Emperor Ming Dynasty

Chapter 1012 Salt Owl
To be honest, it has only been 20 years since the founding of the country, and Xia Wanchun finds it hard to believe that the officialdom has become rotten and hopeless.

After all, in the early years of Shaowu, the emperor waved a big stick while raising his salary, and sent patrols to various provinces. I don't know how many corrupt officials were taken down.

But he thought again, for scholars who have studied hard for ten years, apart from the ideal of helping the world and the people, their greatest ambition is to glorify their ancestors.

And using the expired power to seek money is a very normal move.

Even though the emperor put all the power of tax collection in the Department of Commerce and Taxation, local officials still had a lot of places to find money.

Originally it was clear water tofu, but it was replaced with roasted chicken fat. The officials are used to it, so how could it be changed?
But what happened in Cangzhou is a clear proof.

It is impossible to resist imperial envoys in a monolithic officialdom, if there is no material in it.

Obviously, there must be a major case in Cangzhou.

"How about your brother-in-law being an official?"

"Slightly pedantic, but undiminished."

Pan Zhuo said in one breath, with a hint of respect appearing on his face.

It gave an example.

Gao De is an orthodox scholar with a background in Neo Confucianism. He studied hard for more than 30 years. He was a Jinshi in high school at the age of [-], and he was successively appointed as an official.

Although he specializes in Zhu Zi, he is definitely not a corrupt Confucian who talks about his mind and nature.

When he was appointed as a judge in Liaocheng, Shandong, he never put on the authority of his parents.

When common people filed lawsuits, he did not allow Zaoli to arrest people like wolves and tigers.

If there is a clan dispute, go to their patriarch; if there is a fight in the village, go to the local elders, or ask the original and accused to meet up and tell the truth in detail.

His hearings were all based on the purpose of Confucian moral influence, and he tried his best to persuade him.

There are often fathers and sons who are against each other, brothers who are against each other, and those who are involved in lawsuits. After his earnest words and repeated enlightenment, often for several days, they will be persuaded to hug each other and cry, and the reconciliation is as good as before.

This is completely in line with the Confucian idea of ​​having both morality and law, so he was highly valued and turned into a magistrate and an official.

And there are two major things to be a county magistrate: criminal name, money and food.

Chasing money and food is called "competition"; once the competition period arrives, the buttocks will be spanked if it is not over.

Therefore, he searched through the ancient books and followed what he believed to be the old practice, and set up a "hanging comparison method":
Hanging is a name, and the name of the owed food will be announced by the due date, and the people will finish it by themselves, within a year.

For example, if you owe one stone of grain, you can pay it back in monthly installments.

At the same time, I found people who owed food and advised them like this: "Money and food are the state tax of the court, not into the pockets of my county magistrate. If you pay attention to official duties, and pay for money and food, you will be healthy physically and mentally; I will be at ease."

This method of distributing food in installments has alleviated the difficulties of many poor families, and it is also a kind of emergency for the common people.

In just one year, the number of people who owe food in Liaocheng has dropped significantly, and the living people are unparalleled.

But it aroused the dissatisfaction of officials.

Because of the installment of the grain tax, these subordinates can't do anything to make huge profits, and the loan sharks are also dissatisfied.

Of course, this is the money kept in the county treasury. It was originally the minister's money. No one has anything to say about how the county magistrate wants to use it.

At the beginning of the 16th year of Shaowu, something happened. A commoner named Xia owed money and food for two years, and he promised to pay it in installments, but again and again, what he said didn't count.

Gao De also sent someone to investigate. Because of the misfortune of successive years, the relatives of this Xia family passed away one after another, causing a huge deficit in funeral expenses;

At the same time, there are no relatively well-off relatives who can help.It is indeed very difficult to discuss the situation, but if this person is not punished, there will be no people who can pay the limit.

Gothe had no choice but to order the stick.

"My lord!" The one surnamed Xia pleaded again, "Anyway, if I extend my ten-day deadline, I must have collected enough money to make it clear."

"Why don't you pay it by then?"

"I don't dare to lie to Master Qingtian, I just ask the Lord for mercy, and I will pay it when the time comes. I have already thought of a way, but it will take a few days to do it."

Seeing his sincerity, Gothe was furious.

If it is an ordinary official, of course he is happy with the results; if he can spare a moment to pass on the surname Yu to the court, and say a few warm words of appreciation, he is considered a good official who can sympathize with the hardships of the people.

But Gao De is not like this. Although he is more pedantic, he is not stupid.

"You must be a thief!" Gothe patted the table angrily:

"A few times, you don't have a penny; I know you are poor and have no relatives or friends to help. Let me ask you, if you didn't steal it as a thief, where did you get the money?"

Hearing this question, Xia hurriedly knelt down and begged for mercy, explaining why.

