The bear child of the Red Chamber, Jia Cong

It is said that the King of Yan ordered General Li Guopei to suppress the bandits in Jiangxi. A grain guard came to Nanchang Mansion to collect grain, but found that the official warehouse was empty.Having no choice but to wait for the time being, the prefect Su Tao ordered people to go to the neighboring country of Wu to buy grain.Although he was idle, General Qi, the food security officer, also heard some rumors, saying that today the price of rice shops in the whole city has increased tenfold.Although General Qi ordered his soldiers to practice honestly, they were inevitably curious.

But at this moment someone came to report that a pawn and a scholar newly recruited by Su Tao came, and brought a group of yamen servants with them.General Qi rushed out to meet him.He recognized the pawn, and the two greeted each other with respect. The pawn pointed to the scholar and said, "This is Mr. Jia, our uncle's younger brother."

Jia Cong greeted General Qi with a smile and cupped his fists: "General Qi, there is something my brother would like to ask General Qi to help with, and that is about military rations."

General Qi saw him talking and laughing at Yan Yan, and knew it was a good thing. He said happily, "Master Su, please give me instructions." Then he led the two of them into the tent.

Seeing the three of them in the tent, Jia Cong said in a low voice: "General Qi must also know that Xie Jing, the former prefect, turned the entire Nanchang mansion into the back garden of their relatives and friends, and now he is working hard. Wanting to take Master Su off. Don’t blame him, who is willing to pay so much money? It’s just that no matter how capable he is, he can’t eat up all the rice shops in the city. In fact, he took advantage of his shortcomings. I secretly found my senior brother and surrendered. Originally, my senior brother was still thinking, at least for the sake of Dingchenghoufu's face, don't rush to kill them all. Who knows what happened today... General Qi, you have also seen that the price of rice has soared ten times Ah!" Jia Cong made a cross with two fingers crossed, and looked earnestly at General Qi, "But their family will kill my brother first?"

"Yes!" General Qi was overjoyed.I have never seen such a good-looking movie in Chinese New Year! "Master Xie is really too much. Being an official in the same dynasty, why is this so?"

Jia Cong cleared his throat and cupped his hands and said, "General Qi testifies. This matter is due to his inhumanity, not my brother's injustice. In the future, both the government and the public will have a fair opinion."

General Qi nodded again and again: "It's all Mr. Xie's fault, the final general can see clearly." The final general has to bother Mr. Su to give food and grass.

Jia Cong chuckled: "In Nanchang City, all the rice shop owners with big ideas came to find my senior brother to surrender. It's just that they really didn't dare to offend Xie Jing, and wanted to get an amnesty or something. My senior brother is a gentleman, so why not?" Will you give it? What if they do something heinous?"

General Qi hurriedly asked: "So how will Lord Su plan to deal with it?"

Jia Cong said in a low voice: "Lord Su really doesn't have many yamen servants at his disposal, so I have to ask General Qi for help. There are a few big families secretly selling grain to the government, but they dare not let others know. General Qi please Leading the soldiers to change into military uniforms, pretending to be ordinary cooks for labor, only saying that the general and I are merchants who came to buy grain from other places, and went to the warehouses of several large rice grain households to transport the grain to the official warehouse. We also pretended to be guests The merchant gave them silver bills, and both money and food were paid."

General Qi immediately beamed with a smile: "It's easy to say! People like me have nothing but strength!"

Jia Cong sighed: "If that's the case, my senior brother is still 1 unhappy. He said it was an upright thing, but he was sneaky. I said he was pedantic, and people had to bow their heads under the low eaves, right? , After all, the people are the most important thing. Now that the people can’t eat, why are they still entangled with those? Isn’t it? From the morning to the present, it’s almost the time of You, and he reluctantly agreed to see the people eating high-priced rice for a whole day.”

General Qi sighed: "Mr. Jia, I can't blame Mr. Su. Since he knew that those Mi Xings had committed illegal acts and could not be punished, and now he wants them to help the government to tide over the difficulties, it is as if he owes them a favor. Later If you want to enforce the law impartially, you will inevitably bear the infamy of a 'white-eyed wolf'."

Jia Cong sneered, "Where is this helping? It's clearly blackmail, okay? Do you still have to talk to swindlers? Who should talk to people who have nothing to eat?"

General Qi thought for a while, nodded and said: "Mr. Jia is right. Now that this is the case, I will order the soldiers to bury the pot and cook food. When they are full, they will change into casual clothes and transport the food?"

Jia Cong cupped his hands and said, "Please. It's just that there is so much food, I'm afraid it will take a whole night. Please work harder. Don't worry, each person will be subsidized by [-] yuan."

