The days when I ransacked the house in Jinyiwei

Chapter 149 The secret that everyone knows about officials, but everyone keeps silent ([-]-character chapter)

Rongcheng is a medium-sized county.According to the imperial decree of Emperor Hongzhi, [-] stones of grain should be accumulated.

It is written in the account book that the accumulated grain is exactly [-] shi.

There are a total of 3000 grain villages in the official warehouse.Each grain stockpiles eighty shi, that is, more than [-] catties of grain.

The sacks used in the official warehouses of the Ming Dynasty are all fixed in size.Each sack of wheat can hold a hundred catties.

Each grain village has more than 130 sacks.

Chang Feng first walked to a grain tun, poked it with half a bamboo, and what came out was top-quality new wheat.

Chang Feng asked Huang Zhixian: "Are they all new wheat?"

There were beads of sweat on Huang Zhixian's head, and he hesitated in speaking: "Ah, all, all!"

Chang Feng gave an order: "Come on, check every grain store for me!"

Shi Wenyi led several warriors, carrying a table and chairs to Chang Feng: "Master Chang, Master Xu, Master Qian, you sit down."

Now Shi Wenyi has been promoted to a hundred households.Among the inspection offices of thousands of households, their status was second only to Chang Feng, Fatty Xu, and Qian Ning.

Chang Feng sat on the chair.Eating cakes that Shi Wenyi found somewhere, and drinking tea.

An hour later, the sacks placed outside each grain storehouse were almost exhausted.

Chang Feng ordered the county magistrate Huang: "Let all the three shifts of the county government come here, remove the sacks outside the Liangtun, and check the inside."

Chang Feng was very careful when he came down to inspect the official warehouse this time.Both inside and outside the grain village must be checked.It's been done this way.

Huang Zhixian was dumbfounded: "Ah? I still need to check the inside? There is no need to check it. The inside and outside are full of fresh wheat."

Chang Feng sensed deception from Huang Zhixian's eyes!

Chang Feng sneered: "Why, aren't the sacks in the grain store checked?"

Huang Zhixian hurriedly said: "Ah, that's not what I mean by being an official. I want to say that the servants have been checking for more than an hour, and they are very tired. Why don't you go to the county government to have a meal first."

Chang Feng glared at Huang Zhixian angrily: "Why, you want to gag me with wine, food, women, or even money?"

"Haven't you heard the name of Butcher Jin Yiwei Chang? My mouth can't be blocked by a small county magistrate if he wants to!"

It was the end of March and the weather was already very hot.Huang Zhixian was sweating profusely and his face was flushed.

In desperation, the fat Huang Zhixian passed out directly, and fell to the ground like a puddle of mud.

Fatty Xu laughed and said, "He was scared before we checked! It seems that there is a ghost!"

After speaking, Fatty Xu walked to a grain tun, and used the skills of Jinyiwei's number one Hercules to remove the sacks that had been inspected outside one by one.

Fatty Xu took a half bamboo tube and inserted it into the sack inside.

What flows out is not wheat at all!But sand and gravel!

Fatty Xu came to Chang Feng with a slap of sand and stones in his hand: "Master Chang, this is what is in the bag inside."

Chang Feng said angrily: "Come on! Splash this corrupt official with cold water!"

A wrestler took a basin of cold water and poured it on Huang Zhixian's head.

Huang Zhixian woke up.

Chang Feng pointed to the sand and stones on the table: "Huangzhi County, Huang Shixiong, what is this? Is it edible? Can you help the victims in a disaster year? Why don't you take a bite and show me?"

Huangzhi County kowtowed like garlic: "The lower officials are guilty, the lower officials are guilty!"

Chang Feng said: "Don't be in a hurry to confess your guilt. Let me ask you, how much is the grain in your official storehouse?"

Huang Zhixian replied tremblingly: "Three, three thousand stones."

Chang Feng was furious: "The number stipulated in the imperial decree is [-] stones. You have [-] stones here are all sand and gravel?"

Huang Zhixian's fat face was pale: "Yes."

Chang Feng asked, "Where's the food?"

Huang Zhixian was very timid, and was frightened by Chang Butcher of Jinyiwei, and lost his seven souls long ago.

He started to speak insanely crazy words: "Ah, the food was confiscated. Ah no, it was corrupted by lower officials."

When Chang Feng was interrogating Huang Zhi County, a warehouse worker from the county government secretly left the official warehouse.It seems to be reporting to someone.

Chang Feng said angrily: "Did you sell Tanmo's food? Or is it stored elsewhere?"

Huang Zhixian was overweight and was not in good health.Under Chang Feng's persecution, he actually fainted again.This time I couldn't wake up even if I poured cold water on it.

