My father is Yongzheng, and I am Qianlong?

Chapter 28 Open the door and charge a fee!

Soon, Sun Chengding got a copy of the warrant.

After reading the copy, he sat up from the couch in shock, a trace of cold sweat on his forehead.

"Prepare the sedan chair!"

"No, saddle the horses!"

then.

Sun Chengding hurriedly put on his boots without waiting for the servants to help him, and shouted to the outside while putting them on.

It turned out that the reason why Hongli did not rush to visit Lao Ba's dock was that he wanted to find a breakthrough from Shuntian Prefecture first.

Later, he found a breakthrough from Yu Deli, the governor of Shuntian Prefecture, and obtained evidence that many powerful officials owed money and grain to Shuntian Prefecture and refused to repay it.

Before handing over the evidence to Yongzheng, Hongli kept a copy for himself.

Because he planned to use these copies to order these bureaucrats around.

Especially, middle and lower-level bureaucrats like Sun Chengding.

After all, if he brought the evidence of these middle and lower-level bureaucrats' crimes to Kangxi through a third party, Kangxi would not tolerate these people.

So, less than an hour later, Hongli saw Sun Chengding appear in front of him.

Hongli smiled faintly at this.

The imperial censors below were all stunned.

"Sun Chengding, you are familiar with the laws of the Qing Dynasty. You should know what to do if an order is not issued within the deadline."

After Sun Chengding came to him and knelt down to pay his respects, Hongli deliberately did not let him stand up and asked Sun Chengding directly.

Sun Chengding knelt on the ground and replied honestly, "I know. Fifty lashes. If you keep yelling and still don't come, I'll add another fifty, bringing the total to one hundred."

"I've called you twice."

Hongli stood up and shouted: "Then beat him a hundred times!"

"Thank you, Fourth Prince, for your mercy. I will accept the punishment!"

Sun Chengding quickly knelt on the ground and answered with gritted teeth.

Afterwards, after the people from Shuntian Prefecture brought the spring stool, Sun Chengding lay on it, lifted up his robe and took off his pants.

Snapped!
Soon, people from Shuntian Prefecture started beating Sun Chengding with boards.

Caning is beating with a small bamboo stick. Although it is not fatal, it can indeed cause the skin to be torn and flesh torn.

What was even more shameful for Sun Chengding, who was already a fourth-rank Censor-in-Chief, was that he was beaten naked in public.

But he had no choice but to accept the punishment.

Because he was really afraid that Hongli would hand over the evidence of his crimes to the emperor.

The crisp sound of boards hitting Sun Chengding's flesh continued to appear.

The Imperial Censors of the Five Cities also became frightened.

Sun Chengding himself clenched his teeth even tighter, and tears flowed uncontrollably.

After the beating, Hongli asked Sun Chengding in a cold voice: "Sun Chengding, just lie down on the stool and listen to my instructions. No need to be polite."

"Hey! Thank you, Fourth Prince, for your understanding."

Sun Chengding replied.

Then, after giving a few instructions, Hongli had Sun Chengding carried away and asked the medical officer of the government office to treat his injuries.

Soon after, Hongli personally came to Sun Chengding, who had already applied the medicine, and said to him, "You are quite aware of the pros and cons. I will let you go, but if you reveal even a little bit of what I warned you about, you should be aware of the consequences."

"I know it clearly. Please rest assured, Fourth Prince. I will never tell anyone even if I die."

"Very good. Then, will the Military Affairs Department supervise the auxiliary battalion in cleaning up the city streets?"

Hongli nodded and asked about Sun Chengding again.

Sun Chengding hurriedly said, "I will definitely have them supervise carefully and will never ruin Fourth Prince's business!"

After this, Shuntian Prefecture and Wucheng Bingmasi carried out the orders.

Sun Chengding did not break his promise and really did not dare to make trouble again. He waited for Hongli to ask Lao Ba to speak before he was willing to work seriously for Hongli.

"Mr. Sun, the Fourth Prince hasn't even gone to see the Eighth Prince yet, and we're already working for him. Is that appropriate?"

But because of this, Dasai, the censor in charge of the West City Military Department under Sun Chengding, was also a member of the Eighth Master's party, so when Sun Chengding came to West City for inspection, he asked him about it.

Snapped!
Sun Chengding slapped Dasai directly, and he was stunned on the spot.

"If you don't take the Fourth Prince seriously anymore, I'll ask the Eighth Prince to kill you first!"

"You son of a bitch, you can't mess with the Eighth Master, but haven't you seen through the Fourth Prince's methods? Is the Fourth Prince someone you and I can afford to mess with?"

"Did you watch me get so many beatings in vain?!" Sun Chengding kicked Dasai again in annoyance.

Dasai had no choice but to kowtow and said yes, not daring to say anything more.

