However, a moment later, the dozen or so officials were all taken down by the Imperial Guards behind Zhu Yunwen.

Despite this, the sixth-rank official remained very assertive. He touched the wound on his mouth and said to Zhu Yunwen:

"Who exactly are you?"

Zhu Yunwen's face darkened as he said:

Are you sure you want to know who I am?

That low-ranking official, a mere sixth-grade man, said extremely arrogantly:

"Don't try to scare me with that tone. Do you think I'm afraid? Tell me, who are you? In this capital city, no matter how powerful your background is, I will never let you go."

Zhu Yunwen sneered and said:

"Well, what a small official position, yet he speaks with such arrogance."

As he spoke, he slowly took out the token representing his identity from his body.

The sixth-rank official was initially a bit confused.

After he carefully examined the token in Zhu Yunwen's hand, his eyes widened suddenly.

The next moment, he trembled and suddenly knelt on the ground, kowtowing several times. Then, with a servile expression, he looked at Zhu Yunwen and said:

"So it's His Highness the Third Prince. I spoke a little loudly just now, please don't mind..."

Zhu Yuntong's eyes widened, thinking to himself, "You bastard, was it just that you were speaking a little loudly?"

Zhu Yunwen, too lazy to waste words, lashed the official again with his whip, and rebuked him:

"Stop trying to argue with me. I'll ask you a question, and you answer it."

The official was terrified and quickly kowtowed, saying:

"Yes, Your Highness. Please ask. I will answer to the best of my knowledge..."

Zhu Yunwen snorted and said:

"Why are there only the elderly, children, and the sick and disabled on the construction site of the Prince's Palace?"

Upon hearing this, the sixth-rank official in charge of the Ministry of Revenue's expression changed slightly.

Seeing his hesitation, Zhu Yunwen immediately stood up and angrily said:

"Answer my highness!"

His sudden words startled the lowly clerk in the Ministry of Revenue, who immediately blurted out:

"It was the head of the Ministry of Revenue who ordered this to be done..."

Zhu Yuntong clenched his fists and said, "Why did they issue such an order? Does the mighty Ming Dynasty have no able-bodied men available?"

The official in charge hurriedly said, "That's not the case. It's just that the Ministry of Revenue allocated very little money for the construction of your palace."

This amount of money was simply insufficient to support the construction of a palace of such scale, and even simple renovations to the existing mansion would not have been enough.

So they issued another order, instructing us to control expenditures as much as possible. And so…

Zhu Yunwen narrowed his eyes and said:

"So you use these cheap, elderly, young, sick, and disabled people to work, right? And in order to save costs, you beat and scold them, making them do the most work for very little pay, isn't that right?"

The official in charge of the Ministry of Revenue had never seen such power from Zhu Yuntong before, and was already terrified. He quickly kowtowed and said:

"I'm just a minor supervisor, an ordinary foreman. These things are not within my control. The pressure from above is too great. They have given me limited funds, so they can only hire the elderly, children, the sick, and the disabled to work."

If I'm not strict with them and don't make them do as much work as possible, and they don't finish their tasks, their whole families will be punished...

Zhu Yunwen's clenched fists were already making a squeaking sound.

He asked, word by word:

"How many people have you killed on this construction site?"

The clerk in the Ministry of Revenue said in a trembling voice:

"There are probably seven or eight of them, including four or five elderly people and two or three young ones..."

Zhu Yunwen closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and then said through gritted teeth:

"The Ministry of Revenue... what a Ministry of Revenue. I'll remember that..."

After forcibly suppressing his anger, Zhu Yunwen asked the Ministry of Revenue official another question.

Is the Ministry of Revenue truly short of funds?

The official in charge of the Ministry of Revenue hesitated for a moment before speaking:

"Although the finances are somewhat tight, it shouldn't be to the point where there isn't enough money to build a prince's mansion. Forgive my bluntness, but it seems that the Ministry of Revenue is deliberately unwilling to allocate funds to build this mansion for Your Highness."

These words made Zhu Yunwen pause for a moment, and after thinking carefully, he said:

"Was the former Minister of Revenue Lü Ben, the father of the Crown Princess Lü?"

The official in charge of the Ministry of Revenue nodded and said, "Indeed, but that was many years ago. Although he hadn't been Minister of Revenue for long, he had many students and friends within the ministry. The current Minister of Revenue, Zhao Mian, is a very good friend of Lü Ben. Most importantly..."

At this point, the official in charge of the Ministry of Revenue hesitated for a moment before cautiously continuing:

"Most importantly, our Minister has an excellent relationship with the current Second Prince, and is his absolute admirer and supporter."

Upon hearing this, a sharp glint flashed in Zhu Yunwen's eyes.

The civil officials already supported Zhu Yunwen and were quite hostile towards him, Zhu Yunwen.

Now that Zhu Yuanzhang has ordered the Ministry of Revenue to renovate Zhu Yunwen's palace, it's understandable that the Ministry of Revenue, taking advantage of this opportunity, is unwilling to do its best.

However, Zhu Yunwen also grasped a deeper level of meaning.

That is, the Ministry of Revenue deliberately allowed the supervisors to only hire the elderly, children, the sick, and the disabled to do the work.

The quality of the work produced was predictably poor.

If Zhu Yunwen lives there in the future, his safety will definitely be a problem.

In addition, hiring the elderly, children, the sick and disabled to work, and in order to meet the deadline, will inevitably result in some deaths and injuries.

Can the blame for the deaths of these people be placed on Zhu Yunwen?

After all, it was for Zhu Yuntong's palace that was being renovated.

The mere renovation of a prince's mansion not only created future housing problems for Zhu Yunwen, but also unwittingly made him a person with a very bad reputation in the eyes of the people.

Their intentions are sinister, and cannot be underestimated.

After clearly analyzing the pros and cons, Zhu Yunwen spoke sharply:

"Ministry of Revenue... It seems that I have no choice but to take action against you."