Chapter 189 Honest Officials, Corrupt Officials, and Incompetent Officials

After Zhao Jun arrived in Shouzhou, he first suspended Yang Riyan, the transfer envoy of Huainan West Road, and Zhou Ling, the transfer judge.

Then the Imperial City Inspector was immediately dispatched to various places on Huainan Road to investigate the case.

At nightfall, in Xiacai County, Shouzhou, in the backyard of the Huainan West Road transfer office, Zhao Jun sat behind the desk in the study and wrote something.

His calligraphy is definitely not as good as that of the ancients. He can basically only draw one stroke at a time. He knows the characters, but he can't talk about calligraphy.

There was no incense burner or charcoal fire in the house, only the flame of a large oil lamp lit up the whole room.

The curtains fluttered in the breeze, and the door curtains swayed slightly.

It's spring in March, and the temperature is rising. Standing outside the house, you can feel the gentleness of the gentle spring breeze blowing on your face.

Guards were standing around the house to protect him, and there were even several Imperial City Division masters hiding on the roof, with three floors inside and three floors outside, scanning the surroundings to prevent anyone from coming to assassinate him.

No one would be stupid enough to assassinate a big man who was protected by thousands of elite soldiers, just like no one would seek death on his own for no reason.

At this moment, Jiang Dalang came in from the door and said: "Zhiyuan, Yang Fayunshi and Lin Zhizhou are asking for an audience."

"Did they come together?"

Zhao Jun asked without raising his head.

"no."

Jiang Dalang said: "Lin Zhizhou arrived first, followed by Yang Shipping Envoy."

"Let Yang Gao come in."

"yes."

After a while, Yang Gao entered the study, cupped his hands to Zhao Jun and said, "I have seen the magistrate."

Zhao Jun stopped writing, put the brush on the pen holder, raised his head and looked at him and said: "Yang Gao, do you know why I didn't call your name today?"

Yang Gao replied in a deep voice: "It's because Xiaguan only came to Huainan at the end of last year and doesn't know anything about Huainan."

"Yes and no."

Zhao Jun said: "Before I set out, I checked the information of officials from various places. You have captured thieves alone, you have also vindicated injustice, and you have not yielded in the face of Zhao Yuanhao's rudeness. You are an honest and capable official. This is The reason why I didn’t mention your name.”

Yang Gao solemnly said: "As a minister, I should serve my duty and uphold my integrity. Even if there are mountains of swords and seas of fire ahead, I will have no regrets."

"very good."

Zhao Jun nodded with satisfaction and said: "You once partnered with Hu Su as the Deputy Transport Envoy of West Jing Road. Hu Su is now in charge of the Judicial Court. He is meticulous and has always been strict. When he was in office, he once wrote a letter praising your talents, which shows that you His character and abilities have been recognized by him.”

"This is all a matter of duty."

Yang Gao said: "In order to pursue his own affairs, the subordinates only fulfilled their duties as officials."

"OK."

Zhao Jun lamented: "But many officials cannot even do this most basic duty."

Yang Gao said nothing.

After a moment, Zhao Jun suddenly laughed: "Hu Su is an upright person. Since he praised you and talked about your shortcomings, he reported it to the Constitutional Yuan. You are good at everything, except for saying happy things about you. The rich and powerful want to advance."

"Forehead"

Yang Gao suddenly felt embarrassed.

What does it mean to welcome the rich and powerful to the happy event?

That is to say, he likes to cling to powerful people, flatter his superiors, and want to advance further in his official career.

But is this really his intention?

Of course not.

No one likes to flatter their boss by nature, especially when it comes to old men.

But what can Yang Gao do?

Because he was a classmate, he had to work ten times and a hundred times harder than those who were admitted to the Jinshi Department in order to gain the possibility of going further.

Some people may not know how low the status of a classmate is.

how to say?

If Tong Jinshi was born in a junior college, then this classmate's background was not even as good as a technical secondary school, and probably only had a primary school or junior high school diploma.

Because in the Song Dynasty, it was divided into more than ten subjects including Jinshi Subject, Nine Classics Subject, Five Classics Subject, Kaiyuan Rituals Subject, Three Rites Subject, Three History Subjects, Three Chuan Subjects, Academic Subjects, Ming Classics Subject, and Ming Law Subject.

