There is a Wanshan County under the jurisdiction of Lingzhou, there are many mountains and many peaks and many forests in this county, but there is not much arable land.

Originally, the annual grain harvest of the people in this county was only enough to make ends meet in addition to taxes, but now in the event of a major drought, there is naturally not much surplus grain.

I could have eaten a dry meal every day, but now I can only drink gruel every meal, if it takes a while, then I can't talk about porridge, I'm afraid I can't even drink water!

However, the people in the county are not too flustered now, mainly because they heard that the taxed grain that was supposed to be pulled to the state city a few days ago has now been pulled back, and it is also said that the emperor who sat in the sky and watched the world made a decree:

Because of the impending disaster this year, the local taxes will be included in the storage of the local granaries of the counties, and in times of crisis, they can act cheaply!

It is precisely because of this decree that the victims of the disaster who are about to run out of food have a bottom in their hearts, they do not know how much food a person needs in a day, they do not know how many people will eat the food they pay in taxes, and they do not know how much of that food will end up in their mouths!

They only know that when the county government collects taxes, the grain is piled up in the back hall of the entire yamen, and they only know that so much food is just for them to open up and eat, it should not be finished, in their cognition, at most, they think that there are more people, at most they can't eat it, so it's okay to drink porridge!

In the county seat of Wanshan County, in the mansion of Liu Shenyu, his master Chang Huan also stood by his side.

"My lord, I heard that last year's tax and grain were all brought back from the state town! Do you think we will take 30% and put it in our private treasury as before? Or ......?"

Master Chang Huan, who had a mustache, touched his mustache, and looked as treacherous as he looked.

He has been a master in this Wanshan County for a full seventeen years, and the people around this county town know that he has a nickname of often peeling skins, and he can scrape off three taels of oil from all the objects that pass through his hands, even if they are light!

There is also Liu Shenyu, the county guard of Wanshan County, he has only climbed to the position of county guard for three years, before that he was only the county commander of a large county, and he was also the third county guard master taken over by Chang Huan.

After the former county guard, Liu Shenyu climbed to the position of the county guard by relying on the personal relationships he had accumulated over the years and 100,000 taels of silver.

In the past three years, in addition to spending a lot of money to honor the officials at the top level, the embezzled silver is just enough for 100,000 taels.

But this has a lot to do with his lack of appetite.

"It's... Master Chang, after all, these grains are the grains that the court has put down for disaster relief, if we take them, let's not talk about whether the court will check them one by one, even if we don't check, we can't cut off the livelihood of the people below!"

Liu Shenyu has only been in office for less than three years, so although he is the county guard, he is still relatively subtle in his speech, and many times he is unwilling to refute the face of this master.

"Oh no! I thought it was!"

Master Chang waved his hand and smiled, looking at Liu Shenyu as if he had never talked about the world.

"My lord, I don't know how many people below are this taxed grain, and what impact will it have if we take it! Besides, what if we take it, haven't you heard a sentence when you were an official below? It's called an official is like a knife, and the people are like grass, so this grass is not something that a knife can cut if you want to?"

After thinking about it again, Liu Shenyu still shook his head, he himself grew up with a hard life when he was a child, and he knew how uncomfortable it was to feel hungry!

But Master Chang Huan was always a little unrelenting, and he went around to the other side of Liu Shenyu and said.

"My lord, if you feel that you really don't want to go! The little one here has also come up with a way, after we take out the thirty percent of the grain, and then take out a part of the remaining grain to replace it with flour, and the last one is replaced with chaff, so that the amount of grain sent down will not be less, but will be much more, what do you think!"

After Liu Shenyu listened to Chang Huan's suggestion, not only did he not agree immediately, but looked at him with wide eyes.

"Bran, Master, that's something for the animals!"

Chang Huan's eyes narrowed into a slit and asked rhetorically.

"Are those hungry people still human? People are not human when they are dying of starvation, they are no different from animals! It is good to have chaff to eat in such years! Not to mention that in the past, when there were peace, there were no people who ate chaff!"

Chang Huan gently held Liu Shenyu's hand and patted the back of his hand a few times.

