A Good Landlord in the Tang Dynasty: Starting from the Village Chief

Chapter 830 Cruel Official or Capable Minister
As the old saying goes, the New Year celebrations don't end until the fifteenth day of the first lunar month.

Whether you're rich or poor, you can always have a few good days during the New Year. The poor aren't afraid of creditors coming to collect debts anymore. Adults can get a good rest for a few days, and children are even happier because there will be delicious food during the New Year.

During the Spring Festival, people visit relatives and friends and exchange New Year's greetings.

The New Year celebrations at Li Yi's home were not as lively as in previous years. The family split into two groups, one in Chang'an and the other in Luoyang, with Li Yi's pregnant wife and concubines staying in Chang'an.
The other concubines followed her to Luoyang with their children.

The new residence of the Prince of Wei in Huixunfang, Luoyang, had not yet been built, and he was still living in Tongjifang, next to the West Market in the south of the city.

Somewhat remote,
Some are also small.

Even during the New Year, relatives and friends still came to visit every day, and many people, whether they knew him or not, lined up outside the door.

The saying goes, "When you're poor, no one cares even in the bustling city; when you're rich, even distant relatives come to visit."

Li Yi is currently extremely popular in the court, and his status has risen even higher since the new emperor ascended the throne last year.
Even when Li Xiaochang's rebellion was exposed last year, Li Yi was not affected by his uncle in the slightest.

Even if Li Yi lived in the city, or even if he lived in Chanhe Manor, people would still line up to pay him New Year's greetings.

Li Yi almost never saw these New Year's greetings, and he never accepted any gifts.

It's not that they're heartless, it's just that there aren't enough people to see them all.

On the eighth day of the first lunar month, Li Yi had already arrived at the Huiluo Granary in the northwest of Luoyang City for inspection.

From afar, a warehouse city could be seen standing tall.

Cangcheng was built in the early years of the Sui Dynasty's Daye era. It had a circumference of ten li and contained three hundred cellars to store grain and supply the food needs of Luoyang, the eastern capital.

After the chaos and wars of the Sui Dynasty, the granary was destroyed several times, and the grain stored in the granaries of the previous dynasty had long been exhausted.

Today, after restoration, Cangcheng continues to serve its important function as a granary.

The rammed earth city wall, four zhang high and one zhang thick, protected the three hundred grain cellars in the granary city.

Li Yi rode his horse, escorted by the Imperial Guards, to the front of the granary.

A group of officials greeted them at the city gate.

Low-hanging leaden clouds filled the sky, and the wind howled. It looked like it was going to snow, but it didn't.

"This humble official, Dou Jing, Minister of Agriculture, pays his respects to the Minister of Works."

"Zhao Yuankai, Junior Minister of Agriculture, pays his respects to Li Pingzhang."

···
Looking at the two people, Zi and Fei, among a group of people in green robes, Li Yi nodded.

Dou Jing is an old acquaintance.

Previously, when he concurrently served as the Grand General of Bingzhou in Hedong, Dou Jing was transferred to serve as his Chief Secretary. The two had a good understanding on the matter of military and civilian settlements in Daibei and their cooperation was quite pleasant.

Now this person has also returned to the court and has been transferred to the position of Minister of Agriculture, a third-rank official, in charge of the Ministry of Agriculture.

This was the government office that managed the imperial treasury. The Minister of Revenue was in charge of administrative affairs related to money, grain, and taxes, while the Ministry of Agriculture was in charge of granaries and storage, overseeing the four offices of Shanglin, Taicang, Gou Dun, and Mi Guan, as well as various granaries, bamboo groves, soup kitchens, palace gardens, salt ponds, and military farms. All the salaries, court assemblies, and sacrificial rites of officials in the capital were supplied by them. For the imperial plowing, they provided plows and hoes.

You could say that the Ministry of Revenue was the accountant, and the Ministry of Agriculture was the cashier.

The country is facing difficulties, especially a great famine. It is not easy to become the Minister of Agriculture at this time.

Luokou Granary, the largest grain depot in Luoyang and one of the largest in the country, has recently been found to contain a large number of hamsters.

"Dou Sinong, how's your self-investigation going?"

The imperial court took over Luoyang, took control of Luokou Granary, and rebuilt the granaries and cellars to store grain. In fact, it only took three years.

But in these three years,

The deficit and losses in this granary city were very serious.

Fortunately, the time was short.
It's not difficult to find out the truth.

The difficulty lies in how to make up for this food deficit.

Dou Jing pointed to the base of the city wall on both sides of the city gate.
There was a long line of people standing here.

