Han Shizu

Chapter 1080 Pinzhou, the team moving north

The land of Guanzhong in November can already be described as severe cold. Everything is depressed and withered. Can smell the biting coldness.

Generally in this season, not to mention the people in Guanzhong, even the animals and wild animals have reduced their outings, huddled up and hid, and survived the winter.In the winter of Guanzhong in the first year of Kaibao, the solar terms were not too extreme. Compared with previous years, it was not too cold. Therefore, it can be found that many heads of Guizhou responded to the call of the government to carry out public construction, which is the case in Binzhou.

Serving labor is an obligation that every big man must fulfill, and he must contribute at least one month every year. Of course, this can be deducted with money, grain and silk.In the early years, due to the lack of labor, the impoverished Qianshou family even let the women who reeled and weaved silk to replace the men in the family to perform labor labor, but now this situation is much less.

Moreover, very early on, the imperial court stipulated that when the government conscripted labor, the people did not need to bring their own food and tools, and all of them would be borne by the sponsoring government, and some rewards would even be given if conditions permitted.In Tokyo and areas close to Gyeonggi, it is very common. In other places, it depends on the situation of government finances and officials.

The magistrate of Binzhou is called Wang You. He is 41 years old. He is suave and ambitious.

This place in Binzhou, originally belonged to the Jingnan Army, was an important place in Guanzhong, an important town in the north of Wei, bordering Jingwei in the west, and Jingzhao in the south. In the early years, it was a base for the imperial court to stabilize the situation in the northwest. The late Fenyang Public Medicine Yuan Fu once served as the Jiedu envoy of the Jingnan Army, leading the children of Binning, controlling violence internally and defending against enemies externally.

However, with the weakening of the feudal towns and the expansion of the territory actually controlled by the imperial court, Binzhou gradually became the hinterland of Guanzhong. With the convenience of being adjacent to Jingshui, it can be regarded as a state in the upper middle of Guanzhong.

Wang You was a late-blooming official, and he withstood a test within half a year after taking office. The severe drought in Guanzhong in Qianyou 15 years also affected Binzhou. The fields were in drought, grain production was reduced, and hungry people were born.Against such a background, Wang You practiced himself, actively provided relief, led the officials and the people, and fought against drought and disasters. The final result was that, after the end of the year, under the rule of Binzhou, no one died of freezing and starvation.

Regardless of the situation in other states and counties, at least in Binzhou, the situation is true.Previously, Emperor Liu had asked Lu Yin whether there were people who died of freezing and starvation in Guanzhong under the background of the disaster. The fact is that there are!Even, even if there is no disaster, there is no lack of freezing and hunger in the northwest counties.

The second thing that Wang You is famous for is that he discovered a flaw in the matter of enlisting labor.The magistrate of Ding'an County under his rule deceived his superiors and subordinates in this matter. On the one hand, he asked the people under his jurisdiction to use money, food, cloth and silk to pay for labor labor, and on the other hand, he cleverly set up roads, dredging canals, and city repairs to use the public treasury money and grain. , this double amount of money, food, cloth and silk fell into the pocket of the county magistrate.
Wang You couldn't tolerate such fraudulent cases. After he found out, he immediately detained Ding'an Ling, and then collected evidence. It didn't take much effort. The facts were clear, and the witnesses and material evidence were all there.

As a court official of Zhizhou, Wang You is qualified to report directly to Emperor Liu, so he handed a report to Tokyo regarding the situation of this matter, talking about his views on this matter.

Then, Emperor Liu was furious when he learned about this. It is conceivable that the incident in Ding'an County is by no means an exception. There are thousands of counties in the country, and any kind of moth may come out.

So the central and local departments were ordered to conduct an investigation on such situations. The result is obvious that there are still many "smart people" like Ding'an Ling, and several corruption cases have been exposed as a result, involving state-level officials. There are more than a dozen officials.

