Han official!

Chapter 80 Listening
The carriage stopped at the gate of Liushi Village. Guo Jie and his companions got off the carriage and walked into the village. The prosperity inside the village was completely different from the Liushi Avenue outside the inner wall.

When the Ninth Market opens, goods are transported in separate tunnels, people are not allowed to look back, and vehicles are not allowed to turn around.

Goods such as gourds, wheat, ironware, woodenware, and servants were displayed in the market according to their categories and bought and sold. Common people, powerful officials, and nobles went in and out of the houses in the market.

chan (chán).

Any house where goods are bought and sold is called a shop.

Some shop owners, that is, the owners of the shops, who were met along the way, saw Yi Zong wearing an iron crown and black clothes.

The master, who was warmly greeting Junzi and Xijun the moment before, suddenly changed his expression and hurriedly took the initiative to salute with an extremely humble and respectful attitude.

I am afraid that Yi Zong will enter my shop.

The host had never violated the Han law. He was not afraid of the jailer, but was afraid that Yi Zong would come to investigate.

Officials in county magistrate and temple have a system of duties.

It means a system where officials take up their posts and work.

Compared with native people like Zhang Qian, Wei Guang, and Yi Zong, Guo Jie understood the system of executive management better, which was completely consistent with his previous work content.

The system of taking on duties is equivalent to the work of officials handling official documents, receiving visitors, inspecting subordinate institutions, etc. after taking office.

It is mainly aimed at senior officials such as the Chang'an magistrate.

The Chang'an magistrate lived in the magistrate's residence in the official temple, and did not go to hear cases or handle official business every day.

That is, it is impossible for the county magistrate to go to court to handle cases every day, and someone is needed to beat the drum to appeal for justice.

Compared with the more relaxed practice of going to court to handle cases in later generations, the Han Dynasty established a system of attending to affairs, requiring senior officials to attend to affairs every few days.

Normally he would inspect the work once every three days and visit the warehouse once every ten days.

There is also one every five days.

Guo Jie was the head of a duting, in charge of more than ten li. He was not required to attend to affairs every day. He had the highest rank in the duting of Gaojie, but no one supervised him in his daily duties.

Like Chang'an Magistrate Zhao Yu, he only attended to his duties every three days, which made him a rare diligent young official.

The subordinates around senior officials such as Yi Zong were different.

Every day he had to go there to sit, handle paperwork, and complete the duties assigned by his superiors.

The host was afraid that Yi Zong was a prison guard sent by Zhang Tang, the prefect of Chang'an, to inspect the shops in Liushi.

Calibrate scales and stabilize market prices.

If the prison guard was sent by other senior officials, it would be easy to deal with. If he violated the market law of the "Two-Year Law", he could be sent away by giving him a string of three-zhu coins without further prosecution of the host.

Zhang Tang's subordinates were an exception.

No money charged.

The owners of the shops didn't dare to breathe as they watched Yi Zong leave, feeling lucky that he didn't go into their own shops.

Until Guo Jie, Yi Zong and others walked into the tunnel.

The host heaved a sigh of relief, stretched out the sleeve of his fusuma and wiped the sweat from his forehead.

It's really frightening.

There are tunnels in the city, which refer to the passages between shops.

Shops on both sides of the tunnel.

Together they are referred to as city columns.

Tingzuo's home is located on the east side of the middle tunnel.

The house is located relatively far back, next to the inner wall of the neighborhood. As you go deeper into the neighborhood, the tunnel becomes gradually quieter.

The noisy and bustling sounds of commercial transactions outside the tunnel do not affect the houses deep inside, creating a rare quiet place in the bustling city.

"Go away!"

As Tingzuo passed by a house, several children with pigtails dangling from their hair came running out, their legs twitching. They had received a few three-zhu coins from their grandfather and were about to run to the market to buy a bowl of rice to share. When they did, they bumped into Tingzuo, who was passing by the door. Furious, Tingzuo cursed loudly and kicked one of the children with pigtails to the ground.

