The substitution of the original and the beam is repeated
Chapter 36: The Substitution Drama Reappears
The next day, the deputy general personally went to Ma's Restaurant and invited the owner, Shang Qinfu, to prepare a dinner. As expected, he had said, everyone in the family would enjoy these dishes. The grilled rack of ribs was a favorite of everyone, especially his father. Paired with fine wine, it was quite a treat.
Chu Huaibei specially prepared this banquet when Wei Zeng came. A lot of brown sugar was used in both stir-fried dishes and barbecued meats.
After the cabbage harvest last year, the palace's farm began to grow half wheat and half cabbage. The sugar factory has been operating for a year without stopping. Sugar merchants in the north have already known that the palace produces brown sugar, which is of stable quality and much cheaper than sugar shipped from the south.
Originally, sugar in the north was monopolized by a branch of the Wan family in the south. Sugar merchants bought sugar from the Wan family and then sold it to the people in their own shops. Now the palace directly sells sugar to sugar merchants at a price 20% lower than the Wan family's purchase price, which is equivalent to cutting off the Wan family's business.
The Wan family discovered the clues as early as last year and originally wanted to repeat the same trick in the northern border, but obviously hit a wall. In the end, they found out that it was the concubine's people who did it, so they had to give up temporarily.
This year, Wanjia has used a low-price strategy to regain market share. However, they transported the goods all the way from the south, and the cost on the road was not low. Wangfu did not do too much and sold them at a price only 10% cheaper than Wanjia.
Chu Huaibei checked the cost with his mother and found it quite cheap. She hoped that all the people in the Northern Territory would be able to afford candy, rather than just a high-end item purchased during festivals. Furthermore, another channel had already sold the candy to Fengjing, selling it at a 10% discount to the market price. This was very popular with the buyers from the aristocratic families; the more the client bought, the greater their profit. This candy was identical to the candy from the old shop, and the client couldn't tell which one it was from.
Her mother had a small restaurant in Fengjing. After Wei Zeng returned to Fengjing, she started serving new dishes, which were the same dishes that night's dinner, plus honey-roasted lamb and honey-roasted suckling pig. The price of suckling pig was half the price of lamb, and it was very popular among the people. If there was a family event to entertain guests, it would be very prestigious to order a suckling pig from the restaurant.
She wanted to increase the demand for sugar by changing the dishes, so that she could sell more sugar and allow more people to eat cheap sugar. Of course, doing so would definitely offend the families in the south, but she didn't care. She had already offended the emperor twice, so this was not a big deal.
The next morning, Chu Huaibei went to the granary after arriving at the military camp and saw Chen Sinong and the people from Sinong Office opening bags and checking wheat. As expected, after experiencing the incident of grain substitution last year, Chen Sinong was also very cautious and thought the same thing as her.
Chu Huaibei summoned two hundred of her personal guards to help with the investigation, and it took a day to complete the entire process. This time, they were even more blatant, directly replacing 100,000 dan of grain with gravel. It was just a matter of how they managed to evade her spot check. Wei Zeng was also present at the time, and his performance was flawless.
Were they sure she'd swallow this trick? Better to keep their tails hidden and never show them. If she caught them, she'd rip them off. Oh, and the military inspector was always present when military rations were delivered to the warehouse. He didn't seem to have checked either of these two times. Why did she remember him doing random checks?
He called the deputy general and ordered him to secretly investigate which senior official in the court Fan Liang had been close to in recent years. The deputy general nodded in agreement.
Chu Huaibei ordered Chen Sinong to bring the coarse sand and gravel to the military settlement and spread it on the plowed fields, evenly spreading one-third of a bag per acre.
"Your Highness, why do you want to spread gravel on the ground?" Chen Sinong asked in confusion.
"Oh, this coarse gravel can increase the looseness of the soil, slow down soil compaction, and help crops grow better. I didn't think about this last year and threw the gravel on the training ground. Can you go back and see if you can collect it and take it to the military settlement together?"
"I see. I'll do it right away." Chen Sinong became very enthusiastic when he heard that it could increase income.
"Lu Shun, take a few people with you to help Chen Sinong collect sand and gravel from the parade grounds, and help deliver them to the military settlement in the next few days."
"I obey your orders!"
Humph, if these people want to disgust Chu Huaibei, let them see what waste recycling is.
The military settlements had already taken Chu Huaibei's words as an imperial decree. The prince was right! With only 100,000 shi of grain in total, they could only sow 300,000 mu of land. Furthermore, the 30,000 shi of gravel recovered from the training grounds was used to sow an additional 100,000 mu. Each household was only allocated enough to sow a few mu. Everyone looked at the sown land with anticipation, as if they had already witnessed a bountiful harvest.
The military settlement was busy spreading sand and gravel, and soon the noble families caught on and joined in the fun, spreading some on their own farms to see the effect.
The culprit laughed at Chu Huaibei at home and was dismissive of this, thinking that this was just a trick he came up with because he had nowhere else to throw it.
This time, Fan Liang rarely reported Chu Huaibei's spreading of gravel in the fields to the emperor. He also felt that the Prince of Zhenbei was messing around.
When Prefect Zhou heard the commotion, he ordered his servants to make arrangements on his own farm as well. He felt something was amiss. Where did he get so much gravel? Did he buy it? He hadn't heard of any major merchants visiting recently, and the imperial army rations had only just arrived a few days ago.
