Lian Erye in the Red Mansion

The Zhao family's house was brightly lit, and the search of their property was still ongoing.

"Sir, the brothers have searched almost the entire Zhao family estate. As per your instructions, except for those items that are difficult to move and have been left untouched, most of the Zhao family's other valuables are here."

In the main hall, Zhao Cheng, a centurion of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, stepped forward and reported to Jia Lian.

Jia Lian put down the Zhao family's salt tax accounts from previous years and glanced at the chests and boxes already piled up in the courtyard. As expected of the Jinyiwei, famous for confiscating property, they were professionals in this area, completing the task so quickly.

Jia Lian gave Zhao Cheng an approving look before slowly walking down the steps to examine the valuables.

Gold, silver, jewelry, antiques, calligraphy and paintings, and all kinds of precious items were piled up, filling hundreds of chests. The sheer amount of wealth made the spacious courtyard instantly feel filled with an aura of riches.

However, as he looked at it, Jia Lian frowned slightly.

Apart from jewelry and antiques that are difficult to value in a short time, at a glance, there was far less real gold and silver than he had imagined.

In order to successfully complete the task assigned by the emperor, Jia Lian had put in a lot of effort. There were more than twenty salt merchants in Yangzhou, not to mention the smaller ones, but he had a fairly clear understanding of each of the seven major salt merchants.

Although the Zhao family's influence was relatively low among the seven salt merchants, it was one of the longest-established. Long before Yangzhou was designated as the "Salt Capital" by the imperial court, the Zhao family had already established themselves in the salt trade.

It's been at least thirty years.

Even if there were ups and downs along the way, it's reasonable that someone who made money in the salt trade over such a long period of time should have accumulated wealth that is unimaginable to ordinary people.

"You guys, take a quick look at the gold and silver items, and the silver notes."

Upon receiving the order, Liu Xianglian, Zhao'er, and other trusted confidants immediately began to take inventory. After a long while, they did a simple calculation and Liu Xianglian reported: "My lord, according to our inventory, there are about 500 catties of gold items, 18 boxes of silver items, about 4,000 catties, and a total of more than 20,000 taels of gold and silver notes."

Five hundred catties of gold is equivalent to about 100,000 taels of silver, and four thousand catties of silver is equivalent to more than 60,000 taels.

To be honest, if this were any noble or wealthy family in the capital, finding so much gold and silver during a raid would already be considered extremely wealthy.

Take the Rongguo Mansion as an example. If we were to search it now, aside from its courtyard, all the other places, including Grandmother Jia's courtyard and the storeroom, would probably only yield this much gold and silver.

However, it seems somewhat illogical that as one of the most established salt merchants in Yangzhou, only a little over 100,000 taels of gold and silver could be found in his home. Moreover, Jia Lian immediately recognized that the majority of the gold items were merely jewelry belonging to women and children!

The actual number of gold and silver ingots was much smaller.

Jia Lian then turned to Zhao Cheng and asked, "Didn't you find the Zhao family's treasury?"

Upon hearing this, Zhao Cheng immediately understood that Jia Lian felt the amount of confiscated items was insufficient. Therefore, he quickly explained, "Your Excellency is wise. I personally led the men into the storeroom... I dared not deceive you. There were indeed only these items in the Zhao family's storeroom. My men moved them all out. Brother Zhao Sheng and the others can testify to this. I absolutely did not conceal anything from you, Your Excellency."

When Zhao Cheng learned that Jia Lian was planning to confiscate the Zhao family's property, he volunteered to take on the task, because the Embroidered Uniform Guard, as the emperor's personal guard, did have a well-established system for confiscating property.

This included how to thoroughly search a house, inside and out, and how to prevent the brothers from secretly keeping or taking things. There were established procedures for all of these. He also used the pretext of teaching Zhao Sheng and others the tricks of searching a house to have Zhao Sheng and the others accompany him to the storeroom, his purpose being to reassure Jia Lian.

But he was overthinking it; Jia Lian didn't suspect him of hiding anything. There were only a few dozen Imperial Guards in total. Even if everyone stuffed their pockets full, how many could they possibly fit in?

"The Zhao family is such a famous salt merchant, yet they are so poor. I thought we could find a lot of real gold and silver."

Jia Lian muttered something and shook his head.

Those around them looked at their parents speechlessly.

This is what you call being poor...

