"You wait." Meng Zezhi said to Song An and the two.
Then he instructed the personal eunuch Man Gui: "Go and invite General Chen, the leader of the Youqing Road, to come over."
Youqing Dao rate is one of the six rates of the East Palace, and it is also the pro-military in the actual sense of the predecessor.
With that said, he turned around and went back to the bedroom.
"You all go down."
"Yes."
After waving away the palace maids and eunuchs, Meng Zezhi pinched his fingers, and the figure disappeared into the air.
When he came back, there was an extra wooden box in his hand.
He returned to the study, and General Chen, led by Youqing Daoist, had already arrived.
He handed the wooden box to He Xingjian: "Take this, it shouldn't be a problem to protect your family."
He Xingjian respectfully took the wooden box and opened it, but what caught his eye was a book of Analects.
"This—" He Xingjian glanced at Meng Zezhi and flipped open the Analects. When his eyes touched the contents of the book, his expression changed dramatically. He raised his head suddenly, and said in a voiceless voice, "This is—"
Meng Zezhi looked at him and said, "I remember, your cousin's younger brother is a magistrate in Lianghuai."
With a snap, He Xingjian closed the wooden box in his hand. He took a deep breath and didn't ask where the thing came from, but said, "Wei Chen understands."
As he said that, he lifted his robe and knelt down: "Wei Chen Xie Your Highness for saving grace."
"Between you and me, don't worry about this." Meng Zezhi helped him up with his own hands, and then looked at the right Qing Dao and led General Chen: "General Chen, Master He will be handed over to you, please take care of him."
"The last general takes orders." General Chen immediately replied with his fists folded.
"I'm waiting to retire."
Sure enough, in the early morning of the second day, Pei Zhongyue, the censor of the right deputy capital, and thirteen censors jointly participated in the performance. .
"Is there such a thing?" Emperor Tianming frowned instantly: "Is there any evidence?"
When even one of the imperial censors came out of the class, he played: "Jiang He, the censor of Wei Chen, was on his way back to his hometown to visit relatives a month ago. He passed by Shaanxi because of visiting friends. He saw with his own eyes that it has been raining heavily this year in Shaanxi. He also asked the local villagers, and said that Shaanxi In recent years, the weather has been good and there have been few natural disasters, which is a rare good year, and the donations to prisons in Shaanxi are not food, but all converted into silver. It is false, and it is true that Shaanxi’s political envoy, Si Zuocheng, announced that the political envoy Cheng Yuanzhong and Shaanxi officials embezzled and donated money.”
Emperor Tianming's face suddenly sank: "Where is the Minister of Punishment?"
"The minister is here." The Minister of Punishment immediately responded.
"I ordered you to go to Shaanxi with Pei Zhongyue, the censor of the right deputy, to investigate the disaster relief and prison donation in previous years." The Emperor of Heaven said angrily.
"The minister waits for the order." The two immediately knelt down and bowed.
Hearing this, the eldest prince Qin Yu flashed a smug look in his eyes. He couldn't wait to see the prince turned pale in shock and gnashing his teeth.
Thinking of this, he turned his head, never thinking that Meng Zezhi was sitting on the chair calmly, his expression unchanged.
Qin Yu frowned at the moment, and couldn't help thinking, doesn't the prince know that He Xingjian's concubine is working in Shaanxi
It was at this moment that the eunuch He Mu flicked the dust in his hand and shouted in a loud voice, "If you have something to do, play early, and if you have nothing to go back to the court!"
He Xingjian, the left servant of the Ministry of Personnel, immediately went out of class to play and said, "Report to Your Majesty, this minister has the original play."
Emperor Tianming, who was about to get up, had to sit back again: "Aiqing, please speak."
"Wei Chenshen Lianghuai salt merchants, together with the salt farms and salt transport envoy Si Chao, issued salt quotations, and deducted and withheld more than 6 million taels of silver."
With that said, He Xingjian opened the wooden box in his hand, took out an account book and held it high above his head: "This is the account book that the younger brother of the minister accidentally obtained from the Fan family, the head of the salt merchant."
As soon as the words fell, the expressions of the ministers changed dramatically.
The eunuch He Mu reacted and looked at the Emperor of Heaven subconsciously.
The Emperor of Heaven was expressionless and nodded.
He Mu immediately went down the steps and took the account book in He Xingjian's hand and handed it to the Emperor of Heaven.
