Chapter 106: Tea Garden 2/2

Whether it was Magistrate Gou or Li Qingzhi, they both knew that they couldn’t hide from the people of Linhu County, and they didn’t really intend to hide.

Magistrate Gou immediately stepped forward with a smile, chatted with the person, and then went to see Magistrate Yan.

Magistrate Yan was planning to go to Chongcheng County tomorrow to investigate the false accusations against Magistrate Gou by Hong Hui, and today, he hosted a banquet for Magistrate Gou.

Magistrate Yan was a slender middle-aged man; like Magistrate Gou, he was also a Jinshi scholar. However, he had no background at home, so he had always served as a magistrate in a poor county before coming to Linhu County due to his outstanding performance.

Like Chongcheng County, Linhu County was a wealthy county town. Being a magistrate in Linhu County was a good position.

However, Magistrate Yan seemed to be doing poorly. The feast he prepared for Magistrate Gou was not lavish, and during the meal, he complained about the local bureaucrats of Linhu County.

“These people deceive and oppress others and have done many wicked deeds. Not long ago, the county scribe colluded with others and drove a merchant in the county to ruin. Unfortunately, I have no evidence…” Magistrate Yan almost shed tears as he spoke.

Magistrate Gou had also been ostracized by local gentry and bureaucrats before, so he suddenly felt sympathy and joined Magistrate Yan in cursing those bureaucrats.

Li Qingzhi: “…”

Having lived in the post-apocalyptic era, he could easily sense others’ emotions, which could be considered his ability to judge people.

Zhu Qian and Magistrate Gou couldn’t be considered completely good people, but they weren’t necessarily bad either, which might not be the case for Magistrate Yan.

Magistrate Gou probably wouldn’t find much in this investigation; he still had to rely on Magistrate Zhang.

The next day, Magistrate Yan set off for Chongcheng County, while Magistrate Gou started investigating the tea garden’s insect disaster in Linhu County.

The tea produced in Linhu County was white tea, one of the top ten famous teas in Daqi, and it was currently the tea-picking season.

Magistrate Gou took Li Qingzhi and others to the tea garden. Although they didn’t see any signs of insect infestation, the tea trees were not growing well, and the tea farmers were extremely impoverished.

When Magistrate Gou arrived, some of the tea farmers rushed up to him, crying and complaining that the bureaucrats had been overtaxing them on tea, making their lives unbearable.

Upon hearing this, Magistrate Gou became furious and immediately started defending the people’s grievances.

At the same time, on the boat heading to Chongcheng County, Magistrate Yan said to the people around him, “The governance of Linhu County is in chaos. Let that guy named Gou handle it. I’ve found several victims to sue him. That should keep him busy.”

Magistrate Yan’s steward said, “He cares about his reputation. We can just ruin his reputation. But we should be most careful of Magistrate Zhang.”

“But isn’t Magistrate Zhang concerned about his reputation too? In his early years, he competed with the former king, and later, he targeted Lu Qingxi everywhere, all for the sake of ‘integrity and honesty’. I heard he even went to watch the play praising his integrity,” Magistrate Yan said.

“That’s true.” Magistrate Yan’s steward smiled.

Magistrate Yan was actually the king of Jin.

Originally serving as a magistrate in a poor county, Magistrate Yan’s life was extremely difficult. He couldn’t even come up with the money to give gifts to superiors and had to borrow money to buy them.

By a stroke of luck, he got connected with King Jin’s faction and was transferred to Linhu County, where he had some money at his disposal.

The old lady in Prince Jin’s household hailed from Linhu County, and her maternal relatives still had some properties there.

In Linhu County, vast, fertile land and excellent tea gardens belonged to them.

Magistrate Yan reported the disaster in the tea gardens to allow them to earn more money, but he didn’t expect Magistrate Zhang to specially assign someone to investigate the matter.

Fortunately, covering up the tea garden disaster wasn’t too difficult, and the ordinary tea farmers in Linhu County indeed lived a hard life.

Maybe Magistrate Gou could even help him clean up those unruly, rebellious officials in Linhu County!

As Li Qingzhi had guessed, Magistrate Gou didn’t find anything in Linhu County.

Although Jin Xiaoye hid iron pieces in his shoes, apart from making his shoes heavier and indirectly helping him exercise, it didn’t serve any purpose.

The quarry was in a secluded place, and Magistrate Gou didn’t even get close to it.

