jdhmnovel Chapter 297 The First Case Among the Four Major Cases of the Hongwu Era!
Chapter 297 The First Case Among the Four Major Cases of the Hongwu Era!
From the very first day he set foot in Zhaoyuan County, Yang Shaofeng had been burning with rage.
I arrived in Jinan Prefecture on the seventh day of the second lunar month, and also left Jinan Prefecture on the same day. By the time I reached Zhaoyuan County, it was already the seventeenth day of the second lunar month. The journey took about ten days in total.
If we calculate based on the start of spring plowing on the day of the Dragon Raising its Head on the second day of the second lunar month, then by the seventeenth day of the second lunar month, spring plowing should have been underway for half a month.
Even if the people of Zhaoyuan County don't have cattle or horses, and even if several households in different villages and communities in Zhaoyuan County still share a single plowshare, they should have plowed up some land in half a month, right?
Unfortunately, no.
Before arriving at the Zhaoyuan County government office, Yang Shaofeng passed through several villages. After inquiring in each village, he learned that each village only had one plow and no oxen.
If people wanted to plow and turn the soil, they had to rely on people to pull the plow. When it wasn't their turn to use the plow, they could only turn the soil with hoes.
The problem is that hoes are a rare commodity; several families might not be able to scrape together a decent one.
Therefore, even though spring plowing has been underway for more than ten days, the progress of spring plowing in Zhaoyuan County is still very slow. On average, each person can only plow a little over one mu of land per day, not even two mu.
However, crops don't wait for farmers to slowly plow and cultivate the land. If the sowing time is delayed by one day, the autumn harvest may be ten or even dozens of kilograms less. It's normal to have no harvest at all.
Under such circumstances, what good life can ordinary people possibly have?
If there were no natural disasters, things would be better; the people might be able to barely manage.
In the event of a natural disaster, should the people wait for government relief or flee their homes to escape?
Yang Shaofeng grew increasingly annoyed, so he looked at Xu Zheng, who was completely bewildered, and asked, "Come here, tell me, where have all those plows and hoes that the imperial court allocated to Zhaoyuan County gone?"
Xu Zheng was startled, but forced himself to calm down and bowed to Yang Shaofeng, saying, "Your Highness, the plows and hoes allocated by the court to Zhaoyuan have been distributed to the people."
Yang Shaofeng chuckled, rose from behind the desk, and walked to Xu Zheng. Suddenly, he kicked Xu Zheng to the ground and sneered, "Do you think I'm a fool?"
"Your Zhaoyuan County reported a total of 520 households to the province. There are more than 100 households in the city and 7 communities and 15 villages outside the city, with an average of 20 to 30 households per village."
"Based on the standard of one plowshare for every five households, the imperial court has allocated a total of one hundred and four plowshares to Zhaoyuan County."
"In other words, even if a village only has twenty households, it should have at least four plows."
"Before I came to the county town, I passed through four villages. The four villages together had a total of one hundred households, but there were only four plows."
"Tell me, where are the remaining sixteen plowshares?"
At this point, Yang Shaofeng frowned slightly, "No, those four plowshares weren't issued by the imperial court either—so where did all 104 plowshares that the imperial court allocated to Zhaoyuan County go?"
Xu Zheng was speechless for a moment, and after a long while, he looked at Yang Shaofeng with a blank expression and asked, "Is it because of these plows that the Prince Consort sent troops to blockade the Zhaoyuan County government office, and even wants to mobilize troops to blockade the government offices of all nine counties and one prefecture in Dengzhou?"
Yang Shaofeng glanced coldly at Xu Zheng, then sneered with a mocking tone, "I've already said it before, I hate it when people treat me like a fool."
"In the seventh month of autumn in the first year of Hongwu, the court allocated twenty-five plowshares to Zhaoyuan. In the first month of spring in the second year of Hongwu, the court allocated another thirty plowshares to Zhaoyuan, and another thirty in the seventh month of autumn. Adding the nineteen plowshares allocated this spring, there are exactly one hundred and four plowshares."
"However, the land reclamation data reported by your nine counties and one scattered prefecture to the province is almost exactly the same as that in the first year of Hongwu. So, what about the plows that the court allocated to you? Can I suspect that all the plows in your nine counties and one scattered prefecture have disappeared without a trace?"
“A plowshare weighs about 30 jin, so 100 plowshares would weigh 3,000 jin. Dengzhou Prefecture has nine counties and one scattered prefecture. Even if each place only gets 100 plowshares, that would still be 30,000 jin of iron.”
"A full 30,000 catties of iron could disappear without a trace. You ask me why I'm sealing off the Zhaoyuan County government office?"
As Yang Shaofeng finished speaking, Xu Zheng collapsed to the ground as if all the bones in his body had been removed.
The allocation of plowshares did not begin in the spring of the third year of the Hongwu reign, but rather began gradually from the first year of the Hongwu reign.
In other words, by the tenth month of autumn in the second year of Hongwu's reign, Zhaoyuan County must have had at least eighty-five plowshares.
Assuming each plow clears one acre of land per day, over two thousand acres should have been cleared in the entire month of October.
However, the data reported by Zhaoyuan County to the provincial government only showed a little over 100 mu.
If it's a case of concealing the number of acres of reclaimed land, it's somewhat understandable. But if it's not concealment, then the issues involved here could be truly serious.
It was precisely for this reason that Yang Shaofeng did not hesitate to blockade the Zhaoyuan County government office and had Limpy Wu take the troop mobilization seal given by Zhu Biao to mobilize troops to blockade the government offices and files of other counties and Ninghai Prefecture.
For Yang Shaofeng, it didn't matter if the blockade was wrong; at most, he would be scolded by that old tyrant Zhu Chongba, or worse, his salary would be reduced and he would be demoted. The troop deployment seal that Zhu Biao had specially given him was taken back.
However, if one fails to take any action due to worrying about this or that, a case involving 30,000 jin of iron could potentially cost one's life.
This is a major case involving more than 30,000 catties of iron. If we investigate it further, it could become the number one case among the four major cases of the Hongwu era!
Yang Shaofeng gave Xu Zheng another cold glance and asked, "I'm giving you one last chance. Tell me honestly where those hundred-plus plowshares went."
Xu Zheng opened his mouth, but in the end he didn't say anything.
Yang Shaofeng didn't take it seriously. He simply had a few guards from the Prince Consort's Mansion bring over various archives and files from Zhaoyuan County and began to examine the county treasury records from the seventh month of autumn in the first year of Hongwu.
And the final result was exactly as Yang Shaofeng had predicted.
The county archives for the seventh month of autumn in the first year of the Hongwu reign contain records of the allocation of twenty-five plowshares. The records indicate that they were distributed to fifteen villages in seven communities outside the city, and one plowshare was allocated to a village that Yang Shaofeng had personally visited before.
Immediately afterwards, the archives from the first month of spring in the second year of Hongwu recorded another record of the allocation of a plowshare, and the archives from the seventh month of autumn in the second year of Hongwu recorded two more.
The three files combined represent exactly four plowshares of the villages Yang Shaofeng personally visited.
He's gone completely mad! Xu Zheng has gone mad! And the officials of the nine counties and one sub-prefecture of Dengzhou Prefecture have probably all gone mad too.
Have these idiots forgotten that the current emperor is Zhu Yuanzhang?