When the Qian Dynasty was first established, the frontier was still not very peaceful. In order to resist foreign aggression and prepare for the frontier reserve, the court pioneered the 'opening of China and France'. That is to say, the merchants from the Ministry of Households are called out, and the merchants in the list will transport the grain to the frontier fortress or other places where there is a shortage of grain. After the local yamen has registered the weight of the grain to be transported, it will issue a relative amount of warehouse money, and then the merchants will take the warehouse money to the salt-producing areas. After the salt envoys exchange for the salt, they carry the salt and go to the salt field to support the salt, and finally transport it to the designated area for sale.
Therefore, the salt leads distributed by the salt transport envoys every year are linked to the grains transported by the salt merchants to the border, and the silver taels earned by the excess distribution will naturally fall into the pockets of the salt merchants and the officials of the salt transport division. .
Just as Emperor Tianming was looking at the account books, He Xingjian continued: "Wei ministers joined the Lianghuai salt merchants to open salt ports, accepting classes for trafficking, and obtaining countless silvers. The salt merchants use more than 500,000 taels of bank money every year to bribe officials at the top and bottom of the court, and the dirty silver they bribe is recorded.”
After speaking, He Xingjian took out all the account books in the wooden box and presented them to the Emperor of Heaven.
How rich are the Lianghuai salt merchants
The property of the salt merchants in the two Huaihe Rivers was firstly in the tens of millions, and secondly in the millions. The salt merchants with capital of less than one million could only be called small merchants.
You must know that the annual fiscal revenue of the Qian Dynasty treasury is only 20 million taels of silver. For ordinary people, the annual expenditure of a family of four is only 32 taels of silver.
At the Lianghuai salt merchants, it cost fifty taels of silver to eat a bowl of egg fried rice. The officials of the Yanzheng Yamen in Lianghuai spend forty taels of silver every day for meals, and hundreds of taels of miscellaneous items such as pen, ink and paper.
Where does the salt merchant's money come from
Take the Fan family, the head of the salt merchants, as an example. The Fan family opened a salt farm privately in Liuzhou. When the Fan family went to Guangdong to sell salt every year, they only took out a small part of the salt from the official salt farm, and then went to the salt farm opened by the Fan family. A large amount of smuggled salt was taken on board, transported to Guilin for repackage, and sold to smugglers from other places.
For private salt traders, the official salt purchase price is fifty-eight cents per catty, and the private salt purchase price is forty cents. If the private salt is sold as official salt, in addition to the profit from selling official salt, there is a net profit per catty. Eighteen texts.
The means of salt merchants are more than these, because the profit of selling official salt is not as high as that of selling private salt, so in order to maximize profits, they often mix various impurities, sand, broken rice into official salt... They can then sell these impurities for the price of official salt.
At the same time, because the official salt has been ruined by the salt merchants, this has led to a greater demand for private salt in private, but the private salt is still controlled by these salt merchants. .
For example, the Fan family, the head of the salt merchants, can make more than two million taels of private salt every year.
All the officials were frightened, but they hated He Xingjian in their hearts.
He Xingjian was crawling on the ground, his body stiff.
He knew that as soon as this matter came out, he had offended most of the officials in the DPRK.
With a snap, Emperor Tianming threw the account book on the imperial table.
Visibly angry.
"Your Majesty's forgiveness." The civil and military officials knelt down in unison, not daring to take a breath.
"Check." Emperor Tianming took a deep look at Meng Zezhi, left a word, and walked away.
"Retreat!" The eunuch He Mu immediately sang.
Meng Zezhi got up from the ground unhurriedly.
"His Royal Highness is really good." The eldest prince, Qin Yu, came over, smiling but not smiling.
It's all about this, how could he not know what Meng Zezhi's plan was.
"Each each other." Meng Zezhi patted the dust that didn't exist on his body, "It's you, eldest brother, how does it feel to steal the chicken and not lose the rice?"
The aristocratic family is aristocratic and does not want to be in the company of merchants, and most of them are well-off, so they can count the slaps of corruption and perversion of the law. On the other hand, Xungui, relying on his own credit, is used to being lawless on weekdays, and there are not a few people who are involved in this private salt case.
It just depends on what the Emperor of Heaven chooses.
The eldest prince Qin Yu's face was completely pulled down: "The eldest brother also advises you, no one is good for a thousand days, and flowers are no longer a hundred days, hum."
After he finished speaking, he also walked away.
"Your Highness." He Xingjian came up.
"Don't worry." Meng Zezhi patted him on the shoulder and promised, "If there is a lonely day, there will be a day for you."
Meng Zezhi was still very relieved about his conduct.
He Xingjian felt relieved and grateful: "Thank you, Your Highness."
Meng Zezhi was in a very good mood. He walked out of the hall and faced the warm sun overhead. He thought that there would be nothing to do in the afternoon anyway, so let's go to sleep and Xie Jianze.