I have a book to play

A ray of morning glow rose from the east, and the first snow in Baoying's four-year winter gradually melted against the light of the sky.There is a thin layer of frost on the side of the car, which is crystal clear, and it turns into water droplets in the morning light, dripping down bit by bit.

Wolfberry shrunk his neck, raised his hand to touch the collar of the collar that was wet with frost dripping on the back of his neck, and let out a sigh: "Qilang, there is a fork in the road ahead, where should we go?"

Sun Peng lifted the curtain of the car and looked out. The carriage stopped in front of a three-way intersection.

He glanced around and pointed to the road with the most ruts on one side: "This way."

"What should I do if I go wrong?" Wolfberry asked.

The handlebar whip whipped the hips of the horse, and without waiting for Sun Peng to answer, he took over the words and said, "You can't be wrong. Your husband is going to the south of the Yangtze River, and this one is going to Jinling County. Jinling is a big county in the south of the Yangtze River, with a lot of grain. You can't go wrong going here."

Sun Peng is the supervisory censor of Jiangnan Dongdao.Jiangnan Dongdao governs [-] prefectures and counties, and has [-] counties under its jurisdiction.Jinling County is just one of the hundreds of counties in the East of Jiangnan.

It's just that Jinling has beautiful mountains and rivers, and there are many fields, so it produces a lot of grain, and it is very famous in the south of the Yangtze River.

Since we are going to the south of the Yangtze River, it is not a problem to go to Jinling first.

Sun Peng put down the curtain and sat back in the car. Just as he turned his head, a cup of hot tea was handed to him.

He took the tea, looked at the white-clothed monk who brought the tea, and squinted his eyes slightly as if he was very comfortable by the warmth of his palm.

When they left Beijing, it was the time when autumn was strong, with red leaves covering the ground and chrysanthemums blooming.Along the way, but I don't know what kind of mistake happened, the weather changed suddenly.

Suddenly, the heavy rain made it difficult for the carriage to move, and suddenly the government declared that the green forest robbed the road, so they had to change their way.

After such a delay, it took more than ten days until now, before the horses and horses stepped into the boundary of Jiangnan Dongdao without stopping.

However, before that, the group of six had spent the days of the end of autumn and the beginning of winter in a daze. When I woke up this morning, the first snow in Baoying's fourth year of winter had already fallen silently all night.

The carriage is not closed, and when it shakes a little, cold wind will pour in through the curtains.Sun Peng's robe was blown by the wind, even though he was wearing a crane cloak, he still felt extremely cold in his bones.

Xie Chen was still wearing the same monk clothes, and he didn't seem to feel cold at all.He took a sip of tea, heard Sun Peng's gasp, looked up at him, and put his hand on the back of Sun Peng's hand in a casual manner: "Why are you still so cold?"

"Huh?" Sun Peng's heart trembled, and he almost withdrew his hand, "Oh, I was seriously ill when I fell into the water before, and after waking up, my health is not very good, and I am especially afraid of the cold."

Xie Chen frowned.

The inn where they stayed last night was dilapidated, and there were only two rooms that could be vacated.Naturally, he and Sun Peng slept on the same couch, and when they got up early in the morning, they could clearly see that Sun Peng was wearing quite a lot under his cloak.

Even so, the back of the hand under the palm was still cold, clearly impeded by blood.

"The cold in the south of the Yangtze River is not better than that in the capital city. It is the most uncomfortable when it is wet and cold. However, it will be warmer than the capital city when the spring begins. It is better to take advantage of the time when you are in the south of the Yangtze River and take good care of your body." Xie Chen narrowed his eyes and moved up and down He looked at Sun Peng calmly, "Qilang is too thin, he should take good care of him."

Sun Peng smiled very helpfully: "Everyone says that the scenery in the south of the Yangtze River is good. I am also looking forward to the early spring, and I want to see the beautiful scenery in the south of the Yangtze River with peach blossoms, willows and greenery."

At this moment, they can still talk about other things, they have nothing to do, and they can even move out the chessboard and hold a pot to play chess.But after a while, the speed of the carriage gradually slowed down, and there were even strange sounds drifting in from the window.

The road is not wrong, but the situation is not right.

When the carriage had to stop, Goji yelled through the curtain: "Qilang, look outside..."

Sun Peng had seen beggars, and when his aunts and women in the capital set up huts to give out porridge, he had seen some refugees who had left their homes due to natural disasters, but he had never seen a scene like this before.

They were all yellow and emaciated people, men, women, old and young, lying or leaning on them, with sad expressions, and some were even almost numb.Many of them are ragged, and what's more, they don't even have any clothes that can cover their bodies.

As for food, those children who were held in someone's arms, who were as thin as a kitten, and whose cries sounded very weak, were the best illustrations.

There are even people with pale skin lying on the side of the road, the blue blood vessels under the skin are clearly visible, the ribs are clearly visible, and the flat belly has lost even its ups and downs, obviously dead for a while.

Everyone said that Jiangnan was good, but these people in front of him made Sun Peng unable to help asking himself what is so good about Jiangnan.

"Master... are you an adult?"

At some point, a few children approached the carriage.Gouqi was about to jump out of the carriage and drive the children away with others, when Sun Peng suddenly said, "Goji, wait a minute."

Seeing that the goji berries stopped chasing the children away, Sun Peng turned around and grabbed the dry food bag.Before the outstretched hand touched the thing, Xie Chen had already grabbed the bag, got out of the carriage from beside him, and looked at those skinny children together.

