Late Han Zhao Tang

Chapter 73 Envoy Wang is in danger!
Zheng County, Nanshan.

As the sun sets, in the dense jungle, Hao Zhao leads dozens of people in teams of three or four, holding spears and swords, scattered in the woods, searching for traces.

"There's blood!"

Suddenly, shouts were heard in the forest, and Hao Zhao and the people around him rushed over. However, they saw bloodstains on the grass, and traces of people and tigers passing by, all the way to the depths of the jungle.

"go!"

Hao Zhao pointed his spear forward, took the lead, and said, "Pay attention to the surrounding jungle to see if there are any other traces."

"promise!"

Following the bloodstains, one could see with the naked eye that the grass and trees along the way were severely damaged, and the bloodstains appeared more and more frequently.

After walking about a hundred steps, I saw obvious dragging marks in the grass and a pool of almost solidified blood.

The local militia couldn't help but mutter, "That man might be dead!"

Hao Zhao frowned and thought to himself, "Although the tiger is injured, it is still a ferocious beast. Moreover, this vicious tiger is extremely cunning. Meng Ning's bold pursuit is really reckless. That ugly guy is so brave that he is probably in danger. I am afraid that I will go into the mountain to collect his body."

With the intention of collecting Meng Ningzhi's body, Hao Zhao and his men continued to walk forward a hundred steps. After turning around the pile of stones, they suddenly saw a horrifying scene.

The tiger fell to the ground, no longer breathing. There were multiple knife wounds on its body, and its brown fur was covered with blood. The fatal wound came from its abdomen. A ring-handled knife was directly inserted into its abdomen, and bright red blood flowed out of its abdomen, staining the weeds with blood.

Meng Ningzhi was lying on the tiger's tail, his body covered in blood, his thighs and left shoulder were bloody and his bones were almost visible. If Hao Zhao continued to fight for a while, he was afraid that Meng Ningzhi would die from his injuries.

Seeing everyone appear, Meng Ningzhi waved his hand, but he was too weak to speak.

Hao Zhao sucked in a breath of cold air. This ugly fellow usually kept a low profile, but he had such ability that he could kill a vicious tiger with just a ring-handled sword.

"Go back and tell the county lord that the evil tiger has been killed by Meng Ningzhi, and Meng Ningzhi is seriously injured."

"promise!"

Under Hao Zhao's instructions, everyone made a simple stretcher and carried Meng Ningzhi out. The evil tiger was held up by four people with spears and carried down the mountain.

Soon the news that the vicious tiger had been killed spread throughout Weishui Township at the foot of Nanshan Mountain. The villagers were all jubilant and celebrated the killing of the man-eating tiger.

Zhang Yu in Zheng County heard the good news from his men and breathed a sigh of relief. Considering that Meng Ning was seriously injured and was receiving medical treatment,

Zhang Yu gave up the idea of going to Weishui Township overnight to visit Meng Ningzhi, and simply asked the good doctors in the city to rush to Weishui Township overnight to treat Yin Huai, Meng Ningzhi and other injured people.

The next day, Zhang Yu entrusted the affairs of Longweili to Liang Mi, and rode to Weishui Township to visit the injured.

As soon as Zhang Yu arrived at Weishui Township, the village's miser, village assistant, and three elders came out to greet him, expressing their gratitude to Zhang Yu for sending people to kill the vicious tiger for the villagers and eliminating the great harm in the village.

Eliminating the vicious tiger for the village was of course Zhang Yu's political achievement. Now, facing the gratitude of the officials and people in the village, Zhang Yu accepted it without regret, in order to complete the matter of killing the tiger.

Zhang Yu first took people to visit Yin Huai, who was less seriously injured, and then comforted the relatives of the villagers who were killed by the tiger. The county and township then gave money to reward those who had made contributions. After a classic process of government orders, the villagers were all grateful to Zhang Yu, and the township officials praised him highly.

It was not until the afternoon that Zhang Yu got rid of the local officials and visited Meng Ningzhi who had woken up from his coma.

"What's the situation?" Zhang Yu glanced at the people in the room and asked.

