Rong Lan

About two months ago, it was the time when Zeng Chukuo lost to Rong Xuan and lost successive battles.

Once the autumn harvest was over, the army rations were transported the fastest by water. The Nancao Water Transport Envoy sent officials to strictly inspect the passing ships to ensure the smooth flow of water transport and the safety of military ration supplies. As a result, a large amount of illegal salt was accidentally seized!

The amount of private salt is rare in history, so he wrote a memorial and sent it to the capital overnight.

In the palace, the Emperor Long Yan was furious!

"Strictly investigate!! Officials and merchants involved in the case will be severely punished!!"

After Rong Lan left, Cheng He, who was re-promoted to be the Minister of the Household Department, together with the two Ministers of the Ministry of Punishment and the Ministry of Officials, worked together to thoroughly investigate the case. As a result, all the criminal evidence found pointed to the main culprit!

Pointing to the Hubu Shangshu Rong who had died of illness in the prison, who was once famous in the officialdom of the Great Zhou Dynasty and wiped out countless corrupt officials.

"Master, my subordinates said that that day, Rong Xuan revealed that Mi'er was sent by Rong Lan to the Shangshu Pavilion several times, but he forgot to bring the book list and returned empty-handed. I think the real purpose of Rong Lan's sending Mi'er out of the mansion is to take the opportunity to exchange the water transportation. Approval documents."

"I originally thought that even though his purpose of becoming an official is to restore the country, he is still a gentleman with the world in mind! I didn't expect..."

Chong Yi never expected that Rong Lan would secretly seek huge profits during his tenure as Minister of the Household Department, making a lot of ill-gotten gains as capital for restoring the country!

The water transportation in the south fell into the control of the Miao people without anyone knowing it. Beijue was rich in sand salt. They colluded with Haihu and transported a large amount of coarse salt refined from sand salt from Beijue to the south for final processing. Then secretly resell.

Now things have come to light, although Haihu is dead, Beijue Shayan is under the control of Dazhou, the source of private salt has been cut off, and the imperial court has sent people south in time to rectify it, but half of the country to the south of Dazhou has been flooded with private salt, and the salt market is almost out of control. The serious merchants complained endlessly, the loss of official salt was even heavier, and even the daily life of the common people was affected for no reason.

And the Miao people had taken away a large amount of money and silver and sent them to the Nan Wang who had just ascended the throne.

Before the Rong family was wiped out, Rong Shangshu died of illness in prison immediately. The emperor was lenient to the matter of raising taxes privately before his death, and did not pursue it any further. When this shocking case of smuggling salt by water came out, the emperor Longyan was furious, and decreed that the two crimes should be reconciled. place!

The salt smuggling case has spread far and wide, but Hongzhou is located in a remote place, and when the news reached here, less than half a month had passed since the peak of the storm.

Qianbo heard that this incident happened on the same day as Rong Lan, and he was amazed at his vigilance to the change of salt price, but at the same time worried about what he saw in his room before he went to the garrison.

It stands to reason that five days would be enough time to go back and forth from Shuheng to Hongzhou, plus the delay in seeing a doctor, but now that ten days have passed and Rong Lan has not returned, Qianbo couldn't help but feel even more worried.

On the third day when Rong Lan went out to see a doctor, four big accountants from Zhuzhuang came to collect the accounts. Qianbo reported the results of the account verification one by one and explained them. The two shopkeepers of Yanzhuang who made false accounts were arrested.

Rong Lan checked the accounts and found that there were many mistakes and omissions. The reason why Qianbo deliberately pointed out these two fake accounts was because the books of these two fake accounts were very clean. It is completely different in nature from those erroneous and missing accounts that left some flaws. Second, because the price of salt was unstable during the year, he intuitively felt that there was something wrong behind the falsified accounts of the salt farm. He used people's money to eliminate disasters.

It's just that Rong Lan didn't expect that he made trouble for others, but caused trouble for himself.

The two shopkeepers involved in the fake account had never made any mistakes before, so they didn't even think that something would happen this year, so they didn't have any precautions, and they caught one!

The people sent by the main village to search had confiscated a total of ten thousand taels of gold in the two stores. Such a huge amount of private pockets shocked the entire senior management of Qianyuzhuang. The seriousness of the incident far exceeded everyone's expectations!

