September 22, Guo Mansion, Nanjing.

Guo Longyun stayed alone in the study, he had been pondering in the study for more than an hour, and his mind was full of thoughts about what had happened in the past few days.

A few days ago, he learned from some secret channels that someone had impeached him with a secret fold, but because it was a secret report, he could not know who impeached him in the secretariat, and what exactly impeached him, but one thing he was sure of was that His Majesty summoned Lin Ermao, the director of the palace intelligence department, after reading the impeachment letter.

It's a pity that he doesn't have a high-level intelligence source on the side of the palace intelligence department, so he can't know what the people in the palace intelligence department are doing for the time being, and he doesn't even know if the intelligence department is investigating himself now, and to what extent the investigation has got.

Although Guo Longyun is one of the top three bigwigs in the imperial political arena, he has been in business for more than ten years, and he has a deep foundation in the imperial political arena.

However, the Imperial Intelligence Service has not been able to reach in.

Due to the peculiarities of the Imperial Intelligence Division, although this agency is a state administrative agency like the Secretariat, and different from the agency of the Imperial Family, its affairs are carried out independently.

In terms of personnel, many officials of the Imperial Intelligence Service are not under the jurisdiction of the Organization Department of the Cabinet, and the recruitment of those agents is not different from that of state employees, they all recruit all kinds of personnel independently, and the personnel resumes of those agents are even more top-secret. Except for the emperor himself and the insiders of the palace intelligence department, other people, even the prime minister, have no right to access them.

And all agents with a high level of secrecy. It is estimated that only a few people such as Lin Ermao know.

Financially, the funds of the Imperial Intelligence Service are also received from the Ministry of Finance. However, the amount of the amount was not decided by the Cabinet, but by the Emperor himself, and the Finance Department of the Cabinet could not interfere in any other way except for giving money, and could not even access the specific funds of the Imperial Intelligence Service, that is, they did not know where the money was being used by the Intelligence Department.

The level of secrecy in the various affairs of the Imperial Intelligence Service is in no way inferior to that of the Intelligence Department of the Joint Staff, and even surpasses it.

The Joint Investigation Bureau of the Patrol Department, which is also one of the three major intelligence agencies. It is to be more open, when the Joint Investigation Bureau investigates a case, it will generally take the initiative to show its documents, and ordinary people can still have access to these Joint Investigation Bureau agents, although the use of their funds is also secret, but if a cabinet boss like Guo Longyun wants to read it, it can still be done.

A high degree of secrecy also means secrecy, not to mention ordinary people, even a cabinet boss like Guo Longyun only knows some of the institutions of the palace intelligence department. But he also did not know the details of the palace intelligence department.

It is even more difficult to plant spies in such a secret intelligence department than it is to arrange spies in the Internal Affairs Department of the Palace Affairs Agency.

The lack of intelligence sources led to Guo Longyun feeling that a storm was coming in the past few days. But he still doesn't know the details of the matter, he doesn't know who did it to him, and he doesn't know why. What is its purpose.

Therefore, in the past few days, although he has maintained his usual composure on the surface. But in my heart, I have become more and more impatient.

And this impatience reached its peak after Ning Yaoan, a member of Hangjiahu Daoist, was publicly reported!

Many people in imperial politics know about it. Ning Yaoan is his protégé of Guo Longyun, in the early years he served as a co-minister in the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, Ning Yaoan served under him, and later after he was transferred to the governor of Anhui, he also helped Ning Yaoan to do one or two activities before leaving the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, and helped him be promoted to one or two levels.

A few years later, he was transferred back to Nanjing from the post of governor of Anhui, although he did not formally join the cabinet at that time, but he was ordered by Lin Zheqin to 'supervise economic affairs', and was responsible for preparing and leading the 'Economic Planning Committee of the Palace Affairs Department' and serving as the superintendent, thus becoming the only three ad hoc ministers in the early years of the empire, that is, the 'economic minister'.

During his tenure as Minister of Economy, he also transferred Ning Yaoan, a subordinate, to the Economic Planning Committee of the Palace Affairs Department.

Later, the Imperial Affairs Agency was reformed, and many institutions were spun off, and the Economic Planning Commission was also spun off and merged into the Cabinet, and merged with the Industrial and Commercial Strategic Development Office directly under the Cabinet, and then the Economic Planning Office directly under the Cabinet was established.

