The wind rises
When Gu Yu saw Wei Cong again, he looked disheveled, with stubble on his face that hadn't been groomed in a long time, and his hair was so disheveled that he looked like he had lost his soul.
The two met a month ago, and he still looked like an upright gentleman. She was indeed a little curious, but what exactly happened to him in Tongzhou a month ago?
She put down the food box in her hand, and seeing that he did not react, she called out again, "Wei Cong".
"Mrs. Gu... Madam Xu."
"No, no need to change how you address me. I'm really not used to it. Just call me as before." Gu Yu smiled and took out some food from the food box. "Have something to eat."
There were no tables or chairs in the cell, so Gu Yu had to put her food on the floor. She couldn't stand it and wanted to call the jailer to bring over a table and chairs.
“Miss Gu, there’s no need to go to such trouble. It’s just a meal; there’s no need to make such a fuss,” Wei Cong said, stopping her.
He picked up his bowl and chopsticks and ate his rice bite by bite, rarely picking up any other food, still looking somewhat dazed.
Gu Yu sighed, "If you want my help, tell me about Tongzhou."
She was all too familiar with Wei Cong's state; his devastated appearance was strikingly similar to when she herself had faced a sudden and terrible ordeal.
"Did you know about those 100,000 taels of silver? The Wei Cong I know would never take that silver."
Wei Cong put down his chopsticks and bowl, and said dejectedly, "Miss Gu, I'm really... useless..."
"What? Tell me, what's wrong with you?" Gu Yu laughed; his dejected appearance was too amusing.
"Liu Bian is dead. He had a younger sister named Xiaohua, and he also had an elderly couple at home..." Wei Cong was somewhat dazed and his speech was illogical.
On the 20th day of the ninth month of the 24th year of the Shengyuan era, Wei Cong arrived in Tongzhou.
Xu Yunliang received a letter from his elder brother Xu Ziliu early in the morning, saying that his student was coming to Tongzhou to take up a post and that he hoped Xu Yunliang would take good care of him.
After thinking it over, he decided to test this man's abilities. So he discussed with the other salt merchants about preparing a welcoming banquet for him on his first day of arrival.
He was dressed in a silk robe with wide sleeves, and when he learned that Wei Cong was less than a hundred miles from Tongzhou, he waited in front of the largest restaurant in Tongzhou.
After waiting for half a day, I could finally see a carriage approaching from afar. It was narrow and small, with ordinary cotton curtains that had been washed until they were almost white. The carriage wheels trembled as if they would fall apart at any moment.
The horse pulling the carriage was so thin you could see its bones. It came to take up its post without any other servants, only a groom.
Xu Yunliang could tell at a glance that Wei Cong was poor.
And they were very poor.
He went to greet him, "May I ask if you are Lord Wei Cong, who has come to take over as the prefect of this area?"
"It's me." Wei Cong saw the carriage stop, lifted the curtain, and got down. "And who are you?"
"I am Xu Yunliang, a commoner." Xu Yunliang introduced the salt merchants who were waiting for him behind him.
Tongzhou was a designated salt trading area established by the imperial court, so it was a gathering place for salt merchants of all sizes. Moreover, Tongzhou was a small prefecture, and all salt administration affairs were handled by the prefect.
They're not here to welcome us; they're here to curry favor.
Wei Cong knew of Xu Yunliang. Before he set off, his teacher Xu Ziliu had visited him and told him that his younger brother was doing some business in his hometown. However, he did not ask in detail and naturally did not know that this man was a salt merchant listed in the imperial register.
The price of official salt in Dasheng was too high for ordinary people to afford. In addition, last year Sun Gu raised funds for the army in the north and imposed additional taxes on salt, which made salt prices even higher and led to rampant smuggling of salt.
The rampant smuggling of salt led to the inability to sell official salt, further hindering the collection of salt taxes from the imperial court, thus creating a vicious cycle.
"Lord Wei must be tired from traveling for many days. Why don't you go to Kuailu Pavilion for a bite to eat?"
This was the teacher's younger brother. Although Wei Cong was wary, he couldn't bring himself to do anything that would embarrass him.
"Okay, thank you everyone."
Seeing that Wei Cong was poor, Xu Yunliang did not dare to put on a grand show and only had some ordinary home-style dishes prepared.
Wei Cong breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that the meal was simple. After eating a quick meal, he wanted to go to the government office to take a look.
"Lord Wei, I wonder how my elder brother is doing in Shengjing? It's been about ten years since I last saw him..."
He wiped away his tears with a handkerchief and said sadly, "You are his student. He wrote back to me a long time ago and asked me to take care of you. If you encounter any problems in the salt market, please come to me. I have been selling official salt for more than ten years. I am a legitimate merchant with good relations with the government."