The most valuable subject is naturally the Jinshi subject, while the other subjects are similar and specialize in different directions. The common point is that Jinshi subjects have a high starting point and high future growth. The starting points for other subjects are low and career prospects are limited.

Therefore, due to his limited academic qualifications, it is basically his limit to be a transshipment and shipping officer.

In the Song Dynasty, the senior officials of the six ministries, the third division, the Privy Council, and the political affairs hall of the three provinces were basically all Jinshis, and there were very few Jinshis. Not to mention that Yang Gao was not a scholar, but a classmate, the humblest of humblers.

Therefore, although he is an honest official and has extremely outstanding abilities, education, qualifications, and abilities are indispensable in the officialdom. With abilities and qualifications, it is still difficult to reach a high position without academic qualifications.

But from another perspective, the fact that Yang Gao has such a low level of education and yet can still become a fourth-grade shipping envoy, doesn't that also illustrate his ability?

So seeing Yang Gao's embarrassed expression, Zhao Jun smiled and said: "Being of low birth is not a shame. A husband can only be flexible and flexible. I don't think you have done anything wrong. As long as you are capable, not corrupt, and manage the people well, in my opinion , that’s the best official.”

"Thank you, Zhiyuan, for your praise!"

Yang Gao bowed his hand.

Zhao Jun said: "Sit down first."

"yes."

Yang Gao saluted again and then sat on the chair next to him.

Zhao Jun continued: "The background of an official is not important to me at least. What is important is ability. If you do well, I will definitely not hesitate to promote you. I can probably guess that you will come to me tonight and talk about it." Well, what do you think can be done?”

Yang Gao couldn't help but be overjoyed when he heard Zhao Jun's promise. He was glad that he had chosen the right path, and then hurriedly said: "The official thought that since Yang Riyan was Huang Wei's successor, it was impossible for him to not know about these things. Disaster relief funds It's not difficult to find out about being raped. Just ask the local people and they won't know if they have received any rice."

"Um."

Zhao Jun nodded approvingly: "You are right."

Encouraged by Zhao Jun, Yang Gao continued: "So the official feels that today Yang Riyan and Zhou Ling learned that the Magistrates Court is investigating this matter, and they are likely to contact Huang Wei and Sun Miao immediately and ask them to destroy the evidence. At that time, it will not be easy to catch them.”

As the saying goes, catching thieves requires getting stolen goods, and investigating corruption requires evidence. It is impossible to conclude that Huang Wei, Sun Miao, and others are involved in corruption inside just based on Lin Zhu's words.

After all, there are very few officials like Guo Chengyou who directly found incriminating evidence such as letters in the house of the landlord who colluded with him, and then had reason to directly search his residence and find more incriminating evidence.

Guo Chengyou relied on the emperor's backing to be lawless. Other officials will be more cautious in doing things, and it will not be so easy to catch them.

Including Zhao Jun temporarily suspending Yang Riyan and Zhou Ling from their posts today, it is not that they are making money from it, but that they are accusing them of coming to Huainan Road when they know that many counties on Huainan Road have not received disaster relief food funds. Two years later, no one knew anything about it, and they were suspended first for dereliction of duty.

In later generations, if an official encounters a sudden natural disaster, even if he goes to the scene to take command and fails to fully handle the problems in the disaster area, his official career may be greatly affected, and he may even be demoted and punished.

In the Song Dynasty, the two charges of dereliction of duty and dereliction of duty were relatively weak, and Zhao Jun almost forcibly used his power to terminate them from their posts.

It can be seen that if we want to truly eradicate corruption, we still need to rely on actual evidence.

So after hearing that Yang Gao quickly found the key problem, Zhao Jun was even more satisfied with his ability and said: "Then how to prevent them from destroying the evidence?"

Yang Gao said: "They worked their hands up and down, exploiting each other, and they must have involved a large number of related people. For example, the former Huoqiu County Magistrate Xiong Tao, and the current Huoqiu King County Magistrate who died. According to Lin Zhu, There are many officials on Huainan Road colluding with them. If we can catch some of them, we may be able to seize evidence of their crimes. "

"Very good, it seems you already have an idea."

Zhao Jun smiled and said: "Then I will leave this matter to you. I will ask you to take charge of Huainan Road. If you can get to the bottom of this major corruption case, I will personally ask the officials for credit. In the future, it is not impossible to be promoted to the central government and serve as a minister, minister, or even minister! "

"Thank you so much for the Governor. I am willing to go through fire and water for the sake of the Governor and Your Majesty!"