The gray-haired doctor hesitated for a moment and said, "My Lord, Mr. Meng's left thigh and left shoulder were bitten by a vicious tiger, and the injuries were particularly severe. If it weren't for the acupuncture and medicine he received yesterday, he would have died. Although it is said that he can be cured, I don't know the extent of the flesh rot and abscess, so I dare not speak rashly."

Zhang Yu understood clearly that he was just worried about the inflammation. If the wound abscess could not subside, the inflammation would spread throughout the body. With the medical level of the Eastern Han Dynasty, it was probably impossible to treat it.

"Mr. Meng was injured while fighting a tiger for the county residents. Thank you, doctor, for your hard work in treating him!" said Zhang Yu.

"It's natural!"

The doctor bowed and said, "I will do my best with everyone else to treat Mr. Meng!"

"good!"

Meng Ningzhi's face was pale in the room. When he saw Zhang Yu coming to visit him, he propped himself up with his still strong right arm.

"County Lord!"

Zhang Yu stepped forward and said, "Bo An, take good care of yourself. No need to be polite!"

Meng Ningzhi leaned on the cushion and said, "I have received your kindness for a long time. Now I am going into the mountains to kill the tiger. This is to eliminate a disaster for you!"

Zhang Yu poured a glass of water for Meng Ningzhi and pretended to be unhappy and said, "How can your mere achievement of killing a tiger compare to Bo'an? If you die because of that beast, it will be like losing an arm of mine, which will be even more heartbreaking."

Meng Ningzhi felt warm in his heart, and said with emotion: "When I saw the evil beast was injured and running away, I was afraid that it would be hard to find it, so my blood boiled and I chased after it."

"I wonder how Bo'an killed the tiger alone?" Hao Zhao asked curiously.

Meng Ningzhi smiled bitterly and said, "I was chasing a vicious tiger along the way. I saw it was injured and running away. I became careless and was ambushed by it and scratched on my left shoulder. The situation was very chaotic at that time. I was agile and escaped from the tiger's mouth. I ran around in the forest. Although I was cut, I never hit its vital parts."

"I pretended to be vulnerable and let him bite my buttocks on purpose. Then I stabbed him in the abdomen with my ring-handled knife, and only then was I able to kill the beast."

"Hearing Bo Ning's words, I can see some danger in them!" Zhang Yu sighed: "The beast understands human nature and ambushes and kills the lonely and widowed, but when he met Bo Ning, he was the wrong person!"

“I’m still scared!”

Meng Ningzhi still remembers it clearly and said: "I felt weak all over afterwards and was also deeply frightened!"

Hao Zhao smiled and said, "Ugly guy, you owe me a life!"

In the past, Meng Ningzhi would definitely be furious if he heard someone call him ugly, but now he was calm and said with a smile: "Boy, wait for your grandfather to save you from now on!"

"Ha ha!"

Zhang Yu patted Meng Ningzhi's shoulder and said, "Don't act rashly next time. Take a good rest from today. When Bo'an recovers, I will get drunk with you."

"Yes!" Meng Ningzhi responded.

"By the way, I have arranged a beautiful maid to serve Bo Ning!"

"No need!"

"Is necessary!"

……
-
August, the second year of Zhongping.

Relying on his strong resistance, Meng Ningzhi survived the inflammation stage of the wound and gradually recovered from his injuries.

After the evil tiger was killed, Zhang Yu reported to the governor of Yin, Chang Qia. Chang Qia also wrote to him immediately, praising Zhang Yu's achievements and being very optimistic about Zhang Yu's policy of "opening fields toward the mountains", saying that he could exempt Longweili from one year of corvée and two years of taxes.

With the encouragement from Chang Qia, Zhang Yu felt more confident and started to solve the accumulated cases in Longweili.

Du Ji has been helping with the backlog of cases. Over the past two months, Du Ji has been busy every day. In addition to adjudicating cases, he has been reviewing laws and files.

Thanks to Du Ji's busy work, the previous backlog of five or six hundred cases was reduced to nearly a hundred, and the number of people detained in prison was reduced to dozens or so, which has returned to a relatively normal level.

