Chapter 1843
The True and False Jinshi
Drawn by the aura of Buzhou Mountain, Liu Dong entered another world.
This time, he didn't reincarnate, but instead possessed the body of someone who had recently died.
Having regained the original owner's memories, Liu Dong remained silent.
The original owner of this body was not a good person!
Liu Dong had watched the TV series "Justice Bao" and remembered all the classic cases in it clearly.
The original owner's experience was similar to that of the real and fake top scholars in the story of Bao Zheng.
However, the original owner of this body was not the real top scholar who was framed, but the fake top scholar who caused the harm.
The original owner was an orphan, but fortunately his parents left him some meager assets, which enabled him to go to school.
However, the last bit of money in his family was spent on his trip to the capital to take the imperial examination.
He believed that with his literary talent, he would surely pass the imperial examination and become a Jinshi, so he left himself no way out.
However, two days before the exam, the original owner caught a cold and was unable to get up to take the exam, so he was unable to pass the imperial examination and become an official.
The original owner of this body returned home in a sorry state and discovered a scholar named Liu Xu who looked somewhat like him.
Liu Xu also returned to his hometown, but unlike the original owner, he had passed the imperial examination and was appointed an official. He returned home in high spirits to see his relatives, and then took his parents, wife and children to take up his post.
Driven by jealousy, the original owner of this body harbored evil intentions and killed Liu Xu. He then impersonated Liu Xu and went to take up his post as a county magistrate.
Perhaps it was karma, for news came from Liu Xu's hometown that his parents had died in an accident.
The original owner was happy, because there were two more people who could expose his identity!
Overjoyed, the original owner of this body drank too much and accidentally fell into the pond, where she drowned. Liu Dong then possessed her body.
Liu Dong stared at the ceiling above the bed and sighed repeatedly.
I picked up a mess.
Liu Dong got up and began to handle the funeral arrangements for the original owner of this body and Liu Xu, whom he had killed.
As for the original owner of this body, since she was an orphan, she was easy to deal with.
Liu Tong, posing as the original owner's classmate, wrote a letter to the original owner's relatives, telling them that the original owner had died from a cold and left behind two acres of meager land to the original owner's relatives.
He put all of the original owner's belongings into a coffin, hired people to carry the coffin back to his hometown, and buried the coffin in the original owner's family cemetery.
In this way, everyone would believe that the original owner was really dead and had been buried.
With that, the matter concerning the original owner of this body came to an end.
The difficult part is dealing with Liu Xu.
Although Liu Xu's parents are dead, he still has a wife and son, and he cannot abandon them.
After thinking it over, Liu Dong decided to bring the person over.
The original owner of this body resembled Liu Xu by six points, but Liu Qiu used makeup to make her appearance resemble Liu Xu by eight points.
Liu Xu's wife hadn't seen her husband for almost a year, and the difference between the two could be explained by their official attire and other factors.
Liu Dong had made up his mind. Before Liu Xu's wife arrived, he would hire a courtesan as his concubine and have her deal with Liu Xu's wife, while he would pretend to favor his concubine over his wife.
It's normal that he spends all his time with his concubine and never goes into his wife's room, right?
He would ensure that Liu Xu's wife was well-fed and clothed, lived a peaceful life, and take good care of her.
This way, we can at least do justice to Liu Xu, the victim.
After all, he didn't kill anyone.
Liu Tong's men, sent to Liu Xu's hometown, only brought back Liu Xu's son, Liu Xi.
It turns out that Liu Xu's wife had a difficult childbirth when she gave birth to their son, and her health never fully recovered.
With her father-in-law and mother-in-law both passing away, all the burdens fell on her shoulders, a frail woman.
After Liu Xu's wife finished handling the funeral arrangements for her parents-in-law, her health gave out.
Now only Liu Xi, a child under three years old, remains, and is being raised by Liu's relatives.
Liu Xi had a father who was an official, so he wasn't a hot potato but a desirable catch, and many people wanted to raise him. Liu Tong's subordinates were very good at interpersonal relationships and left the family that was taking care of Liu Xi with a sum of money as so-called child support.
The family was overjoyed. They used the money to buy ten acres of fertile land and spoke highly of Liu Xu every day.
When Liu Xu went to the capital to take the imperial examination, he had just turned one year old.
The child no longer remembers what his biological father looks like.
Liu Dong was thus spared the step of applying makeup and no longer needed to find women from brothels.
They did hire a wet nurse and several maids to take care of the children.
However, after the child turned five, Liu Tong dismissed the wet nurse, leaving only two attentive maids to take care of him, while the rest were replaced by servants.
Liu Tong didn't want to raise her child to be like Jia Lian and Jia Baoyu.
You asked why I mentioned them? Of course, it's because I learned from the original owner's memories that there was the Rongguo Duke's Mansion and the Ningguo Duke's Mansion in the capital.
In Liu Dong's recovered memories, she had connections with the Rongguo Duke's Mansion in two of her lifetimes.
In this life, however, he has no connection with the Jia family.
Unlike other time travelers, Liu Dong wouldn't try to establish connections with the characters in Dream of the Red Chamber.
He wasn't even interested in watching the play, having already seen it twice in his life.
Liu Tong worked diligently as a county official, but had no one connected to the characters in "Dream of the Red Chamber" around him.
This is a fictional world, but high-yield, high-quality crops like sweet potatoes and corn already exist in this world.
Because it originated from overseas, it was not valued.
Liu Tong sent people to find superior seeds and distributed them to the people for planting.
He did not force the people to plant it, but only gave the good seeds to those who were very poor.
These people's families owned very little farmland, and all of it was of poor quality.
Even if they plant rice and wheat, the harvest is so good that it doesn't cover the annual tax payments.
Since that's the case, why not listen to the county magistrate and try planting some new, improved varieties?
Even if there are no results, we won't lose out, as the county magistrate has promised to provide compensation.
The results were encouraging.
Their barren land actually produced seven or eight hundred catties of grain!
In the past, they would be lucky to produce 100 jin (50 kg) of rice and wheat. Now, their output is seven or eight times that of the past.
After handing it over to the government, there were 400 catties of grain left, enough to feed the family for a year.
They no longer have to go hungry.
While these crops were being harvested, everyone else was watching their fields, eager to see how the new crop fared.
When the production figures were announced, everyone was shocked.
They couldn't sit still any longer and all rushed to the county government office to request the county magistrate to purchase new grain seeds.
Liu Tong smiled and agreed to the people's request, promoting the corn and sweet potatoes.
Liu Tong had a processing plant set up to produce sweet potato starch and vermicelli, as well as corn starch.
People from other counties, seeing that everyone in their county was able to eat their fill, spontaneously came to their county to buy high-quality seeds, which they then planted at home.
In this way, the superior seeds spread as the people acted.
The people of the entire prefecture began planting high-yield grains.
This caused the matter to escalate.
The prefect reported the superior seeds to the imperial court.
The emperor was overjoyed and rewarded the prefect, while Liu Tong, the one who initially distributed the superior seeds, received the greatest reward.
Liu Tong was promoted three ranks in quick succession to become the prefect, and was transferred to Yangzhou. (End of this chapter)