Not to mention Gu Yuzhi, even Chief Secretary Xie did not expect that Qingzhou would be in such a situation.

Only now did he understand why Huang Yanzhang knelt down and begged the young prince to save the people of the northern desert after seeing him.

He closed his eyes, not wanting to think about the miserable state of the people of Qingzhou anymore.

When Xie Changshi opened his eyes again, he had already suppressed his thoughts: "This Huang Yanzhang is truly a formidable figure."

Even he, upon seeing the situation in Qingzhou immediately, would probably want to escape, and if he couldn't escape, he would go crazy.

But Huang Yanzhang was different. Not only did he stabilize himself, but he also swiftly arrested all the yamen runners in the prefectural government office and imprisoned all the wealthy merchants who had colluded with the prefect.

If things had ended smoothly there, that would have been great. But after searching all the wealthy merchants' homes, Huang Yanzhang discovered that each of them only had an empty house in Qingzhou, and the amount of silver and grain seized was extremely small.

For Huang Yanzhang, who had just taken office, this was a bolt from the blue!

Chief Secretary Xie sighed heavily. Fortunately, the grain had already been delivered. If they could just hold on this year, the lives of the people of Qingzhou would definitely improve a lot next year.

Listening to Xie Changshi's sigh, Gu Yuzhi imitated him, sighed, pouted, and walked around in circles.

The more he thought about it, the angrier he became. He wished he could rush up to the former prefect of Qingzhou right now, pull him upside down, shake him hard, and see if there was water in his brain!

He still felt that he hadn't scared him enough on that snowy night; he should have let those horses trample his head!

Chief Secretary Xie looked down and saw the young prince's angry, bristling appearance. He resisted the urge to pat his head and said softly, "Your Highness should feel fortunate, because Your Highness's timely intervention allowed the former prefect of Qingzhou to be apprehended without any warning."

The people of Qingzhou had already been ravaged by the former prefect, and were like baby elephants tied to a pillar since they were young. Even if the ropes were loosened, they would only walk around the pillar.

That's how the people of Qingzhou are, which is why the former prefect was so unscrupulous, even with a broken leg, he still wanted to continue to bully and oppress the people of Qingzhou.

Gu Yuzhi suddenly felt less angry, and stared at Xie Changshi with her big eyes without blinking: "Xie Changshi, Xie Changshi, are you saying that when I asked Xueye to scare him, I was doing a good deed, right?"

He raised his chin slightly and snorted twice: "Back when I sent Xueye to scare that bad guy, you were the one criticizing me!"

He secretly did two "bad things". The first thing he did was beat up two bad shopkeepers of Li's Trading Company, which made the bad guy from Li's Pharmacy retaliate in a fit of rage, and then he was arrested!

The second thing was to scare that scoundrel, the former prefect of Qingzhou, so that he would be unlucky enough to have his leg trampled by a horse and then be arrested, thus replacing Qingzhou with a good person.

Gu Yuzhi's eyes sparkled, and he said cheerfully, "Thank you, Chief Secretary! This proves that what I did wasn't bad! If something like this happens again, you can't stop me when I send Xueye!"

Chief Secretary Xie was both annoyed and amused. Although he felt that what the young prince said was not wrong, as he always managed to gain unexpected benefits, he still could not agree with this approach.

But looking at the young prince's proud little face, what if he said something a little too harsh and ruined the young prince's mood, and the prince got angry with him?

Xie Changshi quickly came up with a solution and whispered, "Your Highness, you see, the prefects of several prefectures in Mobei are now our people, and Li Ji Trading Company has been completely destroyed. Your Highness no longer needs to send Xueye out to scare people, right?"

Gu Yuzhi tilted his head and considered it carefully.

It seems that's really the case!

Moreover, people from these prefectures said that all the official duties were assigned to Xinliang!

Gu Yuzhi's bad mood completely disappeared, and he said happily, "Since that's the case, then let's just forget about it. Xueye is now the mountain god of Xinliang, and we can't ruin his image in the hearts of the people."

He turned to leave, but before Xie Changshi could even breathe a sigh of relief, he turned back and suddenly said, "That's not right! The northern deserts aren't entirely our people yet! There's still the northern desert army!"

Gu Yuzhi puffed out his cheeks and, imitating Chen Dianyi, paced back and forth with his hands behind his back: "Hmph, Chief Secretary Xie, do you think I've forgotten? No way! There are still plenty of bad guys in the Northern Desert Army!"

Those who sided with Prince Chu after Mr. Huo and his group were arrested, hoping to usurp the throne, are all wicked!

He pouted, his little eyebrows furrowing, but these big bad guys were all huddled together in the military camp, so there was no way to trick them out one by one.

You can't exactly go to the military camp on a snowy night.

The people in the military camp weren't like the former prefect of Qingzhou, a complete idiot who would be so frightened by a snowy night that he would fall off his horse.

If they saw the snowy night, they might even try to catch it and skin it to keep warm.

Even though it hadn't happened yet, Gu Yuzhi immediately got angry when he thought about how miserable he was when he was caught on a snowy night. He shook his head like a rattle drum: "No, no, this won't do."

"What's wrong?" Guard Qi quickly stepped forward. "Your Highness, please tell us. Perhaps we have a solution!"

Gu Yuzhi looked Qi Shiwei up and down with his head held high. For some reason, he suddenly remembered how Qi Shiwei had been scolded by Chief Secretary Xie last time, looking like a quail and not daring to speak.

He snorted, "I'm not going to tell you. You can't do anything about it anyway."

The guard was so shocked that his eyes widened.

No, he only mentioned the little prince losing his baby teeth, and almost an hour has passed. Why is the little prince still holding a grudge?

Does this mean he has fallen out of favor?

That won't do!

Guard Qi straightened his chest, trying his best to appear reliable: "Your Highness, although I am not as clever as Chief Secretary Xie and Commander Chen, my martial prowess is definitely the highest..."

Gu Yuzhi nodded his little head, listening to him as he walked forward, while Xie Changshi went back to the warehouse to keep busy.

There was no other way; other state governments sent over the silver notes, and he had to register them.

Xinliang has only just begun clearing land and planting this year, and the money and other supplies he sent to Chen Dianyi have only just begun to be used up, but the warehouse has already received a lot of new items.

Chief Secretary Xie had a feeling that the Wen family's storerooms were almost overflowing with the young prince's belongings.

He had a premonition that once the Empress's pregnancy was stable and the news could be announced to the world, the Emperor would surely bestow a reward upon His Highness!

It's time to push Xin Liang's progress and find a way to finish by the end of this year...

No, at the latest by next spring, His Highness must move there!