Signing in to Datang: Rebellion at the beginning

Chapter 164 How to Steal Sea Salt Without the Sea
After all the officials left, Li Ke was still working inside.

Lan Xin'er has been waiting for him.

Li Ke, who she finally got close to, naturally wouldn't give up so quickly.

Li Ke was in the hall, after going through all the important accounts, he took out a piece of paper and checked some of them.Important places and details are transcribed.

It took several hours for Li Ke to transcribe almost all the important accounts and details for half a month.

Li Ke always felt that the accounts that were sent to him and asked him to see were too seamless, and there was a certain gap compared with these real accounts.

So he wrote down these accounts, and then compared them with the accounts in front of him.

Naturally, you can see that there are no small problems.

In the next few days, Li Ke was doing this.

He kept a copy of the various account books added in the previous month and the last few days, as well as the related accounts related to the cooperation of various countries.

After transcribing this, he kept it quietly for himself.

Then it will be secretly sent back to the palace for Wu Meiniang to compare with the accounts received before.

On the fifth day, when Li Ke returned to the palace, Wu Meiniang told him directly that the account books he secretly copied back and the accounts that Li Ke had seen before seemed to be fine, but in some small accounts, there were some small difference.

For example, there seems to be miscalculations in some exported salt and sugar taxes, which led to a lack of revenue.

The same mistakes will be deliberately made in some places, so that the account revenue is more than the real nutrition.

But on the whole, after all the calculations, the main thing is that there is a lack of money.

I have to admit that these guys who make false accounts are really smart.

They didn't blindly deduct the money, but deliberately made mistakes in the accounts in some places to make more money. If all of them were short of money, then the corruption would be too obvious.

In some places, some extra money was deliberately added, but it created a less deliberate feeling.

It's just that these places are miscalculated.

It's just a pity.

After calculating all the accounts for this month.The real account book is a full 100 million taels more than the account book Li Ke received.

In other words, the account books handed over to the imperial court by the Salt and Sugar Department were 100 million less.

So where did the 100 million go?In whose pocket?

And before that, how much less was last month, and last month?

Things have developed to this point, and it has been basically determined that the Department of Salt and Sugar has been corrupted, and the corruption is not small.

Li Ke once set a rule that no matter how big or small an official is, as long as the embezzlement reaches 1000 taels of silver.That is a capital offense!

The Department of Salt and Sugar embezzled the 100 million taels of silver, enough to die thousands of times.

In the palace, Wu Meiniang looked at Li Ke and said:
"Your Majesty, since we have evidence, shouldn't we send someone from the Ministry of Punishment to conduct a thorough investigation?"

Li Ke heard the words and nodded, and said immediately:

"Tomorrow at noon, let the people from the Criminal Department come over and investigate thoroughly. Don't forget to bring these fake account books from the palace, and I have transcribed them!"

Wu Meiniang nodded, and then Li Ke continued to leave the palace.

Palace back door.

After Lan Xin'er saw Li Ke coming out, she said:

"It seems that you have really investigated some problems."

Li Ke nodded, and Lan Xiner said again:

"By the way, I want to see how salt is made, and how it is made into fine salt. I also want to see how sucrose is made into crystal sugar. Can you show me?"

Hearing this, Li Ke smiled, and the fox's tail finally couldn't wait to show it.

So he opened his mouth and said:

"Of course, I'm the head of the Salt and Sugar Department. It's not a problem to take you to some workshops that produce salt and sugar."

Because the production of salt and sugar is relatively secret in Long Country.

Therefore, even if it is handed over to some merchants, some people from the Salt and Sugar Department will send officials to supervise it frequently to prevent some core technologies from being leaked out.

Lan Xin'er was afraid that the people she sent out might not be able to obtain fine salt and sugar refining methods, so now that she had the opportunity, she would naturally not let it go.

So, Li Ke took her to a salt farm that uses sea salt to make salt.

Here, there are better ways to deal with sea salt.

Li Ke took Lan Xin'er around for a while, and Lan Xin'er memorized all the steps carefully, and then left with Li Ke contentedly.

On the way back, Li Ke smiled and asked her:

"How about these sun-drying techniques?"

Lan Xin'er nodded and said, "I've never seen it before."

Li Ke nodded with a smile and said:

"So that's the case. It's probably because there is no sea around your house, right?"

As soon as these words came out, Lan Xin'er was taken aback for a moment.

At the next moment, I suddenly realized, and thought: "That's right, there is no sea around their daughter country. There is just a big river called Zimu River."

So she also smiled and said:

"Let me just say, how come I haven't seen this kind of salt-making technology, it turns out that there is no sea in my house!"

When she finished saying this, Li Ke smiled again, thinking that this woman from Daughter Country seems to have a low IQ, and he had already reminded her like this, but she still didn't seem to be able to react.

Lan Xiner did not realize the problem yet.

When they returned to the inn, she suddenly remembered something.

(End of this chapter)