The furious Emperor Liu directly intervened in the judiciary and executed them all, because a case of this nature was not only about corruption, but also involved deceiving the court and ignoring the central authority.

What made Emperor Liu angry was that the collection of corvees and infrastructure construction were for the benefit of the country and the people, and the imperial court even provided institutional and local support for it. Unexpectedly, it became a convenience for some corrupt officials and treacherous officials to fill their own pockets.

It also once again made Emperor Liu feel that it is not easy to govern the country well and be a good emperor. He feels more and more that the process of governing the country is a process of fighting wits with officials all over the country.

The follow-up of this incident is to set certain restrictions on the start of projects in various places, which need to be reported in advance and inspected and supervised by the higher-level government.What should be repaired has to be repaired, what should be built has to be built, and we can’t give up eating because of choking, but Emperor Liu has a plan in mind, don’t expect that there will never be problems, there is always no shortage of “smart people” in this world, and there are also many loopholes for people to exploit.
In this winter, Wang You issued an order in the name of the Binzhou government to dig ditches and build ponds and reservoirs in Xinping, Ding'an, Xiangle, and Yilu counties, obviously to prevent drought.

In the northwest region, water is an especially important resource. In the countryside, there are many incidents of scrambling, fighting, and hurting people for irrigation water every year.Therefore, most of the people in Binzhou responded enthusiastically to the order of the government, the temptation to open the canal, and the reputation accumulated by Wang You, and the severe cold could not stop their enthusiasm.

Against such a background, a team of thousands of people braved the wind and cold, along the bumpy road, along the old Binning Road, and walked northward.

Because the country's political and economic center of gravity is in the Kanto, and gradually shifted to the southeast, the imperial court focused on waterways to improve transportation. The situation of landways has not been good.The laying of straight roads and galloping roads is relatively complete in the Central Plains, and the main post roads and official roads have been sufficiently built. As for other dry roads, the current situation cannot be described as bad, but it is not developed, as far as the north is concerned. In other words, the further to the northwest, the more obvious this situation is.

Therefore, the team passing by Binzhou had to walk very hard and the atmosphere was depressed.This northbound team is not a caravan. No one in Dahan has the strength to organize a caravan of thousands of people. It is not like a refugee. There are many vehicles, a lot of furniture, and a lot of horses, camels and livestock. , the whole looks like a nomadic tribe.

Of course, this is just an appearance. There are guides in the front, patrol cavalry in the middle, and officials in the back. Most of the people in the team are speaking Nanyin, and their faces are sinking into the water, showing a kind of suppressed resentment. temperament.

That's right, this team is part of the local tyrants who moved out from the southeast.When there is no choice, moving to Hunan is the most acceptable, but not everyone is that lucky, and those who move to the north can be described as catastrophe.

Being forced to sell their property, leaving the comfortable and rich southeast treasure land, and traveling thousands of miles, almost across the border, to the northwest of the bitter cold land, anyone would be angry and resentful. Seeing the untold hardships along the way, it has already spread in this team.

Also aware of this sentiment, the officials, soldiers, and servants in charge of accompanying the northward relocation have recently become more careful and tightened their supervision.In fact, not only the despots who were relocated, but also the officers and soldiers in charge of this errand were exhausted, and they all looked forward to arriving at their destination as soon as possible so that they could be liberated.

Their team boarded the boat from Jingkou, went northward along the waterway, passed the Huaihe River and entered the Yellow River, then went westward, and after arriving in Shanzhou, they abandoned the boat and landed.Because the whole family is basically migrating, there are a lot of belongings and belongings, and the stop and go along the way is especially inefficient. It has been more than four months since I arrived in Binzhou.

This journey has gone through untold hardships. However, under the cold winter, this long journey seems to have no end in sight, which makes people feel a little desperate.

Therefore, even when they learned that they had passed Binzhou and were about to arrive at Gyeongju, the final destination, except for the accompanying officers and soldiers, no one showed any joy, and most of them were numb.
(End of this chapter)