Yang Gao was so happy that he stood up and saluted again.

For a person of his background, being able to be a transshipment and shipping agent in one place is basically the limit.

Now he meets a senior official who appreciates him and promises that if he does well, he may be promoted to the central government in the future. This scene is as unreal as a dream.

"Go ahead."

Zhao Jun warned: "You must be careful and don't let them destroy the evidence. If you need to mobilize troops and generals when necessary, you can report it to me. I will sign the troop deployment order and allow you to command up to one battalion of Xiang troops. "

According to the Song Dynasty system, a battalion has 500 people. However, except for the two battalions led by Zhao Jun himself, which are full or even exceed the quota, the rest of the Forbidden Army and Xiang Army are not full of personnel at all, and are seriously underpaid.

Therefore, the maximum number of troops in a local battalion is only three to four hundred, which is more than enough to deal with local county magistrates, state government yamen and transfer envoy yamen that have no military power.

"yes."

Yang Gao then bowed and retreated.

After he left, Zhao Jun did not call Lin Zhu in immediately, but continued to leave him alone.

You must know that this is a major matter involving hundreds of thousands of victims in Huainan. Tens of thousands of victims starved to death in this incident. Isn't it because someone is doing bad things inside?

Lin Zhu may not have been involved, but there is still a problem with him not reporting what he knew, and his attitude was very improper. It would be good if he was not dismissed from his post, so naturally it is impossible to have a good look towards him.

After less than half an hour, Lin Zhu was waiting in the main room outside and was very anxious. He saw with his own eyes that Yang Gao, who was behind him, came out shortly after him and came out beaming with joy. He was obviously praised by the master of the academy.

Now that Yang Riyan and Zhou Ling were suspended, he still didn't know what punishment he would receive, so he thought about it at home and hurriedly came to the Zhiyuan to submit his name. Unexpectedly, the Zhiyuan ignored him at all.

This made Lin Su panic.

But he repeatedly asked the guards, and they all said that the magistrate was busy, and there was nothing he could do.

Fortunately, Zhao Jun was still willing to see him. After a while, Zhao Jun finally called him in. By this time, Lin Su was sweating profusely and almost desperate.

"Have you met Chiuin!"

After Lin Zhu came in, he wiped the sweat from his forehead, bowed over immediately, bent down and bowed his hands in salute.

"Lin Zhizhou."

Zhao Jun stopped writing in his hand again, raised his head and looked at him seriously and said, "Do you know where you went wrong?"

"Your Majesty. Your Majesty's failure to report what you knew is a disservice to the Emperor."

Lin Zhu said calmly.

"This is just one of them. The second is that when faced with the inquiry from the Hon'ble Court, I was squeaky and didn't answer immediately."

Zhao Jun accused: "This shows that you still dare not speak out your true feelings. If I hadn't forced you to do so, how would you, an official who is just trying to get by, know that you really know how to repent?"

Lin Zhu has been in office for a year, so it is impossible for him to know everything. But he pretended to be deaf and mute, fearing to offend his superiors and colleagues, and remained silent.

Even after Zhao Jun arrived, it was Zhao Jun who forced him to reveal everything. This shows that Lin Zhu had no intention of upholding justice for the people of Shouzhou from the beginning. offend.

Little does he know that such a wallflower is the most hated by others. Yang Riyan is angry that he betrayed his colleagues, and Zhao Jun is angry that he is submissive. It would be better to be more straightforward from the beginning, report the situation as soon as Zhao Jun arrives, and maybe get meritorious service.

That is to say, Zhao Jun checked the details of this Lin Zhu and found that except for pretending to be deaf and dumb when encountering problems with powerful people, this person did pretty well in general litigation cases and people's livelihood management.

Otherwise, I am afraid that Zhao Jun will not be able to see Lin Zhu today, even if he waits until the next morning.

However, Lin Zhu smiled bitterly and said: "Yes, that's what the Zhiyuan taught me. Back then, I was passionate. When I first took office as the local county magistrate, I refused the gift from the local squire. I also made lofty ideals, saying that I would serve the people Call the shots.”

"oh?"

Zhao Jun asked in surprise: "Then why did it become like this again?"

