amaotonovel Chapter 683 "Shearing wool" – so it's like shearing this official?
Chapter 683 "Shearing wool" – so it's like shearing this official?
Yang Shaofeng glanced at Liu Sanshier and the others, feeling touched but also a bit of a headache.
These unruly people!
I don't even know what to say about them!
Yang Shaofeng could almost picture the shameful face of that old Deng.
“Our son-in-law felt sorry for those people who had lost their children, so he volunteered to investigate the case.”
"I just don't know how many people will be involved. Among them, there will definitely be some ruthless and vicious people."
"We can only send him more guards and allow him to move garrisons in various places."
"It's a pity that these guards and soldiers from various garrisons are ultimately not as handy as the manpower of the Prince Consort's mansion."
Without a doubt, these words were definitely spoken by some old man.
Because when these words came out of his mouth and fell into the ears of Liu Sanshier and his group of fools and scoundrels, it was roughly equivalent to saying, "Your master has volunteered to investigate the case, but it is very dangerous. The guards and soldiers of the garrison may not be reliable, and your master may not even be able to command them."
To put it bluntly, that shameless old man was gambling that the people of Ningyang County wouldn't just stand by and watch their master fall into danger.
Old Deng won his bet.
The idiots led by Liu Sanshier lost miserably.
Or rather, Yang Shaofeng felt that he had also lost miserably.
I didn't lose to some old man, but I lost to these idiots from Ningyang County.
After a long silence, Yang Shaofeng finally spoke: "Let me make this clear first. These people have followed me to Jiangnan, and they will most likely remain there."
Liu Thirty-Two said in a low voice, "We are prepared and have already arranged everything for them. As long as we can protect the master, it won't be a loss."
The other club presidents and village heads echoed, "Yes, they are all good young people who stepped forward on their own initiative, and they were already prepared."
"If anything were to happen to them, the entire village and community would support their parents."
"Sir, you don't need to worry about them."
"If the master gets injured, we servants will have no face to live."
"Why are those corrupt local gentry in Jiangnan so incompetent?"
"They've all become inhuman!"
"If you ask me, forget about all that and just kill your way through. Once you've wiped them all out, things will calm down."
"..."
Ok?
Have these troublemakers misunderstood my words?
Seeing that Liu Thirty-Two and the others were getting more and more agitated and their words were becoming increasingly outrageous, Yang Shaofeng couldn't help but snort coldly and said, "All of you, shut up!"
Yang Shaofeng stood up, stomped around several times in a huff, and finally pointed at Liu Sanshier and the other commune leaders and village chiefs, cursing, "A bunch of idiots!"
"Damn it, you pick out the best young men from our Ningyang County, ready to die for me, don't you think you're so great? Aren't you so proud?"
"A bunch of brainless idiots!"
"When I said they wouldn't come back, I didn't mean they were in any danger. Rather, I meant they would most likely be left in Jiangnan to serve as officials, or be transferred to other places to serve as officials."
"My father-in-law has long been eyeing the young men of Ningyang County, and His Highness the Crown Prince has also been eyeing them for a long time."
"It's fine if I didn't have the chance before."
"Now that we finally have an opportunity, you idiots are offering yourselves up. These people will definitely be taken away by His Highness the Crown Prince."
"Those with brains should be appointed as officials, and those without brains should be sent to the garrison."
"Do you really expect them to come back?"
Liu Sanshier and the others were so bewildered by the scolding that they stared blankly at Yang Shaofeng for a while before asking, "Does the master mean that the Emperor and His Highness the Crown Prince are both eyeing our Ningyang County and want our Ningyang County's boys to go out and become officials?"
Yang Shaofeng rubbed his forehead and sighed, "What else can we do?"
Liu Thirty-Two said, "That's not right. Didn't the imperial court issue an official document saying that special imperial examinations would be held every year for the next few years? With so many scholars, why are they always targeting the young people in our Ningyang County?"
Why?
The thought of this problem made Yang Shaofeng want to slap himself twice.
Because I have taught several good students.
Because the cattle and horses in Ningyang County are hardworking and easy to manage.
Because the gentry class in Jiangnan is disgusting.
So Lao Deng and Xiao Deng wanted to cultivate a Ningyang faction to compete with the Jiangnan faction.
Yang Shaofeng didn't answer Liu Sanshier's question, but instead snorted coldly and said, "Tell me, how many people are there this time?"
Liu Thirty-Two tremblingly held up three fingers and stammered, "Three...three hundred."
Three hundred?
Yang Shaofeng was almost driven mad by these idiots.
Zhu Chongba, that old tyrant, had already taken away 112 people, making up a hundred households.
Xu Da, that old scoundrel, also took more than three hundred with him.
I don't know whether to say it's infuriating or fortunate. At least some old Deng Xiaoping was selective and only picked out young and strong men, but Xu Da just packed up and took away anyone under fifty years old who could read and write a few words, knew a little arithmetic, and was willing to join the army.
Then, Zhu Chongba, that old man, promised Hu Weiyong one or two hundred men.
Add to that Zhu Biao's black sesame dumplings and the dirty tricks devised by those two old scoundrels, Li Shanchang and Liu Bowen, and Ningyang County and Dengzhou Prefecture will lose several hundred more men.
No.
These are people, people whom I, this official, painstakingly cultivated through literacy campaigns. They are people whom I, this official, painstakingly built by "seeking policies from senior officials, manpower from junior officials, borrowing templates from the Ministry of Rites, and robbing craftsmen from the Ministry of Works," bit by bit, through borrowing and robbing, to establish bookstores, county schools, and community schools, and to train them little by little.
It's not like chives that can be harvested once and then quickly grow back!
After being repeatedly exploited by a certain old man, a certain black sesame dumpling, and a few other old scoundrels, how many able-bodied men are left in Ningyang County?
Those bastards, Liu Thirty-Two, actually managed to scrape together another three hundred!
Are we just not going to live like this anymore?
A bunch of idiots!
After a long while, Yang Shaofeng sighed weakly and said, "Fine, three hundred it is then."
"You'd better be more careful in the future, and don't believe everything the emperor says."
"Don't you all think about it? I'm always the one who makes others suffer losses. When have you ever seen anyone make me suffer losses?"
After a slight pause, Yang Shaofeng looked at Liu Sanshier and the others and instructed them: "Also, when you go back, make it clear to the young men that no matter what they do in the future, whether they become officials or not, they must first have a conscience. If anyone dares to act recklessly like those gentry in Jiangnan, I will be the first to deal with them."
……
After driving away Liu Sanshier and his bunch of idiots, Yang Shaofeng collapsed onto the recliner.
"We've suffered a huge loss."
How many people are there in Ningyang County in total?
"There must have been at least a thousand people who were taken away in total, right?"
Yang Shaofeng opened his eyes wide, staring blankly at the roof beam, and muttered to himself, "Fleecing the sheep, so you mean you're going to fleece this official to death, huh?"