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Originally, Zhao Huan planned to stay for two days before leaving, but because of this incident, he decided to stay in Chang'an for a few more days.

These days, the departments of the grain transport and the tax administration in Shaanxi Road have been extremely busy.

The railway construction involved drawing a significant number of local troops from the transport department under the jurisdiction of the transport commissioner, while the judicial department was involved in judicial administration.

With such a major incident, the emperor personally took charge, and everyone from top to bottom became tense.

Every day, horses would gallop out of Chang'an and back in.

Along the road from Chang'an to Xingqing Prefecture, all construction sites began to be strictly inspected.

Man never rests, horse never rests.

The horse was exhausted, and the rider fell asleep right there on the road.

In this atmosphere of urgency, fifteen days quickly passed.

Sun Bangyuan submitted a list.

Han Zhi also submitted a list.

The lists submitted by the two were largely the same.

There is a long list, involving as many as thirteen businessmen.

Of the twenty railway bidding companies that operated between Chang'an and Xingqing Prefecture, thirteen died.

Moreover, the cause of death is also quite shocking.

Forced to do hard labor all night, some were worked to death, some were given coarse food and fell to their deaths while moving things due to exhaustion, and some were beaten to death by the overseers.

This is practically a trail of corpses left by capitalists on their path to accumulating primitive capital.

Sun Bangyuan was severely reprimanded by Zhao Huan and left the emperor's palace in trepidation.

When he arrived at the Marshal's Mansion, Liu Zhiyuan, Zhang Zhu, Gu Yuanpei and others were waiting for him there.

"General Sun, how is it?"

Sun Bangyuan looked at Zhang Zhu and said, "Arrest them."

Liu Zhiyuan cried: "If we arrest people now, who will repair the railway?"

"His Majesty has said that all thirteen of them will be executed and their property confiscated!"

Gu Yuanpei said, "That's too much. They're just businessmen!"

Liu Zhiyuan said, "The imperial court has such heavy tasks, and now they want to kill merchants. Commander Sun, this cannot be done."

Sun Bangyuan said impatiently, "Go and tell the emperor!"

No one dared to make a sound.

At this moment, Han Zhi entered the emperor's temporary palace.

He gave the emperor a list.

"Your Majesty, I have investigated carefully these past few days, and it turns out that these officials have all accepted money from those thirteen merchants, with the smallest amount being ten thousand strings of cash!"

Zhao Huan shook his head. No wonder Liu Zhiyuan and the others were all so reluctant to deal with those merchants.