Brother Zhang's style is too steady. He did nothing in the first month after taking office. He just squatted in the yamen all day. No one outside knew what he was doing. Some daily affairs were handled by his team. Daily care.
This news naturally reached the ears of Zhao Zhen. On that day, he was playing chess with Wang Anshi, who was still in mourning, in the garden, and happened to chat about the idiot Brother Zhang.
The reason why Wang Anshi was able to enter Beijing in advance this time was precisely because Zhao Zhen felt that Wang Anshi's New Deal was imminent after this round of setbacks, so he used this well-known thorn in his side.
When Zhao Zhen mentioned what the fool did when he was in office these days, Wang Anshi said unconcernedly: "As an official, I think the fool you mentioned is good. Because this new official has been in office for three years. Fire, you also need to be familiar with the ways of officialdom. These seventy-eight-year-old children suddenly become officials in a place. Let’s not talk about whether there is a way to become an official in the book of sages. Even the local customs and sentiments will take a while to adjust. If Like others, he took office with the same three goals, which were more about showing off his temporary prestige than governing."
After hearing this, Zhao Zhen suddenly became enlightened: "If this is really the case, he is too stable for his age."
"Officials, don't be anxious, just wait for the time."
At this moment, Zhao Rong's maid Ruyi hurried over and saluted: "Guan... the princess lost her temper again, smashed the bowls and chopsticks for eating, and even coughed up blood."
Zhao Zhen became anxious upon hearing this, and quickly got up and followed Ruyi to Zhao Rong's palace. After passing there, he saw Zhao Rong lying on the bed, looking as angry as a hairspray, which was heartbreaking.
Zhao Zhen looked at the bowls and chopsticks that were thrown on the ground, but when he lifted his nose and smelled it, he was filled with the fragrance of fermented glutinous rice, brown sugar and boiled eggs. Zhao Zhen looked at his daughter who was originally well-behaved but now lost her temper eight times a day, and felt helpless. .
"Where did this blood come from?"
"Oh...I'm going to die...oh..." Zhao Rong groaned in pain on the bed.
Zhao Zhen rummaged around and found a small bottle on the floor beside Zhao Rong's bedside. After opening it and smelling it, it turned out to be filled with water made from rouge. After pouring out a little, it was like that. The color of the blood was exactly the same.
As an emperor, he should be angry. This is the crime of bullying the emperor, but as a father, he can only lament that his daughter is getting more and more naughty. For the sake of his own decency, he just gently put the fake jar aside, sat there and asked softly: "You just want to leave the palace that much?"
Zhao Rong didn't answer, but kept coughing, looking like she was about to die.
"I'm sure."
Zhao Rong didn't react at first, and still coughed a few times, until Zhao Zhen spoke again: "Go find that stupid brother."
Hearing this, Zhao Rong suddenly sat up from the bed: "Really!?"
Zhao Zhen didn't want to say anything when he saw her like this. He just flicked her on the forehead and left with his hands behind his back.
But Zhao Rong was still very young and did not realize her father's loss at this moment. Instead, she lifted the blanket on her body and cheered, and then began to make preparations for leaving the palace.
"Ruyi, what do you think I will do after I go there? How about I become a policeman? I have always wanted to be a policeman, punishing evil and promoting good!"
The maid just apologized and smiled.
At this moment, Brother Zhang finally came out of seclusion. The first thing he did was ask the county magistrate to call the heads of several wealthy businessmen in Yuhang County. Those wealthy businessmen didn't think it mattered, mainly because they knew him. A small county magistrate, isn't he the son of Lao Zhang, a poor man in the county? Now he is just a small county magistrate. How can an official as big as sesame seeds and grains of rice make waves?
So they came sparsely, but they were fine when they came, and they couldn't go back...
Because Brother Zhang spent a whole month sorting out all the past files accumulated in the county and picking out all the unjust, false and wrongful cases, and almost all of them were related to the wealthy businessmen in the county. He asked these people to come Just to make them throw themselves into a trap.
All of a sudden, he had deducted most of the money from all the large and small industrial businessmen in the county. Then Brother Zhang didn't talk nonsense at all and directly opened a court trial. Thirty-seven people were sentenced to twenty-eight on the spot.
The result of the judgment was also simple, that is, the family property was confiscated and the fields were returned to the public. Although the remaining nine were not sentenced immediately, they obediently handed over their fields in the county after a conversation.
