Su Ruojin nodded. "I got it."
"Dr. Zhao, do you think that's just an ordinary ledger?"
Xu Jinling's words were somewhat unexpected for Su Ruojin. What did he mean?
"Dr. Zhao, why don't you put that ledger over the fire and heat it up?"
Upon hearing this, Su Ruojin took out the account book without saying a word and heated it over the candle.
After baking for a while, the words on the original ledger gradually disappeared, revealing other words.
Upon seeing these words, Su Ruojin narrowed her eyes slightly and pursed her lips.
It was originally thought that the ledger, which recorded the details of Tong Mingshan's embezzlement of the Xu family's property, would be enough to make Tong Mingshan fearful and want to force Xu Jinling to hand over the ledger.
Unexpectedly, what Tong Mingshan cared about was not the record of him embezzling the Xu family's property, but the record of weapons transactions!
The ledger records the weapons handed over to Tong Mingshan. Each entry may not seem like much, but when added together, there are thousands of items.
"Uncle Xu, how did you come to have these records?"
"My eldest brother is the head of the Xu family. He has complete control over the Xu family's businesses. In Yulin, our Xu family is involved in almost all industries, including blacksmithing."
The Xu family owned a blacksmith shop. Because the blacksmiths in the Xu family were highly skilled, the people of Yulin would always choose the Xu family's blacksmith shop first when they needed to make tools such as hoes.
More than a year ago, Tong Mingshan approached his elder brother, saying that the Ministry of War urgently needed a batch of weapons, but the government's ironworks were short-staffed and couldn't keep up with the demand, so he wanted the Xu family to help him manufacture them.
Because this matter involves government business, it must be kept secret.
The fee offered by Tong Mingshan was not low, and besides, this was a matter of contributing to the Great Chu, so his elder brother had no reason to refuse and naturally agreed.
To maintain secrecy, the eldest brother even specially designated an area to secretly develop for Tong Mingshan.
However, Tong Mingshan made a request that blank spaces be left where the Great Chu emblem was to be printed on some of the weapons.
The elder brother thought that perhaps the Ministry of War had some other arrangements, so he didn't think much of it. However, he kept a close eye on things and wrote down every transaction record.
But later, after Tong Mingshan became the prefect, he began to find ways to suppress and seize the Xu family's property. Perhaps my elder brother had a premonition, so he preserved these records in this way and entrusted them to me before his death.
Xu Jinling hadn't spoken this much in a long time since his injury, and he kept coughing after he finished speaking.
Seeing this, Yanluo quickly took out a pill and gave it to him, which relieved some of his symptoms.
Xu Dayi was also stunned when he first learned about this. He never expected there to be such a secret behind it.
Upon hearing this, Su Ruojin fell into deep thought, recalling the cargo ship and Liu Mengru's story about Tong Mingshan secretly selling iron ore and weapons.
She felt that everything was about to come together.
"Uncle Xu, do you know how these weapons were handed over and where they were transported?"
Xu Jinling shook his head, "I don't know the details. Because it was a secret, my older brother didn't even tell me at the time. I only found out after the Xu family had their accident."
"Dr. Zhao, on behalf of the Xu family, I thank you. It is you who revealed the truth about the Xu family's deaths, freeing them from the stigma of offending the Water God. Dayi, quickly kowtow to Dr. Zhao in gratitude."
At this moment, Xu Jinling would not blame Su Ruojin for digging up the Xu family graves. If he didn't dig up the graves, how could he clear the name of the Xu family, and how could he have the opportunity to seek justice for the Xu family?
In this era, people generally had some taboos towards deities.
Rumors that the Xu family had offended the Water God had led some people in Yulin to gossip privately, saying that the Xu family must have done something shameful to deserve the Water God's punishment.
This alone erases all the good deeds the Xu family had ever done for the people of Chongqing.
Now that it has been proven that the Xu family died from poisoning, they no longer need to bear the infamy.
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