Look at all this wealth in the courtyard, it must be worth at least several hundred thousand taels of silver, right? And that doesn't even include the Zhao family's manor, estate, and other properties; those might be the real prized possessions of the Zhao family!

If you calculate it roughly like that, you should have a fortune of a million, right? If you still call that poor, then all the other wealthy families in the world would be ashamed to death.

Knowing their master had high standards, no one dared to say anything. However, Zhao Cheng solemnly said, "This humble servant also thinks what you say is right. This humble servant has been in the Embroidered Uniform Guard for almost ten years and has followed the superiors to raid many criminal households, so I believe I have some experience."

Generally, if a house is searched and no property is found, it's either because the family didn't keep all their assets at home but hid them elsewhere, or because they received advance notice and moved or hid their assets beforehand.

After listening to Zhao Cheng's words, Jia Lian began to ponder. Before tonight, the Zhao family would never have imagined that he would bring troops to confiscate their property, so they probably wouldn't have moved their assets in advance.

So it seems that either he overestimated the wealth of the salt merchants, or the Zhao family acted cautiously and dispersed their assets.

If it's the former, that's fine; if it's the latter, then it's a problem.

Zhao Cheng saw what Jia Lian was thinking and stepped forward with a smile: "In the past, if my superiors suspected that an official was hiding or transferring property, in addition to interrogating the official and his family records with torture, there was an even more effective way: to bribe the steward and others in his household to make them confess."

Since those convicted officials dared to hide their family property in order to leave a way out for their descendants, they generally wouldn't honestly confess. However, the stewards and managers were mostly aware of what was happening in the household, and since their masters had lost their loyalty after committing crimes, they were easy to bribe.

It just so happens that the Zhao family has been entrenched in Yangzhou for many years and owns numerous properties. Without someone familiar with the Zhao family's affairs to help, it would be quite troublesome for you, sir, to take stock of everything. If the Zhao family's steward or manager is willing to serve you, things will become much easier.

Jia Lian's eyes lit up. As expected, experienced people were efficient. Although this was Jia Lian's first time handling a case of confiscating property, he had a premonition that he would encounter similar situations many times in the future, and he needed to learn and summarize some experience in advance.

So he immediately agreed with Zhao Cheng's suggestion and had someone summon the Zhao family steward and the two main stewards.

After a combination of coercion and enticement, all three men agreed to atone for their sins.

"Your guess is correct, sir. Our master did not keep all the silver in the treasury. Moreover, he didn't keep it outside; he kept it right here in the mansion..."

In order to seek leniency, the Zhao family steward surrendered and immediately began to reveal the Zhao family's secrets.

"Our master built a secret underground chamber under the artificial hill in the east garden of this mansion. No one except the master and the eldest son is allowed to enter it on a regular basis."

There was a secret room! Jia Lian, Zhao Cheng, and the others understood why they couldn't find it. In this situation, unless they searched every inch of the place, finding it in a short time would be extremely difficult.

Thus, led by the Zhao family steward, Jia Lian and his men, carrying countless torches, arrived at the Zhao family's East Road Garden.

The secret chamber was indeed built under a huge artificial mountain, controlled by hidden mechanisms, just like the settings in later TV dramas.

Jia Lian had just been marveling at something, but after stepping up the stairs into the secret chamber, his expression turned quite grim.

This secret chamber is quite spacious, entirely carved from white stone, and inside the walls, there are oil lamps for lighting.

Walking inside, there was no feeling of suffocation, which shows that the builders put thought into it and at least made sure to provide ventilation.

What shocked and angered Jia Lian was that several other stone chambers had been opened to the north of the secret chamber. Each stone chamber contained at least one, and sometimes three or four, imprisoning about a dozen women, many of whom had iron chains around their hands, feet, and necks.

These women were all beautiful, but their clothes were tattered and their expressions were blank. Perhaps they were afraid of seeing so many of them come in, and they all hid in the corner.

Seeing only these women, and with most of the wooden horses, torture benches, and other facilities and instruments of torture in the secret room before him, even though Jia Lian had never seen them before, it was not difficult for him to understand their purpose.

His face turned terribly gloomy.

Although he knew that where there is light, there is also darkness, especially in this feudal era, such things were not surprising. However, seeing such a filthy and disgusting scene with his own eyes, Jia Lian still felt a surge of murderous intent rising in his chest.

