It is clearly not feasible to rely on local government offices to conduct investigations.
If they could investigate, it wouldn't have taken so long to get results.
So after much deliberation, Zhu Yunwen finally made a decision: he would personally go and investigate this matter.
He takes this matter very seriously. If this matter cannot be resolved after a long investigation, then similar incidents may occur in other places as well.
There must be a reason why someone would do something like that.
The most likely explanation is that local nobles and landowners are engaging in underhanded tactics to prevent the local people from successfully cultivating potatoes and sweet potatoes.
If this matter is not investigated and dealt with severely, other nobles and landlords in other places may follow suit, which would bring great trouble to the people of the Ming Dynasty and greatly hinder the grain reform.
Therefore, this is a matter of utmost importance.
Zhu Yunwen had previously made a guess that when he wanted to carry out grain reform, he would definitely encounter resistance from some local nobles and landlords.
Unexpectedly, their resistance was so silent that it couldn't even be investigated.
This also illustrates that they actually dared not openly oppose the imperial court.
It is probably because during the previous land reform, many people openly opposed the imperial court and suffered terrible consequences, which served as a wake-up call for some people, making them a little smarter.
But no matter how openly or covertly they obstruct the implementation of the court's policies, they are still going against the court and the people of the world.
Therefore, Zhu Yunwen made the decision to personally travel to the south.
Zhu Yuanzhang had no objection to this, after all, some things really required Zhu Yunwen's personal intervention to resolve.
This has been the case in many things in the past. No matter how big the problem was, as long as Zhu Yunwen personally took charge, it could be quickly and easily resolved.
Moreover, Zhu Yunwen still planned to avoid making a big fuss this time, so as not to attract their attention and cause them to take any countermeasures.
Therefore, Zhu Yunwen still traveled incognito, only taking ten Imperial Guards with him and Zhao Qingzhu.
So, two or three days later, Zhu Yunwen, along with Zhao Qingzhu and ten Imperial Guards, headed towards a county town called Hekou, which was far to the south.
Hekou County is a relatively poor county, and the people here generally do not live very well.
The key issue is that the harvests aren't very good every year.
Now that we finally have new food, sweet potatoes and potatoes, we never expected that after the sweet potato and potato seeds were planted, most of the seeds in the entire county were dug up by some unknown person in winter.
The investigation, which lasted a week, yielded no results, leaving the people in dire straits and utterly desperate.
So the local county government had no choice but to report it to higher authorities.
We hope the imperial court can provide a solution, but so much time has passed since the situation was reported, and there has been no news from the court.
This made the magistrate and the people of Hekou County even more anxious. However, they did not know that the Crown Prince had already set off for their area.
After setting off, Zhu Yunwen did not ride a horse, but chose to ride a bicycle instead.
Zhao Qingzhu and the ten Imperial Guards also chose to ride bicycles, since they had to make use of this new invention.
I have to say, this car is good, the road is good, it's just great.
The group of twelve rode bicycles southward, enjoying a very comfortable ride on the cement road, even more so than riding horses.
Moreover, along the way, they encountered many other people riding bicycles and tricycles.
This visible change made Zhu Yunwen very happy, after all, he was the one who led this huge change.
Naturally, I felt incredibly satisfied.
Everything had gone smoothly until they were about to enter Hekou County, but at a fork in the road, Zhu Yunwen became confused.
Logically speaking, every place should have only one main road with few obvious forks.
However, just as they were approaching Hekou County, another road, also made of cement, appeared.
This puzzled Zhu Yunwen, who was unsure of which way to go.
Because there isn't even a road sign at this fork in the road, whereas other forks in the road usually have road signs.
Zhu Yunwen couldn't help but complain:
"The county magistrate here is outrageous; he doesn't even put up a road sign at a crossroads like this."
Zhao Qingzhu said:
"So, which way should we go now?"
Zhu Yunwen was also a little confused, so he followed the fork in the road and looked around. He noticed that there were more footprints on the left side of the road, guessing that there were more people walking on that side.
So I decided to lead them down this side road.
So everyone rode their bicycles toward the fork in the road, but to their surprise, the road ended after only about a mile.
There was only a dirt road ahead, without any cement paving, and the surrounding area was quite desolate, so it didn't seem like a place that people would walk on often.
Zhu Yunwen frowned:
"It seems we've taken the wrong road. But what's going on with this road? Why is there an extra fork in the road out of nowhere, and why is it so short? Could it be that when the road was built, something went wrong, resulting in this mess?"
Zhao Qingzhu shook her head, indicating that she didn't know either.
Just as the group was wondering what was going on and was about to turn back to the previous road, a group of people who looked like bandits suddenly rushed out from not far away.
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