MTL - Feng Xing-Chapter 24

"This matter, Huzhi County needs to give an explanation to the official!"

After leaving these words, Fan Jinchuan took the people away, leaving Hu Zhixian and others looking at each other with pale faces.

No matter what, this matter has to be resolved, so Fan Jinchuan went back to the county government, and Hu Zhixian followed him back with his people.

The old man in Huzhi County was in tears, so he couldn't afford to put on airs now.

"Lord Fan, it's not that I'm old and shameless, it's really a last resort..."

In addition to Hu Zhixian's narration, coupled with the description of Liu Xiancheng and others, Fan Jinchuan and Fang Fengsheng basically knew what was going on.

It turns out that Taizhou is different from other places. There are mixed people, and there are many government offices. Just the household registration includes civilian households, kitchen households, and military households.

Taizhou has been a place of salt production since ancient times, and its landform is unique, just in the delta where the Yangtze River, Huaihe River and Yellow Sea intersect. Adjacent to the Yellow Sea, there is inexhaustible seawater for boiling salt, and there are vast swamps and tidal flats for growing a large number of reeds for fuel. The Lixia River Plain around the Chuanchang River, The terrain is flat and low, the waterways are dense, and the lakes are connected, which provides great convenience for salt transportation.

The Lianghuai salt tax ranks half of the world's salt tax, and Taizhou ranks five or six tenths of the Lianghuai salt tax.

Naturally, the imperial court would not ignore such an important place. It not only set up the Lianghuai Salt Transportation Department in the adjacent Yangzhou, but also set up the Taizhou Salt Affairs Branch, the Taiba Supervisory Office, the Approval Inspection Office and other salt affairs offices in Taizhou. It is used to manage ten salt farms including Fu'an Field, Anfeng Field, Duo Field, Liangduo Field, etc., as well as salt transfer, transportation and sales, tax collection, anti-smuggling, etc.

Boiling salt requires labor, so there are stove households, and there are tens of thousands of stove households under each salt field; cooking salt requires firewood fuel, so it is necessary to plant firewood; and official salt has always been indispensable. Salt is smuggled, so the Salt Bureau and local salt farms are still in charge of the security and anti-smuggling of the local salt farms.

As a result, it was inevitable that the Salt Administration had conflicts with the local government.

The salt farm not only divided up the administrative power of the local government, but also prevented the local government from collecting taxes.

Local officials are in charge of collecting local taxes, but kitchen households are exempted from these exorbitant taxes and only pay salt tax. Not paying exorbitant taxes does not belong to the achievements of local officials, but these people belong to the people under the rule of Taizhou to the outside world.

There are two types of local land, farmland and vacant land. Due to the planting of firewood, the tax paid on vacant land is much lower than that of land. As a result, this kind of chaos has arisen. Some wealthy households have deceived their superiors and subordinates to use the vacant land as farmland in an attempt to pay less or no tax.

However, firewood is needed to cook salt, and there is not enough firewood to produce it in the land, and some people privately occupy farmland and change it to land.

These chaos are completely ignored by the Salt Bureau. They only care that the amount of salt produced each year meets the requirements of the imperial court. Even when there is a flood of private salt, in order to make up for the shortfall, the local government is required to exempt or bear the tax.

That is to say, the local government is under the pressure of splints, and it is difficult to make any political achievements, and it is difficult to collect taxes.

That's all, because Taizhou is located between the three rivers, the diversion of the Yellow River has caused frequent floods, and it is also facing the Yellow Sea, and typhoons are raging. In the past five years alone, there have been countless disasters, big or small, and every time there is a disaster, the local government has to take care of the relief of the people.

So how could there be food in the Changping granary, including the grain in the county government granary, half of which was fake.

After hearing the narration of Hu Zhixian and others, and seeing them crying so miserably, Fan Jinchuan's face was moved.

At this time, Fang Fengsheng spoke.

She shook her fan, with a sneer on her face: "No matter how difficult Mr. Hu is, it is not an excuse to try to shift the responsibility to my lord. Besides, the lack of so much food, can my lord make up for it?"

"This…"

"Brother..."

Feng Sheng closed the fan and made a crisp sound: "How about this, you don't need to pursue the matter, you have to fill in the food."

After finishing speaking, she pulled Fan Jinchuan and said, "It's time for dinner, let's go eat."

Fan Jinchuan seemed to want to say something, but she pulled her away abruptly.

