Take control of Wei Zhongxian at the start and confiscate 100 million from him!

Chapter 285 While the emperor was expanding his territory at the front, they were frantically working in the rear.

The official boat cut through the night waters of the river, the flag of the Zhenfu Division hanging at the bow fluttering in the wind like a silent and swift owl.

Li Chaoqin stood at the bow of the boat, letting the river wind fill his flying fish robe.

He had been standing at the bow of the ship for a full hour since boarding in Songjiang Prefecture, his heart filled with a turbulent emotion far more powerful than the ever-flowing Yangtze River beneath his feet.

He sometimes recalled Wei Zhongxian's aged yet trusting eyes, and at other times he seemed to see the unfathomable gaze of the young emperor in the Nanjing imperial city.

Taking a deep breath of the moisture-laden air, Li Chaoqin turned and walked into the cabin.

Inside the sealed compartment, only a single lamp flickered, casting his shadow on the compartment wall in varying lengths.

Li Chaoqin untied the oilcloth and neatly spread the thick stacks of files on the table.

This is the truth that he and his elite guards spent months peeling away from countless disguises and lies.

Before arriving in Nanjing to meet the emperor, he had to sort through this mountain of evidence into an incomparably sharp sword, a sword that would allow the emperor to strike decisively and sever this huge malignant tumor on the empire's artery.

As his gaze fell upon the first file, Li Chaoqin's thoughts were instantly drawn back to three months ago, to that damp and chilly early spring.

At the beginning of the investigation, he was secretly ordered by Wei Zhongxian to be stationed in Huai'an Prefecture to oversee the entire situation.

Preliminary intelligence gathered from various places poured in like snowflakes, all pointing to the same disheartening conclusion: the accounts of the Grand Canal Governor's Office were flawless.

Li Chaoqin did not rush around like a headless fly, nor did he personally lead his cavalry to storm those heavily guarded government offices.

He chose to scatter his most elite agents and spies among the common people and underworld along the banks of the canal, like scattering beans to form an army.

Instead of investigating officials, they investigated ordinary people, those from all walks of life related to the canal transport—boatmen, trackers, grain shop assistants, prostitutes—to listen to their drunken ramblings, complaints, and boasts.

Li Chaoqin, like a lurking spider, quietly spread an invisible web within Huai'an Prefecture, patiently waiting for his prey to be touched.

He turned the pages, and in the candlelight, the neat lines of tiny characters on the paper, accompanied by exquisite ink drawings, no longer seemed like evidence of a crime, but rather a rigorous academic monograph.

The booklet was unsigned, but a line of small characters in red ink was written on the title page: "After three dynasties, four revisions, and twenty years of additions and deletions, this rule was finally completed."

Upon seeing these words, Li Chaoqin knew that he was not facing the whim of a genius scholar, but the accumulated evils of a vast system over decades.

The book draws on classical texts, from "Tiangong Kaiwu" to "Shui Jing Zhu," to discuss in detail the various natural losses that grain transported by the Grand Canal might encounter during its long journey.

Based on the structure and seasonal changes of granaries in various regions over the years, the grazing rate of different storage areas was determined; for mold, based on the differences in climate between the north and south and the length of the plum rain season, the mold rate was given with precision down to the day; leakage, fire loss, drying... every single thing was quantified into a series of cold numbers.

Behind every seemingly insignificant quota may lie the insight of a governor or the ingenuity of a shipbuilding elder who has accumulated decades of experience.

The meticulousness and calculation involved in its research were so profound that even now, when Li Chaoqin reread it, he still found it absurdly astounding.

This is not a book; it is clearly a wall built with countless greed and sins!
If he hadn't personally investigated, he would have almost applauded these capable people who shared the nation's burdens.

However, when he compared and analyzed this "established rule" that embodied the "wisdom" of several generations with the data obtained by another team of imperial guards who risked their lives to conduct on-site investigations of granaries in several prefectures and counties, a chilling truth emerged: the seemingly precise consumption quota was actually 40% higher than the most lenient actual consumption!
This means that of the millions of shi (a unit of dry measure) of grain transported north each year, hundreds of thousands of shi of grain, under the protection of this book, legitimately disappeared from the accounts.

