Chapter 23 : Remedy

Pei Si Yan dropped the bags of rice and darted to the granary at the speed of a hundred metres sprint/sprint, the soldiers who were carrying the rice curiously looked at the panicked Lord Wuban and hurriedly saluted her. Pei Si Yan ignored them and tore open a few bags of rice straight away, the rice inside carried spots of varying shades and gave off a musty smell.

Pei Si Yan panicked, hopefully opened other bags of rice and checked them one by one, nine times out of ten, they were all mouldy rice. She felt a dizziness in her head and staggered back a few steps.

"How could this be ..." she muttered, she had checked once at the Ministry of Households before setting out, and the rice was good. When she was in Qinghe County, there was also no problem, how come it turned into mouldy rice when she arrived in Xiyan County, and judging from the level of mould, it had been there for a long period of time.

Some soldiers came forward to see, once they saw that it was mouldy rice, they were about to shout at the top of their voices, but they were blocked by Li Qingzheng.

He instructed the soldiers to stop taking the rice to make porridge and thoroughly check the rice that hadn't been opened. The crowd was busy for a while, and as a result, most of the rice was mouldy.

"Take the rice that isn't mouldy to the congee first," Pei Siyan said breathlessly, standing against the wall, "Don't disclose the matter of the mouldy rice, or else you will be chopped off and not be spared!"

The soldiers were busy again, quietly carrying out the rice that was not mouldy.

"This bit of rice is probably only enough to last a day or two, right? There are more than 100,000 disaster victims in West Yan County, if they knew, I'm afraid it would cause serious riots." Pei Si Yan said here, her head hurt even more, a deep frown between her brows, "What exactly is going on, when did we let someone drop the rice?"

"Miss, now how to raise enough rice is important." Li Qingyan said.

"Right, right ...," Pei Si Yan rubbed her forehead and turned towards the Yamen lobby, "Invite Shi Hui and Lord Xu of the household department, the less people know the better." She hoped that this matter could be resolved quietly and then treated as if nothing had happened. Otherwise, not to mention the riots within Xiyan County, it would not be good for her if it spread to the Imperial Capital.

Arriving at the lobby, Shi Hui and Lord Xu came in a hurry, hearing Pei Si Yan's words about the mouldy rice, they were equally anxious as ants on a hot pan. Unintentional negligence and lead to fault, back to the imperial capital will certainly be pressed with the charge of negligence, so can not take the imperial court allocated money for disaster relief to buy rice, otherwise then the use of money is not good to report, can only take their own silver to make up.

The problem is going out in a hurry, Pei Si Yan does not have many silver cheques on her. Lord Xu held a small position in the Ministry of Households, his salary was very low he couldn't take money, and Shi Hui also claimed to have no money.

"You guys go take care of the victims first, I'll figure out how to buy rice. Remember, don't leak the matter out!" Pei Si Yan finished her instructions and went to find Li Qing Dye to discuss, after all, she is the inspector appointed by the emperor to be responsible for the disaster relief, the responsibility is also on her, she has to shoulder more of the consequences.

In the other room, Li Qingyan counted the silver bills in his hand and said, "Miss, the total number of silver bills is three thousand taels whole."

"Thirty taels for a stone of rice, at least enough for the victims to eat for ten days ...," Pei Siyan calculated, "There must be at least fifty thousand taels of silver, right? But where to gather that much money now?"

She walked around the room in annoyance, the jade pendant she wore around her waist ding dong, she grabbed it and a thought flashed in her mind.

"Yun Qi, bring me my jewellery box!" Pei Si Yan called out, while ripping off all the jewellery on her body and throwing it on the table in a brain, "These things are worth more than 10,000 taels anyways, right? First take the relief silver to fill in the remaining gap, back to the imperial capital we can then quietly make up for it, can't we?"

Li Qingyan looked at the valuable jewellery on the table and said, "The money that can be taken out of the mansion can't fill the vacancy."

His words undoubtedly gave Pei Si Yan a heavy blow, she paralysed in her chair like a vegetable that had gone missing, "The hallowed auxiliary minister's residence can't even take out a few tens of thousands of taels of silver bills?"

