such as Yue Linyuan

Five years ago, there was a drought in Shaanxi.At that time, due to the severe drought, countless people starved to death. The hungry people had nothing to eat, so they had to peel the bark and cook it. In the end, they even cut up the corpses of the dead and cooked them. Later, the plague was caused because of the cannibalism; The memorials reporting the disaster situation and requesting disaster relief were sent up one after another, filling Si Yuanting's desk.

At that time, Si Yuanting attached great importance to the severe drought. However, Chu Yuezhi was still fighting in the frontier at that time. It is even more difficult to send food to disaster relief.What's more, looking at the court, Si Yuanting couldn't find a suitable candidate for disaster relief. Needless to say, the Six Departments, and Jiuqing hadn't fully mastered it yet.Si Yuanting was anxious for many days and couldn't find a solution. Finally, Xu Jingfan, the chief assistant of the cabinet, stood up and said that in the face of the national crisis, it might be possible to follow Zhang Yanghao's strategy and ask wealthy businessmen from all over the country to donate food in exchange for official positions.

There are too many loopholes to take advantage of in the decree of paying food and supplementing officials, and a little carelessness may lead to malpractice.However, at that time, Si Yuanting really had nothing to do, so after thinking twice, he agreed to Xu Jingfan's advice and asked rich people from all over the country to pay for officials, but at the same time, he also imposed certain restrictions on donating officials.

First of all, anyone who pays for the official position is not allowed to hold a position in the six ministries; secondly, the highest can only be a fifth-rank official, and cannot be a person with a heavy responsibility; finally, it is not allowed to hold a teaching position, and rich people from wealthy families are not allowed to teach and educate people .

And the standard of food relief is also set higher. Those who donate 150 silver or [-] stones of rice can get a ninth-rank official; One hundred or one thousand stones per meter, should be used first in the form of eight-grade pens; donate more than two thousand five hundred or two thousand stones per meter, and can be exchanged for the titles and titles bestowed by the imperial court on himself and his family members.

After the promulgation of the decree, it is true that wealthy businessmen in many places paid for food and supplemented officials. In order to prevent relief officials from all over the country from embezzling and detaining and misappropriating relief funds in the name of disaster relief, so that the victims could not receive relief funds in time and aggravate the disaster, Si Yuanting also ordered , All the books of relief and donation bureaus in various places must be reported, and all official positions sold during disaster relief must also be clearly recorded in black and white and submitted for review.Anyone found engaging in malpractice for personal gain will be sent to serve in the military, and those with serious circumstances will be sent to prison and wait for execution after autumn.

The food relief decree enacted by Si Yuanting did, to a certain extent, control the situation of malpractice and ease the disaster. However, Xu Jingfan, who first proposed to pay food to supplement officials, took advantage of it.

Wang Shizhi, a rice merchant in the capital who had close contacts with Xu Jingfan, made great efforts in donating grain. He not only donated 10 taels of silver, but also opened a rice warehouse for a long time. Si Sicheng, from the sixth grade.After that, the son of Wang Shizhi recommended talents, and the person he recommended won the official position and then let the people below buy the official position. In this way, Xu Jingfan opened up a "official road" controlled by him in the thirteen provinces from the capital city down. ", this entire "official road" was formed by buying officials, and Xu Jingfan even made more than 500 million taels of money through this.

Under the order of Chu Yuezhi, the Metropolitan Procuratorate investigated Xu Jingfan and found Wang Shizhi. All the rice lines in Wang Shizhi's hands were thoroughly investigated, and all the account books were confiscated. After the problem was found, Wang Shizhi When Zhizhi was arrested, his son had no choice but to hand over the "payment of grain and supplementary officials" secretly produced by Wang Shizhi, as well as the account books of buying officials in various provinces and places over the years, in order to save his life.

As soon as the account book was handed over, the Metropolitan Procuratorate reported it back to Chu Yuezhi. Chu Yuezhi was furious immediately, and decreed that all the officials in this whole "official way" should be dismissed and thrown into prison for disposal.

A total of 89 people were sent to prison in the blink of an eye.

Chu Yuezhi was very angry, but he couldn't deal with Xu Jingfan directly, so he issued an order to summon him to the palace for an audience.

Xu Jingfan never expected that he would be exposed one day. When he was led into the palace by Wang Zhong, the first thing he saw were a few large boxes opened, which were full of account books.He knelt down on the spot, kowtowed heavily to Chu Yuezhi who was sitting on the throne, and cried out in an extremely mournful voice: "Your Majesty...!"

Chu Yuezhi suppressed the anger that made him scratch his heart and lungs, looked at Xu Jingfan coldly, and said: "Xu Ge is old, I'm afraid I won't be able to afford such a great gift."

As soon as Xu Jingfan heard this, he knew that he could not escape, he raised his head and said: "Your Majesty, the old minister was deceived by the traitor and made a big mistake..."

"Okay!" Chu Yuezhi raised his voice impatiently and interrupted Xu Jingfan's words, and asked: "These account books involve several people, and there are five years of account books, and they can't be found through investigation. Such a horrific case of corruption of ink, what should I do?" I would like to ask Elder Xu Ge, how should we settle this case and give an explanation to the world?"

Hearing Chu Yuezhi's question, Xu Jingfan couldn't be sure what Chu Yuezhi meant for a while, his thoughts changed, and he hurriedly said: "The old minister thinks that everyone involved in this account should be investigated immediately, and the money that was corrupted should be dealt with." Pay it all back."

