Love Affairs in Chang'an - Chapter 109

Chapter 109 Silk Stripping
“Your Highness is wise. Looks like this flood disaster is not just a natural disaster. There must be a man-made disaster among them.” Qin Mubai said, “Among the layers of fog and endpoints, the three most unfathomable are Zhu Chengwen’s death, the food problem, and where the flood went.”

“That’s right.” Li Ke said, “We will deal with it one by one, but we can only do it in secret. Therefore, I will continue to work with Cheng Songnian, Ma Kun and the others to fight the flood and appease the victims. You should secretly investigate these things. I suspect that there must be some secrets that shock us!”

“Alright, I’ll investigate!”

That night, Qin Mubai secretly ordered a few capable soldiers from Baiji to find the corpse of County Magistrate Zhu Chengwen and examine it carefully. The explanation given by Cheng Songnian and the others was that Zhu Chengwen had hanged himself in his own home. He was a southerner who had just assumed the post of county magistrate of Jishan County for less than half a year. He was a solitary official and lived alone in the county government’s official di li. After hanging himself, he left behind a confession of guilt.

Qin Mubai looked at the corpse and found that there were indeed strangulation marks on his neck and fractures on his bruised neck. On the surface, it looked like he was hanging himself to death. However, the congestion on his face was not serious. Moreover, Qin Mubai discovered that there was dead blood between his lips and nose. There was also blood stasis in his nose.

Qin Mubai’s heart lit up-it was obvious that Zhu Chengwen had been suffocated to death by someone covering his nose and mouth before the beam was suspended! After his death, he hung his corpse on the beam and acted as if he was hanging from a beam to commit suicide.

Qin Mubai looked at the suicide note again. Compared to the handwriting left behind by Zhu Chengwen, it was indeed very similar. The words in the suicide note were painful and painful, a sinful kiss that made him feel extremely guilty and ashamed of the emperor’s kindness. However, this stroke was written very neatly, and it was obvious that the person who wrote it was not the least bit excited.

May I ask, a person who is about to commit suicide knows that his mentality may be so stable?

There was no doubt that Zhu Chengwen had been killed by him because of the forgery of the suicide note!

Who’s the most suspicious? Why kill Zhu Chengwen?

Qin Mubai pondered this question over and over again. Thinking back to what the Emperor had said about allocating 50 million yuan to build the Jishan Dam, Ma Kun and the others throwing grain into the flood to build the dam, and denying the idea of plundering the grain of the common people-such a hypothesis and inference couldn’t help but arise in his heart.

Suppose that the imperial court had allocated funds to build the flood control levee, but this money was partly embezzled by people who cut corners, causing the flood control levee to be not strong enough, resulting in this flood disaster in late summer and early autumn. In that case, the Imperial Court would definitely send people to investigate.

The first target of this investigation was the county magistrate of Jishan County, Zhu Chengwen. He must be an insider. As a result, he was silenced.

Afterwards, they could only follow the direction of this sum of money and trace it. Afterwards, the entire Jiangzhou region could use grain to tell the story-the grain that was poured into the flood peak was all money! From this, they could infer that the entire Jiangzhou Prefecture was actually quite well prepared for flood control and fighting. The five thousand stones of grain that had been poured into the flood was worth ten million dollars!

Adding on the fact that the lake dike had already burst, there was nowhere to check the traces of the previous construction, and the county magistrate of Jishan County, Zhu Chengwen, who knew the inside story, had committed suicide again … Then, even if the Imperial Court suspected that someone was embezzling from it, it could still pour this basin of dirty water onto the dead Zhu Chengwen!

Moreover, he already had a “criminal record” of embezzlement. Metaphorically, the people and the officials of the secretariat had all accused him of forcibly chasing away the people in order to seize the opportunity to rob them of their property and food in order to make a fortune for the country.

What a perfect witness!

Thinking of all of this, Qin Mubai couldn’t help but laugh secretly, “How can there be traces of people leaving behind their voices and leaving behind traces of geese?” Without a doubt, this sudden flood had frightened some corrupt officials, exposing their fox tails. So they panicked and hurriedly found a loan to cover it up. Regardless of whether Zhu Chengwen was an honest official or a corrupt official, there was no doubt that he had been killed and silenced. Afterwards, this “disappearing” flood must still have a lot of things to do, and it was inevitable that it would wash away some other place, then build a dam, and then throw in grain. The rations lost by the army were plundered from the civilians who had been forced to migrate to fill the gap.

Once this small flood peak rushed to a certain place, the smaller the gap left by the corruption of the Corrupt Officials Group was. This dam was built to and fro, anyway, it was the money and rations of the common people, and the ones who suffered and lost their lives were only ordinary soldiers of the government. Afterwards, they can report disaster losses to the Imperial Court, request grants to help people rebuild their homes and so on. Over and over again, those world-greedy moths were like usurpers, hiding in the dark and making huge profits that were inhumane and difficult for the country to make money. In the end, they might even be rewarded by the Imperial Court for their ability to relieve the disaster!

If there really was such a person in the world … then he really deserved to die!

“It seems that no matter what era it is, there will always be some bureaucrats who have an ignorant conscience and are like beasts, drinking human blood and eating human flesh. They will be able to make such a fortune in their own pockets!” The more Qin Mubai thought about it, the angrier he became, and a blazing fire ignited in his heart.

If his deduction was correct, then this case was truly a rare official scandal and a shocking case in the Zhenguan Dynasty!

