noffsinger Chapter 606: The news of the emperor and empress going to Qingzhou to provide disaster relief spread
Chapter 606: The news of the emperor and empress going to Qingzhou to provide disaster relief spread
At this time, Lin Feng directly brought the butler of Magistrate Fan's house and threw him in front of Xie Shang, "His family has food, but this dog slave has no official position and is still greedy. How much have you embezzled by using the name of the butler?"
The butler was caught before he could react. He quickly explained in front of the imperial envoy, "This year's grain was eaten by locusts. There is no grain in the warehouse. How dare I embezzle it? Besides, my family doesn't have much grain! You took away my grain. My family has nothing to eat. There are still two months before the New Year. My family will not survive this winter."
When Lin Feng heard that it was Mayor Sun's rhetoric again, he ordered people to take a stick and torture him directly. The housekeeper then cried and screamed, "I'll give you some food. Please stop beating me. If you continue beating me, I'll beat you to death. I have old people and young children to take care of!"
Lin Feng pretended not to hear and told his men not to stop until Butler Wu explained everything.
Fan De suddenly ran away and left the whole Qingzhou government office in an instant.
Xie Shang sat at the top seat as an imperial envoy, while Situ Yu sat at the bottom seat. They stared at the steward of the Fan Mansion. Even a steward was known to take bribes by abusing the power of others, so it was obvious that Magistrate Fan's hands would not be clean.
Soon, officials from Qingzhou also arrived, and the whole government office became bustling.
When they saw the butler of Magistrate Fan's house being carried out with his head beaten half to death, they were all so scared that their faces turned pale. "What happened to Butler Wu?"
Lin Feng said coldly to the official, "The Imperial Envoy is inside. When he questions you later, just tell the truth and you will be spared physical pain. If you dare to lie to the Imperial Envoy, humph, I will let you go in standing and come out lying down."
The officials saw that he was full of authority and although they did not know his identity, they did not dare to act recklessly because the Qingzhou government office was guarded by soldiers and officers, so they followed him in obediently.
Situ Sheng did not reveal the emperor's identity. He followed the emperor's orders and directly turned the Qingzhou government office into a military office. He did not give the officials any chance to communicate privately or collude with each other. When everyone saw the imperial envoy from Shengjing City, they all became frightened and looked at each other, wondering about the whereabouts of Prefect Fan.
After the interrogation, what was puzzling was that the government had not intervened since the drought and locust plague occurred in Qingzhou. This order was Fan De's idea. Because everyone has their own interests involved, when people come to ask about it, they will respond to them by passing the buck like the mayor of Zhushan Town.
Xie Shang had sent a message to Jiang Jinyan. It was he who distributed the disaster relief money to Qingzhou. Qingzhou did not use the money to dig water to irrigate the fields, nor did it use it to catch locusts.
Although 500,000 taels of disaster relief silver was not enough to help all the people in Qingzhou, if the officials had tried their best to use this money to save the situation at the beginning of the natural disaster, it would not have been possible for the entire Qingzhou to be so seriously affected.
It is worth pondering that no matter how corrupt an official is, he would not do this. On the surface, he would pretend to help the people. However, when the silver reached the hands of the Qingzhou prefect, it disappeared without a penny being touched.
There is only one reason why Fan De dared to do this, that is, someone was behind him instructing him to do so.
The purpose is to stir up dissatisfaction among the people against the royal family. Now it has not developed to the point where a large number of people died. If winter really comes and everyone suffers from hunger and cold, and life becomes even more difficult, that will be the beginning of a disaster.
Jiang Fenghua stayed with Xie Shang until the afternoon of the next day and she was busy helping him check the accounts. Finally, they reached an agreement with the merchants to sell grain to the government at a low price.
With food and the presence of an imperial envoy, the victims who had crowded into Qingzhou City were appeased. They were allowed to take the food and go home, and were promised that the court would take care of them. The emperor was also doing his best to help Qingzhou survive this year's cold winter.
They were busy for five days and waited for the first batch of relief grain to arrive. Situ Sheng assisted Xie Shang in handling it. In addition to checking Qingzhou's accounts, they also continued to deal with the people.
On the day of leaving Qingzhou City, Xie Shang handed Qingzhou over to Situ Sheng for temporary management. The court would immediately send someone to serve as the prefect of Qingzhou. This time, Xie Shang directly reused the Cheng family. Whether Qingzhou could be governed well depended on whether the Cheng family had the ability to do so. Of course, these were all later stories.
In the past few days, apart from the corrupt officials who have been put in jail, other officials in Qingzhou have been demoted or allowed to make meritorious contributions while serving their sentences, leaving room for them to thank Xie Shang.
As for where Fan De was going, Xie Shang had already guessed it. It was better to make good use of him than to kill him, which was why Fan De escaped "easily".
Looking at the direction the carriage was leaving, Situ Sheng and his officers and soldiers knelt down and said loudly: "Your Majesty, I respectfully send you off. Long live the emperor."
Everyone was stunned. The wealthy merchants in Qingzhou were also forced to sell grain at low prices. Everyone was a little unconvinced at first, but they knew that the imperial envoy who had been working day and night to save the disaster in Qingzhou City in the past few days was the current emperor.
Everyone looked at General Situ at the same time, and asked, "Who is the person the general is kneeling to?"
Situ Sheng and Xie Shang knew each other in the military camp when they were teenagers. They were not friends but their relationship was better than friends. He had been leading troops in Qingzhou for several years and rarely returned to Beijing.
Listening to the slander and rumors about the emperor from the people of Qingzhou, he believed that time was not a panacea for stopping the people from spreading rumors about the emperor. The people should be made aware that it was the emperor who personally came to Qingzhou to save them, punished corrupt officials, and even sent large amounts of food to help them survive.
He arched his hands toward the sky and said, "Of course it's the Emperor and Empress. You are both blessed to see the Emperor and Empress in this lifetime."
At this time, the merchants were terrified. "The Imperial Envoy is actually the current emperor. We were unwilling to sell grain to him at first, and even argued with him..."
One of the merchants said, "Who said that the officials protected each other and refused to sell grain to the emperor? In the end, the emperor awarded him a reward for his righteousness."
"Did the emperor write down our names and the names of our businesses and take them away? We were filled with righteous indignation at the time. Will the emperor settle the score later?"
Someone immediately retorted, "No, I heard from that woman...it should be the Empress that she said to take it back to Shengjing and give it to the Emperor. When the disaster in Qingzhou eases, the Emperor will confer titles on us one by one based on how much grain we sold. He also praised us for being righteous merchants and not taking the opportunity to drive up the price of rice."
After hearing this, everyone's faces turned even redder. The emperor personally wrote them an IOU, indicating that the silver would be delivered to their homes soon.
In fact, they also want to make a fortune this winter. Qingzhou will definitely be short of food from this year to next autumn harvest. These grains are not enough to sell, so who would donate?
At this time, the news that the emperor and the empress personally went to Qingzhou to provide disaster relief and save the people also spread among the people.
Since the people of Zhushan Town received relief grain from the county government office, they have rushed to Qingzhou to see the imperial envoy sent by the court.
Ran Shan was also among them. When he learned that the imperial envoy's true identity was the emperor, he immediately wrote a poem for the emperor to praise his achievements.