Prince of Song Dynasty

Chapter 470 Talking about the Change of Supervision Department
Chongzheng Hall of Kaifeng Imperial Palace.

"Your Majesty, if the relief food is not available, there will be starvation along the way in Hebei, and the tragedy of changing children to eat will be repeated. I would rather be boiled into meat porridge. If I can feed the people, why would I regret this body?" Zhao Pu Said solemnly.

The food that can be moved by the government in Hebei, Hedong, Guanzhong, and the Central Plains of Gyeonggi has been dispatched. It has to be urgently dispatched from Huainan, and even part of the military rations of the Western Army has been allocated. No one would have imagined this disaster. When the crops needed water the most, God in Hebei hadn’t rained for two months. The seedlings in the fields were about to be harvested, and there were not many harvests. , Another plague of locusts ushered in the Hebei area, and the last grain of food was not received.

At the end of autumn and early winter, the green and yellow cannot be connected. This is a fatal disaster. In addition, most of Hebei originally belonged to the Northern Han Dynasty. Da Song was caught off guard.

In fact, solving this problem is easy to say, as long as the imperial court can afford money and sell grain with money, the wealthy businessmen and grain gentry in non-disaster-affected areas will take the initiative to transport grain to the disaster-stricken area and the government for delivery.But the problem is that the imperial court has no money now.And even the imperial court and the emperor could not use force to force these big households and wealthy merchants to contribute their grain for free.After all, this is already a country with a certain concept of law.

Luo Gongming, the envoy of the third division, has lost his hair in the past few days, but there is nothing he can do about it.Only Zhao Kuangyin knew that Ye Chen arranged for someone to snatch 100 million taels of silver from the Holy Church and Nantang, and he was anxiously waiting for the news.

At dusk, the gloomy sun came through from the distant Cangshan Mountain, the weather was already very cold, and the houses in the four fields were all white, which was snow.

The clouds gradually thickened, swallowing the bleak sun directly into the darkness, and the wind gradually increased, rolling the snow on the ground and flying in the air, and snow fell from the sky, coming from different places and different colors The ground snowflakes are entangled together by the power of the wind, twisting their heads distortedly in the oppressive air, showing different levels of whiteness and coldness.
The wind and snow came back again, and the people on the road were miserable, looking for the nearby cottages or inns to rest. This year, there was no flood in the Song Dynasty, only the Hebei area suffered from drought, but since winter, the north of the Yellow River has fallen several times. Snow, although auspicious snow heralds a good year, but that is also next year's event. For the victims in Hebei, it is unknown how many people will freeze to death this winter.

Today's snow is not in the north of the Yellow River, but in the Central Plains and even the Jianghuai area in the south of the Yellow River. The snowfall is not small, but in the relatively affluent Jianghuai area, at least the people have shelter, except for a few beggars on the street. , the possibility of freezing to death is very small.

However, the Jianghuai area has always been the place with the most corrupt officials in the Song Dynasty. Until the establishment of the Supervision Department of the Huaxia Weifu, in the past few months, five county magistrates, three magistrates, and one Heyun Commissioner were uncovered. In the face of convincing evidence, these nine corrupt officials were sent to the prison of Dali Temple one after another. Among them, more than [-] taels of silver were confiscated from the home of the fourth-rank Heyun Tisi, and countless other gold bars and treasures, because the court was always short of money. The nature of the matter itself was extremely serious, and Zhao Kuangyin, the emperor of the Song Dynasty, was furious when he learned about it, and ordered the execution of Heyun Tisi Ling Chi on the spot at the court meeting.It has become the heaviest punishment for scholar-bureaucrats since the founding of the Song Dynasty, and it can be said to shock the world.

Since then, the trend of corruption and bribery in the Jianghuai area has gradually been suppressed. Of course, this does not mean that these officials do not want to be corrupt, but because they are afraid of the secret agents of the Huaxia Weifu Supervision Department, they are forced to accept them. hand.

Similarly, since the nine corrupt officials in the Jianghuai River were investigated, these local officials have become extremely afraid when talking about the Huaxia Weifu, especially when they talk about the Supervision Department, they seem to turn pale when they talk about it.

Even after the news of Ye Chen's death spread more than two months ago, some officials believed that without Ye Chen, Huaxia Weifu's power and influence would plummet, or even fall apart, and the Supervision Department would no longer be as unscrupulous as before.As a result, many officials have had a big feast to celebrate these days, and they feel that the eyes or the dark clouds above their heads have finally disappeared, and then they start to move around, and the greed in their hearts regenerates.

However, not long after Ye Chen's death, someone deliberately disclosed the news of Ye Chen's life and death to Han Keer's ears in an attempt to make him emotional and affect the child in his stomach.This incident angered Li Junhao, Bai Canghai, Xu Fangyi, Ghost Doctor and others. Within half a month, the Supervision Department sent several local officials at the prefectural level to the prison in Dali Temple.This move shocked the entire officialdom of Song Dynasty again, and because Ye Chen was no longer there, many people thought it was the intention of the emperor, and it completely shattered some delusions in the hearts of officials of Song Dynasty.