In Zhenguan Dynasty, Emperor Li Shimin paid the most attention to frugality and honesty, and practiced economy with his body as his responsibility. The overall atmosphere in the official circles was also very good. Although things like “there was no greed in the world” were a bit idealistic, the official atmosphere of the Zhenguan Dynasty and the sense of mission and responsibility of officials were commendable. From the prime minister to the ninth-grade officials, people like Wei Zheng, who were extremely impoverished, were very common. Moreover, this was not a simple show. Frugality and honesty had almost become the norm in the official circles of the Zhenguan Dynasty. Just like many other generations, the thought of someone being an official made people think that their family must be rich.

The current situation was that the moment he saw an official, especially a high-ranking official, most of his family was as poor as a baptism of water. It would still be a shameful thing if an official family were to pile up money. Therefore, the officials of the Great Tang generally looked down on the merchants, believing that they only knew how to pursue profits and did not respect their reputation.

However, there was never anything absolute in this world. Although the general atmosphere was so good, it was inevitable that there would be some black sheep in the crowd. The more Qin Mubai thought about it, the clearer it became. This time, the flood had not only destroyed the dam, it had also washed some of the greedy people out of the water.

It was very simple for him to confirm his guess. However, Qin Mubai did not rush to attack because the priority was still to resist the calamity and appease the people. Therefore, he was not in a hurry to tell Li Ke these deductions because there was still no evidence at the moment. It was better not to mislead him.

In the next few days, Qin Mubai assisted Li Ke and led Cheng Songnian, Ma Kun, and the others to reinforce the dam and settle the victims. Countless tents of money, cattle, sheep, livestock, seeds, mulberry weaving, and other goods were continuously shipped from all directions under the imperial court’s allocation. A batch of refugees from Jishan County also returned and settled down temporarily. After that, Li Ke and the others will help them rebuild their homes and recover their farmland.

At this time, Qin Mubai secretly searched and found another clue. After the last flood washed Jishan County, the flood peak was blocked and a large number of floodwaters rushed into the mountains, rivers and swamps. The nearby Jiangxian County immediately warned of an urgent flood. In an instant, the embankment over there collapsed. Another five to six thousand stones of grain were thrown into the flood. As if it had been concocted, more than ten thousand stones of military grain had disappeared!

At the same time, Qin Mubai went to the dam to inspect the grain bags used to throw the flood. He discovered that most of the bags were filled with Chen Mi. Some of them were even mildewed, which was several times cheaper than the high-grade white rice used by the Tang army! Just the price difference of more than ten thousand stones of rice was enough for many officials to earn a full cup.

Sure enough, it was like this.

The corrupt officials first embezzled the flood control funds allocated by the Imperial Court, and after the incident, they used these many methods to fill the gap. In addition, Zhu Chengwen was dead, the flood dike had been broken, and there was no evidence to prove it. Even if the Imperial Court wanted to investigate the corrupt officials, any dirty water could be spilled on Zhu Chengwen, making him a scapegoat.

So vicious!

In the next few days, Qin Mubai disguised herself and walked to the middle of the victims, secretly listening to them talk about Zhu Chengwen. The victims generally reported that although Zhu Chengwen had been in office for less than a year and his achievements were not very outstanding, he had never done anything bad. He wasn’t a very good official, but at least he wasn’t a corrupt official. Because he had been in Jishan County for half a year, he didn’t even take over his wife and children. Because he was afraid that his salary wouldn’t be enough to support him, he asked them to work as farmers and filial piety for their parents. He was usually very frugal, and occasionally used his spare money to buy books, never making friends outside.

Moreover, Qin Mubai had heard one thing from a government official in the county government. It was last year that Zhu Chengwen repeatedly requested the state capital to allocate funds to build the flood control levee. The state has not responded. One day, Zhu Chengwen was anxious and personally ran to the government office. When he came back, he was furious and was drunk for the first time. He locked himself up in his room and scolded him endlessly. Later on, there were rumors that Zhu Chengwen openly contradicted Shangguan. This official probably wouldn’t last long.

Zhu Chengwen was a little bit of a book businessman, even though he was resigning as a book xiushu. Seventh-grade county magistrates and prefectural yamen had the right to appoint and remove personnel, and they could only be approved by the Ministry of Officials afterwards. However, the officials of the secretariat rejected his resignation, and even personally persuaded him to be a good official and not use his righteousness. Regarding the construction of the flood control dam, due to the huge sum of money that the secretariat of the government was unable to allocate, it had already been reported to the imperial court waiting for good news.

Soon after, the Imperial Court had indeed allocated funds, and the flood control dam had indeed been built. But in less than three months, flooding broke out. Just as the flood broke out, Zhu Chengwen showed the county magistrate’s list, claiming that there were even more flood peaks, forcing the citizens of the city to flee immediately. And then he killed himself.

After hearing and seeing all of this, Qin Mubai thought to himself that Zhu Chengwen must have had a great connection with the Corrupt Officials Group. Either they were insiders who fought hard, or they were one of the participants. The reason why the people of the city were ordered to migrate was to allow the army to take advantage of the chaos to rob them of their food and property and use it to fill the huge gap left by corruption. As for whether this order was really given by him, it was doubtful. Can’t you forge another county magistrate’s notice if you can forge his will?

At the same time, Zhu Chengwen, the dead man, was also the best scapegoat. If they really found out that the corrupt officials could not deny it, they would definitely say that this was the money Zhu Chengwen had given to greed.

“This person, how could he be even more vicious and vicious than a flood beast?” Right now, Qin Mubai’s heart was cold and furious.