They don't even need to go through layers of exploitation by corrupt officials; the moment they are shipped, they have already become internal consumption funds that can be openly divided up!

What an elegant and watertight way to steal a country!

It disguises the shameless greed of generations as sophisticated mathematics, and disguises blatant plunder as inevitable, or even as a precedent set by ancestral traditions!
What chilled Li Chaoqin even more was an attachment in the case file.

During the investigation, he instructed his subordinates to intercept a secret report from the Grand Canal Governor's Office.

A hereditary commander of the local Imperial Guard submitted a memorial to the court, stating that the canal transport was arduous, the canal workers were hard-working, and the maintenance of the ships was extremely costly. The current cost quota was barely enough to maintain operations.

He spoke earnestly, even suggesting that the court, understanding the plight of the people, should appropriately increase the quota to ensure the smooth transport of grain.

Li Chaoqin pressed his fingertip heavily on the name of the centurion, his knuckles turning white from the force.

He should have been a sword hanging over these people's heads, but now he has turned the hilt upside down and become their greedy lobbyist.

The court's eyes and ears have already turned into lackeys of the treacherous party!
He thought of that young emperor who, since ascending the throne, had practiced strict frugality, and even the three great halls of Huangji, Zhongji, and Jianji, which had suffered from fire, were unable to be rebuilt due to the empty imperial treasury.

But how could the emperor have imagined that in the heart of the empire where he toiled day and night, hundreds of thousands of bushels of grain flowed into the private granaries of these rats every year in a way that was considered "perfectly natural"?

……

After closing the file on the "Regulations on Waste and Deduction," Li Chaoqin's face was already quite grim.

He picked up the tea that had long since gone cold and drank it all in one gulp, trying to suppress his anger. Then he opened the second file.

If the first crime is theft, then this one is the destruction of the mind!
At the heart of this file is a roster bearing the inscription "Public Rewards and Rewards for the Canal Transport."

After tearing open the door to 'legitimate losses', Li Chaoqin found that the investigation had once again reached a stalemate.

Officials, generals, and clerks involved in the canal transport were seemingly enveloped by an invisible net, impenetrable to any interference. There must have been a deeper, more robust connection among these individuals, one that went beyond ordinary bribery.

Li Chaoqin changed course again, ordering someone to investigate the financial transactions between the Grand Canal Transport Office and major banks and banks.

This was an extremely tedious and cumbersome task; the ledgers and documents to be checked were already piled up like a mountain.

Half a month later, a secret agent from the Eastern Depot, skilled in mathematics, discovered a huge sum of money from the Yangzhou Salt Merchants Association in the vast sea of ​​accounts. However, the money was being diverted to a seemingly legitimate canal maintenance company.

The clue has been locked!

On one hand, Li Chaoqin ordered the imperial guards responsible for the perimeter to create chaos and divert the attention of the Grand Canal Gang. On the other hand, he activated a pawn that the Eastern Depot had planted in the study of the Grand Canal Governor's Mansion, which had been lying dormant for two and a half years.

During a break from a banquet attended by the governor, the spy copied out the list.

The booklet begins with a lengthy essay of over a thousand characters, praising the emperor's boundless grace. They explain that the establishment of the "Public Center" was precisely to "respond to the emperor's will," to encourage officials along the route to be loyal to their duties, and to ensure the smooth flow of grain transport. Every word is grand and dignified, as if this were not a black ledger of dividing spoils, but a record of merits to commend loyal officials.

However, when Li Chaoqin's gaze swept over the names at the back again, his pupils contracted sharply, and he even paused for a moment.

Familiar names were prominently listed!
Zhang Cheng, a commander of the Embroidered Uniform Guard stationed in Yangzhou Prefecture, had 3,200 taels of "Supervisory Labor Silver" under his name, with the note "Peace and tranquility under his jurisdiction, smooth passage of ships"; Wang Jing, a garrison leader stationed at Guazhou Ferry, had 1,800 taels of "Support Silver" under his name, with the note "Timely reporting, effective dispatch"; even several military officers from the Ministry of War who were stationed on the river patrol were also on the list, receiving "escort vehicle and horse expenses" that far exceeded their annual salary!

These people are the eyes and teeth of the imperial court planted on the canal!

