Chapter 48 Just do as the accounting clerk says.
The main hall was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Zhu Tong, his head pressed down by the Crown Prince, could only stare at the ground. His mind was a jumbled mess, but he still forced himself to speak, "Your Highness, although the Duke of Cheng is the Crown Princess's maternal family, I believe that even the Emperor is subject to the same laws as the common people..."
Before he could finish speaking, Zhu Tong felt a sharp pain on the back of his head. The next second, the Crown Prince grabbed him by the hair and lifted him up. The Crown Prince's eyes were unfathomable, and his face was full of amusement: "Lord Zhu, I thought you were right, but tell me, how did the Duke of Cheng, a nobleman who only receives a salary and does not hold any real power, manage to extend his reach into this government office and cause problems with the tax revenue of the entire prefecture?"
“Your Highness…” Zhu Tong never expected that this young crown prince would act so directly, ignoring all the intricacies of officialdom. Now, facing the crown prince, he felt a sense of helplessness.
Jiang Chen looked at the fine sweat beading on Zhu Tong's forehead, his eyes filled with disdain. He released Zhu Tong's hair, stood up, clapped his hands, and said, "Now that I'm here, how this case is investigated is up to me. Lord Zhu, you don't intend to disobey the imperial decree, do you?"
"Your humble servant dares not," Zhu Tong immediately prostrated himself.
“Alright,” Jiang Chen clapped his hands repeatedly. “Then let’s do as I say. First, have someone send over the account books of Jiangnan Prefecture for the past three years. I want to check the account books myself. When the time comes, we will check whichever item in the account books is wrong. If it is the Shen family’s fault, I will not show favoritism. But if this matter is related to others, I cannot just listen to your opinion.”
"This... Your Highness, to be honest, the accounting books of this office are usually managed by Councilor Lu, but he happens to be away on official business these days, and the storeroom is currently locked."
Jiang Chen took the handkerchief Shen Yujiao handed him and wiped his fingers one by one. Without looking up, he asked, "The person isn't here, is that right?"
"yes."
“Then… let’s take down the warehouse door.” Seeing Zhu Tong looking at him in astonishment, Jiang Chen repeated, “Isn’t it impossible to get in? Then take down the door, and we’ll install a good one later. The government doesn’t need to pay for it; I’ll give it to you.”
"But if we do that—"
Zhu Tong wanted to argue something, trying to buy some time, but when he looked up, he met the Crown Prince's sharp eyes again. He felt a chill and lowered his head: "Yes."
This prince was openly threatening him; he was practically saying that even the Heavenly King himself would have to listen to him today. This kind of devilish star was probably in trouble this time.
Perhaps Jiang Chen's attitude was too forceful, because the accounts were quickly moved out box by box. Seeing that there were more and more boxes of books in the courtyard, Zhu Tong's smile became somewhat unsettling. He walked to the Crown Prince's side and asked, "Your Highness, the sun is very strong these days. Why don't you come inside? I will report to you after all the account books have been moved out."
“No need,” Jiang Chen said, his gaze still fixed on the yamen runners coming and going. “I’m going to stand here to prevent anyone from tampering with the accounts. If there’s a problem with these books, Lord Zhu will probably be implicated as well.”
"Yes, yes, yes."
Zhu Tong raised his sleeve to wipe the sweat that had dripped down his forehead. Seeing that all the account books were about to be taken away, he rubbed his hands together and sighed imperceptibly.
Seeing his appearance, Shen Yujiao asked, "Is Your Highness very busy? Or do you need to relieve yourself? It's alright, if you need to go, please go. This humble subject will stay here with Your Highness."
Zhu Tong already looked pale, and upon hearing this, his face turned bright red.
The young men carried the items inside and out over a hundred times, filling the courtyard of the government office with boxes of account books. When the last box came out of the storeroom, Jiang Chen turned to Zhu Yu and said, "Take it away!"
"Your Highness!" Zhu Tong said anxiously, "These account books cannot leave the yamen. If anything goes wrong, it will be a huge problem."
"Don't worry, Lord Zhu—" Jiang Chen smiled and patted his shoulder, "These account books are only likely to cause accidents if they are left here. I'm taking them with me today, and I will bear the consequences myself if they are damaged or lost."
Having said that, without waiting for Zhu Tong's reaction, the guards from the Eastern Palace and the Jiang family swarmed in from outside and carried away all the book boxes in an orderly manner.
Standing at the entrance of the government office, Jiang Chen waved to Zhu Tong, who was seeing him off: "Lord Zhu, you may go back now. I need to thoroughly examine the accounts at the villa these next few days. If you need anything, please come to the villa to report."
As the sedan curtain was slowly lowered, Zhu Tong's knuckles cracked as he clasped his hands together. The Crown Prince was truly a reckless brat. Not to mention among the princes, which of the纨绔 (playboys) in the capital was as domineering as him? Even the Prince of Tai, with his violent temper, was said to have treated Governor Zhou with great courtesy when he went to Sichuan.
As soon as he entered the inner hall, Zhu Tong's smile vanished completely. Zheng Que looked at his sinister expression and felt increasingly uneasy. Sure enough, the next second he heard Lord Zhu say, "Go, send a message to Prince Huan, saying that the Crown Prince came prepared and asking Prince Huan to lend a helping hand."
"My lord..." Knowing he would be scolded, Zheng Que still spoke up to persuade him, "Prince Huan is currently on his way to Guangdong and Guangxi. Not only will it take a long time for your message to arrive, but the situation there is also not very optimistic. Prince Huan must be overwhelmed with worries. If you were to discuss the Crown Prince with him now, wouldn't that be—"
"Have you gone mad?!" Zhu Tong raised his hand and slapped him on the cheek a few times, asking in a sinister tone, "This is the second time today that you have questioned my decisions. Do you want to become the Provincial Governor?"
