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Chapter 261 Autumn Fu Twenty-six
The Kun thieves did not kill officials to rebel, nor did they kill people and set fire everywhere. They continued to bribe the common people, gentry and scholars with small favors, and deliberately created a situation of peaceful coexistence. Read the full text. In this way, it would not attract the attention of Shangguan and the court. After all, up and down, it is better to do less than to do more.
"This group of thieves is really hateful," Wu Mingjin said angrily.
"Don't worry, Dong Weng. The Kun thieves still have a sense of proportion. It's up to them to do whatever they want." Wang Zhaomin couldn't come up with any clever ideas, so he had to resort to the "ostrich policy."
"That's all we have to do." Wu Mingjin knew that he had three choices. He could either commit suicide immediately and kill himself to make the thieves lose the target of their use. But he couldn't bear to die like this, not to mention that he still had a family; or he could abandon his official position and run away. Either sneak back to his hometown, or go to the prefecture or provincial capital to ask for help - but the county magistrate has the responsibility of guarding the territory, and abandoning his post and running away is a serious crime; in the end, he sends people to the provincial capital to ask for help - this is even more outrageous. He originally sent people to Qiong Shan was anxious, but in the end he received a few letters, but not a single soldier came to suppress the bandits. Besides, it has been more than a year since the Kun Thief landed. Shangfeng really wants to ask what he has been doing for more than a year, and what answer will he give?
After much deliberation, there is really no other way but to acquiesce to reality.
"What kind of changes have been made in the county government?" Since he plans to continue playing tricks, he must know the other party's actions.
"In addition to Chen Minggang, Zhang Shi was also arrested -" Wang Zhaomin explained in detail the personnel adjustments made by the Cross Travel Group in the county government, "In my opinion, most Australians will ask Dong Weng to dismiss all these people. Forget it."
"Then just follow them." Wu Mingjin thought that this was all he could do now, but these experienced people were gone, so how to deal with official affairs in the future became a problem.
"There's no need to worry," Wang Zhaomin said. "The secretary of the Household Office has been replaced by Zhou Qi - he is Chen Minggang's eldest disciple and an experienced messenger. The office clerks of the four offices of Li, Li, Gong and Bing are still in their posts. As for the third shift leader, Wang Zhaomin felt that it didn’t matter if they were there or not.
As for the torture chamber, there weren't many cases to handle in this county. Besides, there were other clerks in the torture chamber who could handle the cases. If one Zhang was missing, it wouldn't collapse in ten days.
If you think about it this way, it's not a big problem.
"Mr. Xiong said that the fees for filling vacancies in the book office will remain the same -"
Wu Mingjin's eyelids twitched. Whenever there was a vacancy in the clerk's office, he had to pay a fee to the county magistrate to fill the vacancy. Just like an official, the price would be different depending on the size of the vacancy. Now that the thieves had captured two book offices in one go, the profits were huge. Wu Mingjin suddenly felt a little regretful - now that he had caught them, wouldn't it be better to just capture all the six book offices? Anyway, the book offices in the past were not necessarily the same. Loyal.
"I just arrested the clerk in the warehouse."
Wu Mingjin was surprised: "The thieves want to rob the county treasury."
"That's not true. I just detained the person. He is still in the Yamen." Wang Zhaomin whispered, "The warehouse was sealed and someone was posted to guard it. There was no other unusual movement."
Lingao is a poor county, and there is not much money in the county treasury. But there was no oil or water, and there were still hundreds of taels of silver, more than a thousand stones of grain, and many pieces of cloth and sundries in the treasury, which was considered a considerable amount of wealth. If they really want to rob everything, Lingao's financial situation will not be able to fill the gap within three to five years. When Wu Mingjin leaves office, he will not be able to explain to his successor.
In an empty room of the county government office, the treasurers who were arrested yesterday were detained there, awaiting interrogation.
The person in charge of the interrogation was You Guotuan - Zhou Dongtian had already rushed to the "study class" to interrogate Chen Minggang and his group. You Guotuan's task is to pry open the mouths of the treasurers and find out how much wealth these rats have accumulated for themselves to fill the Planning Commission's treasury. In addition, they need to grasp the key points - they will take over more in the future. States and counties.
"Don't underestimate a few treasurers." Dong Weiwei said, "You know who was the richest in Beijing during the Ming and Qing dynasties."
"The emperor is a noble official and a traitorous minister"
"Haha, that's right. But the wealth of the treasurers is what makes the capital famous."
This treasury official was the treasury official who managed the bank in the Ministry of Household Affairs. It was an open secret in the society at that time that they stole and embezzled the banknotes from the Ministry of Household Affairs and made a fortune.
The situation in the local government warehouses is similar. Although they are not as profitable as the household bank warehouses, they are still enough to make a fortune. In the county government office, in addition to the household clerk's office, the clerks in the warehouses of the two warehouses, namely silver and grain, are the most prosperous. The so-called treasury management and treasury-stealing means that compared to their counterparts in the Ministry of Finance's bank treasury who just stuff money into their anuses and mainly steal, the skills of local government treasury officials are much higher, and there are countless ways to cheat.
