Dual Transmigration: Starting from being captured and brought to the Hehuan Sect!

Lin Mo asked Liu Si to recount the entire situation at the county government office from beginning to end.

Liu Si counted on his rough fingers and poured out everything in detail:

There are only three registered officials in the county government: Liu Si himself, Zhang Tie, and Wang Laonian, who haven't come to report for duty for several days.

The reason was that the imperial court owed them more than a year's salary. The two had elderly parents and young children to support, and they couldn't bear it any longer, so they planned to take their families and flee the famine.

As for assistant officials such as county magistrate, registrar, and secretary, none of them existed. The former county magistrate held all the positions, and after his death, the positions were all vacant.

Lianhai County originally had 930 households and 3,210 people. In recent years, due to famine, those who were able and able to leave have all left. Now there are less than 400 registered households and less than 1,000 people at most.

The remaining people were either the elderly, weak, sick, or disabled who couldn't run, or servants of the Wang family in the west of the city.

Master Wang was the father-in-law of the military commander stationed in the west of the city. The best farmland in the west of Lianhai County belonged to his family, and the rent owed by the tenants was more than the crops on the land.

Lin Mo frowned after hearing this.

He had no money, no manpower, and was facing a famine. The situation was even worse than he had anticipated.

Pei Ziyu really found him a good place.

No matter how bad this place is, it's still his own territory.

"Liu Si, how much salary does the imperial court owe you three people in total?"

"Reporting to the magistrate, one tael each, three taels in total."

Lin Mo took out a five-tael silver ingot from his pocket and placed it on the table:

"Go and call Zhang Tie and Wang Laonian back. Tell them that a new county magistrate has taken office and that their back pay will be issued. From now on, their monthly salaries will be paid on time, without any delay."

Liu Si stared at the silver ingot for a moment, then suddenly realized that the new county magistrate was paying their salaries out of his own pocket.

He knelt down again with a thud, his voice trembling:

"On behalf of those two good-for-nothings, I thank the magistrate!"

He got up, turned around, and ran out of the yamen. His legs were more than ten times more agile than when he was sunbathing.

Liu Si found Zhang Tie and Wang Laonian in a half-collapsed mud-brick house in the west of the city.

The two had already packed their bedding, which was actually just two tattered quilts made of willow catkins tied together with hemp rope, and that was all their belongings, which they carried on their shoulders.

Their wives were huddled in a corner, holding their children. They were pale and thin, with red and swollen eyes, clearly having cried several times.

Zhang Tie was squatting on the threshold stuffing dry grass into his shoes when he saw Liu Si running over, panting. Without even looking up, he muttered something in a low voice:

"Old Liu, you're bound to starve to death here sooner or later. Come with us and head north; maybe we can find some food there."

Liu Si, catching his breath while leaning against the doorframe, waved his hand and forced a smug smile onto his face, an expression completely different from his usual taciturn demeanor.

"Leave? I'm not leaving. The new magistrate has arrived and wants you to go back to your posts."

Old Wang slammed his bedding roll on the ground, his calloused hands outstretched, his voice filled with barely suppressed resentment:

"Working? Can you even earn a living working? My salary has been over a year behind, and my mother starved to death last month. If I stay any longer, my whole family will starve!"

His wife tugged at his sleeve from behind, but he shook her off.

Liu Si didn't argue with him. He slowly took out two pieces of silver from his pocket, weighed them in his palm, and the silver gleamed with a warm luster in the setting sun.

He handed the silver to the two men:

"Here, this is your salary. The new magistrate paid out of his own pocket to settle all the debts he owes us."

Zhang Tie stared at the silver coin, his eyes wide like copper bells.

He reached out and took it, gently bit it between his teeth, and then looked at it over and over again.

it is true.

It's not copper-plated iron; it's genuine snowflake-patterned silver.

He clutched the silver coin, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down. He glanced back at his wife and child huddled in the corner, and his eyes instantly reddened.

Old Wang was even more exaggerated; his hands trembled as he held the silver, and he kept muttering to himself:

"This really saved my life."

Liu Si patted the two men on the shoulders:

"This newly arrived county magistrate, whether it's his speech, mannerisms, or the clothes he wears, is no ordinary person. He's not short of money."

Going out to escape famine is a life-or-death situation; how many people have died on the northern roads?

What if you run into bandits while running away with your wife and kids?

What to do if you encounter a plague?

In the end, they'll just become food for stray dogs.

Stay on, and your monthly salary will be paid monthly thereafter, without missing a penny.

You two should think it over yourselves.

Zhang Tie stuffed the silver into his pocket, stood up, tore off the roll of bedding from his shoulder, and threw it against the corner of the wall.

"I'm not leaving. Old Nian, what about you?"

Old Wang stuffed the silver into his wife's hand, wiped his face, and said in a muffled voice:

"I'm not leaving either."

When the three returned to the county government office, Lin Mo was standing in the main hall looking through the county chronicles left by the previous magistrate.

The pages of that county gazette were yellowed, and the edges were brittle from the sea breeze and dampness, but the handwriting was neat and tidy, each stroke written by the former poor county magistrate with a worn-out pen.

Lin Mo frowned more and more as he rolled his eyes. Lianhai County was not only poor, but also suffered from pirate attacks every year.

The most recent incident recorded in the county annals was three months ago, when a group of pirates landed at Wild Wolf Reef in the south, plundered a fishing village outside the city, killed more than a dozen people, and abducted several women.

The former magistrate, accompanied by only three officials, went to negotiate, only to be slashed in the chest by a pirate and killed instantly.

The county gazetteer ends abruptly here. The last few pages are filled in by Liu Si's crooked handwriting, recording that after the former magistrate died, no one claimed his body. He and Zhang Tiewang Lao Nian pooled together thirty coins to buy a thin coffin and buried him.

Lin Mo was turning to this page when the three officials entered the hall.

He closed the county gazetteer and turned around.

Zhang Tie was a burly man with a full beard, standing next to Liu Si like an iron tower.

Old Wang, on the other hand, was tall and thin, with a hunched back, and indeed shrunk listlessly at the very back.

The two knelt down as soon as they entered the door and kowtowed deeply.

"We, Zhang Tie and Wang Laonian, pay our respects to the County Magistrate!"

Get up.

Lin Mo told them to stand up, and without further ado, gave his first order since taking office.

"You three, go and gather all the homeless children in the city into the backyard of the county government office. I want to set up a welfare home there."

The three men looked at each other, puzzled. Liu Si cautiously asked:

"Sir, what is an orphanage?"

Long Qingxue stepped out from behind Lin Mo and spoke up to explain on his behalf:

"It's a nursing home, a place that houses orphans and abandoned children."

Liu Si suddenly realized, but the hesitation on his face deepened.

He gritted his teeth and mustered his courage to offer a word of advice:

"Sir, you don't know, there are at least dozens of wild children in Lianhai County who are left unattended. Setting up a nursing home is no small expense."

"Just the rice for two meals a day is a huge hole, don't you think...?"

He didn't finish his sentence, but the meaning was crystal clear:

This place is so poor that it can't even support the government officials, so where would it get the money to feed so many people?