Giant Bandit of the South Sea, Dragon King of the Dry Land
"Waterways are the way to survive. Eight rivers circle Chang'an, and waterways are densely populated. By then, the people will still need a troublesome dog emperor!"
Dushui Division, under the Ministry of Industry, is a Qingshui Yamen with a very high starting point and can quickly reach its peak at the speed of a rocket.
The entry-level officer in the Dushui Division is a master of the sixth rank. After one year, you can be promoted to a fifth-rank Yuanwailang. After five years, if you are still in the Dushui Division and have passed the mid-level examination, you can be promoted to a fifth-rank doctor.
In the Shui Division of Shuntian Prefecture, the imperial capital, there were three doctors, five Yuanwailang, and seven chief officers.
The Dushui Qingli Division of the Ministry of Industry and Industry in Nandu City also has one doctor, one member, and two chief officers.
Zhou Li, Xuyang's scout for four years, did not choose any of the olive branches offered to him by many big bosses.
He eagerly ran to the Ministry of Works. Under the puzzled eyes of Liang Wenzhi, the minister of the Ministry of Works, he rejected the Ministry of Works' fat and poor camp and repair department, the core Yuheng Department, and the Tuntian Department, which was the most low-priced and high-priced. Finally, he went to the Ministry of Industry, which usually only had science and technology. The Tosui Division will be expelled only if they come last in the exam.
And he had been working in the Capital Water Division for seven years. In the spring of the eleventh year of Xuyang, after his meritorious service in the official department, Zhou Li received an average-to-upper rating, but it was still enough for him to be promoted to the fifth rank, the rank of doctor.
At the beginning of this year, he felt that he could finally realize his ambition.
He has been sitting in the Yamen of Dushui Division for seven years. People in the yamen have left and come again. Now he has the largest official position in the entire Dushui Division because he is the only doctor.
There is no Yuanwailang, and there are three principals.
There is a reason why the Dushui Division is in such decline. Four hundred years after the reign of Zhengyang Empire, there were only four emperors who repaired waterways. The total number of waterways opened was thousands of miles and a lot of money was spent. However, floods are still rampant on both sides of the Yellow River. , places that should be dry are still suffering from drought, and places that should be flooded are still flooded.
The imperial court had given up the idea of building waterways decades ago, and tried to collect more tax money every year. When there was a disaster, it could be solved by spending hundreds of thousands of taels of silver there. There was no need to spend millions. Silver creates a useless waterway.
The court threw more than a million pieces of silver into the water one after another! This is also the reason why many big guys ignore Dushui Division.
As for the Dushui Division Yamen, other than letting some speculators come and live their lives to be gilded, they would eventually leave when they got involved, thus depriving them of two years of hard work.
The Capital Water Division in Kyoto is relatively good. There is only one chief executive in the Nandu City Water Division yamen, and he is an old official. It is said that he does not have many years left to live.
On the second day after becoming a doctor, Zhou Li gave a note to the Minister Zuo of the Ministry of Government and Industry. He was going to the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, and then all the way up to personally walk this road that had nurtured the Zhengyang Kingdom for four hundred years, but was always moody. The river of life.
The left minister of the Ministry of Industry was furious and immediately approved Zhou Li's suggestion. Zhou Li saluted respectfully, and the left minister of the Ministry of Industry waved his hands irritably, as if to ward off a fly.
This Shangguan has condescended to find Zhou Li countless times over the years, but Zhou Li is like a stubborn old cow who has even torn off his nose and still refuses to repent.
This time, the Minister of Industry, Zuo Shilang, completely lost interest in this talented young man.
Zhou Li walked out of the gate of the Ministry of Works Yamen and immediately let out a sigh of relief. He was afraid that the Shangguan he respected would try to keep him here again, and he couldn't bear to look at Shangguan's hateful face.
The next day, Zhou Li set off in a hurry, with only one loyal old servant following him, a carriage, and a bag of luggage. This was all his belongings. He studied all the way from his hometown and entered Kyoto when he was young. He has not bought a house in the past eight years. This is unqualified for a fifth-grade official, even a zero score!
All the way south, when he passed Yingtian Mansion, he went to visit the head of the Dushui Division who had insisted on staying in Nandu, but he saw a pair of red lanterns and a long hanging white paper money outside his mansion.
