A row of shops along the river on the west side of the South Bridge, one of which is a two-story low-rise teahouse, with a tea-word banner in front of the door.

There are many more customers in the teahouse than in the surrounding shops, and most of the tables and chairs in the shop are full.

The shop only serves a type of tea made from leaves that are unique to the region, called the Flower Needle, which has a fragrant smell and can dispel wind and relieve the surface, and the locals call this tea mountain herbal tea.

A copper plate and a bowl of tea, the amount of tea is unlimited, and there are several large copper kettles in the lobby, and guests can take their own bowls to drink.

Most of the people in and out of the store are people who pull carts and traffickers, and men who work as coolies from all walks of life and gangs, and they come to the store to rest for a cup of tea. The people who came put the burden, horses, and vehicles at the door, walked into the store and sat down at any place, and poured a bowl of herbal tea down.

Here, the same toiling people, whether they know each other or not, after taking their seats, exchange greetings with the people at the same table, they will naturally get acquainted, clink glasses and drink together, talk about the world, all happy and comfortable, and leave all the tiredness and worries of the livelihood work behind for the time being.

Lan Feng came to the door, bolted the car, picked up the long stick wrapped in strips of cloth, put it on his shoulder and walked into the tea shop.

Went straight to the tea table in the hall, threw a copper plate to Xiao Er, picked up a full tea from a stack of stoneware tea bowls that were buckled back, walked to a vacant seat at the back and sat down, and drank most of the bowl in one go.

Lan Feng exhaled a long breath, stretched his waist, changed to a comfortable sitting position, and leisurely watched the chatting of his fellow tablemates.

The three people at the same table were dressed in coarse linen clothes, rolled up sleeves and trouser legs, and at first glance they were local merchants, and there were more or less white flour stains everywhere on their bodies, and they fell a lot when they moved a little.

I heard one of the guys with a full beard say angrily, "Do you know?! Brother Hong has been arrested! ”

One of the people sitting on the right hurriedly asked, "What did you say, but Hong Dalei from Delong Township?!"

The bearded man replied: "If it weren't for him, who else in the entire Tianbao County could be called Brother Hong!"

"Brother Hong is a righteous man, often helping the poor and helping the needy, all walks of life and factions in the county have dealings with him, and the people below all admire him, it can be said that he is the brother of our county! How could anyone dare to arrest him? ”

Hearing the word "brother", Lan Feng is no stranger, this is the local language, the local people on weekdays chivalrous and righteous, won the admiration of the people of the people, equivalent to the meaning of the big guy. can be called a buddy.,It's definitely a first-class character and a well-known character in the local area.。

The bearded man glanced at Lan Feng, who was sitting in front of him, and saw that he didn't care about their conversation, so he lowered his voice and said, "Who else do you think can dare to catch Brother Hong?!" It must have been a good deed done by the county magistrate surnamed Pan! ”

"Wouldn't it? How did Brother Hong offend Pan Zhi County? ”

"It's said to be because of women."

"Woman?!" As soon as they heard the woman, the other two immediately aroused their interest in gossip and leaned over to listen carefully.

Someone was looking forward to speaking by himself, and his beard looked a little proud, straightened his waist, and said eloquently: "It takes a little effort to talk about this." This woman is also from Delong Township, named Li Xiumei, who lives in Tongli Village, is eighteen years old, the eldest in the family, and there are three younger siblings below. Li Xiumei's appearance is quite standard, and there are many people who ask the media to come to say goodbye, including many wealthy families in their hometowns and other townships, but Li Xiumei's parents have higher hearts than the sky, and they are bent on relying on their daughters to climb higher branches, and they mostly ignore these people who ask for marriage. ”

In fact, this Li Xiumei is not interested in these people who are courting relatives, because she already has a good relationship in private, and the man is also from the same village, named Zhou Shenghua, and Li Xiumei is a childhood sweetheart, but the Li family looks down on Zhou Shenghua very much, and dislikes him as a down-and-out talent, you think about it and know that Li Xiumei's father and mother don't look down on those sons and daughters of wealthy families who come to ask for marriage, how can they agree that Li Xiumei and Zhou Shenghua, a poor scholar, are together. It can be regarded as Li Xiumei is a person with ideas, she does not dislike Zhou Shenghua, she is determined to be good with Zhou Shenghua, and she has been scolded by her father and mother many times for this, but this girl just does not obey the control, and because of this, she has had a lot of conflicts with her family, and even does not hesitate to turn against her family. ”

Hearing this, the two people next to them also sighed at the same time: "What a woman who values love and righteousness!" ”

The bearded man nodded in agreement, and continued: "Originally, this matter was just a matter of a rich lady and a poor scholar, at most, it was a disturbance at home, and it shouldn't be able to cause any big turmoil. Coincidentally, Li Xiumei was taken by Pan Wen'an, our magistrate, and things started to trouble here. ”

Speaking of this, the beard stopped.

A companion who was eager to listen to the story was very interested, and immediately picked up the tea bowl and presented it to the beard, and said with a smile: "Brother Chen, take a sip of tea and moisten your throat!" ”

The beard is very useful for being respected, and he took a sip of the tea bowl with satisfaction, and continued with a smile: "We all know that this Pan Wen'an was originally a county magistrate in Pingle County, and he was just promoted to our Tianbao County as a magistrate the year before last. How is this person an official, I think the people of the county know it, he looks treacherous, greedy for money and lustful, and there are already two aunts and wives at home. What a villain! In the past year since taking office, he has embezzled and accepted bribes, and he has done everything he can. ”

"I also heard that Pan Wen'an converted the grain that should have been paid by each prisoner into about 100 taels of silver at the price, but he did not hand over the full amount, but secretly kept a part of the silver taels. In addition, he secretly contacted the landlord of Huaili Village, Tanghe Township, and exchanged the 11 acres of fertile land owned by the Tanghe Township Yishu with barren and uncultivable land in the name of rectifying Yixue, resulting in no peasant households renting land and a shortage of funds. Pan Wenan also embezzled 5,000 taels of funds donated by enthusiastic people without authorization, so that the funds were not enough to recruit school teachers, so that the school was lost and deserted in Tanghe Township, and many children from poor families did not go to school. For this reason, many parents of schoolchildren in the township appealed to the government, demanding the return of the good fields of the school and the reorganization of the school, but some people were arrested for the crime of despising the court and affecting public order, and even sent people to obstruct and oppress those who complained to the county government, and even caused death, but in the end it was not done. Alas~"

In addition, what makes people even more infuriating is that last year, when the drought in Baimu Township was severe, Pan Wenan twice asked the head of Baimu Township to falsely report the disaster situation, to report more with less and more with light, and at the same time to falsely report the household registration to expand the number of people affected by the disaster, so as to obtain a large amount of disaster relief money and grain allocated by the imperial court, and privately withheld a part of the disaster relief funds. That's not all, he exchanged the relief grain for silver distribution, and embezzled a large amount of silver taels from it. If you count the silver that you can get by accepting bribes and favoritism behind your back, it is said that he has to earn three or four hundred thousand taels of silver in more than a year, which is money that we can't earn without eating or drinking in our lives. It's really three years of Qing Governor's Mansion, 100,000 snowflakes of silver! ”

Hearing this, the two people around him were also furious, and said angrily: "It's really not a fucking thing!" Insatiable, this Pan Wenan is a Pixiu! ”