But this time, Brother Zhang had stung a hornet's nest. None of them, the wealthy businessmen, were closely connected. Of course, they couldn't be convinced, so they planned to go straight to the capital the next day to find someone to do this sesame official.
But I didn't expect that on this night, a group of fast horses had already galloped out of Yuhang County and headed for Lin'an in advance with the tangible evidence compiled by Brother Zhang.
Almost overnight, Yuhang County changed. If someone else had done this, there would have been a mutiny in the county within three days. But the problem was that Brother Zhang posted a notice at the city gate early the next morning, and then Just distribute the fields.
It’s just that most people in the county are illiterate, so Brother Zhang simply found a supervisor and took people there to read aloud repeatedly, which meant that the land collected from Yuhang County would be distributed on a per capita basis to the people who did not have land in their hands. It's just that these people do not have the right to buy and sell but only have the right to use it. Except for paying the agricultural tax, the food they grow is owned by individuals. And as long as the court does not tax, he will not tax. In other words, the court If there is no tax for a day, all the food will belong to the people.
Some things spread most quickly by word of mouth. That afternoon, there was a long queue of people queuing up to claim their land at the gate of the Yamen. In theory, everyone with a household registration in Yuhang County would be eligible, and even those who had land but did not meet the required acres would be eligible. Fields to get the average.
As for those with more fields, some of the fields will be expropriated tax-free. After receiving the fields, Yuhang County has also issued new regulations. In fact, to put it bluntly, it strictly restricts the movement of land and no longer allows private buying and selling of fields, even if it is to be bought or sold. You also need to pay almost 60% of the transaction tax.
Although there are still many loopholes here, Brother Zhang wants to ensure the stability of Yuhang County as soon as possible. As for businessmen, businessmen are the pigs raised by the country. Now it is time to kill the pigs.
Even so, Yuhang County is still in ruins, and the circulation of goods has gradually been hindered. But Brother Zhang is not in a hurry, because this place sits on the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal. Although due to the war and chaos, the Grand Canal is now almost empty. No one uses it anymore, but the Grand Canal is still there.
As for businessmen, as long as they have enough money, they even dare to sell the hemp rope used to hang them. So Brother Zhang sent people to several other counties to negotiate and name them to attract investment.
They can buy real estate in Yuhang but cannot buy real estate, and accordingly they will be given quite generous discounts.
On the fifth day after the policy was released, the whole county was discussing these matters, but the court became lively.
In the morning of this day, Zhao Zhen received seven or eight impeachments about a small county magistrate, and without exception they were all about that fool. Zhao Zhen, who should have been irritable, was smiling all over his face at this moment, because he had already Within two days, he learned the whole story, and even all the evidence and relevant laws were presented in front of him.
Let’s not talk about whether the fool was ruthless or not in doing this, but just talking about his meticulousness, he really didn’t look like a young man in his teens. He was simply the kind of cunning old guy with forty or fifty years of experience in officialdom. The main thing that I can do is to be watertight.
And this guy is also the real murderer. He really doesn't care about the local power at all, and directly uses the capital team to send troops to suppress it. The operation of the land allotment directly prepares for the local rebellion.
What's even more outrageous is that during the month of his retreat, even the follow-up solutions were prepared and placed on Zhao Zhen's desk. Moreover, what he writes is also interesting, that is, he completely abandons the writing style of written articles, and uses a rigid and serious but concise style of writing. He organizes each item clearly, which can be said to be a complete homework.
After Zhao Zhen got it, he showed it to Wang Anshi as soon as possible. Wang Anshi was even a little shocked after reading it, because many of the things here were advocated in his New Deal, but the problem is that he himself knew that his New Deal would definitely be implemented. It was a bloody storm, but what this idiot in the official mouth wrote was very impressive. He even proposed a very new thing, which is the urban-rural game theory, which advocates surrounding the cities with rural areas and integrating industry and agriculture. divided into two complementary areas.
After Wang Anshi got what Brother Zhang had written, he studied it all night. He patted his thigh and called Tianzong Wizard fifteen times because he was wondering "Is this feasible?" He pinched eighty strands of his beard.
In fact, at this point Wang Anshi has already regarded this fool who was appointed by the emperor as one of his own. As for the people below him who want to impeach him? dream!
