"A fair verdict?" Han Du slowly leaned back in his chair, shook his head and sighed: "Even if the emperor believes you, do you have to push this trouble to the emperor? As ministers, they help the emperor solve problems. Instead of finding trouble and letting the emperor solve it, do you understand?"
Wang Yuanji was shocked, his eyes gradually became solemn, and he bowed respectfully to Han Du: "Thank you, sir, for your guidance. The student understands."
Zhao Yu was greatly shocked as he listened. Even though he was also a second-rank Minister of Household Affairs, on the surface he seemed to be not much different from a second-rank official like Shangshu, but in fact the difference between the two was as big as heaven and earth. The butt determines the head. It is difficult for people who have not sat in that position to understand what kind of mentality it should be. But if you want to sit in such a position, such a mentality is indispensable. This forms a deadlock. Basically, except for the extremely intelligent who can understand it by chance, many people who have been officials for a lifetime cannot figure it out.
Even Qi Tai and Zhang Yan were like this. They were officials more for their own power and interests. As for the emperor, they had long since put him aside.
And Han Du was able to teach Wang Yuanji without any concealment in front of Zhao Yu, obviously not treating him as an outsider.
"Sir, what should we do?" Zhao Yu asked proactively. He also wanted to learn from Han Du how to deal with such a thing.
Being able to figure it out is important, but how to deal with it is even more important.
Han Du took a sip of tea, smiled and said: "The officials want to use the power of official merit examination to suppress me, I will let them know what it means that the rich are the boss, and those without money are nothing!" "
When Wang Yuanji heard this, his eyes suddenly lit up. Although he still didn't know what his husband planned, he had full confidence in him because he had never let him down.
"Wang Yuanji." Han Du looked up at him and asked.
"I'm here." Wang Yuanji knew that his husband was finally going to take action, and he was very excited.
"Go and get all the applications for this year's funding from the Ministry of Civil Affairs." Han Du said calmly.
"Yes." After Wang Yuanji bowed his hands, he left and turned around to get this year's application from the Ministry of Civil Affairs.
"I'm going to help you, too." Zhao Yu volunteered.
"Yeah~" Han Du nodded.
Not long after, the two came back, followed by several scribes.
The scribe placed all the documents on the table and then left.
"Sir, here are all the applications from the Ministry of Civil Affairs this year. Please take a look."
Han Du casually picked up a document and opened it, and at a glance he could see that it was a food payment requested by the Ministry of Personnel.
After taking a few glances, Han Du suddenly laughed: "There is something wrong with the number of this item."
Wang Yuanji suddenly became curious: "Sir, what's the problem? This number has been checked one by one by my subordinates. There should be no errors or omissions."
Wang Yuanji is not bad at mathematics, and he will certainly not go wrong when calculating the amount of money for food.
Han Du smiled, looked up at him and said: "The number you calculated is indeed correct. The sum of each of these items is indeed the total number. But the number of these items is very unreasonable... ..”
...
Early morning.
After Wang Yue finished shouting, Han Du took a step forward and stood in the middle.
"Your Majesty, I have this memorial." "Oh?" Zhu Biao was very surprised when he saw Han Du standing up.
In the past, although Han Du stood at the forefront of the court meetings, he always acted like a transparent person and rarely performed. What's going on today? Han Du is so active. Could it be that the sun has come out in the west?
"Sure." Zhu Biao replied directly without even thinking about it.
Han Du straightened up and said with a serious face: "I want to impeach the officials. The food and meat consumed are very large. It is suspected of wasting public funds and embezzling money."
The crime of wasting public funds can be big or small. Once Han Du is determined to make the matter bigger, Zhang Yan will not be able to bear the consequences.
Zhang Yan stood up hastily, bowed his hands and said, "Your Majesty, these are the daily food needs of the officials in the Ministry of Personnel. There is absolutely no waste of public funds. Please observe it carefully."
Han Du took out a document from his arms with a smile, opened it and pointed to the amount of money and food on it and said: "Your Ministry of Civil Affairs needs 43,000 guan to feed and drink the officials in the department a year. This is not a waste of public funds. What is this?" "
It was written in black and white on the document. This was irrefutable evidence, and Zhang Yan was not allowed to deny it at all. But he had no way to deny it, but he could still say it and not answer Han Du's question.
Han Du looked at Zhang Yan with a smile and thought to himself: Do you think I can't do anything to you like this? Haha, naive!
"How many officials do you have in total?" Han Du suddenly asked.
Zhang Yan didn't know what kind of medicine Han Du Gourd sold, but he had to answer this question. If he didn't answer, it would be easy to tell others that he, the Minister of the Ministry of Personnel, did not know the Ministry of Personnel very well, and people would doubt whether he was able to take on this important task.
However, in order to avoid being caught by Han Du, Zhang Yan cleverly did not give the exact number, but said vaguely: "Nearly two hundred people."
