Great Han Empire

Chapter 331 The rain is coming
After Taiwei Cao Song gave a brief account of what happened in Hedong County, the emperor sneered and said, "Thirteen checkpoints? Is Xia Yun crazy about money and set up thirteen checkpoints on Chidao less than a thousand miles away? He What do you want to do with Han Ying? Do you want to stir up a riot among refugees in Bingzhou, or do you want to make more money for yourself?"

Seeing the emperor's unkind expression, Cao Song didn't dare to answer.He thought to himself that it was not your intention to add a toll gate on Hedong Chidao. Now that something happened, you put the responsibility on Xia Yun and Han Ying, as if it had nothing to do with you.

"These bastards, if they have nothing to do, they will stab me in the basket." The emperor waved his hand and asked, "Did Li Aiqing send the evidence of the corruption of the governor of Hedong, Han Ying, and the bureaucrats at all levels of the Hedong government?"

"It's all delivered."

The emperor laughed, "Okay, okay. Immediately send an order to Li Aiqing, asking him to send the stolen goods to me as soon as possible."

When Cao Song, Huangfusong, Lu Zhi and others heard this, they immediately understood what the emperor was thinking.When the Son of Heaven heard that Li Hong had arrested Xia Yun and Han Ying in Hedong, he didn't think of the consequences of the corruption in Hedong, nor how to calm the matter. The first thing he thought of was that his Wanjintang would soon have a huge income. .

Today's Zhenbei General Li Hong has become more and more lawless.Although he has made great achievements in battle and made great contributions to supporting the precarious Han Dynasty, he did not hesitate to violate the ancestral system in order to farm the land, and he did not hesitate to set off a storm of corruption in the east of the river. His arrogant, barbaric and bloody nature has been exposed undoubtedly. In the days to come, nothing will bring peace and stability to the Han Kingdom.

In the eyes of Cao Song and others, Li Hong took the opportunity to suppress corruption in Hedong, and his purpose must be to raise money for farming, not to rectify the governance of Hedong.However, now Li Hong already knows how to get the protection and favor of the emperor. It is not enough to rely on one victory after another, and he has to send money to the emperor.The most fundamental reason why Xiliang's anti-corruption can be successful and get the support and help of the emperor is that all the stolen goods have entered the emperor's Wanjintang.Now it is too late to stop Li Hong from eradicating corruption. The stupid and greedy eunuchs gave Li Hong a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Now that he has made a move, he cannot take it back.

However, there are far more dignitaries in central Beijing involved in the suppression of corruption in Hedong than in Xiliang. Once Li Hong thoroughly investigates Hedong, and then publishes the dignitaries suspected of corruption and the evidence to the world, the world will be in chaos. It's like cutting the biggest abscess on the dying Han country, but at the same time it also cut off the vitality of the Han country and accelerated the death of the Han country.

While wiping the sweat off his brow, Cao Song mumbled what he meant.Only then did the emperor realize the seriousness of the problem.He blinked his small eyes and thought for a long time.He felt a little heartbroken, if he forcibly made an order to suppress this matter, he would have no benefit.

"Your Majesty, please make a decision as soon as possible. General Zhenbei has blocked the ferry of the Yellow River and is arresting and searching people all over the river. It's too late." Lu Zhi knelt down, kowtowed and begged, "Your Majesty, some things need to be taken slowly. Urgency leads to change. If there is another disturbance in Luoyang at this time, it will affect His Majesty's future enshrinement of the imperial line."

When the Son of Heaven heard that this matter would affect the emperor, he became impatient, "Quickly issue an order to ask the Tingwei Mansion to send people to Hedong, and immediately bring Xia Yun, Han Ying and other criminals to the capital, quickly, quickly! "

===

Li Hong didn't blame Qu Yi, on the contrary, he liked Qu Yi yelling at him like this, which could keep him clear-headed.

In recent months, he has been exhausted physically and mentally because he has worked day and night to recruit the Yellow Turban Army and appease the refugees.For the Yellow Turban Army to be appeased, and for the refugees to farm, he did a lot of illegal things, but he couldn't do anything about it. He didn't even have time to think about right and wrong and the consequences. He felt that he was lost, in the face of interests and goals. , He gave up all principles and conscience, he was depressed, helpless, painful, he had nowhere to confide, the only thing that supported him to continue was the laughter and hope of the refugees.

