When Shu Wenqing and the others were surprised to hear that the Qijia warehouse was attacked and robbed by the victims and rushed to check it out. When they wanted to stop it, County Magistrate Huo, who had received the report from Qian Bantou, responded quickly and sent someone to Ximen Warehouse to capture the culprit Ling Li!

Just as Shu Wenqing and the others thought before, even if the people they incited first to do something, once Li Lingzhen took advantage of the situation and counterattacked, the county government would never be able to judge the matter and find out the truth. What they would do was to take the opportunity to take down Ling Li, a foreign businessman who had broken the big thing, and then confiscate his property as the situation.

It can be said that in the eyes of Guang'an, the people who are so sharp that they are already desperate and can only accept reality.

Then, Li Ling was indeed taken to the county government office, of course, Li Moyun and others were accompanied by his colleagues. When the Magistrate Huo planned to make a random trial and then give him a charge of ill-treatment and causing trouble to the people, the merchant Ling, who had just entered the hall, directly showed up a token and threw it onto the long case: "Huo Junshan, do you know the crime? Do you still want to make mistakes again and again, let yourself die with them?"

The official who should have interrogated the person was scolded in turn. If the token had not been shown in front of him, the yamen inside and outside the hall would have pounced on him. At this time, after seeing the words on the token clearly, the expression on County Magistrate Huo's face quickly changed, from seriousness to doubt, then from doubt to shock, and finally turned into panic, even his body trembling.

"Ling... Lord Ling forgive me for your crime, I am the official, I really don't know you... You are the superior of the Imperial City Department, so offensive..." As he said, he didn't dare to stay on top of him, so he quickly came down to see him, and he almost knelt down for Li Ling.

Facing the magistrate Huo, who was arrogant at first and respectful at the end, Li Ling just smiled coldly: "I took the order of Lord Li to take the lead and came to investigate all the things that happened after the Huguang disaster. This time I am in Guang'an, I am very eye-opening. County Magistrate Huo, all of this is your credit."

County Magistrate Huo was extremely panicked, and his knees weakened, and he knelt down: "Sir... the officials were wronged, and the officials were forced to join the crowd, so they had to join the crowd. Please give me a clear understanding..."

He had heard of Li Ling's name for a long time, and what made him even more panicked was the token, because it was the trust of the Imperial City Department!

Nowadays, the Imperial City Department has a much larger force than in the previous two years, and has also completed many cases, and has a great reputation in the officialdom. Not to mention that he is a small seventh-rank county magistrate of Huo Junshan, he is the prefect and the Imperial City Department's visit to the door to investigate and they are frightened. What's more, he knows what he has done, and it means to be a guilty person.

Li Ling, who saw this, also seized the opportunity and asked, "You are really forced to join forces with the local tyrants and evil gentry, which caused the people of this county to lack clothing and food?"

"That's right... it's true that the joints are long. In fact, these gentry and others in this county are also instructed..."

"I'll talk about this later. I'll just ask you, are you willing to redeem your sins, or let me let someone take you seriously now?" Li Ling did not hurry to ask him about more information, listen to his attitude first.

At this point, County Magistrate Huo did not know how to seize this only opportunity and immediately said: "The officials are willing to obey the orders of the emperor, just to make up for the mistakes they made."

In this way, shortly after Li Ling arrived at the county government, he turned his back and became the real person in charge of the county government. This is why the Qi family's warehouse was in chaos, but the county government did not respond at all. When Shu Wenqing and the others came to ask for an explanation with doubts, Li Ling directly let the county magistrate Lou, who also knew his identity and was willing to atone for his sins, come forward to deal with it.

As for himself, he was still listening to County Magistrate Huo telling everything he knew in the public room—

"Actually, when the locust plague started last year, the officials and others were determined to fight the disaster and save the people. However, the scale and damage of this locust plague were far beyond our imagination. It was the autumn harvest season, which led to nearly 80% of the land in Suizhou, while the situation in Guang'an was even worse, and only 10% of the food was recovered.

"The Xiaguan thought of seeking help from Suizhou Prefecture, but not only did not ask for food, but instead asked for a strict order to collect taxes as usual. This was too embarrassing for the people of the county. For this reason, many people fled their hometowns and went elsewhere to make a living, and the Xiaguan was scolded by Daoshen and almost ordered to be arrested by the government office.

"At this moment, there was an official named Zhang Chuxuan from the government office. He proposed two choices to me, either to admit the crime of poor work. Not only will the official position be guaranteed, but he may also be sent to serve as a military officer; or to follow the arrangements of the prefectural government office to make up for it.