The others who came down with Jia Lian naturally saw it too. For a moment, everyone looked at each other, but no one spoke, nor dared to speak, because they could all see that Jia Lian was angry.

The Zhao family steward was so frightened that he immediately knelt down and said, "My lord, please calm down. These women were all captured by the master's men. It has nothing to do with me."

Our master runs one brothel and two other brothels. Most of these women are from those who disobeyed him, and some were women whose wives and daughters were captured by his men after they offended the Zhao family... Your Excellency, please investigate thoroughly. These things were all done by our master, and have nothing to do with us..."

With his eyes slightly narrowed, looking at the Zhao family steward who was kowtowing repeatedly, Jia Lian asked calmly:

"Besides your master, who else has come in to play?"

Although his body was trembling slightly, the Zhao family steward still dared not not reply.

"Besides our master, perhaps only the eldest son is allowed, but the eldest son is afraid of the master and usually doesn't dare to come in. He only dares to sneak in when the master is not at home."

"Is there no one else here? Did your master and uncle also move these things in themselves?"

"Well... usually when the master comes in, unless he's looking at gold and silver, he always has his trusted confidants with him..."

"A trusted confidant?" Jia Lian looked at him coldly. "So, that includes you too?"

The Zhao family steward was so frightened that he immediately kowtowed twice, drawing blood from his forehead.

"Although I have come in before, it's only when new gold and silver bricks need to be moved in that I bring people in. I don't come in normally, as you can see, sir. I'm already in my fifties or sixties, and I'm ugly. You don't like me to accompany you when you're handling these kinds of matters..."

Age? Jia Lian shook his head. Looking at Zhao Tang, he was at least fifty years old.

She was too lazy to press him further, and instead said to Liu Xianglian, whose face was equally pale, "I'll trouble Erlang to take a few people and send them out. Take good care of them and get them some food."

After Liu Xianglian agreed, Jia Lian said to the Zhao family steward, "Where is the vault? Open it now."

"Yes." The Zhao family steward scrambled to his feet, quickly walked to the other side, grabbed the stone tower next to him, twisted it, and then pushed it to the left along the wall. With the sound of the stone door opening, what appeared before everyone was an even larger stone chamber.

Inside, oil lamps were also embedded in the walls, and under their dim light, countless yellow and golden things were revealed.

What an amount of wealth that is!

Inside the spacious stone chamber, in the very center, stood more than ten five-tiered shelves, seemingly made of Phoebe zhennan wood. Surrounding these shelves were large wooden tables connected end to end, on which neatly stacked trapezoidal silver bricks formed even larger trapezoidal shapes.

The situation was almost identical on the wooden shelves in the middle, except that instead of silver bricks, gold bricks were placed on them.

At a glance, it's impossible to estimate how many gold bricks or silver bricks are inside!

Even Jia Lian, upon seeing such a simple yet extravagantly luxurious scene, couldn't help but widen his eyes slightly.

"How much gold and how much silver is in here?"

Jia Lian turned his head away and asked the Zhao family steward.

The steward replied, "Reporting to you, sir, only our master knows the exact amount, but according to my estimation, all the gold bricks and gold leaves are worth about 100,000 taels, and the silver is estimated to be about one million taels."

Our master doesn't like banknotes. He prefers to have the annual profits arranged in this style, neatly displayed here, and he comes in to check on them almost every day. Besides gold and silver, there are also some of our master's favorite treasures stored here.

Therefore, our master strictly forbids anyone from entering this stone chamber. He even personally adds all the lamp oil, never allowing anyone else to handle it.

Upon hearing the steward's words, Jia Lian realized that he had indeed underestimated these salt merchants!

If Jia Lian was like this, then Zhao'er and the others behind him were even more dumbfounded.

My goodness, 100,000 taels of gold is more than a million taels of silver! Doesn't that mean the gold and silver here are worth at least two million taels of silver?

Although they had heard of millionaires and millionaires before, they truly understood the meaning only after seeing what a million taels of silver looked like when piled up together!

Such a massive amount of gold and silver would make them dizzy just by looking at it, so it's no wonder that Master Zhao comes in to check on it every day.

If it were suddenly stolen, wouldn't you be heartbroken to death?

After a quick stroll around and experiencing what it had been like for Master Zhao, Jia Lian took a deep breath and immediately ordered someone to bring a box, and to pack everything away, leaving nothing out!

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