Sure enough, Wang Anshi was the first to stand up and engage in a verbal battle with the Confucian scholars, and then the conservatives headed by Ouyang Xiu began to argue with Wang Anshi.
Everyone is a big shot, so the debate is naturally fierce and classic.
The conservatives advocated that the laws of the ancestors were immutable, while the reformers naturally had their own theoretical support. In the end, they gave the final decision to Zhao Zhen.
Zhao Zhen smiled and asked people to hand over the evidence at hand to them. After Ouyang Xiu and others saw it, their faces turned red with embarrassment immediately.
"The Ministry of Punishment, Dali Temple, Yushitai, and the Third Division have gone to Yuhang for verification. Everything is subject to the verification of the Third Division." After Zhao Zhen finished speaking, he coughed lightly, and the eunuch below sang "Retreat from the Court" loudly, and then Zhao Zhen slowly left the dragon chair, turned around and left.
Not long after he left, all the ministers also left, but only Wang Anshi was admitted by Zhao Zhen. The two were walking on the road in the garden. Zhao Zhen smiled heartily: "Hahahaha, since I took the throne at the age of twelve, today is the only one." Feel proud."
"Guan Jia, I think that idiot you mentioned is a rare talent that needs to be carefully cultivated."
"Well, even though he is a fool, he does things like a perfect person, and he doesn't look like a teenager. Jiefu, how do you think he compares with you when you were young?"
"I am inferior to you."
Wang Anshi was not modest. Looking back at the past, he realized that he had been ups and downs in the officialdom for many years, and he only knew how to move forward. How could he be so meticulous and watertight?
Look at what this guy has done. Although it is only a small county, but looking at his skill and courage, you would never think that this is the first time for a new imperial examination candidate to become an official.
"I plan to keep him alive." Zhao Zhen sighed with his hands behind his back: "I don't know how long I can live, and I can't leave this mess in the hands of my descendants. I want to see if his method works, see if it can Let the Song Dynasty regroup and stop relying on others."
"The officials are wise."
"It's not that I'm wise, it's just that I know that I'm mediocre and cannot compare with talented people like you, so I'll let you show off your talents."
At this moment, a carriage slowly stopped at the city gate of Yuhang. The curtain of the carriage was lifted up, revealing a young and delicate face. She looked around with wide eyes, as if she was particularly curious about everything.
"Your Highness, we are here."
"Don't call me Your Highness outside, just call me Miss."
Zhao Rong said to the maid: "This is the place where brother Zhang's official career is. It's so small..."
After the turmoil of the past few days, the business here has not yet fully recovered, so the road seems a little sparse. Their carriage slowly drove into the county town. Because there are only a few thousand households, the place is not big.
Not long after entering, Zhao Rong saw a person standing in front of a house, with several craftsman-looking people standing beside him. They were holding a piece of paper in their hands and seemed to be talking about something.
Zhao Rong had good eyesight, and she immediately saw that the young man in the middle was her brother Zhang, so she quickly stopped the carriage and trotted all the way to Brother Zhang's side with the support of the maid.
"Brother Zhang!"
Zhao Rong was young and had a crisp voice. Brother Zhang immediately turned his head when he heard it. When he saw it was Zhao Rong, he was also a little surprised: "Why are you here?"
"I'm hungry... If I can't eat your food, I'm going to die!"
The little girl is acting coquettishly, so Brother Zhang has no choice but to put down the drawing in his hand and say, "Then I'll cook for you."
"Okay, okay!" Zhao Rong cheered, and then on the way back, she asked: "Brother Zhang, what are you doing?"
"I'm going to make coke, and then I'm going to make steel." Brother Zhang smiled and said, "I want to speed up the technology tree."
Zhao Rong has long been accustomed to the strange words he always says out of the blue: "Can you make steel?"
"Well, I know a little bit." Brother Zhang turned back and pointed to the approximately 800 acres of open land not far away: "I plan to build an industrial park in this area, and it will be put into production in a year or two."
Zhao Rong looked at Brother Zhang with admiration in her eyes: "That's amazing..."
"But we still have to collect a batch of good breeding pigs during this period. We plan to breed them for a few years and improve the meat yield." Brother Zhang said as he took out a long list from his arms: "There are still many things to do... "
(End of chapter)