Li Qingye shook his head and said in a low voice, "When the old master was alive, he kept a low profile and seldom interacted with other officials, the long house naturally did not have enough money."

Pei Siyan glanced at him, she was not clear about the financial situation of the family, but Li Qingye was absolutely in the know, it seems that the method of embezzling public funds first is not working.

"How is the remaining forty thousand taels going to come together?" Pei Si Yan paced back and forth in annoyance, the issue of feeding the 100,000 victims seemed like a thousand tonne boulder pressing down on her, leaving her breathless.

Outside the mansion came the faint sound of people cheering, it seemed that there was another steaming rice porridge being moved out for distribution. The few people inside the house listened in, but they were not happy at all.

Li Qingye looked out the window and thought briefly, "Miss, why don't my subordinate go forward to Cangshan West Road to borrow silver from Lord Wang."

Pei Si Yan's eyes lit up, how could she have forgotten about the Cangshan West Road which was only two or three days away from Xiyan County, Wang Jianshan and Tantai Yu had a good friendship, from him, she could definitely borrow silver in order to solve her urgent needs.

"Right!" Pei Si Yan cheered and almost rushed up to hug Li Qing Dye, "There's no time to lose, Qing Dye, you should set off now," she took out her own seal and jade pendant and handed them to him, "I'm counting on you for all of this, go early and come back early! Remember to send my regards to Lord Wang, saying that I will pay my respects as soon as I am free after a while."

"Yes, miss." Li Qingdian received the things and went out without stopping.

Just before Li Qingdian left, Pei Si Yan packed her jewellery into a wooden box and took Yun Qi to find He Ban. In the name of "preventing accidents and stocking up on food", she bargained for a price of 25 taels per stone, and finally sold the price at 25 taels per stone, dragging back more than 400 stones of rice from He Ji and other rice shops, solving the problem of food for the next three days.

Apart from the insiders, no one knew about the rice being swapped, allowing Pei Si Yan to breathe a sigh of relief. In order to divert her attention from worrying about how many days Li Qingyan would be able to return, she took a group of officials out to visit and appease the victims.

Early the next morning, Pei Si Yan asked Shi Hui to lead the way to the fields to take a look. Because of the drought, a large area of the fields were empty, the land was cracked, not an inch of grass grew, and you couldn't even see a bit of green as far as the eye could see. The wind blew, rolled up a large area of dust, confuse people's eyes, not to mention, gravel into the clothes to make people uncomfortable.

Pei Siyan previously wandering on the Internet, inadvertently contacted the knowledge about drought - generally will cause drought, is only water conservancy, natural factors and other issues.

West Yan County and other cities are located in the northwest, water is not sufficient, the number of times/number of rainfall in a year is also not much, there is no construction of water conservancy, the opening of canals and digging wells are not done as well, so every now and then there will be a serious disaster such as the present one.

"The original assassin why will disappear, have any eyebrows?" Pei Shi Yan asked, at this time the group was walking along the edge of the field, a long line of people following behind her.

Shi Hui said cautiously, "To be honest, it seems that Lord Ge had misappropriated the expenses allocated by the court last year for the opening of the canal, and when he heard that Lord Wuban had come to provide relief, he was afraid that the matter would be exposed before he fled."

Pei Si Yan glanced at this Western Yan County's chief historian, "He embezzled, you don't know?"

"The chief historian is only an idle position, how would my humble servant know the things that Lord Ge has done ... My humble servant only heard later that Lord Ge had embezzled money." Shi would have a bitter face, trying hard not to stain himself with sewage.

"Tomorrow, we'll start recruiting craftsmen to build water conservancy. The Qinghe County side should have already started doing it as well," Pei Si Yan pointed to the southeast and said, "Open a canal from the Yuan River to bring the water over, and plant more trees, which will improve the climate and reduce evaporation and dust ..."

Shi will look at Pei Si Yan, the more he listens, the less he can understand her, "Your honour, my humble servant, I don't know what your honour's intention is?"

"Hmm?" Pei Si Yan looked back at him, recalling what she had just said, she seemed to have popped out a few modern words inadvertently, no wonder Shi Hui couldn't understand. She hurriedly prevaricated, "It's about planting more trees so as to reduce the occurrence of droughts!"