Qianyuzhuang is the richest man in the world, with businesses spread all over the country, with thousands of shops, and multi-level villages. It has its own set of strict accounting procedures to manage such a large organization. Hiding deep, they are not young people, and there must be a more complete speculative group hidden behind them.

The old owner ordered that the young owner should investigate everything himself within five days.

Sure enough, the fake accounts found in Hongzhou Biezhuang are only the tip of the iceberg. They follow the vines, from the big account room to the retail merchants who supply the goods, from the Biezhuang to the main village, all have the participation of relevant stakeholders, and it is even more unexpected What's more, these people were actually involved in the illegal salt case that happened just now.

Qianyuzhuang has official documents specially approved by the government, and the ships it belongs to do not need to undergo routine inspections. The two shopkeepers of Yanzhuang actually took advantage of this fact to secretly communicate with Beijue merchants, and secretly sandwiched coarse salt refined from sand salt in several times within a year. The ordinary salt is sent to the Nancao cargo ship.

The imperial court is severely confiscating private salt. If this matter hadn't been found out by its own people before the imperial court found out about Qianyuzhuang, Qianyuzhuang would be in trouble enough to destroy the village!

To put it seriously, this matter can be regarded as a crime of collaborating with the enemy that will implicate the nine clans!

However, in fact, the venomous snake that has been hidden for many years and intertwined in Qianyu Village was not born in Dazhou. The Miao people used Qianyu Village as an umbrella and worked hard to restore the country. Once again, another important source of funds for the restoration of the country was cut off, and I was desperate!

Qianyuzhuang is very powerful in Jianghu, there are many masters in the village, and the martial arts of the young master is even more unpredictable. They can't vent their anger on any decision-maker in Qianyuzhuang, but they don't know where to find out that it is a The accountant named "Rong Lan" first found out the fake accounts of Yanzhuang.

On the day Rong Lan went to Shuheng, he had a heart attack, and was finally carried from the carriage into Changping Medical Center. The old genius doctor was rejuvenated, and he fell into a coma for seven days before waking up.

In the end, just as Rong Lan recovered his life, he was murdered in broad daylight on the way back to Hongzhou from Shuheng!

In a world of ice and snow, the mountain road is sparsely populated, the coachman who deliberately drove the carriage up the mountain has long since disappeared, with the knife shining in front of his eyes, and the white valley behind him, Rong Lan has no way to escape, so he closes his eyes and jumps down!

In the capital city, there were so many people involved in the private salt case, and it took two months to finally close the case. The clerk in charge of recording the case documents of the Ministry of Criminal Justice has been unknown in his position for more than 20 years. He has been in politics for two generations. He is still the first Once he experienced such a thing as a dead person being convicted of a crime, and all the crimes were written down from the tip of his pen, he sighed in his heart. Could it be that the dead Minister of the Household Department was a criminal? so harsh.

It was very late at night, and Cheng He, who had been busy for several months and hardly left home, changed his clothes under the service of his wife, and sighed for a while: "You really know people, know faces, but don't know your heart!"

At the beginning he failed to save Rong Lan from prison, and he didn't even see Rong Lan for the last time when he died. He always felt ashamed in his heart, but now that something like this happened, he only sighed at the unpredictability of the world.

"Snapped"!Suddenly an arrow broke through the window and nailed straight to the beam behind Cheng He.

"Come on... um!" Mrs. Cheng was about to scream, but Cheng He covered her mouth. She blinked in fear, but saw her master pull the arrow from the beam and take a closer look. , the body of the arrow seems to be bound with a small book.

Cheng He didn't know exactly who sent the message to himself in such a hidden way in the middle of the night, but based on years of experience, before the matter was clarified, the fewer people knew the better.

He untied the arrow on the booklet and opened it to read it. After scanning a few lines, his eyes widened and his surprised expression was filled with relief!

"Master, what is written on it?" Mrs. Cheng was curious when she saw this.

Cheng He closed the booklet with one palm: "Women, don't inquire about these things!"

Mrs. Cheng didn't dare to ask again, but she found that from that night on, her master was always tossing and turning at night, unable to sleep peacefully.

