Chapter 25: The Beginning of the Investigation of Qi County

The so-called festival patrol is actually the minister of the Qincha, but the statement is different, on behalf of the emperor to supervise the party, and he is also a doctor of imperial history, and his power is heavier than the sky, so when Yang Yuanqing set off from Zhuo County, the officials of the counties and counties of Hebei, Yan and Qing were panicked. Templars,

Things in officialdom are never white and black, but more gray, and no one is really clean and spotless, even if some officials themselves are not greedy or greedy, but their families and relatives may not be willing to be poor, and there are some problems.

Therefore, when the news came out that Yang Yuanqing, the imperial historian of Jiangdu who was too guarded by Zhang Yunyi, and was ordered to supervise in a ruthless way, the officials of all counties and counties were very nervous, but the degree of tension was different, the gray and white ones mainly considered the reception problem, and the gray and black ones were like a catastrophe was coming, some revised the account books overnight, some discussed bribery, some sent the United States in total, and even worse, they began to pack up their things and prepare to abandon their officials and flee.

The three prefectures of Hebei, Yan, and Qingdao inspected by Yang Yuanqing are not administrative divisions, but a kind of supervision division, and each state has a special supervision history, and the system is very sound, but the problem is that when the other links to maintain this supervision system begin to break, this kind of supervision history will gradually become useless.

At the beginning of June, Yang Yuanqing came to the first stop of his supervision, Qi County.

Zhu'a County, Qi County, here is the closest county to the Yellow River, the county seat is more than 30 miles away from the Yellow River, this evening, 300 soldiers and more than 100 relatives escorted Yang Yuanqing and 12 supervisors of the imperial history on the official road slowly, June is the season when the summer grain is about to ripen, in everyone's impression, the wheat field should be the wheat waves at this time, the endless yellow and clear ears of wheat.

But now, what they saw was a barren landscape, although the drought in the Qilu area had eased a lot in the spring, but what they saw was still a large bare wheat field, and occasionally they could see a scarecrow with a tattered straw hat, standing alone in the wheat field, a flock of crows 'quack! The land flew over the fields, a picture of desolation and ruin, and they crossed the Yellow River for ten miles, but they could not see a peasant or a pedestrian in sight.

The people were a little numb to this situation, and they went all the way south along the canal, and almost every county was the same desolate and dilapidated, with floods north of the Yellow River and drought south of the Yellow River, and the outbreak of war, the people's misery had reached the extreme. (，)

"Yang Yuanjun, I don't think it's really pointless for us to supervise!" One of the youngest Overseers let out a long sigh.

"Why doesn't it make sense?"

Yang Yuanqing asked with a slight smile, they went all the way south, Yang Yuanqing and the twelve imperial historians had a very good relationship, and everyone could talk freely.

"This is obvious, natural disasters, everywhere is a piece of ruin, and the top priority now should be to open a warehouse and release grain, give relief to the victims, so that these poor people can live, instead of us investigating official corruption."

An old imperial historian next to him smiled and said: "Xiao Wang Yushi, this is what you don't understand, the more disaster years, the more you have to supervise officials, for example, the imperial court ordered disaster relief ten buckets of rice, but the county order only took out one bucket, and then made up a report, saying that ten buckets of disaster relief had been given, but in fact, nine buckets of rice were swallowed by him into his pocket, anyway, it was disaster relief, and the victims flowed around, and there was no accurate record, who would know how much the county order disaster relief? At this time, it is necessary to supervise the imperial history to monitor the disaster relief, in fact, it was necessary to send someone down to supervise it last year, and the Holy Lord only sent us down at this time, to be honest, it was a little late, and it was impossible to verify it at all. ”

"Zhang Yushi, shouldn't there be a record of receiving grain for disaster relief? How can it not be verified? Yang Yuanqing asked strangely.

The old imperial history smiled bitterly and said: "Yang Yuanjun, the record of receiving grain has no meaning, the horizontal and vertical are just tens of thousands of finger prints, the general government practice is to only press the finger prints when receiving grain, as for how much grain is received, it is slowly filled in by the government afterwards, calculate the shortfall, and finally make up the account, the officials with a better conscience make up for the losses of their predecessors, and the officials with a bad conscience make up for their own money, as early as the Northern Zhou Dynasty, this is what they did, everyone knows in their hearts." ”

"According to what you say, all the official governments are busy making up their accounts now!"

"That's exactly the case, so I said that it's a little late to supervise now."

Yang Yuanqing smiled, "It's okay, it's better to supervise than not to supervise!" ”

In fact, Yang Yuanqing does not attach much importance to this supervision, Yang Guang's meaning is nothing more than to reduce the harm of officials to the people and ease the contradictions between the government and the people, but this is actually a typical self-deception, the problem in the bones is not solved, no matter how much you check the officials, it is useless, just like the old imperial history said, there is a will, there are countermeasures, Yang Yuanqing just wants to know about the situation of the rebellion of the victims in various places. ，

At this time, Zhang Shengben, the leader of the guards, came to report: "General, there are still more than 20 miles away from the county seat, and there is a village in front, let's go there to rest and spend the night!" ”

Yang Yuanqing saw that there was a rather large village not far away, and there seemed to be a little bit of people, so he nodded, "Okay, let's go to the village and camp and find some water." ”

The people turned their horses' heads and ran straight up the field to the village, a large village of more than 200 households, which looked fairly clean, and there was no rotting stench in the air, and there were no human and livestock corpses, but most of them were empty.

