Emperor Jiajing's face was gloomy and uncertain. He always felt that his breath was stuck in his chest and he could not come out. He felt that he was being led away.
It would be too simple to deal with Fan Zhizhou from a political level. But this is not only a matter of power, but also a matter of face. Emperor Jiajing was not yet to the point where he could be openly shameless.
In the quiet hall, someone suddenly moved.
A certain fifth-grade (major) bachelor, who was standing at the end of the minister's class and already close to the threshold, strolled to the "evidence" in the middle of the hall, reached out and picked up the account book, and started flipping through it out of curiosity.
Next to him, Governor Chen of the Imperial Guard subconsciously stretched out his hand to stop Qin, who was tampering with the evidence, and asked, "What are you doing?"
Qin Dewei held up the account book and escaped from the clutches of Governor Chen, and said to Emperor Jiajing: "Please check again! I will check it myself! It won't take long, it will only take half an hour!"
Emperor Jiajing certainly hoped that someone would come out to break the current rhythm. Besides, Qin Dewei was a trustworthy person, so he immediately said: "That's right!"
All the ministers were speechless. What would you think of a Hanlin poet and a famous poet?
I have never heard of Qin Dewei demonstrating arithmetic, so he can probably calculate additions and subtractions within a hundred!
Faced with doubts, Qin Dewei smiled charmingly and did not explain. When it comes to calculations, he is at the level of a primary school graduate!
I saw that Academician Qin didn't want abacus or help from others. He only asked people to bring him pen, ink, paper and inkstone.
Then he stood at the desk, flipping through the account book with one hand, and holding a pen in the other hand to write and draw on the paper.
All the ministers looked at it and felt that what Qin Xueshi wrote was like ghost drawings. The drawings were messy and incomprehensible.
Emperor Jiajing was quite interested. He felt that these handwritings looked a bit like Taoist runes and were full of mystery.
The contents of the ledger were not very large, so Qin Dewei added and subtracted dozens of times to sort out the data for the past one or two months.
After a while, Qin Dewei, who deliberately performed primary school mathematics, put down his pen and said: "If you sell twelve thousand six hundred and eighty stones, you should get six thousand three hundred and forty taels of silver!"
Everyone was really surprised. Can Academician Qin really calculate the numbers without relying on help from others or abacus, just relying on pen and paper and ghost drawings?
Because both Fan Zhizhou and Chen Dudu just spoke in general terms "twelve thousand stones" and "six thousand taels" to save trouble when reporting, and did not go into detail.
Therefore, Qin Dewei could only have calculated such a precise number by himself just now, and at an incredibly fast speed.
Then Qin Dewei told Emperor Jiajing: "The accounts are correct, there are no inflated increases or decreases!"
Emperor Jiajing suddenly felt extremely disappointed. If there was no problem, why waste all the effort to check again?
Qin Dewei walked to the silver box again, reached out and checked the money a few times, and finally confirmed his thoughts and guesses.
Then he asked Fan Zhizhou: "When you take back the money from Liang, for the sake of innocence, you keep it in a separate place. This is the original thing, isn't it?"
Fan Zhizhou replied: "That's true."
Qin Dewei clapped his hands and said jokingly: "Master Fan, you didn't borrow this money from local wealthy people to fool the court, right?
After leaving Zhaozhou, the silver will return to Zhao intact and be taken back by the owner again?"
The implication is that you, Lord Fan, have embezzled all the money and then borrowed more money to cover up the situation?
Fan Zhizhou said categorically: "There is absolutely no such thing. These silvers are obtained from selling food! If Qin Scholar does not believe it, I am willing to donate the silver to the court and ask Qin Scholar to take it away and keep it in custody!"
Some people were originally suspicious because of what Qin Dewei said, but after hearing Fan Zhizhou's words, their suspicions were eliminated.
If Fan Zhizhou is willing to let the court take away the money, it means he is not afraid of the test, which means there is nothing wrong with the money.
Therefore, Qin Dewei's previous unfounded suspicion was very much like a treacherous minister insulting and attacking a loyal minister in order to please the emperor.
In other words, many of the tricks used by treacherous ministers to frame loyal ministers start like this.
But Academician Qin didn't have the consciousness of a traitor at all. He laughed a few times with a sudden "haha", pointed at Fan Zhizhou and said:
"You state and county officials are doing all kinds of tricks to exploit people's wealth, and you dare to hide it in front of the Holy Emperor and all the princes of the court!"
Fan Zhizhou glanced at Qin Dewei and retorted forcefully: "You are a bachelor, how could you know that it is not easy for an official to be close to the people?
If you continue to slander someone out of thin air, your subordinates will have no choice but to offend their superiors and compete for face in front of the emperor."
Qin Dewei sneered: "Do you still have a face? Let me ask you, why are all the silver in the silver box large ingots?
Logically speaking, if you sell grain to the people, you should get back a lot of fine loose silver and even copper coins. How many people can buy grain with large ingots of silver?
Don't even say that it was re-cast and turned into large silver ingots. Gu Yao
Because you just said that these are all original materials, and the grain production was only done in the past one or two months. How could it be re-melted into silver ingots so quickly?
Besides, even if it is re-melted, the size of the silver ingots should be uniform! But you have five taels of silver, ten taels, and fifty taels. What kind of melting method is this?"
