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After Li Xiuning heard this, he smiled, but there was clearly a little loss and regret in that smile, and said quietly: "Yugong, do we have to have something to do in order to get along together...... However, today I invited Yu Gong to come, just to ask Yu Gong to save the surname of Wu'an County! ”

With that, she suddenly bowed down and fell to her feet.

Yu Ming was startled, hurriedly stepped forward to help her up, and asked repeatedly, "Xiuning, why did you suddenly bow down to me?" How can I afford such a gift? ”

Li Xiuning glanced at him, and then said with a sad face: "Yugong, it is the turn of summer and autumn, the torrential rain continues, and the rivers in Hedong are soaring, especially in Wu'an County, the disaster is serious, seven or eight out of ten houses have collapsed, and the road has also been washed away. This puts a lot of pressure on disaster relief efforts. Now the people in Wu'an County are scattered, and the mourning is everywhere. At present, it is preliminarily estimated that the number of casualties is as high as more than 50,000, and many victims have gathered near Wu'an City, because it has not yet reached the autumn harvest season, and the official grain stocks in the county towns are already not much. ”

Her expression was pitiful, she looked like a bullied little goddess, delicate and handsome, and with her delicate and beautiful face, people almost couldn't help but blurt out yes.

However, Yu Ming's mind only fluttered slightly, and after losing his mind for a moment, his eyes became clear again. He took a deep breath and said in a condensed voice, "Miss Xiuning, you might as well tell me what happened in Wu'an County!" If it's just disaster relief, then the Shouhe Ministry of Wu'an County has to worry about, so you don't need to beg me, right? ”

Before Li Yuanli instigated him to go to Wu'an County to investigate, he felt that there must be something big wrong here. It would be great if Li Xiuning was willing to tell him some inside information.

Li Xiuning glanced at Yuming deeply, and then said in a deep voice: "The flood in Wu'an County is really a natural disaster, seven points**. The culprit is the county guard Yue Xin, who withheld disaster relief food and fish and meat surnames, causing the people of Wu'an County to be unhappy and the dead to be tired. But this person is the cousin of Yue Zengxing, the consul general next to the emperor today. Therefore, the local imperial history did not dare to impeach him at all! Xiuning knew that Yu Gong must also be very embarrassed. But if this person is not eliminated, Wu'an County may not be safe, and the construction of Jinyang Palace will also be greatly affected. I'm afraid that our Li family will also face the danger of being beheaded...... I also hope that Yugong can uphold justice for my surname and my Li family! ”

"What? Yue Zeng's cousin? That's a bit tricky! When Yu Ming heard this, he was also shocked. He really knew how much Yue Zeng Province was valued and trusted by Yang Guang.

At this time, the maid in red poured two glasses of wine for the two of them.

Li Xiuning picked up the wine glass and said to Yu Ming: "This is Xiuning's daughter red brewed by herself." Yugong, Xiuning toasts you! ”

With that, she raised the glass in her hand and drank it down.

Yu Ming was hesitant in his heart, and from Li Xiuning's eyes, he could see that what she said was definitely true. This Yue Xin is really a corrupt official. And if he wants to bring down this person, he will definitely offend Yue Zeng Province greatly. Li Yuan has been holding back, most likely for this reason.

And if he knocks Yue Xin down, the biggest beneficiary is naturally Li Yuan, so that he can completely control Hedong. It will be much easier to get into trouble in the future.

Do you want to take millet from Li Yuan's fire? Yu Ming really couldn't make up his mind.

Li Xiuning saw that Yuming had been silent at this time, and she was also uneasy in her heart, she didn't think about it so much, she just felt that her father and brother knew that Yue Xin was so bad that they were even greedy for relief food for the victims. This kind of scum official has been swallowing his anger against him, which makes her very disappointed. That's why she came to Yuming, after all, between her and Yuming, the previous friendship was not shallow. It's just that now that Yu Ming has risen to such a high position, will he buy her account like before? But it's an unknown.

"Yugong, do you really care about the life and death of hundreds of thousands of people in Wu'an?" Li Xiuning saw that Yuming had not said a word, and finally couldn't help asking.

At this time, Yu Ming suddenly woke up to the fact that the reason why he was entrenched in Liaodong and prepared to start an incident in the future was to understand the surname Li Min who saved the world and let them live and work in peace and contentment. If you don't even want to save the surname of Wu'an County, how will you save the surname of the world in the future?

There is a good saying: if you don't sweep a house, how can you sweep the world? Presumably so. As long as he can get solid evidence and send it to the Criminal Department and the Ministry of Officials, Yue Zeng Province has no way to take it himself.

Thinking of this, Yu Ming smiled and said, "Since Miss Xiuning has said so, if Yu Ming doesn't agree, I'm afraid I won't be able to say it...... Please rest assured, Miss Xiuning. Yuming must investigate this matter to the end, give an explanation to the surname Wu'an, and let Wu'an County settle down from the flood as soon as possible! ”

……

Since May of the 11th year of the Great Cause, there has been heavy rain in Hedong, and the dark clouds in the sky seem to have never dispersed, and the sky seems to have leaked a hole, and the heavy rain has not stopped for more than ten days.