However, the child, who was about four or five years old, was kicked by Tingzuo and fell several times. His head hit the catalpa tree at the door, breaking his scalp and bleeding a lot.

The child was frightened. When he saw that it was Tingzuo from Liushi, he pursed his lips and dared not cry.

"What a beast!"

Guo Jie gritted his teeth and cursed, "You're taking your anger out on the child. Ting Zuo is not a good son. It seems he's been bullying the market a lot, taking advantage of his little power to oppress the common people in Liushi."

"Shuzi!"

Yi Zong was furious. He walked to Tingzuo's house without waiting and smashed the scale in his hand directly on Tingzuo's head.

"boom!"

After a dull sound.

"what!"

Blood oozed from Tingzuo's soap-colored cap. He cried out in pain and fell to the ground, wailing continuously. His head was bleeding from being hit by the scale.

Guo Jie took out ten three-zhu coins and gave them to the child with hanging hair to find a doctor for treatment. When he saw Ting Zuo being hit on the head by the scale, he couldn't help feeling a pain in his head.

The scale is made of iron.

That is, an iron weight.

Yi Zong directly hit Ting Zuo's head with the iron weight.

Too bad!
"Take it away."

Guo Jie glanced back and saw that no one had seen the guard being crushed in the depths of the tunnel. He whispered, "Carry the guard home. Don't let the guards at Liushi see it, or the host see it and report it to the flag guard."

Zhang Qian took a step forward, slung the ring-handled sword in his hand around his waist, handed the red-painted double-arc shield to Yi Zong beside him, and dragged Ting Zuo by the collar of his black clothes, chasing in the direction where Wei Guang was staying.

Yi Zong held the red-painted double-arc shield on his back and did not follow them into the end of the tunnel.

He turned around, with his back to Guo Jie and the others, and stood in the middle of the tunnel.

Yi Zong was dressed in an iron crown and black clothes, and held an iron scale in his hand, which he used to check whether the scales in the shops were accurate.

Outside the tunnel, some innkeepers heard some movement inside the tunnel. They just stuck their heads out of their caps and looked around, and saw Yi Zong holding an iron barrow standing in the middle of the tunnel.

The innkeepers were shocked.

They all retracted their heads quickly like quails, not daring to look again.

At the entrance of the tunnel, several traveling merchants were transporting goods in and saw Yi Zong wearing a Dharma crown and iron armor in the tunnel.

Several traveling merchants shuddered and hurriedly stopped at the entrance of the tunnel, finding a random shop to have a bowl of hot soup.

I dared not enter the tunnel no matter what.

"you you."

Tingzuo's black clothes were dragged on the rammed earth ground, covered with mud and extremely dirty, mixed with the blood oozing from his black cap. He looked very miserable, and tried hard to open his eyes which were covered with blood.

When he saw Guo Jie behind him.

My heart trembled.

The deputy was startled awake on the spot: "What is this, Chief Guo? Why are you attacking me? This is against Han law. As a chief, how can you break the law? Why don't you release me immediately?"

Guo Jie was too lazy to talk to him, so he walked in his cloth shoes to the end of the tunnel where Wei Guang stopped at Stanley.

A house with tiled roofs and raised eaves appeared on the east side of the tunnel. It was much more imposing than the surrounding earthen houses made of willow branches, reeds and soil. It was all built with the money extorted from the people.

Tingzuo was just a minor official who earned a living and had no money to build a house with tiled roofs and overhanging eaves.

Guo Jie whispered, "Take Tingzuo in with you. Lead Wei Guang's Chizhu in as well. Chizhu is so majestic that he'll be very conspicuous if left outside. Let's go into Tingzuo's courtyard together."

Only Yi Zong was left in the tunnel to prevent common people or merchants from coming in and hearing any movement in Tingzuo's yard, so as to avoid them from creeping over to peek and disturbing Guo Jie and the others who were looking for the correspondence between Tingzuo and the officials of Huainan State.

(End of this chapter)