"All the people here are officials bought with money. In the past few years, a lot of them have been greedy. These people are not only greedy, but also rely on their own people to protect them. They have done great things in the capital and even the thirteen provinces. Less evil, Xu Ge thinks that it is enough just to recover the money?" Chu Yuezhi got up and walked to the big boxes containing the account books, covered one of the boxes heavily with his hands, and made a loud "bang" in the hall. Chu Yuezhi stared at Xu Jingfan who was trembling all over, and said: "Corruption and bribery, officials and officials protect each other, Mr. Xu Ge, do you think your name is in these books?"

Xu Jingfan didn't need to think about it, since Wang Shizhi dared to make account books without telling him, it was necessary to rely on these account books to save his life at critical moments. Since it was to save his life, naturally he would not be so kind to take him out.In these account books, I am afraid that not only his name, but also the names of his son and even other members of the Xu family who entered the court and became officials.But when Chu Yuezhi asked him like this at this moment, he really couldn't figure out whether Chu Yuezhi wanted to kill him or had other plans.

Cold sweat broke out on his forehead, Xu Jingfan said tremblingly: "Your Majesty, I don't know."

"I don't know." Chu Yuezhi repeated Xu Jingfan's words, then walked to another box, took an account book at random, threw it directly in front of Xu Jingfan, and said, "Since you don't know, then look through it yourself and look at it. Do you have Elder Xu Ge's name?"

Xu Jingfan's heart turned cold all of a sudden, and he hesitated to reach out to pick up the account book thrown in front of him. He first looked up at Chu Yuezhi, and seeing that Chu Yuezhi's face was still expressionless, he looked down at his hands again. Going to the account book, but he was pinching the cover page, and his hand shook for a long time but he couldn't open the cover page.

Chu Yuezhi obviously didn't have that much patience and didn't have so much time to wait for him, so he said directly: "If Mr. Xu Ge doesn't open it again, I will order someone to take Mr. Xu Ge away."

Taking away can be taken out of the palace and sent back to the mansion, or taken to a prison, where to take it all depends on Xu Jingfan himself.

Xu Jingfan understood Chu Yuezhi's implication, gritted his teeth, and bravely opened the account book.

However, to his surprise, his name was not on the account book.

Hastily turned over ten more pages of the account book, only to find that not only did his name not appear on it, but the rest of the Xu family did not appear on it either.Xu Jingfan was taken aback, looked up at Chu Yuezhi again, and said, "Return to Your Majesty, there is no veteran's name on it."

"Then Xu Ge thinks, how should this case be settled?" Chu Yuezhi asked again.

Xu Jingfan closed the account book and replied: "The people implicated in the account book should not only pursue the money of corruption, but also thoroughly investigate all the crimes they committed in the past few years, and severely punish them according to the laws of the Daheng Kingdom."

Chu Yuezhi nodded slightly, and said again: "Now the national treasury is empty, and Shanhaiguan has been hit by war again this time, and the household department is under great pressure. I'm afraid it's not enough to just go after the people in this account book. Elder Xu Ge, do you have any ideas?"

Xu Jingfan knew that the absence of their Xu family in this account book was obviously Chu Yuezhi's intention, but although Chu Yuezhi wanted to protect him, it did not mean that he could escape unscathed.At this time, Chu Yuezhi mentioned the battle between the treasury and Shanhaiguan. No matter how dull he was, he knew what Chu Yuezhi meant, so he said: "The old minister is willing to donate his family property to make up for the loss of the treasury."

Chu Yuezhi closed the second box, then lifted the hem of his robe, sat directly on the box, and said to Xu Jingfan, "It's not necessary to donate all the family property, after all, the Xu family is not small, so it can't just fall down like this. Yi In my opinion, Elder Xu Ge just donated 800 million taels of silver casually, how about it?"

When Xu Jingfan heard it, his eyes really turned black. The 800 million taels of silver was far beyond the money he had been greedy for these years. Chu Yuezhi said that he didn't need him to donate all his property, but in fact he wanted to He took it all out!

However, until now, there was no room for him to say no. If he wanted to save his life, he could only agree to keep the Xu family.

Bending down and kowtowing, Xu Jingfan said: "The old minister obeys the order."

Chu Yuezhi held the broken jade tied around his waist to play with, looked at Xu Jingfan and asked, "Old Xu Ge, I summoned you alone today, do you understand what that means?"

Summoned alone, and the Xu family was erased from the account book, Xu Jingfan prostrated on the ground and said loudly: "Old minister, thank your majesty for your kindness."

"Don't be in a hurry to thank you." Chu Yuezhi said, he went around in this big circle, and finally said the last thing, "Although I ordered to reorganize the cabinet, judging from the current situation, it will be too late at any time." I can't finish the investigation. The imperial court is employing people, and Mr. Xu Ge must have been well versed in the way of recommendation over the years, why don't you recommend another person for me and all the ministers tomorrow morning."

Xu Jingfan raised his head, but saw Chu Yuezhi staring at him with a sinking face, exuding an irresistible majesty from his body, and said in a flat and slow voice: "The chief assistant is important, and those who can live in it. Si Yuan, the son of Chongde, the former Minister of Rites, Ting, who has endured injustice and humiliation, has been in the court for many years and has always upheld justice and loyalty to the Daheng Kingdom. This time he led the troops to Shanhaiguan to make a great contribution, and he is the best candidate for the next chief assistant."