Chapter 170: The Incident of Marquis Cheng'en
Prince Yu read the entire letter with a sinister look in his eyes.
Hongyun Shipping Company was privately run by his uncle. His uncle has always been a reckless person. Relying on the fact that his mother is a noble concubine and his nephew is a prince with real power, he behaves recklessly outside and does not know how to restrain himself.
There have been several accidents in the past few years of sailing, and every time people wrote to him asking him to settle them.
After one or two times, he was too lazy to care anymore.
My uncle went to my mother to cry and complain.
His mother advised him again, "Jing'er, I only have your uncle as my brother. I can't just watch him suffer. If you don't care about him and he is punished, how can we mother and son have a good life?"
He compromised and continued to clean up the mess for his uncle.
Now is a critical period and his shipping company has run into trouble again.
He stared at a sentence in the letter with a gloomy look. The shipping company rented out dozens of large ships to transport goods from Qingzhou, but they were hit by a storm. The water in the river was turbulent and broke through the embankment, and all the large ships sank to the bottom of the river.
Prince Yu was so angry that veins popped out of his forehead, and anger was raging in his heart. He was almost unable to bear it anymore and wanted to get rid of the idiot who had been holding him back.
The large ship of Gu’s Shipping Company sank, and at this critical juncture, all the large ships of Hongyun Shipping Company also sank.
What is more important is the cargo carried in Qingzhou.
Prince Yu had to be cautious and ordered his guards, "Go to the Ling Mansion and find Ling Zhongshi. Ask him carefully to whom Hongyun Shipping Company rented the ship."
The guard was stunned. He never expected that the letter was from Ling Zhongshi, but then he felt it was within his expectations.
Ling Zhongshi did evil things outside, and once he got into trouble, he would ask Prince Yu to settle it.
Prince Yu was not a good-tempered person and had secretly dealt with Ling Zhongshi once.
Ling Zhongshi was well behaved for a while, but then he returned to his old ways.
Since then, he has been afraid of Prince Yu.
From now on, if there was anything that needed Prince Yu's help, he would just write to inform him. If Prince Yu ignored him, he would go to Noble Concubine Ling. After a long detour, Prince Yu would have to deal with it for him.
After the guards took their orders and left, Prince Yu instructed the Chancellor again, "Send someone to deliver a message to Marquis Cheng'en. The current situation has changed. Have him receive my order and then come to the palace to apologize."
"yes."
The Chancellor responded and arranged for guards to go to the Marquis Cheng'en's mansion to report the news.
An hour later, the sent guards returned with a report: "Your Highness, when we arrived at the Marquis's residence, Marquis Cheng'en had already entered the palace. We chased him to the palace gates but were unable to catch up with him."
Prince Yu's eyes were cold and he felt that the situation was not good and was beyond his control.
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Imperial Palace, Imperial Study.
"Your Majesty, I failed to do my job properly. I didn't consult anyone to observe the celestial phenomena, and instead ordered the grain transport officers to load the grain onto large ships and transport them to Guanzhou. Unexpectedly, a storm struck, and all the grain ships sank to the bottom of the river."
Marquis Cheng'en knelt on the ground and pleaded guilty: "This matter is truly a dereliction of duty on my part. I will obey the Emperor's orders."
Emperor Jing'an looked at the memorial in his hand, which was a report from the River Administration Office about floods and river embankment breaches, causing a large number of merchant ships to sink to the bottom of the river.
He closed the memorial, threw it aside, and looked at Marquis Cheng'en with disdain: "Dozens of large ships, all sunk at once?"
After a pause, he continued, "In previous years, even when encountering strong winds and waves, the ships of the Maritime Customs would return safely. How come all the large ships carrying grain through the canal have sunk in the river, leaving not a single one intact?"