"Nearly two hundred people...that means there are not two hundred people." Han Du said meaningfully.
Zhang Yan continued to remain silent. There was nothing wrong with what Han Du said. The official department did not have two hundred people.
Han Du glanced sideways at Zhang Yan, held up the document, turned around and said to everyone: "Even if I have two hundred people in the official department, two hundred people eat 43,000 guan a year, and each of them is 215 Guan, this is higher than the salary of many officials! How do you eat!"
Zhu Biao had been smiling at the good show in front of him just now, but now he suddenly realized after hearing Han Du's words, the horror of food and expenses!
"Hi~ It's even higher than the salary. Why didn't I notice it before?"
Such extravagance and waste made Zhu Biao's expression change.
"And!" Han Du had no intention of letting Zhang Yan go. Even though his face was extremely embarrassed, Han Du continued: "According to the way you eat, one person will eat 600 yuan a day. Wen. How much is 600 Wen? You have to buy six chickens! Can each of your officials eat six chickens every day?"
Zhang Yan's expression changed instantly. Only at this moment did he realize that Han Du was not suing the Ministry of Personnel for wasting public funds, but was implying that someone in the Ministry of Personnel was embezzling public funds.
Spending sixty taels of ink and peeling day lilies is a much bigger crime than wasting it!
"Your Majesty, there may be a misunderstanding. This... this number may... maybe the officials below wrote it wrong." Zhang Yan tried his best to explain.
Zhu Biao's face was ashen and he looked at him coldly.
Han Du added fuel to the fire again, opened one page of the document, pointed to the bright red seal on it, and said: "The seal on this is the official seal. You will never say that without you Do you agree that who dares to put the big seal on it?"
Zhang Yan's face turned pale instantly, and even if he wanted to shirk it once the big seal came out, he couldn't shirk it. He wanted to explain, but no words came out when he opened his mouth.
He knew better than anyone else what was going on with the staff's food money. The food provided by the imperial court for each department only consisted of grain, oil, noodles, meat and vegetables, and no wine. But the more alcohol is forbidden, the more officials want to drink. In fact, most of the money for the meal was used to buy wine, but the wine could not be written on the paper, so the money for the wine could only be converted into food and meat, resulting in a huge amount that was Han Du caught the handle.
Just think about it, as far as the immortal drunkenness is concerned, one pot is equivalent to ten sticks. These ten strings can buy a hundred chickens, but if you have a good drinker, you can drink all the wine in one go. In this way, can the consumption not be large?
Zhu Biao suddenly slapped the imperial case and said sternly: "Zhang Yan, do you have anything else to say?"
"My lord, I am guilty..." Zhang Yan's face turned pale, his legs went weak and he knelt on the ground with a dejected look on his face. He knew very well that his life was over.
Whether it was waste or greed, he couldn't tell at all. The most important thing is that he actually put his hand into the food money. Originally, he discovered by chance that some of these people ate more, some ate less, some liked to drink, and some did not drink at all. There is no accurate estimate of how much each official in the Ministry of Civil Affairs eats. If that's the case, who can find out if he takes some?
At first, Zhang Ming was worried that he would be discovered, but after many times, the matter was always very stable. This made Zhang Ming feel relieved, and he naturally became more bold.
Zhu Biao was very disappointed with Zhang Ming. Originally, he valued Zhang Ming's maturity and prudentness, but he didn't expect that Zhang Ming would be so unbearable.
"Handu."
"I'm here." Faced with Zhu Biao's call, Han Du immediately answered seriously.
Zhu Biao paused and said, "Since you discovered this matter, I'll leave it to you to investigate thoroughly. You have to give me a reply within three days."
"I obey the decree!" Han Du replied without hesitation.
"Retreat!" Zhu Biao, filled with anger, waved his hand suddenly, turned directly behind the dragon throne and left.
The ministers looked at each other, not expecting that today's morning meeting would end so hastily. Someone turned their attention to Zhang Yan, who was still kneeling in the middle, and saw that he had his head lowered, with a few gray hairs scattered on his temples. He looked like he was about to die. He couldn't help but secretly shook his head and sighed: You have been an official for so many years, how can you still do it? I wonder what kind of temper Han Du is? You said you had nothing to do and why did you provoke him? Aren't you asking for trouble? It's okay now, Han Du's counterattack may kill you.
Some officials' eyes met Han Du's and they hurriedly avoided it. They didn't dare to look at Han Du for fear of ending up with the same fate as Zhang Yan.
In fact, in the eyes of most officials, it is a good thing for them that Han Du serves as the first assistant bachelor. Because Han Du is not obsessed with power and distinguishes between public and private matters. As long as they do their own thing well, Han Du will not make things difficult for them.
But some people just don't believe in evil, thinking that Han Du is a soft persimmon and can be squeezed. It's fine now, I didn't pinch the persimmon, I pinched the hedgehog.
