Chapter 253 I Just Won’t Give It to You

The moment they saw Xu Ying, Shen Qingbai and Qi Yue beside Shen Ning both showed surprise: "It's you."

Xu Ying looked embarrassed, but she could no longer care about anything else at this time. She was worried that Shen Ning would not want to help because of old grudges, so she kowtowed and begged while quickly explaining the whole story.

"Princess, the Beihai Prefecture governor, Nie Rang, was corrupt, perverted the law, and persecuted the people, oppressing exiled prisoners. Not only did he withhold coal funds from the court and falsify the accounts of the shipbuilding department, but when the people's fields were flooded, he even embezzled and withheld disaster relief funds... The people in the city were left desperate, and some even starved to death. My brother couldn't stand it, so he secretly wrote a petition to the court, but they discovered it and falsely accused my brother of treason..."

Xu Ying kowtowed repeatedly, begging in a hoarse voice, "I was once possessed by a demon and had a grudge against the princess. I beg the princess to show mercy and save my brother. My brother is a good man. He is doing this for the people in the city. He is afraid that many people will die in the city this winter, and he just wants to save them."

Xu Ying's eyes were red. "Brother has never colluded with the enemy or committed treason. Please, Princess, save his life. Please, Princess, please."

Qiyue frowned and wanted to kick the person away, but Shen Ning stopped her. Thinking of the person who was covered with his mouth and dragged away at the gate of the Princess Mansion just now, she said to Eryue: "Send someone to investigate."

Xu Ying knew that Shen Ning was going to ask about it, and tears suddenly welled up in her eyes: "Thank you, Princess, thank you, Princess."

After being exiled thousands of miles away and suffering for months, she had already accepted her fate. Now the only thing that could keep her alive was her brother who never left her side and the monthly letter from Xu Ya in the capital.

Shen Ning withdrew her gaze and looked forward. Xu Ying kept kowtowing to her back... and she didn't even dare to look at Shen Qingbai who had been standing next to Shen Ning, for fear of being misunderstood by Shen Ning.

Not long after, after washing up, Chen Ning and her brother arrived at the flower hall, and the prefect Nie Rang immediately asked them to serve the dishes.

The table was filled with delicious food, and everyone at the table had rosy faces and was smiling.

Shen Ning looked at the round and cheerful smiles of these people, and thought of the numb and thin pedestrians on the street, and felt a chill in her heart for no reason.

She is not the kind of freak who would say "how many people still have nothing to eat" when others eat well, but these officials are the parents of Beihai Prefecture, and they control the life and death of everyone in this land.

It was rare to find any well-dressed, healthy-looking common people on the street; most were thin, ragged, numb and hopeless... while these officials, with their tables full of chicken and fish, were talking and discussing...

Prefect Nie Rang was the first to toast, and Chen Ning drank with a smile. Just as the others were about to start chatting and joking, Chen Ning suddenly said, "This princess has just arrived, and I feel a little uneasy about having to take care of an entire prefecture city in the future. Why don't you, Prefect Nie and the others, take this opportunity to tell me about the current situation in Beihai Prefecture."

Nie Rang's smile paused slightly, and he looked at the others inconspicuously.

This little princess is quite ambitious. She intends to be the master as soon as she arrives!

Oh……

Nie Rang immediately put on a respectful and enthusiastic look, "My Lady, you are too kind. This is all my duty. However, as for Beihai Prefecture, well, it's hard to explain..."

Nie Rang then launched into a long series of complaints, including, but not limited to, the constant threat of the Yuan Dynasty to the east, the restive Mongolian tribes to the north, who would come and take advantage of him whenever they could, and the fact that the coal mines were barely producing...

He complained that Beihai Prefecture once had a shipbuilding department, but it was abandoned because the court no longer needed it. The entire Beihai Prefecture was either completely barren and forested, with freezing weather making it impossible to farm, or the fields in the south were often flooded due to the sea...

"Now Beihai Prefecture still owes wages to the shipyard workers, the flooded people in the south need resettlement, and there are countless prisoners in Xicheng District... There's no income, but so many mouths need to eat. I worry day and night, can't eat, and I'm almost turning gray with worry!"

Shen Ning glanced at Nie Rang's black hair and rosy fat face without any expression.

He was still sighing: "I really can't bear to let the princess take over this mess..."

Shen Ning could immediately understand the other party's thoughts: he didn't want to hand over financial power.

Beihai Prefecture is now the fiefdom of her, Princess Yong'an. The political power belongs to the court, but the financial power belongs to her. In other words, all the properties in Beihai Prefecture that originally belonged to the court now belong to her.

