After the heavy rain, the ground was muddy, and there were a large number of people in tattered clothes around the outside of the city, all of whom had not been properly resettled after the disaster.

The flood came suddenly, the fields were washed away, the houses collapsed, and the government did not send people to rescue the people in such a disaster.

The people had nothing to eat, so they dug up the grass roots and gnawed the bark of the trees, which was obviously just a small flood, but it made it look like a famine for many years, which made people feel sad.

Fortunately, there are also some sympathetic wealthy families in the promotion mansion, who occasionally come to open a porridge shed to give porridge and give food, so that these people will not really starve to death, but the official mansion that should really be in charge of affairs has not made any movement.

An old man was surrounded by several young men, one of whom held a broken bowl containing half a bowl of hot porridge.

"Patriarch, drink some porridge, if you don't eat again, your body will not be able to bear it." The man's eyes were full of anxiety.

The old man who was called the patriarch shook his head, with a thick look of despair in his eyes: "I don't drink it, give this porridge to a few small ones to drink, so I can insist on living."

I've lived this old bone for so long, I've seen everything, and it's enough, and now it's useless except to drag you down, so it's better to die and save trouble, and save people from dragging people. ”

The tears of several men around him fell, and they persuaded him in a gossipy: "Patriarch, don't say that, no matter what, you won't be starved to death." ”

"Patriarch, you can't die, you are our backbone, you can't have an accident, patriarch, we are in the prime of life, it's okay to be hungry for a few meals."

The patriarch shook his head and made up his mind not to eat this white porridge, to starve himself to death, not to cause trouble to others, and the people next to him naturally couldn't agree.

"There are a few steamed buns here, you can take them and divide them, don't look for death, your descendants are filial children, don't you make them sad like this."

As soon as the patriarch and the men who surrounded him looked up, they saw a simple-looking young man in the clothes of a family member standing beside them with a bag of steamed buns.

These people all knew the clothes on the family, a family member of a wealthy family who often came to give porridge to people, and several men immediately took the steamed buns in the hands of the man dressed as a man in the house.

"Thank you, thank you for this great benevolent man, you will be blessed and healthy for the rest of your life." The man who took the steamed bun thanked him again and again, and then couldn't wait to open the paper bag, take out a steamed bun and hand it to the patriarch.

After that, the man gave the steamed buns to the people around him, and beckoned a few women and children to come over and eat them together.

In this time of famine, there are hungry people with green eyes, and when they get enough food, they will eat it in their stomachs, or they will be snatched away.

In the end, the half bowl of porridge was drunk by the patriarch, who is not greedy for life, before begging for death was just because he didn't want to affect the younger generations, now that he has something to eat, he doesn't have to worry about starving, and the patriarch naturally doesn't want to die.

The man who gave them steamed buns had not yet left, but sat beside them, chatting with them after watching them finish eating.

Because they had a good impression of these family members who gave them food from time to time and their main family, the patriarch and his juniors did not hate this family member, so they chatted together.

After chatting for a while, it may be because they are familiar, and the family is a little familiar, so he lowered his voice and told them a secret news he knew.

"Let me tell you, you have always thought that you have suffered a disaster, and the emperor refuses to open a warehouse to release grain to help the victims, right? Actually, that's not the case at all. ”

This Ding's words attracted the attention of the patriarch and the people around him, and one of the men couldn't help but answer angrily.

"Why isn't that the case? The officials and masters of the world are all under the control of the emperor, if the emperor doesn't let it, how can those officials not care about our life or death. ”

The man's words attracted the echo of the people next to him, who doesn't know that the world belongs to the emperor, and all the officials in the world are in charge of the emperor, no matter whether the people live or die, it is not the emperor's fault whose fault it is.

The family shook his head, and his voice was lowered: "You don't know, in fact, I didn't know originally, it's not that my lord became an imperial merchant later, and I knew a little more about dealing with the government."

The officials in this world, not all of them are in charge of the emperor, and there are many officials from families, these officials from families are very black-hearted, they don't care about the lives of the people at all, and they don't listen to the emperor's orders.

The prefect of our Hongyang Mansion is from the Yun family, and you should also know that in our place, the reputation of the Yun family is very big, and how many officials are from their families. ”

The patriarch has lived for a long time, and he has some knowledge, so he nodded and said: "This is so old that I know this, when I was young, I also worked as a shopkeeper in the city, and the Bai family is indeed very powerful, and no one dares to mess with it." ”

The family Ding gave a thumbs up to the patriarch: "The old man is well-informed, this Bai family is indeed very powerful, don't say anything else, just talk about taxes." ”

Speaking of this, Ding paused, looked around like a thief, and then said in a lower voice: "The personal servant next to our master is my own brother, and I also listened to what he told me." It is said that the taxes in our place are not so high at all.

The amount of this tax was set by the emperor, and it was not so high, but it is a pity that the officials from this family are very black-hearted, and they simply disobey the emperor's holy decree.

The emperor doesn't count how much tax he collects when he arrives with us, and the officials of this family have the final say, they collect more of our taxes, but when the time comes, they report less to the emperor, and more of them go into the pockets of the officials of these black-hearted families. ”

"W-how can this be?" The words of that family made the patriarch and the men around him stunned, and they couldn't react at all, and they always felt that why did they feel so unreliable.

One of the men looked at the family with suspicious eyes: "You can't make this up yourself, right, no matter how powerful this family is, can you still be more powerful than the emperor?" ”

The family was not angry, and continued to say mysteriously: "I am not surprised that you don't believe this, in fact, I didn't believe it myself at first.

However, I heard that this time for disaster relief, the emperor specially sent disaster relief food from Qingyang Mansion, but was stopped by the prefect of our Carrying Forward Mansion.

It is said that the prefect wanted to withhold the grain himself, but the people sent by the emperor refused, and as a result, the officials crushed people to death, and the grain was still suppressed by the prefect of the promotion mansion and was greedy outside the government.

Speaking of which, I still know the place where the prefect hid grain, that place is a large granary, where my lord often went to pick up goods when he was in the grain business. ”