The Wanli Emperor of the Ming Dynasty was extremely rebellious

Chapter 535 Who Greed So Much Money and Food?
Li Hualong, the governor of Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan, returned to Beijing.

He had just returned to the capital at about 4 p.m. that day, and before he had time to catch his breath, he hurried to the palace.

To his surprise, Wanli was actually standing at the gate of the Qianqing Palace waiting for him with the young Zhu Changxun and the Minister of Justice Yuan Keli.

This really flattered him.

He hurried forward and bowed.

Wanli lifted his arm and said kindly, "No need to be polite, no need to be polite, Yuye, thank you for your hard work. You have made great contributions to the current situation of the Yunnan-Guizhou-Sichuan Branch."

It's worth it no matter how hard it is.

Li Hualong was deeply moved upon hearing this and said, "Your Majesty, I have accomplished your mission and I dare not take credit for it."

Even if you don't dare to take credit for it, you will still be promoted.

Wanli said solemnly, "Yuye, you don't have to be so modest. Your achievements are enough to make you a minister of the six ministries. I have already ordered the cabinet to issue a letter to promote you to the position of Minister of Revenue."

what?
Promoted to the Minister of Six Ministries!

How many years has this been?

Most officials will never reach this point in their lifetime.

Li Hualong was stunned for a moment, then he bowed repeatedly and said, "Thank you for your grace, Your Majesty."

Don't be in a hurry to thank me yet.

What I gave you is actually a mess.

Wanli shook his head slightly and sighed, “Yu Ye is actually a huge trouble.

You may not know this, but the Ministry of Revenue is completely rotten. These corrupt officials have embezzled so much money and grain.

In the past few years, the court's official tax revenue exceeded six million taels a year. Whether this tax revenue is inflated is still debatable.

Let's assume that the annual tax revenue of more than 6 million taels is no problem, and I haven't asked the Ministry of Revenue to spend a penny on the big expense of food and wages for nearly ten years.

Zhonghua said that the money and grain used for building bridges and roads, new water conservancy projects, and even recruiting yamen runners were deducted before they were handed over. There have been no major disasters in recent years, and the Ministry of Revenue's largest annual expense is the salaries of officials.

You should know roughly how much an official's salary is. It definitely does not exceed two million taels a year.

In other words, even if the national treasury had no surplus before, the Ministry of Revenue should have had a surplus of 30 to 40 million taels in the past ten years.

However, the surplus on the Ministry of Revenue's books was only more than 7 million taels of gold and silver, and considering the more than 8 million dan of grain in the granary, it was only more than 10 million taels.

Moreover, I checked and found that most of the grain was stale grain mixed with sand and counterfeit goods, and most of the gold and silver were gold-wrapped iron and silver-wrapped iron.

I transferred you back to serve as the Minister of Revenue because I wanted you and Li Qing to thoroughly investigate who embezzled so much money and grain."

what?
The Ministry of Revenue has become so rotten!

Upon hearing this, Li Hualong's face became solemn.

He thought about it carefully, then said carefully: "Your Majesty, this may not be a problem of one or two officials. I estimate that many officials are involved."

Of course, it is impossible for one or two officials to embezzle tens of millions of taels of silver. Even Yan Song and his sons were not capable of such a thing.

Wanli nodded slightly, then waved his hand and said, "Let's go and take a look at the gold-clad iron and silver-clad iron in the Ministry of Revenue's warehouse. There are many names of officials who handled them on them."

This is indeed a bit strange.

Because if you stamp the seal on the problematic gold and silver, it seems like you can't wash it off even if you jump into the Yellow River.

Could these corrupt officials be so stupid?

The reason why he brought little Zhu Changxun and the Minister of Justice Yuan Keli to stand at the gate of the Qianqing Palace was to take Li Hualong to see the gold and silver in the Ministry of Revenue warehouse.

Of course, at this moment, these gold and silver are no longer in the Ministry of Revenue warehouse, but in the inner treasury.

