Chapter 45: An anticlimax
“It’s different this time.” Qi Guogong said solemnly: “The official family dismissed the salt envoy.”
“What?”
Princess Pingning exclaimed when she heard this. At this time, she also realized the seriousness of the matter.
The Salt Envoy is a third-grade official, only slightly lower than the Minister of each ministry, but higher than the Minister of each ministry.
He was dismissed just like that, which shows that the officials are serious this time.
"Officer, this matter won't involve you, right?" Princess Pingning said worriedly.
Qi Guogong is the salt transport envoy on Gyeonggi Road. At first glance, this official title is for managing the distribution and transportation of salt.
Transshipment envoys were first established in the Tang Dynasty, and their initial powers were indeed this.
But in the Song Dynasty, the rights of the transshipment envoys increased a lot.
For example, Qi Guogong served as the salt envoy of Gyeonggi Road. He was not only responsible for the salt affairs of Bianjing and several surrounding states, but also had the responsibility of supervising the salt affairs and salt accounts.
Qi Guogong served as the transshipment envoy, how could he not discover the problem.
It’s just that the water involved is too deep. Although he didn’t participate in it, he also benefited a lot and chose to remain silent.
If the officials investigate further, Qi Guogong's crime is not small.
Hearing this, the Duke of Qi smiled bitterly and said: "It depends on how far the officials want to investigate. If the officials are just knocking on the mountain to shock the tiger, I should only be reprimanded. But if the officials really want to investigate thoroughly, it is very likely that He will be charged.”
"What can we do?"
Princess Pingning asked anxiously: "How about I go into the palace to ask for a favor from the official palace?"
"No, the situation is unknown now, so we can't enter. Please forgive me." Qi Guogong shook his head.
“But when the situation becomes clear, it will be too late to plead for mercy.” Princess Pingning said.
“Our family is not short of wealth. I don’t want to take that money, but the salt affairs are too involved. In order to reassure them, I can only take it. Although I took the money, I did not participate in it. . If officials really want to be held accountable, it will be nothing more than dismissal from office, but it will not lead to seizing the title.
I'm just worried that this matter will affect Heng'er's future. Heng'er reads to His Highness the Crown Prince, and His Highness also values him very much. If my matter affects Heng'er's future, how will I face Heng'er in the future? "The Duke of Qi sighed.
As a father, he naturally wants to be a decent image in his son's mind.
The Duke of Qi really doesn't know that if Qi Heng learns that he has accepted bribes, it will also affect Qi Heng's life. How will he face his son in the future?
"Guanren, what should I do? ”
Princess Pingning is a proud person, so she has placed great hopes on Qi Heng, her only son.
And Qi Heng did not disappoint her. Although he was of noble birth, he did not have the bad habits of the children of the lords in Bianjing.
I have studied hard since I was a child, and also determined to take part in the imperial examination and become an official through the imperial examination. I do not want to rely on my ancestors Yu Yin to gain a career.
Although he is only ten years old now, who would not praise Bian Jingxun?
Princess Pingning became even more anxious when she thought that this matter would not only affect her husband, but also her son's future.
"You don't have to worry so much. We still don't know what happened. There are too many people involved in the salt affairs, and it is unlikely that the officials will really investigate thoroughly." Qi Guogong consoled him.
The salt affairs involved not only the officials in charge of the salt affairs, but local officials from various places could not have been unaware of it, but no one had ever revealed the matter.
Even if the investigation is clear, it is impossible for the officials to pursue them all.
His guilt is not serious. As long as the officials don't pursue it to the end, nothing will happen to him.
......
After going to court, many people with similar relationships or common interests gathered together to discuss the government's thorough investigation of salt affairs.
Some people involved went to the Wen family one after another, wanting to discuss countermeasures with Wen Xuan.
After Wen Xuan learned about it, he cursed in his heart and didn't see anyone.
The official's attitude was firm this time. I don't know how many eyes were staring at him now. These people actually dared to come to him.
There was no return, but Wen Xuan still asked someone to remind them that the top priority now was to quickly clear up the evidence.
