If this kind of thing is exposed, it will definitely shock the entire city, and even the province may be shocked.
But why has it not been exposed until now, and people still need to conduct secret investigations to find out? It can be seen from this that the water inside must be very deep.
The first time Su Ziji heard this, his expression changed.
"I never expected that a small, seemingly ordinary Shun'an Mansion would actually have so many black mines and gold mines."
"This matter is beyond my expectation. To be able to hide this matter until now cannot be a private handiwork. There must be some government influence."
"Qi Hongxin has just taken office, and he has to go to the province to cry and beg in order to get the money. He must not know this."
"Before he arrived, he must have carefully checked the accounts and the minerals in the government. If he could hide this from this veteran official who has been the prefect for more than ten years, there must be more than one or two officials involved in this matter."
Su Ziji thought thoughtfully when he thought about being arrested along with several officials including the former prefect because of Shun'an Mansion's deficit of 700,000 taels.
"The former prefect must have something to do with these black mines. No, the former prefect alone may not be able to cover up the whole thing with one hand. I'm afraid there are other ways."
Even if he couldn't guess, Su Ziji still couldn't help but admire the boldness of these people to die for money.
"This dynasty allows private mining, but gold and silver are not among them. It is the exclusive domain of the imperial court. Private mining of gold mines carries extremely severe penalties, and the crime is no less than treason."
"After all, if private individuals, especially local officials, control gold mines, it is easy for them to privately raise troops and support themselves. This is something that the dynasty that has just founded the country more than 30 years ago cannot tolerate. Once caught, the worst case scenario may be execution without delay."
"However, the nature of gold mines is special. The 500 taels of gold per year are actually only 5,000 taels of silver. If you have the position of prefect, if you have no other ideas, why would you need to take such a desperate risk?"
"Unless..." Su Ziji's eyelids twitched slightly as he thought of a possibility.
When he looked up at Cen Rubai, the other party also looked at him at the same time. The two looked at each other, and Cen Rubai lowered his voice and said: "But the ownership of the mine owners is not concentrated. Except for a small number of gentry, it is monopolized by the three major gangs."
"They are the Longhu Gang, the Xinyi Gang, and the Jianghe Gang."
Cen Rubei said: "But after my investigation, I found that these three gangs seem to be controlled by someone."
"King of Qi or King of Shu?" Su Ziji asked his answer.
Cen Rubai looked at Su Ziji with surprise and shook his head: "It may be King Qi, but King Qi's people should be gentry instead of directly using the three major gangs."
The gang is actually the lowest level of society, and it is unlikely that the king of Qi will be the king of Shu.
"However, there should be deep connections with the government. The arrested prefect and several officials should also be involved, but they should only play a cover-up role in this matter. In fact, those who directly control the gold mine and the mine
, but a gang."
"So, even if a few officials are arrested, except for the fact that there may have been trouble at the beginning, but it soon calmed down, it will not have any real impact. Even because the mining is on the right track, it can go into the dark, and it will be even more hidden in the future.
.”
If they hadn't arrived at Shun'an Mansion at this juncture, and the young master had specially ordered the Jianghu people to investigate carefully, it would have been impossible to discover this matter.
Cen Rubai lowered his eyes and couldn't help but wonder, could this be the so-called will of God?
"That's right!" Cen Rubai added with a solemn expression: "I have personally been to the gold mine. Although I had the help of friends, I was almost discovered. I suspect that among these three major gangs, there are monsters hiding among them."
"Monster clan?" Su Zi paused with his hands and frowned slightly.
Cen Rubai nodded: "Yes, they almost found me. The friend who took me there that day was very powerful. Without his help, I wouldn't have been able to escape smoothly."
"Monster clan?" Su Ziji had a flash of inspiration, stood up, walked continuously, and suddenly stopped, thinking thoughtfully, this made sense.