It turns out that because the canal extends in all directions and connects the north and the south, many water bandits in Shandong occupy the canal.

During the day they are boatmen, turning over goods.

At night, it turns into a thief and steals everywhere.

He has a cousin who happens to be in this line of business, so he thought about waiting a few days to go to the canal bank to do a vote, and he would naturally be able to share the money.

And Gao De talked about the truth as always, directly persuaded him, and according to his report, took down a group of water bandits.

Immediately, he distributed a lot of money to repay the debt, and brought him into the yamen as an official, so as to avoid the retaliation of those remnants.

This arrangement won a lot of applause.

The merchants praised it, the common people applauded, and the official luck was naturally not bad.

"It seems that your brother-in-law is a good official."

Xia Wanchun shook his head: "It's just a good official, it's easier to block people's way to get rich."

When Pan Zhuo heard this, he frowned and thought for a moment, then said: "The land of Cangzhou, one is the canal, and the other is the salt field. These two places are like a cornucopia. They are more than ten thousand. I don't know how much money and food they have accumulated."

"My brother-in-law may have offended someone."

Xia Wanchun nodded, that's right!
"Let's go to Gaofu to have a look."

Accompanied by Pan Zhuo, several people swaggered to Gaofu.

Only to find nothing.

The study room was clean and tidy, as if it had never been used once.

Pan Zhuo searched for a while, then spread his hands and said, "Hey, there is no evidence, not even letters."

"There is no evidence, but the best evidence."

Xia Wanchun looked around and said in a deep voice, "It seems that your brother-in-law was really murdered."

Pan Zhuo was shocked.

The majestic fourth-rank official, the second highest official in the prefecture after the prefect, was actually murdered.

The two were speechless.

For a moment, there was a chill in the study.

……

At this time, in the Hejian government office, the magistrate was running around in a hurry, unable to sit or stand.

The Tongzhi, the county magistrate and other officials sat together, silent one after another.

"Tell me, what about this?"

The magistrate sat down and sighed: "Xia Wanchun went to Gaofu, and it seems that he suspected that he was murdered, not a manslaughter by husband and wife. It is a disaster rather than a blessing for us in Cangzhou."

"Fu Zun, we didn't participate at this time." Cangzhou County Magistrate couldn't help but said: "It's just negligence for us to act so boldly."

"Yeah, assassination is not popular in officialdom..."

Everyone is leaving the relationship, but the prefect's face is getting uglier and uglier.

As the chief officer of the entire Hejian Mansion, the board must be the first to fall on him.

"Okay, from now on, no one should get involved in this matter. Isn't the imperial envoy going to investigate? Then let him investigate."

Soon, Xia Wanchun felt that half of his foot had been pulled out of the mud suddenly. Although it was still difficult, it was still the same.

But, he still has no idea.

Obviously, those people had already made up their minds about this, and they were not afraid of his investigation at all, and all the evidence had been destroyed.

Within two days, news came from the prison that Mrs. Gao Pan committed suicide in shame.

This made Xia Wanchun furious.

This method is too cruel.

When Pan Zhuo heard about her sister's death, she only grieved for a while and then calmed down.

After suffering the infamy of killing her husband, his sister has no place to live in Cangzhou. Even if the stigma is washed away, she will be gone for the rest of her life.

However, he followed Xia Wanchun these few days, and was impressed by his seriousness, and he was willing to listen to him and work hard without complaint.

"Go check the canal."

Since there was no clue about the case, Xia Wanchun naturally changed direction and turned his attention to the canal:
"Go and spread the news that Gao De offended the water bandits and was murdered, or was killed by a private salt dealer."

"Ah?" Pan Zhuo was taken aback for a moment, how brave are these grassroots people?
"This is called scaring the snake." Xia Wanchun said calmly.

Within a few days, the canal became more and more depressed, and a large number of boatmen left Cangzhou, making the pier nearly half empty.

Pan Zhuo sighed: "It seems that these boatmen really have ghosts in their hearts."

"The feet and teeth of the car and boat shop should be killed if they are innocent."

Xia Wanchun recalled how he was betrayed by the boatman when he first came to Cangzhou, and said casually: "I don't know how many thieves, water bandits, used the identity of the boatman to do evil."

"Putting people into empty waters to directly seek wealth and death is what boatmen often do."

"The corpses are fed to the fish, and no one knows about them, so they get away with it."

Pan Zhuo looked calm.

Suffering severe beatings and tempering has already transformed this scholar.

"If you can run, the monk can't run away from the temple."

Xia Wanchun sneered: "Let's go, let's go to Changlu Salt Farm."

The rapid development of Hejian Prefecture and Cangzhou is due to the extraordinary role of the salt field.

Although it is said that the profits of the salt farms are controlled by the court, Cangzhou has made a lot of profits because it is close to the salt farms.

