"Old Cao, why did you come back suddenly?"

"Hey, come and see the old lady and look at the son. Uh-huh...... What do you mean I'm back all of a sudden, I'm on business! ”

"Oh, yes, yes, Lord Commander, hahaha." Li Zhuo shook his head proudly, "Oh, I didn't expect that my brother is now the commander of the third battalion, and we are also considered to have people in the imperial capital." ”

"What kind of donkey ass are you shooting blindly...... Lao Cao scolded with a smile, and his heart blossomed.

The most important thing for Yijin to return to his hometown is to let these cats and dogs see it, especially this Li Ergui, who has now become the prefect of a state, and he will have to take care of everything in Jingzhou in the future.

He wanted to take something to give Li Zhuo, thinking that this time he brought some preserved fruits and snacks to honor his mother, and there was really nothing to do with it, so he had to laugh and say:

"When will you come to the imperial capital, stay with my brother, let's have a few drinks."

Li Zhuo is a very shrewd person, seeing Lao Cao's face, he has already guessed eight or nine points, and secretly said in his heart, after so many years, this mallet still doesn't open his mind, and he even looks at this kind of thing.

But he said with a smile on his face: "That's for sure, if I go to the imperial capital, I will never be polite to my brother, and my brother will not see me outside, if there is anything wrong with our mother when I go back, just call me." ”

Lao Cao saw that he was right, and smiled.

"I still have something to worry about with you in Jingzhou, speaking of which, I still have something serious to ask my brother."

"What's the matter, just ask."

"It's the first time I've ever experienced this Jingzhou recruitment, brother, and I don't know how Commander Han arranged it in previous years. I heard that you accompany me every year, and you come to teach me. ”

"Hey, that's simple, Commander Han is a lord, where can I let him do the work in person every time. The chief bookkeeper of the recruiting department, recruited the booklet, and took it to Commander Han to take a look at it first, he would leave the roster he liked, and put a check on the side, which means that it was incorporated into the Songyang battalion. After that, the military department took back the roster, divided the rest of the people into the battalions, and it was over. ”

"It's as simple as that?"

"It's as simple as that."

"Nothing to do?"

Li Zhuo's eyes rolled, "Is there a doorway...... Naturally, there is. ”

"Then you still sell Guanzi, hurry up and talk about it."

"Brother, you also know that there are a lot of robbers in Jingzhou, and some grass robbers who want to be recruited will also take advantage of this point to come out, but the people recruited by the Ministry of War must have a clean family background and no criminal record. But do you think, if you want to recruit good soldiers, is there anything better than this gang of grass robbers? How many of these grass cowards are innocent? Isn't that tricky? ”

"That's right."

"So, I have to help these grass robbers brush the bottom."

"Brush the bottom? How to brush? ”

"It's just that all the case records left in the yamen have been replaced."

Lao Cao exclaimed: "Is this okay? ”

"Why can't it be, isn't it just a few papers, invite a few more masters, give some rewards, stay up for a few nights, and replace them all."

"What if there is a felony fugitive who kills and sets fires in the grass coars?"

"That's not difficult, first let them turn in, write a confession, stay in prison for three or five days, and then report to prison for a violent death, and then change their names and surnames, or it's over."

"Is this all right?! old

Brother, you do this, do you know? ”

"Why don't you know? This kind of bandit went to the battlefield, and he rejoiced. ”

"What about down there, and there's no public anger?"

"What this group of grass robbers do on weekdays is hurting the heavens and reason, I sent them out of Jingzhou, and the people thank me too late, where is the anger?"

This is really a source of left and right, Lao Cao became more and more surprised when he heard it, and asked:

"Then these bandits are so honest and willing to listen to you?"

"It's not that they listen to me, they want to vote. Jingzhou, a poor place, is either drought or flood, can you still grab a ghost? Now that there is no war in the Taiping years, there is no need to worry about life, as long as they can recruit and enlist in the army, they will have military salaries to eat, and they can also change their faces to write off the old accounts, they want to vote very much. ”

"Then why didn't they go to the army in the first place?"

Li Zhuo said with a wry smile: "Brother, because you are still a person in the army, you don't want to think that there has been no war in the past few decades, if the veterans do not retreat, there will be no new recruits to join the army, these grass and gray eggs, which one is not a hairy boy in his teens and twenties, if it weren't for Master Muyun who was going to lead the troops across the Jiangbei Expedition, would the military department be able to come here to recruit so many people in one breath this time?" Don't they still have to be grass robbers in the mountains? ”

When Lao Cao heard this, he couldn't help sighing, this world is ......

"The elder brother is the queen of the general, and I think that Mrs. Cao's military exploits were well-known far and wide, and she naturally had a strict family education, and her family was also wealthy. But how can those grass robbers who joined the army compare with the old brother's family, they were forced to fall into the grass. ”

Lao Cao glanced at him and muttered: "Li Ergui, I have thought you are a shrewd ghost since I was a child, but now it seems that you are really a parent and an official, and you think about it for the people." ”

"Hey, I'm not as good as you say. Didn't my brother ask the door just now, and I just said a lot of nonsense. ”

"That's all?"

