Chapter 905 - 804: Regulations

Chapter 905: Chapter 804: Regulations

Upon reaching this place, Xia Wenjin realized that hearing about it is far from enough; only by experiencing it firsthand can one truly understand the extent of the disaster.

Prince Cheng arrived late. After all, he is not a god; faced with a devastated disaster area, he could only do his best to remedy the situation but could not restore everything to its original state immediately.

Prince Cheng was not naive to the darkness of human nature, but he was still shocked by the behavior of the local government.

The County Magistrate of Huotai County couldn’t see the suffering and displacement of the common people and was found feasting in his mansion when Prince Cheng arrived.

Upon being confronted by the incognito Prince Cheng, he assumed it was some troublemaker disturbing him and without any discussion, he wanted to imprison the person, flaunting his power.

Along the journey, hearing the disaster victims’ opinions of this official only fueled Prince Cheng’s anger; when the disaster struck, the magistrate turned a blind eye. When local regions are affected by disasters, taxes should be reduced, but not only did he not reduce them, he even increased poll taxes to send gifts to the Magistrate.

Before Prince Cheng, his authoritarian demeanor was even greater than the high officials in the Capital City, clearly showing that in Huotai County, he truly wielded absolute power!

Not only in Huotai County, but the trend was also consistent among the entire Baoshan County’s officials. After all, during such a grim time in the hardest-hit Huotai County, they considered how to extract wealth to gift Lord Prefect, rather than thinking of ways to settle the disaster-stricken people.

The stacks of Silver were not used to buy food for the disaster victims to lessen starvation but were used to pave his path to promotion and gain.

Towards such individuals, Prince Cheng showed no mercy and arrested both the Magistrate and County Magistrate, sentencing them in public, each receiving twenty lashes, thrown into a large prison.

The once invincible local official, the aloof County Magistrate, and the even higher Lord Prefect they revered, cried bitterly as if they had lost their parents, kneeling on the ground pleading.

Prince Cheng’s face was as solemn as water: "You ought to kneel, but not to me, rather to the common people who view you as parents, who feed you with Brocade Clothes and exquisite food, yet you treat them like grass and mustard!"

During the execution, the people spread the news, watching the lashes land on the noble backsides of the County Magistrate and Lord Prefect, they believed that this Prince Cheng truly intended to reform these corrupt parental officials.

However, Prince Cheng arrived too late.

These local officials’ misdeeds had already sparked a civilian rebellion, with more than ten Rebel Army groups rising in Baoshan County alone to resist.

The smallest of these groups had forty to fifty members, who looted government offices, and wealthy households, even taking advantage of opportunities to rob and cause chaos everywhere.

Fortunately, Prince Cheng was an expert in military governance and equally adept in local administration; even in just two days’ time, there was slight progress, and though the relief silver hadn’t fully arrived, some food had already been transported in.

Prince Cheng ordered porridge stations to be set up, allowing those starving victims to subsist on rice porridge and not die from hunger.

He also had his Guards rally the county government’s constables to form a Patrol Team, severely punishing any who robbed the disaster victims without hesitation.

For young men among the disaster victims, he issued a proclamation to gather them to rebuild homes for those displaced and separated by the massive floods. Settling the disaster victims was originally an important relief effort task.

As for those who had risen in rebellion, Prince Cheng also issued a notice: as long as they were not involved in human deaths, understanding their previous actions were out of desperation if they turned back, no further investigations would be pursued!

These matters were learned by Xia Wenjin from the mouths of the patients in the medicine tent. As soon as she arrived, she threw herself into the busyness and couldn’t attend to anything else.