Hidden in the court

"you…"

Jia Qian stared at the uncle with ill intentions, but his eyes occasionally glanced at the emperor on the throne.

"I just want to know what did you do with the thirty thousand taels?"

Nangong Lin glanced at Jia Qian and was already smiling from ear to ear. Jia Qian deserved the reward!

"You are slandering me! Your Majesty, I, your humble servant..."

Before he could finish his words, Nangong Lin glared back at him.

"Okay, stop talking. Let's wait and see how this matter turns out. I'm tired, so I'm going to leave."

Jinling City

Ji Mingshang was bored and changed from standing to lying down. He looked at the plum that Nangong Bian stuffed into Nangong Xiao's mouth and fell into deep thought.

“It must be sour!”

"grown ups!"

A young man with an anxious look on his face hurried in and was still breathing heavily after he stopped.

Ji Mingshang immediately stood up, put his hands behind his back and raised his chin.

"Master Hou, something happened!"

"Why are you panicking? Speak slowly."

The man slowed down a bit and said, "It's like this. I went to a village under Taoyuan County to preside over the summer harvest, but I didn't expect that the people would not go to the fields. They said they would wait for the court to send people to harvest. If we want them to harvest, we have to pay, ten coins per mu!"

"Have you investigated whether it was collusion between officials and the people, or whether it was instigated by the landlords and gentry?"

"I found their village chief, and he said the same thing. I went to find the Taoyuan County Magistrate, and he said he couldn't do anything about that village. Every year the county organizes people to harvest the crops, but this year's harvest was good, so there was no manpower. I wanted to pay, but that village had a lot of land, and the money was not enough. Forcible suppression was not an option either..."

The three were stunned after hearing this. In this day and age, are there still people who would rather let the crops rot in the fields than harvest them?

"Let's go and see what the village is called."

"Huangcun has about 2,000 people."

"It's quite big. Is it because of the large number of people?"

The official also lowered his head in shame, "I am truly ashamed of my incompetence."

"It's okay, I'll bring more people this time."

Ji Mingshang took the lead, followed closely by three hundred cavalrymen.

It took two days to arrive at Taoyuan County. The county officials came out to greet us and explained the situation.

"You don't know, sir. I can't do anything about Huang Village. The whole village is full of lazy people. They plant grain in the spring and wait for the people organized by the county to collect the grain for them in the summer. The key is that the tax grain collected is not enough to pay the villagers. There are more than a thousand people in the village. My small county government can't control them!"

"It seems that poor mountains and bad waters really breed unruly people. Lead the way."

Along the way, there were countless fertile fields, all golden. However, unlike other places where people were busy working in the fields, there was only one person watching his own field in the shade among dozens of acres of land, as if he was confident that someone would harvest the grain for them.

On a large stone at the entrance of the village there is a crooked inscription with "Huangcun" in it. This is the name of the village. The whole village is built along a main road paved with sand. On both sides of the road are tiled houses with bricks to the top. Every household raises chickens and ducks. The whole village has a population of only two thousand people. It can be seen that the people here are not poor.

"This is the Rich Village?"

I saw a child on the side of the road holding a fan, fanning himself, supporting his head with one hand, and carrying a "Erlang Danshan" on his shoulder.

"Little brother, where are your family members?"

When the child saw Nangong Xiao's gentle face that looked like he was easy to be bullied, he immediately became angry.

"Who are you? Five cents for asking for directions."

As soon as Nangong Lin opened his mouth, he was pulled back by Nangong Bian.

"You are such a greedy kid!"

Unexpectedly, the child didn't care at all, "The price was set by the village, not by me."

"Good, good, very good..."

After paying five coins, Nangong Bian continued to ask: "I have come all this way and have seen that the fields are full of harvest but no one is working. Why is that?"

"Another five cents. This is another price."

Nangong Bian suddenly felt that this child had some of Ji Mingshang's shadow.

But at this moment I had to ask, so I asked another five cents.

“Why should we collect it if someone else collects it for us?”

"Good good..."

The child turned around and was about to leave. Nangong Bian seized the opportunity and kicked him.

Ten copper coins were scattered on the ground, and Nangong Bian picked them up quickly.

"What are you doing!"

"Brother, run!"

……

Nangong Xiao and Nangong Bian ran all the way back to the village entrance.

"This is really too much. They dare to ask a child for five cents for asking for directions!"

Lao Zhao once performed in the capital, "How to spend five cents a day", which was really expensive.

I once secretly read Lao Zhao's diary. I opened it and found that there were no dates. On each page, it was written crookedly, "Today I bought four steamed buns, totaling..." I couldn't figure it out anyway. I read it carefully for half the night and finally saw the words between the lines. The whole book was written with the two words "Kousou"!

"He is really a troublemaker, isn't he?"

"Sir, what should we do now?"

"What should I do? You are like this..."

Ji Mingshang waved at him and whispered in his ear.

His expression became stranger and stranger as he listened, until at the end it was as if he had seen a ghost.

"My Lord, this... is really a bit immoral, isn't it?"

"They started this trouble. Stop talking nonsense and go."

The man left, taking away three hundred cavalrymen.

This aroused the curiosity of others, "What did you say?"

"It's very simple. They don't want to collect the grain. Let's lure them to pick the grain crown and cut off the firewood from under the cauldron."

"Why?"

"I paid them to collect crops for me. I paid them a lot of money and signed a contract that stipulated the daily harvest. If they didn't harvest enough crops, they would have to pay me several times the amount."

"So the amount for this day is very large?"

"It's not big. One person can easily finish it in a normal day."

"What's the difference between signing and not signing?"

"But I also ordered people to release scorpions, poisonous snakes and centipedes in the fields..."

"How insidious!"

"So if they can't collect the grain, they have to pay the money? No, what if they can't afford it?"

"That's right. They will have to make sure they can't afford the compensation. Then they will find out about the interest-free loans provided by Taoyuan County. They can borrow from one to pay off another. Taoyuan County can then ask them to open up wasteland to pay off their debts."

The county magistrate shook his head upon hearing this. "No way! These people are lazy by nature. Will they obediently go to open up wasteland?"

"What if there is silver in this wasteland..."

When everyone heard this, they immediately reacted. Wouldn't these people just go obediently?

"Be bolder! This silver is official silver with an official seal. They robbed the official silver privately..."

"Use your imagination again. If the official silver that was recovered is fake, and it is wrapped in copper..."

"hiss--"

Everyone gasped. No wonder! It was like seeing a ghost in broad daylight.

"Then we will make him unable to defend himself. We will accuse him of robbery and fake silver. After that, we will recruit him as farmhands for the imperial court."