In the main hall of the Wang family, Li Yingqiu, who was dressed in a lilac brocade robe and had a handsome face, got up and said to Wang Ye: "Brother Changxu, since this is the case, the junior brother will leave." Those account books are placed here with Brother Changxu, if there is any news, please send someone to inform the younger brother as soon as possible. ”

Wang Ye got up and said with a smile: "This is natural, you and I are world friends, and some people want to fool you and me by being smart, it's really ridiculous." ”

The two laughed and walked out of the hall, and a white shadow flashed outside the moon door not far away, limping towards the two.

Seeing that the pearl in his palm was covered in dust and limping, Li Yingqiu's face suddenly changed: "Yun'er, what's wrong with you?" ”

Li Yun looked at his father with a sad face and said: "People are walking well, I don't know where a vicious dog came out, and I have been chasing others, fortunately, I ran fast, and finally got rid of the vicious dog, but I still accidentally fell." ”

Wang Ye's face was full of embarrassment when he heard this, he did have a few big dogs to guard the family, could it be that he didn't watch it, and a dog broke free from the chain and ran out?

"Xiaoyun'er, what did you tell your uncle what that dog looked like? Uncle will let people vent your anger later. ”

The corners of Li Yun's mouth curled slightly, and he said to Wang Ye: "Uncle, forget it, that dog is actually quite interesting, let's keep him, and I will personally clean him up when I have the opportunity in the future." ”

Wang Ye sent Li Yingqiu's father and daughter to the front yard, and after seeing them walk out of the gate, he turned around and saw Zhao Yan walking briskly.

"The virtuous nephew is here to find Master Li? I heard that you won the first place in the first county test, which is really gratifying. Today should be the day of the long case, have you ever seen the list? ”

Zhao Yan bowed his head and said: "The kid is fortunate to be rated as the first case in the county examination by all the examiners, so he told Li Fuzi about the good news." By the way, what about the second son? I haven't seen him in days. ”

Hearing Zhao Yan mention Wang Lin, Wang Ye suddenly snorted: "This rebel doesn't learn and has no skills, the old man originally wanted Master Li to discipline him strictly, but his uncle wrote a few days ago saying that he missed him very much, and as soon as the old man nodded, this rebel ran away and disappeared." ”

It turned out that he went to my uncle's house, no wonder he didn't harass me these days.

Zhao Yan was about to say goodbye, but Wang Ye said: "Since the virtuous nephew has won the name of the head of the case, a student can't run." Now that the county test has passed, the next thing is the government test, the old man has a close friend in the city, the nephew and come with me, the old man repairs a book, if you have something to do in the city at that time, you may as well go to ask for help with the letter. ”

Wang Ye was kind, purely for Zhao Yan's sake, Zhao Yan was grateful, and he didn't shirk it, so he followed Wang Ye to his study.

After arriving at the study, before Wang Ye could sit down, the housekeeper Wang Jiu walked in and said with a bitter face: "Master, I just urged a few account rooms to go through those account books from beginning to end, but no trace was found. ”

Wang Ye was stunned when he heard this, and after a while, he didn't care about Zhao Yan's presence, and asked himself: "Ma Liu's guy has only studied social studies for a few years, haven't you found any traces of his accounts?" ”

The housekeeper Wang Jiu replied: "Master, Ma Liu should have found someone to redo the accounts, and the small ones and several account rooms really didn't find any clues, even the account books sent by Li Yuanwai were the same." ”

Wang Ye's brows gradually furrowed, and after pondering for a while, he asked, "Who is the best one to do in the left side of the state city?" ”

Wang Jiu replied without thinking: "That must be the sour talent Wu Buwei in the city, he has tried and failed, but he has a lot of experience in accounting and arithmetic, as long as he does the accounting, few people can find out the omission." That's right......"

Wang Jiu suddenly remembered something, and said urgently: "Master, the little one remembers." This Wu Buwei is Ma Liu's relative, although the relationship between the two of them is not close, the two of them are usually very close, if Ma Liu is looking for someone to do the accounting, he will definitely find Wu Buwei to do it. ”

Snap, Wang Ye slapped the table fiercely, and said angrily: "Dozens of miles to the left of the state city, it is impossible for someone who can see through Wu Buwei's means of making accounts without even one." Xiao Jiu, you go and invite someone for me, and invite all the famous account keepers in the neighborhood to me, but don't startle the snake, and don't notify any of the relevant people who are familiar with Ma Liu. ”

"Master, I'll go now." Wang Jiu frowned and hurried away.

Zhao Yan listened for a while, and gradually heard something from it, and after Wang Jiu left, he saw Wang Ye sitting behind the table sulking alone, so he walked up to him and asked, "What troubles are you encountering outside the staff?" ”

Wang Ye was shocked at this time, and his face eased: "Alas, the old man is pecked by geese all day long, don't say it, the virtuous nephew will wait for a while, and the old man will repair a book with you." ”

Wang Ye's words didn't seem to want to say more to Zhao Yan, Zhao Yan was not a troubled person, but Wang Ye was a good person, listening to the conversation between the master and servant, it seemed that there was a problem in the accounting, Zhao Yan had taught himself accounting, so he wanted to try to help Wang Ye.