The simplest and "cleanest" trick is to misappropriate treasury silver and lend money to earn interest; silver and copper coins can be used to lend money. In places like Lingao where the commodity economy is underdeveloped, cloth and grain can also be used to lend money.
The second is to shoddy goods. All kinds of physical objects stored in the warehouse: grain, cloth, etc., will naturally suffer losses after being stored for a long time. It is up to the warehouse officials to decide whether the losses are large or small. Either report the damage and cancel it directly, or report that it has been stored for a long time and will be damaged, and ask for a low price sale.
There is no problem of loss of silver and copper coins, but the treasury officials can still play the trick of shoddy goods and replace the good money in the treasury with low-value coins such as sand shell film. The ingots of treasury silver cannot be moved casually, but the scattered silver collected and not re-melted can be replaced with miscellaneous silver of low fineness.
These are open secrets in prefecture and county government offices, but local officials rarely dare to rectify them. If it blocks his financial path, there will be a problem of "account discrepancies" when he leaves office and handover, and the local officials will have to Compensate. In addition, Treasury officials also show filial piety to local officials. Generally speaking, honest and ethical local officials will not accept the filial piety of the treasurers at most, but they dare not provoke them easily. Even if the treasurer's deficit is exposed, he must try to hide it for him and let him use his own brain to make up for it. Don't push too hard, and let him jump over the wall in a hurry. If he comes out, the treasurer will lose his job at most, but the official will have to suffer the consequences. If things go wrong, he will be dismissed from office.
If he is a corrupt official, he will be more likely to falsify accounts or commit theft. Some county magistrates directly use the county treasury as their own cash machine, and when they need money, they write IOUs and withdraw money directly. There is almost no treasury in all the states and counties in the world that is not in deficit.
As for the scribes in the granary, the benefits are even greater. Because the warehouse is full of grain. There is more room for change than the silver warehouse. There is also the problem of grain becoming moldy and aging. As usual, some old grain must be disposed of every year, the old grain is disposed of at a low price, and then new grain is replaced and put into the warehouse. This is a practice allowed by Cang Law. After the county magistrate approved it, Hao Gu was recorded in the accounts according to the selling price of Bad Gu. The difference between the account price and the actual price was a considerable "profit".
As for shoddy goods like those in the county treasury, it is easier to do it in the grain depot. When good grain is sold, an equal amount of inferior grain is brought in from outside to replace it. As long as the accounts are correct, there is no risk at all.
"These are the simplest tricks. We don't know how many tricks they have in reality. You'd better ask more about the content." Dong Weiwei said, "It will be useful in the future."
"Don't worry, I will pry their mouths open." You Guotuan was very confident about this.
"K, but I am a gentleman who is far away from the chef, so just take your time and play with me." Dong Weiwei said with a smile and walked away.
"Playing with these ugly uncles," You Guotuan said, "What a strong nerve. I actually want to do this-"
After putting aside his complaints, You Guotuan came to the room where the treasurer was detained. There were three main rooms. The largest room in the middle was used as his interrogation room, and the side room was used as a prison cell.
Immediately he escorted the person up, and he looked at the people kneeling in front of him - some were in charge of the bank, some were in charge of the material warehouse, and some were in charge of the salt warehouse - there was such a warehouse in Lingao because of the local salt production. They are all core figures among the treasury officials.
To pry open their mouths as quickly as possible, torture is of course the best choice.
Unfortunately, not many people are willing to learn this promising craft. Several of Zhou Dongtian's apprentices were serving Chen Minggang and his group in the class. Here I have to go into battle personally. Fortunately, Zaoban retained some veterans who were good at torture and could use them.
You Guotuan sat down on an armchair in the middle majestically and started drinking tea without even looking at them. Although things are complicated and urgent, they are not rushed at this moment.
These guys knew that the thief was trying to intimidate them, so they moved around uneasily. After all, it was uncomfortable to kneel for such a long time, and they had only had very little food since their arrest last night. These people usually lived a pampered life, how could they afford such hardships. In less than ten minutes, someone couldn't stand it any longer and kowtowed and begged for mercy.
"Chief, please tell me, if you have any orders, the young ones dare not disobey them."
You Guotuan looked leisurely and contented, and casually said: "I heard that you are very rich."
These words were like a lightning strike, and the faces of several people froze. One of them hurriedly kowtowed: "I am just a small servant in the county, but I can only make a living through this. How can I say I am rich?" Then the others followed suit.
You Guotuan frowned. These people are not only greedy but also stupid: It seems that working as errands in the government for too long has a bad impact on IQ. They always feel that what they say is what they say. No one dares to tell lies even if they open their eyes. question.
"Come on," You Guotuan shouted, and the intern from the Political and Security Administration who was newly added to the soap class immediately ran over:
"Report to the head——"
"If you don't want you, ask the retained people to come over." You Guotuan added, "Take their guys with you. Apart from the board, well, just bring the stick."
