People in the Three Kingdoms: Starting from Preaching

Chapter 639 Answer
"We are just asking for overtime pay. What's wrong with that? I don't accept it. I don't accept it!"

"The factory owners are the ones who are wrong. They are the ones who violated the law. Why are you arresting us?"

"They arbitrarily deducted our wages and even cheated us out of the compensation for work-related injuries. They also forced us to work overtime. They were wrong in the first place. How can you be so biased?"

The streets were in chaos. Under the pressure of the arrest and suppression teams, the crowd suddenly became like a pot of boiling water. For a while, all kinds of voices filled with grievances and anger rose one after another.

Faced with the government's powerful measures, the weakness of the people was immediately revealed. No matter how dissatisfied they were, no one really dared to resist. At most, they would complain while struggling. More people even fled in all directions when they saw that the situation was not right.

Seeing this, the county magistrate on the steps at the door sneered. In his opinion, this scene was not worth mentioning at all. How could ordinary people go against the authority of the government?

Of course, the reason why he could use such powerful means was also because of the other people standing beside him.

These people are also officials in the county, but they are not under the county magistrate. Instead, they are heads of various vertical yamen that Xu Chen had promoted twenty years ago. Among them are sheriffs like county lieutenants, as well as heads of criminal yamen. When all these people stand here, they can fully represent the entire will of the local yamen.

Although twenty years ago the verticalization of local powers was largely intended to weaken the power of governors and county officials, this would allow governors, county magistrates and county magistrates to do many things less arbitrarily.

If there is no cooperation from the public security and criminal law offices in a situation like today, it would be difficult for the county magistrate to use such strong measures.

But this is just an idealized state. Although this will increase the difficulty of county officials' work, it does not leave them completely helpless. In fact, although the local government offices are not under the jurisdiction of each other now, they are all officials in the same place and will take care of each other. They even have the motivation to work together on everything, so the scene before us happened like this.

Although the emotions of the people below were very intense, the officials standing on the steps were unmoved. They represented authority and had nine ways to calm the situation if they wanted to. Even if the people's emotions became ten times more intense, they could not be shaken in the slightest.

So they just calmly watched as several leading workers in the crowd screamed and wailed in pain under the sticks of the yamen officials, and remained unmoved.

Things went just as they expected. The situation was quickly brought under control. Most of the workers fled and some of the troublemakers were completely subdued by beatings with sticks. What seemed like a serious matter was, to the government, just a matter of words.

Next, as long as these troublemakers are punished as examples, most of the workers will be deterred. Even if there are still those who are dissatisfied in the future, as long as they cannot gather in a crowd to cause trouble, they will not make any noise. In this way, a big thing can be turned into a small thing and a small thing can be turned into nothing, and everything will be fine.

These methods are easy for these county magistrates to use, and there will be no surprises at all.

But accidents are unexpected. Things that can be thought of in advance are not considered accidents. Therefore, there is no such thing as absolutely no accidents. Just when several county officials thought that everything was fine, an accident still happened.

In the controlled scene, people were either fleeing or being escorted to the ground, but there were two figures standing upright in the middle, blinking their eyes in particular, which soon attracted the attention of several county officials.

Ok?
What's going on?
One of these two men was an old man who looked to be in his sixties or seventies, and the other was a burly man in his forties. It was obvious that the temperaments of both of them were not something that ordinary people could possess, which made several county officials frown.

Several people looked at each other. Although they felt something was wrong, they whispered to each other and then gave some instructions to the clerk beside them.

After the order was issued, the yamen officials reacted very quickly and immediately surrounded the two men, as if they were ready to capture them in one fell swoop.

However, faced with this scene, the two men were not moved at all.

The burly man snorted coldly and pulled out something from his waist. It was a delicate and compact gun. With the extremely fast action of drawing the gun and shooting, a powerful gunshot rang out around, and everyone's movements subconsciously stopped.

The county magistrate's face turned pale. He clearly felt that something had just brushed past his ear, which meant that he almost died.

"Who are you and why are you carrying guns!" The county lieutenant was the first to come to his senses. His expression suddenly became tense, his hands tightly grasping the long sword at his waist, and he was in a state of complete alert.

It's no wonder he reacted like that. Firearms are a new type of weapon with limited numbers and are currently only equipped in the military. Even he, a county lieutenant, has never touched one. Anyone who can hold a firearm at this time must be extraordinary.