"Of course...... More than that. Brother, I want to talk about it later. Li Zhuo said with a grim smile: "I'm doing all this thing." So this Han commander, sympathize with our subordinates...... So that's it...... Hey, hey, hey. ”

Lao Cao suddenly came to his senses.

"Oh, I understand, I said that before leaving, Commander Han asked someone to allocate six hundred taels of silver to me, saying that it was handed over to the prefect of Jingzhou, and he would talk about the specific matters in detail at that time. You kid......"

"Hey, that's hard money, man. The little brother has been dealing with all of them these days, and they are all murderous and unblinking...... Maybe one day if you're unlucky, you'll ......."

"Okay, okay, don't give me a flower gun, you mean that Commander Han always asks you to set aside the most ferocious grass cowards to recruit them into the Songyang camp, right?"

"That's right."

"And you reserved it this year?"

"I stayed."

"Where?"

Li Zhuo said with a smile: "It's already in the prison, everyone is well fed, and when the case is cleaned, I will send the commander to the Songyang camp." ”

Lao Cao looked at Li Zhuo's wrinkled face with a smile, and secretly sighed that this officialdom, regardless of size, is so unfathomable.

He gestured, and the lieutenant who was waiting outside the door immediately understood, and carried the prepared box in.

"Ergui, the things entrusted by Lord Han are all here, you go back and order them yourself."

"Something, I dare to doubt that adults can't detain me."

Lao Cao Shi is

couldn't help it, and lowered his voice in Li Zhuo's ear and said: "You kid can really make money, this is six hundred taels into my pocket, and my annual salary is only two hundred and eighty taels ......."

Li Zhuo secretly scolded in his stomach, can I swallow six hundred taels alone? Master, servant, servant, jailer, husband, informant, which one should not be dotted? There are only two hundred taels left in my hands, and you don't even understand this little bit of doorway, but you want me to bear the name of these six hundred taels, what a great mallet!

smiled on his face: "Big brother's good days are ahead, where will you worry about these with me." I'm a poor countryman, and this little profit will come to an end, right? ”

Li Zhuo saw that Lao Cao didn't think so, and knew that he was a little unfair in his heart, so he also lowered his voice and said: "Silver is something outside the body after all, my brother is the one who wants to step into the clouds, and I have more important things to tell my brother." This is also the friendship between the two of us since childhood, and I dare not say that someone else has cut off their heads. ”

Lao Cao was so babbled by him that he said a few words, and he had already forgotten about the sweetness of six hundred taels, and was busy asking what was the matter.

"This time Jingzhou recruits, there is a county, and I ask my brother not to go if he didn't see it."

"Where?"

"It's Xinyang County, my brother's hometown."

Lao Cao raised his head and thought about it, and was puzzled: "Our Xinyang County is nothing special, isn't it just a ravine, why can't you go?" ”

"Don't spread the word...... His Royal Highness the Crown Prince is there. ”

Lao Cao was bluffed, and stammered: "Tai...... Too...... His Royal Highness the Crown Prince? You mean the prince? ”

"Which prince?"

"He's from Weifu?"

"A micro-service is a micro-service, but it's not a search, it's from the office."

"Taking office?"

"Yes, a month ago, he came to serve as the county magistrate of Xinyang County."

Lao Cao stayed in place for a while, reaching out to touch Li Zhuo's forehead, but Li Zhuo opened it with one hand.

"Grandma's, I'm not talking nonsense! Can I talk nonsense to you about this kind of thing, brother? ”

"He is the crown prince, how could he come to Jingzhou, a place where birds don't, to serve as a county commander?"

"Ouch, I don't know the specific reason, anyway, a month ago he came to fill the vacancy of his predecessor, I saw that he went to Jingzhou Guang to hand over the excerpt of the replacement delivery, and did not hand over the knock on the door silver ......"

"What is knock silver?"

Li Zhuo's face was embarrassed, and he didn't want to explain too much.

"Hey, anyway, I gave him a closed door and didn't see him."

"Then you don't annoy the prince anymore?"

"He didn't understand this, he thought he was just handing over a fold and finishing the matter, so he didn't care about it, so he went back to Xinyang County."

"Then how do you know that he is the crown prince?"

Later, Jingzhou was hit by a drought, so the disaster relief money allocated by the household department every year came down. This prince didn't know the number of roads, and he didn't come to hand over the replacement of the silver. ”

"What is the replacement silver?" Lao Cao was dumbfounded.

Li Zhuo scolded in his heart: This is really a good mallet...... There is no prince's life, but there is the prince's illness, and he doesn't understand anything!

At that moment, he had to say perfunctorily: "Hey, it's nothing, in short, the prince didn't get the disaster relief money, and I didn't care." As a result, the prince was not happy, so he went directly to the imperial capital to complain to the head of the household, and I heard that it was still in front of the saint! ”

"Can you still keep your head?"

(End of chapter)