The Second Master of the Red Chamber

Chapter 472 Dazzling Wealth
Zhao's house was brightly lit, and the search of the house was still going on.

"My lord, the brothers have searched almost the entire Zhao family. Following the instructions of your lord, except for those things that are not easy to move and keep them for the time being, the other valuable things of the Zhao family are basically here."

In the hall, Zhao Cheng, a hundred households of Jinyiwei, stepped forward and reported to Jia Lian.

Jia Lian put down the Zhao family's previous salt tax accounts in his hand, and glanced at the boxes and cages in the compound that were already full.As expected of Jin Yiwei, who is famous for house raids, he is a professional in house raids, and he finished the matter in such a short time.

After approvingly looking at Zhao Cheng, Jia Lian walked down the stairs slowly to look at the belongings.

Gold and silver jewellery, antique calligraphy and paintings, and all kinds of precious objects are all available, filling hundreds of boxes and cages. With so many belongings piled up together, the entire spacious compound is full of wealth at once.

But looking at it, Jia Lian frowned slightly.

Except for those jewelry and antiques that are not easy to value in a short period of time, at a glance, the real gold and silver are much less than he imagined.

In order to successfully complete the task assigned by the emperor, Jia Lian also spent a lot of thought on this trip.There are more than [-] salt merchants in Yangzhou, needless to say about the dozen or so small ones, at least he has a relatively clear understanding of each of the seven major salt merchants.

Although the Zhao family's momentum is at the back of the seven, it is one of the longest-standing salt merchants among all the salt merchants.Long before Yangzhou was established as the "salt capital" by the imperial court, the Zhao family had already established a foothold in the salt industry.

Counting it, at least thirty years.

Even if there have been ups and downs during the period, it is reasonable to have accumulated unimaginable wealth in the salt industry for so many years.

"You guys, briefly click on the gold and silver guys, and the silver tickets."

Liu Xianglian, Zhao'er and other cronies got the order and immediately started counting. After a long time, they made a simple calculation, and Liu Xianglian replied: "My lord, according to the counting by my subordinates, the gold ones are about five hundred catties, and the silver ones are about 2 catties in total." Eight boxes, about [-] jin, and gold and silver notes, a total of more than [-] taels."

Five hundred catties of gold is converted to about 10 taels of silver, and four thousand catties of silver is converted to more than 6 taels.

To be honest, if it was placed in any noble family in the middle of the capital, it would be considered very rich if they could confiscate so much gold and silver from their homes.

For example, in the current Rongguo Mansion, if one ransacks the house, as long as his yard is excluded, all the rest, including Jiamu's yard and warehouses, may only be able to copy so many gold and silver guys.

However, as one of the great salt merchants in Yangzhou with a long history, it seems a bit unscientific that the family can only copy more than [-] taels of gold and silver.Moreover, Jia Lian could tell at a glance that most of those golden guys were just women's gold and silver jewelry!
The actual gold ingots and silver ingots are much less.

So Jia Lian turned to look at Zhao Cheng and asked, "Did you not find the bank of the Zhao family?"

Hearing this, Zhao Cheng didn't understand that Jia Lian felt that there were not enough things copied out, so he quickly explained: "Your Excellency is aware, the warehouse that the villain personally brought people in...don't dare to lie to Your Excellency, then there are indeed only these things in the Zhao family's warehouse. , all the younger ones have moved out, this point, brothers Zhao Sheng and the others, can testify for the humble job, the humble job has absolutely not concealed from the adults."

Knowing that Jia Lian was going to raid the Zhao family, Zhao Cheng volunteered to take on the job, because Jin Yiwei, as the emperor's pro-army, did have a mature system for raiding the house.

Including how to copy the inside and outside of a house from top to bottom, including how to prevent the brothers below from hiding and taking it privately, these are all customary.He also asked Zhao Sheng and others to go to the warehouse with him on the grounds of teaching Zhao Sheng and others the tricks of copying the house, in order to let Jia Lian feel at ease with him.

But he was worrying too much, Jia Lian didn't suspect that he was hiding something.There are dozens of Jinyiwei in total, even if everyone fills up their pockets, how much can they fit in?

"This Zhao family is a well-known big salt merchant, but they are so poor. I thought they could make a lot of real money."

Jia Lian muttered and shook his head.

The people around looked at their lord speechlessly.

This is called poor...

