Fix Smile Order - CH 79

Tang Tianyuan temporarily put aside the issue of reporting the illegal gold mining, and he began to work on another matter.

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The autumn grains in Tongling County were almost ready to be collected, and the County Magistrate must make preparations for this year’s county’s autumn grain crops tariff. Grain levy was more comparably flexible; if one grew grain, then they had to turn in some portion of it. Those who did not want to pay in grains could use silver money to pay for it.

The county has kept records of the previous grain levy collection. It noted which family owned the fertile land and how many of them used it to grow grain. It even included how much each village turned in annually… Tang Tianyuan could follow these previous standards, which saved a lot of trouble.

But, considering the former county magistrates, Tang Tianyuan was more inclined to believe that he most likely concealed some numbers and embezzled when collecting grain. The big family evaded taxes by giving him some ‘benefits’ and in the end, the burden would be borne by the ordinary people.

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Therefore, as the current County Magistrate, Tang Tianyuan did not rush to collect grain this time. He ordered a new consensus to be made on the land production of each local household. Those who dared to conceal and under report will be fined, land confiscated, and all relatives will be punished as well. After everyone finishes reporting the numbers, he will then send his subordinates to conduct random inspections.

The common people looked favorably on this move, but the large property owners expressed their dissatisfaction. The Sun and Qi Residence bore the brunt of the latter. Both families sought Zhou Zhengdao to mediate, and wanted to find out what the County Magistrate meant. Wasn’t this too daring? Did he not want to uphold their relationship?

Zhou Zhengdao was already thanking the Heavens that the little immortal of a County Magistrate was not writing a report letter to the Ministry of Revenue. He didn’t really want to demand too much of anything else. Besides, as explained by the County Magistrate, the imperial envoy had already set his sights on Tongling County. To avoid him finding faults and acting upon it, as a county magistrate, he can only do this, which was a merit to win the hearts of the people. From this point of view, Zhou Zhengdao was on the same side as the County Magistrate.

So Zhou Zhengdao tried to persuade the Sun and Qi Residence to go back. They naturally refused to listen at first, so Zhou Zhengdao had to shake out the heavy news. “The Magistrate has already discovered that someone is smuggling gold. He just doesn’t know who it is for the time being. If he finds any leads, would you still have the heart to care about these petty profits?”

The two of them stopped making trouble, and were frightened and restless. Zhou Zhengdao appeased them for a while, and assured them that “the County Magistrate was not purely devoted to the imperial court. In fact, he could be bribed”, and finally sent them away.

The two big households, Sun and Qi, obeyed the county magistrate, and those behind them did not dare to speak up. And so, the estate census went smoothly.

The significance of this census was that it could be made into a new statistical booklet. The tax collection would now follow the new one. Not only this year, but every year in the future, these large households must pay tax according to the new statistical booklet.

Tan Lingyin wanted to commend the County Magistrate. Though this person’s personal morality was up for debate – the rumor that “Miao Miao Sheng was a big pervert” is still active, but to be fair, he was a good official. Field censuses were generally initiated by the nation, and it was hard to say how much trickery was involved. It was very rare for a sesame-small official like the County Magistrate to dare rewrite the land statistics book within a year of taking office. This was a thankless job and would offend many people. The starting point of the Magistrate can only be that he was for the people.

Therefore, Tan Lingyin had a bootlicker’s attitude towards the County Magistrate in the past few days.

Tang Tianyuan enjoyed Tan Lingyin’s adoring eyes very much.

However, there was still some discord between the two. The cause was Tan Qingchen.

The story went as follows: Tan Lingyin found that the Magistrate’s expression would turn a little weird whenever he mentioned Tan Qingchen. It seemed that he had something to say, but had trouble mentioning it. On the surface, he pretends to not care much, but in fact he was very concerned about everything related to Qingchen.

Tan Lingyin couldn’t guess what he was up to, but it made her more vigilant. So what he asked again, she refused to disclose anything.

Moreover, the County Magistrate has also visited the Gutang Bookstore twice.

According to Xiao Zhuang, the shop assistant who was present at the time: the County Magistrate was indifferent to the books he bought, and just kept peeking at the boss.

“Isn’t it because he was interested in our boss?” Xiao Zhuang was worried.

To be honest, this guess was not impossible. Qingchen was good-looking and had an outstanding temperament; like the green bamboo with morning dew on a summer morning, fresh and warm.

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It’s not surprising that such a person piqued the interest of any passby.

What’s more, Tang Feilong had a ‘criminal record’. Not mentioning how close he was with Tang Tianyuan, he had even imitated his handwriting. Furthermore, the first time he came to Gutang Bookstore to buy books, his purchase included many cut-sleeve genre novels.

The more she thought about it, the more undeniable it became, so Tan Lingyin also became worried.

Anyone who wrote novels had their own plot expansion skills. Tan Lingyin used it to connect the dots. She thought about how Tang Feilong saw Qingchen, who came to rescue in the dark, and fell in love at first sight. How he impatiently inquired about Qing Chen’s life experience the next day… And he continued to do this for several days in a row, which was extremely annoying. She also thought that he would probably use unscrupulous methods to try to get Qingchen in the future, and he would not hesitate to use force or something…

It was extremely terrifying…

Tan Lingyin went back to the county government in a depressed mood. After arriving, she heard that Zhu Dacong sent over an invitation box, so Tan Lingyin received it and opened it. It turned out that Zhu Daqing was celebrating his birthday, so he wanted to set up a banquet to entertain his friends, and invited her to dinner. Although Tan Lingyin was a woman, she was used to showing her face. Ordinary people treated her like a man, and when they hosted any parties, she would be invited.

The next day, Tan Lingyin went to Zhu Dacong’s house to eat and drink in a relaxed mood.

After she came, she found out that the banquet only included her and the celebrant; it was just the two of them…

Seeing Zhu Dacong’s order to start, Tan Lingyin was very surprised. “Are they not coming?”

Zhu Dacong was very embarrassed, “You know, I haven’t been here for a long time, so I don’t know many people. I sent out a few bundles yesterday, but unfortunately everyone’s busy. Boss Feng happened to be visiting his father-in-law, Shopkeeper Deng went to the countryside to oversee the grain harvest, Boss Xiao Tan also happened to be going to the neighboring county to pick up paper.”

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Boss Xiao Tan was Tan Qingchen [1].

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Footnote:

[1] Xiao means small or young. So Young Boss. Xiao Tan, little Tan.