The Wanli Emperor of the Ming Dynasty was extremely rebellious

Chapter 532: The piles of termites are shocking

The capital city is peaceful in early summer.

At this moment, the northern barbarians have been defeated and disappeared without a trace, so it is impossible for the capital to be invaded.

The people in the capital city all live and work in peace and contentment, feeling very at ease.

In recent years, Wanli has been developing military power and expanding territory, and has not paid much attention to court affairs.

As a result, such large-scale scenes of investigating and confiscating corrupt officials have not appeared in the capital for a long time.

The court officials seemed to have forgotten how ruthless this rebellious emperor could be.

No one expected that Wanli would suddenly go crazy.

It was around 9:00 a.m. that morning, the sky was clear and cloudless, and the weather was not very hot. It was a good time to travel.

The streets and alleys of the capital are full of bustling crowds of people, a scene of prosperity and prosperity.

Suddenly, the Jinyiwei Yamen was in chaos and the imperial guards rushed out in all directions.

Immediately afterwards, the scattered Jinyiwei quickly followed suit and surrounded all the warehouses of the Ministry of Revenue in various parts of the capital!
Lu Yi, the commander-in-chief of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, personally led thousands of troops to surround the Ministry of Revenue.

When the Minister of Revenue Chen Sheng heard the report from the doorman, he was shocked.

He was about to get up and go out to ask what was going on when he suddenly heard a burst of heavy footsteps outside.

Lu Yi unexpectedly rushed in with over a hundred Jinyiwei and shouted, "According to the order, everyone, please stay in your own guard room and don't move. If anyone dares to move, don't blame me for being rude."

He walked quickly inside while shouting, and soon arrived at the warehouse behind the Ministry of Revenue. He ordered everyone inside to sit back on their chairs and not move.

As a result, the entire capital city was in an uproar.

Those common people who loved to watch the fun were like people who had been injected with chicken blood. They quickly swarmed in and surrounded the Ministry of Revenue's warehouses in various places in the capital.

They haven't seen such a grand scene in several years.

This time, the Embroidered Uniform Guards surrounded the Ministry of Revenue's warehouse, so His Majesty would definitely start a big war.

Sure enough, the Chengtian Gate, which had not been opened for a long time, was soon opened, and tens of thousands of imperial guards and cavalry swarmed out from inside, blocking the yamen on both sides of Tianjie tightly.

Thousands of imperial guards poured into the Ministry of Revenue.

Immediately afterwards, the gate of the Ministry of Revenue was opened, and all the aisles and corridors were densely packed with imperial guards.

Wanli did not hide anything this time. He wore the imperial robe and rode his horse into the Ministry of Revenue with the imperial concubine Qin Lan and the emperor's legitimate son Zhu Changxun. He went straight to the Ministry of Revenue warehouse behind the yamen.

At this time, Lu Yi was already personally escorting an official holding the key and waiting at the warehouse door.

After Wanli dismounted, he waved his hand and said loudly, "Open the door."

The official from the Ministry of Revenue was so frightened that he quickly opened the warehouse door tremblingly.

What does the Ministry of Revenue warehouse, which is used to store silver and money, look like?

When Wanli rushed in with hundreds of imperial guards and took a look, they were all stunned.

The large room at the front of the Ministry of Revenue's warehouse was surprisingly empty, with only a large table on each side. On the tables were not gold or silver, nor were they boxes of gold and silver, but neatly folded clothes.

He was stunned for a moment before realizing that this was to prevent the yamen runners in charge of transporting the items from secretly taking out the real gold and silver.

These clothes must be specially made, without any pockets.

Before the yamen runners went in to move the gold and silver, they had to change into this special kind of clothes. After they were done moving, they had to change clothes again and they had to be searched.

He was stunned for a moment and then waved his hand, ordering Lu Yi to take the Ministry of Revenue official who had the key to open the door inside.

This is the real Ministry of Revenue warehouse.

The impression given by the Ministry of Revenue warehouse can be summed up in one word: very dark.

There are no windows inside, and only a few fist-sized air vents around let in some light.

This was probably to prevent someone from climbing in through the windows and stealing gold and silver.

To be honest, the protection of this Ministry of Revenue warehouse is quite good.

The question is, how can we check it out when it’s so dark inside?
Wanli peeked inside and luckily, there were quite a few oil lamps inside.

He waved his hand again and ordered the imperial guards to go in and light the oil lamps inside, and then he walked in under the protection of the three masters.

Inside are rows of shelves, and the shelves are filled with wooden boxes filled with gold and silver.

Seeing this, Wanli waved his hand without hesitation and said, "Open all the boxes and pour out all the gold and silver inside and weigh them."

The imperial guards who were carrying scales immediately stepped forward and dispersed, working in groups of two. They opened the wooden boxes on the shelves and quickly poured the gold and silver inside onto the scales to weigh them.

Shan Sinan also carefully ordered people to bring account books and pens. In front of each shelf, there was an officer of the imperial guards holding an account book and a pen to record.

The entire warehouse was immediately filled with the sound of gold and silver being poured out and the crisp sound of counting.

Seeing this, little Zhu Changxun couldn't help but reach out and said, "Father, can you bring one over for me to see?"

This is of course no problem.

