Hot flashes

When those memorials were sent to the capital, the cabinet officials read them. Some praised Wu Huai-ren as a capable official, some lamented the severity of the disaster in Jiangnan, and some took the opportunity to advise Xiao Jue that Wu Huai-ren had done a good job and should be rewarded.

Xiao Jue read through the memorials and wrote "Understood" indifferently, offering neither praise nor urging.

Wu Huai-ren waited in Jiangnan for half a month before receiving a secret imperial edict instructing him to "act as he sees fit."

This secret edict came under suspicious circumstances. In the edict, Xiao Jue said that the floods in Jiangnan were severe and the grain allocated by the court could not be transported in time. In order to prevent the famine victims from starving to death everywhere, Wu Huai Ren was specially permitted to open the granaries to provide relief as needed, and to report the expenses to the Ministry of Revenue afterward based on the account books.

Wu Huai-ren held the secret edict, turning it over and over three times, and a slow smile appeared on his lips.

Just as he was wondering how to get his hands on those government granaries, Xiao Jue handed him the key. The four characters "act as you see fit" were written by Xiao Jue himself, the ink flowing freely and powerfully.

Wu Huai-ren carefully put away the secret edict, and that very night he summoned his staff and attendants to discuss the matter of opening the granaries for relief.

Hu's advisor was the first to stand up and object. He said that the court's rule was to report to the emperor first before acting, and although His Majesty had given special permission to act expediently, the accounts still needed to be verified afterward.

Every grain transaction in and out of these official granaries in Jiangnan is recorded, and the ledgers are sent to the Ministry of Revenue for verification. The people at the Ministry of Revenue may not be good at much else, but they are experts at verifying accounts. If there is any mistake, it will be no laughing matter.

Wu Huai-ren laughed after hearing this. He looked at Hu, the advisor, and said, "You've followed me for so many years, how come you're still so timid? The accounts will naturally be settled by someone else."

The Cui family had already made arrangements with the Ministry of Revenue. The people auditing the accounts were their own, and the result was naturally "the accounts match the actual situation."

Hu's advisor wanted to say something more, but Wu Huai-ren waved his hand, giving him no further chance to speak.

He spread out a map, pointed to the locations of the official granaries, and began assigning tasks—who would go to which granary, how much grain to distribute, which counties to distribute it to, and how to keep the accounts, explaining everything clearly.

After distributing the tasks, he leaned back in his chair, looked at everyone present, and said, "You've all worked so hard in Jiangnan for so long, it's time you got some income."

The surplus from this opening of the warehouse will be divided according to precedent. He will take 40%, and the remaining 60% will be distributed among those present according to their contributions.

Upon hearing this, the eyes of the attendants in the room lit up. Hadn't they followed Wu Huai-ren all the way to Jiangnan for this very reason? After suffering for so long, the real test was finally about to begin. That night, no one raised any further objections.

After the order to open granaries for relief was issued, the prefectures in Jiangnan acted with extraordinary speed.

The usual buck-passing and bureaucratic red tape all vanished at this moment, replaced by an astonishing level of efficiency.

The official granaries of Jiangning Prefecture were the first to open, and oxcarts carrying grain lined up in a long queue, stretching from the east to the west of the city. The wheels rolled over the muddy roads, splashing mud onto the faces of the disaster victims on the roadside. They didn't bother to wipe it off; they just looked at the overflowing grain sacks on the carts, their eyes shining with a long-lost light.

Suzhou Prefecture followed closely behind, followed by Huzhou, Changzhou, and Songjiang. Within just a few days, hundreds of thousands of shi (a unit of dry measure) of grain were transported from the official granaries and distributed to various counties, which in turn distributed them to townships, villages, and households.

The disaster victims held the grain; some cried, some laughed, and some knelt on the ground, kowtowing towards the direction of the capital, chanting "Long live the Emperor."

Unbeknownst to them, half of this grain was not relief grain allocated by the imperial court.

The grain allocated by the imperial court is still on its way to Jiangnan and will take at least half a month to arrive. What they are holding is the reserve grain from the official granaries, the accumulated wealth of various prefectures in Jiangnan over many years.

These grains should not have been touched, nor dared to be touched, because without the imperial decree, anyone who touched the grains in the official granaries would be sentenced to death.

But things are different now. His Majesty has granted him special permission to "act expediently," and Wu Huai-ren has an imperial edict in hand, so it is perfectly legitimate for him to move these grains.

Wu Huai-ren's actions were indeed perfectly legitimate. He ordered the grain in the official granary to be divided into two parts: one part was used for disaster relief, and the other part was sold to grain merchants.

The money earned was used partly to supplement the disaster relief accounts and partly pocketed by him. The accounts were meticulously prepared, with every transaction having a source and a voucher, and even the signatures and fingerprints of the people involved were complete.

At the Ministry of Revenue, the people the Cui family had contacted were already waiting to audit the accounts. Once the account books were in their hands, they would simply go through the motions, stamp them, and that would be the end of the audit. Everything was arranged perfectly.

But Wu Huai-ren forgot one thing. He sold the grain in the official granaries to grain merchants, who then transported the grain to other places to sell, thus reducing the total amount of grain in Jiangnan.