But now, Nie Rang is like: There is only a mess here, there is nothing good at all, I am not giving it to you for your own good, I am kind-hearted.

As soon as Nie Rang opened his mouth, the others echoed him, constantly talking about the difficulties they faced in governing Beihai Prefecture, trying to block Shen Ning from saying anything else.

At this moment, Shen Qingbai smiled and offered Nie Rang a glass of wine. "Your humble servant is unworthy, but something suddenly occurred to me. I had a classmate named Xu Shuo back then. If I remember correctly, he was exiled to Beihai Prefecture. He was a branch of the Xu family, and thanks to the care of the Third Master of the Xu family, he was given a job as a clerk. I wonder how he's doing now?"

Nie Rang and the others' expressions changed again.

The next moment, someone sighed, "Master Shen doesn't know yet that Xu Shuo has such wicked ambitions that he's actually colluding with the Yuan Dynasty and collaborating with the enemy... Fortunately, Master Nie saw through his evil scheme and has already imprisoned him."

Shen Qingbai looked stunned. "Treason? This is a serious matter. His heart is truly hateful... I wonder if Lord Nie has any evidence against him so he can be sentenced to death and prevent the Xu family from interfering."

Nie Rang's eyes flickered slightly.

He knew that Xu Shuo had some connection with the Xu family, but when he thought about the fact that he had been exiled, he was naturally not a close relative of the Xu family, so he didn't care. What's more, he had people behind him.

Although Nie Rang was an official appointed by the imperial court, his superior was Chen Nian, the commander-in-chief of Liaodong Pass. Chen Nian was on the side of the prince, which meant that Nie Rang was also a member of the Eastern Palace.

And everyone in the Eastern Palace obeys the Queen's orders.

Therefore, even though the Xu family existed, Nie Rang was not very averse to it.

He gave Shen Qingbai a bitter smile and shook his head: "That thief saw the opportunity too quickly. When he was caught, he had already burned all the letters. But it doesn't matter. There will be a confession from him later. He can't make any trouble."

This means they are trying to force a confession out of someone without any evidence.

Chen Ning smiled: "It seems that the Beihai Mansion is indeed very troublesome and laborious. In this case, how can this princess have the nerve to trouble you gentlemen to take care of it for her?"

She sighed and said, "Even if Beihai Prefecture is a mess and extremely poor, it doesn't matter. I, the princess, must do my job well in my position... I've been delayed for a long time on the road. Now that we're here, I naturally won't let Master Nie worry about me anymore."

She said bluntly, "Time waits for no one. In order to understand the suffering of the people of Beihai Prefecture as soon as possible and do something for them, I ask Lord Nie and the other lords to take good care of me and support me... Oh, and please send the account books of the shipbuilding company and the coal mine to me later. The sooner I can sort them out, the sooner I can know how to deal with them."

In a word, Nie Rang and the other officials at the table all looked a little stiff.

County Magistrate Liu, noticing Nie Rang's look, stood up and apologized with a wry smile, "I can't hide this from you, Princess. Just two days ago, the account books at the shipbuilding company and the coal mine caught fire. Most likely, all the account books were burned. All that was salvaged was the debt book... Alas, I've failed in my duty!"

This was clearly treating Shen Ning as a fool... or perhaps he had no intention of hiding it at all.

Account books? I won't give them to you.

The answer is that everything was burned, and only the debt book was left. If you take over, you can only take over the debt.

After County Magistrate Liu finished speaking, he kept apologizing, but there was a disdainful smile in the depths of his eyes.

Those people were all fearless and at ease.

It's so easy to play with a young girl...So what if she is a princess? They know who is standing behind her, and that is the Empress!

As soon as Shen Ning entered the city, he had actually sent people to the coal mine and the shipbuilding company to get the account books, catching them off guard.

It was obvious that these people were just testing her attitude at the beginning. Now that they saw that she was not easy to fool, it was not impossible that they went back and destroyed the account books. It didn't necessarily mean that they really burned them, so she asked someone to investigate first.

Now seeing how fearless these people were, and thinking of the zombie-like people in the city, she felt even colder.

Just as he was about to pretend to be nice and buy time for the account books to come back, he suddenly heard a commotion in the yard.

Nie Rang immediately shouted: "What's the matter? You are so unruly. Don't you know that the princess is here..."

But before he could finish his words, he suddenly froze, staring straight at Prince Ding, who walked in with a blank expression and wearing soft armor. The previously leisurely and complacent expression on his face suddenly froze...