Cypress Boat Floating

"If he continues to do this, none of us will survive." Nan Chengyi said viciously while sitting on the high seat.

"But, City Lord, he, he is the prince, what can we do?" Liu Hanyun shrank back, half raised his head, and said in a low voice.

Nan Chengyi looked at the old man with a look of disappointment: "You deserve to be a county magistrate here for the rest of your life. You have no courage at all. So what if he is a prince? You still have to listen to me when you come here."

Liu Hanyun had been cautious all his life. After studying all his life, he finally passed the exam and became a ninth-rank county magistrate. But everything changed after he was assigned to Nancheng.

The people of Nancheng are good at business. There are countless merchants in this city, but the most famous and richest one is still the oldest family in Nancheng - the Nan family. So he naturally became the lord of Nancheng.

The Nan family had a man named Nan Chengyi in this generation. He was shrewd, stingy, ruthless, and never suffered a loss in business. In Nancheng, he had the final say and thought he was the local boss. Even the Son of Heavenly Dragon could not suppress him.

But Liu Hanyun didn't think so. He always had a fear of these princes and high-ranking officials. After all, his official career was in their hands, but his financial future and life were in Nan Chengyi's hands.

If he didn't listen to Nan Chengyi, even if he had the title, he would have no real power, and he might even be killed by Nan Chengyi. The reason why Nan Chengyi tolerated him as a county magistrate here was simply because he was gentle, honest, obedient and easy to bully.

If this were not the case, he would have been killed by Nan Chengyi using various excuses and reasons within two years, just like the previous county magistrates.

"Just keep a close eye on that group of people, especially the Eighth Prince. Don't let him mess around here. If he manages to cure the flood, I won't be able to make money." Nan Chengyi was particularly angry when he thought about Lu Ci Qiu's plan to mess around here.

"Okay, okay." Liu Hanyun agreed repeatedly. Seeing that Nan Chengyi had no intention of paying attention to him now, he quickly said goodbye and left.

The other side of the City Lord's Mansion

Lu Ci Qiu was thinking about the water control plan in the room. Ye Jianqing walked in and sat down opposite him.

"There's something wrong with that city lord." Ye Jianqing said.

"I know that before my rebirth, this city lord and the county magistrate were the most corrupt. These two days, please help me keep an eye on them and Zhao Wenbin." Lu Ci Qiu said while looking at the map of South City without even raising his head.

"Liu Hanyun doesn't look like that kind of person." Ye Jianqing touched his chin and recalled Liu Hanyun's appearance in his mind. He always felt that he didn't look like that kind of person.

Hearing this, Lu Ci Qiu raised his head and looked at Ye Jianqing with a very considerate look: "You can know a person's face but not his heart. He looks like this on the surface, so how do you know what he is like in private?"

Ye Jianqing was speechless. That was right. One can never judge a person by his appearance. It was too decisive for her to make such a judgment based on her first impression of Liu Hanyun. However, the look in Lu Ci Qiu's eyes just now made her feel very uncomfortable. She really wanted to beat him up.

Ye Jianqing suppressed his impulse and asked, "Zhao Wenbin, how are you going to deal with this?"

Lu Ciqiu shook his head: "No, Zhao Wenbin is a money-loving person, but he is very timid. If he wants to do something here, he will first get rid of me, and then Zhang Quansheng. I am here, he is afraid of me and my second brother, so he dare not do it.

He will definitely try to attack me in the next two days. You should pay attention. Of course, there is a great possibility that he will attack you. After all, you are my bodyguard. With you around, he has no way to do anything. The last time he attacked the bandits was just a test for me. "

Ye Jianqing spread her hands. She didn’t care. She could protect herself anyway. But Lu Ci Qiu couldn’t die. With Lu Ci Qiu’s identity around, everything would be much easier.

"In the next two days we should go to Qinglian Mountain more often to interact with the people, try to gain their favor, and get more information from them. This local tyrant has done too many bad things, and we have to get rid of him for the people when the time comes." As he said that, Lu Ci Qiu took out a letter from the desk and handed it to Ye Jianqing.

Ye Jianqing took it doubtfully and opened it.

