I'm the Farmgirl You Can't Mess With

Chapter 1283: Counterattack (2)

Editor: Atlas Studios

First, Mu Bowen’s memorial and essay secretly mocked Assistant Minister Lan for not being capable enough to be an official and blaming Qi Haoran for his weak will which led to his suicide attempt. In doing so, he successfully diverted the topic away from Qi Haoran.

Just as the courtiers were about to respond, Qi Xiuyuan quickly removed Assistant Minister Lan’s official title and even asked the Ministry of Official Personnel Affairs to reassess him. Although he did not say it explicitly, it was clear that he agreed with Mu Bowen’s point of view.

Hence, the next day, an old man went to the Court of Judicial Review to beat the drums and voice his grievances. He said that King Rong, Qi Haoran, had drawn pay without serving during the war against the Jin Dynasty last year. After the old man’s son had discovered that Qi Haoran had embezzled military supplies, the young man had been dragged to the front line and died in battle. Now, the old man had evidence that Qi Haoran had drawn pay without serving and embezzled military supplies.

The courtiers immediately requested the Emperor to let King Rong return to the capital, so that they could confront him.

Qi Xiuyuan flipped through the evidence submitted by the Court of Judicial Review and sneered. “It’s just two letters and there’s not even an account book. How can it be considered evidence? Let the Court of Judicial Review investigate thoroughly. We’ll wait for King Rong to submit a memorial to explain his side of the story.”

In other words, King Rong did not have to return to the capital.

The ministers below looked at each other and their hearts sank.

Although Qi Haoran would obstruct them while he was in the capital, he was still right under their noses, which meant they could quickly react to whatever he did. However, now that he had left the capital, it was not convenient for them to monitor him or deal with him. It was like trying to hit a cow from afar. No matter how hard they tried, they could not reach the other party.

It seemed that the “incriminating evidence” needed to be more specific.

Hence, the Court of Judicial Review quickly discovered an account book…

Fan Zijin was furious when he saw this. He flew into a rage and said, “I was the one who prepared the rations for the battle against the Jin. Instead of saying that King Rong is corrupt, it might be better to say that I’m corrupt. Why waste so much effort to create an account book!”

Fan Zijin sneered as he held the account book. “20,000 taels of gold is just 200,000 taels of supplies. Do you think King Rong is so poor that he would be interested in such a pittance? Go outside and ask around. Just his profits from the glass factory and watch factory alone are no less than a million taels every year. Why would he need to spend so much effort for a mere 20,000 taels of gold!”

The courtiers sneered and said, “Who would complain of having too much money? 200,000 taels is indeed not much considering King Rong’s assets, but to the soldiers at the border, that’s life-saving rations.”

“When you factor that into consideration, it makes King Rong’s actions even more sinister,” a minister continued.

“That’s right. Since he doesn’t lack money, why did he embezzle the soldiers’ hard-earned money?”

They were adamant that Qi Haoran was the one who did this.

With a sneer, Qi Xiuyuan said, “It’s normal for you to have doubts. Since that’s the case, why don’t you conduct a thorough investigation in the army and see if there are any other cases of people drawing pay without serving and embezzling rations?”

The courtiers were stunned. Wouldn’t this blow things up?

They only wanted to drag Qi Haoran down with them and did not want to implicate the entire Great Qi military. They hurriedly said, “Your Majesty, it takes a lot of manpower and resources to thoroughly investigate the entire army. Since there’s already evidence of King Rong’s corruption, why don’t we only investigate this matter thoroughly?”

Qi Xiuyuan smiled meaningfully. “That’s fine too. Let’s start with this.”

Although the Emperor had relented, the civil officials were still a little uneasy because they felt that the Emperor had agreed too easily.

The civil officials were puzzled, but the generals almost stared a hole in their bodies.

How could they only investigate King Rong?

Since they wanted to investigate King Rong’s corruption and bribery case, they naturally had to start with the people around him. There were also the inspectors who were in charge of rations dispatch at that time, the soldiers who escorted the rations, the logistics officers who recorded their entry into the warehouse, and so on. Then, they would investigate the posthouse army where the rations were docked. Little by little, almost the entire army was implicated.

