Jiangnan West Road, Jiujiang County, Xingguo County.
After handling various cases in the county government office, it was already late at night. Thinking of his pregnant wife at home, Ruihai tidied his clothes, changed into official uniform, and rushed home in the night.
Ruihai was dressed simply, and there were even patches on his uniform with fine stitching, which were made by his wife.
When I got home late at night, the light in my wife's bedroom was still on.
Seeing Ruihai coming back, his wife smiled and offered him a bowl of hot tea. She said softly, "You must be hungry. There are two steamed buns and a steamed fish in the pot. It should still be hot..."
The house is not small, but there are not many places with lights on at night.
Many of the appliances in the house are a bit worn out, but it is kept clean and tidy, and still looks decent.
Ruihai felt a little guilty when he saw that his wife looked thinner.
"No need to wait for me, you are pregnant, go to bed early."
His wife didn't say anything, but just looked at him tenderly. Ruihai had no choice but to have a quick meal under the oil lamp and then write in front of it.
“The floods in Jiangnan were severe. I originally thought it was the merciless fire and water, but after taking office I realized it was the merciless gentry.
The Ministry of Works allocates funds every year for water conservancy projects, building dams and digging ditches, but various departments take advantage of the situation.
If a grant of 100,000 taels can be put into practice, it would be a blessing from heaven if 10,000 taels can be put into practice.
Not to mention that the laborers sent by the wealthy families were just doing the job to get the job done.
Are the wealthy merchants in Jiangnan not afraid of floods?
The wealthy and powerful all live in places with high terrain, so even if there is a flood, it is difficult for them to enter.
On the contrary, the poor people were devastated by the floods and had to sell their ancestral property at low prices to make ends meet..."
In a memorial submitted to his superiors, Ruihai scolded all the people who were responsible for various matters, from top to bottom.
Although he did not have the Jianyi investigation report that Zhang Mingtu spent ten years to prepare, as the head of a county, he was quite clear about the various interests in Xingguo County.
The memorial he wrote was equally earth-shattering, much more sensational than the memorial Zhang Mingtu wrote when he was a small flag officer of the Embroidered Uniform Guard.
…
In Jianyi, in a remote and dark alley, a black shadow paused for two steps, tapped the ground with its toes twice, and then directly climbed over the wall and entered a dilapidated house.
The house is spacious, with a courtyard with three entrances and exits, but it has obviously been dilapidated for many years and no one lives there.
There are many spider webs in the corners and the yard is overgrown with weeds.
It can be seen that they must have been a prosperous and wealthy family in the past, but it is unknown why they fell into poverty.
The black shadow carefully identified the area in the yard and found the thickest mulberry tree beside the yard. In the moonlight, half of the black shadow's face was revealed, and the rest of the face was clearly angular. It was Zhang Mingtu.
"It should be here."
Zhang Mingtu carefully identified the location and, after exhaling his true energy, he evenly shoveled up the ground about two meters in radius. He then took a piece of cloth from his side and placed all the newly dug soil on it.
After digging about three feet into the ground, Zhang Mingtu saw a vermilion wooden box. He was delighted and knew that he had probably found the right one this time.
The wooden box was locked with a copper lock, but Zhang Mingtu just squeezed it with his hand and the copper lock fell off.
He opened the wooden box in the moonlight, and the bright yellow light made Zhang Mingtu's eyes brighten.
He was delighted and roughly estimated that there were dozens of taels of gold and even more silver.
Although it was not a mess, Zhang Mingtu took out the wooden box, filled all the new soil back into the pit, and compacted it evenly with his true energy. Finally, he gently covered the piece of cut land.
After taking a closer look, he could not find any flaws and erased all traces of his entry. Only then did Zhang Mingtu lift the wooden box with one hand and disappeared into the courtyard after a few somersaults.
I returned home quietly. Zhang Jishi and Wang Yulan, who had been busy all day, had already gone to bed.
Zhang Mingtu let out a light breath, then felt that he was too cautious, and couldn't help but chuckle.
However, what we are going to do next cannot tolerate any carelessness or negligence, and it is never too careful.
As a secret guard of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, he stayed in Jianyi for ten years. Although his records were in the Book of Life and Death and many of his memories were unclear, Zhang Mingtu also knew quite a lot of secrets.
In particular, by practicing the Sutra of the Past Vows of Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva, one can obtain some secrets from the obsessions of the dead wronged souls.
In terms of understanding secrets, Zhang Mingtu is second to none in Jianyi, and no one dares to claim to be first.
Zhang Mingtu knew of thirty-eight areas where money was stored in dilapidated houses alone, and no one would notice after the money was taken out, and even if they did, they would not make it public.
As for where the treasures were stored, he knew even more, hundreds of them.
However, Zhang Mingtu was not very obsessed with finances and did not want to take out all of them. Now he was looking for a place where he would not be discovered to dig out the valuables, which was also for his next plan.
One of the most stubborn people he knew in the Great Xia Kingdom, a man named Rui Hai, was in Jiujiang County, not far from Jianyi, and was the county magistrate of Xingguo County in Jiujiang County.
This was the most stubborn person the scholar had ever seen in Zhang Mingtu's life experience, which spanned over a hundred years and was recorded in the Book of Life and Death.
He was a truly humble man, born on the most remote island in Daxia.
In his early years, he passed the provincial examination and became a Juren. According to the national policy of Daxia, Juren could serve as county magistrates in various places in turn.
However, he had no family and no one appreciated him. He wasted many years and only had the opportunity to become a county magistrate when he was forty years old.
If I could become a county magistrate in the south of the Yangtze River, I wonder how many people would envy me to death.
Han Qiong had only been in this remote corner of Jianyi for five or six years, but it was already enough time for him to marry into the local top tycoon.
The extravagance of his children was no less than that of any top tycoon or wealthy businessman. When their house was searched, tens of thousands of taels of silver were found in it.
This is equivalent to the accumulation of decades or even hundreds of years of business operations by a local family.
Even if you do not go along with the crowd, just turn a blind eye and do not participate in various events, it is enough to make you rich for a lifetime, which is equivalent to the accumulation of an ordinary family for decades.
After all, being a clean magistrate for three years is worth 100,000 silver coins.
In the luxurious areas of Jiangnan, the head of a county has the same power.
But Ruihai neither goes along with the corrupt nor turns a blind eye, and is whiter than the snowflakes falling in winter.
He even chose to go against the local wealthy families.
Zhang Mingtu had never heard of this man's reputation before, until the Xingguo County magistrate mobilized manpower and material resources to cure the flood in Xingguo County that had never been cured by many emperors for hundreds of years.
Moreover, he had not even spent all the money that the court had used for water conservancy projects over the years, and there was still a lot left, which showed his talent.
If you are willing to write a brilliant article praising the officials and superiors from all over Xingguo County, your future will be limitless.
It happened that this person reported the pros and cons and reported the actual situation in Xingguo County.
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