Raising chickens and pigs and digging for wild vegetables, the county magistrate's promotion wa

Chapter 148 Magistrate Yang's Dream

Yang Shaofeng, the county magistrate, wouldn't care whether Liu Sanshier and the others were willing to study.

For Magistrate Yang, the biggest problem in Ningyang County right now is not whether the young and strong will cause any trouble after they have free time.

In fact, after the land was distributed to the people of Ningyang County, these young and strong men were idle. It was unlikely that anyone would say, "I have a good idea." After all, they had just started to live a stable life, and their families had some stored grain. Seeing that everything was developing in a better direction, no one was willing to give up their current peaceful life.

Comparatively speaking, these young adults are more likely to play poker games when they have free time.

What truly troubled Magistrate Yang the most was the shortage of manpower in the county government.

After all, Magistrate Yang's biggest dream at this stage is to treat Zhu Yuanzhang like a beast of burden. However, Zhu Yuanzhang has officials from the Three Provinces, Six Ministries, Five Temples, and Twenty-Four Directorates under his command, while Magistrate Yang is a complete lone commander with no subordinates.

Yes, after Chang Yuchun forcibly conscripted the able-bodied men of Magistrate Yang, he sent more than a dozen yamen runners to Ningyang County. Xu Da later sent over two hundred wounded and disabled soldiers. However, the yamen runners and wounded and disabled soldiers, led by Lame Wu, were fine with doing other things, but it was really too much to ask them to bury themselves in their documents.

As a result, the six offices of clerks in Ningyang County are currently vacant, and all the messy official documents and affairs need to be handled personally by Magistrate Yang.

Damn it, thinking about those officials at the county level in later generations, seeing what kind of lives they lived, and then looking back at himself who had countless times more power than them, Magistrate Yang couldn't help but feel a deep sadness.

Therefore, Magistrate Yang set his sights on Liu Thirty-Two and his group—only by enabling these people to read and write simple characters could he fill their positions as clerks in the six departments of the county government, allowing Magistrate Yang to comfortably lie on a recliner in the backyard of the county government and slack off.

In order to be able to laze around and become a couch potato in the future, Yang Shaofeng simply looked at Liu Sanshier and asked, "Have you decided what to choose yet?"

When asked this by Magistrate Yang, Liu Thirty-Two immediately replied with a bitter face, "Your Excellency, we still prefer to let the young teachers in the county school take over. If we really replace them with the relatives of Liu Hongchang and his ilk, I'm afraid the villagers might not be able to control them and could cause you any more trouble."

Magistrate Yang then snorted and said, "Then let the students from the school give lectures to the people of each village and neighborhood."

"And you too, you must also study hard. You are not allowed to put on airs like elders in front of those students. If they ask you to recite, you should recite obediently. If they ask you to learn to write, you should learn to write obediently."

"My promise remains valid. If all the people in any community or village can recognize one hundred characters and write their own names, I will reward that community or village with a big fat pig. At that time, the rest of the communities and villages will just have to watch helplessly."

After Liu Sanshier reluctantly agreed with a long face, Magistrate Yang was in high spirits. He kicked the frozen ground under his feet, then leisurely left Liumiao Village and headed towards Xihe Village.

Magistrate Yang planned to visit all eight communities and sixteen villages in Ningyang County in the shortest possible time, and have a cordial and friendly conversation with each community head and village chief: "Either you choose students from the school to teach them to read and write, or you can have relatives and prisoners of Liu Hongchang and Master Geng teach them; either you study hard and get a big fat pig, or you can watch the people of other communities or villages eat meat, and then you can only stare and see who loses face the most."

Faced with the coercion and enticement of Magistrate Yang, the heads of the eight communities and sixteen neighborhoods in Ningyang County felt frustrated and wanted to curse, but dared not.

Three days later, after Magistrate Yang had threatened all the village heads and elders, the atmosphere in Ningyang County gradually became festive.

First, the streets in the county were swept very clean, and then more and more people began to paste the double happiness character cut out of red paper on their doors.

Gradually, peddlers from Yanzhou Prefecture began selling melon seeds and sorghum candy, and the cloth shops that had recently opened were also crowded with people coming to buy cloth.

The population of Ningyang County is not very large, but compared with when Magistrate Yang first took office, it has a more vibrant and thriving atmosphere.

As Magistrate Yang walked down the main street of the county town, listening to the clamor of vendors, he finally couldn't help but laugh and say, "It's finally getting better."

The lame man standing next to Magistrate Yang nodded vigorously and echoed, "Yes, it's finally getting better."

Limpy Wu pointed to a few little kids playing by the roadside and said with a sigh, "When I see them, I think of my childhood—my father was beaten to death by the Tartars, my mother starved to death, and I was left as a clueless little kid begging for food on the street. Later, when I grew up a bit, I gritted my teeth and joined Chang Pingzhang, following him to rob and plunder."

Yang Shaofeng said "Oh," then turned and glanced at Lame Wu, asking, "And then?"

Limpy Wu said, "Later... later Chang Pingzhang felt that robbing and looting was not a promising career. Just then, His Majesty went to recruit righteous troops, so I followed Chang Pingzhang and joined His Majesty's righteous army."

"Later, I fought alongside His Majesty and Changpingzhang until Changpingzhang and Xu Xiang launched their northern expedition. I also injured my leg while chasing the Tartars, which forced me to leave the army."

At this point, Limpy Wu couldn't help but sigh with emotion: "Fortunately, I met the county magistrate. Otherwise, I would probably have taken a sum of money back to my hometown, and when I ran out of money, I would have gone back to begging for food. In the end, I might have died quietly in some forgotten corner."

Yang Shaofeng was slightly taken aback, then reached out and patted Limpy Five's shoulder, smiling as he said, "Everything's getting better, and things will only get better from now on."

Limping Wu grunted in acknowledgment, wiped his eyes with the corner of his robe, and said, "I apologize for the embarrassment, sir."

Yang Shaofeng did not laugh, but instead shook his head slightly. "I don't laugh, and there's nothing to laugh about. In fact, if I hadn't encountered the army of our Great Ming, I might have starved to death outside Ningyang County. How could I have been born to become the magistrate of this county?"

Yang Da, the county magistrate, patted Limpy Wu on the shoulder again and led him forward.

Gradually, the two strolled to the City God Temple in the northeast of the county town.