Looking at the wealth in this yard, it is worth at least a few 10 taels of silver, right?This does not include the Zhao family's house, manor, and other properties. Maybe those are the big heads of the Zhao family!
So roughly calculated, there should be millions of family assets, right?If this is called being poor, the other rich and noble families in the world will be ashamed to death.

After all, knowing that my adults have high vision, no one dares to say anything.But Zhao Cheng said solemnly: "Xiaozhi also thinks what the adults said is true. I have been in Jinyiwei for almost ten years, and I have copied many criminals with the adults above, and I think I have some experience.

Generally, the family property cannot be copied by ransacking the house. Either these people did not keep all the family property at home, but hid it in other places, or they received the news in advance and transferred the family property to hide it. "

After hearing Zhao Cheng's words, Jia Lian thought about it.Before tonight, the Zhao family would never have thought that he would bring soldiers to ransack the house, so the family property should not be transferred in advance.

From this point of view, either he had a high opinion of the family properties of the salt merchants, or the Zhao family acted cautiously and dispersed the family property.

If it's the former, it's okay, but if it's the latter, it's a problem.

Zhao Cheng saw what Jia Lian was thinking, stepped forward and smiled and said, "In the past, if a lowly officer suspected that the offender's family had hidden or transferred the family property, besides torture and interrogating the offender and his family, there was another more effective point. It is to buy the housekeepers in his mansion, etc., and let him confess on his own initiative.

Because since those criminal officials dared to hide their family property, it was to leave a way for their descendants, and generally they would not confess honestly.However, most of the housekeepers knew about the affairs of the mansion, and after the master committed a crime, he lost his loyalty, so it was very easy to buy them off.

It just so happens that the Zhao family has occupied Yangzhou for many years and has many properties under their name. Without the help of someone who is familiar with the Zhao family's affairs, it would be quite troublesome for adults to count them up.As long as the housekeeper or steward of the Zhao family is willing to work for the adults, the rest of the matter will be much easier. "

Jia Lian's eyes lit up. Sure enough, experienced people are highly efficient.Although it was Jia Lian's first time to commit house raids, he had a hunch that he would encounter many such things in the future, so he had to learn and sum up some experience in advance.

So he immediately agreed with Zhao Cheng's statement and asked someone to call the housekeeper and the two main stewards of the Zhao family.

After some coercion and temptation, all three of them expressed their willingness to make amends.

"My lord's guess is right. Our master did not put all the silver in the treasury. Moreover, he didn't put it outside. He just put it in this mansion..."

In order to seek leniency, the housekeeper of the Zhao family immediately began to reveal the secrets of the Zhao family after surrendering.

"Our master built an underground secret room under the rockery in the garden on the east side of the mansion. Normally, no one except the master and the eldest son is allowed to enter."

There was a secret room, and Jia Lian, Zhao Cheng and others understood why they couldn't find it.In this case, unless you search the ground three feet deep, it is really not an ordinary difficulty to find it in a short time.

So, under the leadership of the housekeeper of the Zhao family, Jia Lian led people to the Zhaojia East Road Garden with countless torches.

Sure enough, the secret room was built under a huge rockery, controlled by a secret mechanism, just like the settings in later TV dramas.

Jia Lian was amazed just now, but after stepping on the stairs and entering the secret room, Jia Lian's expression became difficult to look at.

The secret room here is very spacious, the whole body is carved from white stone, and there are some oil lamps for lighting on the walls inside.

Walking in it, there is no feeling of suffocation. It can be seen that the builders put their minds to it, and at least did ventilation.

What surprised Jia Lian was that several other stone chambers were opened to the north of the secret chamber.In each stone chamber, at least one, at most three or four, were imprisoned about a dozen women, many of whom had iron chains around their hands, ankles and necks.

These women were all beautiful in figure and appearance, but their clothes were torn and their expressions were numb. Perhaps seeing so many of them coming in, they all hid in a corner in fear.

Seeing only these women, it is not difficult for Jia Lian to understand the purpose of the wooden horses, torture benches and other facilities and instruments in the secret room, even if Jia Lian has never seen them before.

His face became gloomy and terrifying.

Although he knew long ago that where there is light in the world, there must be darkness, especially in this feudal era, it should not be surprising that such a thing happened.But seeing such a dirty and dirty scene with his own eyes, Jia Lian immediately felt a killing intent in his heart.

The other people who came down with Jia Lian naturally saw it too. For a while, everyone looked at each other in blank dismay, but they didn't speak, and they didn't dare to speak, because they all saw that Jia Lian was angry.

