Most of the common people living outside the city had never heard of the story of Magistrate Gou, and they were not deeply affected by the arrest of Zhang Chouqian. At most, they were just happy that the price of fertilizer had dropped.
But it’s different for ordinary people living in the city.
There were many literate people in the county, and many of them were willing to read stories to others, so almost everyone had heard the story of County Magistrate Gou.
In addition, even if they had not been bullied by Zhang Chouqian's people before, they were still afraid of Zhang Chouqian's subordinates of all kinds.
They were all very happy that County Magistrate Gou had eliminated Zhang Chouqian!
If anyone speaks ill of Magistrate Gou in front of them now, they will definitely beat him.
Judging from the accent of Magistrate Zhang, he is from another place.
In front of him, they would only speak well of County Magistrate Gou.
The old lady serving noodles said happily, "Old sir, we are so lucky to have met Magistrate Gou."
Before coming to Chongcheng County, Magistrate Zhang thought that the people of Chongcheng County would complain about Magistrate Gou.
The result... Everyone is praising it
Glancing at his chess friend, Magistrate Zhang asked again, "I heard that County Magistrate Gou is building a new wharf?"
The people in the noodle shop started talking at once: "Yes, our county is going to build a new dock!"
"I've long felt that the original pier was too small and crowded. It would be great to have a new pier!"
"The county magistrate is so considerate of us!"
…
Prefect Zhang was puzzled. Didn't Magistrate Gou waste a lot of money and effort to recruit a large number of laborers to build the wharf? Why were the people not opposed to this at all and even looked very happy
After thinking for a moment, Magistrate Zhang thought of a possibility.
Most of the conscripted laborers were poor people from the countryside. They were completely different from the people in the county who could eat in restaurants, so these people could not empathize with the laborers.
No matter what, he had to go to the dock and take a look.
Thinking of this, Prefect Zhang asked his chess friend, "Bohan, where did you learn about County Magistrate Gou building a wharf?"
Magistrate Zhang's chess friend, who was also Mr. Sun's good friend, was named Wang, with the courtesy name Bohan.
Wang Bohan was also a juren. After he passed the examination, he went to Beijing to take the imperial examination, but he failed the Jinshi examination twice, so he didn't take the examination again. He spent his days playing chess and playing the piano, and spent his days in leisure.
The Wang family has a lot of assets in Hexing Prefecture and can afford to support him.
He and Mr. Sun were classmates and had a good relationship. Mr. Sun had mentioned the affairs of Chongcheng County to him.
Although he knew that Mr. Sun had bad intentions in asking him to speak ill of Magistrate Gou in front of Prefect Zhang... but Mr. Sun was his good friend, so he had to mention it.
However, although he mentioned it, he did not intend to offend Magistrate Zhang on behalf of Mr. Sun.
Wang Bohan said, "Sir, I was a classmate of Mr. Sun from Chongcheng County. He mentioned this matter in a letter to me, so I told you about it. I don't know the details."
"I see... Let's go outside the city and take a look." said Magistrate Zhang.
After eating the noodles, Magistrate Zhang asked the boatman who brought them here to row the boat and take them to the dock outside the city.
There are about 100,000 people in Chongcheng County, and several thousand of them were recruited as laborers this time.
In addition, after some merchants in the city learned that a wharf was going to be built here, they managed to buy the surrounding land and build shops and houses here.