"Brother, is this Jiangnan?"

"Brother, there are so many rivers in the city in Jiangnan. Wouldn't people who live here get lost?"

"Brother, you only bring me one out to find food today. If my sister-in-law knows, won't blame me, right?"...

Almost a whole month of running around the water, and then turned east by land. As March is about to end, Li Ling and his group finally arrived at the boundary of Songjiang Prefecture, and naturally they were getting closer and closer to Huating County.

During this period, Yang Qingxiao also took the excuse to go out, saying that she was meeting the local Cao Gang brothers and helping Li Ling with some future affairs, at least giving him the power that can be used in Huating County.

After all, Yang Qingxiao is not an ordinary woman. Although she sometimes relies on others in front of Li Ling, she has a great reputation in the world, which is enough to make local heroes follow orders.

So Li Ling simply did not hurry to Huating, but stayed in a town somewhere along the way for two days, and took Yue'er around to appreciate the customs and customs here.

At this time, while eating a unique local fried lotus cake, Yue'er suddenly said something, which made Li Ling stunned. He immediately looked at his sister-in-law: "If your sister-in-law really blames me, will you feel sorry for your brother?"

"Of course, Yue'er only feels sorry for her brother..." Yue'er's vague words were exchanged for Li Ling's smile because of eating pastries. However, when she looked at it strangely, her brother had already smiled and shook his head and walked away: "The terrain of the various places in Jiangnan is naturally different from that of the Central Plains. The rivers here are so dense and mixed, and only locals can not find the direction when they sail on the water."

"Oh." Yue'er nodded, but she didn't understand what her brother was laughing at, which always made people feel a little strange.

Of course, Li Ling walked out and walked around not just to see the scenery and eat local delicacies. After walking along, when he met a young man dressed in a scholar, he went forward to salute: "This guy, Li Ling is polite."

When the scholar saw that Li Ling had similar outfits as him, he heard that he had a foreigner's accent, so he smiled and replied: "I wonder what advice do you have?"

"Oh, I'm here to study in Jiangnan from Central China. Because a friend was in Huating County, I wanted to go there for a walk, but I was a little unfamiliar with the situation there, so I wanted to ask the local people to learn about the customs and customs there, and it would not be rude." Li Ling casually found an excuse and said.

The other party didn't care about the contradictions in Li Ling's words, but smiled politely: "Brother, I really asked the right person. Here is a friend of the same year, a student of Huating County, who knows the situation there. But these or two sentences may not be explained clearly."

"This is easy to deal with. I'll invite my brother to have a drink, so go there." Li Ling pointed to a tavern not far away and said.

The other party did not refuse, so he went into the tavern with Li Ling and his sister, ordered some wine and food, and while eating, he told him what he knew about Huating.

"Huating County is originally a medium-level county in my Songjiang Prefecture, but this is the past. Maybe it will be reduced to a low-level county in two or three years." This person said astonishingly, which made Li Ling stunned and asked quickly: "Why is this?" He has been in the officialdom for two years and still knows some common sense things. The court's judgment of local counties is determined by population taxes. Generally speaking, only from lower level to medium level can there be no reason to go down. And if this happens, the governor will inevitably be implicated and severely punished, and will have a great impact on the future.

"I can't say much about this in detail. I can only tell you one thing. It's all the evils of those officials who have committed, which leads to the hardships of local people. Apart from fishing, there is almost no stable silver income. But you should also know that the fish on the sea are not that easy to catch. Sometimes when you go to sea, you will fight for your life. But even if you catch some big fish, the tax on the landing alone will be mostly worth half of the fish price."

Obviously, this person really has many opinions about the Huating County government. After drinking two glasses of wine, the conversation was completely opened. From the difficulties of the people, the city was ruined, and bluntly said that compared with his hometown, Huating County was too unbearable.

And at the end, he lowered his voice and said, "There is another thing you must have never imagined by Brother Li. That is, over the years, there have been fewer than ten scholars in Huating County every imperial examination, and only two scholars have been released in ten years. Tsk tsk, I really dare not think about it."