"I've heard that smuggled salt is rampant in the salt-producing areas. I wonder what the situation is like in Tongzhou?"
"Sigh." He sighed, "There's so much, so much. I've accumulated so much official salt and so many salt permits because of the smuggled salt here. Now that you're here, I believe you can manage the salt market properly. Those smugglers are really rampant."
Wei Cong understood the situation and bid farewell to Xu Yunliang. Although he believed that his teacher would never do anything for personal gain, he was still somewhat skeptical of Xu Yunliang.
Upon arriving at the government office, he rested briefly before summoning several officials who were still serving in the government.
The assistant prefects and judges were all newly promoted. The assistant prefect's surname was Zhang, and his name was Zhang Shuqi. He had a half-length beard, wore a square hat, and was a scholar with the title of Xiucai. He had previously worked as a clerk under the former assistant prefect.
The judge was a bit rounder, with a square face and thick eyebrows. His name was Li Fang. He had no official rank, but he had served as the judge's adjutant for several years.
Wei Cong had only heard that the previous prefect of Tongzhou had been imprisoned for accepting bribes while visiting prostitutes, but he did not know the specifics. Hearing that they were all elderly people, he asked about it.
Zhang Shuqi replied, "Lord Wei, you are my first superior after I became the Assistant Magistrate. Although I shouldn't say these things, I still hope that you can stay a little longer."
“In the past five years, every prefect has been imprisoned for accepting bribes. I know this because I was a clerk in Tongzhou three years ago.”
"The first prefect wasn't a greedy person. He just enjoyed writing calligraphy. So people from outside wanted to buy his calligraphy, offering a thousand taels of silver per character, sir. Later, the imperial censor who came to inspect the salt found out, and that's how he got into trouble."
"The second prefect loved to eat, so people outside came up with ideas. They would put dishes like boiled cabbage in clear broth and roasted pork in gold in food boxes and send them to him. When he opened them, he would find that the cabbage was made of jade and the roasted pork was made of gold. There were also pearls and jade. Over time, he also fell for it."
"The third prefect was a womanizer. People from outside sent him beauties. The origins of these beauties were unclear. Later, it was said that they were prostitutes. Silver notes were found on them, and it was said that they had accepted bribes. They were arrested."
Who are these people outside you're talking about?
What do you think, sir?
"Salt merchants? Xu Yunliang even treated me to a meal today. But why? They are salt merchants listed in the imperial register, their positions are hereditary, what would they be bribing the prefect for?"
"I don't know either, sir. Please check it yourself."
Having said this much, Wei Cong knew he couldn't get any more information from Zhang Shuqi, so he dismissed the servants.
In the following days, Wei Cong heard a case involving a land dispute. The farmer who came to report the case was illiterate and signed a land transfer agreement, transferring his land to Xu Yunliang.
Xu Yunliang, sitting in the high hall, cried out that he was wronged, "Lord Wei, you must do justice for me! I bought that land with my own money, and he signed this petition himself."
The farmer, Fan Er, was with his two young grandchildren, tears streaming down his face.
"Sir, I only wanted to borrow some grain from him. He gave me a document, saying it was an IOU. I can't read, but I just signed it and put my fingerprint on it. I really didn't know that by signing it, he would take away my few acres of poor land..."
Wei Cong was in a bind, but Xu Yunliang's case was well-founded, and he couldn't simply hand Tian Ping back to Fan Er without cause.
He slammed his gavel and sent someone to Fan Er's room to confirm the grain he had received after signing the document.
“Xu Yunliang, Fan Er’s land is not disaster-stricken land. The normal price should be 30 to 50 shi of rice per mu. But I went to his house and looked for grain. The total amount was less than 10 shi of rice. If you are buying the land, the price you are offering is too low. This is unreasonable.”
"The petition for the transfer of the land did not specify the price, which is not in accordance with regulations. Therefore, this official rules that the land still belongs to Fan Er. The grain that he took from you will be taken from the government office and given to you as disaster relief grain borrowed by Fan Er from the imperial court. He will repay the government office with interest next year."
After Wei Cong finished announcing the verdict, Fan Er kowtowed repeatedly in gratitude, but Xu Yunliang's expression was not very pleasant.
"Lord Wei, I have presented you with all the evidence. Do you still insist on opposing me? If so, I will not hesitate to leave you as my brother's student." Xu Yunliang walked away with a livid face.
Wei Cong had someone help Fan Er up.
“Sir, Xu Yunliang is a notorious landlord in our area. All the farmland in our village was taken over by him, whether by force or by choice. I didn’t want to report this to the police, because I was afraid that you were in cahoots with him. But if I don’t get the land back, my grandchildren will not survive.”
