Her eyes turned cold as she looked at the accountant: "Is your family so poor?"
The accountant replied respectfully, "The wedding cost a lot of money, and today I have collected the expenses from various places and have no money left."
Bai Wanyi rubbed her forehead. The mansion needed expenses these days and couldn't be without money. She could only send someone to Qitongju to bring the box of silver over. She gave a thousand taels to the accountant and said, "Take these. Come ask me for more when you run out."
The accountant felt very unhappy. In the past, all the money in the mansion was in his hands, and all the expenses were paid from him. But now, he, the accountant, had to get money from the lady.
No matter what the accountant was thinking, he didn't show it on his face and just responded respectfully.
Bai Wanyi waved his hand to let him go, picked up the account books for the past few months and began to check the accounts.
Lu Yan went to court with the self-defense letter prepared by his staff.
He was so drunk yesterday that he didn't wash up, and he got up late this morning, so he just washed up and changed his clothes.
The smell of alcohol had not yet dissipated from his body, and whenever he walked by, people around him could smell the alcohol on Lu Yan.
When I entered the court, someone laughed in the corner.
"Lord Lu, you just woke up from a hangover."
Lu Yan turned around to see who was speaking, but today was a grand court meeting and the place was crowded with people, so he couldn't tell who was speaking.
The emperor didn't care who said this. He threw the impeachment letter to Lu Yan at his feet and said, "Come, explain everything to me clearly."
Lu Yan picked up the memorial, flipped through it, and said, "Your Majesty, the memorial states that the wedding was in violation of the rules and that the Empress's gifts were resold. I plead guilty and accept the punishment. However, I do not acknowledge the Empress as my wife. Wanyi was never a concubine in the first place, and the marriage was granted by Your Majesty. This is unacceptable."
"The other charge is the crime of embezzling military funds. I deny it!"
Lu Yan argued, "Gunpowder itself consumes a great deal of material. The amount of material consumed is indefinite. Some is sourced locally, and some is purchased from outside. I, your humble servant, have also contributed a considerable amount of silver."
The doctor from the Ministry of Revenue listed all the unreasonable and inconsistent items in the accounts. Lu Yan had a heated argument with the people from the Ministry of Revenue, and finally concluded that Lu Yan had subsidized the expenses by himself for more than 80,000 taels of silver over the years.
The court allocated tens of thousands of taels of money, and except for those accounts that really had discrepancies, tens of thousands of taels were truly missing.
The Minister of Revenue looked at Lu Yan and said, "Lord Lu, the price of bricks and stones is more than double the local price. Let's not talk about that for now. Just tell me, where did these tens of thousands of taels of silver and the more than 80,000 taels of silver you took out, a total of more than 100,000 taels of silver, go?"
These 100,000 taels are real, and not a single cent of them appears on the books.
Lu Yan's heart skipped a beat. How could a deficit of over 100,000 taels be possible? He had reviewed all the accounts and found no flaws.
The Ministry of Revenue defended him and called witnesses to confront him. Lu Yan's face became paler and paler.
The loss of hundreds of thousands of taels of silver is a serious crime!
Just when the censor was about to impeach Lu Yan for a serious crime, the people of the Minister of Rites, Lord Sun, stepped out from the crowd and said:
"Lord Lu has been fighting at the border for eight years, and any reward is worth it. These losses are probably caused by the subordinates, and Lord Lu is unaware of it."
"Yes, Your Majesty, Marquis Lu is fighting on the front lines and he must be unable to be distracted from the production and preparation of gunpowder. I am willing to guarantee that this matter has nothing to do with Marquis Lu." The doctor of the Ministry of Works agreed.
Lord Chen glanced at these people and couldn't tell that Lu Yan had gained support in the court only a few days after returning to the capital. He said, "Can he just let it go with a simple "I didn't know" statement? This is hundreds of thousands of taels, not a few thousand! Hundreds of thousands of taels of silver don't match, and this is his oversight!"
Lord Chen also knew that he couldn't touch Lu Yan now, but he would bite off a piece of his flesh even if he had to.
"And then there's the Bai family. It's one thing for a woman to be involved in military affairs, but she's actually meddling in military finances. This needs to be thoroughly investigated."
Lu Yan quickly defended Bai Wanyi, "The gunpowder recipe was contributed by the Bai family, and she oversaw its manufacture. Her contributions are indelible."
Lord Chen said firmly, "Does that erase corruption? If everyone uses their own merits to erase their sins, how can the law be applied? Where is justice? How can we explain to the people the embezzled military funds? How can we explain to the soldiers who risked their lives for us?"
"This is hundreds of thousands of taels of silver, not just one or two thousand! Does Lord Lu know what a hundred thousand taels of silver can do?"
The Minister of Revenue immediately stepped forward and listed the things that could be done for the people with more than 100,000 taels of silver.
The Minister of Personnel, Lord Wu, took the emperor's look and said, "Ms. Bai is a woman, proficient in some strange sexual techniques, but she doesn't understand accounting. She's trying to use new methods to do the accounting, and I think she's been tricked by the people below. I've heard that Mrs. Bai is talented. How about asking Marquis Lu and his wife to return the 100,000 taels of silver to the national treasury as soon as possible?"
Lu Yan looked at the Minister of Personnel with gratitude. He remembered the person who had just spoken for him. Although they had no contact with each other in normal times, he was really a timely help.
The emperor didn't want to punish them. The Bai family was still useful, and Lu Yan was a meritorious official. It would be disheartening to the soldiers if he severely punished them just one year after returning to Beijing.
But embezzling military funds was a grave offense, and it couldn't be brushed off lightly. Now that the Minister of Personnel had handed over the ladder, the emperor, after a moment's deliberation, said, "Very well, this is settled. Marquis Lu, for not ruling strictly, shall be punished with twenty strokes of the cane. He shall return the 100,000 taels of silver owed within three months, and shall be fined an additional 100,000 taels of silver. He shall return the money to the Ministry of Revenue within six months."
He had to pay back 100,000 taels of silver and pay a fine of 100,000 taels, a total of 200,000 taels of silver.
The deficit of one hundred thousand taels of silver was raised high and then put down easily.
Lu Yan was stripped of his official uniform and tortured in front of the emperor. When the first blow landed on his body, he realized that out of the 100,000 taels of silver, he had paid more than 80,000 taels!
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