Hot flashes

Wu Huai-ren grew bolder day by day.

A month after taking office, he began "fundraising" from local wealthy gentry. Of course, he didn't do it himself; he wasn't that foolish.

The person who came forward was a clerk from Jiangning Prefecture named Qian, who was Zhou Min's confidant. Clerk Qian, accompanied by several constables, visited each of the prominent and wealthy households, saying that the imperial envoy had been ordered to provide disaster relief in Jiangnan, but the funds allocated by the court were insufficient, and the local area needed to contribute.

The words were polite, but the meaning was clear—not paying was disrespecting the imperial envoy. Disrespecting the imperial envoy was disrespecting the imperial court.

The wealthy households were inwardly groaning, but dared not show it on their faces. Wu Huai-ren was an imperial envoy, representing the emperor; if they offended him, how would they live in the future?

Moreover, most of those wealthy households had intricate connections with powerful families. Their properties, land, and shops were all under the protection of these families. They dared not act rashly without the families' permission, but the families also did not refuse to give them anything.

They tentatively asked the local officials in charge of these aristocratic families. The officials smiled and said that Lord Wu was an imperial envoy sent by the court; if he wanted it, they should give it to him. The wealthy families understood.

Silver was delivered cartload after cartload to the imperial envoy's headquarters. Wu Huai-ren accepted it all without hesitation.

He had a new storeroom built behind the headquarters, specifically to store the silver that had been "donated".

On the day the warehouse was repaired, he went to see it in person and looked at the rows of neatly stacked silver chests, a satisfied smile on his face.

His advisor, surnamed Hu, was a thin old man in his fifties who had been with him for over a decade and was the person he trusted most.

Hu's advisor stood behind him, looking at the silver chests, his face devoid of a smile, instead bearing a trace of worry.

"Sir," Hu's advisor lowered his voice, "isn't this too much?"

Wu Huai-ren turned to look at him. Hu, the advisor, continued, "These wealthy families in Jiangnan all have powerful clans behind them."

Wu Huai-ren smiled. "You're overthinking it," he said. "What the powerful families want is for the court to obey them on their turf; what I want is money. A win-win situation?"

Before Hu's advisor could say anything more, Wu Huai-ren waved his hand, turned around, and walked out of the warehouse.

The attitude of the powerful families towards Wu Huai-ren is quite subtle.

They needed Wu Huai-ren. They needed him to hand over the leadership of disaster relief to them, and they needed him to write those accounts in the memorials so that the court could not find any flaws. But they also looked down on Wu Huai-ren.

This person is too greedy. His greed knows no bounds, and he has no restraint.

But they won't care. They didn't want Wu Huai-ren to get into trouble.

If he gets into trouble, the court will replace him, and then they will have to start trying to bribe, win over, and test him again.

That would be too much trouble. They would rather let Wu Huai-ren continue, even if he was a little greedy, even if he went too far, as long as he was obedient and didn't get in their way, everything would be fine.

As for the silver, grain, and medicine that he withheld, the aristocratic families didn't care.

Those things originally belonged to the imperial court. The imperial court's money is spent on the people, and it's also spent in Wu Huai Ren's pocket. Anyway, it's not spent in their pockets, so they don't care.

The Cui family's manager in Jiangnan was surnamed Liu. He was a middle-aged man in his forties, thin, with small eyes that he always squinted when looking at people.

He was Cui Yin's confidant, specifically in charge of the Cui family's businesses in Jiangnan. After Wu Huai-ren arrived in Jiangnan, he represented the Cui family and spoke with Wu Huai-ren once.

No one knows what they talked about, but it is known that after the talk, Wu Huai-ren became exceptionally cooperative in matters concerning the Cui family.

After returning home, Steward Liu wrote a letter to Cui Yin. The letter contained only one sentence: "Wu Huai Ren is usable."

Within a month and a half of Wu Huai-ren's arrival, he had already collected over 100,000 taels of silver in "tribute" from various prefectures in Jiangnan. He felt that he had gained a firm foothold in Jiangnan.

He thought he was clever and that he had everyone under his control.

On the imperial court's side, he would submit a memorial every few days, describing the disaster situation in Jiangnan in a shocking way and portraying his own deeds as earth-shattering.

In his memorial to the throne, he said that he personally went to the disaster area and shared the hardships with the victims; he said that he worked day and night, forgetting to eat and sleep; he said that he used his own salary to buy food and distributed it to the victims, and the victims knelt on the ground and kowtowed to him, calling him the upright and just Lord.