"I know what you're worried about, my lord, but didn't the former county guard also return to his hometown! Die the bold, starve the timid, we are small places, the career to the county guard position is over, if you don't seize the opportunity to be greedy now, this person will regret it when he gets old!"

Liu Shenyu was stunned, he didn't know how to answer Chang Huan's words, and he didn't know how he nodded and agreed.

Anyway, 20% of the grain used in the disaster relief went into his own pocket, and 10% was filled by the master and the petty officials under him.

......

There is also a Huishan County under the jurisdiction of Wanshan County, and the county magistrate of Huishan County has just taken office recently, his name is Shu Beili, and he happens to be the most recent batch of students who graduated from Jinghua Academy.

His results in the imperial examination were not bad, so he became a county magistrate as soon as he took office, but he was really not used to it when he first arrived in Huishan County after three years of comfortable life in the capital.

Not to mention that the coarse tea and light rice are difficult to eat, even the women in the Chu Pavilion in the Qinglou are tasteless.

But when he received the huge sum of three hundred taels of silver for the first time, he didn't think so, he was born in poverty, he had only seen so much silver in his life, and he had never owned it himself!

"It was that fool who told me that these places are poor, and now it seems that there is a lot to be done!"

After coming and going, he hit it off with the master who was already treacherous, and in just half a year, 1,500 taels of silver went into his pocket! The more remote and poor the place, the more he would not be soft when he scavenged the people's fat and ointment!

In half a year, in addition to welcoming his wife who was thousands of miles away, he also took a concubine for himself, and she was still a well-known water spirit girl in this county!

"Master Shu, the taxed grain that our county paid before has been transported back, and the quantity is still a few more truckloads than when we handed it over!

In the yamen of Huishan County, Shu Beili was holding a glass of wine consigned from the capital and slowly shaking in his hand, and his master was running in from outside the yamen with a list of grains.

"Bran!"

Shu Beili took a sip of the wine in the glass and said with a little drunkenness.

"I really don't know if this is the idea that the master came up with, such a good method, if we don't follow it, it is worthy of other people's good intentions!"

The master cautiously stepped forward.

"My lord, in fact, I think the same way, do you think why we also replace thirty percent of the grain with bran?"

"Sancheng?"

"Uh...... If the adults think it's too much, we can..."

"No! I want fifty percent!"

"Fifty percent!"

The master was taken aback, originally he thought that he was already greedy enough, but he didn't expect that this newly appointed county master was not a thing compared to him!

Shu Beili regained his previous look, his face was full of relaxation, the wine in the wine glass in his hand had bottomed out, but he was still shaking the wine glass.

"If you eat one meal of chaff or two meals, what if the grass people eat more? For them, not dying of starvation is already a great merit for them to be grateful. ”

"But... Adult, if you replace fifty percent, the food will be almost gone, and even the porridge can only be water porridge. Shall we think again..."

Master's tone became weaker and weaker, and his voice could hardly be heard in the back.

Shu Beili slowly stopped the wine glass shaking in his hand, and he looked into his master's eyes and asked.

"Have you ever seen how many taels of silver are in a million taels? I have seen it! If you use a silver ticket, it will be ten silver tickets with a quota of 100,000 taels, but if you exchange it for real silver, you can't put it in the whole county office, what are we going to be officials for?

The master himself was stunned, after being a master for many years, it was the first time he had seen a person who could talk about corruption so openly, this is worthy of being a big man from the capital, but he is different from those officials who are small families and small families!

......

In the capital, above the court of the Jinluan Palace, Chu Zheng was extremely angry and threw a letter of enclosure on the table in front of him.

"Damn, damn it! Didn't I just return last year's taxed grain to them! Why are there still so many people who come to me to ask for food, Zhao Yunqing, you get out of here!"

It was the first time for Zhao Fatzi to see Chu Zheng making such a big fire, he didn't dare to delay, nor did he dare to laugh, he walked out of the pile of people tremblingly and knelt on the ground.

"The minister is here!"

Chu Zheng casually picked up a letter and threw it to Zhao Yunqing's side.

