Chapter 121
The noise Xu Chong made as he and his group rushed out of the city gate was quite loud, and what he said at the city gate tore off the fig leaf of the Jinxi Prefecture's Mansion. The strange looks from everyone present at the time made Wei Yuanwang feel ashamed and embarrassed.
Wei Yuanwang left with a flick of his sleeves. Returning to the prefectural government, he realized he had forgotten to ask Xu Chong where he was now. However, the fact that the other party had actually sent over a thousand soldiers to escort him back clearly indicated that Xu Chong was highly valued there. The thought of this filled him with both worry and a particularly unpleasant feeling.
"Uncle, I heard that Xu Chong not only refused your request to stay, but also insulted you with words?"
Wei Yuanwang's nephew, Wei Shenji, came in carelessly. His careless appearance made Wei Yuanwang annoyed and said, "Look at you, how can you behave like this?"
"Uncle, don't worry about this. Let's talk about Xu Chong. He made our Jinxi Prefecture a laughing stock. Are we just going to let him go like this?"
Seeing his provocative expression, the Wei governor said unhappily, "He's returned with nearly a thousand soldiers this time! Why aren't you going to let him go?"
Wei Shenji's shouting stopped abruptly, and he sat down angrily. "Who has Xu Chong found to back him up?"
"I don't know." Could he say that he forgot to ask in his anger?
Who did Xu Chong find to back him? This is what we want to know most. The few officials in the prefectural government who can actually do their work are crying out in their hearts.
Prince's Mansion
The prince was furious, and the palace maids and eunuchs fled in panic.
After his outburst, he ordered, "Come here, write a letter immediately, ordering Lei Peng to go to the Yichun military camp and ask Ba Yuan to move to the prefectural governor's residence!"
After giving the order, he was still furious and complained to his confidant, "Huaian, do you think that Ray-Ban guy is stupid?! If he had the time to ask me for instructions, he might as well have gone and invited him to the prefectural governor's mansion! What a good-for-nothing, he's so pissed me off!"
"Prince, calm down and take care of your headache."
"I want to calm down and protect my body, but these people are incapable of disaster relief or local governance! And that Ba Yuan! He's so ungrateful!"
In fact, the Daliang Imperial Palace had invited Ba Yuan more than once, asking him to serve as Chief Physician or Director of the Imperial Hospital, but he had rejected all of them. It would have been fine if he had just been a traveling doctor, with little impact, but now he had gone to the Yichun military settlement, attracting countless talented people and civilians!
After cursing, the prince drank two cups of tea to quench the rage in his heart. At the same time, he became worried again. A man like Lei Peng was the governor of Yichun. Although he was loyal, he was useless.
The prince was scolding Governor Lei, and at this moment, Governor Lei was also thinking about the prince.
While waiting for the prince's reply, the more Prefect Lei thought about the Yichun military settlement, the more he felt something was wrong.
That's not right. The Yichun military settlement had gathered so many people at once, and they were also providing them with food. The cost of salt was huge. Could they afford it? Don't forget, because of government restrictions, the amount of official salt they could buy each month was limited.
There must be a problem! At least the other party has always had channels to buy large quantities of illegal salt.
I have always heard that there are several caravans roaming outside the Yichun military settlement. I heard that so many things in their military settlement exchange building were obtained by their caravans, so it should not be a problem for them to obtain a large amount of illegal salt.
According to their bribed informants, the kitchen used the very fine iodized salt the prince was after. Therefore, it can be inferred, and one thing is certain, that at least the Yichun military settlement had come into contact with the private salt operations!
Realizing this, his eyes lit up. The Crown Prince had been tracking down the owner of the fine salt and had even issued him a secret order to keep an eye on it. If he could pry the man's identity from the people in the military settlement this time, it would be a great achievement.
Thinking of this, he could no longer sit still and ordered the head constable of the yamen to bring enough detectives and head straight to the Yichun military settlement.
The "provided meals" mentioned by Prefect Lei meant that the military settlement had built a new canteen directly on the land allocated to Dr. Ba. In total, the military settlement already had ten public canteens, located throughout the settlement.
The land allocated to Bayuan was originally close to the medical area, which was a relatively quiet place. Now with the addition of the teaching area and the pharmaceutical factory, the cafeteria is quite noisy and is built one mile away from the medical area.
Yao Chunnuan felt that the accommodation problem for outsiders seeking medical treatment must be solved. After all, when the Yichun military settlement was first established, it was far away from the main urban area. You can't let people bring their own dry food and then sleep outdoors at night, right?
In fact, Yao Chunnuan didn't know that if the Yichun military settlement hadn't taken the problem seriously, these visitors from other places, especially those who were not well-off, would really have planned to do so.
Currently, because the accommodation is temporary and relatively remote, it's already quite good for those seeking medical treatment or employment. Currently, those seeking medical treatment can either provide their own food and lodging, or stay in the military settlement, which offers very affordable accommodations. People are happy to stay and eat there, and find some small jobs along the way. Recently, some commercial district is being built in the Yichun military settlement, so there's plenty of work to do.
Upon arriving, Prefect Lei saw the area surrounding the Yichun military settlement bustling with activity. He remembered that this area, previously vacant, had now become a convenient inn. Furthermore, not far from the inn, there was also extensive construction underway; the settlers had heard they were planning to build a commercial district.
Looking at the villagers who were so busy that they had to rush to drink water, and thinking about the annual corvée labor, where those who worked wanted to be lazy all day long, Lei Taishou felt sad. He didn't know how Xing Changfeng and his men had trained these villagers to be so willing to work.