"Your subordinate wouldn't dare!" Zheng Que thought to himself that something was wrong, and quickly accepted the order and left. Once there was no one else in the room, Zhu Tong finally couldn't hold back any longer. He grabbed the teacup in his hand and threw it forcefully into the distance. Hearing the crisp sound of the porcelain shattering, his anger did not dissipate in the slightest.
Carrying over a hundred boxes of books back, the carriage didn't travel very fast. Shen Yujiao lowered the curtain and turned to Jiang Chen, asking, "Aren't these dozen or so carriages a bit too conspicuous?"
"But that's exactly what I want—the ostentation."
Jiang Chen leaned against the car wall with his arms crossed, a confident smile on his face: "Firstly, we want the news to spread that we have arrived in Jiangnan and started investigating the case ourselves. This way, the people will at least wait and see the results, rather than blindly believing rumors."
"Secondly, it's for the sake of the Shen family. Although I promised you to thoroughly investigate the Duke of Cheng's mansion, if this has nothing to do with them, wouldn't that be wronging someone for nothing? So, I think that if this matter is really related to the Duke of Cheng's mansion, they will definitely take some action during our audit to cover it up."
“But if this matter has nothing to do with the Duke of Cheng’s mansion, then they will certainly not stand idly by. So, the more conspicuous we are today, the better.”
Hearing what he said, Shen Yujiao felt that it made some sense. Besides, if there were any behind-the-scenes manipulators involved in the case, they would naturally take countermeasures when they saw Jiang Chen's high-profile actions.
"Not bad, Jiang Xiaochen. It seems that attending court really does help one grow."
Seeing his smug, raised-eyebrow look, Shen Yujiao couldn't help but smile. To be honest, this was the Jiang Chen she knew.
Today, in the main hall of the government office, he was the kind of person she had never seen before. Although she had heard others say that Young Master Jiang was not to be trifled with when she was in school, she could not even imagine what he would look like. Now that the scene was right in front of her, Shen Yujiao felt that those rumors were somewhat credible.
It must be said that Jiang Chen has a unique charm.
"Alright, now that you've brought back this mountain of books, how are we going to investigate?"
Facing a room full of books, Shen Yujiao looked at Jiang Chen with a forced smile. Jiang Chen's expression froze for a moment before he said, "I think we should look into this ourselves."
“Hmm,” Shen Yujiao nodded, then pointed to the boxes of books: “You mean, these account books, hundreds of them, and the two of us are here to check them?”
"It's just that we don't trust others..." Jiang Chen's voice was clearly less confident when he spoke again. With so many ledgers, even if they only checked one year's worth, it would probably take the two of them ten days to half a month to go through them.
He had prepared himself to be beaten, but to his surprise, Shen Yujiao took a deep breath, walked past him, and headed straight for the pile of account books.
"What are you all standing there for? Didn't you say you were going to audit the accounts? Time is of the essence now."
"Ah, oh, okay, coming."
Jiang Chen reacted quickly and chased after them, and the two officially began auditing the accounts of Jiangnan Prefecture.
No matter how eloquent Zhu Tong was, Jiang Chen felt that there was definitely something wrong with the accounts of Jiangnan Prefecture. So after obtaining the accounts for nearly three years, he and Shen Yujiao began to review and verify them day and night.
The two first reviewed the accounts from the year before last, thus gaining a basic understanding of the various taxes levied in Jiangnan Prefecture. Then they separated the accounts from last year and this year, noting down any issues and finally comparing them.
Three years' worth of accounts was undoubtedly a huge workload, but fortunately, Jiang Chen and Shen Yujiao were both good at math. Even though they didn't understand professional auditing methods, they gradually found a method that suited them through repeated calculations, checks, and reviews. As they got used to it, their calculation speed became faster and faster.
The light in the study of the villa had been on all day and never gone out. The two masters hadn't come out since they entered, and they made do with all their eating and sleeping needs in the study. Zhu Yu and Mu Jin had to work non-stop, taking turns, and this went on for several days.
"This is outrageous!"
Shen Yujiao slammed the account book she was holding onto the table with such a loud noise that Jiang Chen instinctively looked up. He stood up and walked to the desk opposite her, asking, "What's wrong? Are there a lot of problems?"
"There are more than just many problems! I only discovered halfway through calculating this ledger that it was actually a fake!"
Jiang Chen immediately picked up the ledger and examined it closely. As he looked at it, he heard Shen Yujiao say, "You don't need to look through it. There's nothing wrong with the numbers. I figured it out from the paper."
“I just looked through the ledgers from April onwards, and the paper used is very different from that used in the previous two years. The paper used in the past was thicker, but this paper, although not thin, is unusually soft. I compared it several times before I confirmed that it is obviously artificially aged paper.”
At that moment, Zhu Tong's reaction that day flashed back into Jiang Chen's mind. His uneasy and anxious appearance made Jiang Chen think that he could find loopholes in the accounts and thus catch him red-handed. But he never expected that the account book was fake!
"What a shrewd Zhu Tong!" I was completely fooled by his acting skills!
Jiang Chen turned his head and looked around the study, which was now in a complete mess. Then he glanced at Shen Yujiao, who looked haggard and angry. He felt a surge of anger rising in his heart. He pushed open the study door and strode out.
"Zhu Yu! Prepare the horses!"
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