Corrupt official in the Red Chamber

Chapter 89 Bribery
Dai Quan, a political ally of Jia Rui, ordered his men to send a letter to Jia Rui immediately after the morning court meeting.

This letter not only told Jia Rui what had happened in the court, but even copied the content of Wang Liang's memorial and sent it over.

And now Jia Rui is very busy. Although it is said that some distributions have temporarily stabilized the situation, because half of the food and grass in the household department have gone wrong, Jia Rui now has to take out the money he planned to reserve and use it. To buy chaff.

One must know that Jia Rui has reserved the money in his wallet, but now he has to take it out little by little. Seeing that the money is getting less and less, Jia Rui's heart aches and he almost jumps out.

Fortunately, Shanxi businessmen are very trustworthy when doing business.

As refined grains and rice entered the warehouses of Shanxi merchants, the chaff was also continuously transported to Shandong.

Coupled with the 20 taels of disaster relief money, it can finally survive until the beginning of next spring for the time being.

But then there is no way.

Just when Jia Ruidu wanted to take a desperate risk and use the imperial envoy monk Fang Baojian to kill a group of corrupt officials to raise money to buy food, good news came from the capital.

The Supreme Emperor has decreed that Yangzhou salt merchants should contribute 30 taels of silver for disaster relief.

After Jia Rui heard the good news, he immediately breathed a sigh of relief.

Then he hurriedly reported to the Emperor again, asking the Emperor to let Yangzhou salt merchants buy grain locally and send it to Shandong.

There is nothing he can do about it. Now 30 taels of silver are shipped to Jinan, Shandong. With the current grain prices in Shandong, it is simply a drop in the bucket.

It's better to just buy the grain in Yangzhou, transport the grain to Shandong, and use the grain to buy the chaff.

In this way, the money can be used several times.

The Supreme Emperor attached great importance to Jia Rui's memorial. After receiving Jia Rui's report, he ordered the Yangzhou salt merchants to raise grain and grass on the spot and send it to Shandong.

In this way, a month later, a steady stream of food was transported to Jinan, Shandong via waterway.

And these grains are converted into chaff, enough to last the entire Shandong until next summer's harvest.

After the weather turned cold and the victims in Shandong were settled, things in Shandong were almost done, and Jia Rui could finally return to Beijing to deliver his orders.

A few days before his departure, Jia Rui recruited the main officials from Shandong to his imperial envoy and hosted a banquet for them.

The officials in Shandong were very satisfied with Jia Rui this time. Although they lost some money, they generally kept their official positions.

As long as the official is still there, can the money be obtained at any time?
In addition, through the news coming out of the capital during this period, everyone knew that Jia Rui was the confidant of the Supreme Emperor, and even the emperor had nothing to do with Jia Rui.

That being the case, why not hurry up and flatter them, it will not be easy for them to see Jia Rui again after Jia Rui returns to Beijing.

So at the banquet, these people kept toasting to Jia Rui, and the compliments poured in like a torrent of water.

Although Jia Rui lived two lifetimes, both of them were young, and he still couldn't cope with these old fritters in the officialdom, so he got very drunk after a while.

When Jia Rui woke up the next day, he only felt a splitting headache.

Fortunately, my servant, Wangcai, although he is usually inconspicuous, is very honest today and has been serving Jia Rui's bed.It was to deliver hangover soup again, and to help Jia Rui wash up.

Only then did Jia Rui slow down.

"How did I come back yesterday?" Jia Rui asked casually after his mind came to his senses.

"Master, you were talking nonsense when you drank yesterday. I think you are really dying, so hurry up and get you out of the hands of those officials."

Jia Rui's heart skipped a beat, "What am I talking about?"

"You have to pull the governor to say that there is a kind of iron bird that can sit dozens of people, and it takes up to two hours to go from one side of the sky to the other."

"That's all? Nothing else?"

"Looks like it's gone?"

Jia Rui breathed a long sigh of relief. Fortunately, he didn't expose his time travel. Otherwise, wouldn't he be tied up in the fire as a monster and burned in the fire?

"Order to pack things today, and we will return to Beijing tomorrow."

Jia Rui stayed in Jinan for several months and missed his relatives at home.

"Uncle, we have a lot of stuff and we can't finish it today. How about we stay for two more days before leaving?"

