Guilin.

There were a few light rains intermittently during the night, but the rain was not heavy, but it was the kind of freezing rain that was cold to the bone.

It is five o'clock to seven o'clock, in the winter, the sky is not yet bright, but in this era, they all go to bed early and get up early, and the official yamen and the people gather in the morning and disperse, and they have to "point Mao" to start working at the time of Mao, even the emperor is the same.

Today is the Chang Dynasty, which is different from the ceremonial nature of the Great Dynasty, the Chang Dynasty does not have so many complicated etiquette, it is more common and more pragmatic, and what official business there is in the court is generally handled in the Chang Dynasty.

Before the time came, the civil and military officials arrived one after another, waiting for leakage in the court room, slowly staying up for time, and those who were close would get together to chat a few words.

As soon as Wang Kefan entered the courtroom, he immediately became the focus of attention, and there was an endless stream of officials who came to greet and talk. As a feudal official guarding one side, he has just won a big victory in Nanchang, he has just returned to Guilin from the Jiangxi front, and today he went to the court for the first time, and those who don't know him will come to say hello.

Those who did not come to say hello were mostly afraid to come forward to disturb because of their low official positions, and only stood around from a distance, showing goodwill with smiling eyes. In addition, there are some officials who have completely torn their faces with Chu Xun, and they are respectful and distant from Wang Kefan, and even look cold.

Wang Kefan had a calm and warm smile on his face, and greeted everyone one by one, and after seeing Yang Tinglin, a cabinet scholar, he took the initiative to walk over to say hello, Yang Tinglin hesitated slightly, but also smiled, and the two began to talk softly.

Immediately afterwards, the first assistant He Wuyu also arrived. Join in and chat about the front-line battle situation, the Southern Party, the Donglin Party, Chu Xun, the three giants talked happily.

The first moment of the hour. The drums beat.

Hundreds of civil and military officials walked out of the court room one after another, lined up in two columns outside the gate of the palace, and at the front of the civil official queue, there was a small blue sedan chair. According to the rules, all officials and nobles must walk in the palace and cannot ride horses and sit in sedan chairs, but He Wuyu has a disability. Bad at walking, Emperor Longwu specially gave him a sedan chair in the palace.

At the end of the hour, the bell rang and the door opened. The civil officials walked on the left, the military attache walked on the right, and entered the palace through the doors on both sides of the gate, and several eunuchs held lanterns to lead the way. Led everyone to the steps in front of the court.

The whole team. The whip was sounded, and the civil and military officials bowed to Emperor Longwu three times, stood in shifts, and the court meeting began.

Emperor Daming is here, Guilin, and started a new day......

After dawn, the rain had stopped, but the sun was still not visible. It was a gray and cloudy day, and a cold wind blew through the streets. The city of Guilin was filled with an unexpected chill. In the corner of the roadside wall, a frozen corpse can be seen from time to time.

The scavenger in charge of cleaning up the cart walked around the streets of the city, and when he came across the corpses, he stopped, picked up the corpses and threw them on the cart with the usual numbness, ready to be sent outside the city for incineration.

Seeing this scene, a group of people turned around on the corner of the street, a man and a woman on the two horses in front of their heads, both wearing official uniforms, the man was around forty years old, and the uniform color was a civil official of the third grade, and the woman was in her twenties, and she turned out to be a female general of the second grade.

When she arrived, the female general grabbed her mount and leaned over to look into the cart, but she couldn't help but feel a slight shock to her body, and the car was full of corpses, several of which showed weird smiles!

"General Liu, don't be afraid, the frozen corpse is like this." Fan Wenqin explained to Liu Shu: "People who freeze to death will have their faces constricted and deformed, as if they are still smiling, and those who don't know are often startled." (The muscles of people who freeze to death spasm, and some of the corpses have muscle groups in their faces that contract, making it look like they are laughing.) ）

"That's the case......" Liu Shu's expression was very complicated, and she didn't turn her eyes away. These corpses have stiffened, and the smile is more like a bitter smile, which looks indescribably weird, although Liu Shu is a heroine among women, she still feels her scalp tingle when she sees such a scene.

stared at it for a long time, until the cart left, and then she let out a long sigh: "Zhumen wine and meat stink, and there are frozen bones on the road." Alas, Guilin is still the Son of Heaven, and so many people died in the next winter rain. ”

"That's pretty good." Seeing such a tragic situation, Fan Wenqin's mood was also affected, and he sighed: "In the past, when the year was bad, the New Year was particularly sad, and it was not surprising that thousands of people died in a state capital, and they starved for thousands of miles, so there were people in all directions, causing a monstrous disaster like Li Chuang." ”

The so-called New Year refers to the Lunar New Year. For the poor people, the grain of the autumn harvest is eaten at this time, and the family's silver money is also spent, but the debts and field rents of the previous year must be settled at the time of the New Year, so the New Year is like passing the customs, which is very sad.

If the family runs out of food, and is forced too tightly by usury and landlords, the poor people have no choice but to sell their fields and land, then sell their sons and daughters, and finally abandon their homes and flee, begging for a living. If the imperial court was able to provide disaster relief, most of them would still survive, but the state finances had collapsed during the Chongzhen period, and they caught up with natural and man-made disasters, and finally caused a peasant uprising at the end of the Ming Dynasty that swept the world.