Qian Ning unceremoniously drew out the Xiuchun knife, and stabbed Huang Zhixian's fat ass with the tip of the knife.

Huang Zhixian didn't respond at all.

Qian Ning said: "Master Chang, this guy is not pretending to be dizzy."

Chang Feng walked over to check Huang Zhixian's breath: "I'm dying. Go, find a gentleman, and give him a good look. You have to find a way to bring him back."

Fatty Xu said: "What are you doing with Fei? If he is put to death on the spot, and then the family property is copied, it will be all work?"

Chang Feng shook his head slightly: "No. We can't execute him on the spot. We have to bring him back to Beijing and behead him publicly!"

"I'll ask for another decree to let the officials watch the execution. Let the civil and military officials of the Manchu Dynasty see what will happen if you violate the emperor's imperial decree!"

Sometimes the dead are more useful than the living, and Chang Feng wanted to use the head of the magistrate of Huang to make Emperor Hongzhi stand up.

Emperor Hongzhi is good everywhere, but he is too kind.For a boss, being too kind cannot deter the employees below.

Several wrestlers carried away Huangzhi County.

Chang Feng ordered a group of Hercules to continue the investigation.As Huang Zhixian said, out of the [-] shi of grain, only [-] shi are genuine wheat.All that is left is sand.

Chang Feng asked Qian Ning: "Who is from Charongcheng County?"

Qian Ning took out a list and flipped through it: "It's Wang Defa, a small banner from our Beisi. He should be in Tang County now."

Chang Feng said: "Send a few people to call him to Rongcheng County on fast horses."

"This guy either took Huang Boren's money to protect him. Or he was careless in his work and only checked the outside of the grain village, not the inside of the grain village."

Qian Ning nodded: "Okay, I'll send someone right away."

At night, after the county government office.

Huang Zhixian lay unconscious on the couch.Chang Feng stood in front of the couch and asked the doctor, "How is this fellow?"

The doctor replied: "He is deficient in nature; he is deficient in righteousness; he is deficient in qi, blood, and body fluids. Qi stagnation and congestion block the veins. It seems that he has an old chest syndrome."

"The little one can only prescribe melon soup and give him a chest to relieve knots. Whether his life can be saved depends on good fortune."

The thoracic obstruction mentioned by the doctor is coronary heart disease in the words of Western medicine in later generations.

Huang Zhixian is fat and has suffered from chest pain for many years. Today, he was frightened by Changfeng and immediately fell ill. Life and death are unpredictable.

Chang Feng said to Fatty Xu: "Okay, let's rest. If he dies, we will raid his house."

Fatty Xu smiled slightly: "Hey, I'm not resting in the back office. I have to go out and check the wind and customs! Otherwise, don't I pass Baoshan and return empty-handed?"

Chang Feng waved his hand: "Go away! Take it easy, be careful and immediately wind up."

Fatty Xu ran away in a flash.Chang Feng returned to the bedroom.

A total of five counties were investigated, and it was found that there was a problem with grain storage in one county.Finally, I didn't go out of Beijing in vain.

Tired all day, he lay down and fell asleep.

In the middle of the night, the county government suddenly sounded the drum of "Boom, Boom, Boom"!

The sound of the drums shook the sky, waking up Chang Feng.

Chang Feng shouted out of the bedroom: "Come here, go and see what's going on!"

A wrestler led the way.After a cup of tea, he returned: "Master Chang, thousands of people gathered outside the county government office. They said they wanted to avenge their grievances!"

Chang Feng walked out of the room and said to himself: "That bastard surnamed Huang has made the people of Rongcheng County suffer so much!"

Chang Feng came to the gate of the yamen.

Thousands of people outside the yamen pushed down a golden mountain like a jade pillar, and knelt down in a large area.

"What a shame!" they yelled in unison.

Chang Feng pressed his hand to signal them to keep quiet.Then Chang Feng said: "Fellow folks. I am Jin Yiwei Qianhu Changfeng. This time I am ordered to inspect Rongcheng County, and I am here to avenge your grievances!"

"Corrupt official Huang Boren has been taken care of by me! You can complain about your grievances! I have made a note of the facts and severely punished Huang Boren for venting your anger!"

When a crowd of people heard the words, they burst into tears one after another.The cries of thousands of people shook the heavens and the earth.

An old man in his 70s stood up and opened a Wanmin umbrella with several young adults.

Chang Feng was a little surprised: I haven't avenged them yet, so I gave away the Wanmin Umbrella so soon?
The old man shouted hoarsely: "The imperial envoy should not wrong the good man! We are not here to avenge ourselves, we are here to avenge Huangzhi County!"

"Huang Zhi County is a good official who is hard to find with a lantern! We made this Wanmin umbrella and gave it to him this winter. He was so modest that he didn't accept it!"

