Qing Yao

Chapter 287 Zhao the Shaver

Prior to the thirteenth year of the Qianlong Emperor's reign, the Qing court did not stipulate that the governor-general must exercise control over the provincial administration and the provincial judicial commissioner.

This leads to a problem: when the governor and the provincial administration and the provincial judicial commissioner have a major disagreement on a certain matter, the governor, as the highest official in a province, is unable to institutionally suppress the provincial administration and the provincial judicial commissioner and force these two provincial officials to do things according to his wishes.

During the Yongzheng era, when Li Wei served as the governor of Zhejiang, his implementation of the "equalization of land tax and poll tax" policy was met with resistance from local gentry. The Zhejiang Provincial Surveillance Commissioner outwardly complied but inwardly resisted, and the Provincial Administration Commissioner also adopted a wait-and-see attitude, making it difficult for the "equalization of land tax and poll tax" policy to proceed in Zhejiang.

Li Wei had no choice but to secretly petition Emperor Yongzheng to transfer the provincial governor and the provincial inspector, which finally allowed the land tax reform in Zhejiang to proceed.

When the old master ascended the throne, the conflicts among the provincial officials became increasingly prominent, which led to the explicit stipulation that the provincial governor and the provincial inspectorate must be subject to the control of the governor.

Thus, the governor became the de facto regional governor, and the provincial treasurer, who was the head of a province, gradually became a subordinate official of the governor. By the late Qing Dynasty, the power of the provincial treasurer had even been weakened to the level of a finance minister.

However, Zhao An felt that even if he did not cooperate with Zhu Gui's work, the old master would not transfer him, because promoting him, the grain commissioner who had been stripped of his ginseng, to acting governor showed that the old master was already very dissatisfied with Zhu Gui.

Zhu Gui had a "previous record" with the old master, so as long as Zhao An "uncooperative" within the scope of his authority and in a reasonable and measured manner, Zhu Gui could do nothing about him as the acting governor.

Moreover, Zhao An was not only acting as the governor of a province, but he was also the director of Anhui's grain department, the director of its finance department, and held half of Anhui's military power.

They were completely capable of standing on equal footing with Zhu Gui.

Admittedly, as the governor, Zhu Gui could interfere with major financial decisions in Anhui, but the notes he approved as the "money-spending" governor had to be signed and approved by Zhao An, the "money-managing" chief accountant.

Without Zhao An's signature, no one can take a single penny from the Anhui Provincial Treasury!

Zhao An's only weakness compared to Zhu Gui was his power of personnel appointment and dismissal. According to the Qing court's system, the provincial governor had the power to assess and recommend officials from prefectures and counties, but the provincial governor held the final power to report to the emperor.

In other words, if Zhu Gui did not cooperate, Zhao An would not be able to recommend officials for positions of the sixth rank or above.

It's obvious that if Zhao An uses the financial card to control Zhu Gui, Zhu Gui will definitely use the personnel card to control Zhao An.

This created a de facto power struggle between the government and the legislature.

Anhui (smaller version)

Zhao An's goal was to use this disaster relief and anti-disorder campaign to "remove the acting governor and become the official governor," and then, just like in the Jiangsu officialdom a few years ago, oust the uncooperative governor and make Anhui completely his own.

Therefore, it was impossible to confront Zhu Gui directly from the start; the approach was to gradually weaken him.

First, they used Zhu Gui's methods of militia training to control the militia in Anhui. Then, they used disaster relief and prevention of unrest to take down the "disobedient" officials in Anhui. After that, they cooperated with the "financial magnates" such as grain merchants and salt merchants to effectively sideline Zhu Gui, the governor of Anhui.

Finally, by using some incident, or even fabricating one, they gathered the power of Anhui officials and gentry to bombard Zhu Gui, forcing him to pack his bags and leave.

In short, take it one step at a time, don't rush it, a year or two is fine.

Anyway, the White Lotus Rebellion still has three years to go.

Zhu Gui was indeed a renowned upright official, and Zhao An was no sham either. However, Zhao An surpassed Zhu Gui in that he, as an upright official, could cooperate with corrupt officials, meaning he could unite most officials.

Unlike Zhu Gui, who saw things in black and white.

Chuzhou, being a centrally affected area adjacent to the major city of Jiangning, is in a relatively better situation; the further north you go, the more severe the situation becomes.

It was already May, but the heavens still refused to send rain. Under the scorching sun, the cracked land in Huaibei resembled the parched skin of an old man. In some places, the land was so dry that the cracks could accommodate a person's palm.

The word "shocking" is hardly enough to describe it. Along the way, Zhao An would stop to check every village and town he came across. All the wells he saw were dry. In order to obtain drinking water to sustain their lives, some villagers had to kneel on the dry riverbed and dig mud into it, but what they dug out was black mud with a fishy smell.

