Shortly after dawn, almost all civil and military officials from Jiangzhou rushed to the prefectural office and gathered in the hall of the prefectural office. They all listened to Sun Tu calmly and calmly explaining the "truth" that happened last night:

"I had already fallen asleep last night, but in my dream I met a golden armored god warned me that a thief would be unfavorable to the military granary and suddenly woke up. Because of my uneasiness, I asked two brothers to bring weapons to the granary to find out what happened.

"I thought it was just a weird dream, but when we arrived near the granary, we really saw three figures in the warehouse, secretly not knowing what they were doing. Just as we were trying to come forward to ask, they actually set fire, not only throwing the fire broker into the account room, but also trying to set fire to the fire.

"We would never sit by and watch them do such a thing, so we quickly stepped forward to stop them. As a result, those people were guilty and turned around and ran away. We shot them all after we failed to shout, but we never thought that the person in charge was Qi Kun and Qi Gu..." Speaking of this, Sun Tu even showed a hint of confusion on his face, and he truly achieved the seven emotions.

In fact, all the officials present could guess that his words were mostly false. There was no such thing as a warning to others in the world. It must be that he had expected that Qi Kun would set fire to the evidence at the desperate situation, so he would ambush out of the granary to take the opportunity to start. However, no one, including Cai Dezhang, could point out this point, because things became more and more complicated.

In the past two days, the military rations have been well known in the Jiangzhou officialdom. Many people are vested interests and are all guilty. How could they dare to jump out at this time to speak for Qi Kun, who has died and is destined to take the blame? So they rushed over immediately, and the most important thing was to save their own family.

Cai Dezhang looked at Sun Tu with complicated eyes. It was not until then that he realized that he was still underestimating the courage and means of the young man. This time, even he fell into the calculations of this subordinate military officer.

He also clearly remembered a few days ago, when Sun Tu found out the inside story of the granary corruption, many officials from the state city came to plead with him. After putting pressure, Sun Tu said this: "The prefect forgives the crime. In fact, the subordinates have no intention of pursuing this matter, and they dare not offend all the officials in the city for this little thing."

"But now that things have come to this point, you have offended everyone. Can you still withdraw at this time?" Cai Dezhang said with a dark face. This time he was under great pressure. Those officials were all the officials he worked hard to win over and make friends with during his tenure in Jiangzhou. He didn't want them to make any mistakes.

However, Sun Tu was not panicked and continued: "The Xiaguan did all this just to make the village soldiers believe that I have the determination to seek justice for them. They should not care too much about whether they can get all the food back. So the Xiaguan thought there was room for remedy for this matter."

"But what is the room?"

"The only things that are concerned about now are those books. If Qi Kun sets a fire to burn them all, there is no evidence to conclude that someone is greedy for military rations. At that time, he will be convicted of being in prison at most, and even if he puts the charges on the heads of some people below, he will have no worries."

Sun Tu immediately woke up Cai Jiu because there were so many officials in the Song Dynasty. Relying on the ancestral teachings of not killing scholars and officials, there were many greedy officials in a century. When their greed became increasingly important and even could not be covered up, these people would set fire torches and burn the relevant evidence before the imperial commissioner arrived to investigate the case. If there was no evidence in this way, even the court could only slapped them, but could not truly convict them.

It was precisely because he knew that such methods were mostly done by people and saw that Sun Tu was sincere and credible that Cai Jiufang adopted this proposal and secretly mentioned Qi Kun with the article "Yueyang Tower Inscription" and instigated him to set fire to destroy the account book and other relevant evidence, so as to eliminate future troubles.

But who would have thought that this was a trap set by Sun Tu early in the morning. Qi Kun, who set fire, died under his arrow, and the crime was even more serious - not only was he taken on the spot to destroy evidence, but he also had a serious crime of burning military rations. Now no one can excuse him.

Cai Jiu was naturally angry about Sun Tu's behavior of keeping himself in the dark and even pushing Qi Kun to death with his own mouth, but he couldn't do it at this time. He just looked at Sun Tu with a bad look: "Sun Tuanlian, although what you said makes sense, the truth cannot be determined by your family's words."

"The officials understand." Sun Tu did not feel panic because of this bad attitude, and said solemnly: "But the officials think that people may lie, but the evidence will definitely not be."

"What are your so-called evidence?"

"It's already clear why Qi Kun set fire. As a granary manager, he used his power to seize personal gains and even greedy military rations, he had been found through accounts by his subordinates, so he thought of setting fires once and for all. However, although he could burn these accounts, he could not hide his wealth. Therefore, as long as the prefect sent someone to confiscate his house, he would definitely be able to convict him!"

