Li Hong did not participate in the Zichen Hall meeting, so he naturally did not know the content of the four cantata sent from Huaxian Province to Zhongshu Province. Because his life in the past two days has been very comfortable, except for practicing knives in the morning, going to the school field in the morning to practice bow and horse salvo shooting with Chen Gong, practicing the study in the afternoon and listening to Zhao Hongskirt playing the piano. The rest of the time he spent the rest of his time alone in the study, reading and writing.

That afternoon, as soon as he finished writing a poem, he saw Yan Zhuang hurriedly walk into the study.

"Your Highness, Li Sheren, Zhang Siyilang and Wei Chixun ask to see you." Yan Zhuang bowed down and reported.

"Let them in!" Li Hong put down the brush and said.

Zhang Cambodia, Li Qiao, and Wei Chi Xunyan are now in charge of Wei Ling's case, to put it bluntly, they are in charge of the corruption case in the eastern and western cities, and they are asking to see themselves at this time, and the case must have progressed.

Yan Zhuang received the order and bowed out of the study.

After a while, Zhang Cambodia, Li Qiao, and Wei Chi Xunyan followed Yan Zhuang into the study.

"See Your Highness!" When the three of them saw Li Hong, they bowed down and saluted.

"No need to be polite, everyone sit down and talk." Li Hong said lightly, and when the three of them sat down, he couldn't wait to ask, "How is the case investigated?" ”

Zhang Cambodia and Wei Chi Xunyan glanced at each other, Wei Chi Xunyan nodded slightly, Zhang Cambodia said, "Wei Ling has a new situation here, we interrogated Wei Ling's family one by one, and finally got a clue on his concubine Du Shi, just two months ago one day, Wei Ling handed over an account book to his little concubine Du Shi for safekeeping, today Du finally handed over the account book to us, which recorded the tax situation in the West City in the past three years, and the amount of silver money is very different from the amount of money handed over to the household department by the Chang'an County Yashang. ”

After Zhang Cambodia finished speaking, he took out a thin account book from his sleeve and handed it to Li Hong.

This account book is very thin, less than thirty or forty pages, and the average person will not find anything wrong with this account book if they see it. However, Li Hong only looked at it a few times, and found that although the contents of the account books were very simple, all the records were the number of taxes collected in the West City in the past three years, but when compared with the number of taxes paid by the Chang'an County Ya in the past three years recorded by the Ministry of Households, a huge difference in the amount of money in the two account books could be seen at a glance.

Li Hong put down the account book and asked with a serious expression, "So, the person who embezzled the tax revenue of Xishi is in Chang'an County?" ”

Since there is no problem with the amount of money handed over to the Chang'an County Ya in the West Market, and there is a problem with the amount handed over to the household department by the Chang'an County Ya, then the only person who conspired with He Lanminzhi to embezzle this money is the person from the Chang'an County Ya.

"But there is still a lot of gap between the amount of money in Wei Ling's account and the amount we obtained from the secret investigation of the tax revenue in the West City before!" Li Qiao said suspiciously, "So Weichen is thinking, where did the little money go?" This is the crux of the West City tax corruption case. ”

"What about your guesses?" Li Hong asked.

"Our guess is that Helan Min's embezzlement may be the shortage of money in the accounts of the West Market. Because of Wei Ling's relationship with Wu Er, it was easier for him to get this money from Xishi than from Chang'an County. But in this way, the money that was missing in the accounts of the household department was gone. ”

"Xishi will hand over the tax to the Chang'an County Ya, and it will be handled by the Chang'an County Ya Bo, the current lord Bo Luo Bing Wang didn't know anything when he first arrived in Chang'an County, but the previous lord Bo may not be unclear, have you sent someone to ask him?" Li Hong frowned and asked.

"The previous lord is dead." Zhang Cambodia said indignantly.

