The old friend Fang Wanghai wanted to see was Hai Rui, the current magistrate of Chun'an County.
Although Chun'an County is not on the way back to Fujian, it is also on a branch of the Zhejiang water system. Fang Wanghai has to take a detour, and of course the accompanying people will not stop him.
However, Fang Wanghai was also simple and obedient, and ordered everyone not to publicize his identity as the Minister of Household Affairs.
On the way, Su Ze said to Fang Wanghai:
"Uncle Shi, no matter what Hu Zongxian says, the big seal on this bond must be stamped by the Bank of China Customs Department. Only anti-Japanese bonds stamped with the big seal of Bank of China Customs Department can be tax deductible."
Fang Wanghai immediately understood what Su Ze meant, which was to place the right to issue coupons in the hands of the Customs Department.
Su Ze added: "If you can't get money from the governor's office in the first year, the Customs Office can issue the coupons itself."
Li Zhi immediately said: "Wonderful! Ru Lin is preparing with both hands and one heart, so he is not afraid of Hu Ruzhen defaulting on the bill!"
As they talked, the group entered Chun'an County.
Chun'an County is a county in the west of Zhejiang Province. Because it is not close to the sea, it is considered a place that has suffered less from Japanese aggression.
However, the lack of Japanese rebellion does not mean that the life of the local people will be easy.
When Hai Rui arrived in Chun'an County, Chun'an had just encountered a flood. Hai Rui personally led people to the dam, and then blocked the dam that was about to burst.
Because the rising water had submerged many fields, Hai Rui led the people to plant grain again, which at least ensured the planting of summer grain.
Immediately afterwards, Hai Rui settled all the cases that had been accumulated in Chun'an County over the years. Because he dealt with justice, he gained the reputation of "The Great Master of Qingtian".
During this period, Hai Rui's mother and wife were also taken to Chun'an County. Hai Rui's father died young and he had been dependent on his mother since he was a child.
When he was serving as an oracle in Nanping, Hai Rui left his wife to serve his mother in his hometown. The couple finally reunited after three years.
When he arrived in Chun'an County, he heard people along the way praising Hai Rui Qingtian, which surprised Li Zhi very much.
It's not like he hasn't seen good officials before. The Fang Wanghai in front of him is considered a good official.
But compared with Hai Rui, Fang Wanghai did not receive such support from the people during his tenure.
Su Ze looked at Chun'an County and sighed lightly. For the people, a county magistrate who can perform his duties is already quite rare.
Being fair and honest like Hai Rui is a blessing that has been cultivated in several lifetimes.
In fact, for most people in the Ming Dynasty, as long as they can survive with enough food, this is their biggest pursuit.
As the most patient nation in the world, these simple requirements are often not easy to meet.
In fact, the geographical environment of Chun'an County is not very good. Compared with the flat Jiangnan, Zhejiang is more hilly and mountainous, and the soil is mostly red soil and loess.
In fact, this kind of soil is not fertile enough. The climate in Zhejiang is hotter than that in Jiangnan, and the rainfall is more abundant, but the yield per mu is lower than that in Jiangnan.
But at this time, Chun'an County looked stable. The collection of summer grain in September had been completed, and the winter wheat had been planted.
Sitting on the boat and looking at the well-kept fields on both sides of the strait, Fang Wanghai had been a local official and knew how difficult it was to have such stability in this world.
"Haigangfeng really has the talent to help the world and bring peace to the people!" Fang Wanghai praised.
Having also been a local official, Fang Wanghai can best understand the difficulties of being an official.
If you were an ordinary official dawdling about, being an official would be the easiest thing in the world.
As long as the tasks are assigned, the subordinates are asked to handle them, and enough food is handed over to complete the court's evaluation, and the official affairs are handled a little, the political performance will basically not be too bad.
Not to mention that now all officials will bring a master or something, and even daily affairs can be left to the master. As an official, you only need to do what you like every day.
But being an official is also a difficult task. To be a good official, you must be able to handle litigation within the country fairly, and you must not wrongly accuse good people or let bad people go.
Because Zhejiang wanted to fight against Japanese aggression, it levied additional anti-Japanese money and salary money. In order to complete these tasks and leave some surplus food for the people, officials had to find ways to get the big households in the county to obediently hand over food.
This cannot be accomplished by just talking. You must know that it is easy for small people to harvest food, but it is difficult for large households to collect food.
In addition, the magistrate of one county also has various chores to do, including various county sacrifices, the management of academic and political officials in the county, and the officials who are welcoming and sending them off. It is not easy to do all of these well.