In the twelfth lunar month, the first snow of the year fell in the capital. Cheng He, who had been hesitating for many days, walked to a dense forest on the outskirts of the city with a paper umbrella. When he went, there was already a person standing there.

He folded his umbrella and bowed: "Your Majesty has met the Prime Minister!"

"Why did you ask me to come here?" Xu Zhongbo asked Cheng He, but his eyes kept looking at a snow-covered tombstone in front of him.

The stele has no name, only the surname, and the word "Rong" is engraved on it. According to the custom of the Great Zhou Dynasty, only the surname is engraved on the tomb of the crown, and the name is not left.

Cheng He took out the booklet from his sleeve, and bowed to the old prime minister: "I am confused, and I want to ask the prime minister to give me some advice."

Xu Zhongbo looked away from the stele and turned to look at the brochure Cheng He handed over. He paused for a moment, did not answer, and only sighed: "It seems that the old man is not the only one who received this thing!"

Cheng He raised his eyes in surprise: "Could it be that the Prime Minister also...?!"

Xu Zhongbo nodded.

Cheng He hurriedly asked: "Then according to what your lord sees, how should we deal with it?"

Xu Zhongbo asked back: "You should have received this object ten days ago, just like the old man. Why didn't you present it to the emperor until today?"

Cheng He lowered his head and blushed: "The wives, children, and children of the lower officials' families dare not take any risks until they find out what the emperor is thinking, so...so..." He paused, apparently unable to continue.

Xu Zhongbo raised his hand to help him straighten up: "It's rare for you to choose to tell the old man about this matter, and you don't need to blame yourself too much. Everyone in life has unavoidable difficulties. There is nothing wrong with you thinking about the safety of your family."

Cheng He asked cautiously: "So, the prime minister didn't present this evidence to the emperor?"

Xu Zhongbo nodded, and sighed deeply: "The emperor and the late son of the Rong family... just pretend you haven't seen this thing before, and don't mention it to anyone in the future! What is right and what is wrong, and what the truth is, everyone knows." If you are dead, don’t let the living worry about it.”

The prime minister spoke vaguely, but Cheng He shivered, and looked at the tombstone beside him in surprise.

That rumor was actually true? !

On this day, in the first snow, in front of an unnamed stele in the dense forest on the outskirts of Beijing, someone swept the snow to pay homage, confessed their debts to the deceased, and then each left.

In the early morning of the next day, the Minister of the Household Department reported to the emperor that there were other officials involved in the private salt case that slipped through the net.

The old prime minister resigned at the court.

Xu Zhongbo was over sixty years old, before the emperor's imperial conquest, the capital depended on him alone to support the overall situation, and the end of the year was approaching, his already slightly curved back became more and more stooped.

"Your Majesty, I'm getting old, this year there will be a large number of talented people in Qiu Wei, and it's time for me to make room for the younger generation."

The emperor did not reply in the early court, only left the prime minister behind, and asked someone to bring the crown prince: "Teacher, it is a time of troubles in the Great Zhou Dynasty, and a pillar of the country like the teacher cannot be missing. If you don't want to be the prime minister, the crown prince Chuli, you have been my teacher back then, and I have benefited a lot, now that there is no suitable candidate for the crown prince, how about letting the teacher continue to be the teacher?"

It is hard to violate the emperor's order to keep the emperor.

When Chongwen was in class on the first day, he looked at a book on Xu Zhongbo's book case and shook his head and asked, "Teacher Xu, why doesn't this book have the author's name?"

Xu Zhongbo opened the manuscript with the word "policy book" scrawled on the cover: "Some people are unknown after death, but they can leave good theories on governing the country. Your Royal Highness, I will teach you from this "policy book" For the king to govern the country."

"Students are taught!" Chongwen saluted earnestly, offering tea to his teacher!

At this time, Chongwen thought that Taifu Xu, who had been the teacher of his father, would also be the only emperor teacher in his life.

He never imagined that one day, a person in Fei Yi would appear in front of him lightly, and downgrade this "policy book" highly praised by Master Xu as a rigid dogma, and tell him that there is no written way in this world for a monarch to govern a country. To become a good emperor, apart from studying, it is more important to understand the various attitudes of the people, and more importantly, look at your father.