This is Chuzhou in Jianghuai, which is one of the three prefectures investigated by the Supervision Department three months ago. The new prefecture is said to be relatively clean, or afraid of the methods of the Supervision Department of Huaxia Weifu, not only has it become much more honest , and after taking office, he has done a lot of practical things, one of which is to wipe out the bandits and water bandits nearby.

It is precisely because of this that in this snowy day, those travelers dared to walk on the road, but now that the disaster is over, this God is too disrespectful, although the Grand Canal has not been completely frozen. , but not many people are willing to travel to Kyoto in such severe cold.
Except for the team of pure black carriages without any markings.

The windows and the lower edge of the carriage are sealed very well, no trace of cold air can penetrate in, but the thick cotton curtain in front of the carriage resists the attack of wind and snow, and there are a few muffled 'sorrows' from time to time.

There was a heater in the car, and a stream of hot air followed the fragrance, making the interior as warm as spring.It is in stark contrast to the severe cold outside the car.

Ye Chen felt a little hot, stretched two fingers of his right hand to his neck, loosened the button of the fur coat, exposed his neck, took two deep breaths, then put down the file just sent by the spy in his hand, and loosened it slightly. Sighing, squinting and looking out of the car.Just received the news that with the help of Huaxia Weifu Nanfu, Yu Daoxiang has successfully sneaked out of the territory of Southern Tang with Yu Qingyan, and went all the way north, straight to the northern kingdom of Khitan.

At this time, Ye Chen looked around and saw that the vast white land outside the car was really clean, and the cottages in Cangshan Mountain and the small pond in Dongtian were all covered in snow.

In the distance is a row of somewhat crude houses. It can be seen that the materials used in the construction are not very strong, and they are not very good at keeping out the cold.But looking at the light of the fire and a little warmth inside, Ye Chen nodded in satisfaction. As long as there is firewood for the stove, people in this era have a hard life, but the same vitality is much stronger than that of later generations. They can survive under all kinds of difficult environments, and a little warmth can protect them through this severe winter.

"Find a place to rest." Ye Chen looked at the groom outside the car covered in snow dust, and couldn't help frowning: "It's important to hurry, but don't get sick from the cold."

As a top-notch master, Qi Bian has deep inner strength, so he won't suffer from frostbite, but Ye Chen knows that the drivers behind the other carriages are just ordinary spies, and some of them haven't even cultivated inner strength, so Ye Chen is naturally talking about them.

"Yes! Your lord."

The convoy turned a corner slowly and drove towards the neighboring village along the widest field ridge.
After Ye Chen and his party disembarked at the eastern port of Chuzhou, who knew that the road encountered the biggest snowfall in the Jianghuai region in several years.After a few days of delay in Chuzhou, Xu Fangyi sent someone to send news that the emperor asked him to return to Kaifeng earlier, so the time suddenly tightened up, and according to Ye Chen's intention, he changed the carriage in Chuzhou City and carried the The wind and snow travel along the road.

After entering the village, a local farmer rushed over to greet him tremblingly. This villager was looking at the black convoy curiously and timidly with his hands tucked into the thick winter blanket.It looked as if he was guessing in his heart which important person would be on his way in this snowy day.

Naturally, there were officials from the Huaxia Weifu around Ye Chen to negotiate with him. Ye Chen didn't want him to be alive and the local news would disturb or frighten the local officials, so he hid his identity and sneaked all the way.When he got out of the carriage, he felt snowflakes pouring into his collar with the cold wind. Although it wasn't cold, he subconsciously fastened his buttons tightly. Zhou Xin walked into the village with the silver-white fox fur cloak he had prepared early.

Lian Jicheng led fifty killers from the Assassination Department to follow behind him silently, behind and on both sides were dozens of Huaxia Guards, and at the outermost were dozens of spies.

Ye Chen glanced at it from the corner of his eye, and thought of Yu Daoxiang and Yu Qingyan who were going to Khitan. Although Yu Daoxiang is a super master, there are few enemies in the world.And Yu Qingyan is not an ordinary woman now, her poisoning skills are superb, even in the face of first-class masters, she can poison the opponent without a trace.Such two beautiful women are naturally not so easy to mess with.But since Yu Daoxiang was first captured by the people of the holy hall last time, after he escaped, he was seriously injured by Lou Yanming and almost died.From then on, Ye Chen began to feel a little worried, in order to ensure the safety of his two women.When he was in Hangzhou, he sent out five sword slaves and arranged to follow the two women all the way to Khitan.

Ye Chen was thinking, and walked quickly to the village. The carriage had already been set up, and the guards were left behind. All the underground subordinates had a total of [-] killers, [-] Huaxia Wei and some spies from the intelligence department. , a total of more than a hundred people followed him into the village, entered the clan school of General Tengkong, and Lizheng carefully followed behind. He didn't seem to dare to ask who this big man in expensive fox fur was. Just kept guessing in my heart.

(End of this chapter)