Ye Jintang stepped forward and took out two books, flipping through them casually. There was nothing included in them.
I pulled out two more books, and they were still very normal books.
Three books, four books. When Ye Jintang found the tenth book, he finally felt that there was something strange about the book in his hand.
The book is obviously very thick, but it feels a little light in the hand.
The book was packed very firmly. She opened the lock on the book and pulled off the thick cover several times with force.
The pages inside were covered with a layer of glue from the surface, covering the entire inside pages.
Ye Jintang took out the dagger he carried with him and stabbed it hard into the middle of the book. There was a muffled sound and the thick pages were torn open.
As she expected, the middle of the book was hollowed out.
Inside was a brand new ledger.
There is no name but it says the month and day, where the money came from, whose hands it passed through, and how it ended up in the pockets of Governor Song and Governor Zhao.
"I didn't expect Governor Song to be quite particular about his work. He remembers everything clearly."
Ye Jintang was afraid of being discovered, so he waved his hand and emptied everything in the house.
Just as she was about to walk out, there was a rapid meow from a kitten outside the door.
This is her and Zhou Cong's secret code.
"What's wrong?"
Zhou Wuwei lowered his voice and said, "Master, someone came in from outside, and he sneaked in quietly through the small corner door in the backyard."
"Did you see who it was?"
"The one who is limping should be Governor Song. The other two boys are Changdong who is beside Governor Song, and the other one is unknown to me."
"Where do they go after they come in?"
"Heading towards the prison."
There is a prison in the Yamen, but it has not been used for many years.
Magistrate Ye said that it was really unlucky to place the prison in the yamen. Within two years of his arrival in Yuezhou, he moved the prison where prisoners were held outside the city.
"Master, the three of them also brought in four large boxes."
As soon as he heard the box, Ye Jintang's eyes lit up. It seemed that the rumors he spread worked. Governor Song, the poisonous snake, was frightened and started to act.
Ye Jintang immediately took the Zhou brothers to the prison to see the situation.
As soon as they reached a rockery, they saw Changdong and another boy pushing a wheelbarrow out of the prison.
Governor Song stood at the door of the prison, leaning on a cane and sweating profusely.
"Hurry up and move all the remaining boxes over. Be careful to avoid people. Don't be discovered by others."
"yes."
The panting Changdong responded and pushed the wooden cart away.
Zhou Cong followed quietly, while Ye Jintang and Zhou Wuwei hid in the rockery and stared at Governor Song.
After a while, Changdong pushed four boxes on a wooden cart.
Governor Song patted the box and warned, "Be careful not to spill the contents of the box."
Governor Song didn't want to go to jail, but he was afraid that Changdong couldn't put the box in, so he followed Changdong very slowly on crutches and entered the jail.
After a while, Changdong ran back and forth twice before he finally climbed out of the prison.
Looking at the exhausted Governor Song and the heavy wooden boxes, I could guess with my toes that if the injured Governor Song could be made to personally take action, the wooden boxes must contain disaster relief money.
Ye Jintang laughed in her heart. She was still worried yesterday, wondering how to find the disaster relief money.
Unexpectedly, Governor Song rushed to deliver it to her today.
"Did Zhou Cong count how many boxes there are in total?"
"A total of 50 large boxes and 10 small boxes."
Ye Jintang has dealt with a lot of money in the past few days. She estimated that a large box could contain about 3,000 taels of silver.
Calculated in this way, this batch of silver should be about 150,000 taels.
This was the amount he got after splitting it equally with Magistrate Zhao.
How much disaster relief money was allocated by the imperial court in total? How could two big rats move away 300,000 taels?
A box weighs at least 200 kilograms. Changdong and the boy moved 50 boxes. When they finished moving them all, Changdong and his arms were shaking.
"Changdong, please move quickly. You two will clean up all the traces in a while. You must not leave any clues."
"yes."
At this moment, Changdong was in so much pain that he felt like his arms were going to be useless after moving so many boxes.
It was not until almost noon that Governor Song and his party left.
"They have finally left. Governor Song is very careful in his work. He only found two boys to carry so much silver. He wanted to tire them both to death."
Ye Jintang walked slowly out from behind the rockery and rubbed his stiff legs.
"Come on, let's go to the prison and have a look. Governor Song won't just put a few boxes of money in the prison."
For a person who dared to take money for disaster relief, Ye Jintang believed that his family must be very wealthy.
"Master, I'm going ahead."
Zhou Wuwei pulled out his long sword and walked at the front with a defensive look on his face.
He was afraid of being ambushed in the dungeon. If there was an emergency, it would be easier for him to deal with it if he was in front.
The dungeon was in disrepair, and the ground was covered with moss and weeds. Faint light filtered through the ventilation windows and scattered throughout the dungeon.
The cells in the dungeon all have wooden doors, some of which are rotten, with strange mushrooms growing on them.
The first floor was not so scary even if there was sunlight. When I went down to the second floor, an unpleasant musty smell hit my face as soon as I walked to the door.
Zhou Wuwei took the fire folder and lit the oil lamp in the cell.
They followed the wheel tracks on the ground and walked slowly toward the second floor.
Soon Ye Jintang saw a cell filled with weeds.
Ye Jintang was amused. There was actually hay in the damp and dark cell. Didn't this mean that there was no silver in this place?
The Zhou brothers stepped forward and pulled away the weeds to reveal the box inside.
"Master, the things in these two cells look like they have been there for a few years."
Ye Jintang followed Zhou Cong's gaze and saw many large and small boxes placed in the innermost cell.
The weeds covering the box have rotted away, and a corner of the box can be vaguely seen.
"Open one and take a look."
Ye Jintang vaguely guessed that there should be silver inside.
But after opening it, she still felt very uncomfortable when she saw the white silver inside.
Governor Song is just a ninth-grade official. How could he save so much money relying only on his small salary.
I don’t know how many bad things he did to accumulate so much money.
Ye Jintang looked at so many broken boxes, and she wondered if she could just take the silver coins inside instead of these broken boxes.
Firstly, she didn't want to dirty her own space, and secondly, she was afraid that Governor Song would be suspicious and come to check the money.
Just as Ye Jintang was thinking, she suddenly felt that the silver coins in the large wooden box that she had just touched appeared in the space.
Because there were no boxes to put them in, the ingots of all sizes were scattered all over the floor.
Ye Jintang was filled with joy, it turned out that she could still play like this.
Ye Jintang then put all the money Governor Song had accumulated over the years into the space.
Only the stamped official money was left. This was the disaster relief money given by Governor Song's corruption, and she didn't dare to ask for it.