But Magistrate Gou did crack down severely on the subordinate officials in Linhu County.

These subordinate officials were truly outrageous, committing countless acts of oppression against the people!

Li Qingzhi followed Magistrate Gou closely, helping him with the trials while learning from him, making his days very fulfilling.

Besides, he also learned quite a lot of things. For example, the mother of the current King Jin hails from Linhu County.

No wonder King Jin had a quarry here!

Li Qingzhi wanted to go to the quarry, but considering his safety, he didn’t dare act rashly.

However… Magistrate Zhang should have taken some action by now.

Indeed, Magistrate Zhang had taken action.

Magistrate Gou was really impressive!

Although he wasn’t the magistrate of Linhu County, after arriving there, he seamlessly integrated into the community and began to defend the grievances of the people of Linhu County. As a result, many people’s attention shifted to him.

As a result, Magistrate Zhang investigated the situation in Linhu County thoroughly.

Just as the letter said, King Jin employed many people to mine Lihu Stone in Linhu County to make huge profits.

What’s even more frightening is that, to mine more stones, the people from Jin’s household didn’t hesitate to buy and sell people!

There were also many other matters regarding the maternal relatives of Prince Jin’s mother.

Nowadays, among the concubines and royal consorts in the palace, many were selected from the common people through talent selection. The old queen of Jin’s household came from an ordinary peasant family in Linhu County. After she rose to power, her maternal relatives took advantage of her influence and acquired large swathes of fertile land in Linhu County.

What’s more terrifying is that none of these lands paid taxes!

These lands didn’t pay taxes, but the grain tax in Linhu County couldn’t be reduced, so ordinary people had to pay more taxes, which forced them to sell their land when they couldn’t afford it. And when they sold the land, it ultimately ended up in the hands of the maternal relatives of the old queen of Jin’s household.

With the maternal relatives of the old queen acquiring more land, the taxes imposed on the common people increased even more…

Moreover, the matter of King Jin hiring people to dig Lihu Stone resulted in numerous deaths of young and strong individuals.

Some bureaucrats even fabricated charges to frame young adults and then sold them to the management of Jin’s household!

And it wasn’t just young and strong individuals who were bought and sold.

The people of Linhu County were forced to sell their children. Those girls with good looks were all bought by people from Jin’s household!

Magistrate Zhang was horrified when he uncovered this matter.

If Linhu County was like this, were other places the same?

During the later period of the previous dynasty, the people were struggling to survive because the lands were all in the hands of the powerful. If Daqi didn’t pay attention, it would sooner or later follow in the footsteps of the previous dynasty.

Magistrate Zhang had previously been exiled because of King Jin, but after careful consideration, he decided to impeach Prince Jin again.

He would wait until after the provincial examination… so he could gather more evidence.

While Linhu County was in turmoil, the people in Chongcheng County were living their lives as usual.

The matter of Magistrate Yan coming to investigate in Chongcheng County didn’t attract much attention.

As for Jin Xiaoye… She was extremely busy these days.

She was trying to quickly produce the goods requested by Wu Baichuan and also trying not to think about Li Qingzhi.

When Li Qingzhi was around, she occasionally found him too clingy, which affected her work. But now that Li Qingzhi wasn’t there, she found herself missing him a bit.

Just as she was thinking about Li Qingzhi, a girl from Miaoqian Village suddenly came to find Jin Xiaoye. “Shopkeeper, Mao’er has diarrhea that won’t stop. Should we take her to see a doctor?”

“What’s wrong?” Jin Xiaoye asked hurriedly.

The girl explained the situation.

Among them, the youngest was Jin Mao’er, and ever since she came to the county town, she had been having diarrhea.

It wasn’t just her; two other girls from extremely poor families were also suffering from the same problem. They hadn’t eaten much meat before and couldn’t handle it when they suddenly started eating it. It had been several days, and the other two had already recovered, but Jin Mao’er…

When she came to the county town the day before, Jin Xiaoye had given her some eggs, but she had been reluctant to eat them. After a few days, afraid they would go bad, she finally took them out to eat, but… They were indeed spoiled.

Jin Mao’er had kept the eggs close to her body, and the warm eggs had spoiled quickly.

The eggs were already rotten, but Jin Mao’er couldn’t bear to throw them away and ended up eating them. Now she couldn’t even stand up because of the diarrhea!