Military rations... Could it be that someone had secretly switched the rations, causing Chu Huaibei to suffer a loss? Who was so audacious as to dare to tamper with the military rations? Zhou Ming sent his trusted aides to investigate, while he himself corresponded with the aristocratic families he knew to gauge the situation.
The eldest prince's recent lavish spending on a beautiful woman has become a hot topic in Fengjing. A new courtesan has arrived at Qiushui Pavilion. She's more beautiful than a flower, with a slender figure and captivating eyes. Although she only sells her skills, not her body, she's already caught the eldest prince's eye. It seems likely that she'll soon either enter the eldest prince's residence or continue to entertain clients, allowing everyone to get a taste of her beauty.
The eldest prince had already grown tired of the beauty at the flower-viewing banquet in May. The beauty stayed quietly in her room and rarely went out, which made the eldest prince's wife show some mercy and not beat her to death.
The eldest prince's wife has seen through the reality. Now she just wants to take the economic power of the prince's mansion into her own hands. She organizes all the account books from the opening of the eldest prince's mansion to the present, and reconciles and settles the accounts every day, and is very busy.
Zhao Ge Lao hadn't expected his daughter to suddenly change her attitude and turn her attention to these mundane things, and later she gave him a fatal gift. So often, we're not afraid of teammates not working hard, but we're afraid of them working in vain.
After two months of careful investigation, Zhou Ming finally found some clues and sent a secret letter to the desk of Zhou Zhili, the Minister of Works.
Zhou Zhili finished reading the letter, lit it over a candle, and dropped it into an empty brush washer, watching it turn to ash. He then packed the remaining account books and other evidence into a box and placed it in a secret room in his study. It seemed that the heavens were on their side, and that what they set out to do was destined to succeed.
The next day, after leaving the court, Zhou Zhili slipped a note into the third prince's hand while no one was paying attention, and then strode away.
The Third Prince returned to his study and opened the note in his hand. It contained only one sentence: "Meet me in my study at midnight." He then set it on fire.
His grandfather had always kept him from appearing close to others, always discussing matters at night. He understood his intentions, and his advisors also considered his grandfather meticulous and thoughtful. Just wait a little longer, and they wouldn't have to avoid others anymore.
At midnight, the Third Prince appeared in Zhou Zhili's study on time. Zhou Zhili motioned him to follow, then turned and led him into the secret room.
"Take a look at these." Zhou Zhili handed the box to the third prince.
The Third Prince opened the box and scanned the letters and account books inside, a faint smile on his face. It was truly like someone offering a pillow when you're sleepy. He had been trying to figure out how to make the eldest and second sons cause more trouble, whether to frame them or put the blame on them. This time, he didn't have to think too hard. The eldest son had come to him, so he couldn't blame him.
"What does Grandfather mean?"
"Send this to the Second Prince without leaving any trace."
"Grandfather thinks the same as I do."
"Well, do it cleanly and don't leave any traces."
"Yes, don't worry, Grandpa. I saved it."
That night, the Third Prince took the box back to his residence, discussed it carefully with his advisers, and mobilized several secret agents to deliver the item perfectly to the Second Prince.
The Second Prince was also shocked when he received the evidence his subordinates had found. Was the First Prince so desperate for money that he even dared to lay his hands on military rations? He was also very ruthless, leaving behind so much evidence. It seemed that Lord Zhao was getting old and was no longer as efficient as he was in his youth.
But this gift alone wouldn't bring down the eldest prince. The emperor liked him so much, he'd probably punish him severely and give the Zhenbei prince two years of food to cover his shortfall, and that would be the end of it. This wasn't what he wanted to see. Since he was going to take action, he had to strike a fatal blow, leaving him no chance of a comeback.
The undercurrents here didn't involve Chu Huaibei. After she had the military settlements spread the gravel, she asked her mother to help her find out where someone was distributing large quantities of grain. She also explained the reason for the investigation, and she was cheated out of another 100,000 dan of military rations.
The toffee dropped the wolf hair brush in her hand upon hearing this. "How could you be so careless? Didn't what happened last year alert you?"
"I don't know what method they used to escape my random inspection. This year, I inspected nearly eighty bags in front of Wei Zeng, but I didn't get a single bag. It's very strange." Chu Huaibei felt that there must be something fishy going on, but she didn't understand it. She sampled randomly. There were only so many cars in total, and she took samples from the front, middle, and back. Moreover, there was no pattern in her sampling. Theoretically, with so many bags of gravel, at least two bags should have been picked out.
"We are short of 100,000 shi. Do we need to purchase more?"
"If someone is selling in large quantities at a low price, we should buy some back. Thirty thousand stones will be enough and keep them on the palace's farm. This year's harvest is good, and there is thirty percent more grain, which should be enough to eat." Chu Huaibei calculated and felt that the grain should be enough for now, but just in case, he would buy some more at a low price, but he felt a little nauseous.
"Alright, I get it. I'll have to find out who's behind this." The Concubine Dowager was prepared to sacrifice several undercover agents to get to the bottom of this. Last year, she'd assumed it was Shen Zhi's excessive publicity that had angered the Emperor, leading him to allow such disgusting practices. But this year, the Emperor had sent a million shi of grain despite a bountiful harvest in the north, indicating his anger had subsided and he wouldn't resort to such actions again.
The Concubine used her merchant network to directly investigate the source of the grain, eliminating three long-term undercover agents of the aristocratic family. The evidence she found directly pointed to the eldest prince. Chu Huaibei saw the results and felt that the emperor's son was so stupid. No wonder he died so early in the original novel. Even if this incident had not happened, there would be other things waiting for him.
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