Urban Sims

Chapter 134

"The empress of heaven has a decree. Tian Zihua, a famous scholar in Qingzhou, has outstanding talents and knowledge, and has strong knowledge... His characteristics are that he serves the country. He is appointed as the county magistrate of Wanxian County. He will take office immediately and cannot refuse!"

The eunuch's high-pitched voice, after reading out the imperial decree, Zhou Ming couldn't laugh or cry, with a helpless expression on his face.

I thought that he could comfortably build his reputation in this imperial capital for a while, but in the end, only a month later, the unreasonable decree came. Judging from the tone of the above, if he does not go to take office in Wanxian County If the order is issued, I am afraid that he will be punished and punished for the crime of "resisting the order and disrespecting the order".

Might even drop your head.

"The evil society ruled by man, how can there be any personal will in front of the monarchy? Absolute freedom can only be exchanged with the head."

Zhou Ming complained in his heart, knowing that he would never be able to disobey the decree issued by Wu Mei's order. If he offends a woman, especially a powerful and narrow-minded woman, no matter who it is, he will die miserably.

"Brother Zihua, just go, a small county magistrate, it won't bother you. Wouldn't it be nice to show off your true talents and make everyone admire you?"

Many friends also suggested that Zhou Ming become an official, to show off his political skills, and to shut up those who questioned him behind his back.

Zhou Ming thought about it, it would be good to be an official for a while, the so-called unity of knowledge and action, doing some practical achievements for others to see, can also improve his image in people's hearts again.

Of course, he won't roll around in the officialdom all the time, otherwise he will only get deeper and deeper, unable to extricate himself, and in a year or two at most, he will find a way to get out of the whole body.

However, after looking up some information and learning some details about Wan County, Zhou Ming frowned, and went to the palace to meet the Holy Spirit that day, and made a request in front of the Queen of Heaven, Wu Mei:
"If Caomin is to be appointed magistrate of Nawan County, Caomin needs a promise from the imperial court."

"What promise?" Wu Mei asked, frowning.

"Promise to act cheaply, no matter what the grassroots do, after taking office, as long as the grassroots do not dereliction of duty, do not violate the law, do not take bribes, or neglect their duties...the grassroots shall not be thrown into prison or sentenced to death...Otherwise, the grassroots will never agree. The magistrate of Wan County!"

Zhou Ming got straight to the point.

"Can!"

Tianhou Wu Mei frowned for a while, thought about it, and agreed to the request.

Because officials who are able to avoid dereliction of duty and law, corruption, bribery, and dereliction of duty are basically honest and good officials. If such officials are punished with a death penalty, this court may have become hopelessly corrupt.

Therefore, Wu Mei felt a little angry that Tian Zihua didn't trust the imperial court so much.

Zhou Ming heaved a sigh of relief after receiving the verbal assurance from the Queen of Heaven, Wu Mei. Three days later, he took a group of people to Wan County, [-] miles west of the imperial capital, to take up his post.

……

Wan County, in the lobby of the county government.

Wearing a black gauze hat and a seventh-grade brown official robe with a pine and crane painted on the chest, he was sitting on the main seat in the lobby, playing with the token in his hand... Zhou Ming, who was deep in thought, knew that Wu Mei, the queen of heaven, had given him a big prize. problem.

A big problem for an official.

Where is Wan County?
It is a place close to the power centers such as Bianzhou, the county city, and Luojing, the imperial capital. It is the place where officials are least willing to take office since ancient times.

Because here in Wan County, not only are there many aristocratic families and powerful families, but there are also countless people with profound backgrounds living here.There are dozens of royal family and nobles who are entrusted here.

To describe it in one sentence: here in Wan County, small flies and big tigers are everywhere. Even an ordinary old man on the street may be the father of a high-ranking official. The butler who works.

Therefore, in Wan County, where there are as many dignitaries as dogs, the county magistrate is not even a kitten, and few people buy the account of the county magistrate. I have to help cover the lid and make big things small, so as not to lose my black hat after things become big.

In the archives of the Wanxian county government, Zhou Ming saw that there were piles of unjust and wrong cases piled up on the file racks. He browsed through a few files at random, and the facts of the cases recorded on them were shocking. , happened vividly in front of my eyes, making people angry.

The results of the judgments recorded in these dossiers are not that justice is upheld and evil is severely punished, but on the contrary, it is that the cries of the common people are more miserable and the arrogance of the powerful is more arrogant.

It can be said that the people of Wanxian live in a place of dire straits; the dignitaries of Wanxian live in heaven.

How to relieve the people from hanging upside down, uphold justice, and at the same time restrict and suppress the powerful, so that they abide by the law and discipline, has become a big problem before Zhou Ming.

"The management of a city, from ancient times to the present, is nothing more than security, sanitation, market, legal system, culture and education, and taxation... But this era is still an era of rule of man. It is impossible to achieve the rule of law. Start with the easy ones and then the difficult ones, start with public security, sanitation, markets, etc., and then consider other things after you have achieved results."

a few days later.

Zhou Ming, who formulated a "Public Security Management Regulations", asked people to invite the most important dignitaries and gentry in Wanxian County to the county government, and held a meeting, saying that Wanxian's public security was chaotic, and criminal gangs who cheated at the gates were even worse. Many, there are still many human trafficking phenomena. He just took office and wants to improve the public security situation in Wan County. He hopes to get the understanding and support of the gentry...

