It was almost noon, Qian Rui said goodbye and returned to his house. He used some simple meals and lay on the rattan chair in the yard. The spring rain had already stopped. Although the ground was still wet, the sun had penetrated into thick clouds and shone with thousands of brilliance.

Squinted his eyes and basked comfortably in the sun. Qian Rui recalled today's events as if he was sleeping, and tried to recall several discussions on sea transportation and canal transportation between two or three years ago.

It is impossible for sea transportation to replace canal transportation in a short period of time. Even if the time is relaxed to decades, the possibility is very small.

However, if you don’t replace the canal transportation, you can try it.

Whether it is the six ministers of the court or local officials, once they make a decision, they will inevitably be difficult to implement and have too many obstacles and have a great relationship. Not to mention the others, this will directly affect the vital interests of hundreds of thousands or even millions of people on both sides of the North and South Canals.

Officials who dare to act must have a big background, great courage, broad mind, and tenacious will that are tough and difficult to bear... For example, Gao Gong, a great scholar of Wenyuan Pavilion who has entered the cabinet.

But even if Gao Gong wants to try sea transportation, there must be a suitable entry point.

A reason why the relevant stakeholders cannot blame the government offices related to the canal transportation... Just like when Hou Taoshan fought, Qian Yuan was actually anti-smuggling, but on the surface it was for more than a hundred Japanese pirates to break the six palaces and peep at the Nandu, and in private it was even more for the revenge of himself by the Japanese pirates, which made countless angry maritime merchants in their hearts unable to find a reason to blame.

Thinking of this, Qian Rui sighed. Hou Taoshan cut down more than a thousand heads in a battle and built Jingguan at the dock. Qian Yuan said in private that it could only shock four or five years at most.

But it has only been more than two years since then. Under the instigation and organization of the Dong family, a large number of smuggling have begun to prevail. Although Zhenhai is still prosperous, Wang Zhi's command has repeatedly discovered smuggling ships departing from Shaoxing, Jiaxing and Songjiang Prefectures.

Wang Zhi himself has no idea of ​​doing his job. Even the leaders such as Mao Haifeng, Xu Bixi, and Wang Yizhi are not there. However, if such a situation continues, it is difficult to predict what will happen later.

After several months of silent observation, Qian Rui could also see why those people were smuggled.

On the one hand, Tang Jingchuan has always strictly enforced the issuance of customs clearance documents, and many wealthy merchants from all over the country who have no way to go have no choice.

On the other hand, it is difficult for some major merchants who have sea boats to purchase enough and suitable goods.

Because a large amount of goods transactions are in Zhenhai, at most, in Yin County. The first maritime merchants who participated in it can almost all be swallowed up by big players.

This is also one of the reasons why Qian Yuan allowed interest groups from Shanxi merchants and other places to participate, and the supply of goods was insufficient.

Under this situation, the Dong family after entering Zhejiang became an intermediary. After being refused to participate in the maritime trade, they quickly found a breakthrough and organized the large merchants with sea ships in their hands to buy goods in Susong, Jiaxing, Hangzhou, Shaoxing and other places, and went to sea to sell goods through smuggling.

The more I thought about it, the further I got, Qian Rui opened his eyes with a smile, raised his hand and used his sleeve to block the already dazzling sunlight, and recalled Hou Ruliang again.

This person is a capable official, has quite a means, is extremely urgent for shipping, and is quite kind to Zhenhai Suiyuan, but he is a useful person.

Qian Rui closed his eyes again and thought about what his son said before leaving. He wanted to find a chance to meet Zhang San in a few days and write a letter to his son...

Hou Ruliang, who was praised as a capable official, now had a very slight face. As soon as he entered the government office, he found a private house and asked Master Zhang carefully.

Two quarters of an hour ago, Master Zhang hurried to Zhaobao Village under the guidance of the escort servants of the government office.

After a while, Hou Ruliang stared at the empty wall with his eyes blank, feeling dry mouth, "Consolation?"