"At that time, the officials had no choice but to do things for them. Then they asked me to stock up on the name of the county government to provide relief to the people. This was just the grain from my Guang'an county. After the New Year, other local counties in Suizhou would also send food to other places, and then the county government sent people to guard it.

"Sir, you don't know anything. The officials were really afraid at that time. One was afraid that the court would punish me if they found out about this matter. The other was that the people of the county knew that I had food and would rob me... Fortunately, this matter was hidden, and then there were several actions of secretly auctioning food..."

"Wait!" Li Ling suddenly interrupted, "So, this is not the first time that food has been auctioned in Guang'an?"

"That's right, this is the fourth time. The amount of food sold in the previous few times was similar, but the buyers were mostly merchants from other places in Suizhou, and the prices were higher."

Li Ling frowned even more. It seemed that things were more serious and complicated than what he thought. After a pause, he asked again: "Do you know what their plans are?"

"The government office and the relevant adults are naturally trying to make money. I heard that even the officials in the capital who were ordered to come here to provide disaster relief were dragged down, so this matter has been suppressed and not many people know about it. As for the big merchants and gentry, they may have monopolized food and then exchanged land, real estate and other items from the victims at an extremely low price."

Li Ling nodded. This statement coincided with what he had thought before, but the situation seemed to be more difficult than what he thought before. It turned out that there was not only one million stones of grain outside, but at least three million stones of grain. In this way, their plans were not just Suizhou, but the entire Huguang.

These people are too brave and have a taste of the courage and appetite, and what is even more surprising is that can the local forces in Huguang really capture all the officials in one place? Not only are they officials in the local area, but even the officials who were sent from the court to provide disaster relief were all pulled down by them. How did they do it?

Thinking of this, he looked at County Magistrate Huo again, which shocked him: "Sir..."

"I'll ask you why they set the auction location in your Guang'an? Also, are the auctioned food transported here and sent to another place later?"

"Sir, some of them are like this, but more are transported from other places, such as Wuchang and Xiangfan. They all have their own food storage places, but this is not something that the officials can ask about."

"What about the people who paid for the food with me this time? What will they do next?"

County Magistrate Huo hesitated for a moment, but after facing Li Ling's cold gaze, he still did not dare to hide it and said truthfully: "They had sent grain in batches to Suizhou Fucheng. In fact, the last batch of grain is now left at the Qijia warehouse. As for the purpose, it is naturally to take this opportunity to exchange land in Suizhou Fucheng."

Li Ling frowned and felt a little guilty. On the same day, he sent someone to find out the identity of the guys who took the food, and then tracked and learned that they had transported the food to the Qijia warehouse overnight, he relaxed because of the friction with Baiyitang, and he didn't even know that they had already smuggled a large amount of food out of the city. If it weren't for the time being that this time was not too late, I would probably have incited the people to go to the Qijia warehouse and it would be difficult to deal with it.

Seeing Li Ling sinking his face again, County Magistrate Huo became more and more uneasy and asked in a low voice: "Sir, what do you want the officials to do next? But if I ask them to take them all, will I do it all?"

He had no good feelings for these local tyrants and evil gentry, and he made very little profits in this incident. Now that he has the opportunity to lose his merits, he naturally wants to show off his life. However, this performance only brought Li Ling's wave of his hand: "No, my identity cannot be revealed yet. Lord Li is still on the way here, so you must not alarm the snake, and you cannot use this to arrest them."

"Then... how should we settle today's matter? We have to give them an explanation, right?"

Li Ling lowered his head and pondered for a moment before saying, "In this way, you will call Shu Wenqing and others later and tell them that I have a background in the capital, but I am not a court official, but a businessman who makes money for the royal family. Then, you set up a banquet for us, and both sides will leave. They are merchants, and they say that harmony is the most important thing, and harmony makes money, and they are the first to take action, so even if they suffer a loss, they can only endure it in front of my identity."

Although County Magistrate Huo was a little surprised at why Li Ling knew the businessman's thoughts so well, he did not dare to ask, so he could only nod and respond. Then he listened to Li Ling continued: "Also, I will arrange for me to go to Suizhou with them at that time. Just tell them that I will take the same purpose as theirs, and I will also take this opportunity to exchange for the land and real estate in Huguang at a low price, but I may sell it to them at a reasonable price and let them buy it."
Chapter completed!