Upon hearing this, some of the people standing in front of the county government hall shouted "Your Excellency!" to Xu Di, while others covered their mouths and wept. Wen Jinghuai in the hall said to Ji Xueyi, "Lord Xu is truly a man of great talent."
Ji Xueyi could only nod with a wry smile, but inwardly he kept sighing. These officials serving away from home, far from the emperor's reach, had no idea of the hardships of being officials in the capital. But what could he do now that things had come to this?
Zhou Bingcheng and Zhou Renyi were sentenced to immediate execution and taken outside the city for execution. Zhou Rende and the two stewards were exiled three thousand miles away and were to depart immediately. All their property was confiscated, and after compensation, it was put to public use.
Besides Penglai, the Zhou family also had a large mansion in Qingzhou. Xu Di, who possessed the imperial sword, personally led his men to Qingzhou, searched the mansion thoroughly, and then sold it.
Over the years, the Zhou family had exploited their neighbors. They had built a secret room in their old family home. After the Zhou family members were captured, Xu Di sent people to seal the house. As a result, hundreds of thousands of taels of gold and silver were found in the secret room. Not to mention their house in Qingzhou, which contained all kinds of antiques, gold, silver and jade artifacts.
Xu Di categorized these items one by one, then copied the list and gave it to Ji Xueyi to take back to the capital to present to the Emperor. As for the gold and silver treasures that were copied out, Xu Di had already made it clear in his memorial that they were to be taken from the people and used for the people, to give justice to the humiliated common people. Half of the remaining money would be handed over to the national treasury, and the other half would be used for coastal defense construction.
It is said that the Third Prince's face was gloomy for a long time. During that time, the Third Prince's household purchased a lot of porcelain. When Xu Di found out, he kept sneering in his heart. No wonder his face was not good. He had to smash something to vent his anger. All this money and all this looted stuff belonged to the Third Prince. He didn't expect that Xu Di would intercept it.
Gifts were sent to Xu Di's twins one after another from the capital, Liaodong, and Jiangnan. Xu Bai also said that he would come to visit his newborn nephew and niece in a few days. As for Xu Zhi, after leaving after the New Year, she was busy with the opening of the shop in Tongzhou. Zheng Yuanyuan was taken to Tongzhou by Xu Zhi and met up with Feng Wan'er. The three of them were so busy that they didn't pay much attention to the rumors in the capital.
However, I heard that the marriages of the Fifth Prince and the Sixth Prince have been settled. It was worth it for Zheng Yuanyuan to travel such a long way in the wind and snow during the New Year. Xu Zhi and Zheng Boyuan discussed that Zheng Yuanyuan's marriage should be settled as soon as possible. Otherwise, things might change. Those princes will not only marry their principal wives, but also have the opportunity to marry concubines.
The two children changed every day. When they were first born, they were red and wrinkled. Xu Di didn't say anything, but he thought they were really ugly. But no matter how ugly they were, they were still his children, and he had to love them dearly. Who knew that the children would change every day, and by the time they were a month old, they were already chubby and fair-skinned.
After a lively meal of noodles and eggs to celebrate the children's one-month birthday, and with the Zhou family's affairs mostly settled, Xu Di began to think about how to spend the money he had obtained from the Zhou family.
The coastal defenses were reinforced. The fort was built with blue bricks, and the cannon barrels were of the highest quality. Moreover, it was said that the cannons were the best in the entire Liang Dynasty in terms of both range and power.
The area around Xiaowangzhuang is now a military stronghold, and ordinary people are generally not allowed to go there. If anyone is seen acting suspiciously nearby, they can be caught and sent to the military camp and will be rewarded. This makes the local people always vigilant, fearing that they might discover spies coming to spy on military intelligence.
With the matters at the seaside mostly settled, Xu Di is now starting to think about how to increase the income of the people. Whether an official is good or not depends on whether he can lead the people to make money and live a good life. The people don't really care who is in power as emperor or who is their local official. What matters is who can feed them and give them some extra money to buy what they want. That is a good emperor and a good local official.
Xu Di actually wanted to lead the people to plant some fruit trees. The soil in many coastal areas has a high sand content, which is not very suitable for growing grains, but it is quite good for growing fruit trees. Moreover, the fruits grown in such land, especially apples and watermelons, taste very good. However, if the fruits cannot be transported out in time, they are not worth the money. Harvesting so many apples all year round is not as good as growing some grains, which can make a living.
Therefore, the most urgent task is to have a caravan that specializes in transporting fruit, whether by land or water, as long as the fruit can be transported out, it can earn money.
After thinking about it for a long time, Xu Di decided to try growing apples.
The apples were brought back from overseas by Chen Zhaozhi a few years ago. Besides the fruit that was almost rotten, there was also a seedling that had lost all its leaves.
It took Xu Di a lot of effort to save the fruit tree. He also cultivated many seedlings from the seeds inside the rotten fruit. During the two years he studied in Tai'an, Xu Di began to cultivate apple seedlings. At first, he planted them in flowerpots, and later he transplanted the mature seedlings into the yard. When he returned to the capital from Tai'an, he brought back several trees.
Chen Zhaoci planted several apple trees in his yard and his own yard. Although Xu Di had never taken agronomy courses, he had curiously learned grafting from a senior agronomist when he was a graduate student. He managed to cultivate a few apple saplings into mature trees that would bear fruit every autumn. Although they tasted sweet, they couldn't compare to the varieties of later generations.
In order to help the people under his rule earn more money, Xu Di went all out this time. He had the servants in his household who were in charge of tending the flowers and trees prune a lot of branches for him. In the spring, he started to plant the cuttings in the ground. Now, many branches have grown, but there are no fruits on the trees.
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