Who knew how many people would ultimately be implicated?

While the innocent soldiers were at most worried that they would be implicated, the guilty ones were trembling in fear. They were eagerly thinking of a way to smooth things over.

It was impossible to prove King Rong guilty in the corruption case. Not to mention the Emperor, nobody in the military would believe it.

Everyone in the three armies knew that King Rong loved his soldiers like his children. What he hated the most were those who drew pay without serving and those who embezzled military supplies. Even if they were once his capable subordinates, once they were discovered, they would be dealt with according to the military rules.

Therefore, the generals could guess that the account book and documents were forged. Since they were forged, there would be a day when the truth would come to light. In order to end this matter as soon as possible, they could only clear King Rong’s name to prevent the Court of Judicial Review from investigating further.

Hence, before Qi Xiuyuan and Fan Zijin could make a move, the courtiers were already in chaos. The civil officials wanted to investigate this matter in depth so that they could forge evidence at every opportunity in order to prove that Qi Haoran was indeed guilty of corruption. However, the generals tried their best to stop them. The courtiers, who had originally joined forces to resist the revolution, were now in disagreement.

Qi Xiuyuan looked at Fan Zijin and sneered. “Your method is not bad. Now that there’s chaos among the officials, we can take this opportunity to eliminate some parasites in the army.”

Fan Zijin said, “It’s not chaotic enough. Right now, the army is no match for the civil servants. Thus, I want to hand the corruption evidence of several officials to the generals and let them use it to threaten the civil servants to give in.”

Qi Xiuyuan raised his eyebrows. “And then?”

The corners of Fan Zijin’s lips curled up. “Then, we’ll let them be dealt with by the law. Although we can’t wipe out all the vermin on both sides this time, we can get rid of quite a few of them. If Your Majesty is worried that there won’t be enough people serving the Imperial Court after this, just take this opportunity to open up the Imperial Grace Examinations.”

“And the reason?”

“The world has been unified. Now that the land territory in the north and west has been taken back, this is a good opportunity to show kindness to the people.”

Qi Xiuyuan smiled in satisfaction.

The two of them were still thinking about how to hand the evidence to the generals when the news that Qi Haoran had found a corrupt official in Ye County spread to the capital.

The corrupt official who was exposed was surnamed Cui. He wasnâ€TMt actually part of the same clan as the Cui family of Qinghe, but they shared the same surname—and more importantly, he had once been registered under their ancestral line. What really mattered, though, was that he came from the same hometown as Assistant Minister Lan.

Using Assistant Minister Lan, he had given several ministers in the Imperial Court many gifts.

The list of corrupt officials that Fan Zijin mentioned included Official Cui.

Hence, Fan Zijin took advantage of the situation and pushed the matter to the generals. Using them, by tracking those with connections to Official Cui, several few second-grade and third-grade ministers in the court were exposed.

Before the reform of the official system was carried out, the courtiers were already in chaos. Every day, the courtiers would attack each other in the court. With so much on their plate, they forgot about Qi Haoran who ought to be their priority.

Although the court was chaotic, Qi Xiuyuan was not angry at all. He handed the investigation of corrupt officials to the Court of Judicial Review and the Imperial Censorate to handle together, while he led the courtiers who were still focused on official matters to reform the official system.

Those opposed to the reform wanted to object, but with the ongoing internal strife, it was impossible for them to be as united as they had been at the beginning. In addition, Qi Haoran seemed to be addicted to inspecting and actually took incognito trips. If he found out that there were officials who were corrupted, he saw to it that they were exposed. But instead of interrogating them personally, he would only collect evidence and send it to a higher-ranking official. The official would then interrogate the culprit or escort him back to the capital for the Ministry of Justice to handle.

There were also courtiers who were unconvinced that he had interfered in the affairs of the provinces, but Qi Xiuyuan said, “Since Fourth Brother and I conquered Great Qi together, he has a share in this country, too. Now that his old injuries have relapsed, he can’t share my worries. If he can patrol the provinces when seeking out famous doctors and monitor if the officials are dutiful, I’ll be very relieved.”

’Aren’t you worried that he will collude with the provincial officials to replace you?’

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