"Forced? How did he do it?" Wei Cong frowned. If Xu Yunliang was really as he said, with government salt stuck in his hands and unable to be sold, he should be short of money.
But he is still doing well thanks to his family's wealth, probably because of the land he owns.
"I only heard it from others. Some people signed their names and others went near the soldiers and put up signs saying they were farming land."
I have little land, so no one has ever come to me for help. It's just that during this famine year, there was no food, and the harvest was mediocre, so I had no choice but to borrow grain from him.
“I understand. If you encounter something like this again, report it to the authorities and I will uphold justice for you.” Wei Cong thought for a moment and then asked, “Which direction is your village in, and which garrison is it closest to?”
"Our village is called Huatian Village, which is north of the government office. The soldiers there are called something like Tongguanwei."
Tongguan Garrison?
In Dasheng, military and political affairs were completely separate. He could not control the garrisons. The garrisons were equivalent to completely independent counties or prefectures, directly governed by his superior agency, the Shaanxi Provincial Military Commission, and above that was the Right Army Governor's Office of Shengjing.
After seeing Fan Er off, Wei Cong focused all his attention on cracking down on smuggled salt. He and his officers, dressed in plain clothes, spent three days staking out the alleys of Tongzhou before finally catching a few people.
It wasn't exactly a case of catching them red-handed; by the time they were arrested, they had already sold all the smuggled salt.
So they only caught a few of the slower ones.
The officers and soldiers shouted, "Don't move! Don't move! All of you, don't move! Anyone who resists arrest will be beheaded. You don't want to lose your lives, do you?"
Upon hearing this, the salt smugglers indeed remained still and were bound and thrown into prison.
Even after Liu Bian was imprisoned, he didn't behave himself. He cursed the corrupt officials every day in his cell. His companion, Li Daniu, pulled him aside and told him to shut up and stop wasting his energy.
"Why are there so many people in the cell?" Wei Cong asked the cell boss beside him. "What are they all here for?"
"Selling smuggled salt," the jailer explained.
"According to the Dasheng Law, the lightest punishment for smuggling salt is eighty strokes of the cane and three years of penal servitude. Previous prefects were very diligent in arresting smugglers, but if they gave them a few days' grace before going to arrest them again, they were sure to catch a whole gang. Your Excellency, you have arrested too few this time."
Upon hearing this, Wei Cong felt inexplicably sad. The rampant smuggling of salt was simply due to the high price of official salt and the heavy salt tax. This was not the fault of these people, yet they were the ones who ultimately bore the responsibility.
When the officials arrested people earlier, Wei Cong did not show up, so he decided not to wear his official robes and have a good chat with them first.
He changed into a simple cloth robe and had the jailer escort him to the cell of the newly arrested group.
Liu Bian, who had been lying on the ground with his legs crossed and a straw in his mouth, closed his eyes. Upon hearing that a new person had arrived, he quickly got up.
"Hey, why did the jailer only come by himself this time?"
The jailer said impatiently, "You're already in here, and you still have so much to say. You'll be relying on me for the next three years, so talk less and be quiet."
He locked the cell door.
Wei Cong found a secluded spot to sit down, and Liu Bian curiously approached him. "What brings you here? Selling smuggled salt? Why are you all alone? Where are you from? I've never seen you before. You're so clean and fair-skinned, you don't look like someone who's out in the sun."
Wei Cong readily agreed, saying, "I am not a salt producer. But I did sell smuggled salt."
"Tsk." Liu Bian's expression changed slightly. "For money? For whom did you do this?"
Wei Cong roughly figured out the man's background, guessing that he was a salt-making family from the salt lake who had secretly taken extra salt to sell.
According to him, in addition to salt producers, other people were also involved in the illicit salt trade.
He said, "I don't know who the people upstairs are."
"Sigh, that's all the corrupt officials here are capable of. They can arrest poor folks like us with no family connections, but how dare they arrest the big shots who dare to smuggle salt from the salt lake?"
Liu Bian sat down, looking at him with pity.
"Three years... Luckily, I had someone take the money back with me. I wonder if Xiaohua will have grown into a young woman by the time I get out of here in three years."
Li Daniu scratched his head and continued, "Liu Bian, you said you were going to give Xiaohua to me."
"Go away, go away! How can you take what you said when you were little? My sister can marry whoever she wants. Who knows what will happen to you when you leave in three years?"
Seeing that the topic had gone off track, Wei Cong quickly continued, "Do you know who those people who extract smuggled salt from the salt lake are?"
"Kid, you're already in here. What, now you're trying to find someone higher up? Do you think telling those corrupt officials that you're working for someone else will lessen your punishment? Don't be naive. They're all in cahoots. Officials and businessmen colluding, that's them."
"Cough cough..." Wei Cong coughed twice and continued, "At least when I'm about to die, I should die knowing why."
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