Li Ling brows even tighter when he heard this. Such imperial examination results were quite bad even if they were lower-level counties in the Central Plains, not to mention that this was in Jiangnan. You should know that Jiangnan is not only a place for taxation in Dayue, but also an area for imperial examinations. Nowadays, half of the officials who entered the imperial examinations are from Jiangnan, and most of them are scholars who were born in Jinshi.

This is the case in Huating County, which is in a key location in Jiangnan. It really surprised Li Ling. It is really unreasonable.

At the same time, he also realized how wise it was to understand early. Otherwise, if he had hit Huating like this, he might not have been able to understand these many problems as soon as possible.

This also made Li Ling more and more eager to know the root of the problem, so he asked quickly: "Do you know why Huating County is so decayed? Did the local county magistrate never think of any change?"

"Change? Those officials have long been in a relationship with the adults, and they only have money in their eyes, so how can they care about anything else?"

"Are you saying that officials and local tyrants have collusions with local tyrants. This is Huating's biggest problem now?" Li Ling immediately understood and asked again. But this time, the other party stopped answering. When he looked again, he found that the person was actually lying on the table drunk and fell asleep.

This guy's alcohol tolerance is too small. He only had two pots of wine, and he got drunk after only two pots of wine. Li Ling looked at him helplessly, but it was almost the same. It was enough for him, a foreign enemy, to ask these things from him. No matter how much inside the story, I would not dare to believe it.

So Li Ling got up to pay the bill, took Yue'er back to the local inn where they settled. After staying in the inn for two more days, Yang Qingxiao also rushed back and the team was able to continue moving forward.

After a few more days of trekking, finally, on the afternoon of the third day of April, Li Ling and his party arrived outside Huating County, three or five miles away, and they could see the overall outline of the county.

Even though he had been vaccinated and had some psychological preparation, Li Ling could not help feeling disappointed when he saw this small county town where he was about to become an official - that's it?

This is the earliest big city in the country to develop in the future, the predecessor of the metropolis that is rich and rich, and is a foreign market in the ten-mile market? The predecessor of the super first-tier metropolis that makes countless people yearn for, but just one housing price can make 90% of the workers speechless in seconds?

That's it?

There are no skyscrapers, no neon lights, and no all the lively scenes I imagined... Li Ling can actually understand these, after all, they are all happening hundreds of years later.

But the problem is that the first impression this county town gave him was too bad, right? The low, dilapidated black wall looked 30% lower than the city wall of Jiangcheng County. If someone who was agile could jump over it with a pole pole.

Of course, no one would do this, because the city gates over there were completely open, and there was no sight of a guard guarding the gate. Moreover, the two dilapidated city gates did not seem to be closed at night. In addition, at first glance, the many gaps that appeared on the city wall that made people easily crossed were obviously photographed by the three words "unprepared" on people.

As for the city gate guards that ordinary cities should have, there is not a single one here, inside and outside the city gate, and above the city head. If any bandit really wants to enter the city and rob, they can drive in openly during the day.

After a while of observation, Li Ling and the others continued to move forward and passed through the city gate and entered the county town smoothly, because not only did there be no guard forces at the city gate, there were not even a few people entering and leaving the city. When some people near the city gate saw Li Ling and his group coming in, they all showed doubts, and obviously they couldn't understand why someone came to our county specially.

After seeing the situation in the city, Li Ling also learned why Huating County is so unprepared, because the county town looks like a word of poverty. The long street extending from the city gate into the long street, the houses on both sides are short and dilapidated, and only a few shops are open there, but there is no business.

Then there were some people on the street, but they were not shopping and doing business, but basking in the sun. All of these people were pale and thin, wearing shabby clothes. At this time, they were all looking at these distant guests entering the city with strange eyes.

This is not a city in the south of the Yangtze River. It is clearly what the poor cities in the southwest or northern borders should look like. Such a city with no wealth and no vitality, let alone the Luotian Sect cannot make any decisions, even those robbers who make a living by robbery will not spend this time here to rob, right?

The distance between what I thought in my heart and reality was too great that Li Ling could not come back from the shock for a long time. It was not until the carriage stopped in front of a fairly grand yamen that Li Moyun greeted outside, and he came back to his senses and got out of the car.

Then, I finally saw a few men dressed in a serviceman coming up and looked at them up and down with scrutiny eyes: "Dear guests don't know where they come from?"
Chapter completed!