Lin Gao Qiming

Chapter 2139 Difficulties
Because of this incident, Xie Er Renyuan had no intention of continuing to "inspect" in and out of the city, but the two pontoon bridges had not yet been "inspected". Three rivers and six banks are connected together.

Now these two pontoon bridges have been destroyed in the flames of war, and the daily life of Wuzhou people has been greatly affected. For the Wuzhou Municipal Government, whether the traffic can be smooth is also related to whether the security forces can quickly reach various points outside the city.So Xie Er Ren must go and have a look.

From Longmu Temple to Guijiang Floating Bridge, you only need to go south along the Guijiang River.The river bank in this area is close to the urban area, and used to be full of piers, warehouses and shops, and it was very lively.At this time, there are broken walls and ruins everywhere-fortunately, most of the market docks have been preserved, but every house is closed, looking deserted and depressed.Xie Erren sighed as he walked: This Fubo army fought too much, and fought like this!

He suddenly remembered something, turned around and asked, "Why are the shops here closed? Don't you want them to open as soon as possible?"

Pai Jia, who came to accompany him, smiled and said: "I don't know, the area outside the city is now in a state of chaos, bandits and gangsters are running rampant, the street fences are all destroyed, and there are people looting even in broad daylight - how dare the store open its doors to make a living! "

Xie Youren didn't expect the law and order outside the city to be so bad, but it was unavoidable when he thought about it again: the old third-class yamen servants died and fled. Many people, because they knew about the rectification of yamen servants in Guangzhou, asked themselves whether there was blood debt or public anger. Naturally, he dared not come back to death, and there were only 20 people who came to report in the end, and it was already beyond his power to be responsible for the security of the city.As for the militia that was hastily established, it was a mob without a word.

"Don't worry, I'll arrange for the militiamen to come over and be on duty right now. It's just that the merchants here have to contribute their own efforts to repair the street fences. There are damaged gaps everywhere, whether they use bricks or wood, they are always blocked. .”

Card A naturally said "here", and Zhao Fengtian hurriedly wrote down another note in his small notebook.This is an instruction to all the secretaries of the elders: the speeches made by the elders during inspections and talks outside should be recorded and formed into a memorandum--in the past, the elders frequently issued various "instructions" when they inspected, and they forgot everything after returning. clean, leaving a bad impression of "good talk" on the naturalized people and the aborigines.

Xie Youren declined the sedan chair, and walked along the street to have a look, stopping from time to time to inquire about his health, before arriving at the cow dung wharf where the Guijiang floating bridge is located.

The location of the Guijiang Floating Bridge is roughly where the later Yuanjiang Bridge is located. The east of the bridge is Niudshi Wharf, the east is connected to Xiaonan Road, and the west of the bridge is Sanhezui Dajiaochang.The bricks and stones on both sides of the bridge head have dozens of steps, each with a pair of iron pillars, on which there are two wrought iron locks, and the boats are moored on the chains.But at this time, not only the boat disappeared without a trace, but the two iron chains were also broken and sank in the river.

Below the pier, there are also many wrecks of ships that were sunk and burned. Together with the houses destroyed by the war near the cow dung pier, it is a desolate and lonely scene after the war.

He Dongli said that the pontoon bridge was first built by Han Yong and the local guarding eunuch Chen Ping. There were 56 boats in total, and another ten boats were used as spares.It has been renovated and replaced over the years, but the iron pillars and chains are still old.

The iron chain itself can be opened and closed, and when a ship passes by, it can be loosened to make way for the channel.It can be connected when there is no boat, although it is a little inconvenient for the traffic on the Guijiang River, but it is a great virtue for the people on both sides of the strait.

Regardless of whether it is from the perspective of winning the hearts of the people, the convenience of dispatching troops, or restoring the prosperity of the market, this pontoon bridge must be repaired as soon as possible.

Xie Erren asked the local Paijia to call the bridge manager, and after asking, he found out that not all the ships were destroyed, and there were still seven or eight spare boats surviving-even so, the gap was not small.The people who manage the bridge are also complaining. It turns out that although the bridge was built by the government, the daily maintenance is the responsibility of the nearby merchants.Although the government sent people to set up cards at the head of the bridge to collect taxes, all the daily maintenance costs of the bridge had to be "raised by the people themselves", which became a big burden on the shops on both sides of the strait.

He listened to the "representatives" complaining there, and he felt a little impatient-he had heard too many such words since he entered the city, endless complaints: the clerks who stayed in the yamen, the "village virtuous elders", the common people ...As long as you ask about the specific situation, you will find many difficulties.He looked at him eagerly, hoping that he would come up with a solution. Even the naturalized civilian cadres and soldiers all had the same tune: in their view, the elders should be omnipotent.

How do you know that I am also a mud bodhisattva crossing the river, and you don't know how to do it yourself!Thinking of how the village sages from the Rehabilitation Bureau were crying for poverty, Xie Erren's mood became a little worse—I don't know how the money and food were raised.

