In Sun Jian's words, that's like his grandpa not having a hair on his head!
Even when Sun Jian, in order to check the accounts, found a pretext to personally lead a group to the military clerk's camp to check the details, he found no clues.
The accounts are clear and well-organized.
Sun Jian knew that he could find an excuse to evade auditing accounts once or twice, but not more than three times. Repeated audits would not only arouse the suspicion of the Wei brothers, but would also alert the enemy.
Three days had been wasted, and there was absolutely no clue whatsoever, which gave Sun Jian a real headache.
If the matter of the Tiger Legion continues to drag on like this, not only will he be unable to sleep with his wives, but his workshops and shops will also not receive better guidance and development!
Damn it!
I've been trying for three days and it's all for nothing.
The Wei brothers are definitely accounting experts; every single income and expenditure entry is perfectly documented, leaving no trace of anything amiss.
Sun Jian paced back and forth in his tent. Now one thing was certain: he must have missed some important information when he checked the accounts, or he had not grasped the pattern of the Wei brothers' accounting.
Maintaining a private army requires substantial financial and logistical support.
Military officers are different from civil officials. Civil officials may be able to seek personal gain because of their power and position, but if military officers want to embezzle such a large sum of money and grain, the only way is to embezzle it from the Tiger Army's provisions and pay. Sun Jian really couldn't think of any other way.
Following this line of thought, it would mean that the monthly rations allocated by the imperial court to the Tiger Army were divided into two parts by the Wei brothers.
One copy was to be issued to the existing Tiger Warriors, and the other was to be used to privately raise troops.
"The monthly rations and pay are always delayed by a month..."
Suddenly, Sun Jian had an epiphany. It was as if a thunderbolt had struck him. His eyes lit up, and he clapped his hands: "I understand!"
"That should be it..."
"Gu Hu, go and summon General Liu Shiyun."
"Here you go!"
After figuring out the source, Sun Jian immediately ordered Gu Hu to summon Liu Shiyun, because only Liu Shiyun, who had served in the Tiger Warriors for many years, could fully confirm his conjecture.
Soon, Gu Hu invited Liu Shiyun into the camp.
After paying his respects, Sun Jian didn't waste any words and went straight to the point.
"General Liu, I have a question for you: what are the different items on which the imperial court allocates funds to the Tiger Legion each month?"
After thinking for a moment, Liu Shiyun said directly: "The main expenses are nothing more than the camp's food and fodder, the soldiers' pay and daily expenses. Other expenses are minor and insignificant."
"As for the damage and depreciation of armor, weapons, and ordnance, these are additional matters that need to be reported to the Ministry of War and the Ministry of Revenue for review and then re-escorted and distributed."
After Liu Shiyun finished answering, he asked Sun Jian, "General, is there a problem?"
Sun Jian sneered, "Of course there's a problem."
"I suspect the problem lies with these tiny heads!"
"oh?"
Both of them were taken aback, somewhat confused about Sun Jian's true intentions.
Sun Jian nodded and said directly to the two of them, "Actually, we were on the wrong track when we checked the accounts a few days ago."
“Normally, if you want to find evidence of embezzlement, you would look for it in the major expenses. The Wei brothers took advantage of this and did the opposite.”
"The clues and hints were hidden in the small expenses."
"If we've gone in the wrong direction, how can we find the root of the problem?"
Sun Jian's words were like a blow to the head, waking Liu Shiyun and Gu Hu from their daze.
Sun Jian had previously said that military officers in the army could only use their monthly allowances to support their troops and maintain large sums of money. He never expected that the Wei brothers would be so cunning as to exploit this weakness of human nature.
"But General, if it's just a small expense, how can you afford to keep troops on your own!"
Liu Shiyun then raised the point he didn't understand.
Sun Jian sneered, "Since the Wei brothers can use this kind of habitual thinking to do things, how could they not continue to use this method to falsify accounts?"
"The ledgers are in their hands; how the accounts are kept is entirely up to them."
Fearing that the two might not understand the meaning, Sun Jian continued.
"Why do you think that after the Tiger Warriors' pay is received each month, they delay it by a month?"
"Because they want to use this month to try and balance the accounts before they can make the payments."
“We didn’t just fall into one mistake, we fell into two.”
two?
Liu Shiyun and Gu Hu were even more confused after hearing what Sun Jian said.
Sun Jian asked calmly, "Think about it, what is the biggest expense in privately maintaining an army?"
Gu Hu scratched his head and tentatively replied, "Grain and fodder?"
Upon hearing Gu Hu's reply, Sun Jian was speechless.
They answer quickly, but they also get it wrong quickly.
That's absolutely brainless!
Return the grain and fodder?
The saying "an army marches on its stomach" is absolutely true; provisions are of paramount importance in military campaigns.
But Lao Tzu asked about privately maintaining troops, not about marching and fighting!
Even if you have 10,000 private soldiers, how much money can you make from food every month?
When Gu Hu saw Sun Jian's cold face and the glare he gave him, he was so frightened that he immediately shut his mouth and dared not say a word.
Liu Shiyun was much more rational. After thinking for a while, he cupped his hands and replied, "General, the most valuable thing for privately raised troops is the horses, followed by weapons, armor and armor."
"good!"
Sun Jian nodded, and Liu Shiyun finally got to the point.
If one wanted to privately raise troops around Kyoto, personally purchasing warhorses, weapons, and armor would certainly be discovered; such an attempt would be tantamount to pulling teeth from a tiger's mouth.
Therefore, they could only rely on the newly allocated warhorses, weapons, and armor of the Tiger Legion to make up for the losses.
"I see!"
Liu Shiyun's eyes lit up, and he suddenly understood.
"I have always been puzzled as to why the military clerk reports a lot of worn-out and aging armor to the Ministry of War every month, but rarely sees new supplies coming down."
"So that's where the problem was!"
The new ones weren't not taken down; rather, after they were taken down, the Wei brothers secretly replaced them with the Tiger Legion, or left them to their private troops.
It seems that every ten days or so, the Wei brothers would escort supply wagons out of the camp and return empty, with the cargo inside mostly consisting of new military equipment, weapons, and armor.
Sun Jian nodded. "You guessed right. And they didn't leave all the new supplies to their private soldiers. Instead, they allocated them as appropriate, which made it even harder for the accounts to be inaccurate."
"Because if there is no war, these things for private soldiers can be gradually replenished, and private soldiers can use other items to replace these things for training."
"Those damned Wei brothers, they're incredibly audacious! They even dare to steal from the Tiger Warriors' equipment!"
"Yes! He deserves to die!"
Liu Shiyun and Gu Hu were so angry that they gritted their teeth. If it weren't for Sun Jian's guidance today, they would never have been able to figure out the strangeness of this place, no matter how hard they racked their brains.
"Through this method, they were able to solve the problems of armor, warhorses, and weapons."
"With the major expenses settled, the remaining issue is soldiers' salaries."
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