It is said that the hungry people who received porridge in various porridge stalls did not expect that they would be soldiers and receive wages.

"Great, so great!"

"We have a way to survive!"

When they confirmed that this was true, many hungry people cheered.

As a result, many young and strong people actively applied for the position.

Being a soldier is not a very glorious thing in this era, especially being a soldier of the Green Camp.

But for the refugees who had no property or jobs and could starve to death at any time, being able to serve as soldiers and receive a salary was already a good outcome.

Therefore, the auxiliary management camp quickly completed recruitment and organized cleaning teams in all the alleys and streets.

On the other hand, the captains of the eight banners of the City Guard Camp also actively volunteered to join the camp.

Because many bannermen are unemployed and have no income, they are all waiting for new jobs!
"Mother, I have a job. The captain arranged for me to go to the City Guard Camp so that I can support my family!"

On this day, Shumulu Shanwen, who was under the Zhenghong Banner, returned home wearing the new cotton armor he was given. He started shouting before he even got home.

His mother Shi's eyes welled up with tears of joy, and she knelt in the court: "Ancestors, may you bless us!"

This made the two of them unhappy. After all, there were many ordinary bannermen left in the Eight Banners who were waiting to be assigned to positions and receive salaries to improve their family conditions.

What they hoped was that the court would give them more jobs.

In this way, the city defense camp was quickly formed.

In order to let these bannermen, able-bodied men and their families who were recruited into the camp have a full meal first and regain some strength, Hongli and Hongxi allocated more than 2,000 stones of food from the hunger relief and distributed it as salary.

Therefore, within a few days, the cleaning teams of the auxiliary camp began to clean the streets in various parts of the city under the supervision of the Bingmasi.

The soldiers of the city guard camp also became more active, under the leadership of Commander E De, and according to Hong Xi's instructions, they collected the health management silver everywhere.

Because the bannermen only had the right to live in the houses in the city, they did not have the ownership.

Therefore, according to the imperial edict approved by Hongli, the silver collected by the garrison was only based on the size of the house, not the number of people.

In advance, the city guards would use a ruler to measure the number of steps to each house, and then calculate the money based on the number of steps.

It is worth mentioning that although the bannermen did not pay corvee labor or land tax, they would sometimes pay some special taxes. For example, the bannermen in the Northeast would pay a certain amount of ginseng.

Moreover, the health management silver collected by the city guards this time was not nominally collected from the bannermen, but was charged based on their houses. In principle, the bannermen could refuse, but they would have to move out of the public housing.

This was also a punishment for powerful bannermen who annexed a large number of properties owned by other bannermen, and it curbed the annexation to a certain extent.

Therefore, the upper-class bannermen and the wealthy people who depend on them may naturally resist this policy.

They owned the most houses in the city, so naturally they had to pay much more silver. Moreover, since they had servants at home and did not have to clean the houses themselves, they had little interest in improving the sanitary conditions in the capital.

In addition, this time the City Guard Camp followed Hongxi's wishes and only forcibly levied taxes on those who were dissatisfied with him.

But most of the bannermen did not object.

Because many of their houses were demolished and occupied by the wealthy and powerful, they had long been living in small houses or had no place to live at all, and were living in temporary shacks everywhere, and they were eager to collect money from the wealthy and powerful bannermen.

Moreover, they welcome the fact that paying only a small amount of money or no money at all can make the surrounding environment much cleaner.

Merchants who opened shops did not object, because this way they would not have to hire people to clean up the filth in front of their shops every day, and it would also improve their business.

The middle-level bannermen did not oppose it strongly. After all, they did not pay much, and it would also make the area around their houses cleaner without any effort on their part.

Bang bang!

"Open the door and charge!"

While Hongli was inspecting the clearing of snow and dirt on the streets, he saw with his own eyes that a group of soldiers from the city guard camp, surrounded by many bannermen, excitedly and violently rushed to a golden-pillared gate and banged on the door knocker.

As far as Hongli knew, the gates of the courtyard houses in the Qing Dynasty were divided into several levels: the Prince's Palace Gate, the Guangliang Gate, the Manzi Gate, and the Ruyi Gate.

This family can live in a house with golden pillars, so they are considered an ordinary official family.

But the family refused to open the door, as if they were deliberately creating the illusion that no one lived in the house.

The soldiers of the city guard camp also showed their camaraderie as fellow bannermen, and worked together to break down the gate with wood.

"I am Jiu Ye's man, who gave you the guts?"

"I don't care who you belong to. We only listen to our own boss. Either pay up or leave!"

At this time, the officials of the City Guard Camp pushed away the people who were trying to stop them from talking and walked straight in.

Seeing this, Hongli just smiled faintly, then lowered the curtain, as if the excitement had nothing to do with him.

(End of this chapter)