The pass in Dawanshansi is called Tiger Pass, because it is a crossing dug out of the rocks, with strange rocks on both sides, above the pass, and it seems that it can be crushed at any time, and it is extremely steep. Such a name.
The gate of Dawanshansi is located in such a position. Relying on the mountains on both sides, a three-door archway was built. After entering, there are left and right drum pavilions and left and right gates. In order to facilitate the passing of vehicles, the Yimen was not set up before. On the screen wall, only a flagpole six to seven feet high is erected on each side, followed by the first class, the health class, the warehouse for money, grain, merchants and taxes, etc.
The accounting room at Laohukou Queguan is also a huge one, with three lobby rooms in the middle, with plaques such as "Changing old evils" and "Integrity and honesty", and equipped with ear rooms, wing rooms, etc. At this time, in one of the side rooms, there was a brazier in the center of the room, and a pile of things was burning in the brazier. An old man in a green shirt was squatting beside him, throwing a book of accounts into it, and fiddled with it with a torch. Let it burn as fast as possible.
There was a man walking slowly beside the brazier, his robe reflected by the sparkling fire, it was the robe of a low-ranking miscellaneous official. There is only one real official here, and that is the tax ambassador. Man should be the tax collector here.
In the dimly lit room, his figure was projected onto the wall. The figure on the wall moved slowly, and his mouth opened and closed. Because of the magnified and distorted effect of the projection, it was like a monster opening its bloody mouth: "Burn it all! Burn it all! The other books must be perfect! There is already accurate news that Tongren Mansion has allowed him to cross the border to handle cases. Don't let him see the flaws!"
…
Ye Xiaotian successfully obtained the right to cross the border to handle cases. This is not necessarily because the prefect of Tongren Zhang opened the door for him because of their cheap teacher-student friendship, but because of the smuggling and trafficking, especially the large amount of smuggling of Burmese goods. The imperial court also put a lot of pressure on him in the matter of being an enemy.
It is undeniable that whether the government's decrees and guidelines can be implemented in Guizhou depends largely on these chieftains. However, although they have various thoughts and their own interests, they belong to the Ming Dynasty after all. .
Their petty actions are only to protect the interests of their own family as much as possible, rather than confronting the Ming court and deliberately plotting against the Ming court. From this point of view, in fact, the bigwigs in the court may not be more noble than them. Those officials who can climb to high positions step by step have formed a huge interest group behind them.
It's just that the interest groups formed around these high-level officials gather and disperse, and it takes only a few decades at most from formation to extinction, and a new interest group is re-formed, which is not as long and stable as these chieftain families in Guizhou.
In this case, under the severe reprimand of the court, Zhang Zhifu had to express something in order to have an explanation to the court. In this way, it was logical for him to agree to Huxian's request. Both Huxian County and Dawanshan Division are under the jurisdiction of Zhang Duo, the local magistrate. He is just an edict, and this problem is solved.
Huazhi County received Zhang Duo's letter and immediately handed it over to Ye Xiaotian. Ye Xiaotian had already prepared for it. Once he received the letter, he immediately set out on the road.
Ye Xiaotian brought all capable people with him on this trip, except for the two tax officials of the tax department, namely Hua Yunfei, Ma Hui, Xu Haoran and others, and Zhou Bantou stayed in Huxian County, because there were also many taxpayers at the checkpoint. There must be a shrewd, capable and loyal person guarding, otherwise, even if a problem is found here, all the stolen goods have been sold out there, and there will be no evidence.
In addition to these few subordinates, Ye Xiaotian also recruited some people from Luo Ligao's carriage and horse dealership to investigate things on the post road. The person who climbed up to Luo Ligao's position as the chief steward of the chariot and horses, there are very few joints on the post road that he doesn't understand.
In addition, there is a mighty "old army". These old people are all the accountants of the gentry's homes in Hu County. I'm afraid they can't do so many things with just a few people in the government. Besides, since Ye Xiaotian suspects that there are smugglers in the government, how dare he use them.
