It was only when Fang Fengsheng went back to his room and saw Zhichun that he realized what Fan Jinchuan was up to today.
But she didn't take it seriously, who knew that Fan Jinchuan came to him early the next morning, saying that the autumn tax was being collected below, and the county government was short of manpower, so Fang Fengsheng was asked to go to the countryside with him to inspect various places.
Feng Sheng did not refuse.
Fan Jinchuan took Xiao Qi, Feng Sheng took Uncle Yu, and two yamen servants, a group of six left the county yamen.
There are dense waterways in Taizhou, so they take the boat first, and then change cars when they arrive at the place.
Sitting in the boat, I saw salt boats coming and going along the way, and from time to time there were boats from the inspection department stopping passing ships for random inspection.
Because of Gou Qing, Fang Fengsheng is quite well-known in the inspection department now. When they saw her in the boat, the people in the inspection department waved her away and said that they must not let the boss know, otherwise they would have to strip her. own skin.
Fang Fengsheng shook his fan and smiled, but Fan Jinchuan's face turned dark for some reason.
"My dear brother, let's play chess."
There is still half a day to go before the destination, and Fan Jinchuan has already set up the chessboard.
Feng Sheng came to the low table and sat down, one person held white, the other held black, and the two of them came and went, playing chess.
"Xiandi is not young anymore, I wonder if there is a marriage in the family?"
Feng Sheng is nineteen this year, and he said the same to Fan Jinchuan. Men and women get married early in Dazhou, and there is no marriage at nineteen. Even for a man, it is a bit late.
"No." After a pause, Feng Sheng said without raising his head, "Brother Fan is married?"
Neither did Fan Jinchuan, who was still twenty-three years old.
"A man should start a career first and then start a family. How can he start a family before he has a career?"
"I think so too."
This sentence directly made Fan Jinchuan speechless.
"Actually, it's not that my brother is unmarried. My mother arranged a marriage for me in the countryside. It's just that I am busy with affairs, and there is an old man in the woman's family who needs to be filial, so it has been delayed until now. The elders in the brother's family are just Not in a hurry?"
"I have no elders in my family."
Fan Jinchuan was very surprised and said ashamedly: "I never thought of mentioning the sad things about my virtuous brother."
Feng Sheng put down a white stone, and said flatly: "Birth, old age, sickness and death are human nature."
Having said that, it is natural that we can't continue, and Fan Jinchuan is not in the mood to persuade Brother Xian to 'return to the right path' for the time being.
When it was almost noon, we finally arrived at a pier.
This seems to be a port specially used to stop ships and turn around. The shore is very lively, and there are bamboo sheds stationed by the inspection department. There are several boats parked on the shore, including civilian boats and salt boats. In fact, there is not much difference between local civilian boats and salt boats. The difference is that the salt boats have flags.
This flag is one-off, and it is issued when the salt ship leaves the salt field, with the word "salt" written on it. There are other imprints on the flag. Fang Fengsheng observed that most of the salt boats traveling to Taiba had five marks, indicating that the salt boat had passed five checkpoints from the salt field to Taiba.
This port seems to be one of the checkpoints.
A group of people went ashore, and one of the yamen servants went to find a car, while Fan Jinchuan and others stood on the shore and waited.
In the bamboo shed of the inspection department, a few ordinary soldiers of the inspection department stood outside the shed, watching passers-by. In the shed, three men in short brown clothes were talking to one of the leaders. The little leader was impatient until one of them stuffed him with a bag and he weighed it in his hand before nodding in satisfaction and waving started.
Not long after, a few men hurried out and boarded the boat, and the boat sailed away slowly, but there was a mark on the flag.
Fan Jinchuan was stunned: "They are negligent of their duties, they didn't see the spot check, so why did they pass the card." As he said that, he wanted to go to the bamboo shed, but was held back by Fang Fengsheng.
"Perhaps before we arrived, their boat had already been randomly inspected?" Feng Sheng guessed.
"But those people just now are obviously giving money to that person!"
"If you are not in your position, you will not seek your own government. To catch thieves is to take stolen goods and to catch rapes. Even if it is money, others have already collected it. Are you going to search them? Besides, the inspection department is set up separately and is not under the jurisdiction of the local government. .”