The Neiku is located in the northwest of the imperial city. You can reach it by exiting the palace, crossing the Yuhe Bridge, and passing through the flower house and wine room.

The inner treasury of the imperial city is different from the warehouse of the Ministry of Revenue. It is not just one warehouse, but a row of ten warehouses, stretching for more than two miles, and is very large.

Originally, most of these warehouses were under the management of the Ministry of Revenue. However, during the Zhengde period, the management rights of these warehouses were seized by powerful eunuchs in the inner palace.

I have to say that although Liu Jin committed all kinds of evil and unforgivable crimes, he did do one good thing.

If most of the warehouses in the inner treasury are still managed by the Ministry of Revenue, then this time the corruption will create a huge hole that will be impossible to plug.

However, there is not much gold and silver left in the inner treasury at this moment, and many warehouses have been emptied.

The gold and silver transferred from the Ministry of Revenue warehouse were all stored in the Guanghui Treasury to the south.

He had never handled these gold and silver before, so they were in the same condition as when they were moved here, and even the order in which they were placed was almost the same.

Li Hualong and Yuan Keli looked at the gold and silver ingots that had been split, and their faces were filled with solemnity.

These corrupt officials are so bold that they dare to fill the national treasury with so much gold and silver mixed with wrought iron!
To be honest, they had never heard of such a thing before.

As for the reason, it is actually very simple. That is because there has never been so much real money in the national treasury before.

The Ming Dynasty today is richer than ever before. Never before in all dynasties has so much gold and silver flowed into China.

It is precisely because there is more money, more tax revenue, and more real money in the treasury that such strange things happen.

In the past, the Ming Dynasty's annual tax revenue would only be over 4 million taels. Moreover, not only did it have to pay the salaries of officials, but it also had to bear the cost of food and wages for the army. It would be considered good if there were a few million taels of cash left in the treasury.

After ten years of Zhang Juzheng's reforms, there were only more than four million taels of gold and silver left in the national treasury.

What they saw now was not all the silver and money that the national treasury should have. This was what was left after being embezzled by countless people. Originally, there should have been 30 to 40 million taels of real gold and silver in the national treasury!

There is also grain in the granary, which is what is left after being embezzled by countless people. There are still six or seven million shi of grain mixed with stale grain and gravel.

If calculated based on the grain prices in the capital, it would be another six or seven million taels.

These guys are really greedy. Who on earth embezzled so much money and grain?

Yuan Keli looked solemnly at the uncut gold ingot in his hand, and suddenly said in surprise: "That's not right, Yu Ye, I remember that the officials I dealt with before seemed to have used a chisel to carve their positions and names on it, right?

Why did it change to smashing the steel stamp now?"

Upon hearing this, Li Hualong nodded slowly and said, "Yes, the officials who handled this before would use a chisel to carve their names on the gold and silver ingots that were put into the warehouse.

It is not easy to forge that way. After all, the words engraved by each person are different. Now it is easy to forge if we change to stamping the steel stamp.

Steel seals are very easy to forge. It's very likely that the seals on these gold and silver ingots were stamped on by someone else, not by the officials who handled them."

Sure enough, there is something fishy!
Fortunately, I didn’t just grab the gold and silver ingots according to the names on them.

If he really grabbed gold and silver ingots according to the names on them, the entire Ming Dynasty would probably be in chaos.

These gold and silver ingots are not just a few or dozens, but tens of thousands!
There are at least 30,000 to 40,000 problematic ones, and I don’t know how many officials’ names are written on these gold and silver ingots.

If he started arresting people indiscriminately, who knows how many officials in the court would be arrested, and even more local officials would be arrested.

Moreover, there is a high possibility that there will be no problem in catching it!
Since the stamp is fake, why would they want to use their own name to destroy it?
It is very likely that the names stamped on these problematic gold and silver ingots are not those of corrupt officials!
This bunch of corrupt officials are just hoping that the world will not be in chaos, so they can take advantage of the chaos to fish in troubled waters.

