It was already dusk when he returned from the boat tour of the lake, and Sun Ning, who returned to the palace where he was stationed, was not in a hurry to eat, so he asked another Wuyi Si Cao who came to report important things to the hall to meet him.

It is said that this person is the person he has been waiting to see today, but he was preempted by his colleagues from Jinling.

"Minister Wuyi, Si Cao Xiaoyi, see Your Majesty." The people who came came to pay respects first in a proper manner, and after Sun Ning waved his hand to make him flat, he got up cautiously and stood below with his hands tied.

"Got a result?"

"Yes, the minister sent his spies to pretend to be merchants from Lianghu and other places who came to Jiangnan to buy silk, and they have already had contact with no less than 30 silk merchants in Hangzhou, and they have found out some inside information from them."

"Tell me about it." Sun Ning immediately looked stunned and chased after him.

Although I had heard that many large silk merchants in Suzhou and Hangzhou controlled the production and sales of silk in the south of the Yangtze River when I was in Jinling before, such a large profit was only embezzled by a few people, but the common people and the court got very little.

But this is only one side of the word of some people after all, even if Sun Ning is the emperor, it is not good to act arbitrarily and recklessly, and attack those big businessmen without checking the truth. That's why he secretly sent people from Wuyisi to investigate and collect evidence and clues.

And after many days of overt and covert visits, today finally has a result.

Xiao Yi's expression was also quite solemn at this time, and he said, "Your Majesty, the ministers sent to talk to the local silk merchants about buying large quantities of silk, and most of them are deliberately shirking. The amount of silk in Yan Dao's hand is not much, if he only buys a few dozen horses, it will naturally be no problem, but if he exceeds a hundred horses, he can't."

"Those are the big silk merchants in the city, aren't they?" Sun Ning quickly asked again.

"Exactly. Several of them have been operating in Hangzhou for a hundred years and have been producing and selling silk for generations."

"Such a big merchant can't even take out a hundred pieces of silk? Why are they doing this business?"

"According to them, it's because the silk and satin cloth on hand have long been given away by the other guests......," Xiao Yat replied, "Although this sounds like some truth, but if this is the case, it is not enough, and now dozens of large and small silk merchants in Hangzhou are all common words, and the problem is naturally not small."

"Hmm, do you understand? What the hell is going on?"

"There was a merchant who really revealed the reason for having a few more drinks. It is because they have long been subject to the control of others, and not only has the price of the silk they received have long been fixed, but even the price at which they are sold is also fixed, and they can only be sold to the three designated ones."

"Ji, Yu, and Wednesday?"

"Exactly. They bought more than ninety percent of the silk in Hangzhou, and the profit left for the other small silk merchants was only about three taels of silver."

"What a big appetite and skill." Sun Ning sneered.

It is placed in the border of the south of the Yangtze River, as long as it is transported slightly, the profit of a good silk is more than five taels, and if it is transported and sold to the north, the profit can be doubled.

But they really ate up this large piece of profit, and only gave a little soup to the silk merchants below.

In this way, how much profit can be made by those who weave cloth and raise silkworms under the merchants? Look at the book

And compared with the three people who controlled the local silk business, the number of these bottoms was hundreds or thousands of times more than theirs.

After a moment, he asked, "Do you know how they did this?" Also, how did they sell such a huge amount of silk? Where did they all go? How much does the government collect taxes?"

Faced with this series of questions, Xiao Yat could only bow his head uneasily and said, "Your Majesty forgives me, the first two questions were not said by the person, maybe he didn't know the inside story, or he was afraid in his heart and didn't dare to divulge it.

"As for the final tax of the government, as far as the Wuyi Division has checked, the commercial tax, the silk tax has indeed been reduced year by year, and by last year, it was only 80,000 taels of silver, which is about 20% of the past......

"Didn't the local officials look into the problem?" As soon as Sun Ning said this, he smiled bitterly and waved his hand to stop the other party's explanation.

Of course he can think about it

understand, it's nothing more than four words - collusion between officials and businessmen.

Without the connivance of the local government, or the support and cooperation, the three would not have been able to monopolize the silk and satin business in Hangzhou, no matter how much they had the capital and means.

And in return, the government will naturally get the benefits it deserves.

Now that they have all benefited, the tax is naturally a blind eye, only when there is a shortage of silk in Hangzhou recently, or it cannot be sold.

"Chu Xiangxun should be killed!" After a while, Sun Ning said in a cold voice, making Xiao Yidu in front of him slam and feel the heavy killing intent from His Majesty the Emperor.

Chu Xiangxun is naturally the current official in charge of Hangzhou City, and he is too guarded.

However, Xiao Yi quickly perked up again: "Your Majesty, do you need someone from the Wuyi Division to arrest all the relevant people and torture them carefully?"

Wuyisi has always supervised hundreds of officials for His Majesty the Emperor and convicted them.

Previously, they had only exercised this power in Jinling, and if they could take the opportunity to open a business in Hangzhou this time, and take down all the most important officials here, it would be very beneficial to the future expansion of Wuyisi.

And he himself will inevitably grab a lot of benefits from it, whether it is money or power.

Sun Ning glanced at him, and this little bit of caution naturally couldn't escape his eyes.

But he didn't mean to blame, but after a little muttering, he said, "No hurry. Although there is a lot of evidence, it is not enough to convict these people.

"I can't punish without teaching, and let people talk about it, so that people feel that I and the court are competing with the people for profit, right?

"So if you want to deal with them, you have to get more important evidence, especially how they disposed of such a huge amount of silk and where they sold it. Also, it's the means by which they control the local silk merchants, which is also extremely important."

Xiao Yi could only say yes with some regret, but he had some difficulties in his heart, if he didn't need to be strong, he just knocked on the side, it was not easy to find out the inside story.

Sun Ning also saw the embarrassment in his heart, and smiled again at this time: "I'm afraid it's difficult to gain from only those ordinary silk merchants. Then let's start with those three big merchants, as long as we take out enough silver, we are not afraid that they will not be moved.

"Businessmen, sometimes that's the case, they only seek profits, but they don't think about whether there are any consequences behind the profits.

"Also, this time I plan to make contact with them head-on, so that I can know what the problem is, and you can make arrangements."

Xiao Yi was stunned again, only to feel embarrassed for a while.

But His Majesty the Emperor has decided, and no matter how difficult he is, he can only follow the order.