When the Taizhou magistrate finished speaking, everyone around him was shocked, especially Liu Haoshen, who had just said a lot of harsh words, his face turned white as frost, and he no longer had the arrogance he had just now.
When Li Si visited the two Huaihe Rivers and arrived at the central capital Fengyang, officials from both Huaihe Rivers and Huaihe Rivers were present to pick him up, so the prefect of Taizhou had met Li Si. At this time, I saw that Li Si was wearing casual clothes and came to Taizhou without knowing it. He was a little at a loss for a while.
"I have been ordered by the emperor to patrol the two Huaihe Rivers, clean up the Salt Law, supervise officials in various ministries, and prohibit adultery. The Holy Spirit has decreed that if officials below the third rank commit adultery and violate laws, they will be punished according to the laws of the Ming Dynasty and there is no need to report them. According to this I understand, Governor, you are probably the fourth grade magistrate of Taizhou, right?"
After Li Si finished speaking, the magistrate of Taizhou was completely panicked. He knew that Li Si was the emperor's appointed censor for patrolling salt and an imperial envoy, and he could never afford to offend him.
Liu Haoshen completely collapsed on the ground, and it took him a while to come back to his senses. He hugged Li Si's thigh and cried: "Master Governor, just now, the villain has eyesight and cannot see the mountains. You, sir, have a lot of money. Please spare my life." , the villain will never dare to do it again next time."
Li Si sneered and shouted: "I ask you, how dare you invade the salt fields and grass ponds of Tuancha? You rely on the prefect of Taizhou to want to cover the sky with one hand, and tea poisons the people. Are you too ignorant?"
When the magistrate of Taizhou heard that Liu Haoshen said that he relied on himself, he quickly tried to distance himself from the relationship and cursed: "Your Excellency, please check, I am the official of the parents of the people, how could I be associated with such a profiteer?"
When Liu Haoshen heard that the Taizhou magistrate turned his back and refused to recognize anyone, he could no longer care about the consequences and yelled back: "Ma Hui! You fart, didn't I just follow your order to invade those salt fields? You took the money and you don't recognize people." ?”
Li Si didn't want to hear the two arguing, so he directly ordered them to be captured first. Then he said to Xiao Zhang: "Send my order to the officials of Taizhou Prefecture to immediately investigate the private occupation of grassland in Taizhou and never tolerate it!"
By the time Fengyang knew that Li Si had gone to Taizhou, it was already too late. Li Si acted vigorously and resolutely. While writing a memorial to Zhu Youtang explaining the Taizhou magistrate's violation of the law, he re-enacted the Jianghuai Salt Law.
Although Li Si received clear instructions from Zhu Youtang when he left the capital, if any military or civilian officials dared to commit crimes, greed or cheating, they would have to report to him unless they were in the third rank or above, and the rest would follow the law. But Li Si is not stupid. It would be better to report this kind of matter to the emperor, and it has to be a formality no matter what.
Li Si was afraid that he would not have enough manpower, so he specially recruited Li Pi, the magistrate of Yangzhou, Xu Pengju, the magistrate of the Taizhou branch, and Fu Jinqing, the magistrate of Tongzhou, to assist in the investigation. In the land of Huaihe and Huaihe River, there was a thorough investigation of the landowners and powerful people who had privately occupied the people's salt fields. For a time, many powerful people who committed evil deeds and harmed one side were arrested one after another.
Li Si ordered people to build mounds and dig ditches in the salt fields of the Huaihe River to demarcate the boundaries. After this order, most areas were relatively cooperative. Only the soldiers from Wuyou and Tuancha salt fields, relying on the fact that hundreds of officers, soldiers and powerful landlords were stationed in Tuancha Village and Lijiabao Village for a long time, refused to cooperate with the investigation and refused to withdraw. The occupied grasslands were returned to the government for redistribution.
When the news reached Fengyang, Li Si was furious and personally ordered his troops to go to Wuyou and Kuancha to encircle and suppress them. When the officers and soldiers arrived, within half a day, all the powerful forces in Wuyou and Tongcha were defeated.