"What? Dead-" Li Hong was taken aback, why did his group just find out the clue of the eyebrows? He asked, "How did he die?" ”

Li Qiao opened his mouth to explain, "The previous head of Chang'an County, surnamed Liu, is a native of Liujia Village, Hua County, and he died in the Hua County tragedy as soon as he returned home last month. ”

Bang! When Li Hong heard Li Qiao's answer, he was extremely angry, and slammed his fist on the bookcase, "Died in the tragedy of Liujia Village?" This mastermind is really a good means! ”

Suddenly, the tax corruption case in Dongxi City was suddenly connected to the Huaxian tragedy, which Li Hong did not expect. However, in this way, the tragedy of 300 people being slaughtered in Liujia Village can be explained, the murderer slaughtered more than 300 people in Liujia Village overnight, just to hide people's eyes, in fact, what he really wanted to kill was only Liu Zhubo alone.

And he happened to send Li Duoqi to Zhongnanshan to invite Sun Simiao at that time, so he was naturally used by the people behind the murderer, so he framed the Liujiacun tragedy on Li Duoqi and the 1,000 iron horsemen of the right prison gate of the guard.

It's really a good means, it's really a good strategy!

Thinking of such a superb method as the mastermind behind the corruption case, Li Hong also had to admire this person's scheming and intelligence.

"How's your investigation going?" Li Hong retracted his thoughts and asked Wei Chi Xunyan.

Wei Chi Xunyan sighed and replied, "The person hiding in the Snake Gang has been found, and we have tortured him and the scribe to extract a confession, but we have not received any useful information. The scribe confessed that the person he contacted in the Chang'an County Ya was Liu Zhubo, and his eyeliner for the snake gang this time was also arranged by Liu Zhubo before. ”

"Have you clarified the identity of the people hiding in the Serpent Gang?" Li Hong asked with a gloomy face.

"Asked clearly, he said that he was Wu Er's attendant, and he was all in contact with Wu Er's scribe before, so this time the scribe will find him." Wei Chi Xunyan replied in a low voice.

"Is that all?" Li Hong asked in a deep voice.

"However, he said that Wu Er had exchanged a lot of gold and silver artifacts with a large amount of silver before, and he heard that the amount was still very large, and he himself did not know where the gold and silver were hidden." Wei Chi Xunyan said.

"So Wu Er exchanged the embezzled copper coins in the West City into gold and silver, and then sent them to Helan Minzhi?" Li Hong asked.

"It's estimated that it's ** not far from ten!" Zhang Cambodia replied.

Datang now does not say that there is a shortage of gold and silver, but even copper is also in short supply. Therefore, the preciousness of gold and silver can be imagined. Therefore, Wu Er exchanged copper coins for gold and silver, and his actions are not difficult to understand.

"Have you checked who Wu Er exchanged it with? Can there be a mark on the gold and silver exchanged? Li Hong continued to ask.

"I have already checked, he exchanged it with Hu Shang in the Western Regions through Wei Ling, and the specific number and utensils exchanged are here, please take a look at Your Highness." After Wei Chi Xunyan finished speaking, he handed a list to Li Hong.

When Li Hong saw the artifacts listed on the list, his gloomy face softened a lot, and his tone was much soothed, "The artifacts on this list are easy to distinguish, as long as Helan Minzhi hides them in the mansion, it will not be difficult for us to find out!" ”

"Does Your Highness mean to search Helan Min's residence?" Zhang Cambodia asked in surprise.

If they could really search Helan Minzhi's mansion, they wouldn't be so sad because Lord Liu's death cut off the clues! But the key question is, who is Helan Minzhi, if there is no conclusive evidence, only based on the testimony of Wu Er's followers, and the dead Wu Er, who is already from the Yang family's mansion, they will search Helan Minzhi's mansion, which seems to be beyond their authority!

Moreover, Helan Minzhi now has two residences.

The first residence was the mansion of his sister Lady Wei Guo, which was given by Gaozong to Helan Minyue, who was favored by Gaozong. Who would dare to search this mansion without hard evidence?

The second residence is the Yang family's Zhou State Mansion, what kind of person is the Yang family, she is the mother of the Empress Wu, and the lady of Rongguo who is the title of Gaozong, and the strength behind her is stronger than Helan Minyue. If you want to search the Zhou Guogong Mansion, even if you have conclusive evidence, whoever wants to search has to think about it, not to mention that you don't have conclusive evidence now.

