I'm sure of the prosperous age of Kangxi and Qianlong!

Chapter 376 Corruption
"Your Majesty, according to local reports, there are disasters in Shandong, Henan, and Guangdong provinces, and there are many grain harvests in various places."

"Draw up a decree and order the local government to provide all-out relief."

The war in Luzon ended not long ago, and the cabinet's predictions from a year ago were correct. This year, disaster struck again.

Ever since Zhu Yijiong came to power, God has been acting against the Ming Dynasty, causing disasters almost every year, or even several times.

Either there is a severe drought here, or there is heavy snow somewhere.

Of course, this is not because God is blind. Historically, the Manchus were treated in this way, and Yongzheng was almost punished to the point of doubting his life.

Fortunately, Zhu Yijiong's Ming Dynasty had been prepared for disasters since the year before last, and this time it was prepared so far in advance that there should not be any big problems.

While the Central Committee issued orders to transport food and provide relief to the victims, the Metropolitan Procuratorate also dispatched censors to conduct overt and covert inspections of various places.

Li Fu has been specially transferred from the Imperial College to the Metropolitan Procuratorate and serves as the supervisory censor, responsible for supervising local disaster relief.

Although Li Fu had bad personal ethics, he was very greedy for fame.He could even oppose Yongzheng's New Deal while attacking corrupt officials without mercy, and he had no regard for the other party's background.

If placed in the Qianlong Dynasty, this person would be a high-ranking official, because he would definitely not let He Shen go.

After traveling by boat and carriage, Li Fu arrived in Jiangxi with his troops.

Before Li Fu got off the ship, Jiangxi governor Pei Haicheng personally came to greet him with his subordinates.

The governors of Jiangxi and Southern Gansu have not merged yet because the cigar industry in Southern Gansu has just started, and Zhu Yijiong plans to cancel the governorship of Southern Gansu in a few years.

"Pei Haicheng, the governor of Jiangxi, brought Jiangxi officials to greet Li Xiantai (the general name of the imperial censor)." Pei Haicheng had a very low profile. Not only did he personally greet him with his officials, he also brought with him the famous wealthy businessmen and gentry in the provincial capital.

Li Fu got off the boat slowly. He was not arrogant, but he didn't appear too close either. He just nodded slightly: "Yes."

Pei Haicheng said with a smile: "Li Xiantai has the emperor's mandate. We have prepared a small amount of wine in the city to help Mr. Xiantai wash away the dust. Please don't be too rough."

"There's no need for Bo Jiu." Li Fu said with a cold face: "Have the disaster relief efforts in Jiangxi's state capitals begun? How far has it progressed? How many states and counties have been affected by the disaster? It's better to take me over first to take a look!"

After hearing this, Pei Haicheng didn't look flustered at all, and said with the same smile: "What Master Xiantai said is absolutely true. Please go to the city to discuss it in detail."

Li Fu did not refuse, and followed Pei Haicheng with his entourage to Nanchang City to supervise the disaster relief matters openly.

Yes, on the surface, even Pei Haicheng, the governor of Jiangxi, did not know that Li Fu had already dispersed all his men before coming to Nanchang.

Li Fu was deliberately using himself as a chess piece to attract the attention of local officials, while his subordinates made secret visits to various states and counties.

Zhan Shouyi, Xu Liu, and Yan Xiaoqi have been traveling back and forth in Yuanzhou Mansion for more than a month.

Zhan Shouyi asked: "How is it?"

Xu Liu shook his head and said: "Boss, I've seen the Wanzai County side. There's no big problem, and it's basically not affected by the disaster."

Yan Xiaoqi also said: "Boss, there are some small-scale disasters here, but they are not serious. The local government has opened a warehouse to provide relief, and it seems that there is nothing wrong."

"..."

Zhan Shouyi narrowed his eyes slightly, pondered for a moment and said: "If there is no situation here, then there is really no situation. Let's continue to go south and have a look."