"My second brother wrote to me and said that he had investigated this place before. This Nan Chengyi is not a good person. He took advantage of the fact that our Nan family is the old family in Nancheng, and their family has always been the city lord, so he has always done whatever he wants in Nancheng. He is domineering, tyrannical, and reckless. He will deal with anything that does not suit him immediately. Go and see how many of those women in the backyard were kidnapped by him."

The letter in Ye Jianqing's hand was filled with all of Nan Chengyi's crimes. She was furious and slapped the desk hard: "This is too much."

“And you’ve also seen that officials and businessmen in Nancheng are in collusion, and even the county magistrate listens to the city lord. Those oppressed people can’t find anywhere to sue the officials. So this time we have another mission, which is to find evidence and witnesses, sue Nan Chengyi directly, bring Nan Chengyi down, and give justice to the people.” Lu Ci Qiu put down the pen in his hand and looked at Ye Jianqing seriously. Ye Jianqing looked into his eyes, as if he saw a faint fire in his deep eyes, a fire called seeking injustice for the people.

Ye Jianqing smiled: "You seem to have changed a bit. Didn't you just want to protect your mother and your second brother before? I don't think I've ever seen you care so much about the people before."

Lu Ci Qiu helplessly spread his hands: "I have always been like this, I haven't changed. I still only want to protect my mother and my second brother, but on the way to South City, I have also seen a lot of suffering of the people. Now that I have the ability to help, I will help. And the books that royal children read are never the book of 'selfishness and self-interest', but the book of 'speaking out for the injustice of the world and seeking justice for the people'."

Ye Jianqing seemed to see his former self in him.

When I was in military school, I was like this too. At that time, I always had dreams bigger than the sky, thinking about what it would be like if I joined the army, thinking about what it would be like if I joined the Suzaku Squad, and thinking about doing something extraordinary. But in fact, my ability was too limited, so I could only try my best to do things within my ability.

"Okay, since you have this intention, then I will help you and together we can eliminate all the injustices in the world!"

"Before that, we should first think about how to solve the current problems in Nancheng." Lu Ci Qiu smiled, picked up the map of Nancheng and looked at Ye Jianqing.

The two looked at each other and smiled.

The situation in the South City is actually not complicated. There is a dam and a city wall in front of the Sannan River. Even if the dam collapses, there is still a city wall a little further forward. This time the flood broke through the dam and rushed into the city wall. The North City, which is closest to the city wall and in a low position, was the first to suffer.

When the people in the city center and other areas received the news, they moved to Qinglian Mountain in the south, so the casualties among other people were not that serious. The death toll in the worst-hit North City has not been counted yet, so there is no way to calculate how many people have died for the time being.

Lu Ci Qiu and his companions first entered the city from the west. The City Lord's Mansion was located in the center, close to the higher terrain in the south, and was not much affected by the flood. At most, it was flooded for two days, and the water receded after two days.

Now Lu Ci Qiu is thinking about bringing the people back from Qinglian Mountain. First of all, the water in the north city must be drained. After the water recedes, he will gather some young and middle-aged people to clear the silt and provide everyone with an environment to rebuild their homes.

This task is both easy and difficult. He has to find a way to make the water recede first, but he has only been walking around the city today and has not yet gone out of the city.

"Do you have any good ideas?" Lu Ci Qiu asked Ye Jianqing for help with a bitter face.

Ye Jianqing teased: "Didn't you say that you talked well with the emperor? Why are you asking me now?"

Lu Ci Qiu scratched his head: "Then I didn't expect the situation to be so urgent. Besides, I do have ideas, but my ideas are obviously not suitable for the current situation."

Ye Jianqing rolled her eyes at him, clapped her hands, sat up straight and looked at his map. Seeing her like this, Lu Ci Qiu knew that she was willing to help, and quickly moved the map in her direction.

"Let's take a look at it first. First of all, the terrain here in the north city is low, and with the continuous heavy rainfall, all the water basically stays in the north city. You can also see that the water has reached the thigh. Then we have to use something to block the accumulated water, preferably sandbags, to prevent the water from the Sannan River from rushing in again, otherwise the water will only increase.

The second thing is to divert water. When we came here, we saw that the water had spread to the outside of the west city. I guess the situation outside the north city is not optimistic, so it is best not to hold too much hope. But we still have to check the situation outside the city first, to see if there is any place to divert water. You can't continue to divert water to the river, you have to divert water to other places. "Ye Jianqing's brain was working frantically, trying to recall the information and means of flood control that he had seen in modern times.