Thousands of people shouted: "The magistrate Huang is wronged!"

"Huang Qingtian is a first-class official!"

"If something goes wrong in Huangzhi County, what will the people of Rongcheng do?"

Chang Feng frowned.

Chang Feng's first reaction was: These people should be hypocrites hired by Huang Boren's subordinates.

The so-called empty stove, in the words of later generations, is childcare.

No matter in ancient or modern times, some officials always hired a bunch of nurses to kowtow, cry and persuade them to stay when they left office in order to make money for themselves.

Sometimes there is no need to spend money to hire, just let the small officials in the yamen find their relatives and friends, and play the drama of the people struggling to stay in the sky.

The old man in his 70s seemed to have seen through Chang Feng's thoughts after a long time in the world.

The old man said loudly: "The people who come to Huang Zhi County to avenge justice are only the people in the county and the six suburbs of the county."

"The tens of thousands of people from the remaining 21 townships in this county will arrive one after another tomorrow!"

"If your lord insists on going his own way and wrongs us Huang Qingtian, the people in the entire Rongcheng County will go to the city and kneel down!"

After hearing this, Chang Feng felt a drum in his heart: Did I really wrong Huang Boren?Even if his subordinates look for Xuzao, they won't be able to find all the people in the county to act.

But the stockpile of grain is obviously short of [-] shi.He himself admitted that he was greedy for ink.

Chang Feng cupped his hands towards the old man: "Old man, let's talk about it in the yamen, how about it?"

The old man followed Chang Feng into the county government office.

Chang Feng asked someone to serve tea to the old man, and then asked, "What is the old man's name?"

The old man replied: "Student Huang Weigong is an appointment of Zhuqiao Township in this county."

Chang Feng asked: "The old man calls himself a 'student', does he have fame?"

The old man replied: "The student is a scholar who passed the Baoding prefectural examination in the eighth year of Xuande."

Chang Feng said: "Since he is a scholar in the academy examination, he should have read poetry and books. Why does the old man protect a corrupt official?"

The old man's complexion changed: "Corrupt official? Who is a corrupt official? You mean Huang Qingtian? If he is a corrupt official, I am afraid there will be no honest officials in the world!"

Chang Feng smiled wryly: "I've never seen an upright official with five rings on ten fingers."

The old man suddenly realized: "You said those five rings! We Huang Qingtian's family is very good, and we have thousands of acres of fertile land passed down from our ancestors in the suburbs of Beijing."

"The five rings are also inherited from the ancestors. Three gold rings, with the words 'Lian', 'Qing', and 'Ming' engraved on the inside respectively."

"Two jade rings, engraved with the words 'loyalty' and 'filial piety' respectively."

"Huangzhi County wears these five rings every day to remind himself of the ancestral motto of 'cleanness, purity, brightness, loyalty, and filial piety'."

Chang Feng was surprised: "There is such a thing? Didn't the old man lie to me?"

The old man said: "All the people in Rongcheng County know about this. If you don't believe me, just ask a few people."

"We, Huang Qingtian, served as county magistrates for two terms in Rongcheng County, and none of the people in this county would give him a thumbs up when they mentioned him."

"He doesn't commit corruption, and he doesn't take bribes. He loves the people like a son, and resolves cases like a god. It's like Bao Qingtian reincarnated!"

Chang Feng said: "However, the emperor ordered all states and counties to stockpile grain. Your county should stockpile [-] shi. He only stocked [-] shi. The rest is filled with pebbles and sand!"

The old man's words were astonishing: "Students dare to say something disrespectful. The original intention of the emperor's imperial decree may be good. But when it comes to the place, the imperial decree has become a knife to gouge out the flesh of the people!"

Chang Feng asked: "How do you say that?"

The old man talked eloquently and told Chang Feng a secret that everyone knew but kept silent.

The imperial court collected the land tax by relying on the grain chiefs and servants under the county government to collect it.

The head of grain and the guards will use the methods of "reducing the capacity of the official dendrobium" and "kicking the dendrobium with the tip" to squeeze the common people.

The so-called reduction of official dendrobium capacity is to tamper with the measurement and measurement of official dendrobium harvesting land tax.

Originally, a dendrobium that was supposed to hold 160 kilograms, some of them could only hold 150 kilograms.In some unscrupulous places, a Dendrobium can actually only hold 120 catties.

The smaller the official dendrobium, the more food the common people will pay.The extra part was divided up layer by layer by the food chief, the guards, the county magistrate, and the county magistrate.

Linjian Kick Dendrobium, as the name suggests, when the official dendrobium is full, the grain chief will kick the official dendrobium vigorously.The spilled food becomes "waste".The loss will naturally be divided up.

Ma Ang, Minister of the Household Department of the Chenghua Dynasty, once said that for every tens of millions of stones collected by the imperial court, the people actually paid at least 500 million stones.