Marquis Cheng'en trembled all over and said tremblingly, "Your Majesty, this time the grain ships are insufficient, so I have recruited merchant ships from the shipping company. It turns out that when I signed the contract, I had already reached an agreement with the Gu's Trading Company."
"First, all the large ships must be maintained before setting sail. Second, the large ships we rented have a carrying capacity of 2,000 dan."
"Something went wrong today. Someone reported that the Gu Shipping Company had loaded 2,000 dan of grain onto a ship designed for 1,500 dan. That's why all the grain sank to the bottom of the river when it encountered a storm."
After saying this, Marquis Cheng'en tremblingly took out a deed from his sleeve and held it above his head.
Seeing this, the young eunuch on the side took the deed and presented it to Emperor Jing'an.
Emperor Jing'an glanced at the contract and was about to speak.
At this time, Eunuch Cao said outside the palace: "Your Majesty, this servant has something important to report."
Emperor Jing'an called someone in to answer.
Eunuch Cao hurried in, glanced at the kneeling Marquis Cheng'en, and reported, "Your Majesty, the Qingzhou Censor has sent a secret letter. The grain Qingzhou is shipping to Guanzhou this time is not the grain donated by merchants to the government in exchange for salt permits. It is all sandbags."
He presented the secret letter to Emperor Jing'an: "The sandbags on the boat were soaked with rainwater, which increased the boat's carrying capacity. The strong wind and heavy rain also caused the boat to sink."
Emperor Jing'an took the secret letter and looked at it with a serious look.
Marquis Cheng'en was shocked. He had never expected that this matter would be disclosed.
The Censor of Qingzhou is clearly Prince Yu's man, so how could he report it?
"Your Majesty, I am innocent." Marquis Cheng'en, sweating profusely, defended himself. "Even if I had the guts to spare, I wouldn't dare use sandbags instead of grain. Dozens of ships and 100,000 dan of grain would be exposed once they reached Guanzhou. I can't even get away with this with just my head."
Emperor Jing'an said in an ambiguous tone, "If all the ships have sunk, then you can conceal the truth from the world."
"Your Majesty, I'm trying to steal the truth. How could I hide the noise of dozens of boatloads of sandbags from the eyes of the people of Qingzhou?"
Marquis Cheng'en was terrified. "Besides, Qingzhou's grain is not under your control. I'm going to say something disrespectful... Even if I had the guts, I wouldn't be able to reach that far."
“Your hand can’t stretch that far…” Emperor Jing’an slowly stood up and walked down the stairs: “My dear Shen, the person who bought your private house in the capital may not be able to stretch that far.”
Marquis Cheng'en's face turned pale. He had only been to one private residence in the capital, and that was Prince Yu's private residence.
Emperor Jing'an brought this up at this time, implicitly revealing that he knew they had close contacts in private.
"Your Majesty, I once served as the Minister of War. The Ministry of War is under the jurisdiction of Prince Yu, so it is inevitable that I have some official business to report."
Marquis Cheng'en trembled even more violently and explained, "That mansion belongs to Prince Yu, not to me."
"Oh?" Emperor Jing'an said slowly, "You are now in charge of the Grand Canal, and Prince Yu is in charge of the Ministry of War. How could I not know that there were official exchanges between you?"
Then, he changed the subject: "Prince Yu is asking about the grain transport issue?"
"No... No, Prince Yu did not ask me about the grain transport." Beads of cold sweat slid down his forehead. Marquis Cheng'en opened his mouth and said with difficulty: "I... Yes, I..."
Emperor Jing'an looked at Marquis Cheng'en's head covered in cold sweat and his trembling body, and he seemed to be unable to withstand the pressure.
He gave Marquis Cheng'en a reason: "You used to be Prince Yu's subordinate, and now you hold an important position. He is mindful of their old friendship and will inevitably give you some advice."
In a state of panic, Marquis Cheng'en echoed, "That's right."
As soon as he finished speaking, his expression suddenly changed as he realized that he had said the wrong thing.
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