The yamen servant who stayed with him said: "Your Excellency, there is no need to be surprised. Although this kind of thing has not passed the clear road in Taizhou, it has almost passed the clear road. As the saying goes, the king of Hades is easy to deal with little ghosts, and this boat of salt It was transported from the saltworks, with so many checkpoints, you need to be filial everywhere, so as not to cause trouble. The salt merchants are not short of money, and they don’t care about it.”
"So let them eat the card?"
The yamen servant smiled dryly and didn't speak, but his expression couldn't hide his envy. I'm afraid he wished he could become a member of the inspection department.
"It's no wonder that the Lianghuai Salt Administration has reported that the official salt is unsalable for several years. Why is it unsalable? The salt price is too high. These high salt prices are probably tribute to these silverfish."
Feng Sheng looked at Fan Jinchuan in surprise, she didn't expect him to know this, she thought he really didn't eat the grains of the world. Even she knew some details about it, but after she came to Taizhou, she came to inquire about it.
She couldn't help thinking of what she had been wondering before, why Fan Jinchuan was sent to a place like Taizhou.
The Da Zhou generals ruled the prefectures, states and counties, etc., and divided them into four levels, which were replaced by Chong, Fan, Tien, and Difficult. Among them, frequent traffic is called rushing, numerous local government affairs are called complicated, too much tax and food overdue is called fatigue, customs are impure, and too many criminal cases are called difficulty.
And Taizhou occupies exactly three places, which are complicated, tired and difficult. It stands to reason that a person who has no experience as a local official should not be allowed to sit in such a position, but he was allowed to come.
Could it be that Fan Jinchuan was sent here as a metaphor, perhaps because His Majesty had long been dissatisfied with the chaos of the Lianghuai Salt Administration? Could be other reasons too
But no matter what the reason was, Fang Fengsheng was a little excited.
Without him, his father's case has already been closed, and all parties are taboo. She once wanted to investigate from the root cause, it was always simpler, but when she came, she realized that she had no suitable entry point at all.
This is also the reason why she went to make friends with Gouqing. She thought that she could always find out some news, but it was obvious that Gouqing was not a vegetarian, and she didn't know anything except some superficial things.
The car has come.
Feng Sheng pulled Fan Jinchuan: "Brother Fan, it's useless to be filled with righteous indignation over this matter, it's getting late, let's hurry up and leave."
Only then did Fan Jinchuan hold back his anger and got into the car.
Due to the lack of manpower in the government offices of the prefectures and counties, each county has a grain chief to be responsible for the collection of taxes and grain.
Generally, the head of grain is held by large households with a lot of fields and a large amount of grain in various regions. Ordinary small farmers do not have the strength to be responsible for the collection and escort of tax and grain.
Taizhou is a land with a large area of jurisdiction and scattered farmland. It has Hai'an, Anxiang, Qintong, Ganggang, Jiangyan, Doumen, Fancha and other towns under its jurisdiction. This time Fan Jinchuan and his party came to Hai'an Town, which is also the town of Taizhou Next is a more important town.
Hai'an Town is very lively. It is different from ordinary small towns. It is probably a place where several salt farms stop and turn around. There are many restaurants, tea shops, and inns in the town.
The group traveled lightly and found a restaurant for dinner.
After dinner, we drove to Zhennan.
The Song family, who is in charge of the area around Hai'an, is ten miles south of the town.
Every time when the grain tax is collected, the grain chief will notify the local Lizheng in advance, and Lizheng will inform the villagers again. Generally, there is a designated time and place for paying the grain tax. Needless to say, the location is in the big drying yard in front of Song's house, and the time is three days.
Although the three days are short, it is enough for the nearby farmers to bring in grain to pay taxes, but it is a bit more compact. Generally, the tax payment days are almost from morning to night, without sleep. Some farmers queue up in the morning. It will be my turn in the afternoon.
When Fan Jinchuan and his party arrived, the big drying yard in front of Song's house was busy. Many ox carts and donkey carts were parked, and some homes had no cars, so the men picked them up with picks.
They got out of the car early and walked in, because they were all wearing ordinary people's clothes, so they didn't attract attention.
"How much more can you add this time?"
A farmer seemed to have paid his tax, so he came out, and several people immediately surrounded him to inquire.
The man made a gesture, and the men around him immediately clicked their tongues.
One of the old men suppressed his voice and said: "It's not bad. It is said that a new lord has come to the county. The new lord loves the people. It is estimated that the Song family is afraid of causing trouble. This year is much less than last year. In previous years, at least much more out this amount."