He seldom stays in the big camp. He would rather chat with the farmers in the fields, sing with the people in the plains and ditches, and gallop in the vast world. of myself.He is just a citizen of the Han Dynasty, a Xianbei escaped slave who hopes to find his parents and family after the country is peaceful.

Li Hong asked Xie Ming to take over the affairs of the county government, and let Xiaolan take over the interrogation. He took Qu Yi out of the city and galloped along the spacious road. He wanted to have a good talk with Qu Yi, and he also wanted to find Personally talk about the depression and pain in your heart.

In the evening, he was stationed outside the city with the Black Panther Yi Cong. Xie Ming came to him and said that the Zhongchang servant Xia Yun wanted to see him, but Li Hong refused.

"My lord, Mr. Wei Zhuwei, the head of the Wei family, wants to see you. Are you taking the time to meet the wealthy people in Hedong?" Xie Ming asked. The rich merchants from Hedong County are very anxious, and want to have a detailed discussion with your lord on farming, salt and iron sooner."

Li Hong nodded and said, "You can arrange it. In addition, write a letter to Zhong Yuan in Luoyang, asking him to bring more people when he comes back. There are too few officials in the Zhenbei General's Mansion. It’s too busy, it’s too hard.”

The next day, Li Hong, Qu Yi, and Xie Ming rushed to the Wei Mansion in Anyi City to pay a special visit to Mr. Wei Zhu.Wei Zhu is over 60 years old, with red hair and a beautiful face, hale and hearty, with a bit of a fairy spirit.He introduced Li Hong and Qu Yi to a group of aristocratic family heads gathered at the mansion, the two sides exchanged pleasantries, and then they got to the point.Li Hong has been busy with government affairs in the past few months, and he knows everything about private households, farming and mulberry, water and soil, land rent, oral taxation, salt and iron monopoly, and water transportation. Specific discussions have been held on issues such as stockpiling and cargo breeding.

Li Hong explained in detail the strategy of subsidizing agriculture with business to ensure the success of farming. He hoped that the wealthy in Hedong could help quickly to ensure that farming would be effective within three to five years.Wei Zhu and several other Patriarchs saw that Li Hong was very gentle and did not threaten them by taking advantage of the corruption of the Hedong Mansion and perverting the law, all doubts and worries in their hearts were immediately swept away, and everyone expressed their efforts to help.

"Winter is coming, but at least half of the refugees in Taiyuan and Shangdang still have no food and clothing. I need food, tents, and farm supplies. Can you help solve it?"

Wei Zhu said with a smile: "Don't worry, my lord, we have all these things, and we can send them over right away, but..."

Li Hong smiled and said, "I don't have any money now, so I can only pay on credit, but you can immediately intervene in the operation of the salt and iron in Hedong, and use the profits from the salt and iron to return it to you year by year. What do you think, sir?"

What Wei Zhu and others wanted was Li Hong's words.

What happened next is not debatable.Xie Ming immediately took out the list of materials needed by Bingzhou, Wei Zhu took it over and looked at it without looking at it, and said directly: "Don't worry, my lord, before the snow falls, I will send the materials needed by my lord to Taiyuan and Shangdang. As for the price , we lowered it a bit, because compared with Qu Zhong and Xu Ling, we have a short road and can save transportation tax."

Li Hong was overjoyed and thanked repeatedly.

"But..." Wei Zhu glanced at Li Hong, and asked cautiously, "How much percentage do we take for Hedong Yantie? My lord must guarantee that we get back the principal within five years."

"Fifty percent." Li Hong said without hesitation, "No more."

Wei Zhu and the other patriarchs obviously did not expect that Li Hong would give them half of the management power of Hedong Salt and Iron, and the house suddenly burst into cheers.

===

The imperial decree from Luoyang was sent to Hedong, accompanied by Song Dian, the Zhongchang servant, and Shan Qing, the left supervisor of Tingwei's mansion.

Li Hong ordered them to be released, but he asked them to walk through the street for [-] steps before being locked in a prison cart, saying that he would let the people in Hedong see the fate of these corrupt officials as a warning.Zhongchang attendant Song Dian didn't care, he could do whatever he wanted as long as Li Hong let him go, but then he regretted it.The angry people first threw things at them, and then began to push and shoved the guards in charge, trying to punch and kick them to vent their hatred, at this time, someone shouted: "Kill them, kill them. "

With a sound of "Boom...", the scene suddenly became chaotic, and the angry people no longer cared about life and death, roared forward, and immediately submerged Xia Yun, Han Ying and dozens of bureaucrats at all levels in Hedong Prefecture who were in shackles. into the angry crowd.

