Yao Guangqi replied with a smile: "I don't know the rules of this new palace, so I thought of such a way, I want to see King Yan." ”

Wen Zhixin smiled with relief, turned around and left: "It's just such a thing, you are still making such a big move, let's go." ”

Yao Guangqi grabbed Wen Zhixin and shook his head to signal him to look at the beggar: "Put porridge for them, they can say good things about King Yan when they are full." ”

Wen Zhixin smiled knowingly: "You don't have to worry about it, keep them able to eat." ”

From this day on, a story began to circulate among the beggars in Beiping, the legend of a teenager, the boy gave hundreds of beggars to a full meal, and since then, the Yanwang Mansion has a rule, the first and fifteenth day of the first month of each month, is the fixed day of good deeds in the palace, whether you are a beggar or a common people, you can go to the door of the palace to get a bowl of porridge to drink, this rule has been maintained for many years. This was originally a little prank on Yao Guangqi's whim, but many years later, it had an unexpected effect at the critical moment when King Yan was in the world, of course, this is a later story.

After entering the Yanwang Mansion, Yao Guangqi did not see Zhu Di, because Zhu Di had already left the city two days ago to inspect the military affairs of the guards around Beiping, and it would take a month to come back. But Yao Guangqi was not disappointed, he met another person, his adoptive mother Yao Wang, when Wen Zhixin took Yao Guangqi to see his adoptive mother, Yao Guangqi was speechless with excitement, and sent the army to the north for thousands of miles, although Yao Wangshi lost a lot of weight, but his spirit was still good. Yao Guangqi saw his mother, puffed and knelt on the ground, kneeling in front of his adoptive mother, he couldn't control his emotions anymore, all his emotions burst out in an instant, and he hugged Yao Wang's leg and cried. Wen Zhixin stepped back and slowly closed the door, leaving the mother and son of the group members alone.

The girl who was assigned to serve Yao Wang's family guarded the courtyard, and the mother and son did not come out of the room for two hours, the girl heard the mother and son crying at the same time, sometimes Yao Guangqi cried excitedly, and sometimes Yao's mother cried in a low voice, sometimes the mother and son talked a little louder, and the girl could also hear one or two words, of which the word "revenge" appeared repeatedly, and it was not until noon that the two came out of the room.

Coming out of his adoptive mother's courtyard, Yao Guangqi saw Zhu Neng, the two were very happy to meet, Zhu Neng took Yao Guangqi's hand, and his face was full of smiles: "Why did you grow your hair?" Didn't you say you didn't grow hair since you were a child? ”

"It's a long story." Yao Guangqi, who had been crying all morning, seemed to be in a good mood, but he didn't greet Zhu Neng, but went straight to the point: "There was a big case in Beiping City recently, do you know?" ”

Zhu Neng nodded: "Are you talking about the salt merchant's case?" ”

Yao Guangqi nodded and asked, "Is this case related to the palace?" ”

Zhu Neng said with certainty: "How can it not be involved, this case is here with King Yan." ”

As soon as he heard this, Yao Guangqi's heart immediately lifted, and he was most worried that this matter was done by King Yan.

Zhu Neng continued: "Speaking of which, your prediction is really accurate, last winter the Mongolian army really went south, and the imperial court really sent Cao Guogong Li Wenzhong to lead the troops to battle, and the king of Yan was ordered to be controlled by the general Li Wenzhong. However, King Yan did not go out with the army, but was responsible for staying in Beiping to supervise the grain and grass. General Li is worthy of being a famous general in the world, in order not to let Beiping suffer from the flames of war, he decided to take the initiative to attack, the main army to face the battle, he personally led 10,000 light soldiers around the back of the Mongolian army, the result was a victory, the general personally led the army to pursue, but his cavalry only carried five days of rations, so the rear grain and grass must be guaranteed to be supplied in time, the initial stage of the military food supply is timely, but when the pursuing army went deep into the desert to pursue for more than ten days, the food supply was suddenly interrupted, so three days after the pursuit, The general had no choice but to order the army to retreat. The general returned to Beiping and immediately asked King Yan why the supply of grain and grass was interrupted, in fact, King Yan was also very helpless, and took the general to see the grain depot in Beiping, which had no grain at this time. ”

Yao Guangqi said: "It is not uncommon for the army to fight continuously and run out of food. ”

Zhu Neng shook his head: "But according to the number registered by the Yamen of the Political Secretary and the Fan Treasury, it is no problem for the grain in the treasury to be sent to the army for more than half a year, that is to say, after a check, there are at least hundreds of thousands of stone grains missing in the treasury." ”

Yao Guangqi's eyes widened twice, and he was speechless in shock.

Zhu Neng smiled bitterly: "We didn't believe it at first, but after carefully checking the grain and grass income and expenditure of the army, it is indeed so short. ”

Yao Guangqi frowned: "It's a short of hundreds of thousands, it must not be done in a moment, presumably this deficit is at least a few years of accumulation." ”

Zhu Neng explained very calmly: "After checking the accounts, there is no problem, on the surface, it is the salt merchant and the officials who collect the grain and keep the account of the treasury up and down, and do it in private, the court system, you must lose two buckets and five liters of grain to get a salt lead, but these salt merchants over the years actually only pay two buckets of grain or one bucket of five liters, and the book is recorded as two buckets and five liters, you can exchange a salt lead, that is to say, every time the court sends a salt lead, it loses five liters or a bucket, and the more salt is introduced, the more grain is lost, and in a few years, there are hundreds of thousands of grains missing. ”

Yao Guangqi immediately questioned: "For such a big matter, just a few salt merchants, plus a few officials who handle the grain and keep accounts from the treasury, can they collude with each other to succeed?" Is this account so lax? If the investigation continues, there must still be people above who instigate it, and there are not a few accomplices. ”

Zhu Neng sighed: "I also doubt it, but now these things are not clear, because on the night of the audit, several supervisors of the Political Division, together with the treasurer of the Treasury and several other handling officials, committed suicide, and within a few days, there was another case of the salt merchant, and the parties were all dead, and the investigation could not be carried out, not to mention that King Yan did not have the right to picket the judiciary, and he couldn't investigate if he wanted to, so the matter was put down." ”

After listening to Zhu Neng's words, Yao Guangqi came to two conclusions, first, the salt merchant's case had nothing to do with Zhu Di, the king of Yan; Second, the salt merchant's case was actually to cover up a bigger and more astonishing conspiracy, and this conspiracy was directly related to the whereabouts of the imperial court's hundreds of thousands of stone of military rations. From the analysis of all the information available at the moment, the possibility of the dead salt merchant being killed is the greatest. Because the other party didn't want the salt merchant to tell the truth, at least he didn't want the salt merchant to tell the fact that he really had paid two buckets and five liters for one citation.

According to this logic, the mastermind behind the killing of the salt merchant is likely to be the real mastermind of the corruption case. According to common sense, the political envoy is the most suspicious, but he clearly heard a conversation in the yamen of the political secretary last night, and that conversation clearly told himself that the person who issued the reward for solving the case was the political envoy, and he didn't want to bear the black pot of the salt merchant's case. So the question is, if the mastermind is not the political envoy in charge of civil affairs, then who will it be?

After analyzing these, Yao Guangqi was a little discouraged again, because after analysis, he still needed to find the real culprit who killed the salt merchant. I seem to be back to square one.