If they were lucky enough to dig out a mud pit filled with water, the thirsty villagers would drink it all up quickly, and some villagers who couldn't get water would even fight each other.

The old scold, the young cry, and the young beat.
Zhao An was powerless to stop it all, because he, as the provincial governor, could not provide the villagers with the water to survive.

Such scenes are not isolated incidents, but rather a common occurrence throughout the Huaibei region.

How much can he stop anyway?

Because what he saw was so horrifying, Zhao An slightly changed his itinerary. Instead of going directly to Fengyang Prefecture, he first "inspected" several counties under the jurisdiction of Fengyang Prefecture.

Without notifying the local authorities, we went directly to check.

At first, they traveled along the official roads. Although the situation was not optimistic, they could still hold on, and from time to time, they could see local officials and gentry organizing the people to help themselves.

However, Zhao An soon ordered that they should not take the official road but instead take the local trails. He realized that the situation in the villages and towns on both sides of the official road might not be the true picture of the disaster. Local officials, for the sake of the local image and their own reputation and achievements, might have "favored" the villages and towns on both sides of the official road, thus preventing the high-ranking officials who came down to inspect from seeing the real situation.

Moreover, the official road is currently the only passage for disaster relief, and residential areas close to the official road are relatively easy to obtain disaster relief supplies.

Furthermore, the villagers living on both sides of the official road are relatively better off economically.

As Zhao An had predicted, the situation in villages and towns far from the main road was appalling. The starving people he saw along the way were like ghosts, each one emaciated, with sunken eyes and drooping cheeks, like zombies.

These starving people will surely die within three to five days unless they receive food immediately.

Historically, there is a specific term for such starving people: "starving corpses".

If Zhao An's group hadn't numbered over a hundred and clearly been government officials, starving people would likely have risked their lives to plunder their food supplies.

Relief measures have been implemented and food supplies are being transported to the disaster area, but all of this will take time.

Aside from gathering information, there was nothing Zhao An could do.

In his heart, however, he grew increasingly resentful of Zhu Gui. If Zhu Gui had taken the drought in Anhui seriously last year and made advance preparations, the disaster would not have been so severe.

Based on what we see now, I'm afraid at least a million people will starve to death in Anhui this year.

Compared to Anhui's population of over 20 million, a population of over one million is undoubtedly insignificant.

If Anhui can truly weather this major disaster smoothly, the deaths of millions are no big deal to the authorities, since the overall situation has been preserved.

But even a human life is of paramount importance to Zhao An, because he is not an ordinary "carnivore".

That night, the group stayed in a small village nestled in a mountain valley. Most of the villagers had fled the famine, leaving only a few elderly, weak, sick, and disabled families.

This place belongs to Dingyuan County under the jurisdiction of Fengyang Prefecture, an extremely poor and inferior county.

When Zhao An pushed open the door of a house, he saw an old man huddled on a half-collapsed earthen bed, using rusty scissors to cut the festering sores on a little girl's foot.

Both the old man and the girl gave off an overall impression of being somewhat "exaggerated".

My legs, hands, and face are all swollen.

His entire body appeared to be more than half the size of his actual weight.

Zhao An had only ever seen this kind of physique on drowning victims in his previous life.

"Who are you?" The intrusion of strangers made the old man instinctively point the scissors in his hand at Zhao An, while tightly protecting his granddaughter behind him.

The girl was also frightened, her swollen fingers gripping the kang mat tightly, the blood seeping from under her fingernails mixing with the dirt and forming scabs.

His eyes were full of fear.

A few days ago, her childhood friend Xiaohua was kidnapped by two starving lunatics.

When Xiaohua's family found her, all they found was a pile of rotten bones from which maggots kept emerging.

"Don't be afraid, old man, we are government officials."

Zhao An gestured to Baili Yunlong not to snatch the scissors from the old man's hand, and had someone bring some dry rations and place them on the table.

"People from the government?"

The old man was unmoved at first, but when he saw the food that Zhao An had ordered to be placed on the table, a glimmer of light appeared in his cloudy eyes.

"You all go out, I want to talk to the old man."

After waving for the bodyguards to leave, Zhao An picked up the food from the table, walked lightly to the old man, and sat down on the ground without minding the dirt, handing the food to the old man.

He didn't say anything, but just sighed softly.

The old man hesitated for a moment, put down the scissors in his hand, and handed the food that Zhao An had given him to his granddaughter behind him.

The little girl, who was so hungry she was almost exhausted, took the food and started biting into it. Seeing this, Zhao An quickly called for a pot of water to be brought in and said to the old man, "The child has been hungry for a long time. She can't eat too fast or too much, or she'll get bloated."

The old man, who had lived for decades, was experienced in this matter. He nodded, whispered to his granddaughter to eat slowly, and then looked at Zhao An curiously: "I wonder what brings you here, sir?"

Zhao An offered the old man something to eat, and after the old man had eaten, he said, "Old man, you're so hungry, didn't the government give you any disaster relief grain?"