At the end of the Ming Dynasty, Liangguang was not a wild place for a long time, but compared with the rich Jiangnan, it was still far behind, and after the abolition of the new policy, there were many hungry people who fled the famine at the end of the year. There is no doubt that there are more ways to live in big cities, so in Guangxi, Guilin has the most hungry people, although the imperial court has set up several places to give porridge, but after a winter rain, many people froze to death.

"Compared with that year, there are actually not many people who died in Guilin this winter, and the imperial court has done its best." Fan Wenqin urged his mount and urged: "Let's go, this kind of thing can't be managed, let's go to the household department as much as possible, and there are still things to do." ”

"If you go, you will sit on the cold bench!" Liu Shu frowned and said: "Those officials in the household department are the most hateful, these days, are there fewer soft nails for us to touch?" ”

Half a month ago, Fan Wenqin and Liu Shu rushed to Guilin first to report the victory to the imperial court. In addition to reporting the victory, they are also responsible for asking for the next year's salary, as well as the pension money for the disabled officers and soldiers, the weapons and equipment that need to be replenished, and so on. Emperor Longwu had obviously approved this matter, but he couldn't get the silver when he arrived at the household department, and the household department didn't say that he wouldn't give it, but he just said that there was no silver, and he couldn't give it if he wanted to, and there was no progress after delay.

When they first arrived in Guilin, Fan Wenqin and Liu Shu were both heroes of the anti-Qing Dynasty, and they were personally received by Emperor Longwu, and the officials and people were also very enthusiastic about them, but after the initial enthusiasm, strange eyes gradually increased.

Except for the military department presided over by Wen An, no matter which yamen you go to, you can't run away with cold eyes, cold faces and cold benches, and people won't turn their faces against you, which is just a procrastination trick and all kinds of excuses for prevarication, which makes people helpless. Fan Wenqin and Liu Shu asked Fu Guan for help, and Fu Guan told them to calm down and wait for Wang Kefan to arrive.

However, after Wang Kefan came to Guilin, there seemed to be no good way, just let them go on, go every day, and slowly grind with those officials.

Therefore, Fan Wenqin and Liu Shu are going to the household department again today.

"400,000 taels of silver, only give us 3,000 taels, what is this? Today, even if you don't leave the household yamen, you have to pay tens of thousands of taels of silver! In the distance, Liu Shu's voice can still be heard.

……

Near noon, Fan Wenqin and Liu Shu sat for almost two hours, but several chief officials of the household department never appeared.

As soon as the door curtain was lifted, a secretary walked in, carrying a large teapot in his hand, and came in again to refill the tea.

"You don't need to fill it in anymore, let me ask you, what did Da Situ do? Why haven't you come back yet? Fan Wenqin stopped him and asked, he kept drinking tea all morning, and he felt like he was about to turn into a human-shaped teapot.

"Huh? I don't know, I didn't come back anyway! ”

Na Sishu's name is Hu Sihai, a nine-grade petty official who is not in the stream, and he is a clerk who writes and paints in the household department, but unlike others, he is already familiar with Fan Wenqin and Liu Shu, and they can still talk to each other: "According to this point, Da Situ and they should have returned to the yamen a long time ago, but there have been cases before, if there is an important matter at the court meeting, it may be delayed if the discussion is delayed." I see, the two masters might as well go to dinner first and come back in the afternoon. ”

"No, we'll just wait here." Fan Wenqin reached into his arms, felt out a mess of things, opened the sweat towel wrapped outside, and there were two pieces of dough inside, and ate it.

On the other side of the table, Liu Shu also took out dry food and began to eat lunch, looking like she would not give up until she reached her goal.

Hu Sihai's eyes widened and he shouted, "Hey, the two masters will eat this, and I will eat it...... Alas, you two use it slowly, I will also go to the pad first, and I will be busy when Da Situ comes back. ”

Fan Wenqin waved his hand, brought the dough to his mouth, took a bite, and chewed slowly.

Hu Sihai saluted the two again, turned around and went out.

It was time for lunch, so Hu Sihai and two colleagues went out of the household department and came to a tea shed in the back street.

This tea shed is very simple, except for a simple roof, which is not much better than the tea stalls on the roadside. The income of the officials of the Ming Dynasty was very low, although Hu Sihai and his two colleagues were on errands in the household department, they only took care of the documents and files, and could not get any oil and water.

Like Fan Wenqin, several of them also brought their own dry food, and Hu Sihai's mother-in-law prepared it for him, which happened to be a dough cake.

The three of them asked for a pot of inferior tea, found a table and sat down, Hu Sihai took out the dough cake, came to the meat stall next to him, and asked Butcher Zhang to cut it into slices for him, and then took it to Dr. Tea, and roasted it on both sides on the stove.

Butcher Zhang's business seems to be very good today, the cleaver is stained with fat, and the dough is cut into several slices with a cleaver, just like bread smeared with butter, and then baked on the stove, and soon the fragrance is fragrant. How can such a delicacy destroy the heavens, Hu Sihai hesitated for a moment, gritted his teeth and took out two coppers, and bought one or two sweet potato roasts in the shop next to him. (To be continued......)