everyone was a little tolerant of us, and they came to rob us a few times, but they didn't kill anyone, so everyone stopped running away."
Yang Yuanqing smiled and asked: "I saw the ballad written by Wang Bo, which said, 'Go up the mountain to eat roe deer, come down the mountain to eat cattle and sheep.' It's quite attractive. Why are you still robbing it everywhere?"
The old man shook his head helplessly, "General, Wang Bo and Meng Rang have gathered tens of thousands of people in Changbai Mountain. There are so many deer for them to eat on the mountain. They go down the mountain to eat cattle and sheep. The cattle and sheep are not raised by them, right?
Robbery? All the big families have moved to the city. They are afraid of the officers and soldiers and dare not go to the city to rob. They can only rob the poorer people. Anyway, these days, the unlucky ones in the end are all honest people."
At this moment, the sound of horse hooves came from afar. A soldier who was patrolling outside got off his horse and ran into the house, "General!"
The soldier said a little nervously: "We found that a large number of black shadows were surrounding us. There were three to four thousand people."
The old man was so frightened that he screamed, "No! They are here to steal our food."
"It has nothing to do with you!"
Yang Yuanqing shook his head. It was impossible to use three or four thousand people to grab food from a small village. These people should be targeting themselves, and they should be here to grab their horses. Humph! They really blinded them.
Yang Yuanqing immediately said to Zhang Sheng: "Order the brothers to prepare for battle!"
He then said to the old man: "Knife and gun have no eyesight. You let the villagers hide. Once a fight breaks out, I can't protect you."
The old man's face turned pale with fright, and he left in a panic. More than four hundred soldiers quickly prepared and inspected their bows, arrows, swords and guns. Yang Yuanqing's hand slowly squeezed the handle of the knife. His knife had not drank blood for several years.
........
In the night, nearly four thousand Changbai Mountain bandits surrounded Mengzhuang from all directions. The leader was Wang Bo, the bandit leader of Qi County. Since last year, the number of people who defected to Wang Bo has increased sharply. In less than a year, he recruited nearly
Twenty thousand people, and another rebel leader in Qi County
Meng Rang also recruited 10,000 rebels. Both of them hid in the high mountains and densely forested Changbai Mountains, becoming the two major forces in the Changbai Mountains. On the one hand, they also farmed, but the land in the mountains was scarce, and the food they obtained could not feed so many people.
They can only make a living by going to various counties in Qilu to plunder.
From a few months ago, bandits on both sides of the Yellow River began to communicate with each other and exchange news about officers and soldiers. Wang Bo received news from Liu Badao in Douzigang that a cavalry of more than 400 people was about to cross the river and enter Qi County.
What Wang Bo needs most now is war horses. With war horses, they will have the ability to run and can plunder the county and evacuate quickly. This is of extremely important significance to them.
However, all the war horses from various prefectures in Shandong were transported to Liaodong. Looking at all the counties in Qilu, only Zhang Xutuo had a thousand cavalry under his command. However, Zhang Xutuo was the person he feared the most. Wang Bo could only look at the horses and sigh.
But today four hundred cavalry will cross the border. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. As soon as Yang Yuanqing and others cross the river, his people will keep an eye on this cavalry.
Wang Bo led his troops to surround him from all sides. No matter what, he wanted to get these 400 horses.
Night enveloped Mengzhuang. Wang Bo was riding on a green horse and squinting at the village. It was said that this was Meng Rang's hometown. He thought of Meng Rang, a versatile man in both civil and military affairs. If Meng Rang was willing to surrender to him, he would
Greatly boost his strength.
"Boss!"
A confidant general beside him said: "I'm a little surprised why Liu Badao didn't snatch these four hundred horses, but gave us the opportunity. Logically speaking, he also needs war horses in urgent need, why doesn't he want them?"
"I guess there are county soldiers escorting me in Pingyuan County. He didn't dare to take action and let the big fish go in vain. When we succeed, he will definitely want to share a hundred fish, so I won't pay attention to him!"
Wang Bo cursed, he slowly raised his sword, and shouted: "Listen to my order, rush into the village together, kill people and keep horses. If you steal a horse, I will reward the woman with a hundred coins!"