Busy settlers: Can working for our own families be the same as working for the government?
Prefect Lei came uninvited. Yao Chunnuan and Yu Chen received the news at the same time. They looked at each other and were afraid that this uninvited guest had bad intentions.
The general was out with his troops for field training and was not at the military camp. Therefore, Commander Lei was entertained by General Wu, along with Yu Chen and Yao Chunnuan.
As soon as they met, Governor Lei got straight to the point, "General Manager Wu, I want to see the salt reserves in your military settlement!"
The three of them looked at each other.
Manager Wu asked, "Why? You have to give a reason."
"I suspect you're hiding smuggled salt! Stop talking nonsense and take us to the warehouse! I want to see all the salt you've got stored in your military settlement! If you keep trying to hold back, I'll punish you immediately!"
Manager Wu and Yu Chen were a little worried because they had quite a lot of salt reserves.
Yao Chunnuan gave them a calming look and said, "Then please come in."
Yao Chunnuan did not lie and directly showed them the salt reserves in a warehouse in Yichun Military Village. "These are the salt reserves of our military village."
Their salt was packed into 200-jin sacks, which were then sealed. A waterproof staircase was built underneath, and then the sacks were stacked one by one against the wall, in rows. They were so packed together that they almost reached the roof. It was quite a sight.
The confidant of the prefect Lei was speechless. With the salt reserves of the other party, it was useless for their government to restrict the other party from buying official salt.
Governor Lei's focus was not here. He ordered his men to take out three bags, and when he opened them, he discovered that among the three sacks of salt, two were high-quality iodized salt and one was official salt.
Yu Chen curled his lips. If those bastards in the public cafeteria didn't like to use official salt and only liked to use high-quality iodized salt, there wouldn't be a bag of official salt that slipped through the net among the three sacks that Prefect Lei took.
Lei Taishou's eyes lit up with joy. He excitedly asked Wu Zongguan, Yao Chunnuan and the other three, "What do you think of this salt?!"
Yao Chunnuan calmly asked him, "These are all private salt, are they really that unusual? Governor Lei, there are so many mouths to feed in the military settlements, and they need salt every day. You're holding back the official salt and not selling it to us, and you're not even allowing us to buy some privately from others? If you don't allow this, you're going to drive people crazy."
"It's not surprising, but as far as I know, this private salt of yours is the high-quality iodized salt that's making a lot of noise on the market right now. I want to know where you bought that salt from and from whom."
"We just buy, we pay and we take delivery. We don't care where other people's salt comes from. No one in business would ask questions."
"Impossible. For such a large-scale transaction, you wouldn't leave each other your contact information?" Governor Lei didn't believe it.
"Since you know so much about this premium iodized salt, you must also be aware of what the seller said at the time. He said it was a one-time deal. Do you think he would leave his contact information for someone to try to figure it out?"
"Whatever, if you can't explain where this high-quality iodized salt comes from, then it must have come from your military settlement," said Lei Taishou rudely. He glanced at the wall of salt and figured that if they couldn't come up with a legitimate reason, then punishment would be enough.
But his words made Manager Wu and Yu Chen's hearts skip a beat.
Yao Chunnuan reacted the fastest. She slammed the table and angrily shouted, "Taishu Lei, as the father and mother of Yichun, you need evidence to back up your words! You're trying to frame us with just a few words? Do you really think our military settlement is easy to bully?"
Manager Wu and Yu Chen also reacted quickly.
"Yes, don't try to accuse our military garrison of any crime!"
"Otherwise, don't blame us for being rude!"
Lei Taishou was stunned at first, then furious. "Are you guilty of your crimes? You were able to get so much fine iodized salt, you must have had a lot of pretense with that illegal salt owner."
Yao Chunnuan sneered, "Are you so surprised by this little bit of iodized salt? Have you ever heard that money talks? We're just buying some salt. Do we need to have any connections with anyone?"
Lei Taishou sneered, "What a boast! This fine iodized salt is worth a fortune. You bought so much at once, are you really rich?"
"We don't have mountains of gold and silver, but we have mountains of medicine! Do you know how much goods our Liangyaozhai produces in a day? Do you know how much goods we sold out on the opening day?" Yao Chunnuan was not afraid at all. Instead, she forced Governor Lei to retreat step by step.
Lei Taishou asked in embarrassment, "How much?"
"Guess?" Did he really think she was stupid enough to reveal the specific data to him? "In other words, we have money, so why do you care how much salt we buy?"
Governor Lei’s confidants and detectives: How arrogant!
Governor Lei was choked by her words.
The confidant of the prefect Lei quickly grabbed him and said, "Sir, what Yao said may be true." They had no evidence, but they had the reason why they bought so much salt, and the purchasing power was also demonstrated, so the logic was feasible.
So he returned empty-handed? Lei Taishou was unwilling to accept this.
Lei Taishou's confidant: "There's nothing we can do about it. The other party is not a pushover. There's no way they can force a confession under torture."
After Lei Taishou left with his men in a state of despair, Wu Zongguan and Yu Chen finally let go of their worries. "Master Yao, you are so bold."
Yao Chunnuan said nonchalantly, "What are you afraid of? You're just too easily guilty. If Governor Lei had truly discovered the truth, he wouldn't have brought so few people here today, nor would he have wasted so much time talking to us. Instead, he would have directly surrounded our salt processing plant. Since he's only noticed this problem, or has a suspicion, hiding it won't work. It's better to just go through it all at once."
Manager Wu and Yu Chen looked at each other and smiled. Yes, it's all our fault. It's our fault for feeling guilty so easily.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