Seeing such a stable scene in Chun'an County, Fang Wanghai knew that Hai Rui was a very capable official.
Su Ze also looked around with emotion. From Jiangnan to Zhejiang, Su Ze did not feel the wealth of the land of plenty. Instead, he saw farmers with fair faces, strong men being driven to stretch their clothes, and tired and attentive workers at the post station.
There are still areas along this road where Japanese insurgency has not occurred. It is difficult to imagine what it would be like in the places where Japanese insurgency broke out.
The people in Chun'an County are different. The farmers take care of their fields carefully, showing hope for the future.
Su Ze lamented that he finally understood why people in ancient times had such a strong attachment to "Qingtian", and even modern society worshiped "Qingtian" like a fascination.
In an agricultural society that needs stability the most, a "Qingtian Grand Master" can really make people miss him for a long time.
After docking at the boat station, they changed into casual clothes, and Fang Wanghai and Li Zhi Su Ze rode toward Chun'an County.
Not long after entering the city, I saw a group of government officials holding notices, pasting them on the city wall, and then began to read the notices.
The notices issued by the county government to the people are all written in the vernacular, the content is simple and easy to understand, and they are even compiled into jingles for easy dissemination.
The clerk who read out the notice said in the local dialect: "Today, the scammers who sneaked into our county have been arrested and imprisoned by the magistrate of Hai County. They cheated in the name of the family of Governor Hu, the governor of Zhejiang, and the magistrate allowed Chun'an County to be deceived. The big business owners should go to the county government office immediately to get back the money they were defrauded of!"
Fang Wanghai frowned and said, "Is there anyone in Zhejiang who dares to cheat in the name of Hu Zongxian's family?"
Su Ze smiled slightly.
Li Zhi said: "Hai Gangfeng is really an interesting person. He dares to catch even a liar?"
Hai Rui was just the magistrate of Chun'an County. He was also the prefect, and the prefect was also the chief envoy of Zhejiang.
Hu Zongxian was the governor of Zhejiang, and the power of the governor of Nanzhili and Zhejiang's military affairs still rested with the chief envoy.
Although Hu Zongxian was amiable when he and Fang Wanghai were drinking together, he was actually a high-level military and political official in Zhejiang.
Even if he was cheating, it was under the guise of Hu Zongxian, yet Hai Rui dared to arrest him.
Fang Wanghai did not stay at the city gate, but went directly to the county government office.
After waiting for the county government office to send the invitation, Hai Rui, wearing coarse cloth, came out from the side door and welcomed Fang Wanghai into the county government office.
"Teacher." Su Ze saluted Hai Rui respectfully.
Hai Rui was also very happy to see Su Ze, his proud disciple. He quickly helped Su Ze up and said hello to Fang Wanghai.
"Brother Gangfeng, this is Li Zhi, my wife's brother, who serves as the sacrificial wine minister at the Imperial College in Nanjing."
Fang Wanghai pulled Hai Rui and said, "I'm going back this time for my daughter's marriage. I remembered that I should give Brother Gang Feng a drink, so I came here to bother him!"
Fang Wanghai was talking about the marriage between Su Ze and Fang Ruolan that year, and it was Hai Rui who acted as matchmaker. Hai Rui quickly smiled and introduced the three of them into the back house.
The county government house was in a mess. Su Ze also saw several old spinning wheels, as well as piles of straw and branches. These should be firewood stored for the winter.
Li Zhi had only seen such a scene when he was a child. At that time, his family was in decline and he was raised by Mrs. Li.
But ever since her sister got married, Fang Wanghai's career went smoothly, and he passed the exam, the family has never been so chaotic.
After a while, an energetic old man came out of the house. Hai Rui quickly introduced, "This is my mother."
Because Fang Wanghai was traveling incognito, Hai Rui did not introduce his position. He just said that he was an old friend and pointed at Su Ze and said:
"This is the disciple my son took in Nanping, Fujian Jieyuan Su Ze."
The sea mother was very enthusiastic. She quickly went to clean up the spinning wheel and said apologetically: "This is what the old lady uses for weaving. It is too messy here and makes all the distinguished guests laugh."
Immediately afterwards, a woman also came out of the back house. Needless to say, this was Hai Rui's wife.
Su Ze paid homage to his wife with the etiquette of a teacher. Hai Rui's wife felt a little embarrassed and was ordered by Hai Rui to cook.
Li Zhi was shocked by the fact that there was not even a single servant to serve such a large county government house, and Haimu and Haizhu even had to weave their own textiles. All of this shocked Li Zhi.
Li Zhi was also a scholar, and he was considered to be half of the officialdom.
