Chapter 73 Science and Technology are the Primary Productive Force

At that time in the Northern Song Dynasty, there were no computers, so it was naturally impossible to make Excel spreadsheets. People could only rely on abacus to calculate one by one.

Fortunately, the ancients became proficient in using an abacus, and they had been working on it for a long time. All the people in the Ministry of Revenue were reincarnated abacus experts.

In ancient times when knowledge was not easily accessible, including the Northern Song Dynasty, even a simple flush toilet and its communicating vessel principle could be passed down as a family heirloom.

People living in the information age of knowledge explosion cannot realize how important it is to flatten the way of acquiring knowledge.

Zhao Huan was willing to pass on his unique skills to them. In the eyes of the small officials in the Ministry of Finance, this was a great favor. One more skill meant one more capital to support their family.

Sharpening the knife does not delay the chopping of wood. After Zhao Huan's guidance one by one, they have been able to skillfully use Arabic numerals and the symbols of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.

An accountant's eyes gleamed with excitement. "This method of substitution is completely unheard of. It's simple and convenient, and perfect for counting."

"I think so too. Using Arabic numerals saves at least one-third of the time."

“It looks awkward, but it’s quite convenient to use.”

"If we use Arabic numerals for counting, we can save a lot of paper, at least one-fifth, which is nearly one million taels of silver a year."

If you want to check the accounts, calculating quickly is one thing, and checking accurately is another. Based on Zhao Huan's experience of nearly a thousand years, the Song Dynasty's current accounts are just a pile of messy accounts mixed with all kinds of private goods.

Zhao Huan spent another two hours explaining to them the concepts of income and expenditure, and how to categorize and record the daily accounts in double-entry bookkeeping, where every debit must be accompanied by a credit and the debits and credits must be equal.

In this way, it will be much easier to find problems hidden in the accounts later.

"You guys practice first. In the afternoon we'll try our hand with the account book, and then we'll teach you something magical."

In the afternoon, the accounting class continued.

Zhao Huan smiled slightly and bent down to check the ten boxes that the palace eunuchs had personally collected. There were labels on the boxes, marking the time of the account books in the boxes.

Zhao Huan chose the box with the earliest date, took out an account book from it, and showed it to the "primary school students" below.

"In April of the third year of Xuanhe, the fish tax collected in Taicang was 6,439 taels, 4 fen, and 4 li."

As for the account book in my hand, it has detailed records, clear organization, and rigorous logic, and there is no flaw at all.

If the Song Dynasty were to select the best account book now, this account book, no, strictly speaking, all the account books here would be worthy of selection.

This is the limitation of the times. Even the accounting method used by institutions like the Song Dynasty Yamen cannot go beyond the scope of single-entry bookkeeping.

Single-entry bookkeeping is easy to falsify and difficult to detect, which is probably why they are so confident.

Zhao Huan continued to flip through a few pages, looking at the records, and curled the corners of his lips slightly. If he was a native of the Song Dynasty, even if he started studying accounts since childhood and was trained as an accountant, he would probably be helpless when encountering these account books. These accounts seemed to have no problems at all.

This is a common problem with account books in this era. It is very easy to falsify. It is difficult for ordinary high-level accountants to detect problems when doing the accounting.

However, it is a pity that I am not a native of the Song Dynasty, but a modern person with hundreds of years of historical accumulation. If I look at this account book with modern accounting knowledge, it will be different. The hidden loopholes in it will be exposed.

If you redo the bookkeeping using the double-entry method, all the evildoers in the account book will be exposed.

When Zhao Huan demonstrated this account book to them, he found seven or eight discrepancies. The purchase price per unit in January was still five taels of silver, but the purchase price per unit in February became eight taels of silver. In addition, some of the receipts were recorded but the expenditures could not be found.

After a rough estimate, Zhao Huan found a shortage of more than 300 taels of silver in this account book alone.

There are hundreds and thousands of account books in this big box. How much money has been embezzled?

The people in the Ministry of Revenue widened their glasses in surprise. As long as they classified it in this way and made corresponding notes on both sides, they would be able to find the tricks in the account book. With this method, wouldn't all the false accounts in the future be exposed?

The people from the Ministry of Revenue began to take the account books and try them out excitedly.

"Hahaha... I found it... There's something seriously wrong with the outflow of 1,230 taels, 5 qian, 4 fen, and 4 li..."

"I also found a place that charges 7,459 taels, 5 qian, 3 fen and 2 li for salt silver, but the number doesn't match..."

“I discovered two things…”

"No, there's something seriously wrong here..."

The finance officials discovered the loopholes in the account books one after another. They all had dark circles under their eyes, but they were excited like cats that had seen fish. They were extremely excited...

There is no need to say much about what happened next. It was just a step-by-step audit. With the Ministry of Revenue working so hard, they finished checking the accounts in those ten boxes, covering three years.

The case was shocking. The deficit was about 1.5 million taels of silver. There were as many as 117 people involved, including two third-rank officials. Zhao Huan did not give them any face and exiled them all to Hainan.

The Emperor, in the Mandate of Heaven, issued an edict: "I am deeply enraged and furious. Falsified accounts, deficits, and substandard silver! The government offices and the six ministries have accumulated deficits exceeding 1.5 million taels of silver, a truly unprecedented event."

I read this report with such rage! You, the ministers, receive the emperor's salary, yet you do not serve him! You are unkind, so do not blame me for being unjust! I will immediately impose severe punishments to enforce the law!

All the wives, concubines, and descendants of those involved in the case were exiled three thousand miles away to the barren Qiongzhou.

The court was in turmoil, and the already sparsely populated court became even more deserted. Zhao Ding's review was strict, and replenishment was very slow.

I heard that Your Majesty has a secret trick for detecting fake accounts. Once it is used, all fake accounts will be exposed.

From now on, those people in the oily government offices will be worried. Our clean government office is better, as we don't even have the chance to make any mistakes.

In addition, there was another thing that made many officials grit their teeth. It was said that this audit was proposed by Ma Langzhong of the Ministry of Justice.

Do you think those officials were stupid? They wanted to offset the deficit under the pretext of a fire, but Lord Ma saw through their plan at a glance. Without even bothering himself, he packed up the items and sent them all to the emperor.

When it comes to knowledge, if you are ahead, you can basically crush everyone else. We are not on the same level at all, just like the two-dimensional foil in The Three-Body Problem. I don’t care how much destructive power you can have, whether it’s an atomic bomb or a nuclear bomb.

It's a direct dimensionality reduction attack, which will push you from two dimensions to two dimensions. In this way, you won't even have a chance to fight back, and you'll be finished.