"It's funny to say that the local tycoons have colluded with those in power. They once offered auspicious gifts to the late emperor. The tycoons broke the law. I wanted to arrest him, but I was scolded by the powerful family's slaves."

Lin Zhu laughed at himself: "The magistrate knows what he said to his subordinates? He said that I don't know how to praise me. I am a small seventh-grade county magistrate. If the master of his family wants to deal with me, it is like squeezing a bedbug to death."

"So you are willing to fall for the threat?"

Zhao Jun frowned.

Lin Zhu sighed: "At that time, the subordinates were still unyielding, but within a few days, the superior magistrate came to the county in person to hold me accountable. He said that as an official, I must respect the sages and not be arrogant. Although the subordinates did not join their ranks, they still From then on, I didn’t dare to say anything more, and I stayed in ignorance for more than ten years. In the end, I was just a person who knew the state and was idle. "

"hehe."

Zhao Jun sneered and said: "Respecting the predecessors? It's a bit interesting. Since he has contributed auspiciousness, the so-called person with power must be Ding Wei."

"yes."

Lin Zhu nodded.

At that time, Ding Wei and other five ghosts controlled the government and made the court a mess. In the final analysis, it is still the problem of the emperor Song Zhenzong.

"Everyone knows that it is easy to be a corrupt official, but it is difficult to be an honest official. Therefore, most people who are unwilling to join in the corruption will eventually become mediocre officials like you. Speaking of which, the old man Wang Sui is also a mediocre official. To If you want to be an upright official, you must be more cunning and cunning than a corrupt official. In the final analysis, it is due to lack of ability. "

Zhao Jun finally said: "Yang Gao is just a classmate, and he has been honest all his life. The reason why he can achieve his current position as a shipping envoy is because of his ability. Although you are a Jinshi, you are still far behind compared to Yang Gao."

"yes."

Lin Zhu still smiled bitterly.

How many people in the Song Dynasty can climb out like Yang Gao?

What's more, Yang Gao also fought with his life. When he was young, he captured thieves alone. When he was in his prime, he went to Xixia alone. He faced Zhao Yuanhao's difficulties without changing his expression. Most people would not be so courageous after all.

"Okay, although you are a mediocre official, at least you did not dare to conceal it when pressed by the Imperial Court. You told everything you knew, and you did not harm the people. I will not understand your duties for the time being and will order you to do so. Within ten days, we will find out the disaster relief situation in Shouzhou.”

Zhao Jun finally said seriously: "In the past, you could use excuses to avoid being threatened by corrupt officials and not dare to report them. But now that the Hon'ble Court is here, if you still can't do it, it means you are a complete waste. Song Dynasty We don’t need useless officials, we want officials who can govern the people well, do you hear me?”

"yes!"

Lin Zhu was overjoyed and repeatedly held up his hands and said: "Thank you for giving me this opportunity, I will definitely go all out and not slack off."

"Go ahead."

Zhao Jun waved his hand.

"Yes Yes Yes."

Lin Zhu left with great gratitude.

Looking at his leaving figure, Zhao Jun thought for a while and then began to write hard again.

After all, Lin Zhu is a mediocre official, but at least he is not faint and can see clearly.

Being able to assess the situation immediately, tell him what he knows first, and then immediately come to him to make up for it shows that he is quite smart.

It's just that I was cowardly and didn't dare to tell the truth because of the pressure from my superiors.

Moreover, despite the pressure from his superiors, he has been able to stick to his true intentions for so many years without collaborating, which also proves that his nature is not bad.

Now that he has a heart to repent, it's not like Zhao Jun can't give him a chance to see if he has the ability to complete the tasks assigned by Zhao Jun.

If he completes this task, it means that he is capable. As long as the shackles of oppression by his superiors are removed, he may not be unable to become a good official in governing the country in the future.

Again.

You can be mediocre, but you must not be faint.

As long as you are capable and are not corrupt or harming the people, then Zhao Jun cannot use you.

Now it's up to Lin Zhu's own choice.

My left nose was blocked and runny for a day. I used three rolls of tissue to wipe my nose. I was totally unconscious. I drank a cup of medicine made from two packs of Ganmao Ling and two tablets of Amoxicillin in the morning. I took one Gankang and one Cephalosporin in the evening. I feel a little better now, but not much. I hope I can write the second chapter today. If I can't, there's really nothing I can do.