"Zihou, our Taicang silver vault is in front. Go slowly and be careful with the steps..." Doctor Jia led Zhu Ping'an to the silver vault and turned back to remind Zhu Ping'an to watch his step when going up the stairs.
The silver vault is located about 50 centimeters above the ground. This is for waterproofing considerations and on the other hand to allow a wider field of view for easier monitoring.
Although it is called a silver vault, it is actually divided into two parts: a gold vault and a silver vault.
Outside the doors of the gold vault and the silver vault, there are plaques with the words "Ming Jiajing Gold Vault" and "Ming Jiajing Silver Vault" respectively.
Heavily guarded.
You can see naked warehouse soldiers going in and out, carrying silver.
"This silver vault and silver storehouse are the most heavily guarded places in Taicang. In Taicang, only the treasury soldiers can touch gold and silver. Others, even Zhang Guanku, are not allowed to touch even one tael of silver. The day before yesterday, the emperor issued an edict to 'allocate 200,000 taels of silver to order Master Tao to perform the ritual of calming the spirit at Jianyuan Yue in Wudang Mountain.' They are moving these 200,000 taels of silver, loading them onto trucks and sending them to the inner palace."
Walking up to the platform and standing outside the gate of Taicang Silver Warehouse, Doctor Jia pointed at the soldiers coming in and out of the warehouse and said to Zhu Ping'an.
Zhu Ping'an nodded and looked towards the Taicang Silver Vault.
The officer who was guarding the warehouse soldiers inside the gate saw Doctor Jia and Zhu Ping'an and hurried forward to salute.
"In Taicang, you officials have the heaviest responsibilities, and you must not slack off in the slightest. Just go about your business and don't worry about us." Doctor Jia waved his hand seriously, indicating to the officials that they did not need to salute and should quickly return to their jobs.
"I'll take my leave."
Upon hearing this, the official bowed and took his leave, then returned to the gate to inspect.
"Zihou, please don't blame me." After watching the official return to his post, Doctor Jia turned to Zhu Ping'an and explained, "The official is responsible for supervising the warehouse soldiers and strictly preventing them from smuggling or hiding the money. This is related to the safety of the Taicang Silver Treasury, and not a single cent can be neglected."
"How could that be? Lord Jia is loyal and strict in his duties. Ping'an is full of admiration for him, so how could he blame him?" Zhu Ping'an shook his head and slightly raised the corners of his lips.
"If everyone understands us like Lord Zhu does, then our job in Taicang will be easy." Doctor Jia said with emotion, and there seemed to be something else behind his words.
“No, no…” Zhu Pingan curled the corner of his mouth.
At this time, there were about twenty warehouse soldiers, under the supervision of the hall official, going in and out of the Taicang Silver Vault, busy moving the silver from the vault to the outside of the vault, weighing, packing, sealing, and then loading it onto the vehicles that would be escorted to the inner warehouse.
The scene was a bit eye-catching.
The soldiers were all young and strong men, about 20 to 30 years old, wearing uniform clothes of the silver warehouse. The top was a sleeveless jacket with the word "Taicang" written on it, and the bottom was simple crotch-covered pants.
Two warehouse soldiers worked together to move a box of silver out of the warehouse. Under the supervision of the hall official, they weighed and recorded the weight, then moved it out of the warehouse, put a seal on it, and placed it in a fixed location outside the warehouse.
After moving this box of silver, the warehouse soldier returned to the silver vault to move the next box of silver.
When they returned to the vault, they had to be inspected again, just like they had just entered the vault.
Outside the treasury gate, the treasury soldiers took off their clothes and walked naked to the lobby to be inspected by the officials.
“Quack~Quack~”
Ku Bing stood naked in front of the official. He squatted down with his arms stretched out to expose his ribs. Then he slightly bent his legs and jumped twice. He clapped his hands above his head and quacked loudly like a duck.
After completing these actions.
Then they went forward one by one and there was a long bench in front of them. The Ku soldiers stepped over the bench one by one and shouted "Come out" at the same time.
Through the above actions, you can prove that you do not have any silver in your body, under your armpits, in your mouth, or in your hands.
Only after completing this series of steps can one be allowed by the official to enter the treasury.