Li Si recovered the income from the acres of land according to the occupied grassland area and used it to provide relief to the poor salt people. In addition, wooden poles were erected in each salt field, and the boundaries of the east, west, south, and north directions of each salt field were written in large characters on the wooden poles so that everyone could clearly see them.
As soon as Li Si issued the salt law, all Fengyang officials were dumbfounded. In the evening, Zhang Fu, the prefect of Fengyang, couldn't sleep. He got up and went to his study. He repeatedly looked at the salt law order issued by Li Si today: Reestablish the Lianghuai Salt Law and order the salt storage areas in the Lianghuai River to be bounded by east, west, north and south. For example, if the north and south are gates and roads, there will be piles in the east and piles in the west, and stone tablets will always be erected. Each hoarding is limited to one thousand citations. For example, if there is one under the general reminder name, one thousand, five hundred citations, one thousand is a large hoard, and five hundred is a small hoard. First, accumulate enough and then close the regular shares for a year, and the salt lessons are all completed. Fang Zheng, after accepting the new year, appoints officials to carry out the salt pans one by one, and is not allowed to measure, stack, and check the scales. "He ordered each place's annual salt report book to be carefully opened. For each quotation, the original nine qian was reduced to six. money…"
The meaning is very clear. The quantity of salt in Xiatun has been re-regulated, and the price of salt has also been reduced by three cents. This reduction of three cents per salt is not a small amount. The government's profits have been greatly reduced, and many good businessmen can afford salt.
With a livid face, Zhang Fu crumpled up the paper with the order of salt law. He said to himself: "I didn't expect that I, Zhang Fu, have been with you for so many years, but I still can't get into the eyes of your chief assistant. Since you are so unkind. Don’t blame me for being unjust.”
In fact, in Liu Ji's opinion, the land of Jianghuai is still a bit worse than Zhejiang. Since you, Li Si, want to investigate Lianghuai, I will let you investigate enough and show off. But Peng Shao in Zhejiang is not that simple. If you can't achieve the same efficiency as Li Si, Liu Dang can completely copy Peng Shao like Zhu Youtang. Li Si had not had much dealings with Liu Ji before, but Peng Shao was always against Liu Ji. Liu Ji wanted to make a big fortune in Zhejiang this time, and at the same time, he could unseat Peng Shao. Killing two birds with one stone, why not? "
Compared with the land of Huaihe and Huaihe, Zhejiang's form is more complicated. After all, Fengyang is the capital of Zhongdu, the place where Emperor Taizu flourished, and the court's attention is still greater than that of Zhejiang Province.
Late at night, Li Si, the salt censor of the Lianghuai River, was also not asleep. This time he was ordered to clean up the salt laws of Huaihe and Zhejiang, and he felt that the burden on him was always heavy. This time, his intuition told him that Huaihe and Zhejiang were not simply corrupted by the Salt Law, but that there was also a huge force behind them. This force was probably the one in the capital.
"Xiao Zhang, come on, come in!"
Hearing Li Si's call, Xiao Zhang hurried in and saw Li Si writing something on the document. He didn't dare to speak loudly and said softly: "What are the orders from the ministry?"
Li Si didn't speak. After a while, he stopped writing and then picked up the paper full of words and examined it up and down. He nodded with satisfaction. He smiled and said: "Xiao Zhang, I need you to go to Zhejiang and send this letter to Peng Butang."
Xiao Zhang patted his chest and vowed: "Don't worry, Bu Tang. I will definitely deliver the letter to Peng Bu Tang as soon as possible."
Seeing how serious he was, Li Si praised him: "I can rest assured that you can do things, but I also want to remind you that this letter must be sent to him quietly and no one can know about it. This will need to test whether you are strong enough." Smarter and smarter.”
Xiao Zhang smiled and said: "I have a sense of propriety, don't worry!"
…
Li Si's salt cleaning method in Lianghuai has achieved initial results in the past few days, and Peng Shao has just arrived in Zhejiang at this time.
In the main hall of Hangzhou Mansion, senior officials from various ministries in Zhejiang Province gathered here after welcoming Peng Shao.
"We already know His Majesty's will. Please rest assured that our officials from all ministries in Zhejiang Province will do our best to cooperate with you in supervising the Salt Law." The person who spoke was He Maoxun, the current governor of Zhejiang. Logically speaking, his official rank is as high as Peng Shao's. , but after all, Peng Shao was just appointed by the emperor to patrol Zhejiang, so in essence, his official rank was still slightly lower than Peng Shao.
