Farmhouse with a little field

Chapter 318
After hearing what the old village chief said, Han Duyue just shrugged, and then reluctantly chose to give in: "Since the village chief insists so much, then I have nothing to say."

"Are you finally willing to admit it?" The old village chief's eyes lit up.

Han Duyue couldn't help but smiled wryly: "The village chief forced me like this, how can I not admit it? Since the village chief insists on saying that I didn't give you the 50 taels of silver, then just pretend I didn't, so you Satisfied?"

Although the literal meaning of these words seems to be acknowledgment, anyone can hear the helplessness and sarcasm in it, and it is this kind of attitude that makes the crowd feel that the reason for this matter is on Han Duyue's side up.

Moreover, Han Duyue is not only reasonable, but also very humble and polite. Although the village chief's behavior is so excessive, Han Duyue still chooses to be patient and doesn't care about it. This kind of mind is much bigger than that of the village chief.

The old village chief obviously heard Han Duyue's true meaning, and couldn't help but secretly annoyed Han Duyue's scheming for a while, and at the same time regretted his actions today.

If he hadn't chosen to come to the door today, he wouldn't have been tricked by Han Duyue in front of so many people, and he couldn't refute it.

Thinking of this, the old village head only felt that his face was burning in a panic, and he really lost his face. He knew that no matter how he refuted now, it was impossible to make the situation beneficial to him, so he could only suppress his anger Go back and want to leave directly.

But who knew that his idea hadn't turned into reality, when he saw two figures walking over through the crowd, and when he took a closer look, they turned out to be two yamen servants.

The old village head was a little puzzled, how come someone from the official family came to the Han family, could it be that they also came to congratulate the Han family?

"Are you the village head of this Qingyuan village?" Two yamen servants stopped straight in front of the old village head, and one of them asked in a cold voice.

The old village head suddenly panicked, why did these two people come to find him?
"Yes, that's me. I don't know what's the matter with the two officials?" The old village chief's forehead was already sweating. Although he was the head of a village, he was still a rural person after all. A subconscious fear and respect.

The two yamen servants looked at each other, and the person who spoke just now replied: "The mayor found out that the amount of grain handed in by your Qingyuan village this year was wrong, so he asked the two of us to come over and check it out. Did you know about it?"

"This...it's impossible. We all did it according to the requirements ordered by the imperial court. There is absolutely no way it is wrong." At this time, the old village chief had completely forgotten the previous conflict with Han Duyue and concentrated on it. deal with this matter.

And Han Duyue took two steps back silently, her own goal has almost been achieved, and the rest is just to watch the play quietly.

"Hmph, it's not the first year that there was a problem with the food supply in Qingyuan Village. It's just that the people in the yamen were too careless and didn't find out until this year. After looking through the booklet, I found out that Qingyuan Village handed over the food almost every year. Is there a shortage of food, is this a coincidence?" The yamen servant sneered, his eyes shot at the old village head like a sword.

The old village chief's heart skipped a beat, and the cold sweat on his forehead became more and more obvious, which was caused by a guilty conscience.

The taxes and food that Qingyuan Village turned over to the imperial court every year were first sent to the old village head according to the amount of the door, and then handed over by the old village head. Some benefits are also deserved.

So every year he would take out dozens or hundreds of catties of grain from those tax grains, and treat it as his own household. At the beginning, he still felt a little nervous, but as time went by, he had put this matter to rest. As a matter of course, I will not feel guilty at all.

Firstly, he is used to this matter; secondly, this amount seems to be not small if you look at it alone, but compared with the tax and food of the whole village, it is not worth mentioning at all, so the old village chief did not pay attention at all. I didn't expect that such a thing would be found out one day.

The old village chief swallowed hard, his throat was a little itchy, and he wanted to cough but couldn't make a sound, so he felt even more uncomfortable: "I really don't know, I don't know what's going on, maybe ...Maybe some family has made a mistake in land tax and food."

"Hmph, if we're not mistaken, Qingyuan Village's taxes and grains are paid by you every year, right? Don't you find any problems every time you pay the taxes and grains?" Regardless of how old the village chief was, he questioned him directly in front of everyone, regardless of whether he liked saving face or not.

The old village chief's face turned purple, and he didn't know how to answer. If he said that the tax and food missing was only a few dozen, at most a hundred catties, but the two of them had never mentioned Qingyuan Village at all. Exactly how much less taxes and grains, if I really said so, then it means that there is no silver 300 taels here.

