The Vanished Tax Credits

The two went to see Mo Feichang, who was sitting under the old locust tree revising his poem. After hearing Yang Xu's purpose, he put down his brush and took out a blank warrant with the official seal already stamped from his sleeve and placed it on the table.

Xu Xian glanced down at the warrant; the ink on it had dried completely, and the date was yesterday.

He looked up at Mo Feichang, who had already picked up the poem again without raising his head.

"I wrote this yesterday, and you're only coming to pick it up today. You've wasted my whole day."

Yang Xu picked up the warrant, folded it, and put it in his pocket, his lips twitching slightly.

After he and Xu Xian walked out of the corridor, he muttered to himself, "How did the master know we were going to the warehouse today?"

Xu Xian didn't answer, because... he didn't know either.

...

The two men, carrying the warrant and a squad of Black Cavalry Guards, headed straight for the Ministry of Revenue's warehouse. The warehouse manager was a fat man in his fifties surnamed Ma. When he saw the Mo Feichang warrant in Yang Xu's hand, the fat on his face trembled three times, but he gritted his teeth and blocked the warehouse door, refusing to let them in.

"Lord Yang, the Ministry of Revenue's warehouses store tax revenue from the imperial court. According to the law..."

"Go beg your mother! According to the law, the Chief Inspector, acting on imperial orders, has the right to access all relevant documents when investigating a case!"

Yang Xu held the warrant up to two inches in front of Steward Ma. "This is Lord Mo's warrant. If you block it again, I will handcuff you for obstructing official business and send you to the inner palace of the Inspection Department for two days."

Thinking of the methods used by the Inspectorate's inner palace, Steward Ma's fat face twitched three times, and he stepped aside to let the door open.

After searching for a long time, Xu Xian finally found the warehouse entry slip from last October in a corner of the warehouse.

The order form was kept in a dusty wooden box. The paper was yellowed but the handwriting was clear—the date of entry, quantity, carrier's signature, and warehouse inspector's signature for each truckload of silver were all verifiable.

He spread the order sheet on the table and compared it line by line with the entry records brought out from the archives.

The first page is consistent.

Page two, same.

He stopped when he turned to the page for October.

The order form says twelve carriages.

The warehouse entry record says ten truckloads. No.

It was a typo—the ink on the "+" in the inventory record was newer than the other numbers, the ink was bright instead of gray, and you could faintly see scratches of ink in the blank space next to it.

Someone changed "twelve" to "ten".

The scratches were made with a blade, and they weren't completely clean; you can still see some residual ink when you look at it from the side.

Xu Xian placed the two records side by side on the table and pointed to the altered number in the row of numbers, saying to Yang Xu, "There's news."

Yang Xu bent down and looked for a few moments, then straightened up and beckoned to Steward Ma to come over and take a look.

  

After Steward Ma came over to take a look, the fat on his face stopped jiggling, and he froze on the spot, sweat starting to bead on his forehead.

"Manager Ma, your warehouse receipts show twelve cartloads, but the archives record shows ten. Two cartloads are missing. As the warehouse manager, where did these two cartloads of silver go?"

Steward Ma swallowed hard, then raised his sleeve to wipe the sweat from his brow.

"I don't know, I really don't know! I'm just in charge of the warehouse; the inventory records aren't under my jurisdiction. They're collected by the Ministry of Revenue." Xu pressed for details about who was collecting the records, and Manager Ma simply said three words:

Ji Langzhong.

Upon hearing this name, Xu Xian's mind drifted to the image of the thin, wiry doctor, and he seemed to ponder something.

Yang Xu ordered the Black Cavalry Guards to take Steward Ma back to make a statement, while he and Xu Xian took the two records and left the warehouse.

On the way back, Yang Xu rode ahead on horseback, remaining silent for most of the journey. When they were almost at the headquarters, he suddenly spoke.

"Xu Xian, I used to think you were promoted because of the princess. A lowly official in a border town, you just happened to solve a case involving an envoy, and then the princess praised you in court. Anyone would think you were just lucky. But now it seems..."

He chuckled, "We've struck gold that you got into the headquarters. I've been investigating this case for days without finding anything, but you've uncovered all the evidence in just two days."

Xu Xian smiled politely, "Lord Yang, you flatter me. When I was at Iron Gate Pass..."

"I know, I know, your adoptive father knows everything, he teaches everything..."

Yang Xu raised his hand to stop him, then slapped Xu Xian on the shoulder.

"Everyone has secrets, that's normal. If you don't tell me, I won't ask. You don't need to address me as 'subordinate' anymore. You decide how to proceed with the tax case investigation."

