Great Wei Overlord

Chapter 727 No tolerance for corrupt officials

Chapter 732 No tolerance for corrupt officials
Ran Min took Yecheng stationed, and the elite troops of the Wei Dynasty who were planning to deal a fatal blow to the Jin State marched to the Heluo area in a mighty manner.

Just when Ran Min rushed to Heluo with the elite troops of the Great Wei Dynasty.

And Ran Ming surrounded the county government of Chenggao (now Sishui Town, Xingyang) with more than a hundred pieces.

The county magistrate of Chenggao, surnamed Zheng Mingshen, was the eldest son of the third family in the Anyuan Tang lineage of the Zheng family in Xingyang.

Zheng Ji, the Anyuan ancestor of the Zheng family, was granted the title of Marquis of Anyuan because Zheng Ji defeated Che Shi, so this branch of Zheng's descendants formed the Anyuan Hall.

Because of the founding father of the Zheng family, Ran Min took good care of the Zheng family, so he set a precedent for the Zheng family to be an official in the local area. Even Ran Min's ancestral home, Neihuang, did not receive such treatment.However, there are people who don't know how to live or die.

Zheng Shen corrupted more than [-] stones of chestnut rice from Chenggao's treasury. When Ran Ming ordered the counties and counties to open the treasury to release food for disaster relief, Zheng Shen shied away and said: "Without the governor's handwriting or His Majesty's imperial decree, he dare not undertake to open the treasury privately." granary responsibility."

Ran Ming thought that Zheng Shen was just a dead-headed nerd, who would have thought that after rejecting Ran Ming, he would hang his seal and run away.

Ran Ming ordered someone to break open the treasury of Chenggao's mansion, and found that there were only more than [-] shi of old rice in it, and more than [-] shi of grain on the account disappeared.

It's actually not difficult to find out, after a search, it turns out that this Zheng Shen is simply a beast in clothes.

The new type of plow that Ran Ming ordered was originally issued in the form of installment payment, but Zheng Shen was lucky, and each plow was sold at a high price of more than [-] yuan.Most of the people in Chenggao had no money to buy, so he ordered the steward to entrust rogues to lend usury.When the people had no money to pay off their debts, he forced them to sell their fields and houses or their wives and daughters to pay off their debts.

Because of the backing of the Zheng family in Xingyang, no one dared to speak out about Zheng Shen's actions even if they knew about them.In particular, Zheng Huo, Zheng Jian and Ran Ming were friends, and the prefect of Sanchuan County didn't dare to take care of Zheng Shen's affairs.

Zheng Shen is indeed a talent. He used the name of disaster relief at the beginning of the rainstorm to arrest the Chenggao grain merchants for hoarding.Then let these merchants pay high fines.Of course, all the money went to Zheng Shen's pocket.

After learning about Zheng Shen, Ran Ming was completely furious, and he ordered Zheng Shen to be arrested.However, Sanchuan County did not dare to arrest Zheng Shen at all.

In desperation, Ran Ming had no choice but to send Qilin Guards to arrest Zheng Shen.

Ran Ming was also annoyed when he saw Zheng Shen's servant blatantly resisting arrest.

Directly ordered a storm.

This was a nod without any suspense, not even a low-level conflict. When Lin Heishan, the strongest thug, made a move, the more than 100 Qilin guards became spectators, watching Lin Heishan perform.

Zheng Shen's family servants let them bully ordinary people, which is a good hand, but in terms of combat effectiveness, they are definitely scumbags.

Who is Lin Heishan?He is the number one fierce general under Ran Ming's command, and using Lin Heishan to deal with a bully who oppresses kindness feels like an anti-aircraft gun hitting a mosquito.

It didn't take long, from Lin Heishan's attack to the end, it took only one stick of incense, and dozens of Zheng Shen's followers fell to the ground.

Lin Heishan brought Zheng Shen to Ran Ming like a chicken.

Ran Ming did not interrogate Zheng Shen, and in fact there was no need to interrogate him.

Ran Ming led Qilin Guard directly into Zheng Shen's residence, and started ransacking the house.Ran Ming was taken aback by this copying.In terms of copper coins alone, there are more than 100 million coins on Zheng Shenfu's mansion.

In fact, the purchasing power of more than 100 million yuan is not weak. Even with the impact of the flood, the price of grain in Yecheng is only [-] to [-] yuan a bucket of rice.

Chestnuts are a little cheaper, only about fifteen dollars.If the weather is good, the chestnut will fall below ten dollars.Millions of dollars can buy enough food for the population of a county.