Therefore, when Li Hong said this, not only Zhang Cambodia was surprised, but Li Qiao, Wei Chi Xunyan and Yan Zhuang were also shocked, and their eyes were about to fall.

"What? Can't you? Li Hong asked in a cold voice.

"It's not that you can't, it's that the evidence is insufficient, I'm afraid-" Li Qiao glanced at it and stopped talking.

"Your Highness, Helan Minzhi has two residences, namely the mansion of Mrs. Wei and the mansion of Zhou Guogong, we have no evidence to prove that he embezzled the taxes of the East and West Cities, and we are not sure that he hid the gold and silver artifacts in that mansion, so it may be inappropriate to search these two mansions rashly!" Zhang Cambodia also persuaded on the side.

Because the search house is not a playhouse, not to mention that the owners of these two mansions are either favored by the prince or protected by the mother, how can they go to search casually? Besides, it's okay to say if you find something, but if you really can't find it, even if Li Hong is the crown prince, I'm afraid he will be reprimanded by Gaozong and Empress Wu, and impeached by Yushi, right?

Therefore, as Li Hong's confidants, even if Zhang Cambodia, Li Qiao and others wanted to investigate the case, once Li Hong's interests were involved, they made a choice without thinking.

"Please think twice, Your Highness!" Yan Zhuang also admonished on the side.

"Your Highness, you can give the minister another ten days, and within ten days, the minister will promise to find out where Helan Minzhi hid the things." Wei Chi Xunyan didn't know how to dissuade His Royal Highness the Prince, so he could only promise Li Hong like this.

"Do you think that Lone's search of Helan Minzhi's residence is simply to search for the things he hides in the mansion?" Li Hong asked. Seeing everyone's puzzled faces, he snorted coldly, "A lot of things have happened that are unfavorable to Gu during this time, first of all, someone framed and framed the murderer of the Huaxian tragedy, blaming Li Duoqi and the thousand iron horsemen of the Right Prison Gate Mansion. Secondly, it was another person who assassinated Lone in Chang'an City and wanted to be Lone to death. They did this three times and twice, what did they think of Lone? Therefore, this search of Helan Minzhi's residence, it is naturally good to be able to find the gold and silver artifacts he hidden, if he can't find it, Lone will teach Helan Minzhi another lesson, so as to deter the young people hiding in the dark, it is time for them to see what the fate of offending Lone is! ”

When Zhang Khan Zhi, Li Qiao, Wei Chi Xunyan, and Yan Zhuang heard Li Hong say this, they understood the prince's intention to search Helan Minzhi's residence this time, and they stopped persuading anything.

"Of course, we still have to do the preparatory work that needs to be done." Li Hong said lightly, then moved his gaze to Zhang Cambodia, Li Qiao, and Wei Chi Xunyan and said, "After you go down, record all the news you get, and take good care of the witnesses, in case of emergency." As for when to start acting, wait for Lone's orders! ”

"No!" Zhang Cambodia, Li Qiao, and Wei Chixunyan got up to receive the order and left the study.

"Yan Zhuang, how is the matter of the 'Egret Bookstore'?" After the three of them left, Li Hong asked Yan Zhuang.

"Back to His Royal Highness, An Liangchen has already sent 5,000 copies of "Yaoshan Yucai" and "Tao Te Ching" to Bailu Bookstore, and the news of the low-price sale of books in 'Bailu Bookstore' has also spread, just waiting for it to open tomorrow." Yan Zhuang said excitedly.

He saw today, after the news of the "Egret Bookstore" selling books at a low price came out, there was a sensational scene in Chang'an City, whether it was the children of the family or the children of the poor family, they were all surrounded by the "Egret Bookstore" The money, it is really not an exaggeration to describe it as a sea of people!

"That's good!" Li Hong smiled with satisfaction.

Although selling books was only the beginning of his overall plan, only when this thing went smoothly could he continue with the following plan. That's why he attaches so much importance to the matter of "Egret Bookstore".