It is worth mentioning that the director of this economic planning office is still Li Hongzhang, the former director of the industrial and commercial strategic development office. This Li Hongzhang has been the director of industrial and commercial strategic development for many years, leading the industrial and commercial strategic development office, although he has made a lot of plans that are conducive to the development of the empire's industry and commerce during his tenure, but limited by the status of a subordinate, he has been relatively low-key in his early years, and it is difficult to be promoted like others.

However, his ability was also recognized, at least Lin Zhe was recognized, such a famous person in history, it was not a matter to continue to bury it like this, so he was later appointed as the economic planning office.

The newly established Economic Planning Office is different from the previous Industrial and Commercial Strategy Development Office, which was only a purely theoretical research institution and had no actual power. However, the current Economic Planning Office mainly inherits the Economic Planning Committee of the Palace Affairs Department, and can intervene in economic affairs.

Therefore, the newly established Economic Planning Office still has very large powers, although it is not as powerful as the other nine major ministries of the cabinet, but it is much more powerful than ordinary departments.

Li Hongzhang can be regarded as gaining actual power in the imperial political arena, but even so, Li Hongzhang still keeps a low profile, and many people usually forget his existence, but the economic planning work he led has been steadily progressing, and many plans have directly arrived on Lin Zhe's desk.

After serving as the economic planning office for several years, I heard that His Majesty intended to transfer Li Hongzhang to a local post, so he had asked the secretaries of the personnel section of the palace secretariat several times about Li Hongzhang's situation. The places where this foreign transfer is at least the governor of a province are all in place, and they are only one step away from entering the cabinet.

When Guo Longyun stepped down as Minister of Economy. Naturally, he would not treat Ning Yaoan, who had followed him for many years, and had some connections. transferred him to Zhejiang as a Hangjiahu Taoist, pinching his fingers, Ning Yaoan has been a Hangjiahu Taoist for three years.

According to the practice of imperial officialdom in the past few years, Ning Yaoan is about to usher in an assessment, and when the time comes, whether he will be leveled or promoted, or demoted, will be decided in the next month or two.

Originally, Guo Longyun planned to continue to help his protégé in one or two activities, to see if he could be transferred back to the Central Committee to serve as the director of a certain department.

But now it's suddenly happening!

Ning Yaoan forcibly asked for bribes from enterprises?

Guo Longyun didn't believe it, according to his understanding. Although this Ning Yaoan is average in terms of talent and ability, he is very keen on his career, in other words, he has ambitions far beyond others, and this person is not very old, he is only about forty years old this year, which is the best age for an official, if everything goes well, the possibility of him being transferred to a local governor and senior official in the future is very high, and even entering the cabinet is not hopeless.

Such a middle-aged official who is bent on climbing up will forcibly ask for bribes from enterprises for a mere 100,000 yuan. Even at the risk of their own future.

Unless Ning Yaoan was crazy, it would be impossible for him to do this.

If this weren't the case, Guo Longyun wouldn't have helped Ning Yaoan all these years, if Ning Yaoan didn't have cultivation value. He wouldn't waste resources on him at all, and he was counting on him to get Ning Yaoan back to the cabinet to help him after he became the prime minister of the cabinet a few years later.

But such a person had an accident on the eve of the assessment. When he heard about this, Guo Longyun's first reaction was that it was a conspiracy. And this conspiracy is very likely to be directed against himself, as for Ning Yaoan. He's just an introduction.

After staying in the study for more than two hours straight, Guo Longyun was thinking hard about who was targeting Ning Yaoan, who wanted to move him, and then pulled himself into the water?

It's a pity that the current thing is the same as seeing flowers in the fog, and Rao is Guo Longyun can't see through it.

He has also investigated several companies that have been publicly reported, all of which are in Zhejiang Province, especially those with business in the Hangjiahu area, large and small, and the major shareholders behind them are also relatively ordinary, some are local tycoons, and some are held by financial institutions.

The only thing they have in common is that they are both companies in the raw silk industry.

Why?

Because they all have related businesses in Huzhou, and Huzhou is the largest raw silk production area in Zhejiang Province, where raw silk production accounts for a considerable part of domestic production, and it is also the pillar industry of Zhejiang Province.

But apart from this common denominator, Guo Longyun couldn't find any other suspicious points.

This can't be blamed on him, although Guo Longyun is a political bigwig, he is just an official, although there are many protégés, but there is no formal intelligence agency under him to provide him with all kinds of information.

