Chapter 2933: Intercession
In total, Governor Guo had seven counties under his jurisdiction, but except for Yidu County, the people's livelihood in other counties was somewhat poor;
Moreover, except for Yidu County, the county magistrates of other counties were sent here last year and this year.
Governor Guo had only been in office for a short time. Although he had taken over the Governor's Office on the surface, because County Magistrate Lu had been in charge of the Governor's Office for half a year, he had a good relationship with the Chief Secretary, Sima and others in the Governor's Office, not to mention the minor officials under him.
Sometimes, the tasks passed down by Governor Guo would take about two days to complete, but if there was something happening on the side of County Magistrate Lu, he would just let him know and it would be completed on the same day.
Therefore, Governor Guo urgently needed to raise a county to compete with Yidu County.
He originally preferred Qiancheng County, but because of Bai Shan and Zhou Man, he now prefers Beihai County.
Beihai County is not far from Qingzhou City, and most importantly, they are relatives!
As relatives, we should help each other.
Bai Shan also believed that they should help each other. He could not only help Governor Guo integrate into Qingzhou faster and make political achievements for him, but also try his best to ease the conflict between him and County Magistrate Lu.
County Magistrate Lu sat aside and watched his ally and Governor Guo having a pleasant conversation, with complicated feelings in his heart.
After afternoon tea, Governor Guo led everyone back to the Governor's Mansion. He first asked the county magistrates to rest for a while, but invited Bai Shan and Zhou Man to the study to talk.
What made Governor Guo very satisfied was that after such a serious incident as banditry occurred in Beihai County, Bai Shan informed him immediately and asked him for help.
This allowed Governor Guo to participate in county governance, which made him very satisfied.
This time, Governor Guo called him in to discuss this matter.
The county magistrates who were taken away to rest looked at each other and gathered in the yard to talk without any prior arrangement.
Seeing the servants serve tea and then leave, they couldn't help but relax a little. After secretly glancing at County Magistrate Lu, they said, "I heard that a group of bandits appeared in Beihai County. They robbed the village and killed many people."
"I've heard about it, too. It's caused quite a stir, even reaching our county. Because County Magistrate Bai is holding a public hearing, some scholars from our county recently went all the way to Beihai County to watch the excitement... Oh, no, they went to the court hearing."
Another county magistrate glanced at County Magistrate Lu and asked, "County Magistrate Bai, is this a merit or a fault? Although you have wiped out the bandits, such a serious bandit problem has appeared under your jurisdiction..."
He didn't finish his words, but his meaning was clear.
Magistrate Lu finally put down his teacup and said with some guilt, "The bandits appeared while I was in office, and even the looting incidents occurred while I was in office. If there's any dereliction of duty, it's my fault, not Magistrate Bai's."
The other county magistrates looked at each other in surprise. They didn't expect that County Magistrate Lu would accept it so readily. Speaking of which, Governor Guo values Bai Shan so much, are you really not going to struggle anymore?
Is it really okay to just admit defeat?
At this time, Governor Guo was also discussing the dereliction of duty of Magistrate Lu with Bai Shan.
Bai Shan said, "It's true that County Magistrate Lu was negligent in his duties, but this matter cannot be entirely blamed on him."
He said, "The first time they robbed Xiaoliu Village was last September. Only a few households were damaged. No one was hurt, only some property was lost, so the village chief only reported it to the head of the village."
"It was the triennial election for village chiefs, and out of selfish motives, he didn't report it," Bai Shan said. "The second time, when someone died, was before the Lunar New Year. County Magistrate Lu had been transferred to Yidu County, and County Magistrate Fang and County Magistrate Dong were acting as acting governors in Beihai County. Jia, the village chief, discovered that the villagers under his jurisdiction had formed a gang to rob the village, and because Jia Dalang and the others were from the same clan, he helped to conceal the incident."
The case is now very clear. Jia Dalang is lazy and gluttonous, and he is a bully in the village. He also likes to gamble.
He lost a lot of money last year, but he was very proud and spent a lot of money. The first robbery of Xiaoliu Village was an accident. He was short of money at the time, so he called a few good friends to go hunting in the mountains, hoping to catch some game and sell it in the county town.
As a result, they didn't catch any game, but they actually went down the mountain to Xiaoliu Village on the other side.
For a long time, Xiaoliu Village had only one road leading to the outside. The road they walked on was extremely messy and could not be called a road at all.
But the village below was quiet and peaceful, and the air seemed to still be filled with the aroma of wheat from a recent dinner.
Jia Dalang, who had been hungry for almost a day, became angry and hid in the mountains with his men for half a night. When it was completely dark and everyone was asleep, he quietly sneaked into several houses on the edge of the mountain.
The noise alarmed the people, but they were arrogant and quick, with knives in their hands specially brought for hunting. They directly threatened the people to hand over their money, and then one of them ran away with a bag of food.
They returned the same way they came, without taking any food home. Instead, they took it to the market and sold it. When they combined it with the money they had robbed, they found that the remaining money was not small, almost equal to their annual income.
So they took the money and spent it for a while, and after spending all the money, they still owed a lot of gambling debts.
But this time, Jia Dalang, who had tasted the sweetness, was not in a hurry at all. He stared at Xiaoliu Village several times and found that although the village was small and poor, it was almost isolated from the world and the fields in it were fertile, so there was actually no shortage of food.
They had a lot of food, more than their big village, Dajing Village.
So Jia Dalang decided to do something big, so he gathered all the brothers he could find, found an opportunity to go in and rob the entire village.
That time, they almost took away all the food in Xiaoliu Village, as well as the villagers' savings.
That is the savings of several generations of a village. It is not noticeable at ordinary times, but it is still a lot when put together.
Although it had to be divided into many portions among the brothers, as the eldest brother, Jia Dalang still got a lot, and the few people who were closer to him also got a lot.
The result was obvious. Many people in the two villages suddenly became rich. Although Jia Lizheng was not a good person, he had a sharp eye. He felt something was wrong and went to each house, and then he discovered some incredible things.
In addition, the village chief of Xiaoliu Village also came to report to him that Xiaoliu Village had been robbed.
Jia Lizheng was not stupid and he knew who did it immediately.
Such a serious incident occurred under his jurisdiction, and most of the bandits were from the same tribe as him. Jia Lizheng decided to keep the matter secret without hesitation.
Otherwise, if the incident gets out, the Jia family will have no chance of survival in this area.
He could only keep it a secret for Jia Dalang.
Jia Dalang also knew that Jia Lizheng knew about it, so when he saw Jia Dalang taking action, he was quite generous and directly took two chickens and two bags of grain to Jia Lizheng's home.
Since Jia Lizheng had received the things, he could only try harder to cover up for them.
Bai Shan said, "So even though County Magistrate Lu failed in his duty in this matter, we can't blame him entirely."
He changed the subject and said, "Now Jia Lizheng and the bandits are all detained in the county government office. I would like to hear your advice on how to deal with this matter."
See you at 9pm
(End of this chapter)
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