Before Taishou Cai could react, Yuan Wang, who was standing aside, had already spoken first: "Prefect, the officials thought that what Sun Tuanlian said was quite reasonable. As long as it was found out that Qi Kun was indeed greedy, it would be reasonable that he took the risk of setting fire to burn the account book when his crime was about to be exposed. Because in this way, even if the court sent people to investigate it seriously, it might not be possible to find out the bad situation..." When he said the last sentence, he deliberately glanced at the other officials present.

These already worried officials in Jiangzhou immediately understood and knew that Yuan Tuan wanted to push all the charges onto a small ninth-rank official. Even someone attached themselves: "The prefect, the subordinate officials also thought that they had to search Qi Kun's house to distinguish right from wrong."

Then everyone nodded and followed: "The official agreed..."

Cai Jiu didn't know what these people were thinking, which made him look at Sun Tu again. The young man was really thoughtful. He actually thought of such a best-in-one way to find out the case and ensure that he would not involve other officials. He naturally would not take it too seriously about only sacrificing a ninth-rank official, so he immediately said, "Since that's the case, then send someone to Qi Kun's house to search carefully. This official wants to see how much money and money he has greedy for the nine-rank official over the years!"

Until Prefect Cai issued this order, Sun Tu's last doubts completely dissipated and he took the opportunity to speak: "The officials have another matter to report to the prefect. Since the granary, the granary has already owed the village soldiers three months of money and food. So if he can really find out his crime, he hopes that the prefect can allocate the money and food he owed to the military camp as soon as possible to safeguard the soldiers, so that the soldiers and civilians in the city can be grateful for the prefect's strictness and kindness." In fact, this is the result that Sun Tu really wants to get during his busy life.

Cai Jiu looked at him deeply again, and then said, "As long as he can really pick up the money and food he has greedy from Qi Kun's house, I will make the decision for those rural soldiers."

"The officials thanked the prefect on behalf of the soldiers in the village." Sun Tu hurriedly thanked him again. He knew that this was done and he could finally give the hundreds of soldiers in his army a satisfactory explanation.

The search for Qi's family was quickly unfolded. I didn't know if I didn't copy it. I really scared many people after copying it.

Although Qi Kun is just a small ninth-rank official who is in charge of a warehouse with only a few military rations and weapons, he seems to have little power, but with the joint "work" of his three generations, he has greedy hundreds of thousands of dollars in this position.

The Qi family, which seemed inconspicuous, only found that there was another world inside as soon as he entered the gate. He had already bought all the surrounding houses, and then opened them into a huge house that was no faster than the prefect of Cai Jiu. Among them, there were as many wives and concubines as many as ten, and there were even more servants and servants, and they were all slaves who sold themselves to the family.

When the officials who were ordered to search the Qi family forcibly opened several separate warehouses, they found that there were thousands of grains inside. As for gold, silver, money, house deeds, land deeds, etc., they only had a quick estimate, and it was less than 500,000 guan, which was almost as much as the money and grain figures in the warehouse in Jiangzhou.

Seeing the officers and soldiers pulling out the food and gold and silver in a caravan, the people in the city were stunned, and then they scolded Qi Kun for being greedy, which was really worthy of death.

Even Cai Jiu was stunned for a while after seeing the specific numbers reported, and then a sentence burst out from his teeth: "This kind of giant worm in the country should really be killed. No wonder Sun Tu found out his flaws, he would set fire at all costs. It would not be an exaggeration to kill his entire family for such a crime!"

Then, Cai Jiu was furious and ordered Qi Kun to be exposed for three days to serve as a warning to You. At the same time, he was guilty of all the people in his family. The man was sent to the military service, and the woman was sent directly to the local Jiaofangsi. As for the money seized from the Qi family, except for some of the money that was sent to the military camp where Sun Tu was located to offset the military rations and pays owed before, the others were also charged into the warehousing of the state yamen. As for where the money and food would be used, it was not something ordinary people could know.

When the final result of the Qi family reached Sun Tu's ears, he was really surprised. He was not sorry for the Qi family's ending. Although they may be innocent, it doesn't matter if they have gained a wealth and honor far beyond ordinary people because of Qi Kun. After all, everything comes at a price.

What really surprised him was that a small ninth-rank miscellaneous official in Jiangzhou City actually accumulated hundreds of thousands of yuan in property based on the management of his grandparents and grandchildren. This shows how serious the officialdom in the Song Dynasty is now. It is not an exaggeration to say that it is terminally ill.

Half of the people in the world were still hungry and cold, and when many soldiers were helpless about the money and food they deserved, those officials with power were already full of food. Even a ninth rank miscellaneous official could do this, what about those high-ranking officials in the court?
Chapter completed!