"Your Majesty, my subordinates have led people to inquire among the people in Xuancheng in recent days. They did not ask about corruption among Xuancheng officials. On the contrary, many people said that the officials in Xuancheng are good officials."
Mo Zechen murmured noncommittally, "A good official?"
This is very strange.
An official who can make the people in the area under his jurisdiction full of praise, but someone has traveled thousands of miles to the capital just to accuse them of corruption.
With Mo Zechen's keenness, he naturally realized that there must be something fishy here.
"And one more thing--"
Shadow frowned slightly, seeming hesitant.
"what else?"
Mo Zechen looked up at Shadow and motioned for him to continue.
"When my subordinates heard that they said that the officials in Xuancheng were rare good officials, they felt strange, so they conducted an in-depth investigation and found another strange thing."
"Three years ago in Xuancheng, many people disappeared for no reason in the city. After their families reported it to the officials, they could not be found. They were neither alive nor dead."
"The thing that puzzles my subordinates is that the government will allocate a sum of money to these families every month every year, saying that the government can't find the person, so this money is to make up for them."
"The reason why the people in the city are full of praise for the officials in Xuancheng is because of this."
But this is a very strange thing to Shadow.
The court did not have any legal provisions. After someone disappeared and no one was found alive or dead, the court needed to pay these families a sum of money as compensation.
Moreover, Xuancheng's finances should not be able to reach this level.
Just because Xuancheng is mountainous and forested, and there are few fertile fields for growing food, this means that the taxes collected here will not be much every year.
Moreover, many businessmen had learned that there was not much food harvest here, and deliberately raised the price of food and transported the food here to sell.
In a city, ordinary people must account for at least 80% of the population, and only a small part are wealthy.
Because these profiteers deliberately raise the price of food, the money earned by ordinary people's hard work every day may not be enough to buy food.
The imperial court knew the situation in Xuancheng and dealt with a group of profiteers. After that, it would allocate funds to purchase some grain and send it to Xuancheng every year.
With the imperial court taking action, no one would dare to raise food prices at will.
In a city that requires the court to allocate funds to buy food every year to ensure the food needs of the people in the city, local officials can actually send money to some families who have missing people in their families every year and every month.
A barren city has been able to send money to the families of the victims every day for three years. Although this is a good thing for the families of the victims, in the eyes of Shadow, it is more indicative of Xuancheng's There are financial problems.
Through this incident, we may be able to follow the clues and find evidence of corruption among Xuancheng officials.
"interesting!"
Mo Zechen could naturally discover the problems that Shadow could discover. He thought for a moment and asked, "Is there any connection or anything in common among these people?"
"There is no connection among the missing people. They basically don't know each other. However, my subordinates found out that they have something in common. They are all men, and they are all young and powerful young adults."
"If there is something in common, the possibility that the same group of people committed the crime will be greatly increased."
Mo Zechen turned his finger and analyzed in his mind what useful information he could deduce from the information found so far.
An idea flashed through Mo Zechen's mind, and he quickly asked, "It was only three years ago that someone disappeared in the city, but not in the last two years?"
Shadow shook his head, "No."
"Send more people to investigate. I have a hunch that this matter may allow us to find evidence of corruption among Xuancheng officials.
Mo Zechen let out a breath and asked Shadow to continue investigating along this line.
"Your Majesty, my subordinates don't understand why we don't directly take over the government office in Xuancheng. In this case, we can check things much faster."
It's not like now, where I can only inquire about some things with the people around me.
"The complainant said that officials in Xuancheng protect each other and everyone is involved in corruption. This may be an exaggeration, but it also means that there will be many corrupt officials in Xuancheng."
"Just relying on the half-remaining account book taken out by the person who complained cannot actually prove anything, because the officials in Xuancheng will not admit it as long as they do not get substantive evidence."
If the complainant could produce any concrete evidence, he would not have to make this trip at all. His Majesty could directly order nearby military camps to surround the entire Xuancheng.
"The manpower we have brought cannot completely take over the affairs in the hands of Xuancheng officials. Doing this rashly will not only alarm the snake, but also cause chaos among the people in Xuancheng."
When Shadow heard this, he didn't say much.
When Shadow was about to push out, Mo Zechen suddenly remembered and asked, "By the way, is there any useful news from the capital?"
"Did Su Qianxi find it?"
"Back to your lord, there is no letter from the capital today."
Shadow replied.
Hearing this answer, Mo Zechen let out a long sigh.
"Let the housekeeper and the others do their best to find Su Qianxi. No matter what, they must find Su Qianxi."
"And tell Qingzhu to pay attention to everything that happened around Su Qianxi before her accident."
"I kidnapped people and neither wrote any blackmail letters nor made any demands. It may be out of personal grudges."
"And if he dares to attack someone from the Regent's Palace, he must not be an ordinary person."
"You ask the housekeeper to find out that everyone had a dispute with Su Qianxi before Su Qianxi disappeared. No matter how big or small the matter is, as long as there is a possibility of a grudge, investigate them all..."
Hearing this, Shadow couldn't help but interjected, "My lord, if you do this, I'm afraid it will offend a lot of people."
In the past few days since the princess married into the Regent's Palace, as far as he knew, although the number of outings was small, every time she went out, she would be extremely public, and someone would definitely suffer for offending the princess.
With the character of the princess, if according to what the prince said, anyone who had a slight quarrel would be investigated, this would definitely offend a lot of people!
Mo Zechen looked at Shadow with some confusion and asked, "Are there not many people who can't stand this king?"
One sentence directly silenced Shadow.
There's really no answer to this question.
After all, although the prince's personality was a little colder, his flamboyant and reckless behavior at that time was a bit worse than that of the princess.
This means that if you have too many lice, you won’t be itchy, and if you have too many debts, you won’t have to worry.
Shadow sighed in his heart and replied, "I understand."
"Your Majesty has no other instructions, so my subordinates went to work."