Those salt merchants and boatmen from the South China Sea and the North King are not allowed to rest in Cangzhou. In order to avoid empty ships, they can only bring in some local specialties to go back.

After coming and going, Cangzhou Mansion's warehouse wine was spread by these boatmen.

Leaving from Cangzhou City, a huge imperial guard of honor came out, blowing and beating dozens of people, majestic and majestic.

When he arrived at the Changlu Salt Field, he was greeted in person by the patrolling salt censor and the Duzhuan Salt Transport Envoy.

Although Emperor Shaowu reformed and changed the Gang Salt Law to the Ticket Salt Law, the imperial court's control over the salt fields continued unabated.

There are ten salt farms in the country, and the coastal areas are Liaodong Salt Farm, Changlu Salt Farm, Shandong Salt Farm, Lianghuai Salt Farm, Liangzhe Salt Farm, Fujian Salt Farm, and Liangguang Salt Farm.

In the inland area, there are Sichuan Salt Fields (well salt), Shanxi Jiechi Salt Fields, and Northwest Salt Fields.

Although the scale of the northwest salt field is small, it involves Gansu, Suiyuan, Ningxia, and Anxi provinces, and it is basically lake salt.

The Changlu Salt Field is close to Gyeonggi, extending from Shanhaiguan to Hejianfu, hundreds of miles away, supplying most of the north, especially the capital city with salt.

So they all transferred salt envoys to the third grade, half a rank higher than the magistrate, dozens of large and small salt farms, more than [-] kitchen households, and more than a thousand soldiers under their hands.

Due to the need to often fight with private salt dealers, its elite level is even stronger than that of the local patrol battalion.

The patrolling salt censor, in the sequence of thirteen supervisory censors in the Metropolitan Procuratorate, who specializes in patrolling salt affairs, is also called the patrolling salt censor.

Although he is only the seventh rank, he is a first-class authority official, above Duzhuan Salt Transport Envoy.

To put it bluntly, they were all transferred to the Salt Transport Envoy to be in charge of general affairs and daily management, while the patrolling salt censor was in charge of making decisions and monitoring, and belonged to the Supreme Emperor.

In summary, things matter less.

This is an extremely noble dispatch, and it is the favorite of civil servants.

Even if there is no corruption, just some salt merchants can make a fortune.

Even many officials want to make a fortune by being a one-term salt transport envoy through various means.

Looking at the table of delicacies from mountains and seas in front of him, Xia Wanchun sighed in his heart: "Puffer fish, sparrow tongue, whale liver, and sea cucumber are just common dishes on the table."

Under such circumstances, how many people can stick to their hearts?
It seems that there are still many problems in the saltworks.

"Aren't the angels inspecting the case? Why do you have time to come to our saltworks?"

Yunyan Yushi asked softly, with a trace of drunkenness on his face, but he asked without hesitation, eating well without any abruptness.

"I suspect that it was the salt owl who killed them." Xia Wanchun said casually, observing the expressions of the two of them: "As we all know, the salt farm often deals with those salt owls. I've been searching, and you must have an impression."

Xunyan Yushi smiled awkwardly, slapped the table and said angrily: "The group of salt lords are lawless, they dare to murder the imperial court official, they really deserve to be killed."

Xia Wanchun was noncommittal and began to inspect the saltworks.

Although the salt households were exempted from low status, they were still subject to stricter jurisdiction because of the urgency of salt production.

Do not go out of the salt field without permission, and do not sell private salt...

In order to prevent the sale of private salt, the imperial court required all the remaining salt to be bought by officials.

In other words, the salt households cooked salt for free, handed over most of the salt to the imperial court, and kept the rest for themselves.

The rest are not allowed to be sold privately, but can only be sold to the court at a low price.

As for the salary?The court doesn't have that much money.

In addition to being affected by the weather, the life of the salt households is relatively stable. The implementation of the ticket salt law has led to the sale of official salt, and the living conditions are better than before.

Xia Wanchun was very interested in the saltworks. He occupied the saltworks for three to five days a year, and he was reluctant to leave at all. He seemed to have forgotten his task of investigating the case.

This made the saltworks miserable.

"Xunyan, this batch of salt is waiting to be ordered!"

They all turned to salt transport so that they gritted their teeth.

"I don't know?" The inspector of the salt inspector said in a deep voice, "The imperial envoy is in the salt field, so you can't mess around."

"It's been dragging on for several days, and it's all money!"

"Okay, find a remote path and transport it out in the middle of the night." Xunyan Yushi whispered: "Don't let him find out."

At night, dozens of salt soldiers carried salt and came to the earth wall in silence. This is the salt wall, the wall of the salt field, more than two feet high.

Someone communicates, and the soldiers send the bags of salt out of the dog hole, and the rest is nothing to do with them.

(End of this chapter)