Jia Rui said dejectedly: "We only have the few things we brought from Beijing. How many days do we need to pack them away?"

Jia Rui was indeed a bit decadent.

You know, this time I planned to covet a hundred thousand taels of silver, but because of the small shoes of the household department, I didn't get a tael of silver.

"Uncle, the officials who came to the banquet yesterday gave a lot of gifts. Just sorting out these things will take a day or two."

Jia Rui was stunned for a moment, then asked: "Did all the officials who attended the banquet yesterday give gifts?"

"Yes, you were drunk at the time. I saw that these officials were very enthusiastic, so I accepted them all for you."

Jia Rui was angry at first, but it subsided quickly.

"Go and bring me the gift list and roster."

Wangcai didn't know why Jia Rui changed his face all of a sudden, but he knew that he might have done something wrong, so he ran out quickly, and then brought a stack of gift lists and rosters to Jia Rui.

Jia Rui took the roster and looked through it bit by bit.

Looking at it, the anger on Jia Rui's face disappeared.

It turned out that Jia Rui had heard of these gift givers before, and they were all officials who helped Shandong during the drought.

This time, I did not report their dereliction of duty and corruption to the emperor. It seemed that this was a reward for myself.

The money of these corrupt officials can be taken with peace of mind.

In order to keep their official positions, I worked hard and lost 20 taels of silver. The gifts they gave me may not be able to make up for the money I lost.

After thinking about it, Jia Rui started to look through the gift list with peace of mind.

The more I look at Jia Rui, the better I feel.

After reading it at the end, Jia Rui did some calculations in his mind, and the more than 40 officials who gave him gifts all sent them together, about 3 to [-] taels of property.

The main ones are pearls, various gold and silver ornaments, and some fields in Shandong.

In Jia Rui's view, the most valuable of these gifts is the land in Shandong.

Don't look at the fact that the fields in Shandong have fallen to the bottom, but as long as the drought in Shandong passes a year later, these fields will immediately recover their original prices.

At that time, the fields delivered to Jia Rui alone will be about 10 mu, worth more than [-] taels.

Because these field guests are all around Jinan Prefecture, and they are all good paddy fields.

This time Jia Rui was satisfied.

He gently handed over the gift list, drank a cup of tea on the table, and finally asked:
"How is the land I asked you to buy?"

"Back to the uncle, the land in Shandong is really cheap now. The more than 3 taels of silver you gave have already bought [-] mu of land, and the small ones have made their own ideas and put these lands together."

Having said that, Wangcai looked at Jia Rui cautiously.

This time, he used Jia Rui's fame to actually get a lot of benefits from the people. The money given to him alone was two or three hundred taels.

This was Wangcai's first time working with Jia Rui, and he didn't dare accept many big names. If he really let go, he could get at least a thousand taels of benefits this time.

Moreover, he also bought the land in Jia Rui's name with the money.

"Well done, let your grandma reward you when you get back."

"How dare a little one ask for a reward from the uncle, this is what a little one should do."

"Don't talk about that, you have to count your finances in the next two days, and we will return to Beijing after the counting is over."

After a pause, Jia Rui asked again: "Xue Pan has been missing for a while, what is he doing?"

After hearing this, Wangcai had a strange expression on his face, and finally said: "My uncle has observed the public sentiment during this period and helped two or three women through the crisis."

After hearing this, Jia Rui squinted at Wangcai, "Speak human."

Wangcai hurriedly said: "Uncle met two women and took them into the house."

"Then he didn't buy the land?"

"My uncle has not left Jinan Mansion during this period. The land purchase was all done by his subordinates. I don't know how it was done."

When Jia Rui heard it, don't talk about it, Jia Rui can imagine what exactly happened.

She must have fallen into a gentle town and couldn't extricate herself, and there might be something wrong with this woman's background, maybe the people under his hands fooled him, and found him something to do, and then he could do something about it.

However, this kind of matter is also Xue Pan's family matter, and it is inconvenient for me to intervene. When I return to the capital, I can tell Baochai and let him handle it by himself.

Because the money just fell into the hands of Xue Pan's slaves, as long as you keep it and understand what's going on, you can find any reason to make these guys feel overwhelmed and spit out all the money.

(End of this chapter)