Daming: My boss Zhu Yuanzhang

Li Wei no longer paid attention to Zhang Cheng, but turned his attention to the other officials, and asked lightly: "If anyone has any opinions, feel free to put them forward!"

Everyone: "..."

Wu Xing's lessons learned from the past are in front of them, and they are not as high-level as Zhang Cheng, so no one dares to give opinions now.

"Your Excellency is wise, I agree!"

"Yes, yes, the imperial court must use the land for expropriation, and I support you!"

After Wuxing was taken away, these ordinary officials no longer looked at Zhang Cheng and directly agreed.

Li Wei nodded with satisfaction, and then searched among the people, hoping to find a more reliable official to cooperate with the land expropriation. However, it was not difficult to see from the behavior of these people just now that they all supported Zhang Cheng. On the other hand, if he asks these people to cooperate, I'm afraid things will definitely not go smoothly.

Seeing Li Wei's hesitation, Tian Qing immediately realized that this was an opportunity, stood up immediately, cupped his hands and said: "My lord, if you can find a way to serve as an official, please feel free to give me your orders!"

Li Wei glanced at him. After what happened just now, he understood clearly that Tian Qing, the prefect, was just a decoration. Most of these officials acted based on Zhang Cheng's eyes. Tian Qing seemed to have no objection to this. The deputy seems to have nothing to do with him. Now that he can take the initiative to stand up, Li Wei is a little surprised.

After hesitating for a while, Li Wei decided to let him give it a try. After all, he was the local leader and should still have some energy.

"Can you handle the land acquisition?" Li Wei asked softly.

"It can be done, sir, don't worry, I will do my best to get this thing done!"

Tian Qing nodded immediately, with a positive attitude, completely different from before.

Zhang Cheng looked at his flattering look and felt very annoyed, but for a moment he was helpless.

Seeing him like this, Li Wei nodded in agreement and said sternly: "This time I have been ordered by the emperor to expand the city of Yangzhou. The land acquisition is an official matter of the imperial court. Anyone who dares to say no is defying the imperial court. You can take them directly. That’s it!”

"Yes, I obey your orders!"

Tian Qing bowed and accepted this glorious task. In order to avoid traveling on business, Li Wei also arranged for Jiang Quan to accompany him.

The Jiangdu magistrate was arrested and imprisoned on the spot. Taking advantage of Li Wei's remaining power, Tian Qing directly selected a few relatively reliable officials and took the yamen with him to go to the Yue and Gu families.

Seeing this, Zhang Cheng was very anxious. After leaving the government office, he hurried back to his own house and found the Confucian scholar Mr. Jingju.

"Mr. Jingju, something bad has happened. Prince Consort Li has arrested Wu Xing..."

Zhang Cheng eagerly told him what happened in the government office in a concise manner.

Mr. Jingju’s eyes flickered, and after a moment he smiled and said softly:

"Just arrest him. As I said before, you have done nothing illegal. In the end, this matter will only cost you some money. There is no need for you to be anxious."

"This……"

Zhang Cheng couldn't help but be stunned and suddenly hesitant.

This Mr. Jingju's surname is Zhang, and he is from the same family. He was invited to his house just recently. There are some things that Zhang Jingju doesn't know yet.

The relationship between him and Wu Xing was not just about this incident. They had done many illegal things before. If Wu Xing couldn't stand the interrogation and revealed all those things, then he would also be finished.

"Mr. Jingju, you may not be clear about some things. In fact, Wu Xing has helped me with other things before, such as the evaluation of farmland..."

Zhang Cheng hesitated for a long time, and finally gritted his teeth and told Mr. Jingju some of the less important things he and Wu Xing had done before.

When Zhang Jingju heard these things, he couldn't help but sneer in his heart. He was not surprised at all by these things. He could even see that Zhang Cheng must have other more serious things that he didn't tell him, but it didn't matter whether he said them or not. The important thing is to let him follow his own strategy!

After pondering for a long time, Zhang Jingju said calmly: "In this case, we can only shut up this magistrate of Wuxian County."

Zhang Cheng was shocked and looked at him in astonishment: "What do you mean?"

"Haha, since you understand, sir, why bother asking?"

Zhang Jingju said in a calm tone, as if shutting up someone was as common as eating and drinking.

"It is a serious crime to murder an official of the imperial court!" Zhang Cheng was shocked and said in a low voice.

"Haha, your Excellency is right. How about you think about it again and see if there is any other way?" Zhang Jingju said softly without caring.

When Zhang Cheng heard this, his eyebrows suddenly furrowed and his expression changed.

Zhang Jingju was not anxious when he saw this, and just looked at him quietly.

After struggling for a long time, Zhang Cheng finally sighed and said with some guilt: "Hey, now that things have happened, I can only help Wuzhi County!"

Zhang Jingju couldn't help feeling contemptuous when she saw his coquettish appearance.

While Zhang Cheng was gritting his teeth and making up his mind, Tian Qing had already led people to the Yue family's fields.

