Jiapingguan Chronicle

Chapter 2269 No More Regrets 16.0

"Nothing at all?"

Seeing Mr. Jiang nod firmly, Shen Cha, Shen Haolin and Xiao Fengqi looked at each other, and an expression of impossibility was written all over their faces.

"How could this happen? This shouldn't happen!"

"This is quite common." Seeing that all the children were looking at him, Qin Zheng knocked on the table. "Many secretive transactions, especially those that cannot be seen in public, usually use this method. For example, the case of the salt administration is not something that can be seen in public, so using a pseudonym or borrowing someone else's name to record it in the register is also a common method."

"Should this also be considered a false account?"

"Not really." Qin Zheng shook his head gently. "In such a situation, the buyer and seller have usually agreed on it. For example, if the buyer or seller does not want to be exposed at the same time or one of them does not want to be exposed, then they will make up or borrow one or more unrelated names. They know who these fake names or borrowed names correspond to, but outsiders have no idea. Of course, in addition to the names being made up or borrowed, the real content of the transaction will also be covered up. For example, private salt may be written as meat trading or something. Even if you get the real account books, without another book to decipher the code, you will not be able to understand what those account books are about." He looked at Mr. Jiang, "Is that right?"

"That's right!" Mr. Jiang nodded. "In fact, we delayed for so long in Jiangning Prefecture, giving them so much time to intercept us, and that's why we suffered this loss. Xiaonan, Senior Li and I didn't know the ins and outs of this, so we didn't know how to crack the real account book when we got it early. It was only later that we found out that there was a secret book for cracking the codewords after we got on the wall of the Yao family and listened to their conversations behind their backs. This secret book was very difficult to find, and it took a long time to find it in the secret room of the Yao family's master bedroom. But the Yao family still had a backup plan. They only cracked the content of the transaction, but we still don't know some of the real buyers and sellers."

"Those families that have nothing to do with the Yao family?" Shen Cha thought for a moment, "Are there really no problems with their account books? Are all their incomes well documented?"

"We checked every item at that time, and there was no problem at all. However, now that I think about it," Mr. Jiang touched his chin, "it seems that these merchants have items from the Western Regions and Japan in their homes. We didn't pay attention to it at that time, but..."

"Second Grandfather means that these merchants who claim to have no connection with the Yao family have things from the Western Regions or the Japanese in their homes?"

"Yes!" Mr. Jiang nodded. "We didn't doubt it at the time. After all, at that time, who didn't have one or several Western or Japanese ornaments if they had a little money at home?"

"Ah? Every family has one? Why?" Shen Cha looked at Mr. Jiang, then at Qin Zheng and Yan Bo curiously, "Is it some new trend?"

"Yes!" Qin Zheng and Yan Bo nodded at the same time. "Things from the Western Regions were all the rage at the time, and the Japanese also had a lot of peculiarly shaped ornaments, which were liked by many people. But it was only for a year or so, and soon there were other new favorites to replace them."

"If that's the case, it's normal that we can't detect the trick, but it doesn't necessarily mean there's something fishy going on." Shen Cha tilted her head and looked at Second Master Jiang, "Second Master, did you find something wrong here?"

"I didn't notice it at the time, but now that I think about it, there seems to be something wrong." Master Jiang touched his chin and recalled, "The decorations of these families have many similarities, and there are quite a few that are exactly the same. Generally speaking, even merchants don't want to use the same things as other families, right?" "Yes!" Shen Cha nodded, "Even if things from the Western Regions or the Japanese are all the rage, there shouldn't be many that can be made exactly the same. If these families have the same decorations and they are all placed in very conspicuous places, then there is a big problem."

"Also, each of their families had a screen, which I found very strange at the time. For example, the Zhao family's screen could be paired with the Li family's, and the Sun family's could be paired with the Zhu family's. These were all from the Western Regions. At the time, I didn't know much about Western things, so I asked Xiaonan if it was a bit strange to pair them with other people's screens. Xiaonan said that the way of displaying things in the Western Regions is different from ours. They don't pay much attention to these things. They can be used individually or together. There are no special requirements."

"That's true." Qin Zheng nodded to Mr. Jiang Er. "We are used to displaying things in pairs, and they must be complete sets, but they don't have this habit. They do have things in pairs, but most of them are sold and displayed individually. Later, after they arrived in Daxia, they found that this can be displayed in pairs. Because of this, individual ornaments are cheaper, and a pair is much more expensive than a single one."

"Isn't this as it should be? One bottle costs two taels of silver, so two bottles would cost four taels!" Merlin spread his hands, "This isn't expensive!"

"Master definitely didn't mean this calculation." Shen Cha chuckled, "Then the pair would probably cost eight or twelve taels, or even more."

"Xiao Cha is right." Qin Zheng nodded gently. "Hu merchants are not kind people. The word 'scoundrel' is the most reasonable to describe them. Therefore, just to have one or two things from the Western Regions at home, many people will not spend so much money to buy a pair of ornaments. They usually choose a single ornament with a more suitable price."

"So that's how it is." Shen Cha nodded and looked at Mr. Jiang Er. "If that's the explanation, there shouldn't be any problem, right?"

"If that was all, I wouldn't have said anything." Mr. Jiang smiled. "I had some doubts at the time, so I went to ask all the Hu merchants in Jiangning Prefecture, and found out that these ornaments were not sold to them by Hu merchants. Those Hu merchants said that such good things were not something they could get. But at that time, the matter of the salt administration was the most important, so I was just curious and didn't investigate further. Now that I think about it, there are many things that are wrong. They are all small merchants, and some of them do business that is not conspicuous. How could they have good things that even Hu merchants can't get? If there were only one or two, it would make sense, but there are several of them, isn't there a problem?"

"Although they had no business or financial dealings with the Yao family, their names were on the Yao family's black business account books."

Shen Haolin touched his nose, exchanged glances with Shen Cha, and then looked at Xiao Fengqi opposite him. The three of them nodded at the same time.

"This is what you are."

"Second Grandfather, could you please write down the names of these families for us? We can send someone to Jiangnan to check. Who knows, we might get some unexpected gains!"