fifth form

Chapter 1840 The second question

In a camp in the wilderness outside Chang'an City, Li Guang, who was accompanying the new emperor, felt a pang in his heart.

He felt that the time for him to return to the Northern Military District might be a long time away.

Li Guang never expected that just a few casual questions would lead to such a big trouble.

There is a difference of twenty times between five hundred half-liang coins and ten strings of coins.
There is nothing wrong with the regulations enforced by the Northern Military District, but how they are enforced when they reach the grassroots level is another matter.

The severance pay of sergeants who retired due to age or injury has been made a fuss.

Li Guang cared about the soldiers who were serving and was sympathetic to their health. He would arrange for them to recuperate and even patrol to ensure that the wounded could eat and drink more. Anyone on duty would be inspected by Li Guang.

But he did not pay attention to the situation of retired soldiers, so it is difficult to know whether Zhang Baojia's case is an isolated case or a common phenomenon.

“This position is going to be discontinued!”

The new emperor had promised him to support the Northern Military Region's development plan, but now that this kind of thing has been exposed, the plan will be halted.

If something serious were to be uncovered, Li Guang felt that it would be difficult for him to return to the Northern Border Military Region to take over military power.

After retiring, the soldiers recruited from the Northern Military Region actually traveled thousands of miles to Chang'an City to make a living. Later, the emperor of the time happened to learn the truth during an inadvertent narration. This extremely unlikely event almost made Li Guang doubt his life.

But he was not one of those people who were good at making excuses in the court. Li Guang also disdained to make excuses on such matters. It was even more impossible for him to angrily refute Zhang Baojia's lies, and then lock him up and force him to write a completely opposite confession through bribery and torture.

"Ten strings of cash is not a lot!"

The new emperor muttered in a low voice.

Ten strings of money are equal to ten thousand and a half liang coins, which can buy the most ordinary bungalow in Chang'an City.

This kind of money sounds valuable, but it is the settlement money that a sergeant can get after serving for ten years and retiring. And he must be a sergeant who has killed the enemy, which translates into only one string of coins per year.

After serving for a long time, and even risking their lives, the imperial court believed that such retired soldiers were worthy of ten strings of cash, and the pensions for those who lost their lives were even more generous.

But the new emperor did not expect that ten strings of money could be deducted to the point where only half a string of money was left.

Many people don’t know this, or perhaps many people know it but don’t speak it out.

Some people are stakeholders, while others have never paid their attention to those small soldiers. As long as the military district can drive these people to patrol and fight, no one will care whether these people get a lot of money or a little money.

"We need to re-investigate," Li Guang whispered.

"How to check?"

The new emperor was slightly angry.

This is most likely an old and bad case, and many people are involved.

Even if the important figures involved were beheaded, it would be difficult to regain the lost public support. The Northern Military Region's annual expenditures were extremely balanced and the accounting standards were extremely high. This also meant that the Northern Military Region did not have much money left in reserve, and a lot of the money was spent reasonably and legally, making it impossible to fill this hole.

It is even less likely that the imperial court will pay for such things, and the new emperor cannot afford to pay for such legacy issues that have existed for many years.

He had originally expected Zhang Xuezhou's ability in the school exam, and he never expected to hear such a thing.

Li Guang was very cooperative, but how to investigate such a matter? Who has the ability to expose the person involved in the Northern Border Military Region and come back alive? How to end it after revealing this layer of underwear?

Various factors make it impossible to investigate such matters, nor can they be investigated on a large scale.

How Zhang Xuezhou helps these people survive the school exam is just an entertaining thing, but the issue of military pay in the Northern Border Military Region is the real big deal.

It was impossible for the imperial court to use ten strings of coins to do something worth five hundred and a half taels of coins.

The new emperor frowned. If something like this happened in the Northern Military District, it was likely that the same thing happened in other military districts.

This was an extremely bad thing. The new emperor was not afraid that someone would embezzle the money, but he was afraid that the money would go to places where it should not go.