Peng Shao nodded and said slowly: "I have thanked you all for this period of time. I would like to thank you on behalf of Your Majesty and the people of Jiangsu and Zhejiang. I heard that the Jiangsu and Zhejiang Weaving Bureau's silk sales have been good in recent years. How much does it cost to sell to the West?" money?"
No one reacted to Peng Shao's sudden question, because Peng Shao came to inspect the salt law in Jiangsu and Zhejiang. This first time he asked, he didn't ask about the salt law but about silk. In addition, a batch of silk was sold just a few days ago, and it is inevitable that some people will mistakenly think that Peng Shao already knows about this matter.
At the critical moment, Lu Kun, the envoy of the Provincial Government, smiled and said: "If I go back to the Ministry of Education, Jiangsu and Zhejiang have indeed exported a lot of silk in recent years, and they are selling well. These silks are worth five taels of silver a piece in our Ming provinces. If shipped to the West, it can be sold for fifteen taels per horse, and each horse can earn an additional ten taels."
"Ah, what I said to Ambassador Lu was right. I have sold 500,000 pieces of silk this year and made a total of 5 million taels." He Maoxun came to his senses and quickly added.
At this time, the inspector Zhang Wenzhao suddenly coughed as if to convey some message to Peng Shao. The changes in the expressions on the faces of He Maoxun and others just now, as well as Zhang Wenzhao's always calm expression, were all seen by Peng Shao.
"Good thing, let's all leave now. I hope to see you all again at the celebration banquet in a few months.",
As soon as Peng Shao said this, everyone was shocked.
…
In a restaurant in Hangzhou Prefecture.
"Brother Chen, last time I was short-sighted and offended you. I have a lot of you, so I hope you don't take it personally. I'll treat you to the food and drink today. What do you think?" Lin Hongzhi said.
Baihu Chen Fu took a sip of wine, smacked his lips, and said with a smile: "Since today's wine is not bad, I can forget about what happened that day. But you have to be more careful in the future. The limelight is very tight now." Very."
Lin Hongzhi couldn't help but asked curiously: "Brother Chen, with your connections, are the officials in Zhejiang Province still afraid of you?"
Chen Fu shook his head, quickly waved his hands and said with a smile: "Hey~ What are you talking about? I heard from the superiors that a governor was sent from the capital to patrol the salt in Jiangsu and Zhejiang. Recently, I have to be more peaceful and less troublesome."
Lin Hongzhi recalled what he had overheard in Jinguan Tower that day, and asked cautiously: "Brother Chen, do you know that there is a rich businessman Dong Jianzhong in the south of the Yangtze River?"
Chen Fu replied nonchalantly: "I heard that that old guy is very rich."
Lin Hongzhi continued: "Then do you know that Dong Jianzhong also has contacts with our ministers?"
Chen Fu drank the rest of the wine in the cup, burped, and said in a deep voice: "Your Excellency, you are supervising a province. Isn't it normal to have dealings with these businessmen? Just say what you want to say. Stop being such a f*cking sellout.”
Lin Hongzhi looked around and murmured in Chen Fu's ear: "Master Bu Tang told you that you can't sell private salt in the second half of the year because of the tight limelight, right?"
"Yes, what's wrong? The imperial court sent people to Jiangsu and Zhejiang to investigate. If you are caught selling illegal salt, you will lose your head."
"But he sold all the salt produced in the second half of the year to Dong Jiazhong, and assured him that the governor sent by the imperial court had established a relationship, and he could just sell it at the price he wanted."
Chen Fu asked dubiously: "How do you know this?"
Lin Hongzhi told Chen Fu exactly how he sneaked into Jinguan Tower that day, what he saw and heard.
"Is what you said absolutely true?" Chen Fu asked in a deep voice with a livid face, his fists gradually clenched.
Lin Hongzhi replied without thinking: "It's absolutely true, I'm willing to risk my life as a guarantee!"
"Snapped"
Chen Fu slammed the table, stood up suddenly and said angrily: "Why do you want to bully me, old fox!"
