Xinshun 1730

Chapter 164
Fortunately, the weather is beautiful, and the most worrying thing did not happen.

Four days after Bai Yunhang's visit, the merchant fleet had already berthed at Chengshanwei.

Because Japan locked the country and the Japanese pirates did not commit any more crimes, Chengshanwei has been withdrawn, but it has not been changed to Rongcheng, and it is still called Chengshan.

It is not a military port, so these merchant fleets can only stay there, and it is closer to Wendeng Prefecture.

According to the plan, the recruited people will not be able to return for a few days.

Liu Yu was also in a good mood because of the arrival of the merchant ship, so he went to Wendeng to do the next thing.

It is said that the cook will not die of starvation after three years of severe drought. This is true. Wendeng's restaurant is still open.Liu Yu chose a restaurant that was still open, ordered a few simple dishes, and invited Bai Yunhang.

Outside is a group of hungry people who can't walk on the street and bask in the sun. There is a small table of dishes in the restaurant. Although it is just a few simple egg custards and bean curds, compared with the cruel world outside, it is still luxurious.

Bai Yunhang has roughly figured out Liu Yu's temperament, at least on the surface.

There wasn't much courtesy either, seeing the few simple dishes on the table, although I felt a little simple, it was hard to say anything.

If it were someone else, he might say something like "thrifty to cultivate morality", but it was Liu Yu who was the host, and Bai Yunhang thought it was out of his comfort to say that.

He had already heard that there was a fleet of ships in Chengshan calling at the port, but he was still not sure what the situation was, so he had to wait for Liu Yu to speak.

Liu Yu didn't speak directly, but scooped up a small spoonful of soft egg custard with a spoon, and put it down again.

"Master Bai, when I saw this egg custard, I thought of one thing."

Bai Yunhang thought to himself that you ordered the egg custard, maybe it wasn't that he thought of something when he saw the egg custard, but that he ordered the egg custard on purpose.

He thought that Liu Yu was going to say some allusions, so he also took a small spoonful of egg custard with a spoon, put it in his mouth, and sucked it lightly.

"I read a book before and said that there was a dish when people were so hungry during the reign of Chongzhen in the previous dynasty that people ate each other. What kind of dish is it?"

Bai Yunhang still had half a spoonful of egg custard in his mouth. Hearing this story, even though he knew it was indecent to vomit in front of people, he couldn't help it anymore.

vomit... vomit...

He retched a few times, and then looked at the egg custard and bean curd on the table... The urge to vomit, which was so hard to hold back, surged up again.

"My... my lord, don't blame... vomit..."

Half a quarter of an hour later, the shopkeeper came to clear the table and brought some bland food, but Bai Yunhang couldn't eat any more.

The "dish" described by Liu Yu just now was tumbling in his mind, his stomach was churning, and Shinobu's hands were shaking a little.

"Master Liu has beheaded people and heads in Heilongjiang. It's really incomparable to be an official, so please stop talking about it. I understand what Master Liu means. It means that disaster relief should be done as much as possible."

"Master Bai, I'm just expressing my feelings. I had a nightmare a few nights ago, and many hungry and weak people surrounded me and asked why they only donated so much food to Wendeng Prefecture? If all the food in the warehouse Take it out, maybe you can save Laizhou and Pingdu."

Liu Yu squeezed out a smile, tapped the wine in the glass with chopsticks, watched the ripples on it, and remained silent for a long time.

It looked like he felt a little guilty, but in fact Liu Yu didn't feel guilty at all.

He had an account of his own in mind, and from this he deduced the account for 109 years.All suffering and misery is a number that can be counted.Is a number, you can compare the size.

Bai Yunhang didn't know if Liu Yu really felt guilty and felt guilty?Or he meant something else, so he stayed silent with Liu Yu.

Through contact these days, he discovered that Liu Yu was not what he had heard, nor what he had imagined.

For some reason, there was a feeling that Liu Yu's face was always covered by a layer of white veil, which made him really unable to see through.

After a long time, Liu Yu put down his chopsticks, picked up his wine glass, pointed at Bai Yunhang, and said, "Master Bai, in fact, when I rescued Wendeng, I was unable to reach other counties on the one hand, and on the other hand, I also had other plans."

The wine glass in Bai Yunhang's hand didn't even move, as if he had expected it a long time ago.

What if it was just for the food?Bai Yunhang thought to himself, if it's just for harvesting that little grain next year, there's no need to be so troublesome: it's reasonable and legal to buy land with money, and there will be no shortage of land when there is food and money in a famine year.If there is no shortage of land, renting tenants now costs six buckets of rent per stone. Is there still a shortage of food?
What if it was for the sake of getting married?That is even more nonsense.I am just a small state shepherd, in the eyes of this kind of honorable son, I am no more than a sesame-sized official, and the opposite is Long Jin selected by His Majesty, like the Lang official in Han Dynasty, Huo Qubing, Zhang Qian, Dongfang Shuo, etc. Everyone has been a Langguan.

It's hard to say that Master Liu is as good as Long Yang?

Picking up the wine glass and quietly looking at his own reflection in the glass, Bai Yunhang knew better, convinced that he was thinking too much.

"Master Liu, if you have something to say, it's okay to say it."

"Um……"

Liu Yu thought for a while, and said, "Lord Bai, after this disaster relief, His Majesty will give you money and food, right?"

"Well, His Majesty is merciful, and will definitely be spared."