This old colleague was mourning because he passed away when he was nearly seventy years old. In the Zhengyang Empire, the average age of ordinary people has increased from thirty years old in the early days of Zhengyang to forty years old now. A sixty-year-old man can already ignore the laws and rules and do whatever he wants. Such an old man is called a renrui!
Zhou Li asked the old servant to send a letter to his old colleague's relatives and burned it. The two could only exchange water control experiences through yin and yang.
With great regret, Zhou Li left and went straight to Songjiang Mansion, the estuary of the Yangtze River.
I heard that this old boss has presided over no less than a hundred water conservancy projects, and his rich experience can be called a unique talent in the Xuyang Dynasty. Now he really has become a unique talent.
Ever since pirates became rampant along the East China Sea, the imperial court suffered losses during its many campaigns against the pirates, causing the originally prosperous Songjiang Prefecture to gradually decline.
Boarding the boat from the entrance of Songjiang Prefecture, this is a cruise ship. It was opened by the Chen family, a local rich family in Songjiang Prefecture. The sound of silk and bamboo can be heard on the boat. The cabins are filled with talented people and wealthy gentry in and out of the cabin. This is a cruise ship. A complete painting!
However, in Songjiang Prefecture now, only the Chen family's ships dare to go to sea. There are rumors that the Chen family has colluded with overseas pirates.
But those who can actually get on this boat are all those with some financial background. Not only are they not afraid of the rumors, they even find it exciting, so the price of a ticket for this cruise has been increased to one hundred taels!
Zhou Li naturally does not have this kind of money, he relies on his fifth-grade official seal.
The fifth rank is already a high-ranking official in Songjiang Prefecture. The prefect of Songjiang Prefecture is one level higher than Zhou Li's official, and the second-in-command of Songjiang Prefecture, the prefect Tongzhi, is also a full rank of fifth rank, equal to Zhou Li's official position.
But one is a Beijing official and the other is a foreign official, and the weight between the two cannot be compared.
"Master Zhou is a young and talented man. Everyone in Songjiang Mansion hopes to get together with Master Zhou at the best Botaoya Building in Songjiang Mansion."
Zhou Li looked helplessly at Lord Qin, the magistrate of Songjiang Prefecture in front of him. This old man didn't know where he got the news, but he actually stopped him at the city gate.
After bowing to Qin Tongzhi, Zhou Li declined Qin Tongzhi's kindness, but Master Qin, who had a one-foot-long beard, narrowed his eyes and said with a smile:
"Lord Zhou! The prefect personally purchased this meal. If he hadn't been busy with official duties, I wouldn't have invited Lord Zhou on his behalf."
"Zhou thanked Mr. Qin and asked Mr. Qin to confess my crime to Magistrate Chen on my behalf. Zhou has a heavy workload this time and will take a boat out to sea in Songjiang Port tonight. I really don't have time. I'm sorry!"
After saying that, Zhou Li looked back at his old servant. The old servant understood and led the carriage up. Zhou Li did not get on the carriage, but walked forward quickly.
He knew in his heart that whether it was Lord Qin or Magistrate Chen, their purpose was nothing more than to use him to catch up with his teacher. Songjiang Mansion has been repeatedly attacked by pirates in recent years, and most of the people have fled. The taxes here have long been Not as good as in the early years. These two adults have been looking for opportunities to be transferred out of here, but who is willing to take over this place? Firstly, there is no oil and water, and secondly, there are many troubles. The most important thing is that this place is not safe and the pirates are powerful. The local officers and soldiers cannot resist it at all.
"Master Zhou, we will meet again when you come back!" Qin Tongzhi shouted loudly behind Zhou Li, who smiled bitterly and did not look back.
Songjiang Port was originally a prosperous port. It can be seen from the many buildings outside the port that it was once a prosperous place with a large flow of people. But since the pirate attacks, most of the buildings here have been empty. Many restaurants and inns have moved away, leaving the buildings empty.
Zhou Li sat on the carriage and opened the curtains. He found that both sides of the road here were completely dilapidated. Many shops didn't even have their doors. Looking in through the empty doorways, he saw that there were thick piles of garbage piled up in the yard. A layer of dead leaves. This scene cast a layer of gloom in Zhou Li's heart.
The old servant drove the carriage to the port. There were still some people here, but they were mostly coolies moving goods. There was a small pavilion on one side of the port, and several people were chatting and having fun inside.