General Qi was shocked: "Five...five hundred yuan? I have 3000 people here!"

Jia Cong smiled and said: "Please divide the work and cooperate, and each of you will transport grain from different granaries to the official granary in order. My senior brother can still afford one or two thousand silver." He winked, "The general is naturally different."

General Qi was so happy that he jumped up, smiling like a black chrysanthemum on his dark face, and cupped his hands again and again: "It's easy to say, why don't you be polite, Mr. Su! It's just my military rations..."

"Send it to the official warehouse first, and I will trouble you brothers to work hard again in the future, and transport it from the official warehouse."

Things will be easy to handle later.General Qi first ordered the soldiers to have a full dinner, and then told everyone about today's errands. Finally, he said, "Master Su will give you five hundred qian per person for a hard night's work."The soldiers immediately roared like hungry wolves.After the meal, they rested for a while. Seeing the sun go down, they changed their military uniforms and pretended to be ordinary people. The 3000 people were divided into thirty groups, and each centurion led a hundred men, holding a list, and followed by a government servant who led the way.Mr. Su has prepared the grain truck. 3000 people held high torches and pushed carts to many granaries on the outskirts of the city.The name of the business was also hung on the grain truck, and General Qi was delighted to see it.The flag reads: Zixu County Wuzhi Rice Shop.

Soldiers from all walks of life followed the yamen servants to the granaries, and there were two men in servant clothes waiting for them.One has a straight back, a military look on his body, and military boots on his feet; the other looks like a scholar, wearing black double beam shoes, holding a book-sized square wooden board and a charcoal pencil in his hand.The two greeted the yamen servant who was leading the way first, which was obviously an agreement.The three of them discussed with the centurion how much rice in total, how much to transport each time, and how many times it would take to finish transporting, etc., and the soldiers began to carry.The heavy bag of rice got into the car, thinking that there would be a reward of [-] yuan tomorrow morning, everyone was full of energy.After two trips, the yamen servants at the official warehouse also prepared fresh rice and boiled water for them.Jia Cong smiled and patrolled around with his arms behind his back, aligned with the general and said, "The warehouse is filling up at a speed visible to the naked eye, thanks to the general!" General Qi also laughed and said, "Thanks to Master Su's reward." The two laughed in unison .

Before dawn, the official warehouses were full of rice bags, while many granaries that were originally full were empty.After the grain transport soldiers left, two "servants" somewhere opened a large granary. There was no grain in it, and all the people lying on the ground were tied up and gagged.The servant who looked like a soldier drew out his saber and stepped forward to break everyone's ropes.After everyone was relieved, they moved their limbs, took off the cloth scarves in their mouths, and stared at the two with wide eyes.

The servant who looked like a scholar said: "It's almost dawn, and the gate of the city will open soon." Then he took out a letter from his arms, "Here is our master, the owner of Wuzhi Mihang in Zixu County. The letter is for your boss. Who will deliver the letter?"

An old man stood up: "I'll go."

The scholar's family Ding handed the letter to him and said, "Don't worry, it will be delivered in the morning."

The old man's eyes were cloudy, and he asked, "Who is your boss?"

Ding, a scholar's family member, said: "Your boss will know after reading the letter. Anyway, our boss is the most reasonable. Buying wholesale things at retail prices costs a lot of money, and your boss only earns but not loses." The old man spat.The two servants clasped their fists together, turned around and withdrew.

The old man went out with the letter in hand, stumbled into an empty granary, touched the scattered rice particles on the ground, and cried loudly: "Bandit, robber——"

A middle-aged man came over to comfort him: "Father, don't you have a letter? Send it to the master."

The old man cried: "I don't have the face to see my boss..."

Another man said: "I heard those two people talking just now. The tall man said, why did you give them so much money; Let the family suffer."

The middle-aged man pointed to the writing channel: "Could it be a banknote here?"

The old man looked down at the letter in his hand, clenched his fists, and said for a while, "I'll send it to my master. It's up to my master to kill or scrape it!"

The middle-aged man said: "Our horses are still there, they only transported grain and left."

Trembling, the old man hid the letter in his pocket, looked up to see the dim light outside the door, turned around and walked out step by step.

When the old man and his son rushed to the city gate, it was not yet time to open the gate.But there were already seven or eight people waiting there.After careful identification, many of them were recognized—they were all guards and stewards, and their masters set up granaries in the east of the city.Seeing the old man coming, someone said, "Here comes another one!"

The old man hurriedly asked: "Could it be that you were also robbed?"