"Yes, yes." Shi would nod repeatedly.

A ragged old woman holding two five or six year old children hurriedly ran from the distance, knelt down in front of the group, and then cried out to the heavens, "My lord, please do something for my wife! My lord, I beg you!"

Shi would look at Pei Si Yan who had a puzzled look on her face, striding forward and waving them away, "Don't even look at who it is, how dare you block your lord's path! If you have anything to say go to the government office, right now the lord is not free!"

The old woman refused to leave, although she was old, but I don't know out of what strength, cleverly dodged the fist of the governor of Xiyan county, "giggling" scurried past his arm, ran to Pei Si Yan near, withered hands pulling the hem of her skirt, two lines of tears flowed down from her cloudy eyes.

Pei Si Yan reached out and tried to help her up, "Old woman, what do you have to say stand up and say it."

The old woman desperately shook her head, "My lord, if you can't make a decision for my wife, I would rather kneel for a long time!"

Shi Hui secretly "pooh", said: "Sir, the small people's affairs will be left to my officials, can not delay your lord ...".

"If you can handle it, would Xiyan County be in chaos like that?" Pei Si Yan glared at him, then had a gentle turn towards the old woman, gently asking, "May I ask what you have to do?"

The old woman had a face of indignation, pointing at a group of people behind Pei Si Yan, gritting her teeth, "These murderous dog officials, relying on power to fish and meat the people, causing my family to be broken and killed, my bitter son yo! Throw down a pair of small grandchildren to me a wife how to do ..." said, she sobbed, fists hard pounding the dirt.

Shi will make a wink, immediately two magistrates came forward to pull people, the old woman tugged Pei Siyan's skirt refused to let go, the two children cried and tried to push away "bullying" their grandmother's people. The two children cried and tried to push their grandmother away. Seeing this, the officers didn't dare to really pull the old woman.

Shi Hui smiled and came to the side of Lord Wu Pan, said: "Lord, in my opinion, this matter is better to go back to the government office, so that this old woman slowly explain, my official carefully record it better."

"No," Pei Si Yan saw that Shi Hui was intentionally delaying and decided to ask for an explanation now, "I'm very curious as to why the old woman would call you dog officials, and I want to know why now!"

Shi Hui gulped and had to obediently step back to the side, the magistrates also loosened their hands and stood behind the old woman with their heads bowed.

"If there is truly any grievance, I will definitely try to help you." Pei Si Yan said softly, helping the old woman up.

The old woman took her dirty sleeve and wiped her tears, sobbing, she continued, "Your Honour, you don't know, those dog officials, for their own sake, have taken over a lot of my family's fields, not to mention that they have also concealed and lied about the harvest, and levied 60% of the grain! Harmed my family to endure hunger, my son in order to filial piety wife me, up the mountain to catch hare, do not want to lose their footing fell down the cliff, the corpse is not survived! My daughter-in-law ... was snatched home as a concubine by that murderous Ge assassin, and as a result swore to die and hit the wall and died!"

Pei Siyan fiercely raised her head and glared at Shi Hui, a burning rage in her eyes, "Is there even such a thing?" These corrupt officials not only blatantly hijacked national assets and enriched themselves, they even oppressed the people and caused tragedies, she absolutely could not tolerate such things.

"My humble servant ..." Shi Hui's face was as pale as paper as he backed away, "Lord Ge wants to do this, my humble servant has persuaded him many times, but I really can't do anything about it."

"First place the old woman properly within the official residence," Pei Si Yan's face was serious as she ordered, "I want a thorough investigation into this matter, and all officials involved will be heavily punished! Lord Xu."

Lord Xu answered and came forward, "My lord."

"You bring people to re-measure all the fields in Xiyan County and see how many discrepancies there are with the records in the official files. In addition, all the officials of Xiyan County will be closely guarded in the government house, without my permission, they are forbidden to enter or leave! Also, put a heavy bounty on the wanted former assassin Ge Ge!"

Shi Hui drooped his head, his hands shrank within his official uniform trembling.

Pei Si Yan looked sternly at the cowering Xiyan County officials, a cold smile at the corner of her lips as she turned her head back to the official residence.