The soldiers found a well and a dozen clean houses, and sat down to rest, drink water and eat dry food.

At this time, several pro-soldiers brought an old man to Yang Yuanqing, "Envoy, this old man is the local governor." ”

The old man knelt down and kowtowed, "Xiaomin Jingui gives the general a salute!" ”

Yang Yuanqing nodded and asked, "How many families are left in the village?" ”

"There are more than fifty households!"

"And so many?"

Yang Yuanqing was a little surprised and asked, "There are barren fields all around, what do you live on?" ”

"Don't hide it from the general, we actually planted a little wheat, which was cut a few days ago, and we can't wait for it to ripen, and if we don't cut it when it's ripe, we won't have our share."

Yang Yuanqing pondered for a moment and asked again, "Haven't you been attacked by bandits here?" We see that most of the refugees have fled to the city, so how can you still have people here? ”

The old man smiled bitterly and said: "Our name here is Mengzhuang, and now Meng Rang, the leader of the thieves in Qi County, is from our village, he is an official in the county, and he rebelled without knowing what happened, anyway, the thieves looked at his face, and they were a little tolerant of us, and they also came to rob a few times, but they didn't kill anyone, and everyone didn't run away." ”

Yang Yuanqing smiled and asked: "I read the ballad written by Wang Bo, saying 'go up the mountain to eat roe deer, down the mountain to eat cattle and sheep', it is quite attractive, why do you still rob everywhere?" ”

The old man shook his head helplessly, "General, that Wang Bo and Meng Rang have gathered tens of thousands of people in Changbai Mountain, where are there so many roe deer on the mountain for them to eat, and they go down the mountain to eat cattle and sheep, and the cattle and sheep are not raised by them, isn't it just robbery?" The big families have moved to the city, they are afraid of the officers and soldiers, and they don't dare to go to the city to rob, they can only rob those more pitiful small people, anyway, in this year, the last unlucky people are honest people. ”

At this moment, the sound of horses' hooves came from afar, and a soldier who was patrolling outside turned over and dismounted, and galloped into the house, "General! ”

The soldier was a little nervous and said, "We found that a large number of black shadows were surrounding us, and there were three or four thousand people. ”

The old man exclaimed in fright, "Not good! They're here to steal our food. ”

"It has nothing to do with you!"

Yang Yuanqing shook his head, it is impossible to use three or four thousand people to come to a small village to grab food, these people should be aimed at themselves, they should be here to rob their horses, hum! It's really blind to their dogs' eyes.

Yang Yuanqing immediately said to Zhang Sheng: "Order the brothers to prepare for battle!" ”

He said to the old man again: "The sword and gun have no eyes, you let the villagers hide, once the fight starts, I can't protect you." ”

The old man's face turned pale with fright, and he went in a panic, more than four hundred soldiers quickly prepared, checked bows, arrows, knives and guns, Yang Yuanqing's hand slowly pinched on the hilt, his knife had not drunk blood for several years.

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In the night, nearly 4,000 thieves from Changbai Mountain surrounded Meng Zhuang from all directions, the leader was the leader of the bandits of Qi County Wang Bo, since last year, the number of people who defected to Wang Bo increased sharply, less than a year, he recruited nearly 20,000 people, and another Qi County rebel leader Meng Rang also raised 10,000 chaotic people, both of them are hiding in the high mountains and dense forests of Changbai Mountain, becoming the two major forces in Changbai Mountain, on the one hand, they also farm, but the land in the mountains is scarce, the food can not support so many people, can only go to Qilu counties to loot for a living.

Since a few months ago, the bandits on both sides of the Yellow River began to communicate with each other and exchange information on officers and soldiers, and Wang Bo received the news that Liu Badao of Douzigang was about to cross the river into Qi County.

What Wang Bo needs most now is a war horse, with a war horse, they have the ability to run, and they can quickly evacuate after looting the county, which is of great significance to them.

But all the horses of the Shandong provinces were transported to Liaodong, looking at the counties of Qilu, there were only a thousand cavalry under Zhang Xutuo, but Zhang Xutuo was the person he was most afraid of, Wang Bo had to look at the horse and sigh, but today there will be 400 cavalry crossing, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, from Yang Yuanqing as soon as they crossed the river, his people will keep an eye on this cavalry.

Wang Bo led his troops to surround him from all sides, and in any case, he wanted to get his hands on these four hundred war horses.

Night shrouded Meng Zhuang, Wang Bo rode on a green horse, squinting at the village, it is said that this is Meng Rang's hometown, he remembered that Meng Rang, who was an all-round civil and military talent, if Meng Rang was willing to surrender to him, it would greatly boost his strength.

"Boss!"

A confidant general beside him said: "I'm a little strange, why didn't Liu Badao rob these four hundred horses, but gave us the opportunity, it stands to reason that he is also in urgent need of war horses, why doesn't he want it?" ”

"It is estimated that there are county soldiers escorting him in Pingyuan County, he doesn't dare to start, let the big fish go in vain, and when we get it, he will definitely want to divide a hundred horses, and Lao Tzu will ignore him!"

Wang Bo scolded, he slowly raised his war knife, and shouted: "Listen to my order, rush into the village together, kill people and keep horses, grab a horse, I will reward a woman, and the money will be one hundred hanging!" ”

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