The county magistrate is known as Bailihou. Although his rank is not high, he has considerable power.
Fang Wanghai was already a good official, but he had never been as poor as Hai Rui.
Li Zhi remembered that Fang Wanghai had said before that when Hai Rui was a county school teacher, he farmed his own land and used his salary to support poor scholars like Su Ze. Now that he saw the county government house like this, he felt a surge of respect for Hai Rui. .
Fang Wanghai also sighed with emotion, he didn't expect Hai Rui to live in such poverty.
After a while, Hai Rui's wife served the meal. Since there were guests at home, there were vegetables and meat. After all, Hai Rui was the county magistrate, so his income could still afford meat.
It's just that the Hai family only has their own turbid wine. Fang Wanghai is not picky, he pours the wine himself.
Hai Rui was also very happy to be able to see his old friends and his favorite students.
After a round of drinking, Fang Wanghai said: "Brother Gangfeng, I heard that you caught a liar who pretended to be Hu Zongxian's family member?"
Hai Rui smiled and said, "Actually, he is not a liar. He is indeed Governor Hu's family."
Li Zhi put down his chopsticks in surprise.
Hai Rui said: "That guy is the nephew of Governor Hu. He uses Governor Hu's name to cheat and deceive people all over Zhejiang, extorting money from the people for the anti-Japanese regiment training."
"After he entered Chun'an County, he extorted hundreds of taels of silver from several villages. After I learned about the situation, I took him and his servants away."
Fang Wanghai asked, "What are you going to do?"
Hai Rui said: "It's simple, just give them to Governor Hu to be punished."
Hai Rui seemed to have said an insignificant thing, but Su Ze felt relaxed and smart when listening to it.
Sure enough, this is Hai Rui's character.
Li Zhi clapped his chopsticks and said:
"Wonderful! Haizhi County said they were liars and sent them to Governor Hu for punishment. Governor Hu felt wrong and had no choice but to admit it!"
Hai Rui lowered his head and said, "Compared with the tariff on banknotes, these are just tricks."
Hai Rui sighed: "In order to fight against the Japanese, the burden on the shoulders of the people of Chun'an is too heavy! The anti-Japanese silver, salary money, and now I heard that we have to go out to various places for training, the common people can't hold it anymore."
Hai Rui said depressingly: "After I took office, I asked big households to share their past debts, and took the lead in inspecting commercial taxes, but it was still not enough. If this continues, Zhejiang will be in chaos before the war against Japanese aggression is over."
Fang Wanghai also lowered his head. What Hai Rui said was similar to what he saw in Suzhou.
Now the entire southeastern region is in financial difficulty because of the anti-Japanese war.
Hai Rui looked at Su Ze and said, "Ru Lin, I heard what you said to the Chinese barbarians at Quzhou Academy, but with the situation of the Ming Dynasty now, it's good to be able to defend itself, so don't talk about expansion."
Su Ze knew that Hai Rui was conservative. He was not as flexible as Fang Wanghai, and even less flexible than Hu Zongxian.
What he focused on as an official was "protecting the environment and the people."
In order to protect his own people, Hai Rui could offend his boss's boss's boss.
Hai Rui added: "But among the young people in Zhejiang, Rulin is already very famous."
"You are about to go back and get married, and I haven't prepared any good gifts for you."
Hai Rui stood up again and took out a tray of silk from the back room.
"This red damask was woven by your master's wife. This is my wedding gift to you."
Su Ze was a little touched as he held the red damask. Ever since he became a disciple of Hai Rui, Hai Rui had taught him everything he could in his studies. The red damask was worth a lot of money to Hai Rui.
But naturally he had to accept this sentiment: "Thank you so much, teacher and master, I will never forget it!"
Hai Rui said happily, "I also have something to ask Ru Lin for help."
"Teacher, just say it."
Hai Rui said: "Are there any grain seeds for the sweet potatoes and potatoes you planted in Fujian back then? Chun'an County is also mountainous and hilly, but Zhejiang has many people and few fields. I wonder if we can promote the planting of sweet potatoes and potatoes."
It turned out that this was the case. Su Ze nodded and said: "This is easy. When I return to Nanping, I will have someone send it to the teacher. In addition, I will also write down the breeding method and send it to you."
Hai Rui was overjoyed and said: "That would be the best. On behalf of the people of Chun'an, I would like to thank Rulin. If the cultivation of this plant can be promoted, countless people will live."
Seeing how poor Hai Rui's family was, Fang Wanghai was unwilling to stay longer. He found an excuse to return to the ship the next day and continued southward back to Fujian.
In October, the group finally returned to Nanping County.
(End of chapter)