But if you don't say anything, then this matter will be heard in the ears of the big guys. It is the irresponsibility of the village chief who has caused such a big mistake and attracted people from the court to investigate. If it is true If something happened, it would be more serious.

Before the old village chief came up with a countermeasure, some onlookers couldn't help expressing their attitude.

"You two officials, our family's taxes and food are not short at all. We were weighed at the village head's house at that time, and we will never make mistakes."

"This kind of problem will not happen in our family. Our family pays the tax directly. The village chief also counted the amount at that time, so this matter must have nothing to do with our family."

"And our family..."

Hearing everyone dismissing his relationship one after another, the old village chief finally couldn't help but raised his sleeve and wiped the sweat that was already covered on his forehead. His eyes swept across the crowd in a panic, and finally met him inadvertently. He met Han Duyue's eyes that seemed to be smiling but not smiling.

The old village chief's heart skipped a beat, and he already had a hypothesis that he couldn't even imagine. Could this matter be part of Han Duyue's conspiracy?If this is the case, then the Han family is not easy, right?
At this moment, the old village chief suddenly remembered what Song Ning had said before. He said that if he dared to trouble the Han family again, he would lose his position as village chief.

Could it be that... the old village head was shocked, and for the first time, he regretted his actions from the bottom of his heart. If he hadn't wanted to embarrass the Han family, wouldn't today's incident not have happened?
But now that things have happened, it is impossible to go back to the past, so no matter how regretful the old village chief is, it is impossible to back down at this time.

"I actually knew about this matter, but..." the old village head lowered his head slightly, and sighed, "Hey, it's my fault for being confused because the Han family is now orphaned and widowed, so seeing that they didn't pay I didn't have the heart to ask for the taxes and food, and things ended up like this."

The Han family paid taxes and grains last year, but they didn’t pay them this year. The old village head wanted to use this matter to make things difficult for the Han family, but then he thought that if the Han family didn’t pay taxes and grains, it would be a violation of the law. The Han family will definitely be punished more severely by then.

With such thoughts in mind, the old village head deliberately did not remind the Han family, but he did not expect that this matter would come in handy at this time.

Han Duyue curled her lips while listening, is the old village chief out of his mind?The yamen servant just said that this situation has existed in Qingyuan Village for many years, but his family only settled in the year before last, so how could this matter have something to do with the Han family?

Besides, the old village head thought why their family didn't pay taxes?She is not a fool.

Sure enough, after hearing this, the yamen servant also raised his eyebrows slightly, and asked, "Oh? Then what happened in the previous years?"

The old village chief deliberately didn't mention the time when the Han family settled down. He thought he might be able to fool the past, but he was obviously too naive. Since this person came here specifically to find trouble with him, how could he come without investigating anything? up?

So the yamen servant will naturally not be fooled.

"This... I don't know about this, maybe I made a mistake, but the Han family did not pay taxes and food this year." The old village chief's last struggle was directly exposed, and he couldn't find a decent one for a while. It's an excuse, so I can only hold on to the fact that the Han family didn't pay taxes and food.

The yamen servant glanced at Han Duyue, then returned to the old village head, and said in a cold voice: "Village head, the Han family you are talking about is the Han family who was hand-picked by the Holy Majesty to be tax-free for ten years?" home?"

"What? What tax exemption?" The old village chief seemed to have been struck by a thunderbolt, and his expression was particularly distorted.

"Don't you know? This is the reward from the Holy Majesty to the Han family to help the imperial court organize sowing corn, so you better not talk nonsense, village chief. If you annoy the Holy Majesty, I'm afraid..." The last words turned into a chuckle , showing endless irony.

Hearing this, the old village chief's face suddenly turned pale. He thought he had finally caught the Han family's handle, but he didn't expect the fact to be like this. No wonder the Han family dared to refuse to pay taxes and rations so blatantly. ,No wonder!
"How dare I..." The old village chief murmured hoarsely, how dare he offend the Holy Majesty, that would be a death penalty.

The other yamen servant, who had been silent all this time, squinted his eyes slightly, and finally spoke at this moment: "Someone went to the yamen to report that the village head of Qingyuan Village dared to hide the tax and food that should have been handed over to the court for private use. So we came here today, also for this matter.”

"What... what? Could this be a mistake? How could I do such a thing?" The old village chief had just recovered from a huge blow when he was struck by another even bigger one. The blow crushed him, and he let out a cry of terror, his eyes widening.

(End of this chapter)