As a large family in Yangzhou, the Yue family owns many acres of land, and it is all middle- and high-quality fertile land. Of course, they will not grow these fields themselves, but find some landless people as tenants. Although people who have no land now can choose to open up wasteland, the yield of the cleared land is low, and even if it matures in three to five years, since the water conservancy is occupied by the wealthy families, they do not have enough water to irrigate, so they can only If you get a piece of inferior land, the yield will not be much higher.

Instead of going to such great lengths, it would be better to work directly as a tenant farmer for a wealthy family.

Tian Qing and Jiang Quan came here with a large group of government servants and started shouting loudly:

"Don't do anything. This land has been expropriated by the court. You all should leave quickly and don't interfere with the official business of the court!"

"Go away, go away, go away!"

These government officials were submissive when in front of the officials, but when facing the common people, they were arrogant and arrogant.

When many tenant farmers heard this, they were immediately panicked.

"Sir, the imperial court has confiscated all these fields, what should we do?" a tenant farmer boldly shouted.

Immediately, many tenant farmers followed and complained: "Yes, sir, we are all living on this harvest, please be merciful and leave a way to survive!"

"Sir, have mercy..."

Someone took the lead and knelt down, and others followed suit and knelt down to beg.

Tian Qing was immediately furious. He had promised Li Wei that this matter must be done well today. This was a good opportunity for him to stand up. He must not let these little people stop him.

"Bold, you dare to interfere with the official business of the imperial court, someone is here..."

As he said this, he was going to order people to arrest these people. Anyway, Mr. Li has said that anyone who dares to say no will be arrested!

However, Jiang Quan knew who Li Wei was and knew that he was only referring to people from the Yue family and the Gu family. These tenants could not be arrested casually.

"Sir, please wait!"

Jiang Quan spoke up to stop him in time. Tian Qing immediately stopped ordering and looked at him with confusion. Jiang Quan quickly explained to him in a low voice.

Tian Qing came to his senses immediately after hearing this, but when he saw the tenant farmers kneeling to stop them, he felt troubled.

"Master Jiang, what should we do with these people?" Tian Qing frowned.

Jiang Quan pondered for a moment and remembered what Li Wei had said to Yang Laosan a few days ago. He suddenly felt something in his heart and walked up to the tenants and shouted: "Don't panic, everyone. Without these fields, you can open up wasteland by yourself. If you want to plant new fields, you can plant them yourself. If you don’t want to plant them, we will have to pay for them. We will pay you one year for a field, two for two years, and three for a mature field that is more than three years old!”

Jiang Quan informed these tenant farmers about Li Wei's land resumption, and these people suddenly started whispering.

"Sir, are you telling the truth?"

Some people don't believe it. At the price Jiang Quan said, if they go to open up wasteland, the income will be much higher than working as a tenant farmer for a wealthy family. Is there really such a good thing in the world? Couldn't this officer deliberately make it up to deceive them in order to drive them away?

Jiang Quan frowned slightly and said: "Don't worry, everyone, this was said by the emperor's consort and Minister of Industry, Mr. Li Wei. If you don't believe it, you can ask Yang Laosan."

When everyone heard this, they were still a little hesitant, and finally discussed it and asked one of them to get up and go find Yang Laosan.

Seeing this, Tian Qing was a little impatient, but with Jiang Quan watching, he did not dare to force himself, so he could only wait patiently for the tenant farmer to find Yang Laosan.

After a long time, the tenant farmer finally came to the scene with Yang Laosan. Because of the favor, Yang Laosan was very grateful to Li Wei, Jiang Quan and others. At this time, when he came out to explain, he immediately described Li Wei as a person in the sky with gestures. Mr. Qingtian, who has nothing on the earth, is not only kind to others, but also extremely rich, has a special status, and is always very nice.

In fact, he was once a tenant of these Yue families, but because he offended Yue Dapeng by making a mistake, he was caught, beaten and kicked out, and he had to go and clear up wasteland by himself.

After some oaths from him, these tenant farmers finally believed him. With the urging of many government servants, they finally accepted their fate and began to leave in twos and threes.

Yang Laosan felt that he had made a meritorious service. After being brought to Jiang Quan, he nodded and bowed to him: "Sir, do you think this is okay for me?"

Jiang Quan smiled and nodded: "Okay, you said it very well. Follow us and go to Gu's house later. I will give you some reward when we are done."

"Yes, thank you, sir!" Yang Laosan was overjoyed when he heard that there was still a reward and agreed without hesitation.

When the tenants were leaving together, Yue Dapeng, who got the news, rushed over with his people. When he saw the tenants leaving, he shouted anxiously:

"What are you doing? Come back here!"

When the tenant farmers heard the sound, they were a little confused and stopped to watch.

Seeing this, Tian Qing asked Jiang Quan in a low voice: "Can this be caught?"

Jiang Quan smiled softly and nodded.

When Tian Qing received a positive reply, he immediately felt relieved, straightened his waist, assumed the posture of a magistrate, raised his hand and shouted: "How dare you interfere with the official business of the imperial court, come here, arrest me!" "

The government officials were a little hesitant when they heard this. After all, the Yue family was a local powerhouse and had connections with fellow acquaintance Zhang Cheng, so they were somewhat concerned. (End of chapter)