The extra land taxes were naturally divided up by layers of officials.

But there is always a balance in everything.

These two tricks have been played for more than 120 years since the founding of the Ming Dynasty.A delicate balance has been reached.

The government can exploit the sustainability of the common people.The common people can barely accept the exploitation of the government, and they are used to it.

However, an imperial decree by Emperor Hongzhi last year broke this balance.

The hoarding of grain required by Emperor Hongzhi was not included in the land tax.

His original intention was to let local officials use official money to buy food from the people.Concentrate on hoarding to prevent disaster years.

However, this purpose reaches a locality.The local officials were all as if they had found a treasure, and their eyes were red, as if they had been beaten with chicken blood.

It can be counted as copying!In addition to the land tax, there is another fat and fat income!
The "storage of grain" in Emperor Hongzhi's decree is not a land tax, but similar to the official grain purchase.

The pricing power is in the hands of the government.

In addition to the two methods of "reducing the capacity of the official dendrobium" and "kicking the dendrobium with the tip", they can also exploit the common people from the pricing.

For example, an old farmer sent a stone of high-quality rice according to the government's notice.Originally, the government should pay eight coins for the purchase.

The official looked at the rice, and said in a daze that it was inferior and bad rice, and he could only pay five qian.

You say not to sell?you dare!It is the emperor's will for the government to purchase your grain and store it in the official warehouse! Do you dare to resist the order?
People in all states and counties in the world were exploited twice by the government last year.The first exploitation was to pay the land tax, and the second exploitation was to hoard grain.

Let's talk about the original intention of Emperor Hongzhi: stockpile food to prepare for shortages.

Only when the food is in the hands of the common people can we really prepare for the shortage.

The food has been received by the government, and if there is a disaster year, there is no telling who will eat it.

Just like Rongcheng County.According to the decree, [-] shi should be stockpiled.

Today's magistrate is a good official Huang Boren.If there is a famine, he will definitely use the stockpiled food to help the people.

However, Huang Boren has been in Rongcheng for six full years.This year, he will definitely be promoted or transferred elsewhere.

What if the successor is a corrupt official?In times of calamity, I put the food for relief into my pockets and give the common people oatmeal porridge mixed with sand
Although Huang Boren is timid and suffers from chest pain, he is not stupid!Can see through this layer of interests.

He simply accepted three thousand shi and grain as a front, and first fooled the imperial envoy who came down for inspection.

The old man told everything.Chang Feng was dumbfounded.

It was clearly an imperial decree that benefited the country and the people, but when it was conveyed to the bottom, it turned out to be harmful to the country and the people.

What's even more exasperating is that none of the civil servants who knew the truth reminded Emperor Hongzhi!

Even Wang Shu and Ma Wensheng didn't say anything to Emperor Hongzhi.

After all, isn't he afraid of offending magistrates all over the world?

Could it be that there is no true loyal minister in the entire Ming Dynasty?

Chang Feng said: "Old man, I have been out of Beijing for a month. No one has ever told me about these things."

The old man said: "Dare to ask on business. After you leave Beijing, can you have private visits in micro-services and have in-depth talks with poor people everywhere?"

Often the wind is speechless.

He just focused on checking the official warehouse.Go straight to the official warehouse wherever you go.Where have you heard the voice of the poor people?

The old man said: "I've already explained the matter clearly. Please be careful, and don't wrong us, Huang Qingtian."

Chang Feng asked: "Why does Huangzhi County admit that he was greedy for [-] shi of grain?"

The old man said: "Confiscating all the grain is tantamount to rebelling against the edict. Perhaps Huang Qingtian was afraid that the people in Rongcheng County would be charged with rebelling against the edict. That's why he lied that he was greedy for ink. He is taking the blame for the people of the whole county!"

At this moment, a wrestler walked in: "Master Chang, the guy surnamed Huang has woken up."

Chang Feng hastily corrected him: "What's that guy surnamed Huang? He's called the prefect of Huang County!"

Then Chang Feng said to the old man: "I'm ashamed, I almost wronged a good official."

The two came to the bedside of Huangzhi County.

Huang Zhixian said weakly, "Go up, go up."

Chang Feng said: "You don't need to say it. I know the whole story. You are a good official, so I blamed you."

Chang Feng felt a little funny: he had only heard of bold and upright officials before.This is the first time I see a timid and honest official.

Huang Zhixian looked at the old man standing beside Chang Feng, and knew that the old man had explained everything to Chang Feng.

He said: "On a business trip. Although I am not greedy for ink, I also have the suspicion of resisting the order."

Chang Feng comforted him: "You can recuperate at ease. Let's talk about it in detail when the condition improves."

(End of this chapter)