"Outside, but there is a problem with the accounts of the government? Maybe I can try. ”

Wang Ye raised his head and said in surprise: "The virtuous nephew has studied arithmetic? ”

"Just a little bit of it." Zhao Yan said modestly.

Although Zhao Yan's tone was very modest, but there was a confident smile on his face, Wang Ye thought about it, but he ignored Zhao Yan, but wrote a letter at the desk, and a letter was written after the tea time.

After encapsulating the letter, Wang Ye handed it to Zhao Yan, and then said: "The old man has a grain and rice shop in the city, in addition to the grain and rice collected by his family, the grain and rice of the Li family in Nanzhuang, Zhoucheng City, are also stored in the shop for sale. Recently, the old man asked Xiao Jiu to check the accounts as usual, but secretly found that the money and grain in the treasury did not match the accounts, so the old man invited him by letter to invite the head of the Li family in Nanzhuang to discuss, and by the way, he also brought the account books of the Li family. It's just that...... Fang Caixian's nephew also heard it, the account book was made without leakage, and the old man was powerless. Since the virtuous nephew is interested, the old man will take you to see the account books. ”

Logically, Wang Ye didn't believe that Zhao Yan could see anything from the account books, but from the bottom of his heart, Wang Ye was quite expecting Zhao Yan to find clues from the account books.

With two contradictory psychology, Wang Ye took Zhao Yan to the tent room in the mansion.

There were seven or eight bookkeepers sitting in the tent, and they were drinking tea, and when they saw the proprietor enter the house, they hurriedly put down the teacup and stood up.

Wang Ye didn't bother to pay attention to them, and only pointed to the dozen or so account books on the table with his hand and said to Zhao Yan: "The account books of the Wang and Li families are all there, and the virtuous nephew can check them at will." ”

"Boy, try it first." Zhao Yan glanced at the seven or eight bookkeepers, then sat directly at the table and looked at the account books one by one.

There are a total of 12 account books of the Wang and Li families, stacked up to about half a foot thick, and the handwriting on them is quite clear, using a 'new' bookkeeping method - three-legged account. This is a way of bookkeeping around the middle of the Ming Dynasty, generally settled once every six months, or once a year, looking at the thickness of the account book, Zhao Yan estimated that a book should be about a year old, according to the jargon at the time, this is the 'transcription book', that is, the general account book.

Zhao Yan flipped through the three account books at a glance and confirmed that he could understand them, so he asked a bookkeeper for paper and pencils, and then began to reconcile the accounts. Zhao Yan used a stupid method, that is, to transcribe the income and expenditure data in the transcription book one by one, and finally summarize and verify.

The three-legged account began around the middle of the Ming Dynasty, and later generations will also derive the Longmen account and the four-legged account. The basic idea of the three-legged account is that as long as there is no problem with the transfer of non-cash transactions, other aspects can not be taken care of, this kind of thinking is quite one-sided, and it is easy to make mistakes when registering the accounts, and then it is not only difficult to find, but also quite difficult to find out.

In order to save time, Zhao Yan remembered all Arabic numerals on the paper, and did not transcribe the words of each account received and paid, but his memory at this time was quite good, and the accounts corresponding to those numbers were already well understood.

After more than half an hour, Zhao Yan put down the brush and stretched, and then lowered his head for the final summary, and when the summary was over, Zhao Yan couldn't help but be stunned when he saw the result, and secretly said that there was a big hole.

Wang Ye saw that Zhao Yan had stopped calculating, so he put down the teacup in his hand and asked, "Is the virtuous nephew hungry?" The old man will first ask someone to bring you a few plates of pastries. ”

"No need, the kid has already figured it out." Zhao Yan wanted to hand the paper in his hand to Wang Ye, but suddenly remembered that he had written Arabic numerals on the paper, and Wang Ye should not understand it, so he simply took the paper in his hand and read: "Wangjia rice shop since the first month of last year, to January this year, the original grain in the warehouse is 8,130 stones, and there are warehouses every month last year, counting the surplus grain, there should be 31,250 stone of grain in the warehouse, and the annual grain sold is 20,000 and 570 stones, and there are many totals of 1,000 stone of grain that are missing, and the surplus grain in the warehouse is ......."

The corners of Wang Ye's eyes jumped slightly, this is the era of the official standard, and if you want to do business, you can't avoid those bureaucrats, and now Li Yan, the governor of Zhou, has been in power for three years, and there are many officials under the state judgment and officials to eat and take cards, but these officials want to be bitches and set up archways, and they refuse to collect cashiers, so the whereabouts of the 1,000 stone grain can be imagined.

Wang Ye didn't expect that Zhao Yan would find out these in less than an hour, he glanced at the gentlemen in the room, waved his hand and said: "Stay, the virtuous nephew can report the income and expenditure and surplus of the silver money." ”

Zhao Yan nodded when he heard this, and continued: "Just take the last year as an example. Last year, the annual collection of copper and silver amounted to 10,000 and 285 taels, the expenditure of copper and silver was 8,560 taels, and the miscellaneous expenses were 532,26 yuan, and the annual surplus was 832,24 taels of silver, but there were 839 taels of silver that did not know where to go. ”