Chapter 564 It is not necessary to start with the case itself
Zhang Lian thought he was greedy enough, but compared with this young imperial envoy, he felt that he was a witch.
It would be fine if you settle the accounts of the dead, but you would even have to charge "interest" and even the money on the hands of the Folang Ji people would not let go of.
Zhang Lian thought to himself: "If I were a Folangji person, why bother with him or not? The remaining three boats were full of money and they would probably be able to share the difference between young and old. If I were afraid that Emperor Folangji would be punished and would not go to Nanyang to find a place to be the local emperor, who would have to take care of me if the emperor was far away from heaven?"
But it was obvious that Folang Jiren was not as smart as him. After some bargaining, the conditions offered by Chen Xi finally reached an agreement.
The captives of Folangji stayed in the Ming Dynasty for the time being, but they had to provide them with food, clothing and expenses. They first paid one hundred gold coins and two thousand silver coins "living expenses", and then paid two hundred gold coins and three thousand silver coins "tributes"... These money were first used as interest for compensation. If the principal was paid, the people of Folangji drove back to Manraga.
If you don’t come back for three months, the interest will be recalculated and calculated based on one cent per day.
Be serious and meticulous, and each clause must be discussed repeatedly.
Zhang Lian was almost stunned: "It's still the imperial envoy who is cruel. He doesn't even make a fuss, but he actually calculates interest with the foreigners. What if those foreigners are not stupid? They are still willing to discuss these details?"
Zhang Lian naturally couldn't understand it. In the hearts of Folang Ji people, the most fair thing is artillery, and besides artillery, there are rigorous trading rules.
If the gun cannot be solved, the exchange will be made equally there.
Human lives, ships, etc. have a reasonable price in the hearts of the people of Folangji. On this basis, bargaining, but once the rules are formulated, they must be followed unconditionally.
This is one of the laws of pirates.
After clearing the accounts, Chen Xi asked someone to write a contract, each with the Folang Ji and the Chinese, supervised by the Manracas. Finally, both parties signed and sealed the contract, and the transaction contract was officially completed.
Perhaps even the Folang Jiren did not expect that Chen Xi played tricks in this transaction because the transaction only involved compensation issues and did not mention the redemption of the person after compensation.
"Master Zhang, please send someone out to the city and collect the interest from the Folang Ji people. This is a tribute to the court."
Zhang Lian agreed to the courtesy. He wanted to hand over this kind of chore of carrying things to Zhang Laowu, but when he thought that Zhang Laowu might take advantage of it, he arranged for someone else.
Chen Xi said again: "It has been a few days since we arrived in Quanzhou. Now the most important thing has been completed. After the Florian fleet goes to Manraga tomorrow, I will escort the Florian envoy north to the capital and say goodbye to the prefect Zhang here first."
Zhang Lian asked in surprise: "The imperial envoy is leaving now, what should I do if the spoils and tributes are there?"
"I'll ask the prefect Zhang to organize and escort him on his behalf. I'll just take the list to go north."
Zhang Lian was furious. If you take the list to the capital, it would be equivalent to taking away the evidence so that I could not deduct it... Humph, fortunately, I have the foresight and I did not put nearly half of the spoils on the list. No matter how smart you are, you will be a trick of chess.
Chen Xi did not expect that, but he had no choice. The people he brought, except for Liu Jin and Mi Lu, who were ungrateful and ill-intentioned, were Song Xiaocheng, who had no status in the market and did nothing in Quanzhou. No matter what he did, he had to rely on Zhang Lian. It was not easy to get Zhang Lian to send the spoils to the capital. It was not realistic to make him not deduct any of it.
When Chen Xi returned to the inn, it was getting late and Yu Niang was waiting for him in the side hall after resting.
As Chen Xi was about to personally escort Almeida back to Beijing in two days, Yu Niang showed a complicated look on her face. It was obvious that Chen Xi's mission had been completed, but her mission was not settled.
Yu Niang insisted on her and said, "Can you stay for a few more days?"
Chenxidao: "I came here at the emperor's order, and then I had to go back to my hometown to visit relatives, walk on both sides of Tingzhou Fucheng and Ninghua County. In addition, I need to go back to Taohua Village to worship my ancestors, so there is no time to delay on the road, so it's better to leave early."
Yu Niang sighed: "Now Lord Shen has not only successfully completed the imperial mission, but also defeated Folang Jiren. After returning to the capital, he will definitely be promoted. Unfortunately, I... may never be able to return to the capital."
"Where did Yu Niang start this?"
Chen Xi said this and picked up the teacup and took a sip. Unfortunately, the tea was cold, so he had to put it down. "What kind of errand Yu Niang is responsible for? Or come and listen. If you can help, you will do your best to help."
When Yu Niang went to Quanzhou with Chen Xi, the two rarely met on weekdays, but Yu Niang never left Quanzhou City from beginning to end. This shows that the imperial court had a spy in Quanzhou, so Yu Niang only needed to collect and organize the information and did not need to go to investigate in person.
Yu Niang said: "At present, I will no longer hide it. The most important thing for me to do this is to escort Lord Shen along the way. This is specially explained by Mr. Liu to ensure that Lord Shen and Folang Jiren successfully complete diplomatic relations... In addition, I also have to investigate the local people in Quanzhou's food resistance."
Chen Xi didn't believe it very much about the first half of Yu Niang's talk. At most, Yu Niang accompanied him to the south. As for the "fighting food", this was the first time Chen Xi heard Yu Niang say it.
"Yu Niang explains it in detail, let's see if she can help..."