Although the officials have some evidence, the evidence is relatively one-sided and cannot prove that there is a problem with the entire salt service system.
As long as the problems found in the end are not particularly serious, he still has a chance to be reinstated.
Otherwise, he is likely to retire. He is only fifty now and does not want to return to his hometown to retire.
In order to save himself, Wen Xuan even sent people to secretly guide public opinion and spread rumors about the problems in the salt affairs. Wen Xuan did this not to expose himself, but to make people angry. There are so many salt affairs issues, and the ones that do the most damage are the interests of the people.
Since there are so many problems with the government-run salt affairs, it would be better to let it go to the private sector.
Wen Xuan knew the importance of salt revenue to the court. Once public opinion arose, the officials would not strictly investigate the salt business in order to quell public anger.
Otherwise the inside story of the scandal would be made public, and the people would be furious and oppose the imperial government's salt affairs.
I have to say that Wen Xuan's method did arouse the anger of the people.
Salt is expensive and people have to eat it. Some poor families can only use vinegar cloth instead of salt.
The people did not know the truth and only thought that the price of salt was high because of the corruption of court officials.
Public opinion arose for a time, putting great pressure on the court.
In fact, the high price of salt is indeed related to the court, and the court has no way to explain it.
It seems that the corruption of those officials has not harmed the interests of the people.
In fact, this is not the case. As mentioned earlier, when the court was short of money, in order not to directly raise taxes, it would increase the price of salt, thus achieving the purpose of raising taxes in disguise.
There is an advantage to this. If the court directly increases taxes on the people, local governments will definitely benefit from this when collecting taxes, and the burden on the people will be greater.
And increasing the price of salt does not increase the burden on those people who cannot even afford salt.
After all, they themselves can’t afford it.
The fundamental reason why the court raised the price of salt was because the court was short of money.
The corruption of those people, which caused damage to the interests of the court, was also an indirect reason.
Although the official was a little worried because of public opinion, it did not affect his determination to thoroughly investigate the salt affairs.
Various salt officials began to clear up evidence after learning the news, but when the officials ordered a thorough investigation, they had already found a lot of evidence.
Xianggong Yu took the evidence provided by the officials and spent half a year finally ‘finding out’ the salt affairs.
The reason why I put the quotation marks is because the existing evidence can only go so far.
One hundred and seventy-six officials were eventually found to be involved.
After the officials learned about it, they directly exiled more than 20 of the principal criminals. Half of the remaining more than 140 people had their homes confiscated and were dismissed from office. The remaining ones with minor crimes were fined and demoted.
Seeing that only such a few people were involved, Wen Xuan knew that the officials did not intend to investigate thoroughly, and he breathed a sigh of relief.
He asked himself that those people did not dare to testify against him. At most, he was derelict in his duties. The officials should not touch him. They just issued an order and fined him a few months' salary.
However, just when he was about to resume his duties as the fantasy official, a chamberlain came to the palace.
No one knows what he said specifically, but the next day Wen Xuan submitted a letter to retire and return home, citing poor health.
The official family didn't try to persuade him to stay, and he didn't even give him a posthumous title, so he just agreed.
Zhao Xing did not participate in the entire process of thoroughly investigating the salt affairs, but he probably knew everything after it happened.
Zhao Xing has only one comment on this thorough investigation of salt affairs - it starts but ends.
It seems that there are many people dealing with it, but there are thousands of officials related to the court and salt affairs.
As a result, less than one-fifth of the order was processed. Except for a third-grade salt envoy, only two transfer envoys and a dozen deputy transfer envoys were moved.
The rest are officials with low official positions.
Zhao Xing knew that it was unrealistic to deal with all those officials, but those with high official positions did too little, and the deterrent effect was not great.
……
Qi Heng returned home from school, only to find that the atmosphere in the house was very wrong.
Having stopped a servant to inquire, he found out that the official issued a decree to reprimand his father today.
The servant doesn’t know the specific reason.
Knowing the news, Qi Heng asked about his father's whereabouts and hurried to the backyard.
(End of this chapter)