The guards who were in charge of guarding stopped with knives and guns at first, but were immediately caught in the flow of people. More guards were knocked down to the ground, and the knives and guns in their hands were immediately snatched away. Some vigilant guards saw something wrong and ran away .

Song Dian was stunned, staring dumbfounded at the chaotic scene, shouting hoarsely: "It's a riot, it's a riot, kill me, kill me."

Qu Yi smiled coldly, waved his hands and roared, "Shoot, shoot for me..."

The iron knight soldiers pointed their arrows at the blue sky, and after a few sparse shots, they died down.Hundreds of long arrows flew feebly for dozens of steps, and fell crookedly into the crowd.The unarmed common people suddenly saw the long arrows falling from the sky, danced happily, grabbed them one after another, and rushed to the crowded place.

Song Dian was furious, he drew his sword and pointed at Qu Yi, and shouted sternly, "Qu Yi, if you don't attack again, I'll kill you!"

Qu Yi looked up to the sky and laughed loudly, then turned around and shouted, "Brothers, blow the trumpet and prepare to attack."

"Woo... woo..." The sound of the horn soared into the sky, and the iron knight soldiers shouted wildly, "Kill..."

The sound of horns and thunderous killings of the charge awakened the roaring crowd. Knowing that a catastrophe had occurred, the common people immediately turned pale in panic and fled in all directions with a "hula". Dozens of corpses full of long arrows were lying in a pool of blood.

"Brothers, spread out and hunt down the traitors..." Qu Yi laughed loudly, and took the lead, galloping along the bloody street.

The iron cavalry started, and roared away like the wind, trampling the corpses all over the street into pieces of meatloaf.

Song Dian was so angry that he almost spurted blood. He knew that he had been fooled by Li Hong, and in a rage, he rushed into the prefect's mansion with his sword in hand.

"You killed Lord Marquis and the court officials, I want to sue you before His Majesty."

Li Hongli ignored him, reached out to pick up a roll of bamboo slips on the case table, and slammed it on his body, "Go away, go to Luoyang and sue me, and see if it's you or me."

Song Dian was taken aback by Li Hong's yelling, took a step back in horror, and stepped on the scroll of bamboo slips.Out of the corner of his eyes, he glanced at the words on the bamboo slips, and broke out in a cold sweat. It suddenly revealed that Song Dian was selling salt and iron.Song Dian snatched the scroll of bamboo slips, turned around and ran away.

===

The Son of Heaven was very angry when he got the reward, and issued a decree to punish Li Hong and Qu Yi heavily.

At this moment, the old middle-ranking officials wished they could eat Li Hong's flesh and drink Li Hong's blood.At the beginning of the year, Bi Lan died in Jizhou. Everyone was dumb and couldn't say anything about eating Coptis chinensis, but now Xia Yun killed him in Hedong, and everyone couldn't bear it anymore. They pestered the emperor to kill him, and even said that Xiao Huang Men Zuofeng was murdered by an ant thief in Jizhou and Li Hong secretly instigated it.The emperor was so tired of arguing with them every day, he had no choice but to give them some comfort money, and told them to go home and rest, and stop serving them, just let the junior officials take care of them.The emperor also said, people say that you are the ten permanent attendants, but in fact there are twelve of you, and now two of you have died, just right, worthy of the name, a good thing.The old middle-ranking officials were so angry that they vomited blood.

The emperor wrote a letter to Li Hong, saying that he had spent a lot of money in order to appease the anger of the old middle-ranking officials, and told him not to make trouble anymore. Tuntian, go to Youzhou to suppress the rebellion as soon as possible, do some serious things, don't cause trouble when you have nothing to do, and don't forget to add a word, hurry up and send the stolen goods to the capital, I will spend a lot of money during the Chinese New Year, waiting to ask for money.

Li Hong immediately pleaded guilty and sent people to send more than 20 billion stolen goods to the capital. At the same time, he recommended Wang Han, the former chief minister who was at home, to serve as the prefect of Hedong to rebuild the Hedong mansion.

Li Hong's move caught the court bureaucrats by surprise. They thought that Li Hong would take the opportunity to control Hedong County, but they didn't expect him to take the initiative to push Wang Han out.With Wang Han in Hedong County, not only can put an end to corruption in Hedong, but also can prevent Li Hongda from wantonly exploiting the benefits of salt and iron in Hedong. In addition, it can also take care of the interests of the elites in the capital in Hedong County.Everyone was happy, and the voice of impeaching Li Hong disappeared immediately, but the emperor was very unhappy.