The yamen officials around did not dare to act rashly. They just surrounded the place nervously but did not dare to rush forward. The situation became awkward.

In the end, it was the sturdy man who broke the deadlock first. He curled his lips in contempt, took out a metal plate-like object from his arms, threw it accurately at the county magistrate's feet, and then said something that made everyone feel earth-shattering.

"You are so brave. Are you going to capture the leader as well?"

Silence, the ultimate silence. At the moment the word "saint" came out of his mouth, everyone's eyes were focused on the old man, and the agitated atmosphere just now froze. Leader, what leader?
In Xuanxia, ​​this question is not a question for anyone, because Xuanxia can only have one leader, and that is Xu Chen.

No one would think that someone in Xuanxia would dare to impersonate that man, so the identity of the old man in front of him is self-evident. He had "disappeared" in Xuanxia for a long time, but he actually appeared in this small town!

Most of the people around were still hesitant, but the county magistrate holding the token suddenly turned pale.

This is clearly the token of the captain of the guard, and the captain of the guard also has another identity, that is, the captain of the man's personal guards.

"I pay my respects to the Master!"

With a thud, the county magistrate fell to his knees, but this was not a sign of him paying homage to Xu Chen. He was simply frightened and his legs went limp. The people next to him were not much better either, with either trembling or sweating profusely.

When they thought about what had just happened, they could already foresee how Xu Chen would view them.

They never thought that Xu Chen, who had disappeared for a long time, would just happen to run into their good fortune. They were doomed. Although they had acted with confidence and without scruples just now, they knew clearly whether this kind of thing should be done or not.

Once Xu Chen showed up, this matter was destined not to end so easily. The future fate of this small county government would not be decided by the county officials, but would be completely in the hands of Xu Chen.

However, Xu Chen did not immediately make a big fuss about the matter, but simply controlled the county government. Although the county magistrate and other county officials were very nervous, they could only wait for the verdict of fate. They wanted to explain to Xu Chen, but Xu Chen was too lazy to talk to them and left them alone for a whole day or two.

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This also made everyone in the county government confused, and no one knew what the leader was going to do.

"Master, I have preliminarily found out that there is no transfer of benefits between the officials of this county and the local wealthy businessmen." Tian Jianguo, who was in his forties, walked into a room deep inside the county government office and reported to Xu Chen, who was dozing on a recliner inside.

Xu Chen opened his slightly cloudy eyes, obviously a little confused: "There is no interest connection, if that's the case, why are they working so hard to protect the wealthy merchants?"

Not to mention Xu Chen's doubts, Tian Jianguo also couldn't figure it out. This was indeed unreasonable.

There is no love or hate without reason in the world. If there were no interests involved, there would be no need for the county officials to act the way they do today.

After thinking for a while, Tian Jianguo said, "Perhaps it's because the time is too short. Why not let my subordinates investigate further? Maybe we can find some clues."

However, Xu Chen shook his head. As the son of Tian Shitou, Tian Jianguo also possessed the same excellent professional skills as Tian Shitou. It is not that he could not find out the things in such a small county. The fact that he could not find anything now probably really meant that these county officials did not make any mistakes.

But this also made Xu Chen even more worried. It was even more terrifying that they were still trying their best to protect the capitalists even though they had no vested interests in the matter.

The room was silent. Xu Chen closed his eyes and pondered. After a long time, he suddenly opened his eyes and said, "Go and get the county's annual civil service examination results. I want to see them!"

Although Tian Jianguo didn't quite understand Xu Chen's intention, he turned around and did his job obediently.

Now that Xu Chen has revealed his identity, no one can stop him no matter what he wants to do. The entire county government has been completely controlled, and it is easy to retrieve the county government's documents. Soon Tian Jianguo returned with several documents in his hands.

Without Xu Chen saying anything, Tian Jianguo immediately handed the reading glasses to Xu Chen. After Xu Chen put them on, he started to look through the documents.

Xu Chen didn't read for long. Less than a few minutes later, he closed the document and then shook his head helplessly as if he had received an answer.

"Call him over and let him handle this matter personally."

Putting the documents aside, Xu Chen rubbed his eyes tiredly, said a few words, and continued to lie down to rest.

Tian Jianguo was stunned at first, but then he understood who the "he" Xu Chen was talking about was. It definitely was not the local county magistrates who had been begging for an audience in the past two days, but the current prime minister who was far away in the capital.

(End of this chapter)