The slap was quite forceful; the wound on Xu Xian's left arm was jolted by the impact.

"Thank you very much, sir."

...

When the two returned to the headquarters, they happened to be there when the people they had sent out "invited" Ji Feng, the secretary of the Ministry of Revenue's Department of Finance, to the General Headquarters for questioning.

Upon entering the chief's room, Ji Feng sat in a chair with his hands on his knees and his back ramrod straight.

Xu poured him a cup of hot tea and placed it in front of him. He thanked him, picked it up to drink, but his hand seemed to have a mind of its own.

Xu Xian watched him tremble for nearly ten breaths before finally speaking.

"Lord Ji, someone changed the tax silver deposit record from twelve cartloads to ten cartloads last October. The person who changed the record used a razor blade, and it was scraped clean enough, but the ink marks are still there."

"You are the Director of the Revenue Department, and the clerks under your command prepared the deposit records. I would like to ask Lord Ji a question—when did you learn of this matter?"

Ji Feng put the teacup back on the table, and the lid slid off, hit the table, and spun twice before stopping.

He looked down at his trembling fingers, his lips moved slightly but then tightened again, and finally he shook his head.

Xu Xian didn't press him. He turned around and looked at Yang Xu, who was waiting in the corridor.

"Ji Feng is definitely suspicious, but let's not torture him yet, sir. Let's go see his family first."

Yang Xu was startled, then immediately understood.

"You mean..."

Xu nodded. "I guess that's the case."

"it is good."

Yang Xu immediately dispatched Liu Shan with three Black Cavalry Guards to Ji Feng's residence in the east of the city.

Liu Shan's search turned into failure; the gates of the Ji residence were locked, and weeds had grown in the yard.

He knocked on doors in the alley and asked at the third house. An old woman selling tofu said that Madam Ji had moved to a place called Willow Lane in the east of the city a month ago with her children. When she left, her eyes were red from crying.

Liu Shan found the house in Willow Lane, left two people to keep watch at the entrance of the lane, and rode back quickly to report.

Xu Xian compared the moving date with the approximate date altered on the tax silver transportation record and discovered that Ji Feng's family had already been detained before the tax silver even arrived in the capital.

After hearing this, Yang Xu felt a chill run down his spine.

"They took control of Ji Feng's entire family before the tax money scandal broke out, which means they first controlled Ji Feng's family to force him to submit. But Ji Feng is a fifth-rank official; who could do such a thing in the capital?"

"You can count them on one hand."

Xu Xian narrowed his eyes slightly, two words flashing through his mind, but he didn't say them aloud.

Yang Xu also realized the seriousness of the problem and remained silent for a while before asking, "Should we review Ji Feng's case again?"

"Interrogating him is useless."

Xu Xian peeked through the crack in the door at Ji Feng, who was still trembling inside the interrogation room.

"His family is being held captive. If they say a single word, their entire family will be executed. To get him to talk, we must first rescue his family. Lord Yang, you go to Jingzhou Post Station to check the transport routes, and I will stay in the capital to investigate his family. We will split up."

"OK."

Yang Xu picked up the riding crop from the table, turned, and left. But as he reached the door, he turned back and added,

"Leave Jingzhou to me. As for the capital... be careful. The people behind this can arrange an assassination once at Taibai Tower, and they can arrange a second one."

Xu nodded. "Don't worry."

...

Seven days later, Yang Xu led twenty Black Cavalry Guards to Jingzhou Post Station at breakneck speed.

Upon arriving at the post station, Yang Xu dismounted and pushed open the gate, ordering someone to summon the newly arrived postmaster, a lean man in his forties whose eyes darted around rapidly as he spoke.

"Bring me the tax and banking statements from the past three years; I need to see them."

"Your Excellency, I have none."

Yang Xu had just taken a sip of tea when he suddenly looked up. "No? This isn't your responsibility?"

"It is under my jurisdiction, but I am a newcomer, having been here for less than ten days. The original team has all been transferred, and their files have been taken away as well."

Yang Xu frowned. "Who issued the transfer order?"

"Eunuch Gao from the Imperial Household Department."

Yang Xu slammed his fist on the counter, sending dust flying. "That spineless old dog..."

He suddenly realized that the Imperial Household Department was involved in this matter, which implicated the palace. None of the nobles in the palace were people he could afford to offend!

If influential people were pulling the strings behind the scenes, then the Ji Feng family's situation would make sense.

Thinking of this, a chill ran down his spine, and he couldn't help but shiver.