A young man scolded: "We farm the land exhaustingly, and we lose eight petals for a drop of sweat. They are good people, and they will shave a layer if they don't do anything."
"Let's say a few words, who told you that you are not the head of grain. If you were the head of grain, you would be a master and do nothing, just sit there and stare at others to pay the grain." Someone joked.
Naturally, Fan Jinchuan and others heard this. Fan Jinchuan was about to ask, but was pulled by Fang Fengsheng, and the two of them moved forward and came to the front of the crowd.
On the open space, there was a long table with pens, ink, paper and inkstones on it. Behind the table was a chair, on which sat a middle-aged man in a satin gown.
A few people stood around the long strip table, in front of them were buckets, dendrobiums and other utensils for counting grain, and two farmers in coarse cloth and short brown were pouring into the dendrobium under the supervision of the people next to them. food.
This dendrobium is shaped like a wine cup, with a small mouth and a large bottom. There are five dou and one dendrobium, and ten dou and one stone. Due to the large number of tax-paying farmers, it is impossible for all of them to be weighed, so it is very cheap to measure by Douhu.
The food has already been filled with Dendrobium, but the supervisor next to him is still talking and continuing until the pile is like a spike. Originally thought that this would be the end, but this person lifted the hem of his robe, stepped back a few steps, and with a sound of "Hey", his big foot had already kicked on the dendrobium.
With the impact of gravity, the sharp grains collapsed visible to the naked eye, and a lot of grains were shaken out of the hubi and fell to the ground. No one went to pick up the grain on the ground, so the old farmer asked his son to open the grain bag and continue pouring grain into the dendrobium until it was piled up again.
"Go over there and draw a bet!"
As for the members of the Song family, four people were assigned to carry the piled dendrobium to the side for bagging, and another person was assigned to clean up the grain that fell on the ground. The four people in charge of bagging first smoothed out the grain at the top of the pile with a copper ruler. The grain that was wiped off was handled by someone, and it was packed with the grain that had been cleaned from the ground and put aside. home income.
"What are they doing? This is obviously making farmers pay more taxes and pocketing their own pockets!" Fan Jinchuan was shocked.
"This is called kicking dendrobium. It is reported that the work of kicking dendrobium is impossible for ordinary people, and it takes years of practice to accomplish it. Kicking dendrobium is to make the food more tightly packed. As for the drenching tip, adults have also seen it." Fang Fengsheng explained.
Fan Jinchuan looked furious, pushed aside the people in front, wanted to go that way, but was grabbed by Feng Sheng, and pulled out of the crowd.
"what are you doing?"
"This kind of silverfish that exploits the people in public cannot be used as an example if it is not dealt with."
"Come on, don't make any more trouble," Feng Sheng pulled him, and said in a low voice, "I checked with my eyes that these two farmers paid a total of three shi in tax and grain, and the extra grain was about three buckets. The grain was unpacked The bags are worn out, and the Song family cannot afford this loss, as well as the manpower and material resources on the way to escort, as well as the benefits paid to various places, just like the few people discussed just now, this time the Song family is lenient."
"Searching people's wealth in public, can you still be said to be lenient?"
"Although I don't like this kind of thing, but there is no way to avoid it. If you want people to work, don't you want to benefit people? Unless the tax collection is all done by the county government, but even if the county The people in the yamen do it all by themselves, and it is very difficult for you to avoid this kind of thing from happening. Can you watch all the places in person? Can you guarantee the tax and food escort by yourself? Can you turn yourself into a hundred people? No! So as long as you don’t When the water is clear, there will be no fish.”
"This is a bad government. Why did Brother Fang Xian say it so indifferently?"
"You also said that it is a bad government. It's like what we all knew on the way we came before. Why no one cares about it, because we can't manage it!"
"I can't control everyone, I can at least control myself, as long as I can see it, I will control it!" As he said, Fan Jinchuan walked into the crowd again, and because of his yelling, everyone in the crowd had already There was a commotion.
Fang Fengsheng didn't know what to say other than scolding the nerd helplessly, and then followed into the crowd.
…
Because of Fan Jinchuan's appearance, the subsequent grain collection became very embarrassing.
With such a black-faced evil star sitting here, who would dare to kick Hu Linjian again, unless the feet are no longer wanted. Master Song couldn't stop cursing secretly in his heart, but he had to coax him with a smile on his face.
This embarrassment lasted until the afternoon, and there was a commotion in the crowd.