I embezzled 100,000 taels at the beginning, and the empress begged me to be more greedy

"Your Majesty, I have an important memorial here."

At this time, Li Zai, the Minister of Personnel, stepped forward to report.

"Submit."

Chen Qingyun had no idea what kind of show this group of ministers were going to put on.

But no matter what, she must protect Jiang Zuo today.

"This is a letter jointly written by the common people and gentry of Jizhou. The common people of Jizhou Prefecture all say that Lord Jiang is a savior and a great and honest official. The whole Jizhou is praising Lord Jiang as a human being. Under such circumstances, how could Lord Jiang be a corrupt official..."

Which one is this from?

The empress Chen Qingyun, who was used to many ups and downs, was actually confused at this moment.

If she remembered correctly, Li Zai, the Minister of Personnel, was on the side of Lu Jun, the Right Prime Minister.

Since Lu Jun came forward to impeach, why did Li Zai come out to speak for Jiangzuo?

After thinking about it carefully, Chen Qingyun seemed to understand.

"We cannot completely trust what the people say. Minister Li, your memorial is too frivolous. How can the words of these ordinary people be more convincing than the impeachment of the officials..."

The person who spoke was Lin Lu, the Vice Minister of the Ministry of Revenue, who was also from the Right Prime Minister's faction.

"Why are the people's words unconvincing? If all the people in Jizhou call Lord Jiang the Justice Jiang, Minister Lin can go to Jizhou and see for himself if he doesn't believe it."

One plays the good guy and the other plays the bad guy, but in fact they are praising Jiang Zuo to death.

He tried to elevate Jiangzuo's status so that the empress would be suspicious of him and thus remove him from his position as the governor-general of Jiangzuo Zhenbei.

However, they seemed unaware that Chen Qingyun actually had some understanding of Jiang Zuo.

The tricks of this group of ministers will not affect Chen Qingyun's judgment of Jiangzuo at all.

"enough."

As soon as Chen Qingyun finished speaking, the ministers immediately stopped talking.

"Regarding the matter of Jiangzuo, I will send an imperial envoy to Jizhou Prefecture to thoroughly investigate the truth."

"Also, bring the 100 officials who signed the petition to this palace. I want to interrogate them personally. If anyone has deceived me, they will all be held accountable!"

The empress's voice echoed throughout the entire hall.

Everyone knows how cruel the current emperor is.

No one knows how this "Jiangzuo case" will be resolved.

Anyway, one thing is clear: Jiang Zuo has become a new chess piece in the court's open and secret struggles.

Chen Qingyun had his own plans in mind.

Even though many officials in the court had complaints about Jiang Zuo, she couldn't replace him so easily.

She will definitely keep the position of Governor-General of Jiangzuo!

Chen Qingyun needed more political achievements to prove to the world that she, as an empress, did not only know how to kill.

……

Jizhou Prefecture.

Yecheng.

It has been cloudy these days, with occasional drizzles.

The reservoir project was delayed again and again, which made Jiang Zuo feel a little anxious.

Perhaps because of the continuous rain, or because of the high mountains and long roads, Jiang Zuo had not received any letters from Miss Chen Siyue for several days. He suddenly felt that life was boring, so he ended the journey early and returned to Anding County.

At the same time, he began to pour out his true feelings in letters to Chen Siyue, and from time to time he openly or covertly ridiculed the ruthlessness of the empress.

After I finished writing the letter, the drizzle outside the window stopped.

An hour later, the sun finally came out.

The reservoir is still under construction and its completion is nowhere in sight.

Jiang Zuo packed the letter, ordered someone to mail it, and then prepared to go to the construction site to inspect it.

At this time, Master Guo hurried to find Jiang Zuo as he did in the past.

Whenever Jiang Zuo saw Master Guo's expression like this, he knew that nothing good was going to happen.

"My lord! My lord!"

Master Guo shouted breathlessly.

"Tell me quickly, what bad thing happened again?"

Jiang Zuo has already prepared himself mentally.

"My Lord, this is indeed a bad thing. The workers at the reservoir are on strike!"

Master Guo looked unhappy.

"strike?"

Jiang Zuo frowned immediately, unable to understand.

"How many people?" Jiang Zuo asked.

Master Guo replied: "There are as many as seven or eight thousand people, accounting for more than half of the entire project!"

Half of the workers are on strike, how can the project not be delayed?

"What's the strike about? Not enough food? Or unpaid wages?"

Jiang Zuo thought of all kinds of reasons.

Master Guo said, "I don't know either, but I can guarantee that the food the government distributes to the workers is of the highest quality, and it's not time to pay the workers yet, so how could they be in arrears?"

"Most of these workers are disaster victims. They are already satisfied with having food to eat and a job to do. How could they go on strike? Are the petty officials on the construction site oppressing the people?"

Jiang Zuo already felt a wave of trouble.

"I don't know either."

Master Guo also looked a little embarrassed.

"I'd better go and see it myself."

Jiang Zuo got up and went to the construction site.

At this time, there were only a few thousand people still working at the reservoir construction site, and the efficiency was obviously much slower.

The group of striking disaster victims are now gathering outside the construction site.

Jiang Zuo came forward, looked around, and spotted the leader at a glance.

He walked up and asked, "Why are you on strike?"

When the strikers saw that it was Jiang Zuo who came in person, they were not nervous.

The leader said, "There is too much work to do. We are all too tired. We don't have a day to rest. We have to work in the rain. We have worked for so long but have not received any wages. We are all quitting."

Jiang Zuo said helplessly: "The wages will be paid next month. It's been less than a month and you're asking for money. You're too anxious. What's more, it was raining heavily and the government didn't ask you to do any work. Why can't you bear it?"

The leader said, "No matter what, if you don't pay me, I won't do the work."

As soon as these words were spoken, they immediately attracted a lot of support.

Jiang Zuo felt both amused and angry at the moment, and said, "You are the disaster victims who have lost your homes. Without this job, how will you make a living? Are you going to rely on the government's disaster relief grain for the rest of your life?"

The victims were speechless.

Obviously, most of them were instructed by others.

It seems that he feels that the law cannot hold everyone responsible, and wants to use this opportunity to negotiate with Jiang Zuo in an attempt to gain more benefits.

"Okay, since you don't want to do it, I won't force you, lest someone take advantage of the situation and accuse me of forcibly conscripting the people into labor..." Jiang Zuo said calmly, then turned and left.

He already understood that this group of people must have been coerced or bribed by certain people and were intentionally delaying the construction of the water conservancy project.

If we give in to these people this time, they will surely become more aggressive.

That being said, the construction of water conservancy projects cannot be delayed any longer.

Jiang Zuo must find a way to get these striking disaster victims back to work.

As for what method to use, Jiang Zuo still had no idea...

Before Jiang Zuo could deal with the strike, Ma Hengwei brought even worse news.

"Sir, this is bad. The imperial court has sent an envoy to investigate you, Sir Jiang."

"Investigate me? What is there for me to investigate? Let them investigate..."

Jiang Zuo said this, but then he turned around and seemed to remember something.

"Okay, you actually came up with this trick."