But now, this glittering list is like a contract of servitude, turning them all into the watchdogs of this group.

Li Chaoqin knew the viciousness of this design.

When it comes to bribery, there will always be honest people who refuse, and cowardly people who will be afraid.

But this "maintaining public order" has brought this sordid matter to the forefront and made it a rule.

Under the guise of rewarding hard work, it packaged poison as honey and distributed it openly.

If you don't accept it, you will be an enemy of everyone, an outcast, and you might accidentally fall into the water and sink to the bottom of the river tomorrow.

If you accept it, it will be like handing over a pledge of allegiance, and from then on, you will share weal and woe, and your fortunes will be intertwined.

Take the fire out of the cauldron!

This is the real solution!

It corrupts not just one or two officials, but the very foundation of the entire supervisory system!
It makes the emperor's eyes and ears willingly blind and plug their ears, and even bark and bite those who are truly loyal to the emperor!
……

As night deepened, the sound of the river waves crashing against the shore outside the cabin continued incessantly.

Li Chaoqin picked up the last, thinnest, file.

However, these few thin pages were heavier than the previous two books combined, making it almost impossible for him to breathe.

After integrating the intelligence from the first two case files, Li Chaoqin discovered a huge gap based on the total amount of embezzled funds: the wealth amassed by this group far exceeded what could be explained by the accounts receivable and public funds.

That was an immense, ever-flowing pool of silver, enough to rival the wealth of a nation.

"Where did the silver come from?"

This question had been lingering in his mind for days.

He mentally rehearsed the entire canal transport process repeatedly, and finally, his gaze settled on the most easily overlooked part: the empty ships returning home.

He immediately issued a secret order to concentrate all surveillance forces on the empty cargo ships heading south.

Sure enough, the imperial guards soon reported that whenever the grain transport ships returned, some ships would secretly load private goods tightly wrapped in oilcloth at a fixed dock.

This confirmed his suspicions.

The next step was to follow the clues and investigate further.

Through a secret investigation of smuggled goods, a forged official document claiming to be "ordered by imperial decree to procure textiles from Jiangnan for the imperial treasury," and the vast shadowy waterway behind it, finally came to light.

The file in front of him contained the confiscated official document.

The writing is flawless, and even the seal on it is 90% similar to the seals that have been leaked from the palace.

If it weren't for someone like him who frequently traveled within the palace and had seen genuine official seals, he would have been completely unable to distinguish between the real and fake.

With this forged imperial pass, a massive shadow fleet was born.

Under the cover of official ships, these returning cargo ships became the largest and safest carriers of private goods.

Large quantities of smuggled salt, highly profitable goods strictly controlled by the imperial court, prohibited ironware and weapons, and even rare overseas treasures such as Western clocks, glass mirrors, and various spices that bypassed the strict checkpoints of the Maritime Trade Office, all flowed unimpeded upstream along the empire's main artery.

They passed through unimpeded because the checkpoints and garrisons along the way were either fed by "public officials" or intimidated by the forged official document.

Who dares to inspect ships that serve the royal family?

Li Chaoqin shook his head helplessly.

At that moment, his thoughts resonated with those of the young emperor who sat high in the imperial court—a resonance he had never experienced before.

Why did the emperor defy public opinion and forcefully lift the sea ban?

Isn't it precisely to break the monopoly of smuggling tycoons on overseas trade and to wrest this enormous wealth from the hands of powerful families and pirates, turning it into customs revenue to fill the national treasury?

To this end, the emperor established the Maritime Trade Office, reorganized the military garrisons, and created a completely new set of customs regulations, which can be said to be one of the most important cornerstones of the national policy since the emperor ascended the throne.

however……

Li Chaoqin looked at the list of personal goods in the case file and smiled bitterly.

The defenses that the emperor painstakingly built up by fighting against heaven and man were brutally pierced from the inside by these parasites in the most unexpected way!
They used the Ming Dynasty's grain transport ships, waterways, and the protection of state officials to carry out the largest-scale smuggling operations.

While the emperor was expanding the territory at the front, they were frantically undermining it from behind.

The enormous profits from this shadow waterway are probably comparable to the tariffs collected by the Maritime Trade Office!
This is not just embezzlement, this is shaking the very foundation of the nation!

(End of this chapter)