Upon hearing this, Wanli was quite annoyed and said, "It seems that someone deliberately changed the name engraving to stamping.

This guy probably did it to make it easier to switch the items. It is very likely that the gold and silver in the national treasury were embezzled by the official who proposed to change the seal.

Li Qing, this is a very important clue. The official who proposed to change the seal must be found. There is definitely something fishy about this guy."

I'm afraid this matter is not that simple.

Yuan Keli thought for a moment, then said carefully, "Your Majesty, most corrupt officials are treacherous and cunning, and they generally won't do something that is likely to be exposed themselves.

They may very likely trick an irrelevant person into bringing it up, or simply find a discarded person to bring it up, or even deliberately lure their political opponents to bring it up.

If we follow this obvious clue, we might fall into their trap and be caught by surprise."

These corrupt officials!

Wanli thought for a moment and simply asked, "Then how do you think we should investigate this case?"

This case is definitely not that simple.

This amount of money and grain is worth tens of millions of taels. These guys must have tried their best to hide it, so it must be difficult to catch them.

Yuan Keli thought about it carefully, then said carefully: "Your Majesty, I think we should investigate from the bottom up.

It is impossible for so much money and grain to disappear out of thin air. Not to mention anything else, it takes a lot of manpower to transport it, and it also takes a lot of manpower to falsify and pass off fake goods as genuine.

I think that low-level officials and even yamen runners should be easier to investigate. The reason why these people are stuck at the bottom and can't move up is that nine out of ten of them are not very good.

As for those above them, officials who have reached the fifth rank and above are almost all shrewd people. If we investigate them directly, we probably won’t find anything.”

He really has some skills.

Wanli nodded slightly, then asked, "Yu Ye, what do you think?"

I think?
You asked me to come back and be the Minister of Revenue.

Does the Minister of Revenue also want to investigate the case?

Li Hualong thought about it carefully, then said carefully: "I think what Li Qing said makes sense. It is impossible for so much money and grain to disappear out of thin air.

Moreover, given the current prosperity of the Ming Dynasty, the annual tax revenue should be more than 6 million taels, and the figures reported by the Ministry of Revenue were already problematic.

I think we can start by checking the accounts, first find out how much taxes the court collects every year, and then carefully check where the collected money and grain goes.

This kind of investigation will definitely reveal clues, but it requires a lot of manpower.

The Ministry of Revenue definitely does not have enough staff now, and most of them have problems and cannot be used.

Your Majesty, I would like to ask for some help, is that possible?"

well.

If you two work together, you can definitely get to the bottom of this shocking case.

As for manpower, it’s simple, I have plenty of manpower.

Wanli asked directly, "How many people do you need, and what are your requirements?"

This is it.

Li Hualong pondered, "I need at least a hundred people. They must be literate and preferably good at accounting. They must also be able to keep secrets. If the news is leaked, it will be even more difficult to investigate."

This one is simple.

Wanli said without hesitation: "It just so happens that the secret guards are also secretly investigating this case. I will ask Si Gong to select 100 literate secret guards for you.

As for confidentiality, when you check the accounts, it is best not to do so at the Ministry of Revenue. There are problematic officials everywhere there, making it difficult to keep confidentiality.

Let's put it this way. You collect the account books at the Ministry of Revenue in the morning, and bring them to Ciqing Palace for inspection in the afternoon. Li Qing, you also come over in the afternoon, and I will ask Si Gong to go over there in the afternoon as well.

Ciqing Palace is large, and Xun'er will live there in the future, so I can take him there to familiarize himself with it first."

Your Majesty is truly thoughtful.

Upon hearing this, Li Hualong and Yuan Keli bowed and said, "Your humble servants obey your command."

Wanli seemed to feel that he had not considered it carefully enough.

He looked at the sky outside, then waved his hand and said, "It's still early. Let's go. I'll have someone call Si Gong and we'll go to Ciqing Palace together."

(End of this chapter)