"Disaster relief grain?"

The old man shook his head and said that since the drought, the government had not given them any food. After the people had eaten up their own stored grain, they ate chaff. When even these meager sustenances were gone, they filled their empty bellies with grass roots, tree bark, wild vegetables, wild fruits, and wild grass.

"To be honest, sir, we dug up everything edible around here. Many people in our village were so hungry that they even ate poisonous wild vegetables, resulting in diarrhea, intestinal leakage, and black blood spurting from their noses. Many people died from poisoning. The younger ones all went out to escape the famine, leaving only those of us who couldn't walk long distances to stay at home and wait to die."

As the old man spoke, he shakily reached into the corner of the kang (a heated brick bed) and pulled out a clay pot. Then, he took out two white mud balls from the pot and handed them to Zhao An.

Zhao An took it and asked curiously, "Grandpa, what is this?"

The old man said this was the disaster relief grain distributed by the county.

"Disaster relief grain?"

Zhao An was stunned. He picked up one of the pieces, smelled it again and again, and confirmed that it was indeed white clay, possibly containing some wild vegetable ingredients.

"The county said that one of these mud balls is equivalent to one pound of millet, and they gave each household ten of them. That's all we got."

After saying that, the old man handed the water bottle to his granddaughter and gently patted her back. It was clear that the old man loved his granddaughter very much.

Or perhaps his granddaughter is his only living relative.

Zhao An felt a little sad. He threw two mud balls into the jar and asked in confusion, "Can you swallow this stuff?"

The old man replied without turning his head, "I couldn't swallow it, so the county told us to mix it with water."

"Have you eaten?"

Zhao An frowned deeply.

"Some people have eaten it, but we haven't. Eating too much of this stuff will cause people to bloat and die."

The old man tilted the jar, and sure enough, there were ten mud balls inside.

After a moment of silence, Zhao An sighed, "Besides these mud balls, the county hasn't given you a single grain of food? Are you just going to watch your people starve to death?"

The old man shook his head and said, "No, the county said that if we really can't survive at home, we can go to the disaster relief camp set up by the county."

Zhao An was puzzled. Since the county had set up a disaster relief camp, even if they only gave the old man a bowl of porridge a day, it would be better than him waiting to die at home without food. Why didn't the old man go?

The old man was alright on his own; he died so suddenly. But he still had a seven or eight-year-old granddaughter.

Even if you don't think of yourself, you should at least think of your granddaughter.

Perhaps sensing Zhao An's confusion, the old man hesitated for a moment before whispering, "To be honest, sir, not just anyone can go to the disaster relief camp. They won't accept an old man like me, but they will accept my granddaughter."

"Oh?"

Zhao An looked at the little girl hiding behind the old man, and his heart skipped a beat for no reason. A glint of light flashed in his eyes: "Does the old man mean that the disaster relief camp is a place that sells people?"

The old man nodded slightly and sighed: "If my granddaughter had come, I would have given her either one or two taels of silver or twenty catties of millet. That way, my granddaughter could live, and I could live too. But I would never see my poor granddaughter again."

Zhao An didn't say anything. He could tell that in a day or two, the old man might take his granddaughter to the disaster relief camp to sell her. It wasn't that the old man wanted to live, but that he couldn't bear to let his granddaughter starve to death with him.

Selling one's children is a tragedy, but for desperate disaster victims, it is the only way for them to keep their children alive.

If this kind of trade was spontaneously formed among the people, Zhao An would have nothing to say. But the disaster relief camp was an official relief camp organized by the Dingyuan County government, yet it turned into a market for selling children. We'll have to see what the Dingyuan County magistrate is really up to.

Before dawn the next day, Zhao An led his men away, leaving the old man a few pounds of dry rations, saying that if he ate them sparingly, he could last for ten days.

By then, the large-scale disaster relief efforts spearheaded by Zhao An should have already begun.

After boarding the carriage, Zhao An did not lift the curtain to check as usual, nor did he ask to continue checking the disaster situation in the vicinity. Instead, he instructed Baili Yunlong to notify the team to go directly to Dingyuan County.

He remained silent throughout the journey.

Baili Yunlong thought Zhao An was grieving for the people, so he comforted him, "Young Master, the disaster is so severe, it's not your fault. You don't need to blame yourself too much. Everyone has seen what you've done for the disaster victims, and no one will blame you."

"I'm not sad, nor am I blaming myself. I'm just thinking about something."

Zhao An straightened up slightly and said in a deep voice, "They say that in times of chaos, harsh measures are needed. I think that harsh measures are also needed to deal with major disasters. It seems that I, the 'Tofu Judge,' will have another title."

Baili Yunlong was stunned: "What title?"

"Zhao the Shaver".

Zhao An lifted the carriage curtain, and in the distance, the mountains remained barren.

(End of this chapter)