"It's hard to say, but I asked Wang Zimin's side and the account has not been checked yet." Mr. Zhang's face was also decisive, "The tax bank will be released in March to Beijing. Now the warehouse is in the accounting, and he said he will report it in the past few days."

Hou Ruliang took a deep breath, his heart was so complicated that Wang Bengu fell into the pit, and a big pit dug in Suiyuan.

What a waste. Indeed, your Wang Bengu is the inspector and censor, and he has no yamen, only inspectors, but are you an ordinary inspector?

He was in charge of Zhenhaitong's business, and was only concerned about taking over the power, but he didn't look at whether it was a stool or a fire under his butt!

The key now is that Wang Bengu is willing to bite the bullet and break the situation... If he persists, everything may turn around, but Wang Bengu's own fate will be hard to say.

Two quarters of an hour later, Wang Bengu, who was patrolling the dock, hurried back to the government office, entered the door, and saw Hou Ruliang sitting on the stool expressionlessly.

"Zhongcheng?" Wang Bengu, who was suddenly called back, was a little nervous.

Hou Ruliang nodded silently and greeted, whispering: "At the end of the 38th year of Jiajing, the minister was appointed as the governor of Liangzhe. Can the people know what the situation was after Hou entered Zhejiang?"

Wang Bengu was a little surprised. Why did he say such a shameful thing? He even called himself back in a hurry.

Hou Ruliang sighed, "The governor's yamen has never had any assistants. Hou entered, except for the three aides and dozens of guards brought from Liaodong, there were only five officials and clerks, three over fifty years old, one was broken and the other was blind."

Wang Bengu's mouth moved, of course he remembered clearly that before Hou Ruliang went south, he was in Beijing because Xu Ying had a fight with Qian Yuan, but he turned around and was just a warning.

I just didn’t expect that this kind of threat was too miserable!

"All the clerks were dispersed by Tan Zili?"

"Of course not." Hou Ruliang explained expressionlessly, "Several Zhejiang Governor's Office, clerk, and sergeant were all assigned from Hangzhou Prefecture, Qiantang Fuyang and other county yards, the governor's office, and the inspector's office."

Wang Bengu didn't say anything anymore, thinking to Tan Zili's method... I don't know if it was Qian Zhan's secret trick, but it really had his style.

It's not over yet, Hou Ruliang emphasized his tone, "The warehouse was cleaned up, and it was empty, let alone money, not to mention the money. Moreover, since Wu Weixi, the governor of Zhejiang has exempted the regular silver from all prefectures."

"Wu Weixi, Zhao Dazhou, Tan Zili..." Wang Bengu smacked his lips and said nothing. Zhao Zhenji served as the governor of Zhejiang very short time, and he basically had no real power. Of course, Zhao Zhenji himself was not greedy for money.

"During the Mid-Autumn Festival, there were still 260,000 taels of silver in the account, but just before Tan Zili's sorrow, 260,000 taels of silver were all lost to Zhenhai." Hou Ruliang said expressionlessly: "The official has sorted out the accounts and reported that within two years, the governor's yamen borrowed hundreds of thousands of taels of silver from Ningbo."

"To this day, the Governor's Office still owes Ningbo Prefecture's Office 300,000 silver."

Wang Bengu swallowed his saliva. Before going south, he despised Hou Ruliang for nothing, but it was really not easy to survive to this point.

There was no money, no one, and even Xu Jie in the capital could not help much at that time. Although Hou Ruliang was still vaguely rejected by the Zhejiang officialdom, he also gathered a lot of people... In terms of ability, Hou Ruliang is indeed a capable official.

Hou Ruliang emphasized and said the most critical sentence, "Whenever you transfer a position, you must check the accounts and warehouses in detail, so you must have a staff member who is proficient in arithmetic when you take the position."

"Although the people are inspectors, they are now in charge of business affairs. Can they check the accounts of the trade tax bank collection of Ningbo government offices?"
Chapter completed!