With such a tired mood, Xie Erren hurriedly left the ferry and returned to the government office.The search team of the Planning Institute has already taken stock of the spoils and the contents of various public treasuries at the Wuzhou prefecture and county levels, and made them into a booklet.

Xie Youren took a look, and generally speaking, there was not much oil and water: there was almost no money for food.He hated Xiong Wencan more and more in his heart: How much food was wasted in Wuzhou with tens of thousands of people!
There are quite a lot of miscellaneous materials in the spoils, but most of them are knives, guns and weapons, which don't help him at all in his current predicament-he can't use so many knives and guns, and Daming's firearms Senate doesn't like it either.It seems that the ships abandoned by the Ming army still have some value, at least they can be used to repair the pontoon bridge.

He was thinking about which things could be used and which things should be done as soon as possible, while writing while thinking, he felt a headache after a long time, got up and turned around, suddenly remembered the female assassin, and called Zhao Tianfeng:
"How about that female assassin?"

"I'm in prison." Zhao Fengfeng said, "According to the yamen servant, he has a very strong temper. He wanted to bite his tongue after he was caught, and then he wanted to hit a wall on the road. He would be shackled against the wall and stuffed his mouth. Grim room The book office asks the chief to show me how to deal with it?"

This kind of thing just needs to be sent to the naturalized cadres who are in charge of public security. If you want to say that the importance is nothing more than finding out whether there are "anti-Senate groups" behind the scenes, if you find it troublesome, you can deal with it directly: whether it is execution on the spot Whether to relax the front line and escort Lingao to "labor reform" is a matter of one sentence.

However, Xie Erren's reporter instinct revived: there must be big news behind this incident!His nose seemed to smell the stench of major social news, regardless of being one of the parties involved.

"No, I want to interrogate myself!" Xie Erren said decisively.

In addition to the hard-to-change nature, this more or less included his intention to use familiar things to dilute the depression in front of him.

"Yes, I'm going to ask someone to bring her here!" Zhao Fengfeng has worked beside the elders for a long time, and he is used to the sudden ideas of the chiefs. The phrase "the chief is always right" has almost become a superstition among the old naturalized people.So he turned around and did it without any doubts.

Xie Erren stopped him: "I'll go to the cell for interrogation, don't bring me here."

This place has been converted into an office, and there are documents and maps everywhere. It is not appropriate to let prisoners and retained yamen servants in.Xie Erren still has this sense of secrecy.

Zhao Fengfeng immediately led the way and brought him to the gate of the prison.

Wuzhou Fulao is actually located in the southwest corner of the government office—although the scale and quality of buildings in the prefectures and counties of the whole Ming Dynasty vary, they are all carved out of the same mold in terms of shape. Specifically, they are all ordered according to Zhu Yuanzhang. It was built according to the shape of the Yamen.Wuzhou government office is no exception.

Regardless of the fact that ordinary residential buildings are mostly wooden structures or bamboo fences pasted with mud, this prison and the county government are treated the same way, and they are all built with handmade blue bricks, which is very elegant.The wall is even taller and stronger, and it looks very gloomy with age.

The gate of the mansion prison is a hard mountain-style tile-roofed house, with three rooms wide and one room deep, facing north from south.The middle one is the gate, and the two sides are mullioned windows.This is the entrance to the cell and the place where the guards work on duty, so it is also called "passing hall".

In the hall, the prison team leader and prisoner had received the news, and they all put on neat clothes to greet them.

Xie Youren waved his hand: "Don't be too polite, where's the assassin?"

"I will be detained in the death cell behind." The team leader took a step forward, and said respectfully, "This woman is very strong, and she tried to commit suicide several times, so she can only be held in shackles. Please show me, where is the interrogation?"

Xie Youren looked at the hall, the place is not big, and the east and west rooms are even more inconvenient because they are the place where the cell boss works and is on duty.He remembered that in the Beijing opera "Su San Qi Jie", there was a prison temple, which was not only a temple, but also at least a house, which could be used for interrogation.

"I heard that there is a prison temple in the prison, so let's go there."

The head of the prison was taken aback, and said with a smile: "There is a prison temple, but...just...the place is too small, it's not convenient..."

This time, it aroused the suspicion of Ji Youren. He had never been to the prison before, and now he wanted to take a look, so he said, "What are you afraid of? If it doesn't suit you, just change it—lead the way!"

Seeing that he had made up his mind, the prison chief was not willing to disobey him, so he immediately led the way.

After passing the hall, it turned out to be a narrow and long yard, with a row of cells on both sides, and a corridor in the middle, which was only 2 meters wide.There is really only a "line of sky" in the whole yard.Walking on the corridor is indescribably gloomy and oppressive.From time to time, a damp stench can be smelled.

The squad leader said that this is the cell where ordinary prisoners are held.There are eight cells on each side. At this moment, because the government has released all the prisoners before the city was broken, the cells are all empty. Xie Erren looked around the door out of curiosity: the cells are extremely small, with a depth of no more than 1.5 meters and a width of no more than 2 meters. Meter.
-
Next update: Volume 344 - Guangzhou Governance Chapter [-]

(End of this chapter)