Quickly wear salted fish, she won by lying down

Chapter 828: Many Cheats 149
For example, there was a memorial written like this: it was about food and wages for the border guards, and the Ministry of Revenue had detailed information on food and wages expenditures available for checking.

When Prince Anjiang saw that the food and salary cost over one million taels, and that it was not paid once a year, but such a large amount of food and salary could only be used for one month, that is to say, the military expenditure was actually 12 million taels a year, he thought it was too much. After all, the court's annual fiscal revenue was only 20 million taels, and 60% of it was used for military expenditure. How could the remaining money be enough for various expenses?
Feeling something was wrong, Prince Anjiang looked at the detailed expenditures of the Ministry of Revenue, and found that the expenses were outrageous.

For example, one of the entries said that the price of horse feed was XXX taels per horse.

Anyone who is familiar with the prices outside will know that there is something wrong with this memorial.

The emperors of the past grew up in the deep palace and might not know this, but the Prince of Anjiang lived outside, how could he not know?
The Prince of Anjiang used to have horses in the palace, all of which were well-raised. The price of horse feed he paid for the horses would definitely be taken as kickbacks by the servants in the palace, so the price was very high. It is estimated that it was definitely several times the normal price.

However, when it came to the horse feed provided to the border, he looked at the number of horses at the border and calculated the consumption of each horse. It turned out to be a hundred times more than the horse feed in his palace!
Because he was familiar with the horse feed, he could tell that something was wrong. But he could see the big picture from the small details. The other things he didn't understand must also have big problems. It was impossible that only this one thing he knew had a problem.

The price of horse feed can increase a hundred times, and it has increased a hundred times on the basis of the already high price of the horses raised in his palace. If the same is true for other things, it is no wonder that the annual border expenditure is more than 10 million. The reason is very simple. There is definitely something fishy about it. It is probably all about the transfer of interests. The officials in charge of this matter report 12 million to the court, and then everyone from top to bottom makes a little money, and the generals at the border also follow suit. It is hard to imagine how much horse feed each cavalryman will get. No wonder when he was outside, he heard the complaints of soldiers who used to be at the border and are now serving in the Beijing camp, saying that the border was too hard and they were often owed wages. Fortunately, he became a small leader, and later the general he followed was transferred to the capital, and he was also pulled over by the other side, and his life became better. After all, no matter who is short of money, it will not be the Beijing camp.

As for them, at the border, it is estimated that both people and horses received very little, which caused these people to complain bitterly.

If a small leader has complained about his suffering, it is not difficult to imagine what the situation of those big soldiers is like.

How much fighting power could such an army that was hungry and in arrears of food and wages have? No wonder they were beaten badly by the Hu people every year - no, even these beatings were probably for some ulterior motive, just to make the court pay more money to recruit more soldiers.

In fact, they had soldiers and horses, but they divided the money they got among themselves.

Prince Anjiang told Linlang about his discovery and asked him whether he should ask them about the horse feed at the border. After all, he knew the details of this matter.

But Linlang stopped him and said, "They will have reasons. It's useless for you to ask."

Who knows, he might get into trouble from those people again, and then he would suffer in vain. If he keeps suffering like this, the Prince of Anjiang might become evil due to his anger.

Linlang said this because she didn't want Prince Anjiang to get angry. Of course, if Prince Anjiang still wanted to question him, Linlang would not stop him. After all, she was just making a suggestion, and it was Prince Anjiang's business whether to implement it or not.

Prince Anjiang said: "This is obviously wrong, can you find a reason?"

Prince Anjiang, who had not been exposed to such situations, obviously did not know how cunning humans could be, and how outrageous excuses they could come up with. Linlang said, "Of course they can find one - they will say that their horses are war horses, so they naturally eat more expensive food, or that they need to eat special grass. If the horses do not eat this grass, can Your Majesty take responsibility if something happens to them? And this special grass is different from ordinary grass, so it is naturally more expensive. This price is very reasonable, and there is no corruption. How will Your Majesty deal with it?"

There are such cases in modern times. A cup costs 1,200 yuan, and a bag of snails costs 90,000 yuan, which are hundreds or even thousands of times higher than the normal price. However, people’s investigations show that there is no problem. They are all special-purpose and the price should be this. If you buy them outside and something goes wrong, will you be responsible?

Modern people are so smart, and it is impossible for people of this era not to be so smart. What can the emperor find out?

There was such a thing in ancient times. In one dynasty, the eggs eaten by the emperor cost ten taels of silver, while eggs sold outside cost only one or two coins. The price was tens of thousands of times higher than that outside. The people who handled the eggs didn’t know how much money they made, but the emperor still had no choice. The excuse they gave was: the eggs we eat are inferior, while the eggs offered as tribute to the palace are good, so they are expensive, which is normal.

Linlang's words immediately silenced the Prince of Anjiang, who lacked imagination.

He really couldn't find a reason, unless he shouted that the price was wrong and sold all the garbage and replaced it with a normal price. But it was hard to predict what changes would happen at the border. After all, it affected the interests of too many people, and it was unknown whether he would be driven down or not.

He was not afraid of being bombed, but he was afraid that he would not be able to return to his previous life, and instead his entire family would be wiped out, which would be bad.

So after hearing Linlang's words, Prince Anjiang gave up the idea of ​​questioning the issue of horse feed and prepared to bring up the matter again when the time was right.

After all, even Linlang knew that she was being evaded with such excuses, let alone those old foxes from the previous dynasty. They would have even more excuses to evade her. Even if he questioned them, it would be useless. He should not bring shame upon himself.

Seeing that Prince Anjiang did not intend to question the ministers about the horse feed after hearing what she said, but he was obviously a little depressed, she said, "Your Majesty, don't be disappointed and lose heart. Just slowly replace those bad ministers with better ones."

Linlang was not afraid to say this, because walls have ears, because they were talking in private, and the palace maids and eunuchs were far away and could not hear.

After hearing this, Prince Anjiang nodded and said, "This is the only way."

Although Prince Anjiang agreed, he was thinking in his heart, how could it be so easy to replace these people? He didn't have the ability to replace them. Moreover, even if he replaced them, the new people were not nominated by him. Even if he could nominate them, how could he know who were good and who were bad? Good and bad people would not be written on their faces. Unless he had his own power in the future, he could investigate and know which people were good and could be promoted.

But that will probably be a long time in the future. Anyway, it is a bit difficult for him to build his own force now.