in2ebook Chapter 317 Make up your mind
Chapter 317 Make up your mind
Shen Nian's right fingers tapped on the table. The frequency of the tapping was irregular, sometimes fast, sometimes slow, and chaotic, revealing his confused thoughts at the moment.
At the beginning, I took the initiative to ask for a post outside the capital and moved my family away from Kyoto to Mingzhou, thousands of miles away, to settle down. This was to show that I had no intention of competing with my elder brother for the title of marquis, so that the mistress could rest assured and avoid unnecessary disputes in the harem.
Perhaps because things are more fragrant when they are far away, now that they are far away, the relationship between this branch of their family is no longer as tense as it was at the beginning. They still send each other gifts during festivals and exchange letters on weekdays.
A few years ago, his eldest brother successfully inherited the title of Marquis of Anding, and the exchanges between the two families became more and more harmonious. His eldest brother even offered to run errands for him so that he could bring his family back to Beijing to report on his work, which would make it more convenient for their family to travel together. However, he refused.
Over the years, relying on his early achievements, he has served as the prefect of Mingzhou. Although he has not accomplished anything great, he still sits firmly in this position. Mingzhou is his territory and he is not restricted here. If he returns to Beijing, he will not have such a good life now. Naturally, he is unwilling to go back and just wants to stay in Mingzhou until he retires.
It was precisely because of this plan that he made a detailed understanding of the officials of all ranks in the Mingzhou officialdom. He knew that many of them had problems, big or small. However, if the water is too clear, there will be no fish. Changing people to hold these positions may not necessarily be better than the current people.
So, he pulled out those people with serious problems as an example to make an example of them, and promoted a few people to fill the vacancies. After observing for a while, he saw that the others had behaved much better. He was satisfied with their ability to understand the current situation, and from then on, as long as they did not act too excessively, he would generally choose to turn a blind eye.
However, he did not expect that his leniency towards them over the years had actually whetted their appetites, making them act more and more recklessly. They pretended to build a plank road while secretly attacking Chencang. When he was not looking, they sucked blood from the common people and gnawed away at the huge Mingzhou, leaving it full of holes.
He, Shen Nian, is the governor of Mingzhou and the official who is the parent of the people of Mingzhou. If, in the face of irrefutable evidence, he still chooses to ignore it and allows those officials to do whatever they want, then is he still worthy of being this official?
Even if we put aside his conscience, since the masked man was able to produce this kind of evidence and give it to him, who knows if he has any other evidence in his hands.
He handed the evidence to me. If I took the evidence but did nothing, would he hand over the other evidence in his hand to the higher authorities step by step? Once the superiors sent people down to investigate, he, as the prefect of Mingzhou, would inevitably be charged with shielding his subordinates.
Moreover, a lot of the contents in this booklet are confidential. Unless it is recorded by the person himself, it is impossible to record it in such detail. However, during this period of time, he did not notice anything abnormal among his subordinates, and the masked man even handed this thing directly to him.
It can be seen that the other party is not worried at all that the parties will find out something is wrong and thus destroy evidence or transfer property.
Could he understand that the brother and sister had the ability to sneak into other people's houses quietly, control others to confess their crimes, and make them have no memory of the incident afterwards?
This idea made Shen Nian break out in a cold sweat. This matter was really too unbelievable, but apart from this explanation, Shen Nian could not think of a second possibility.
If we continue to follow this speculation, the brother and sister once sneaked into the government office and repeated on him what they had done to others to make sure that he had not done anything against the law. Only then did they feel at ease to hand over the collected evidence to him.
If they find that he also has problems during this process, then all the current evidence, together with his share, will appear in the hands of his superiors. At that time, what awaits him and the officials under him will be the sanctions of the law.
Shen Nian poured himself another glass of wine, then raised it and drank it all in one gulp to calm himself. Fortunately, he had not done anything against his conscience for money and power over the years, otherwise he would have lost his integrity in his later years.
After the masked man handed the evidence to him, he also told him that he hoped they would never meet again. Originally, he didn't quite understand what the other party meant by this, but now it seems that the other party's words were a blatant warning. If he did not handle the matter impartially, the other party would most likely come to settle accounts with him. By then, it would be hard to say what problems would be found out.
Although Shen Nian did not have more evidence to prove that his guess was correct, he still believed that some things were true. As the saying goes, it is better to let my friend die than to let myself die. There was no need for him to gamble his official career for those corrupt officials.
At this point, Shen Nian finally made up his mind and planned to take this opportunity to completely clean up the Mingzhou officialdom. However, he understood the seriousness of the matter and knew that the top priority at the moment was to arrest the bandits in Fufeng Village and bring them to justice. It would not be too late to start investigating and dealing with the officials' corruption and bribery after the matter was settled.
While Shen Nian was thinking, there was a knock on his door. He immediately stood up, closed the book, locked the book in the bookcase, went around and sat behind the desk, and then asked someone to come in.
The visitor was none other than Shen Yuan, the chief steward of the prefectural government. Upon seeing the visitor, Shen Nian immediately took up his pen and dipped it in ink, wrote an urgent letter, stamped it with his own seal, and handed it to Shen Yuan, asking him to take the letter to the garrison camp and personally deliver it to General Kobayashi, the garrison commander of Mingzhou.
Shen Yuan took the order and left. Not long after, the officer in charge of the interrogation presented the confession of the leader of Fufeng Village and the identity token found on him. This completely confirmed the authenticity of the bandits' capture.
Remembering what Ping An had said before, Shen Nian did not delay any further. He immediately asked someone to invite a few doctors who were good at treating external injuries. He asked them to bring medicine and go to the north city gate to wait first.
Shen Nian himself changed into an official robe and rode on horseback to meet General Kobayashi.
When General Kobayashi received the handwritten letter from the governor, he immediately put on his armor and quickly assembled 600 soldiers to defend the city and wait in the parade ground.
General Kobayashi was very surprised to see the governor coming in person. Although Shen Nian was the governor, he had to give a reason to the generals in charge of the city defense army to mobilize troops overnight. So he briefly narrated to General Kobayashi what happened tonight, picking out the parts that could be told.
General Kobayashi was very surprised by this. He was always cautious and doubted the authenticity of this matter. However, the prefect's official position was higher than his, and as a subordinate, he could not raise any objections to the prefect's decision.
He could only seize the time to instruct the soldiers who stayed behind to guard the city to be more vigilant, so as to prevent any accidents from happening in the city while they were away.