Wang Han's integrity and incorruptibility are well-known throughout the world, but in order to steal money from the national treasury, the old man often uses unscrupulous means to deceive his superiors and subordinates, bluffing and deceiving him, and he does everything he can. To this day, the Dasinong Mansion still owes money to the emperor and the queen mother Not yet.Although the emperor read his loyalty to the country, he didn't punish him for the last confrontation, but he didn't want to let him get any more money. This old man is too difficult to deal with, and he is extremely cunning.The emperor did not make an order for a long time.

The ministers reminded every day that the Hedong Mansion cannot be without a prefect. If Li Hong is really in charge of the political affairs of Hedong, wouldn't he have the power to overwhelm the world.Li Hong finally took the initiative to take a step back and recommended Wang Han, and the dignitaries in Beijing also liked Wang Han, how could such a rare good thing be delayed?
After Li Wei received Li Hong's letter, he hurriedly took his teacher Zhu Jun to persuade Wang Han to give the emperor an apology.After the old man was redeemed from Beisi Prison with money by his friends, he has not even written an apology form.It was useless for Zhu Jun to persuade him, so he had to write one for him, and asked Wang Han's family to stamp it without telling him, and then gave it to the emperor himself.He talked kindly with Huangfusong, Lu Zhi and others for a long time, and the emperor let go.

"Everyone knows that the salt and iron benefits from Bingzhou and Hedong are now sent directly to Wanjintang." The emperor asked, "If he gets in the way and secretly gives money to Dasinong's mansion, will I kill him?" Or praise him?"

Lu Zhi hurriedly said: "Your Majesty, it is General Zhenbei's Mansion who presided over the re-opening of Bingzhou and Hedong Yantie. It is General Zhenbei who gave money to Your Majesty, not Hedong Mansion. Have you forgotten, Your Majesty?"

"Hmph, don't lie to me." The Son of Heaven looked at them suspiciously, and said disdainfully, "Once the matter of garrisoning the fields has a clue, General Zhenbei will lead his troops to the north to suppress the rebellion. How can Li Aiqing have time to take care of this matter? It’s not the state government that handles it.”

"Your Majesty can issue an order to General Zhenbei to set up a captain of Yantie to be responsible for re-opening the operation of Yantie and to send money to His Majesty. What do you think?"

The emperor thought for a long time and said, "Okay, just as Ai Qing said."

===

With the imperial decree, Wang Han immediately took office and began to recruit government officials in Luoyang.

Wang Han's former students were not many, most of them worked in the Dasinong Mansion. The current Dasinong Yuan Pang considered that they had worked in the Dasinong's Mansion for many years and were proficient in all kinds of affairs, so none of them were allowed to resign.And the scholars in Beijing all know that there is no money to be made after following Wang Han, especially Wang Han is easy to offend the emperor, and he will be imprisoned at any time, and he has offended too many people in the past few years, so a few days Down, there are no applicants.

Scholars were unwilling to apply. In addition to Wang Han's own reasons, there was another more important reason. Li Hong's bloody campaign against corruption in Hedong almost killed all the bureaucrats in Hedong in just ten days. Most scholars stay away.These days, how many officials do not accept bribes? If Li Hong, who is in charge of the military affairs in Hedong, came to crack down on corruption at every turn, how many lives would he not lose?
Wang Han was helpless and chilled.This is today's scholars of the Han Dynasty. Few think of being loyal to the country, but many think of corrupting the law after becoming an official.

At this time, the two dismissed Taiwei came forward.After Zhang Wenwen and Cui Lie were dismissed, some of the former students of the Taiwei's mansion were recommended to be recruited and left, some went home, and some followed the two adults to learn.The two adults knew the importance of Hedong County to Bingzhou Tuntian and Gongwei Jingshi, so they advised their disciples and former officials that if there is no concern in Beijing, they should go to Hedong to serve the country.When the country is in trouble, there is no point in learning after all.

Sangyang, the eldest son of the former Taiwei Zhang Wen, felt the old master's concern for the country and the people, and took the lead in walking into Wang Han's house with a burden on his back.The disciples and old officials of the former Taiwei Mansion were affected by it, and more than 30 people left one after another.Wang Han was overjoyed, with this group of officials who are proficient in government affairs accompanying him, why worry about the uncertainties in the east of the river.

Wang Han then hurriedly left Beijing with them to take up his post.

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(End of this chapter)