And these accountants come from various families, and they are all private accountants of the gentry in Huxian County. As a matter of fact, with him alone, he can never cover the sky with one hand.
It's just that most of these accountants are old and old, they can't ride a horse, and they can't walk, so they are sent by car. When they arrived at Moon Bay, they fell behind Ye Xiaotian and others.
When the post road was excavated to Moon Bay, I wanted to go around the lake, but it would take seven or eight miles to go around, and the end is endless mountains and mountains. It is ten times more difficult to open a road than to take a ferry. Mrs. Shexiang was eager to build a post road to show her loyalty to Zhu Yuanzhang, so the ferry was used in this section.
Nowadays, wharves have been built on both sides of Moon Bay, and there are large flat-bottomed boats that carry horses and goods. Because of the special terrain here, it is difficult for vehicles loaded with goods to drive directly onto the deck, so a large number of people gather here to load and unload goods for passing merchants. , or lift the car onto the boat. The people around work as boatmen and laborers, relying on this Moon Bay to support countless people.
The accountants waited for the ferry with their people and cars, and it was not convenient for Ye Xiaotian and others to lead the horses to board the boat. Ye Xiaotian rushed to the Tiger Pass without waiting for them. When the three big characters "Tiger Pass" appeared on the stone wall of the pass, I saw the ambassador of the Tariff Division of Dawanshan Division waiting there with a few chief officers. In terms of class, Ye Xiaotian is the county magistrate, and his position is far above it, so he needs to be welcomed.
Ye Xiaotian reined in his mount, and the ambassador of the Tariff Section immediately led his people to greet him, and saluted Ye Xiaotian with his arms crossed: "Pang Shaojun, the ambassador of the Tiger Tariff Section of the Dawanshan Division, has met Ye County Chancellor of Huxian County."
"Oh! Grand Ambassador?"
Ye Xiaotian glanced at him in surprise, then turned over and got off the horse. As soon as he moved, more than ten riders behind him got off the horse one by one.
Ye Xiaotian was surprised by Pang Shaojun's name. The current emperor Wanli's name is Zhu Yijun, so the word "Yijun" is taboo. Before Wanli ascended the throne, it was in his name, so after Wanli ascended the throne, he should change it. word, or omit the word.
Fortunately, today's name is not Zhu Yitian, otherwise Ye Xiaotian would have to change to Ye Xiaodi or Ye Xiaoxiao. Fortunately, he was not born in the Zhengde Dynasty. When Liu Jin was in power in the Zhengde Dynasty, he asked for an order to forbid the people of the world to use Tian and other characters as their names. As a result, Fang Tianyu, the doctor at that time, changed his name to Fang Yu, and Liu Tianhe, the censor, changed his name to Liu. And, when Liu Jin collapsed, this ridiculous order was revoked.
However, the taboo of avoiding the name of the current emperor has always been passed down, and this huge envoy... If this kind of thing happened in the Central Plains, it would never happen. That is to say, the emperor is far away from Tiangao, and he is the tax ambassador appointed by Tuzhi County himself, so no one pays attention to him.
Ye Xiaotian is not a censor, so naturally he is too lazy to pay attention to this matter, but because of this matter, he is more aware that in this kind of place, the deterrence of the imperial power and the court is often difficult to adapt to the place. To do things in this kind of place, he must have his own If he blindly copy the methods he learned from those Beijing officials who were imprisoned in the prison, sometimes he will hit a snag.
"Ambassador Pang Da, please be polite, be polite!"
Ye Xiaotian helped Pang Shaojun up with a laugh, and said with a smile, "I'm really sorry, Ambassador Pang. Recently, a large number of private goods from Burma have flowed into the Central Plains. The imperial court has repeatedly ordered strict investigations. It's a pity that Hu County is stuck at the exit of the post road. So I have been reprimanded repeatedly, saying that I can't do my duty. I have no choice but to check up and down thoroughly, but I can't find anything special. I came to your tiger pass today just to do as much as possible. The higher-ups asked If you take the responsibility, you will have an explanation."