When he was about to go to a place where no one was around, Fan Jinchuan stopped in his tracks: "My dear brother, why bother them so much? I can report this matter to the masters of Taiwan to see if the next season's tax and food can be reduced or exempted to fill the Changping warehouse..."

"Stop it! Do you really think they are as miserable as they say?"

"Could it be fake?" Fan Jinchuan was a little confused.

"You may not be able to tell the difference if there is one or two cents in ten. Just wait, you will know in two days or not."

After the meal, they went back to their rooms to have a rest.

After getting up, Fang Fengsheng took Fan Jinchuan to play chess.

During the period, Hu Zhixian and Liu Xiancheng also came to ask to see each other, but because of Fang Fengsheng's account, they were all gone.

It lasted like this for a day, and it was still the same on the second day. On the third day, Feng Sheng asked Zhi Qiu and Xiao Qi to deliberately slip up when they talked outside, saying that the master planned to write a letter to Mr. Futai.

That night, Liu Xiancheng came and said that Huzhi County had made up for the missing food.

The only thing that was missing was food, so Huzhi County didn't meet Fan Jinchuan at all. After Fan Jinchuan received the seal, he left with his family the next day.

"My dear brother, how do you know that they are deceiving on purpose? Why are you so sure that they will make up for the food?"

Early in the morning, Fan Jinchuan came and followed Fang Fengsheng for half the morning.

But Fang Fengsheng just ignored him, drinking tea and leading Zhiqiu to play chess, and went for a walk outside when he was tired from sitting.

It was not until lunch time at noon that Feng Sheng saw his pitiful appearance before talking to him.

"Because I have a good father."

Uh? What do you mean by that?

Feng Sheng was a little helpless and said: "Do you think Master Shaoxing's name is really blown out? We are different from masters who come from ordinary ways. Just like me, I grew up listening to all kinds of trivial matters in the officialdom. Yes, relatives, friends, and neighbors will communicate with each other about strange or bizarre things. Some people even write their own experiences and what they have seen and heard in handwriting and pass them on to future generations, accumulating from generation to generation. Hands down, these are experiences.

"What they did this time is actually not a secret in the officialdom. They eat more than they can afford, and even sell the grain in the normal warehouse to make a difference. At the beginning, they made the difference. After earning the profit, they forgot to fill in the hole. Eating meat at the top, and drinking soup at the bottom, you can lie as much as you can, you can cheat as much as you can, the one in charge cheats the next one, and the next one will plant the blame on the back, all of these are chronic illnesses."

"Then why no one came out to take care of it?"

"Who cares?"

These words made Fan Jinchuan speechless. Obviously, this kind of thing was different from the inherent concept in his mind. His face was flushed red, and it took him a long time to hold back a sentence.

"If you don't care about it, there is no food in the warehouse, and if there is a disaster, how will you relieve the disaster?"

"Wait for the disaster relief food from above."

"What if the higher-ups don't distribute relief food, but let the local people do the relief themselves?"

"Procrastinate, or ask a big family to donate food."

"If the people are about to starve to death, but the big family refuses to donate food, so what?"

"It's up to fate. But don't worry, there are always more solutions than difficulties. No one will starve to death if they starve to death."

Fan Jinchuan panted heavily, and said again: "Aren't they afraid that things will be revealed when they do this?"

Seeing that he was a little pitiful, Feng Sheng sighed and said, "Of course I'm afraid, but people always have chances, and desires are hard to fill. Besides, as long as no one gets involved in this kind of thing, the sky will not fall. I remember reading a story like this before, The county magistrate was greedy for money and food, and it happened that there was a disaster in the local area. There was no food to relieve, causing countless people to starve to death. In order to avoid punishment, this person lied that mobs attacked Changping warehouse and robbed food. The ills are gone."

Seeing that he didn't speak, she said again: "One government governs the other people. Since you can't see this, you should be your good government official. As for others, you can't control them, so don't think too much about them."

…

Fan Jinchuan left.

Zhiqiu couldn't help but said: "Master, why are you telling Mr. Fan these things? Look at his face."

Feng Sheng leaned back in the chair and fanned himself with a fan: "The environment here is complicated, and he is upright by nature, and he is a nerd who can only study hard. I still want to do my own business, even if I can't borrow his help, At least don't make trouble for me, otherwise I will be tired just cleaning up the mess for him."

"I think Master Fan is so pitiful."

"He always needs to know this, otherwise how can he grow up?"

Feng Sheng suspected that Fan Jinchuan was sent down just to let him know the current affairs, but if he was sent to a place like Taizhou, wouldn't he be afraid that he would be played to death?