"But if we go further south, we will reach Ji'an..."

Zhan Shouyi said: "So what about Ji'an? As long as the border of Jiangxi is within our scope of authority. Moreover, we are just conducting secret inspections. We have wasted more than a month in Yuanzhou Mansion, and we don't have that much time to spend here. ." Zhan Shouyi led two of his men all the way south, and soon left Yuanzhou Mansion and came to Anfu County.

They did not go to the county town first, but wandered around the countryside.

When I came to a village, I saw a group of people gathering at the entrance of the village.

Most of them were armed villagers, and there were a few standing at the entrance of the village. The two sides seemed to be confronting each other.

"Boss, what do you think?" Several people just started talking.

The few people at the entrance of the village seemed to be cursing and leaving, while the armed villagers gradually dispersed under the shouts of a village elder.

Zhan Shou always felt something strange, so he led his men forward: "Old man, some of my brothers are passers-by. It's getting late, and I want to stay overnight in the village. Is it convenient?"

"Okay! But we can only stay here for one night, and we don't care about food. We don't have enough food here." The village chief was a little wary, but when he saw that several people were simply dressed and just came to stay, After thinking about it, I still didn’t refuse.

Zhan Shou nodded: "It doesn't matter."

Following the village chief into the village, Zhan Shouyi pretended to be curious and asked: "Old man, I just saw that there seemed to be a dispute at the entrance of the village. What happened?"

The village chief said: "It's not shameful, it's just that someone from the county wants to come to us to buy food. You say it's really strange. The emperor and his elders have already said that there will be a big disaster this year, so we people should collect more food." , to avoid famine. It’s good for these people. At this time, they actually want to buy food from our village, and they also buy food at a high price. We don’t want to sell, and these people are planning to threaten us.”

Zhan Shouyi keenly captured this keyword: "Buy grain at a high price?"

The village chief said: "Isn't that right? I don't know what's going on. This year, the gentlemen in the county seem to have changed their temper. Usually they want to lower the prices, but this year is better. The prices offered are higher than the last ones. If there hadn't been a disaster in the fields, , there is no surplus of food, and I don’t want to miss this opportunity!”

Zhan Shouyi asked inductively: "Are there many big shots in the county coming to buy grain from you at high prices?"

"Yes!"

Yan Xiaoqi whispered: "Boss, something is wrong."

Zhan Shou lowered his eyebrows and said: "Of course something is wrong. I only heard that you buy food in good years and sell it in disaster years. When buying food in disaster years, you still buy food at a high price. Haha!"

Xu Liu also noticed something was wrong, and even had a vague guess: "What does the head mean?"

Zhan Shouyi said: "Look again."

I stayed overnight in the village that day, and on the second day I continued to walk around the surrounding villages and inquired about it. As expected, I encountered people who bought grain at exorbitant prices.

Some villages have a surplus of grain, so they sell some, and the village chief and villagers are very happy.Some of them were not sold, but they were not threatened. They didn't seem to be the same group of people.

At night, Zhan Shouyi found a random village to stay for the night, and also spent money to buy some food, but he only used copper coins and did not reveal anything.

Zhan Shouyi said: "There must be something wrong with Changpingcang in this county, otherwise there would be no such large-scale purchases of grain from outside at high prices."

Yan Xiaoqi said: "I followed the leader's instructions and went to the neighboring villages to inquire. There are also county gentlemen there who are buying grain from the villagers. Most of them do not use strong measures, but use high prices to attract the people to sell grain. Some. Many villagers and landlords who had stored a lot of grain took the opportunity to sell a lot of grain and made a lot of money, and they all paid on the spot."

Xu Liu asked: "Boss, what should we do now?"

Zhan Shou thought for a while and said: "There is definitely something wrong with Changpingcang. Let's find out something about Changpingcang before setting off tomorrow."

(End of this chapter)