But ordinary people who store so many heavy copper coins, rich and noble families usually store gold and silver. The ratio of gold to copper coins is one to ten thousand, and the ratio of silver to copper is also one to one thousand.

Although the price will fluctuate, the fact is that the difference is not too big.The key is ease of storage and transportation. One million yuan is more than 100 catties, which is nearly forty tons when converted into tons.

Even in later generations, it will take a heavy truck to load it.

In this era, horse-drawn carts generally carried five to ten stones, and carts could only carry three to five stones, which was enough to load hundreds of carts.

As for the grain, Zhengshen's mansion didn't have much, only a few hundred stones, and thousands of gold and silver each.

Ran Ming said: "Leave only one thatched house for them, and tear down all the others."

"Your Highness, will this be too much?"

Li Ye said worriedly.He is from Longxi and knows the energy of the Li family in Longxi.

The Zheng family in Xingyang is a super noble family with seven clans and five surnames, which is as famous as the Li family in Longxi, the Li family in Zhaojun, the Cui family in Boling, the Cui family in Qinghe, the Lu family in Fanyang, and the Wang family in Taiyuan.

These seven clans and five surnames all originated in the Han Dynasty, flourished in the Jin Dynasty, and continued even in the Sui and Tang Dynasties.

"Lonely is to let them repay the feeling of being homeless!" Ran Ming said.

In fact, Ran Ming still has his own confidence. Killing Zheng Shen will definitely offend the Zheng family, but it will not touch Zheng's bottom line.For a long time, the monarch and the noble family have been a process of fighting skills.

The Sui Dynasty first abolished the Nine Rank Officials Law, and then proposed the imperial examination system. This touched the bottom line of the gentry, and they worked together to overthrow the Sui Dynasty, so the Tang Dynasty came into existence.

In fact, Ran Ming has been thinking about a problem.

That is whether the imperial examination system is suitable or not.

If you really think that the imperial examination system is a panacea, then you are absolutely wrong.The Song Dynasty vigorously promoted imperial examinations and reused scholar-bureaucrats. Unfortunately, later generations have an intuitive feeling of what officials selected by the imperial examination system look like.

Like Ouyang Xiu, a famous minister in the Song Dynasty, one of the eight great masters in the Tang and Song Dynasties, and Sima Guang, who can be ranked in the list of Chinese celebrities, Ran Ming can be said to have read "Zi Zhi Tong Jian", but as a literary talent, Sima Guang, who is unparalleled in talent, what route do you think he has chosen since he came to power?
Blindly begging for peace, in order to calm things down, he retreated again and again, but Xixia was not grateful at the time.

Sima Guang almost returned all of Suilan and Xixia to Xixia, and everyone opposed it, including his old friend and comrade-in-arms Fan Chunren.

In this way, the four forts of Futu, Anjiang, Jialu, and Dingyuan were returned, and Anjiang Fort is Jiangbabao.Look at the map again, which fortress is not a gateway?

As for Ouyang Xiu, he is also a top-notch one. He is the successor of Qingtian Bao Zheng in the Northern Song Dynasty, and he knows the governor of Kaifeng.

That is, relative to the senior officials of Beijing in later generations.

For such a senior official, Ouyang Xiu directly came to rule by doing nothing.Except for articles, Sima Guang and Ouyang Xiu have almost no political achievements, and almost all policies are policies that exhaust the country and the people.

The implementation of the imperial examination was only to reduce the control of power by the elites of the gentry. Ran Ming also found that apart from Wang Meng, the poor students he trained were very inadequate in handling government affairs.

Especially those poor and poor scholars are very greedy.There are also those big V public intellectuals of later generations, in fact, just like the scholar-bureaucrats, they are a group of people who can only play tricks. If you expect them to do things or rely on their opinions to do things, you will definitely end in misery.

The imperial examination system, Ran Ming did not recommend it all at once. In fact, a large part of the reason was that Ran Ming saw the limitations of the imperial examination system.

In the Huaqing Group of Ran Ming's later generations, as long as they are graduates of prestigious colleges and universities, they are usually very arrogant, but they have no real ability in their hands.

In his heart, Ran Ming didn't like those high-achieving students.

The facts of the imperial examination system for thousands of years have proved that the imperial examination-oriented education itself is a misunderstanding.

People like Wang Meng are so rare that they are rare.

However, because Wei Guo's politics are still relatively clear at this time, they dare not go too far.