The Qin River has risen, the Lianshui River has risen, the Chuan River has risen, and the Xinshui River has risen. Not to mention the Fen River, the most important river in Hedong. All of a sudden, from the southeast to the north of the river, from the east and west to the east of the river, there was no place without disaster.

Large sections of the river's embankment were washed away by floods, and water from various rivers poured into farmland and cities, bringing great disasters to the people of Hedong. Among these affected counties, Wu'an County is the most severely affected county.

As a result of the dam of the Fen River, the river has turned the whole of Wu'an County into an ocean, the fields have become swamps, the seedlings have become aquatic plants, and the low-lying areas have become lakes. The originally calm and narrow surface of the Fen River has become as wide as the Yangtze River.

The government organized boats to camp the victims, and when they looked along the river, they saw that most of the houses along the river only showed a roof, and floating corpses could be seen in the water from time to time, and occasionally the surviving victims climbed on a big tree and cried and cried, which was unbearable.

The peasants whose fields were flooded, and the victims whose houses were swept away by the floodwaters, had no choice but to rush to Wu'an City with their children and beg the government for help.

Shouyue of Wu'an County was pleased to see this scene and decisively ordered the opening of a warehouse to help the people. However, he only opened the warehouse for a few days, and then announced that all the grain in the official warehouse had bottomed out, and Wu'an City was no longer able to help. Let these victims go to other counties and counties to ask for help. Some of the victims did not want to leave, so he immediately turned his face and ordered the soldiers in the city to impose a curfew, and all those who had no place to live in the city, and who could not afford to stay in inns, were driven out of the city.

Among those refugees, the young and strong can barely trek to the surrounding counties of Yuan, Yanmen, Dingxiang, and Loufu to beg for help. But the old and frail refugees, or the refugees with their families, can't go that far.

When the wise man saw that the curfew in the city had begun, he went to the big families in the city and sold himself into slavery. But this is limited to the handsome young girls and some smart children, and most of the old and middle-aged women are willing to be slaves for life. They were driven out of the city, dragged with their weary bodies, and many of them fell headlong by the river, never to get up again.

Of course, there are also many well-meaning business gentry who are very skeptical of Yue Xin's approach. thinks that Wu'an's grain harvest last year was very good, how could it be possible to open a warehouse to help the grain, and the official warehouse will bottom out in the first day? However, this Yue Xin said that most of the grain had already been sent to Jinyang County and repaired Jinyang Palace. The rest were also sold out on this day.

Some people didn't believe it, but Yue Xin was not angry, and generously opened the official warehouse for the people in the city to see, only to see that the warehouse was indeed empty enough to starve to death of mice.

At this time, the merchants and gentry finally had nothing to say, so they began to raise their own money to donate food to help the victims. Yue Xin was afraid that in this way, the victims would stay in Wu'an and refuse to leave, so he accepted all the money and grain donated by the gentry on the grounds that the current order in the city was chaotic and the porridge shacks set up by the gentry were easy to cause stampede and scramble accidents, and then promised that the government would go to the disaster relief. Fang sent away these businessmen who had "many troubles".

However, Yue Xin was very anxious. The reason why he did not help the disaster was also a last resort. Because it is not fair today, especially in Hebei, Shandong, and Henan, there are many bandits. And Yue Xin is a cousin of Yue Zeng Province, so his vision is higher than that of other officials. He believed that the Sui Dynasty would not be able to grow forever, and sooner or later it would be replaced by a new dynasty. has the plan to recruit troops and buy horses and cut the drama side.

Of course, Yue Xin also has self-knowledge and knows that he doesn't have the ability to be an emperor. But what he thought was that if he had tens of thousands of soldiers and horses and occupied a county, he would find a candidate who might take refuge in the world. The glory and wealth of the second half of the generation can no longer run away.

Therefore, he sent his son Yue Yuchuan to take the 50,000 copper coins he borrowed from Yue Zeng Province to Jiangdu for overseas trade, ready to make a big profit, as the capital to start.

Yue Yuchuan, like him, is an insatiable person and bold. After he arrived in Jiangdu, he asked around what kind of business was the most profitable. So, a businessman who had been to Japan told him that the business of selling weapons was the most profitable. Nowadays, bandits are rampant in various parts of the Central Plains, and there is a large demand for weapons. And the quality of Japanese swords is good, if weapons are purchased from Japan and sold to the Great Sui, it will be almost a fivefold profit.

Yue Yuchuan then happily partnered with this businessman to engage in smuggling, and the first two trips did make a lot of money, and after excluding the expenses, the 50,000 copper coins in his hand swelled to 200,000 yuan. So, this Yue Yuchuan became bold, and on the first trip, he invested all the capital, plus the money earned from the first two trips, bought more than 10,000 Japanese knives, and prepared to ship them to Dengzhou, Shandong, and then stopped doing it.

However, he did not expect that the merchant ship would encounter a storm at sea, and the fleet would all capsize and sink to the bottom of the sea. He sat in a lifeboat with a dry sailor and drifted on the sea for days and nights before finally landing in Qingzhou and landing on land, which can be regarded as picking up a life.

But in this way, Yue Yuchuan had no money to return to, so he had to return to Wu'an in disgrace.

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