An acquaintance said: "Isn't it? Everyone was robbed by some Ushimi from Zixu County last night. How about you?"

The old man shouted, "So do we!"

Another said: "The robbers said they gave money, but they don't know if it's true or not." There was a lot of discussion.

During the conversation, two more came.The old man felt relieved when he saw so many people suffering.Not long after, the gate of the city opened wide, and everyone rushed in.

The old man led his son to rush to the host's house and knocked on the door, and called the host out of the concubine's bed, crying and telling what happened last night.In fact, they don't know much.It was just that he was suddenly attacked from behind, grabbed and thrown into an empty granary.The servant guarding the granary was arrested for more than half of the time, and the dogs outside started barking.Not long after, the entire granary was tied up.A man who looked like a servant said: "Our master wants to buy your master's grain, so we will pick it up right away. Don't worry, everyone, buy according to the market price, and save you the money for transporting the rice bags to the shop and the wages of the shop assistants." locked the door.After a long time, I heard wheels creaking outside, horses hooves crackling, and the horse neighing.Until it was about dawn, the people in the full warehouse were released, and the food was gone.

The owner was so startled that he couldn't move for a while.The old man sent a letter.The master's right hand was trembling with the letter cutter, and he couldn't open the envelope for a long time, so he ordered a maid beside him to open it for him.

I saw a letter and a piece of apricot red Xue Tao note inside.The letter reads: Now there is a Wuzhi rice shop in Zixu County, and I will buy some rice grain from you.According to the market price of how much a catty of rice is calculated, the total amount of silver.Please take the numbered note attached to this letter and the household registration certificate of the owner of the granary to withdraw money at the HSBC Bank on Zhuzi Street.The inscription is: nothing.Xue Tao wrote five large characters on the paper: No. [-].

The boss read the letters and notes over and over a dozen times, and laughed.He clapped the case and said: "It turns out that scholars are more ruthless, even more ruthless than philistines!"

The old man asked cautiously: "Boss, is this Wushi rice good?"

The owner smiled and said: "There is nothing. But they will give you the money. It's just..." After a long while, he let out a long sigh.Now that the new magistrate has been thoroughly offended, he still doesn't know what will happen in the future.

Dong Jiaqiang washed and changed his clothes vigorously, and went to Zhuzi Street with letters and paper.I saw that the signboard of a shop selling naughty instruments had been changed to "HSBC Bank", and there was a big sign standing at the door.It says: This bank has not yet officially opened.Today I temporarily received a payment business.Please bring the withdrawal number plate and identity certificate to the withdrawal window to queue up for withdrawal.

There are several rice shop owners around the door, and two young men are wiping the lattice door with wooden basins and rags.The owner stepped forward and asked, "Excuse me, brother, where is the withdrawal window?"

The little guy said: "It's inside. It's not the time yet, our bank doesn't open until six o'clock every day, please wait for the boss. We also have to clean the house, don't we?"

An owner next to him said anxiously: "Other shops are open for business, and you are only cleaning the house now, what are you doing?"

The boy said: "Our boss likes to sleep late." Everyone was dumbfounded.

Suddenly I heard someone beeping a gong at the other end of Zhuzi Street, and a group of yamen servants came bustlingly.The boys in this gang were all in high spirits, and the leader shouted loudly and loudly: "Fathers and folks, listen to the truth—the price of rice in the whole city rose for no reason yesterday, hurting the livelihood of ordinary people—the magistrate Su is worried about people's livelihood ——Specially open the official warehouse to release grain——If you want to buy cheap rice, just go to the official warehouse to buy rice—the price is the same as usual—”

I saw a girl dressed in men's clothing come out from the Xiaolongzhai at the intersection, and strolled slowly to the gate of HSBC Bank with her arms behind her back.Not long after she left the house, a young man came out from the opposite side of Jinxiu Mantang. Some people recognized it as Lao Yanhe, the young master of the Lao family, and followed behind him step by step.The girl saw him as soon as she turned around, and looked at him with a sweet smile.Lao Yan and his calf trembled slightly.

Lao Yanhe looked up at the signboard of HSBC Bank, and said, "Isn't this bank the one that was willing to lend to the buyer at the auction the day before yesterday?"

"That's right." The girl said crisply, "They are the most money-stricken banks in the world."

Lao Yan and Qi asked: "I don't know how the magistrate got the rice grain?"

"It's all about treating people in the same way." The girl smiled, "Is it still 'only the common people are allowed to set fires, and the state officials are not allowed to light lamps'?" Nai turned around and looked at the Mixing masters, and said softly , "The government is different from the common people. The government has 'soldiers' in its hands."