Zhou Li got off the carriage. He knew that the coolies carrying goods in front of him and the people in the pavilion were all his fellow travelers. His ship will arrive in the evening, and in the past few days, his ship is the only one that has docked at Songjiang Port, so the people here can only be his fellow travelers.
With nowhere to go, Zhou Li strolled towards the pavilion. As he got closer, he was pleasantly surprised to find that the people in the pavilion were actually water conservancy officers from the local government, and their clothes were the work clothes of water conservancy officers.
The pace became faster, Zhou Li stepped forward to ask, and it was as he expected. And he also claimed to be a water conservancy official.
The water conservancy officer is the lowest-ranking official under the Department of Water Resources.
Through the conversation, Zhou Li was pleasantly surprised to find that these five water conservancy officials belonged to different counties in Zhejiang Province. They were young but had great ambitions. They went to sea this time because the counties had nothing to do, so they came together. Take a look at the sea here.
The person who made this suggestion was a young man named Tang Feiwei. Three generations of his family have been water conservancy officials. It can be said that it is an ancestral job. He not only has his own opinions on water control, but also has many opinions on the current water conservancy of the entire country. In his words:
Nowadays, the people are in poverty and cannot bear the floods. However, in recent years, God has not been able to see the sufferings of the people, and floods have occurred more and more frequently. Large-scale floods have occurred in Zhejiang Province for three consecutive years. Countless tributaries of the Yangtze River have been diverted, and countless fertile fields have been submerged. But the government had no intention of regulating it. After the flood, they exempted taxes and provided relief money and food. But the tax exemption was only for the gentry, while the money and food given fell into the pockets of the officials, and all the suffering was eaten by the common people.
Therefore, these water conservancy officials, who were not favored by their superiors, simply found an excuse to go out to the sea to see if they could find some other ideas at sea. In fact, they just came out to relax. As a result, their superiors unanimously agreed and said that it didn't matter how long they had been out, but their salaries would not be paid when they were not in office.
From the moment Zhou Li met these water conservancy officials, his destiny was touched by an invisible hand, and his life path deviated from its original track.
The day after they went to sea, their ship encountered pirates. Zhou Li was lucky enough to survive. He and the five water conservancy officials landed in Fujian and escaped. Regarding this disaster, Zhou Li and the five water conservancy officials were all very secretive, and they did not disclose any information to anyone who asked.
And since then, these five water conservancy officials have been following Zhou Li.
Until they encountered a river bursting its banks in Wuchang Prefecture, flooding the Jinshan Mountains. Zhou Li and five water conservancy officials rushed into the disaster relief team without thinking. It turned out that all the disaster relief people were either prisoners or tenants of landlords and squires. They were on the front line of disaster relief. Many people were injured and died. Not a few.
But the government treated them like animals. They had to work for more than ten hours a day, but they only had two meals, which were gruel and sour steamed buns that could reflect people's faces. Until one day, a prisoner was extremely hungry. When they arrived, they found that the government servants who were in charge of them gathered together to eat white rice and slivers of meat sent by the squire. This prisoner was also smart, and he even knew how to gather a crowd when he was extremely angry.
When Zhou Li knew what was going on here and hurried over, a prisoner and a group of tenants had already beaten the four government officials to death, and finally threw them into the raging river.
After other government officials arrived, Zhou Li wanted to mediate, but a group of government officials just drew their swords and killed them, which directly caused a mutiny among the people. The prisoner who provoked the trouble in the end was beheaded by the government officials. The culprit was gone, and no one took the blame. The 10,000 civilians who rescued the disaster felt that they had no life, and turned into evil spirits one by one. There was not even a transformation process in between, as if they were wolves in sheep's clothing. .
Dozens of government officials were eventually thrown into the river. When the local magistrate arrived, Zhou Li was trying his best to persuade the civilians to commit crimes, but the magistrate regarded him as the leader of the thieves and ordered their arrest.
The criminal prisoners who had not yet been calmed down by Zhou Li were already murderous and could no longer stop.
In the end, Zhou Li was inexplicably elected as the leader. After leaving hundreds of corpses behind, he was carried away by tens of thousands of people.
During this process, Zhou Li was basically confused. When he recalled it afterwards, he only remembered that there was a person's voice that kept surrounding his ears, surrounding...
