First-rank palace maid Su Jixiang

Chapter 499 Can’t we kill Xie Yingfeng this time?

"Yes." Cui Yushan said.

"Your Majesty, these items all originated from a market in the north," Cui Yushan continued. "This market was jointly established by the wife of the Zhenbei Marquis and Xie Yingfeng, the acting governor of Linchuan. I cannot trace the origin of these items; it's as if they appeared out of thin air. Some say they originated from various northern countries, but I have spent the past few years visiting many places, and I can now conclude that these items were produced by the wife of the Zhenbei Marquis!"

Over the years, Cui Yushan has watched the rapid changes in the north, and he feels both surprised and frightened.

"Are you talking about the palace maid who can cook? The one in the deposed emperor's imperial kitchen?" Emperor Longchang frowned and thought for a while. He was the one who arranged the marriage for Wei Ling's wife, and he was referring to a little palace maid in the deposed emperor's imperial kitchen.

He was deeply impressed by the palace maid.

After all, she was the first one who dared to ask him to pardon the deposed emperor's former palace maids!

Moreover, the palace maid's cooking skills were indeed very high. When he entered the palace, he had eaten a meal made by her, which was indeed unique. Even after being the emperor for so many years, he still remembered her cooking skills clearly.

Emperor Longchang was determined to be a wise ruler, so even though he missed the meal that Su Jixiang made all these years, he kept it to himself and would not say it out loud, let alone summon Su Jixiang to the palace to make another meal, because in Emperor Longchang's eyes, such an action would be no different from that of a tyrant.

"Can she make these things?" Emperor Longchang asked with a frown, pointing at the bottles, jars and strange gadgets on the table.

"It's not just these things," Cui Yushan replied, "Even the most famous Colorful Butterfly Pavilion in the North was designed by her. Now, these Colorful Butterfly Pavilions have opened in all the counties in the North, and business is booming."

Emperor Longchang had also heard of Caidiexuan. He heard that there was also one opened in the capital and that business was also very good.

"I didn't expect she was such a talented person!" Emperor Longchang said slowly.

"Your Majesty, these businesses are spread across the northern lands, generating countless taels of silver each year," Cui Yushan continued hurriedly. "Even the market she opened to the northern nations for border trade generates a considerable amount of silver. Your Majesty, these are all your tax revenues! The Marquis of Zhenbei embezzled all of this, completely concealing it from you!"

Emperor Longchang remained silent.

Wei Ling once wrote a letter to the emperor about opening up border trade. He said that he wanted to continue the previous practice and asked him if he could agree to use the money obtained to build city walls and roads in the north.

Emperor Longchang could not afford to repair the city walls and roads in the north at that time, so he approved this matter.

But he thought that the quorum market only sold some local products, so how much tax silver could it earn?

"How much tax do you think can be collected from border trade every year?" Emperor Longchang frowned and looked at Cui Yushan.

Cui Yushan quickly pulled out a booklet he had prepared. "Your Majesty, please review this. I've been lurking in the market for years, calculating the daily turnover of carriages carrying goods. This has been three years, and each year has increased. This past year, the tax revenue has reached three million taels!"

Three million taels?!

Emperor Longchang's eyebrows jumped involuntarily. He took the booklet presented by Cui Yushan, opened it and looked at it carefully.

As expected, tax revenue has been increasing year by year for the past three years. In the first year, it was only about 500,000 taels, in the second year it was over 2 million taels, and in the third year it was another 1 million taels. In these three years, the tax revenue from the Beidi market alone has reached 5.5 million taels!

Five and a half million taels! This is the total amount he has spent on disaster relief over the years!

If he had taken back the tax back then...

"Your Majesty, the Marquis of Zhenbei is so greedy. All this money went into the Linchuan County Treasury, which is equivalent to going into his private pocket!" Cui Yushan deliberately concealed the construction status of the north in recent years, and was only focused on reporting the evil deeds of Wei Ling and Xie Yingfeng.

In the past few years, he also wanted to get involved in the market and other places, but Xie Yingfeng and Wei Ling were determined to exclude him. Apart from managing their own iron mine, he could not get involved in other things at all!

This made him furious. Seeing that Linchuan was getting better and better, the houses were getting more and more beautiful, and the roads were getting neater and neater, Linchuan was as beautiful as a garden. He was so angry.

"They also set up a real estate project," Cui Yushan continued. "This is the silver I've collected from reselling land over the years. Although I can't see County Magistrate Xie Yingfeng's accounts, these are the evidence I've quietly collected over the years in the North. I believe County Magistrate Xie Yingfeng's accounts are no less than a lot!"

After saying that, he took out another account book and handed it to Emperor Longchang.

"Real estate?" Emperor Longchang felt very unfamiliar when he heard the name.

"They prepared some of Linchuan's wasteland for planning." Cui Yushan explained to Emperor Longchang what he had seen and heard in Linchuan. "For example, if the city needed to expand, they would move some of the best schools and clinics to the expanded area. They paid to renovate the roads, and then sold the planned areas on both sides of the roads to the wealthy merchants in Linchuan, who used them to build new shops and houses. The renovated houses were then sold for money. All the money went into the pockets of the County Magistrate's Office. Linchuan's city area has tripled in size in recent years, and the County Magistrate's Office has made a fortune from this!"

Emperor Longchang carefully looked at the account book that Cui Yushan brought. When he saw the data Cui Yushan had compiled at the back, his eyes widened.

"Are your numbers accurate?" Emperor Longchang asked, pointing to the last string of numbers.

Cui Yushan was stunned for a moment. "Your Majesty, it's not very accurate, but it's not too much. After all, the Marquis of Zhenbei and the Deputy County Magistrate did all these things behind my back. I can only make a rough estimate based on what's on the market. Who knows what other shady deals they're carrying out behind the scenes?"

According to Cui Yushan’s statistics, the revenue from a so-called real estate in the past three years is two to three thousand taels of silver?

This... The total annual income of the entire Daxie Dynasty is only more than 5,000 taels of silver. This small city-county in Linchuan in the north has earned two or three thousand taels of silver for three consecutive years just by expanding the urban area?

This made Emperor Longchang feel as if thousands of ants were crawling across his heart, making him extremely itchy!

What does Wei Ling want to do?

Is he hiding so much money to rebel?

"Send Xie Yingfeng to the palace!" Emperor Longchang's face darkened. He said to the eunuch beside him.

"Come with me to the study," Emperor Longchang said to Cui Yushan. "I want to hear Xie Yingfeng's explanation for all this!"

"Yes!" Seeing a dark look on Emperor Longchang's face, Cui Yushan was delighted!

Can't we kill Xie Yingfeng this time?!