He stood there wearing heavy wooden cangues.

There was no sun under the city wall; the shadows were as cold as a cellar, and the wind howled, constantly taking away their heat.

“Minister Situ, those are the officials and granary workers who embezzled grain this time. They are all in shackles here.”

The original plan was to strip those corrupt officials of their official robes, chop off their heads, hang them on the city wall, and then confiscate their property.

Li Yi merely glanced at those guys.
They didn't feel any pity or sympathy for them at all.

There's always a reason why someone is pitiful. The nation's granaries have been embezzled by these hamsters, who have made a fortune from them and turned them into tools for getting rich.

But during famine,
Those were life-saving foods.

"Your Majesty, please enter the city first; it's windy and cold outside."

Junior Minister Zhao Yuankai stepped forward and said.

Li Yi dismounted, and Zhao Yuankai came over to help him up.

"Thank you, there's no need to help me dismount."

Zhao Yuankai didn't take it to heart, and kept smiling. He even handed over a copper hand warmer, saying, "Situ, warm your hands."

Li Yi ignored him and headed straight for Cangcheng.

Instead of going inside to warm himself by the fire, drink tea, and look through the account books, he went to check the warehouse first.

Three hundred granaries were neatly arranged in the city, each about ten meters in diameter and ten meters deep, and each granary could store eight thousand shi of grain.

A Tang Dynasty soldier stationed on the border received two liters of grain per day, totaling seven shi and two dou per year.

This grain cellar can feed more than 1,100 soldiers for a year.

Meanwhile, at the Luokou Granary, located east of Luoyang where the Luo River flows into the Yellow River, lies the even larger Xingluo Granary. With three thousand pits, the two granaries, when full, can hold an astonishing 26 million shi (a unit of dry measure), enough to feed 300,000 soldiers for ten years.

right now,

The imperial court had mobilized grain from various sources to store here, and the accounts showed a large quantity, which should have filled many grain cellars. However, upon closer inspection, it was found that...
It was discovered that most of the positions were short.
Or perhaps the new grain was replaced with old grain.
Some even use wooden planks to support the bottom, and only put a thin layer of grain on top.

"When Emperor Yang of Sui built this granary, he claimed that if it was filled with three hundred cellars of millet, it could feed the soldiers and civilians of Luoyang for ten years."

But the grain of several major grains,
Ultimately, it became the capital for various rebel groups to grow stronger.

Li Mi rose to power and became the leader of the Central Plains by seizing grain from the Liyang and Xingluo granaries. Wang Shichong, on the other hand, relied on the grain stored in the Luokou and Hanjia granaries to sustain himself.

When Li Yuan raised his army and marched south into Guanzhong, he relied on Li Xiaochang's donation of Yongfeng Granary to solve the problem of insufficient food supplies, and thus captured Chang'an in one fell swoop.

"Dou Sinong, have all these warehouses been checked?"

Dou Jing responded from the side: "The grain has all been moved to another cellar, and all the grain has been inspected and measured."

The issues regarding exchanging old grain for new grain have all been verified.

"The deficit situation is indeed serious."

"How much was the total deficit?"

Dou Jing revealed a shocking figure: with the court's mobilization of resources, the granary should have been filled with three hundred grain cellars, which would have meant at least two million four hundred thousand shi of grain.

But now,
"After a thorough investigation, there are now more than 1.2 million shi of millet, wheat, rice, sorghum, glutinous rice, and beans in Huiluo Granary City."

Many of these were old grains exchanged for new grain.

Some even swapped fine grains for coarse ones, replacing millet, wheat, and rice with sorghum and beans.

秫 is sorghum, and 菽 is beans; these are both miscellaneous grains.

"That's incredibly audacious!" Li Yi exclaimed.

This means they lost more than half of their investment in just three years.

In fact, to cope with the famine, the imperial court has used every means possible to collect grain over the past few months, and a large amount of grain has been stored in the granaries.
These guys haven't had a chance to embezzle much yet, otherwise it wouldn't be long before they've embezzled even more.

Greed so much,

That's not just a matter for one or two people.
Rather, it was every official and granary worker in the entire granary city, from top to bottom, who participated in embezzlement and the distribution of spoils.

This is systemic; it's a massive case involving a large number of people.

Everyone gets a share, it's just a matter of how much or how little.

It wouldn't be excessive to behead all these people, confiscate their property, and exile them.

However, Li Yi came today.

The main task is to recover the lost grain.

We can talk about the rest later; food is the most important thing.