"My lord has some dry food here, but if you want dry food, you need to answer a few questions from us." Xie Chen said, shaking the dry food bag in his hand.

Sun Peng was a little surprised, but quickly realized his intentions.

These refugees have been around for a long time, but there is news of a large number of refugees in some places in the south of the Yangtze River, and the court is not aware of it.There must be something weird here.

One piece of dry food was exchanged for one question. After all, those children were younger and not very vigilant. Knowing that answering questions would give them food, they opened their eyes wide and stared at Xie Chen and Sun Peng impatiently.

"Where are you from?"

"We are from Ganyang. Well, that little brother is said to be from Jinling."

Ganyang and Jinling are both under the jurisdiction of Changzhou and are not far apart.Sun Peng's heart trembled, and he secretly wrote it down.

Xie Chen asked again: "Why did you leave your hometown?"

Looking enviously at his partner, the child who was devouring the dry food, he said honestly: "From the beginning of the year, there has been no rain in Changzhou for a generation. In autumn, there was a plague of locusts. All the farms in the field were destroyed. There was no food to eat, so everyone had to leave hometown."

"Didn't the state capital save the famine?"

The child shook his head: "There is no food, I can only eat bark, and I can only drink water when I am hungry."

Children's vigilance is not high, and they can ask what they want to know with a few pieces of dry food.Why did the governor of Changzhou not immediately carry out famine relief, and why did the eastern states of the south of the Yangtze River not report the news of the famine to the imperial court? It is absolutely impossible to get accurate answers to these questions just by asking children or refugees.

Sun Peng gave the last few pieces of dry food in his hand to the children. Seeing that the child carefully hid the dry food in his arms, turned around and ran towards his family, he couldn't help but sighed: "The dog eats people and doesn't know it." I'm afraid there's going to be a big accident in Jiangnan Dongdao, the state capital of Changzhou."

Sun Peng murmured, shook his head, turned and went back to the car.

Although Gou Qi is a servant, but when he entered the Sun Mansion, his life was much more comfortable than those of the refugees before him. Seeing this scene now, the sad thing in his heart is that the carriage started again, and he couldn't help turning his head to look at it from time to time. the back of the car.

When the carriage continued to meet new refugees along the way, he finally couldn't help but shed tears.

"Shichiro, they are so pitiful."

"En." Hearing the voice of wolfberry outside the carriage, Sun Peng responded in a low voice.

"Can Shichiro help them?"

"You won't know until you've met the county magistrate of Jinling." Sun Peng closed his eyes. "Now, it's hard to say anything."

The carriage went all the way to Jinling, although there was a fork in the road this time, no matter whether it was Sun Peng or Gouqi, they all directly ordered the handlebars to go in the direction of Jinling.

Before arriving at the Jinling official post, Xie Chen had already briefly analyzed many situations in Changzhou and Jinling.

Before Sun Peng left Beijing, although Mrs. Sun personally taught him about the customs and customs of various places in the south of the Yangtze River, he also heard a lot of news about the officialdom in the south of the Yangtze River.But he doesn't think too much about what he hears. Before seeing it himself, Sun Peng hopes to know more about some things.Xie Chen, who was once the prince, has played a very good role as a gentleman at this time.

Changzhou is located on a plain, where rice is the main crop.Among them, the place where Changzhou produces the most grain is in Jinling County.

Jinling is cooked, and the world is full.

This is the emotion expressed by the first emperor when he saw the rice in the Jinling Mausoleum on his southern tour.But today, the food in Jinling can't achieve a good harvest, and the people even have to be displaced. What about the places outside Jinling?

Drought, locust plague, famine, none of these three incidents in Jinling County have ever appeared in the court, which is enough to show that some people do not want the situation in Jinling to be known by Emperor Xihe.

Who will this person be?

"The current governor of Changzhou is surnamed Ren, and his name is Cuiyuan. He is Yifeng's five-year Tanhua, and Shangshu Lingwang's disciple."

The food in the official post is not bad, but based on what I saw and heard along the way, the food here is a little too rich.Holding the chopsticks, Sun Peng looked at the dishes on this table, feeling a little overwhelmed, but at this moment, he heard Xie Chen's straightforward words.

"Did Qilang notice any merchants and pedestrians along the way?"

Surprised, Sun Peng turned to look at the wolfberry.The latter looked blank, thought carefully and shook his head: "Qilang, I really haven't seen any merchants this way!"

Sun Peng was a little surprised when he heard this: "How come..."

Xie Chen just smiled: "The situation in Jinling is probably more serious than you and I imagined."

Sun Peng's expression was complicated, and he couldn't hold the chopsticks in his hand, so he simply put them down: "Goji, go ask the people nearby and see if you can ask anything."

Wolfberry responded, and after eating, he went downstairs to find the postman to make friends with.

In fact, there is no need for Gou Qi to ask, he went out of Beijing as a supervisory censor, and although he never released any news along the way, whenever he stopped at the official post, there would always be local officials approaching quietly.

However, the group of them had settled in the Jinling official post for more than two hours, but they had never seen anyone else except the post officer, not even the master book or county lieutenant of Jinling County.

In the empty official post, apart from the elderly post officer, not even a ghost can be seen.

Sun Peng's expression didn't change at all, but he already understood in his heart that either the county government didn't take him seriously as a supervisory censor, or something happened to the county government, and there was no time to take care of them.

Sure enough, when Gou Qi came back from downstairs, he opened his mouth and told the news that Sun Peng had already guessed——

Something happened to the county government of Jinling County.