To be honest, if it were modern times, relying on modern means and the capabilities of Daxia, floods of this magnitude could be resolved quickly, but unfortunately, this is ancient times.

Ye Jianqing thought about it and made another suggestion: "If you want to use sandbags to block the water, you will need a lot of sandbags. I think the team we brought here is not enough. I suggest you go to Qinglian Mountain to recruit people and see if anyone is willing to fill sandbags to block the water. We will reward those who help by helping to rebuild the house. This way we can motivate everyone."

"Of course I can, but I don't know where to find the sand and where to find the bag." Lu Ci Qiu began to think.

"You'll have to ask the locals about this. How would outsiders like us know?"

This sentence inspired Lu Ci Qiu again. He suddenly thought of something and said with a sly smile, "We should indeed look for the local boss."

Ye Jianqing looked at him curiously, wondering what new idea he had come up with.

"What do you want to do?" Ye Jianqing asked.

Lu Ciqiu raised his eyebrows and asked, "Do you think Nan Chengyi and Liu Hanyun would be so eager to help?"

Ye Jianqing shook his head: "No."

"That's right. It's good enough that they don't cause trouble for us, so we have to find other things for these two people to do. As for investigating where the sand and bags are, who knows better than the people of the Beggars' Sect?"

"You want to find those beggars?" Ye Jianqing asked in surprise. She seemed to have never thought about this matter. As she was accustomed to the high technology of the new era, she rarely needed to find others to collect intelligence.

Lu Ciqiu nodded: "Let Zhang Quansheng handle this matter. General Zhang has much more experience than me."

Ye Jianqing nodded in agreement: "I agree with this. General Zhang is more experienced than you."

Lu Ciqiu looked at Ye Jianqing and gritted his teeth in anger. Has he ever seen anyone talk about his boss like this? What does it mean that Zhang Quansheng is more experienced and better than him?

Zhang Quansheng in another room shuddered silently at this moment, and touched his forehead curiously: "Did you catch a cold?"

After deciding to do so, Ye Jianqing and Lu Ci Qiu split into two groups, one went to find Zhang Quansheng to inquire about finding sand and bags, while the other secretly went to keep an eye on Zhao Wenbin.

From the time they set out to here, Zhao Wenbin had been very honest and had done nothing, but according to Lu Ci Qiu's memory, this man was not honest at all. During this disaster relief effort, the people were becoming increasingly miserable, and a large part of the credit was due to him.

Ye Jianqing naturally believed in Lu Ci Qiu. She didn't believe that even at this point, Zhao Wenbin would still sit there and do nothing, letting Lu Ci Qiu take all the credit.

Ye Jianqing quietly walked over to the roof of his room, lifted a small piece of tile, and secretly watched what Zhao Wenbin was doing in the room.

Zhao Wenbin in the room was looking at a letter for a long time, then he sighed and burned the letter. Ye Jianqing frowned and cursed secretly in his heart: I didn't even have a chance to sneak a peek at this letter, and you just burned it like that, how unkind.

Zhao Wenbin below had no idea that there was a Ye Jianqing above him, let alone what Ye Jianqing was thinking at the moment.

I saw him tidy up his clothes and then go out.

Ye Jianqing didn't know where he was going, so he hurriedly followed him, but didn't dare to follow too closely.

Zhao Wenbin walked from the right wing of the City Lord's Mansion to the backyard. Ye Jianqing looked at his route and knew roughly where he was going.

The backyard is where Nan Chengyi and his wives live. Lu Ci Qiu and Ye Jianqing live in the left wing, while Zhao Wenbin and Zhang Quansheng live in the right wing.

He walked towards the backyard. Who else could he look for except Nan Chengyi?

Ye Jianqing also wanted to know how Zhao Wenbin embezzled funds in this disaster relief before his rebirth. After all, Zhang Quansheng came with him, and Zhang Quansheng was Lu Zhixing's man.

It was known to the world that Lu Zhixing and the prince were at odds. How could Zhang Quansheng let Zhao Wenbin take all the credit and embezzle so much money? If Zhang Quansheng and Zhao Wenbin were to work together, Ye Jianqing would definitely be the first to stand up and oppose it. Based on her interactions with Zhang Quansheng along the way, she knew that Zhang Quansheng was definitely not that kind of person.