It's quite difficult to get them to vomit after they've been eaten.

The deficit is too large.

In this one granary city alone, the total deficit over the past three years has reached more than 1.6 million shi of grain.

Cangcheng was originally garrisoned by eight hundred guards.
There were also officials and clerks in the granary, as well as some able-bodied men who were conscripted to take turns performing labor.

More than one million shi of grain, over three years.
This is truly a giant rat.

Dou Jing said with difficulty, "After interrogation, the hamsters also admitted that they had sold most of the stolen grain."

Most are sold directly to grain merchants.
A small number of them were simply family members or relatives who funded the opening of grain shops, essentially starting a business with no initial investment.

Some people also use this grain to brew wine.

Or it can be used for oil extraction, etc.

Now, trying to reclaim the grain is as difficult as ascending to heaven.

Li Yi was very dissatisfied with this answer and snorted coldly.

Zhao Yuankai immediately stepped forward, "Your Highness, I think it wouldn't be difficult to retrieve them."

"Oh, what's your idea?"

He didn't like Zhao Yuankai very much, but he had heard some of the guy's deeds. This man was the youngest son of Zhao Fen, the Left Minister of the Sui Dynasty, and the Zhao family was a prominent family in Tianshui.

Princess Guiyang, wife of Yang Shidao, the Vice Minister of the Ministry of Personnel, was the ex-husband of Zhao Cijing from the Zhao family of Tianshui.

Zhao Yuankai entered officialdom through family connections. He was intelligent and quick-witted. At the end of the Sui Dynasty, he served as the Eastern Cao Yuan of Shangjun. He was praised for his talent, and even Emperor Yang Guang heard of his abilities and appointed him as the Assistant Prefect of Liyang County.

But this guy's talent lies in his ability to exploit the people, squeezing every last drop of oil from their bones.

He presented Yang Guang in Jiangdu with all sorts of rare delicacies, and was thus promoted to Prefect of Jiangdu and Palace Attendant of Jiangdu. Once in Jiangdu, he presented Yang Guang with all sorts of rare delicacies, fine wines and rare objects every day.

After the Jiangdu Incident, he went north and then fled to Guanzhong to join the Tang Dynasty. He was given important positions based on his reputation as a capable official and rose to the position of Vice Minister of Agriculture in just three years. He was even reinstated as the Duke of Huai'an County, a title conferred upon him by the Sui Dynasty.

Dou Jing, the Minister of Agriculture, son of former Prime Minister Dou Kang, and elder brother of the imperial son-in-law Dou Dan, was only a Baron of Xindu County.

Moreover, after Yuwen Huaji's defeat, this guy fled to Chang'an, the capital of the Tang Dynasty. When he encountered bandits at Fukou, he actually abandoned his wife and ran away alone, which led to his wife being killed by the bandits.

Zhao Yuankai stepped forward and moved a few paces closer.
"Your Majesty, all officials and soldiers involved in the case at Huiluo Granary must make up for the deficit. Those who voluntarily confess the amount they have embezzled or stolen must hand it over to make up for it within a specified time."

If they refuse to tell the truth, then they will have to bear the remaining losses.

"These people have already sold their grain, so how will they pay the outstanding amount?"

"Their fathers, sons, and brothers must all pay the outstanding amount, or they will be punished as a whole."

"And those merchants who bought stolen grain should also be punished and made up for the deficit. If they cannot make up the deficit, their fathers, sons and brothers should also make up for it."

According to Zhao Yuankai's meaning
This time, not only will all the more than 1.6 million shi of grain that were lost in the Huiluo granary be confiscated, but also...
They'll have to fine them another hundred thousand or eight hundred thousand bushels of grain.

Not only do we need to recover the stolen goods, but we also need to calculate the interest.

If the missing items cannot be recovered, then their homes will be confiscated, including the homes of the fathers, sons, and brothers involved in the case. If confiscating their homes is still not enough, then their wives, concubines, and children will be sold into slavery.

"If Minister Situ is willing to give me a chance, I am willing to take responsibility for this matter. There is a deficit of 1.6 million shi of grain in the Luoyang granary. I guarantee that I will make up 320 shi of grain within three months!"

Despite a deficit of 1.6 million shi (a unit of dry measure), Zhao Yuankai dared to say he would make up for it with 3.2 million shi.

That's doubled.

He is a ruthless person.

If they agree to his request, then the thousands of people involved in Huiluocang will be doomed, and even their families will be plunged into an abyss of despair.

This guy is definitely going to rip us out of our bones and drain us dry.

(End of this chapter)