So when Guo Longyun still didn't figure out what was special about these companies, Lin Zhe in the Zhonghua Palace had already received a briefing from the palace's intelligence department.

Although there seems to be no direct connection between these six raw silk companies, the Imperial Intelligence Department has found a very interesting information, that is, although the owners behind these six raw silk companies are all financial institutions or private shareholders, there are shareholders behind some holding institutions, and there is a close cross-shareholding phenomenon.

Since there is no strict regulatory body for stock trading in contemporary China, that is to say, there is no securities regulatory commission, there is no stock exchange and other institutions, so it is difficult to find out the real shareholders behind these companies through multiple layers of cross-shareholding unless there is a dedicated law enforcement agency.

However, the Imperial Intelligence Service does not have these restrictions, and their various powers are very large, and they can directly access the detailed information of these enterprises with their certificates.

Finally, after investigation, it was found that the six raw silk companies all pointed to an institution, or a bank, which was 'Antai Investment Bank'.

Aetna Investment Bank directly owns a controlling stake in one of the raw silk companies and indirectly controls five of them through four or five short companies.

These six raw silk companies reported Ning Yaoan together, and there was Antai Investment Bank standing behind it, which made the Imperial Intelligence Department suspect the role of Antai Investment Bank.

After Lin Zhe read the briefing, he didn't say anything, just nodded: "Keep checking!" ”

Lin Ermao Dongfang took a few steps backwards, and then turned around and retreated, after walking out of the Xinhua Palace, Lin Ermao's face also showed a look of doubt, this time the matter is probably not simple, with the sensitivity of his spy personnel for many years, he can feel that there must be some ulterior secret here, and it is a shocking secret.

It was not only Lin Ermao who noticed that things were not simple, but also other people, such as the Anti-Corruption Bureau of the Patrol Police Department, Director Zhong Bangkui looked at the report in his hand, Rao is hot day now, and it also made me feel like I was in a cold sweat.

Taking a deep breath, he unbuttoned his collar and looked at the report in his hand again.

The report was sent back by a working group sent by the Anti-Corruption Bureau to Zhejiang, and the report said that the six raw silk companies had submitted a lot of evidence to the working group, and the evidence showed that Ning Yaoan had been collecting bribes from these companies since 1862, and the number of bribes was small at first, but in the last two years, the amount of bribes demanded has increased significantly, and the annual amount has surged from more than 10,000 yuan in previous years to more than 50,000 yuan.

Otherwise, Ning Yaoan threatened to obstruct the normal operation of their factories in Huzhou and Hangzhou!

These six companies were overwhelmed and powerless to stop them, so they could only report publicly.

The evidence is conclusive, these four words are nothing, and what really chills the director of the Anti-Corruption Bureau, Chung Bangkui, is that they are talking about the bribe that Ning Yaoan asked them for in 1862.

And in 1862, where was Ning Yao'an? At that time, he was still working in the Economic Planning Committee of the Palace Affairs Department, and he was directly under Guo Longyun.

And at that time, Ning Yaoan was just a small section chief, and his administrative level was placed at the local level, at most at the level of a county or a governor, so that a small section chief could threaten the six major enterprises to ask for bribes at the same time, and it was impossible for a discerning person to know at a glance.

Zhong Bangkui, as the director of the Anti-Corruption Bureau, although he was just an ordinary patrol officer in his early years, but after more than ten years of work, he climbed to this position step by step, and naturally it cannot be a simple role.

He only saw from this simple report that there was a huge political turmoil hidden in it, a political turmoil affecting Guo Longyun!

This kind of thing is obviously beyond the scope of his authority, but it is inappropriate to go directly to his immediate boss, that is, the minister of the patrol department, because there is Guo Longyun among the people involved.

After thinking about it, Zhong Bangkui could only hand the secret fold to the palace and ask for a face.

However, as soon as Zhong Bangkui left his Anti-Corruption Bureau building and headed towards the palace, someone from the Anti-Corruption Bureau took a step forward, and then got into a carriage and went straight to Guo's mansion.

It's been a long time since I've pulled a ticket, and the brothers saw it and voted for a recommendation, a monthly pass or something.

There are also many friends who read it at the outside station, and they don't say too sensational words on rainy days, just one sentence: If you like this book, you will come to the starting point to support rainy days! (To be continued.) )