The morning of the second day, Prince Mu entered the palace to meet Yuwen Di.
In the morning assembly, Yuwen Di had brought the incident of officials embezzling in the south of the river to the surface. Yuwen Di had planned to investigate in private who the officials involved were. However, if one did not investigate, one would not know that there were actually so many officials doing such a shameful thing right under his nose.
Above him, Yuwen Di threw the imperial officials' report on corruption and corruption onto the ground. When the various officials saw how angry Yuwen Di was, they immediately knelt down, regardless of why he was so angry, in their opinion, kneeling was the most sensible thing to do.
Prince Mu knew why Yuwen Di was angry, but the Minister of the Left simply sat upright. Furthermore, Yuwen Di had secretly and openly revealed this to him before.
As the prime minister, he paid extra attention to the actions of the officials below him. Different from Yuwen Di, Yuwen Di believed that under his rule, the officials below him would not dare to act rashly. However, the Minister of the Left was different. The Minister of the Left was from the Jiangnan area and was a poor scholar. It was not easy for him to take the position of the Prime Minister.
When the Minister of the Left was young, there was a very serious flood in Jiangnan. At that time, the imperial government also sent out large amounts of relief money, but very few people actually got their hands on it. The local officials didn't even have the means to provide free porridge. It was enough to disappoint the citizens.
At that time, there were even some people who wanted to rebel. In the end, it was because a local benefactor had helped the homeless people that this matter finally ended.
Because of his childhood experiences, when he was on the same level as the Prime Minister of the Jin Country, he made up his mind that he would spend his life pursuing welfare for the people of the Jin Country. He would never take any advantage of them, and would never become a greedy pest like the officials back then.
Since the incident of the water hazard in Jiangnan, the Minister of the Left has been very concerned about it. Unlike the Prince Mu who openly took out the Prince Mu's Mansion's silver taels to help with the disaster, the Minister of the Left secretly sent people to exchange the silver taels for rice and instructed his subordinates to split the rice evenly among the homeless citizens. This matter was not known to the local officials.
It was because of this that the Left Premier knew what the people really needed. It was a simple matter for the imperial government to send out the silver taels for disaster relief, but the silver taels did not reach the common people in the end. It was only to the advantage of the local officials. It was not because Yuwen Di was too confident in his governance, but rather, it was because this kind of thing was like a tradition that could not be avoided or eradicated.
"Look at all the good things you've done, you're practically throwing my entire face away." "The commoners in the south of the river are already like this, yet there are actually people who dare to seek personal gains and even secretly hide the money they saved. They are truly guilty of heinous crimes."
This time, the officials who were kneeling all knew why Yuwen Di was so angry. All this time, Yuwen Di had always praised the incorruptible and honest officials. Although the officials would secretly seek personal gains, on the surface, they would still act as if they were impartial and clean.
Some of them even cursed the person who had written the imperial report, and the person who had done so. If one wanted to commit an even more heinous crime, then why would they suffer from such a disease? Even if one did not do this, Yuwen Di would not be able to escape responsibility. Furthermore, they would normally collect some unknown silver coins, if Yuwen Di found out about this, they would be unable to protect their own lives, and at that time, their family would be implicated.
"What is it? You're not talking, are you? Or do you want to just keep kneeling like this? " The more Yuwen Di looked at the officials who were kneeling down, the angrier he got. At this moment, Yuwen Di felt that no one could believe him. Although before he even sat down, Yuwen Di knew that the people in this world could not be completely trusted other than himself, he still suspected that there was a problem with his way of governance. If not, under his strict governance, how could there be such a behavior, it was truly infuriating.
Since there were corrupt officials among the kneeling ministers, there were naturally honest men like the Minister of the Left. The Minister of Revenue was one of them.
The Department of Revenue controlled the taxes and finances of the imperial government, which was the life of the imperial government. If even the Ministry of Revenue acted corrupt, then Jin Country would meet with a serious crisis. However, luckily, the Minister of Revenue was a man who had never done anything wrong. After being in charge of the Department of Revenue for so many years, the accounts of the Department of Revenue could be said to not have any problems.
It was not easy to be impartial, and it was not easy to hold out for so many years.
"Your Majesty, if we were to seek personal gains from this disaster, it would indeed be a heinous crime. We would even put the citizens under fire. We hope that Your Majesty can thoroughly investigate this matter. The local officials involved must be severely punished to make an example of this. "
When Yuwen Di brought up this matter in the imperial court today, he more or less wanted to make an example out of it. When Yuwen Di investigated this matter, he found out that there were actually so many officials of all sizes involved. If he were to uncover all of them, even if the problem of Jiang Nan's water calamity could not be resolved quickly, it would cause the people of the capital to be completely disappointed. If he kept pretending that he did not know anything, Yuwen Di would not be able to take this lying down.
"Your Majesty, the Minister of Revenue's words are reasonable. This humble subject is willing to be ordered to thoroughly investigate this matter. " The one who spoke was none other than the Minister of the Left. He knew that if he were to investigate this matter, he would definitely be in trouble. After all, there were too many people involved. However, the Left Premier was not someone to be afraid of. How could an ordinary scholar without a backer become the Prime Minister of the Jin Country?
Yuwen Di knew that the Left Premier had always held the hearts of the commoners, but if he were to investigate this matter, the Left Premier would definitely be targeted by many people, and Yuwen Di was not willing to see this.
"To think that the Minister of the Left could think this way, I am very pleased. However, I still hope that the Prince Mu can handle this matter."
"This humble subject accepts the decree."
Yuwen Di and Prince Mu had already heard the news a long time ago, so it was within Prince Mu's expectations that Yuwen Di would hand the matter over to them. No matter what, Prince Mu was a prince and was in charge of military affairs. Even if those corrupt officials wanted to trouble Prince Mu, they would do so out of the kindness of their hearts. It would be much more convenient to leave this matter to the Prince Mu.