After entering the silver vault, they changed into the silver vault's uniform clothes, carried the silver again, and returned to the treasury, where they had to go through the above-mentioned series of inspections.
In other words, every time they took out the silver from the vault, they had to go through the above inspection. Only after they had moved the silver and passed the inspection could they put on their own clothes and go home after get off work.
"In Taicang, only the soldiers can touch the silver. The purpose of stripping, shouting, stretching, clapping, squatting and jumping is to prevent the soldiers from smuggling silver and to ensure that not a penny of silver is lost from the Taicang silver vault."
Doctor Jia explained to Zhu Ping'an on the side.
Zhu Ping'an nodded when he heard this.
In fact, I don’t agree with it in my heart.
If this could ensure that not a single penny of silver was lost from the treasury, then the largest theft from the Qing Dynasty hundreds of years later would not have happened.
In modern times, Zhu Ping'an, out of curiosity, carefully studied the theft case of the Qing Dynasty's treasury. Not to mention other tricks, there are many tricks in the treasury soldiers alone.
It seems that the above inspection process of Ku Bing is seamless and there is no loophole to be exploited, but what is the reality
If these warehouse soldiers really can't make any money at all, then why are there hundreds of people with connections breaking their heads, sharpening their brains, and giving large amounts of money to compete for the position of a warehouse soldier? Obviously there is something else going on.
Each batch of soldiers consists of fifty people, and a group is rotated every five years.
These kubing are basically hereditary, and have always been fought over and circulated within the circle of certain hereditary kubing families.
And an interesting thing is that when the warehouse soldiers are rotated, every time someone secretly secures a warehouse soldier position through gifts, connections, and other levels of competition, they will spend a large amount of money to hire several martial arts masters as bodyguards, who will be inseparable from them and protect them for a short period of time.
Because every rotation of warehouse soldiers has to go through a roll call process, the Ministry of Revenue will write a letter or the highest leader of Taicang, the Minister in charge of the Treasury, will go to the Ministry of Revenue to check in, and go through the process. After the roll call, the position of the warehouse soldier will be finally confirmed.
If anyone is late for roll call or does not show up at all, then the warehouse soldier position will be replaced.
As for the connections and money you put in before, I'm sorry, just think of them as being blown away by the wind.
Therefore, if there is a soldier in the warehouse who does not hire a bodyguard to ensure that he can report for duty smoothly, if other people find out, he will be kidnapped or imprisoned, and he will not be able to report for duty, and then someone will take your place.
Therefore, with such fierce competition, the position of warehouse soldier must be very lucrative.
Yes.
Every policy from the top has its countermeasures from the bottom.
It seems that the Taicang Silver Vault has strict inspections on the soldiers entering and leaving the vault, but for the soldiers who have been there from generation to generation, this does not prevent them from stealing silver from the vault. The stealing skills passed down from their ancestors can still be effective in Taicang and are being developed step by step.
In fact, they mainly stole silver from the treasury by smuggling it on their bodies.
The Ku Bing tradition has been passed down from generation to generation, and the children of these Ku Bing families have been training in a unique skill of stealing silver from the treasury since childhood - "hiding silver in the valley".
That is to say, they hid silver in the treasury through chrysanthemums. They have been practicing this skill since childhood. First, they smeared oil on eggs, stuffed them into chrysanthemums, and practiced running, walking and jumping. After mastering it, they replaced the chicken eggs with duck eggs and goose eggs, and finally with 10-liang iron balls. Of course, at this time they needed a prop called pig bladder.
It is said that if one can master the art of "Silver Storage in the Valley", one can smuggle ten smooth and edgeless silver ingots each time, which adds up to one hundred taels of silver.
Zhu Ping'an stood there and watched for a while, and found that at least two of the soldiers had swollen abdomens and their walking posture was a little strange. They were most likely the masters of "Silver Hidden in the Valley".
However, Zhu Ping'an remained expressionless and did not say anything.
Compared with the officials in charge of the Taicang warehouse, these warehouse soldiers who stole silver by smuggling it on their bodies were nothing compared to them. At best, they were just small ants stealing wheat and were not worth mentioning.
Beating the grass will scare the snake.
Zhu Ping'an would never make such a mistake of losing the big picture for the small.