“It’s up to you to do these errands!”
"We will do our best, Lord Tao, please stay!"
Tao Hongfang stood at the door of the study and sent away another group of visitors.
Tao Hongfang watched the guests leave and raised his wrist to check the time. It was only ten in the morning, but this was already the third batch of visitors he received today.
Since arriving in Nanjing and taking office, Tao Hongfang has spent most of his office time receiving visitors from all walks of life, except for one trip out of the city to inspect a refugee camp.
Local gentry and retained officials from the areas under the jurisdiction of Yingtianfu are the main groups of visitors. Considering the social status and influence of these people, Tao Hongfang had to put aside his desk work to receive these celebrities and dignitaries.
Although many of them came with the intention of clinging to the powerful in the new dynasty, Tao Hongfang also obtained a lot of first-hand information from the contacts, and much of it could not be reflected in the documents and reports at hand. thing.
For example, the views of the local upper class on the change of ownership in Nanjing, as well as some of the issues they are concerned about.
After a thirty-year long confrontation with Haihan, the changes in the national strength of the two countries have gradually become obvious. The Ming Dynasty has gradually become accustomed to Haihan's continuous encroachment. A considerable number of people believe that Haihan has replaced Ming's influence on China. Dominance is only a matter of time.
In addition, Haihan has always adopted a relatively tolerant policy towards the newly occupied areas and rarely takes the opportunity to inspect and confiscate the private properties of dignitaries. Therefore, these people's willingness to resist Haihan is not too strong.
Anyone with a discerning eye can see that the decline of Ming Dynasty has been irresistible. There was no obvious benefit to these people from remaining loyal to the Ming under Haihan's rule.
What they are more concerned about is whether they can continue to maintain their previous social status in the new dynasty, and even get the opportunity to move to a higher level by taking advantage of the change of dynasty.
Among these speculators, which ones are trustworthy, which ones are useless but valuable, and which ones should be guarded against? Tao Hongfang dare not completely listen to the recommendations of others. At present, he can only make decisions through this kind of face-to-face contact. The most reliable judgment.
Tao Hongfang returned to his study, planning to take advantage of the fact that there were no other reception arrangements in the morning to take a good look at the progress of the recent relief project.
This is the first livelihood project he has promoted after taking office. He also hopes to use this to establish his popularity in the local area and leave his political achievements here.
According to his plan, the engineering department and civil affairs department responsible for this matter must submit progress reports to the management committee on a five-day basis. What is now on his desk is the first report.
The construction planning and construction site technicians responsible for the engineering department are currently in place, and construction of some river embankments and embankments has already started. However, a large amount of stone needed to build the embankment is still being mined in quarries outside the city, and the number of heavy-duty carriages transporting the stone has become a current bottleneck.
The engineering department hopes that the management committee can come forward to coordinate and mobilize more horse-drawn carriages to transport stone as soon as possible. Otherwise, in the next half month at most, there will be a situation where multiple construction sites will be stopped waiting for stone.
Seeing the engineering department's request for adding at least two hundred heavy-duty carriages, Tao Hongfang couldn't help but have a headache. Even if all Nanjing's resources were pooled, they probably wouldn't be able to gather the numbers needed by the engineering department. It seemed that they would still have to request support from the rear.
The progress of the civil affairs department seems to be much smoother. A large number of refugees have been organized and transported to various construction sites, and labor tools and survival supplies have been distributed. Next, it depends on the performance of the foremen at each construction site. While Tao Hongfang was studying, his subordinates sent him a document for his review. When Tao Hong saw the word "urgent" marked on the cover, he knew it was an important matter and immediately picked it up for review.
This is a freshly released co-investigation report. The initiator is the police station, and the content of the co-investigation is the relief project that Tao Hongfang is studying.
The report stated that a foreman at the Jiangdi construction site reported that someone in the civil affairs department had embezzled money for food relief. After investigation by the police station, one of the officials involved was arrested on site and relevant physical evidence was obtained.
The police department believed that there was more than one person involved in the case, and they were most likely from within the government, so it sent a notice to the management committee. It may be necessary to investigate some of the officials involved.
"This is unreasonable!"
After reading the report, Tao Hongfang was so angry that he couldn't help but slap the table.
It had only been a few days since he had launched the relief project, but moths were already eyeing the piece of cake. How could he not be angry?
The relief grains distributed to the construction site were resources he had coordinated with other state governments through a lot of connections, and they also consumed the small financial reserves in the official treasury. Now someone actually has their mind set on this. This is tantamount to robbing money directly from the official treasury.
"Come here, prepare a car!"
Such a thing suddenly happened, and Tao Hongfang was not in the mood to continue working at the moment, so he asked his subordinates to prepare vehicles and horses, and wanted to go to the police station to investigate the case in person.
The management committee is not far from the police station, and it doesn't take long to walk there on two legs. However, since the case involved people within the government and was still under investigation, Tao Hongfang did not want his actions to attract outside attention, so it was more appropriate to take a car there.
When Tao Hongfang arrived at the police station, Shi Chengwu was not there. After asking someone to inquire, he learned that the case was solved by Deputy Director Qu Deren himself, and he was the one who arrested the person.
Although he had not had much contact with Qu Deren in the past few days after arriving in Nanjing, he had also heard that the Ming Dynasty head catcher who had defected to Haihan was very capable. Before he went to the police station to officially take up his post, he solved several major cases for the government. , which was highly appreciated by the Shi family father and son.
Tao Hongfang asked Qu Deren to be sent to him and asked him to tell him the case in person.
Qu Deren sent a notice to the management committee, which was the right thing to do, but he didn't expect to summon Tao Hongfang. However, he personally investigated the case in order to claim credit. Tao Hongfang's intervention in the case was exactly what he wanted, so he immediately put down what he was doing and rushed over.
The case itself is not complicated, and the witnesses and material evidence are complete, which basically confirms the guilt of the official involved in the case, Pang Qing. However, it remains to be verified whether there are other people in the government and on the construction site who are colluding with Pang Qinghang.
Qu Deren didn't take all the credit for himself, but he still didn't forget to support his brother-in-law Qin Jian. After all, if Qin Jian had not taken the initiative to report the case and cooperated well, this case would not have been handled so smoothly.
Tao Hongfang nodded repeatedly after hearing this: "Foreman Qin is good. He refuses ill-gotten gains and reports unjust things. He deserves the award! As for the officials involved, I order you to investigate to the end and never tolerate it!"