In the Qiantang County government office, I asked the office.
After dealing with the food and housing issues for the victims in the past two days, Xu Zongwen left Xi Jian at the embankment and asked Sima Liu Laozhi to follow his orders and help Xi Jian stabilize the overall situation.
After Zhang Si and his men escorted Gu Yuezhi back from Wu County, Xu Zongwen used Ding Tai's confession to silence Gu Yuezhi, who was still clamoring.
After Xu Zongwen finished handling the other matters, he began to take full responsibility for presiding over the interrogation of Gu Yuezhi, the prefect of Wu County. He wanted to dig out something useful from Gu Yuezhi. It would be great if he could find the person behind the case from some clues. But that's it!
Gu Yuezhi was dressed in white, with a pair of neat shackles on his hands and feet. He was escorted into the prison room by two Zuoyu Lin guards. The ground was paved with stone slabs, and there was a sound of metal and stone slabs rubbing against each other on the ground.
Xu Zongwen wore the black official uniform of the governor and a pair of black embroidered shoes. His complexion was dark, so he looked like he was dressed in black from head to toe, like a living king of hell!
Two Zuoyu Lin guards were guarding Gu Yuezhi, while Guo Shang was sitting at the small case aside, preparing to record a confession.
Gu Yuezhi stretched out his hand, revealing his shackles, looked at Xu Zongwen in the hall and said, "Please treat me according to the laws of the Jin Dynasty!"
"As long as you cooperate well with the interrogation, I will treat you according to the laws of the Jin Dynasty." Xu Zongwen looked at the people in the hall and said with a smile.
"Zhu Zhen dug the embankment weir all by himself. Anyway, the official didn't know anything about it. The official just delayed the report and delayed the disaster for a few days."
"Pfft -" Xu Zongwen drank a cup of tea and just put it down when he heard Gu Yuezhi's answer. The tea that was still in his throat couldn't help but spurt out from his mouth!
"Although the official is involved in the case, why do you want to be so frivolous and insult Gu?"
The rich have endless fields, while the poor have no place to stand. The nobles control the promotion channels, and at the same time they control the place, annex the fields, and own tribes for private purposes. Everyone is extremely rich!
Taking advantage of the Qiantang Dashui case, if Xu Zongwen didn't take the opportunity to beat these big households and clear out Qiantang, wouldn't it be that his life in Qiantang was in vain? Xu Zongwen, who was involved with the Zhu family in the case of destroying embankments and flooding fields, would not let go!
"General!" Guo Shang couldn't help but raise his head and remind him.
Xu Zongwen waved his hand to indicate to Guo Chang that he knew what was appropriate. He wiped his lips and moistened his throat without making a sound. Instead, he lowered his head and flipped through the case file with a serious look on his face.
Around mid-December of the ninth year of Taiyuan, the Xin'an River and Fuchun River in Jiande surged, and the Qiantang River overflowed.
After Qian Tang ordered Ding Tai to plead guilty, it was County Lieutenant Zhu Zhen who led people to dig the south bank weir, which was already relatively low and in disrepair, in order to prevent floods from flooding the north bank dam!
As a result, thousands of households on the south bank of the Qiantang Embankment suffered, tens of thousands of people were affected, and thousands of people drowned, starved to death, and froze to death!
By the end of December, which is the end of the year, the urgent reports that had been backlogged in the office of Wu Commandery Governor Gu Yuezhi for more than ten days had not been sent out. It was not until the tenth day of the first month of the tenth year of Taiyuan that the flood disaster could not be contained. , Gu Yuezhi then sent an urgent report of the Qiantang flood to Jiankang.
Around the 20th, Xu Zongwen was appointed as the governor of Yangzhou and rushed to Qiantang with 50,000 stones of disaster relief food. With Ding Tai's confession, Xu Zongwen learned of the crime of county lieutenant Zhu Zhen, and he executed Zhu Zhen with integrity.
Within the next three days, under the leadership of Liu Yu, the disarmers successfully blocked and repaired the breached weir on the south bank of the Qiantang Embankment. They also used military tents to house the victims, and quickly stabilized the tens of thousands of people who were about to launch a riot. Disaster victims!
After Ding Tai confessed to Zhu Zhen, he also confessed to Gu Yuezhi, the governor of Wu County. After the emergency report of the disaster was sent from Qiantang, it was intercepted and put on hold for a long time by Gu Yuezhi, the governor of Wu County. This was because the disaster was concealed and the court's relief was too late, causing the disaster. Thousands of people were killed!