The housekeeper of the Zhao family was so frightened that he immediately knelt down and said: "My lord, calm down, these women were all captured by the master, and have nothing to do with the villain.

Our lord runs a brothel and two brothels under his name. Most of these women are disobedient, and some of them offended the Zhao family, and their wives and daughters were arrested by the underlings...My lord, I have clearly noticed that these are really true It's all done by our master, it has nothing to do with villains..."

Squinting his eyes slightly, looking at the housekeeper of the Zhao family who kowtowed in front of him, Jia Lian asked lightly:

"Besides your master, who else has come in to play?"

Although his body was trembling a little, the housekeeper of the Zhao family still didn't dare not answer.

"Except for our master, maybe there is only the eldest son. It's just that the eldest son is afraid of the master. He usually doesn't dare to come in, so he sneaks in when the master is not at home."

"Is there no one else? Could it be that your master and uncle moved these things in personally?"

"This... Usually when the master comes in, if he doesn't go in to look at the gold and silver, he will ask those cronies around him to follow him..."

"Confidant?" Jia Lian looked at him coldly: "So, you are included?"

The housekeeper of the Zhao family was so frightened that his ghosts sprang up, and he quickly kowtowed twice, his forehead was bleeding.

"Although villains have also come in, they only bring people in when there are new gold bricks and silver bricks to be moved in. Usually villains don't come in. My lord knows that villains are in their fifties and sixties. And it's ugly, when the master is doing such things, he doesn't like to be followed by villains..."

age?Jia Lian shook his head, seeing that Zhao Tang was at least fifty years old.

But he didn't bother to ask him any more, he just said to Liu Xianglian who also had an ugly face: "Just trouble Erlang to take a few people and send them out, so I can take care of them and get them some food."

After Liu Xianglian agreed, Jia Lian said to the housekeeper of the Zhao family, "Where is the treasury? It hasn't been opened yet."

"Yes." The housekeeper of the Zhao family got up quickly, walked to the other side quickly, hugged the stone tower next to him and twisted it, then touched the wall and pushed it to the left, and following the sound of the stone door opening, appeared in front of everyone, It was an even bigger stone room.

Oil lamps are also embedded on the walls inside, and under the guidance of the faint light, there are countless yellow and golden things in the middle.

What amount of wealth is that?
I saw that in the center of this large stone room, more than a dozen five-story shelves suspected to be planed of golden nanmu were placed in parallel.Surrounding these wooden frames are large wooden tables connected end to end. On top of the tables, pieces of trapezoidal silver bricks are placed neatly on the tabletops, presenting a larger trapezoidal shape.

And on the wooden frames in the middle, the situation is almost exactly the same, except that instead of silver bricks, gold bricks are placed on them.

At a glance, it is impossible to estimate how many gold bricks and silver bricks there are!
Even Jia Lian couldn't help widening his eyes slightly when he saw such a simple and extremely luxurious scene.

"How much gold and how much silver is there?"

Jia Lian couldn't help turning his head and asked the housekeeper of the Zhao family.

The housekeeper replied: "My lord, only our master knows the exact amount, but according to the villain's estimate, all the gold bricks and gold leaves are about 10 taels, and the silver is estimated to be 100 million taels.

Our master doesn't like silver bills. For the annual profits, he likes to have people build them in such a pattern, move them here and place them neatly, and he will come in to have a look almost every day.In addition to gold and silver, there are some curios that our master usually likes most, and he will also put them here.

So our master strictly forbids anyone to enter this stone room, and even all the lamp oil in it is added by himself, and he never lets others handle it. "

Hearing the housekeeper's words, Jia Lian felt that he really underestimated these salt merchants!

Even if Jia Lian was like this, Zhao'er and the others behind him were even more stunned.

My God, 10 taels of gold is more than 100 million taels of silver!Doesn't it mean that the gold and silver in it are worth at least two million taels of silver?

Although they had heard about millionaires and millionaires before, they really understood what it meant when they saw what it looked like to have millions of taels of silver piled up together!

Such a huge amount of gold and silver made them feel dizzy just by looking at it, so it's no wonder that the master of the Zhao family came in every day to take a look.

If this was stolen suddenly, wouldn't it be heartbroken to death?

After simply strolling around for a couple of times, feeling the feelings of the master of the Zhao family, Jia Lian took a deep breath, and immediately ordered someone to bring the boxes, a lot of them, and put them all away! !

(End of this chapter)