Zhou Ming's proposal has won the support of the vast majority of people. The public security situation in Wan County is really bad now. Even the children of wealthy families have been kidnapped by human traffickers. If the security situation that has deteriorated to the extreme is not improved, Even the rich and powerful in this county live in fear.

In the next three months, Zhou Ming paid high salaries and recruited [-] strong government servants. After a week of training, a vigorous "strike hard" campaign was launched in Wan County. Scoundrels, thieves, liars, and human traffickers all became the targets of arrest... thousands of people were arrested, and some of the most heinous criminals were sentenced to death after a public trial, and all others were sent to labor camps for labor education.

In Wan County, where almost all criminals have been arrested, the law and order situation has quickly been greatly reversed, and the county is full of praise.

Even the lackeys who help the evildoers and help the rich and wealthy in doing bad things on weekdays have been blamed by Zhou Ming. Dozens of them were executed in public trials, and the common people were relieved.

The muddy legs of the dignitaries have been cut off, and the unjust and wrongly decided cases that have happened to the common people have naturally decreased a lot in the past few months.

After basically solving the security problem, Zhou Ming set up the Urban Management Bureau, recruited a group of urban management personnel, and was responsible for improving the appearance of the county, and formulated the "Health Regulations" and "Traffic Rules".

The main content of the "Health Regulations" is to require people to pay attention to hygiene, not to defecate or spit at will, each house should clean the door of each house, garbage should be thrown into special trash cans, and people should go to public toilets and excrement. Centralized treatment, establishment of public bathhouses, persuading people to develop the habit of frequent bathing, etc.

The "Traffic Rules" is aimed at the large population of Wanxian County, narrow streets, dense traffic, disorderly movement of people, animals, and vehicles, and frequent congestion. , people walk on the sidewalk, crossroads, set up traffic control personnel and red and green signs" and other behavioral norms.

When these codes of conduct were first implemented, there was great resistance, and the government officials received a large number of fines for those who broke the red card every day.

However, Zhou Ming and others were under tremendous pressure. After more than a month of strict implementation, the advantages of the "Traffic Rules" finally emerged. up.

Even the imperial capital, which was plagued by traffic congestion, sent officials to check on the situation in Wan County.

Not long after, the "Traffic Rules" that had hardly been revised in the capital city of Luojing were officially implemented in the capital city, and then spread throughout the world.

In addition, Zhou Ming also rectified the market, standardized commercial activities, went to the countryside in person, guided agricultural production, promoted new farm tools to farmers, and provided interest-free loans so that poor farmers can use new farm tools with higher farming efficiency, no matter how cheap they are. Leasing livestock to them, and repaying the loan after the autumn harvest... With various measures, Wanxian's agricultural output in that year has increased by 12%.

Zhou Ming has made brilliant achievements in public security, transportation, health, agriculture, and commerce. But in this era, the most important thing is not GDP, but culture and education.

If he has not achieved significant achievements in culture and education, he will still not be able to get the upper evaluation in the performance evaluation.

Zhou Ming had to pay for it himself, and then appealed for donations from the upper class, and built eight "Hope Primary Schools", each of which can accommodate 200 school-age children, and a considerable part of the tuition fees was also exempted.

As long as these eight Hope Primary Schools continue to operate for ten years, the illiteracy rate in Wan County can be reduced to an astonishing 90% or less. It can be said that the illiteracy rate is second only to Tianjiazhuang in Haiping County.

but……

In the end, Zhou Ming only served as county magistrate for less than a year, and let him resign in front of the queen Wu Mei. It was the legal system construction. He offended too many powerful people.

It's not that Zhou Ming's ability to judge cases is not good. On the contrary, during his 355 days as the magistrate of Wanxian County, he judged cases impartially, impartially and honestly, presided over justice for 337 victims, and solved 28 murder cases with sufficient evidence. It became an iron case.

One of the strange cases called "87 Missing Girls" was also a major case that shocked the whole country after he led his team to investigate non-stop for more than a month.

In this strange case, Zhou Ming offended a monstrous dignitary that he could not afford to offend.

Because this dignitary is Wu Mei's nephew Wu Sansi.

Wu Sansi is greedy, lustful, cruel and perverted, he is the chief culprit in Wan County's "87 Girls Disappearance Case", he ordered people to kidnap these girls from rich families, and after they were kidnapped to the mansion, they raped them day and night and got tired of playing with them Then kill them all!When Zhou Ming led people to find all the girls' bones, he became furious and called out a hundred warriors, intending to kill Zhou Ming and others.
After these warriors were all killed by Li Dazui, and Wu Sansi himself was kicked and broken by Zhou Ming, he captured him, presented conclusive evidence, and brought him to the Queen of Heaven, Wu Mei, and gave her two choices:

"If you kill Wu Sansi, Zihua is willing to continue to benefit the people of Dazhou; if you don't kill him, Zihua will resign and be an idler in a prosperous age."

Wu Mei's mouth moved, but in the end she just ordered someone to punish Wu Sansi, ordering him to close the door and think about his mistakes.

Since then, Zhou Ming has regained his freedom.

(End of this chapter)