Fan Zhizhou continued to answer: "The government sells grain at a low price, which has already caused a lot of losses. In order to further reduce the loss of silver taels, the state only charges a minimum of five taels of silver ingots for selling grain, and all townships are unified to handle it. The advantage of this is.
"
Before Fan Zhizhou could finish his words, Qin Dewei suddenly kicked Fan Zhizhou out of the threshold.
Because he tripped over the threshold, Fan Zhizhou fell down and rolled down the platform outside the threshold.
The civil fight suddenly turned into a physical fight, and the guards in uniform on duty immediately became nervous and stepped forward to surround Qin Dewei.
Governor Chen shouted majestically: "Qin Dewei, how dare you violate the rules and beat an official!"
Qin Dewei didn't care and shouted to Emperor Jiajing: "Your Majesty! Fan Xin, the governor of Zhaozhou, deceived the emperor and abused the people. He should be punished for his crime!"
You don’t need to listen to Fan Xin’s explanation. Everything he says is just sophistry and everything he conceals is evil!
Selling grain was originally an act of His Majesty's benefiting the people, and the kindness and rain could have spread to the people of Zhaozhou, but Fan Xin dared to only accept more than five taels of silver ingots, which clearly isolated most of the people!
Ordinary people are already poor, who can afford five taels of silver? The low-priced food sold in this way will definitely fall into the hands of rich households, and the worst is the big tax collectors in the countryside!
It is the spring famine after the disaster year. As long as the grain is resold within two or three months, the profit will be several times huge! At the same time, many ordinary people cannot get the low-priced grain from the court at all!"
When Qin Dewei said this, the always aloof and aloof princes of the imperial court were all shocked. There was such a "legal" operation method?
There is no problem on the surface, and there is nothing wrong with the accounting. The account books are clear and the money is clear!
After those low-priced grains fell into the hands of wealthy households, they resold them at huge profits several times over. Fan Zhizhou could make as much as eight thousand taels by just distributing some of them. This was much smarter than directly embezzling grains!
If what Qin Dewei guessed is true, Fan Zhizhou is really a talented person! Especially the way he pretended to be a loyal and upright man just now almost made Qin Dewei a traitor!
It's not that you have little knowledge, it's that there are always new tricks at the grassroots level, and no one can understand them all.
At this moment, everyone was surprised, but also had to sigh, how could Qin Dewei figure out what was wrong? Could it be that Qin Dewei had done this kind of thing himself when he was a bully in Nanjing?
The more Emperor Jiajing heard this, the more furious he became. Of course, he was not angry because Qin Dewei had beaten him in person. He wanted to eat Fan Xin alive!
The hateful thing about Fan Xin is not how much he caught, but the fact that after eating it and wiping it clean, he dared to spit on him, the emperor!
It was obviously Fan Xin who had done something about the issue of grain squandering, but he dared to put all the responsibility for the hungry people on him, the emperor, and almost succeeded!
What's even more irritating is that almost all the civil and military officials became silent accomplices, almost collectively acquiescing to what Fan Xin said, and only Qin Dewei, a loyal man, stood up!
Although Qin Dewei has no evidence so far, Emperor Jiajing is willing to believe Qin Dewei.
In other words, even if Qin Dewei's guess is not true, it will become true!
The loyal Qin scholar of the first generation seemed to be completely unaware of the change in the atmosphere, and continued to say: "If your Majesty doesn't believe it, conduct a comprehensive inventory of the major households in the state to see if there is any large-scale hoarding of official grain!"
But it’s better not to send Governor Chen, this person is incapable of doing things, and he almost misled His Majesty just now, allowing the traitor Fan Xin to succeed!"
"That's enough!" Emperor Jiajing's mood was like a volcano erupting, and everyone except Qin Dewei felt the high pressure.
Then I heard Emperor Jiajing say very gloomily: "I will stay here for one more day tomorrow, just to find out the reason for the hungry people in Zhaozhou!"
Considering Emperor Jiajing's impatience on the road and his willingness to stay here for one more day, it shows that he was really angry.
"Qin Dewei! If I give you one day, can you find out?" After Emperor Jiajing expressed his determination, he suddenly asked the only loyal person today.
After Qin Dewei hesitated for a moment, he replied: "We need to work overnight from now on, and we also need a large number of manpower. We will attack separately tomorrow and we should be able to find out before sunset."
Manpower is not a problem, as there are as many as 15,000 pro-troops accompanying him.
Emperor Jiajing immediately called out his names: "Wei Zhao! Zhu Xizhong! Qiu Luan! Jiao Dong! Chen Yin! You all listen to Qin Dewei's orders!"
Qin Dewei almost knelt down, Emperor, please don't do this! Although we love taking power, our shoulders are still very weak now and we really can't bear too much!
The other ministers exploded on the spot. It can only be said that Emperor Jiajing's mood was so high that it was simply unreasonable.
Most of those five people are princes and uncles, and their current errands in the team are the General Protector, the Deputy Protector General, the Left Deputy General, and the Right Deputy General, and they are in charge of the Jinyi Guards.
In other words, the fifteen thousand accompanying troops were all led by these five men. If they all obeyed Qin Dewei's orders, what would Qin Dewei do if he wanted to rebel tomorrow?