That is to say, the person with the biggest crime at present is the still arrogant Wu Commandery Governor Gu Yuezhi in front of Xu Zongwen. This Gu Yuezhi also comes from a famous family. He is the head of the Gu family in Wu Commandery. His son is married to Xie Xuan, Xie Daoyun, and Huan Yi. Painting saint Gu Kaizhi is as famous as Zhang Xuanzhi, Yang Tan and Wang Xianzhi!
But if a high-ranking noble family can commit crimes with impunity, doesn't it mean that murderers don't have to pay for their lives?
What's more, thousands of innocent lives were buried in the belly of the fish!
"Gu Yuezhi, do you know how many people were killed because you didn't report the flood in Qiantang?" Xu Zongwen closed the bamboo slips with the dossier transcribed, raised his eyes and glared at Gu Yuezhi who was arranging his clothes in the audience.
Gu Yuezhi replied calmly: "I don't know, I don't know."
"When I asked you when the emergency report of the Qiantang flood disaster would arrive in Wu County, you didn't know. When I asked you about your accomplices, you didn't know. When I asked you about how many people you killed, you didn't know. You don't know even after asking three questions!"
"Bang!" Xu Zongwen pulled out the bamboo slips on the case and threw it towards Gu Yuezhi, whose expression remained unchanged and his heart did not beat!
"Ah!" Gu Yuezhi was unprepared, and his old face was just thrown by Xu Zongwen. The bamboo slips left a row of bloody marks on Gu Yuezhi's face, which made him gasp in pain.
Gu Yuezhi tried his best to raise his hand and stroke his injured cheek, but the shackles were too heavy, and his hand soon dropped due to weakness, and he stared at Xu Zongwen with a pair of eyes full of resentment.
"Your Majesty, your servants may be killed but not humiliated!" Gu Yuezhi stood up and said through gritted teeth.
Xu Zongwen closed his eyes slightly. He really wanted to kill Gu Yuezhi, but after all, the prefect was a fifth-grade official with two thousand stones. He could not be dealt with easily. Even if he was removed from the official position, he would have to go back to Jiankang for trial. He was far from just a Qiantang County official. Wei Zhuzhen can be compared.
"Since you are stubborn, let's wait for the news from Jiankang to see whether it was King Kuaiji's edict or His Majesty's edict that came earlier." Xu Zongwen's understatement made Gu Yuezhi sit down again. !
King of Kuaiji!
It seems he already knows.
Gu Yuezhi's inner defense collapsed. Above him was the King of Kuaiji, and there was no one else!
"I said! I said everything!" Gu Yuezhi began to confess with a bitter face.
"King Kuaiji's two thousand hectares of farmland are all on the north bank, the fields of the nobles are also on the north bank, and our Gu family also has fields on the north bank..."
"In order to save the fields, we can only dig up the south bank, and only by flooding the south bank can we save our lives!"
"Historically, most of the money issued by the capital and the people to repair the river went into the pockets of the nobles, and most of the remaining money was used to strengthen the north bank, so the embankment on the south bank became more and more relaxed..."
Guo Shang's forehead had begun to sweat. He wiped the sweat with his sleeves while recording Gu Yuezhi's confession at high speed.
Xu Zongwen was frightened when he heard this. He originally thought that the matter was only related to King Kuaiji, but he did not expect that King Kuaiji was the direct beneficiary and the secret instigator of this disaster!
"You said that the destruction of dikes and flooding of fields was under the instructions of King Kuaiji. Do you have any evidence?" Xu Zongwen looked at Gu Yuezhi and asked sternly.
Gu Yuezhi raised his eyes and shook his head vigorously: "There is no evidence, and there cannot be evidence!"
Hearing this, Xu Zongwen grabbed the back of his head, damn it! This Gu Yuezhi is as slippery as a loach! First, they confessed the mastermind behind the case but did not hand over the real evidence. If this continues, the case can only be closed hastily!
"Since you said this had something to do with the King of Kuaiji, and also said that there is no evidence to prove that you were instructed to do such an outrageous thing, who can believe whether your words are true or false? Could it be that you are making wild assumptions and want to go to the King of Kuaiji? You're trying to grab someone so that you can confuse the case, and then you can try to get away with it, right?" Xu Zongwen shouted.
Then, without waiting for Gu Yuezhi's reply, Xu Zongwen waved his hand and ordered Zuo Yu and Lin Wei to take him down, forcibly ending the interrogation.
"Your Majesty, Your Majesty! I am really unjust! Please allow me to confess again..."