Upon hearing this, Wanli immediately ordered someone to bring two silver coins from the weighed silver box, one for each of them.

The silver deposits in the Ministry of Revenue were not in the shape of ingots, but were like thick pancakes, with both sides flat. As for why they were flat, it was probably for the convenience of stacking.

This is the so-called snowflake silver. Snowflake silver is not round, but long and narrow, roughly the same length as an adult's palm, and there is a concave in the middle for easy holding.

Moreover, there are many stamps on it, indicating the year and month when the money was collected, from which province, state, prefecture and county, and all the people who handled the collection, transportation, storage, etc. have stamped their own seals on it.

No one would dare to fake this, right?
If it is discovered, there will be a long list of officials involved.

It is very troublesome to test the quality of gold and silver at this time, and he does not have the time to melt them one by one to test their quality.

Now he can only assume that the quality of the gold and silver is fine and check whether there is any problem with the quantity first.

These millions of taels of real gold and silver may sound like a lot, but in fact, they are not that much. If they are divided into one hundred groups of people to weigh, each group will only weigh a few thousand kilograms, and each hundred-kilogram scale will only need to weigh dozens of times.

The imperial guards were quite quick at weighing, finishing in less than an hour. However, it took them a little longer to pack the items back into the boxes.

While the imperial guards were still packing things into the boxes, the officers here had already counted the numbers.

The Ministry of Revenue’s warehouse had a total of more than 300,000 taels of gold and more than 3.5 million taels of silver. If all of them were converted into silver, there would be more than 7 million taels!
Chen Sheng didn’t lie?
These guys have so much real money and aren't they greedy?
Wanli couldn't help showing a hint of doubt when looking at the account submitted by the officers of the imperial guards.

He silently watched the imperial guards put all the gold and silver back into the box, then ordered his men to turn off the lights, lock the door, and leave the warehouse.

To be honest, this result was a bit beyond his expectations.

How can corrupt officials let so much real money lie in the national treasury without being greedy?
He really didn't believe it.

Perhaps, he should order someone to verify the purity of the gold and silver in it to see if there is anything else mixed in.

However, the quality cannot be tested in a short time.

He looked up at the sky, then said decisively: "Lu Yi, you take the people to watch here first, I will go to the granary to take a look."

After saying this, he called on everyone to mount their horses, left the Ministry of Revenue, came to East Chang'an Street, and rode all the way eastward towards Chaoyang Gate.

The Ministry of Revenue had five granaries inside Chaoyang Gate. He randomly picked one, ran over, ordered someone to open the door, and went in to take a closer look.

This granary is not as well guarded as the silver vault. Inside it are rows of huge warehouses. The grain in the warehouses is piled up in bags on both sides, neatly stacked, about ten feet high.

Wanli took everyone to see several warehouses and couldn't help but frowned slightly.

A bag of grain weighs about half a stone, because most people cannot carry a stone and the bag is too big.

In other words, more than 8 million dan of grain is equivalent to more than 16 million bags. If he had to order people to weigh them bag by bag, it would take several months.

This 10,000-stone warehouse holds 20,000 bags of grain, and even a hundred groups of people wouldn't be able to weigh them all in an hour.

In other words, it would take him several days to weigh all the grain in the dozens of warehouses in this granary.

Of course this is not a good term, so let’s just do a sample.

He thought about it and simply picked a warehouse at random. He ordered someone to bring a long probe, and then ordered the imperial guards to climb onto the grain bags on one side and carry them down layer by layer. He weighed one hundred bags on each layer, and then used the probe to poke out the grain inside for a careful inspection.

At first, everything seemed fine. The stored rice grains were golden in color, and when you bit into them, they were all white. They were all top-quality new grains, and the weight was exactly right.

However, after weighing a few layers, several officers of the Imperial Guards who were using probes to investigate could not help but exclaim in surprise.

Wanli walked over and took a look, and couldn't help but snort coldly.

Sure enough there is a problem!
What those imperial guards poured out from their probes was not pure rice, but mixed with sand and black beetles.

A bunch of black insects poured out from the palm of an imperial guard officer!
He looked up, then waved his hand and said, "Don't carry the outer layer down, carry the inner one."

Soon, the imperial guards carried down a hundred bags.

He ordered the officers of the Imperial Guards who were holding probes to insert them in and take a look. What came out of the probes was mixed with sand and black shell insects.

It is obvious that in order to prevent anyone from checking, the Ministry of Revenue officials in charge of the granary deliberately filled the outer aisle layer and the upper layers with the best new grain.

The inside is mixed with sand, and I don’t know how long it has been there, otherwise there wouldn’t be so many termites.

Many of them have even started to mold.

Wanli was so angry.

He simply drew out the sword of a royal guard soldier, split open a bag of grain, and saw that it was almost half filled with sand, with black beetles scattered all over the ground.

Shocking, shocking!

These corrupt officials are so bold.

If they dare to tamper with the grain, how can the real gold and silver in the treasury be safe?

Originally, if he wanted to tamper with gold and silver, he could only melt them together with other metals of similar colors. In that case, it would be very troublesome to verify the color.

Now it seems that it is very likely not.

So, what did these guys do to the gold and silver ingots?

He looked at the chopped open sack, then at the sand and black beetles inside, and seemed to understand.

(End of this chapter)