Zhang Yu knew that the reason why Du Ji was able to quickly resolve the backlog of cases was related to Du Ji's own governing philosophy.

Although Du Ji studied Confucian classics, he also admired the Huang-Lao school of governance. Therefore, Du Ji focused on simplicity in his governance and did not like red tape. Du Ji divided the cases in the prison into civil and criminal cases.

In civil cases, Du Ji would explain the reasons and let the people go home to deal with the matter first. If they could not reach an agreement at home, they would come back to visit the county government.

In criminal cases, Du Ji judged according to the law. Because of the pursuit of efficiency, there might be mistakes. However, due to the provisions of Zhang Yu's appeal, some cases where mistakes were made due to the pursuit of efficiency could be avoided.

Du Ji's governing philosophy was quite in line with Zhang Yu's appetite, especially the pursuit of administrative efficiency rather than administrative complexity. Because of their similar views on governing the people, Zhang Yu often discussed county affairs with Du Ji.

On that day, Zhang Yu and Du Ji were chatting and talking about why Longxi often caused rebellions.

"Lord Zhang led his troops to fight against the rebels and is now fighting with them in Meiyang. Rebellions have been frequent in Longxi. I wonder if Lord Bo has any opinion on this?" Zhang Yu asked.

Du Ji pondered for a moment and said, "Zhang Huan and Duan Xing each had their own methods of conquering the Qiang people. Zhang Huan treated the Hu people with kindness, so the Hu people temporarily surrendered. Duan Xing treated the Hu people with slaughter, so the Hu people temporarily feared and surrendered. However, when the two left office, the Qiang and Hu rebellion resurfaced, just like the resurgence of the Lianglong rebels now."

"The reason why the Qiang and Hu people frequently rebelled was that the Qiang people were unruly and unruly, but also because the Han officials were cruel in ruling the people and levying heavy taxes. Therefore, Zhang Huan and Duan Xing only managed the symptoms, but not the root cause. If the officials are not disciplined, how can we expect peace in the northwest?"

In the early and middle periods of the Eastern Han Dynasty, many officials serving in the northwest were from Guandong. Therefore, the people from Guandong had no sympathy for the people of Liangzhou and were even more cruel to the Qiang people.

When the Qiang people could no longer bear the oppression, they led the people to rebel. The officials from Guandong had no psychological pressure and immediately abandoned the county. The repeated Qiang rebellions eventually exhausted the Eastern Han Dynasty, and it was forced to let the Liangzhou tyrants defend the border on their own.

Many of the rebels in the northwest this time are former subordinates of Zhang Huan and Duan Xing. Dong Zhuo, who is currently leading his troops to fight the rebels, can actually be traced back to Zhang Huan as his early superior.

It may be difficult to say whether the rebels are rebelling because of the poor governance of the local government, but the early Qiang rebellion was similar to what Du Ji said, and had a lot to do with the local governance.

After a pause, Du Ji said, "This is just a one-sided statement. I hope Ji An will listen to it."

Zhang Yu nodded slightly and said with a smile: "I always benefit a lot from chatting with Bo Hou."

When Du Ji was about to speak, Zhang Feng suddenly stepped in and said, "My Lady, Guo Tu has come from Yuzhou and has come to see you for something important."

"Why is Gongze here?"

Zhang Yu was surprised and said hurriedly, "Please come in, sir!"

"Ji, I'll take my leave for now!" Du Ji tactfully left.

"good!"

After a while, Guo Tu came in, exhausted. Without waiting for a breath, he said to Zhang Yu, "Jian, Envoy Wang might be in danger!"

Zhang Yu's face suddenly changed, and he asked, "Why do you say that, sir?"

"Book of Tang, Biography 14": "When Taizu governed Zheng County, a vicious tiger appeared in the South Mountain and killed more than ten people, causing great trouble to the county. The county soldiers surrounded and captured it several times but failed. Ning Zhi heard about the tiger, took up a knife and went alone to kill the tiger in the South Mountain. His bravery was so fierce."

(End of this chapter)