Pang Shaojun was in his early forties, with a slender pumpkin face and two beards. Hearing what Ye Xiaotian said, Pang Shaojun smiled and said: "You are welcome, Ye County Prime Minister. Since there is an order from Tongren Mansion, the next official should do his best. Cooperate. It's just that the lower officials asked themselves that their predecessors were diligent and fulfilled their duties. Ye Xiancheng couldn't find anything in Guixian County. When he came to our Dawanshan Division, hehe... "
Ye Xiaotian didn't know that Dawan Shansi had received the news long before Tongren Mansion authorized it. However, he still understood Ambassador Pang's attitude. If it was him, officials in other counties would not be able to solve the case. After being reprimanded by their superiors, they went to their own jurisdiction to find fault with themselves, and he would not have a good face.
So Ye Xiaotian, who has always had a donkey temper, smiled this time with a good temper, and didn't think he was disobedient, and said: "There is a big ambassador, please lead the way."
Envoy Pang Da calmly led Ye Xiaotian and his party into the pass, where the tax bureau chiefs were busy at the pass. There are three gates, the one on the left is for wagons coming from the south, the one on the right is for wagons going south from the north, and the one in the middle is the road for travelers who do not carry large quantities of goods.
There are rejecting horses in front of the left and right gates, and the head officer inspects the goods one by one. There is a desk next to the door, and a secretary sits behind him. He listens to the type and quantity of the goods reported by the head officer, and registers them one by one. Abacus, calculate the amount of tax that should be paid and record it later.
The inspector pressed the knife, walked around with eyes fixed on his eyebrows, and inspected the inspection site, and the door in the middle was full of travelers and peddlers, and most of them had only one burden on them, so the secretary of this door only recorded the number of people passing by. There is a tax on the head, and of course, the packages they carry are also inspected.
Searching, supervision, accounting, collection, tax bills, and stamping of customs seals on road guides, the whole process is orderly, although because of the arrival of Ye Xiaotian and his party, there must be elements of deliberate drama , It can also be seen that the management of Tiger Pass is not bad at ordinary times, otherwise even if it is pretended, it will not be so orderly.
Ye Xiaotian and his group walked and watched, nodding frequently. Although Ambassador Pang Da was not very friendly to them, seeing their expressions, he couldn't help feeling a little complacent.
Envoy Pang Da led Ye Xiaotian into the pass, and said to Ye Xiaotian: "Ye Xiancheng, do you want to take a rest first, drink some hot tea, and talk about the audit later."
Ye Xiaotian smiled, and said: "No, let's ask Ambassador Pang Da to take us to the accounting room first, after receiving the accounting books for the past five years."
"Alright, my lord, this way please!"
Envoy Pang Da smiled and led Ye Xiaotian and his party to the accounting room without being polite.
"Open the door wide!"
Ambassador Pang Da pointed to a tall door and said that an accountant stepped forward to unlock the door, and when he pulled the door, there was a "crash", and the account books piled inside poured out like quicksand, burying both of his thighs . Ambassador Pang Da pointed to the full account books in the warehouse and smiled at Ye Xiaotian: "My lord, this is the account book for the goods of merchants from the north and the south that I have closed for the past five years."
Envoy Pang Da smiled and said: "The same goes for the two rooms on the right, you check slowly, after checking this room, it will not be too late to check the other two rooms!"
Su Xuntian looked at the piled up and messy account books, and said dumbfounded: "My God, there are so many!"
Ye Xiaotian was also taken aback. Although he had expected it, he didn't expect there to be so many, but in front of the ambassador, Ye Xiaotian didn't change his face, and smiled peacefully: "How? You know now, this Why did the officer bring so many accountants?"
Su Xuntian and the others said in unison: "My lord is my lord, wise! Wise!"