For example, during the Eight Princes Rebellion during the reign of Emperor Jing, eight princes led hundreds of thousands of troops to counterattack, and the cost of the troops quickly raised during the rebellion was enormous. Normally, the princes could not be richer than the imperial court in Chang'an, but the wealth these princes brought out was jaw-dropping, and even made the imperial court feel inferior.

This kind of thing that goes against the will of Heaven is extremely unreasonable, but it actually happened decades ago.

Now this reason may be part of it.

"How to check?"

The new emperor asked again, and Li Guang had no choice but to lower his head and nodded, finding it difficult to answer the new emperor's questions.

It was not until Zhang Xuezhou's voice sounded that Li Guang came back to his senses. The new emperor's second question was not directed at him, but at the scholar beside him.

"I'm thinking about how to help people here get out of poverty and have food to eat!"

"Answer me this question first!"

“This doesn’t follow the procedure for asking questions!”

"Take the badge I gave you and take them to Jingzhao Yinfu to get the 'festival' to solve the identity problem. As long as they can enter and leave Chang'an City, the wild animals they hunt can be sold at a good price in Chang'an City. If they are lucky, they may even make a lot of money one day!"

Zhang Xuezhou was unable to give an answer that was consistent with leading the people of Zhangjiazhuang out of poverty, and the biggest reason for this was the government.

If there is not even a normal identity, there will be no development.

Only when they have a reasonable and legal identity can the people of Zhangjiazhuang be more free to seize opportunities, rather than relying on Zhang Xuezhou to take the lead in everything.

Zhang Xuezhou cannot answer this question, but the new emperor can solve it.

After a few exchanges, the most difficult part of the matter had been resolved when the new emperor took out an iron plate from his waist and handed it to Zhang Xuezhou.

"It's difficult to investigate this matter," Zhang Xuezhou returned to the second question and said, "I once followed a merchant group to Fuping County. The entire merchant group was forcibly detained by the governor Wang Yanchong because of a small matter. The money of the merchant group was confiscated. After being thrown into prison, no one questioned or tried them. After being frozen for several days, it was General Li Jiao who discovered the matter and presided over justice!"

"Li Jiao?" the new emperor asked doubtfully.

"This Li Jiao should be my son. I met the Eastern scholar in the northern border at that time," Li Guang interrupted reluctantly.

"What does this have to do with the verification?" the new emperor frowned.

"In this incident, General Bodang, who was in charge of the Fuping County Legion, was beaten, and the governor Wang Yanchong was slapped several times, fined three months' salary, and handed over the money he had coveted from the merchant group," said Zhang Xuezhou.

"The punishment is barely appropriate!"

"But the money never returned to our group!"

Zhang Xuezhou pointed out the real problem of the matter.

Dong Zhongshu, Zhang Xuezhou and others focused on going to the Northern Border Military Region to solve their physical problems, and financial matters were secondary issues.

At that time, no one was determined to get the money back, they just wanted to be healthy.

But after the whole thing was over, they didn't get their money back and a dark zone appeared under the jurisdiction of the Northern Military Region.

It is impossible for Li Jiao to covet the money. The other party should have followed the normal procedures. But even if Li Jiao followed the procedures, they never got their money back.

Due to delays, misappropriation of money or other reasons, the money is ultimately left at a certain link.

Being able to ignore a general of Li Jiao's level, the personnel and links involved would be very complicated, and even Li Guang might be involved in it unknowingly and enjoy the benefits of other people's offerings.

Zhang Xuezhou talked about a case involving himself, but did not mention how to investigate.

He didn't know whether the new emperor was satisfied with this answer.

This is no longer a question of whether to investigate or not, but requires the new emperor to take over military power and disband the old forces that have inherent control over the military regions, and even to carry out disbanding and mobilization operations every certain number of years to ensure that the links that are linked at all levels are not completely corrupted.

Otherwise, even if some scapegoats are found in this matter, nothing will change afterwards.