"See for yourself! Didn't you say that according to the amount of grain taxed in various places in previous years, that grain would last at least a month and a half? But now that only half a month has passed, they are asking me for food again!"

Zhao Yunqing, who was kneeling on the ground respectfully, didn't dare to move, and he didn't pay attention to the twists and turns beside him, but just buried his head down a little again.

"Your Majesty, the old minister's estimate is absolutely not wrong, and those grains can definitely last for a month and a half, but..."

Speaking of this, Zhao Yunqing's voice weakened, but in this temple, which was so quiet that you could hear the sound of a pin, it still fell into everyone's ears.

"But Your Majesty, you also have to see if all the grain has been eaten by the people? I dare to guarantee that the amount of grain that is taxed will not fall into the hands of the people, and that will not exceed 30 percent of the total, and as long as the corruption of Da Chu is not eliminated for a day, the grain needed for disaster relief will be a bottomless pit that cannot be filled in no matter how much it is filled!"

"Come on, go and call Xie Tianya to me!"

Chu Zheng looked at Zhao Yunqing and was so angry that he couldn't speak, what the fat man said was really reasonable, so he had to call Xie Tianya, who had eyeliner all over the world, to this Jinluan Palace.

As soon as Chu Zheng's holy decree arrived at the Six Gates, Xie Tianya had already guessed the content, and he picked up a letter that had been prepared long ago and entered the palace with the eunuch.

"Your Majesty, this is the list and number of officials who are greedy for food for disaster relief sent back from the secret lines of the six doors in various places, if the emperor wants to issue an order to arrest them, he will all be brought to justice tomorrow!"

Looking at the fold handed over by Xie Tianya, the more Chu Zheng looked at it, the more frightened he became, he never thought that Da Chu's corruption had come to this point.

In particular, there are many names on this list that he is familiar with, and they are all scholars who have just walked out of the academy with high hopes from him!

"Academy!"

Chu Zheng's voice began to tremble.

"Lu Xiangrui, Master Lu! This is the academy you want to run? Take a good look at how many people on this list have come out of the academy!"

Unlike Zhao Yunqing, Lu Xiangrui picked it up very seriously and looked at it, and on the list, half of the officials who went out of the academy accounted for it.

"Your Majesty, the academy advocates education without class, so it is true that some neglect to examine the character of the students, and the unevenness between the good and the bad is indeed the fault of the academy, but I believe that as long as the scholars who have carefully read the teachings of the sages, they will not do such a thing. ”

"When has this been, are you still giving me the set in the book! Can you conjure food for me in the book?"

Without paying attention to Lu Xiangrui, who was already very old-fashioned in his eyes, Chu Zheng turned his head and said to Xie Tianya.

"In my opinion, you six doors have been gentle for too long, so that these people are rampant again, and they will arrest all the people on the list according to what you said. ”

Then, Chu Zheng turned his heart sideways and said viciously.

"Those who embezzle less than 100 quintals will be punished with 100 canes and dismissed from their posts; those who embezzle more than 100 quintals but less than 1,000 quintals will be sentenced to prison for 10 to 20 years, depending on the circumstances; those who embezzle more than 1,000 quintals but less than 10,000 quintals will be sentenced to death; those who embezzle 100,000 quintals or more will be punished by the nine clans!"

Just when Chu Zheng wanted to kill people and relieve his anger, one person jumped out to oppose it, and at this time, the only one who dared to stand up and speak was Su Wang, who was the minister of state.

"Your Majesty, now is not the time to punish them, if we kill them all overnight, we will not care about those victims!"

"Then what do you say!"

Chu Zheng knew that Su Wang would not speak easily, but as long as he spoke, it meant that he had a good idea in his heart.

"Your Majesty, why don't we fulfill their wishes, don't they want food? Let's put down all the eight million quintals of disaster relief food that we have prepared at once. ”

Su Wang turned his head and looked in the direction beyond the capital.

"Let's just take a look and see how big those people's appetites really are! See if these 8 million quintals of disaster relief food can feed them! See whose pockets these 8 million quintals of disaster relief food have entered!"