"After being saved, it's time to start again. I want to help Mr. Bai measure the number of acres of fields in Wendeng Prefecture during the disaster relief. All of them. Don't worry, Mr. Bai. I have thought about every reason you can think of. First of all, my hands There are a group of military officers who have studied surveying and geometry; secondly, I now have tens of thousands of people in my hands, and I have become familiar with Wendeng in the past few years."

Hearing the topic of "measuring the acres of fields", Bai Yunhang felt as if he had been hammered hard, and said with an embarrassed smile: "Since Mr. Liu wants to help measure the acres of fields, it is of course good. But...but what are you going to do?"

"Of course it's His Majesty's immunization and disaster relief. It's convenient to distribute next year's seeds."

The flesh on Bai Yunhang's face twitched, and he thought to himself what I was asking about what to do, not what you were pretending to do.

Liu Yu knew that Bai Yunhang wouldn't believe it, so he laughed and said, "I have an idea, let Master Bai comment on it."

"please say."

"Inspect the acres of land, and distribute the per capita tax among the acres of land. The tax remains the same, reducing the taxes and fees for the poor and increasing the taxes and fees for the rich. By the way, help Lord Bai to check the acres of land, and add a few thousand taels to Lord Bai tax paid."

Bai Yunhang was startled, and subconsciously asked: "Your Excellency helped me again, for what?"

Liu Yu laughed loudly and said, "Why, isn't Master Bai shocked by the idea of ​​me being a family member? Instead, he is shocked by the purpose behind me?"

"Lord Liu...forgive me for being stupid. My lord's idea is excellent. Taking advantage of the opportunity of going deep into the village during the disaster relief period, he used the excuse of measuring the acres of land and using the aid of the disaster relief to distribute the seeds of the acres of land to make people not suspicious. The timing is perfect. But, Sir, what is the purpose of helping me so much?"

Liu Yu asked back: "Then why did Yue Wumu devote himself to serving the country?"

Bai Yunhang was dull for a moment, then he seemed to understand, and asked: "To serve the country with loyalty, is it for the sake of serving the country with loyalty?"

Liu Yu smiled, then nodded.

"That's right. What Master Bai said is very true. I did this for the sake of doing it. Does the Lord only say that this idea is feasible?"

Bai Yunhang is an opportunist, but he is also a capable official. He figured it out almost instantly, and said with a smile, "Isn't this just going down the road towards Zhang Taiyue?"

While laughing, his body was covered in cold sweat.

Before Liu Yu helped him, he really thought that Liu Yu was just "if you, Mr. Bai, didn't make teaching plans, I, Liu Yu, would not have had the chance to stand out, and I would not have replaced the missionaries to expand China's frontier for three thousand miles in the north."

Later, I felt that this reason seemed unreliable, and I thought that maybe Liu Yu really wanted 10,000+ stone grains for next year. After all, the amount is really big, so it’s no wonder that I have to accept gifts and refuse to eat. This 10,000+ stone grains are ten thousand taels of gold Perhaps it really means "if you don't accept it, you really can't afford that much".

Waiting until today's dinner, waiting until this sentence is said, all previous thoughts have been overturned.

Thinking about Zhang Juzheng's end, Bai Yunhang and Liu Yu have been communicating for a long time, and they have become more courageous, and said with a smile: "So my lord doesn't want to be opened up and slaughtered after death. Seeing that I, Bai, has a wide waist and a broad back, I just carry this big black pot ?”

After finishing speaking, he smiled wryly and said, "If my lord said that when we first met, I'm afraid I'd be scared to act stupid. But now my lord has given me a chance to 'stand out from the crowd' and let me see that I seem to be going to Beijing soon. Becoming an official in the capital, or even entering the sixth government as a minister in the future if the official career is well established, seems to be a little bit of possibility... If I say this at this time, at least I will not be scared immediately and pretend to be stupid, and I have to think about it carefully."

"If you can only be a state shepherd in this life, naturally you don't even think about it. But now... it's really worth considering. Sir, at the beginning of the disaster, you started to plot against me?"

Seeing that Bai Yunhang didn't pretend to be stupid, and didn't object, but smiled and gave an ambiguous attitude, Liu Yu understood a little.

"If Mr. Bai said that, he would have wronged me. I am Long Jin, and I am released as a military officer. I am not a magistrate of a county, nor a shepherd of a state. As the saying goes, I am not in my position, and I do not seek government affairs. I don't understand Regarding local affairs, even if there is such an idea, whether it is an ingenious strategy or an exaggerated talk, it is impossible to know."

"One thing, it would be extremely difficult if it happened on the ground. If there were no catastrophe, if there were no tens of thousands of troops stationed nearby, and if there were no hundreds of people who knew surveying and mapping and had nothing to do with the local area, it would be impossible to do it."

"Now Wen Deng has all three, and it's time to prepare in advance. Are you right?"

Regarding this issue alone, Bai Yunhang had to admit that it was true.

If one of the three conditions is missing, it is very difficult to try.Don't talk about anything else, let's talk about the third point, if you want to do it elsewhere, where can you get so many capable subordinates who have nothing to do with the local area?
After carefully pondering what Liu Yu said just now, after confirming that there is no dangerous or deeper pit inside, he nodded and said, "What your lord said is true. These three things can indeed prepare everything like a thunderbolt. "

"That's why Master Liu thought of luring me into the wok at the beginning of the famine, supplemented with sesame oil, so that I don't want to escape. When the temperature of the oil rises, I will be unable to escape if I want to escape?"

(End of this chapter)