Regarding the handling of corrupt officials, Ran Ming and Ran Min have the same attitude and policy. Corruption is fine, but you have to do things.Ran Min will not embezzle 60 taels (more than 100 shi rice grains according to purchasing power, which is equivalent to 5000 yuan in today's money) like Emperor Hongwu, and then peel off the skins and fill them with grass.

But for officials like Zheng Shen who are both corrupt and inactive, Ran Ming will not tolerate them.Not to mention that he was from the Zheng family, even if he was from the Neihuang Ran family, Ran Ming would not let him go.

If the Zheng family wants to fight back because of Zheng Shen's incident, Ran Ming doesn't mind borrowing public opinion to bleed the Zheng family.

But Li Ye didn't know what Ran Ming was thinking,
He just felt that if he dealt with Zheng Shen rashly, he would definitely get a counterattack from Zheng.However, Ran Ming adopted his favorite method, the public trial of Zheng Shen.After exposing all the evil things that Zheng Shen did, those people went crazy, and they wanted to eat his flesh and drink his blood.

Ran Ming complied with public opinion, hacked Zheng Shen, and bought food and medicine from those gentry merchants with the money copied from Zheng Shen.

Li Ye's worries were superfluous. From Ran Ming's arrest of Zheng Shen to the public trial of Zheng Shen, the Zheng family had time to save Zheng Shen, but the Zheng family was silent.

Li Ye didn't know that the Zheng family was also afraid of Ran Min, the iron-blooded emperor.

They were afraid that Ran Min would set up the Zheng family as a negative example. If this was the case, the Zheng family would lose its reputation, and it would be all over. Not to mention just a Zheng Shen, even if the head of the Zheng family was killed, as long as it could be kept Zheng Shi, they will choose the same way.

Ran Min left Yecheng, traveled from Neihuang to Tangyin, and then continued south.Since Ran Min's troops are all lightly armed troops, the most elite troops in Wei State, even if they are fully armed, they can travel 120 miles a day.Marching lightly, the speed is even faster.

Although Ran Ming removed armor, crossbows, guns, spears, shields and other equipment for disaster relief and to reduce the burden on the soldiers, Ran Min was different. He was the emperor of Wei, so naturally part of the army was fully armed. .For example, Zhang Ai, the lieutenant of Shesheng, deliberately left two 1000-man armor-piercing crossbow shooters, while General Shi Yue also kept the full equipment of Yueqi's four 2000-man horses.

Three thousand elite troops guarded Ran Min, marching mightily all the way.Even so, Zhang Ping, who is "deaf and dumb", did not dare to be careless. In the year of a catastrophe, any situation may be discovered. In case a flash flood or a landslide occurs where the army passes by, it will be a disaster. .

Due to the heavy rain and mud, the movement speed of the troops was greatly restricted. In this way, Zhang Ping also sent a large number of good men to act as pioneers together with the scouts.

Huangxu is an ancient place name, generally referring to Huangxu Town in Zhenjiang.In fact, this is not the case. In "Book of Jin Murong Wei Zai Ji": "We sent his general Murong Li and Wen to fight in Huangxu." Huan Wen fought against the Yan army three times in the Northern Expedition. In the defeat, the Yan army did not fight the Huaihe River, let alone reach Jingkou (Zhenjiang), the gateway to Jiankang in the Jin Dynasty.In fact, this Huangxu refers to the Huangcheng near Chenliu. "Shui Jing Zhu" Chenliu Xiaohuang County has Huang Township.Du Yu said: There is Huangcheng in the east of Waihuang County. After the war, the city was called Huangxu. "

And this Yellow Ruins is actually the area around the border between Lankao and Kaifeng in later generations. Of course, at this time, it was also the hardest-hit area of ​​the Yellow River flood.Because most of the land here is salty land, not only the yield is low, but also the climate is harsh, either drought or flood, not to mention the harvest, even the seeds planted cannot be recovered.So the Yellow Ruins have almost become real ruins.

On the empty embankment of the Yellow River, a group of six or seven people pushed a carriage and pulled a coffin and walked with difficulty.At this moment, suddenly a person came to meet him.

"The army is only thirty miles away!"

The man sitting on the carriage with his back leaning on the coffin said: "It's almost time, let's do it here!"

Seven or eight people pulled out the shovel from the carriage at the same time and dug the ground on the river embankment.After a while, a big pit was dug out, which was more than two feet wide and eight feet deep.

"It's almost there, put the coffin in quickly." The leading man shouted: "It will be troublesome if you are discovered!"

(End of this chapter)