Yu Niang talked about the matter roughly.
It turned out that after the autumn grain was put into storage in the first year, the court sent personnel to inspect the granaries of various prefectures and counties in the south. This was one of the "Three New Officials' Fires" after Liu Daxia took office as Minister of the Ministry of Revenue.
According to the investigation, many granaries in the south were not full. Liu Daxia did not feel anything at all, but only urged the local area. But what is surprising is that the granaries in Quanzhou are not only full, but also rich. Zhang Lian specially applied to the court to build two more granaries.
In order to cope with the poor, local officials usually do some superficial work. Liu Daxia believes that this is a way for Zhang Lian to show his outstanding political achievements.
Shortly afterwards, the people of Quanzhou "resist food" incident occurred. In his report to the court, Zhang Lian said that local people did not pay tax food and riots occurred. After the Quanzhou Prefect's Office sent people to suppress them in time, they killed the thief on the spot. The people had returned to normal, and the matter was revealed.
The court did not investigate it in detail because the case seemed to be very affected. There were many ethnic minority rebellions in Fujian, and the Ministry of War only treated the case as a general riot. Not only did it not pursue it, it also rewarded it.
But Liu Daxia felt that it was wrong.
Since the grain silos were filled after the autumn grain was put into storage last year, how could a grain resistance incident occur? And even if there are riots in the local area, it should be solved by the army. What power do you, as a prefect, have to send troops?
However, the matter has subsided, and Liu Daxia cannot go to Fujian to investigate in person. He cannot be publicized in other yamen matters. He happened to take advantage of Chen Xi to work in Fujian and sent Yu Niang to investigate the truth.
After hearing this, Chen Xi clicked out knowingly and asked, "What did Yu Niang find after she arrived in Quanzhou?"
Yu Niang said: "The grain silhouette in Quanzhou is indeed full, but this is an illusion made by local governments. Most of the grain is borrowed from merchants and gentry. When it is necessary to use grain, it will be collected from the grain trough. At other times, the surplus grain must be stored in the grain trough. Not only do the prefecture and county yamen intentionally conceal it, but even the inspectors and censors were bribed, intending to conceal the truth from the court."
"In the past two years, Quanzhou has suffered from hurricanes and locust plagues. The land was poor and the people were unable to pay enough taxes. They went to the government to reason, but they were beaten to death and injured more than 40 people. This case is the so-called 'fighting food'."
Chen Xi nodded. The case was not complicated. After all, Zhang Lian was in Quanzhou and wanted to make money and achieve political achievements. The so-called "upper and subordinates" were not delayed.
In the Ming Dynasty, such officials were not uncommon. Zhang Lian was not the only one, and there were countless similar stolen officials.
Chenxi sighed quietly, wasn’t the Ming Dynasty just destroyed after the disaster and kept the tax on "Liaobao" high?
Chen Xi thought to himself that since Yu Niang had investigated so clearly, she should report to her boss or take coercive measures against Zhang Lian. At the moment, Yu Niang was worried and unwilling to show only one problem.
Chen Xi asked, "Yu Niang, are you lacking evidence?"
Yu Niang was full of shame: "I know that I can't hide anything from Lord Shen. If you want to punish the criminals, the most important thing is to have someone to prove it. None of these slaves have any."
Chen Xi sighed lightly: "I'm afraid I can't do anything, I can only wish you good luck to you, Yu Niang."
Yu Niang was so angry that she was so angry that I would help you fight the Folang Jiren. You would give me such a perfunctory attitude?
"Mr. Shen won't want to leave, right?" Yu Niang asked with a frown.
"I can indeed stay, but Yu Niang thinks about it, what's the use of doing this? If I stay, Zhang Lian and the local officials will definitely be more careful to prevent other cases from being involved, but if I leave, they will relax their vigilance." Chen Xi paused and said, "In fact, to investigate and handle the food resistance case, you don't have to start with the case itself."
Yu Niang's frown did not relax: "If you don't start with the case, where do you come from?"
Chen Xi smiled and said, "As long as Zhang Lian fell, the broken things he did before will naturally come to light. Why bother with a case?"
I woke up Yu Niang with one word. Think about it carefully, isn’t it? This grain resistance case was just a matter of killing people in front of the people to collect grain. Now even the families of the deceased dare not stand up and testify. The case cannot be inserted into the needle and poured into the water, and it is in a dead end.
The case itself did not cause too much unrest, and the court could not send any major officials to help her, and the difficulty of investigating it will become increasingly difficult.
But if Zhang Lian was dismissed for other crimes, then along with the evil things Zhang Lian had done before would be involved.
This is the case when he is an official in the court. He has always been a typical example of integrity and integrity. That is because he has one hand to cover up the sky. Once something is revealed and confirmed, he will have no way to hide all the evil things he has done before.
Yu Niang said, "Does Lord Shen want to use the...Folang Jiren's affairs to defeat Prison Zhang?"
Chen Xi smiled slightly, neither admitting nor denying it.
This is the boundary of Quanzhou, and there are ears in the walls. I'm here to discuss how to defeat Zhang Lian. Isn't that equivalent to letting Zhang Lian take action first?
Even if Zhang Lian dares not attack him, the imperial envoy, he will be prepared as soon as possible, and the matter will still fail in the end!
"I understand."
Yu Niang said relievedly, "After Lord Shen leaves, my family will still stay in Quanzhou. I just hope that Lord Shen will have good news as soon as possible."
Chen Xigong bowed: "I hope so."
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ps: The fifth update is here!
Chapter completed!