Datang: Hiding private money, exposed by Xiao Sizi

Plus,
Lu Shisan’s official position at this moment is not low either.

All of this can prove how much Lu Shisan respects and trusts Shen Lian.

Shen Lian smiled and said, "Lu Shisan is indeed reliable."

As he said this, he winked at Fatty Zhang.

Fatty Zhang immediately understood Shen Lian’s meaning and began to carefully inspect the Temple of Heaven to see if there were any hidden mechanisms.

Shen Lian looked at Deshun and said, "Eunuch, I want to know, from the beginning of the construction of the Temple of Heaven until now, has anything strange happened in the meantime?!"

"Strange things?!"

After hearing Shen Lian's question, Deshun thought about it carefully and said, "After I followed your Majesty, I came here many times with your Majesty and never encountered anything strange."

"However, before I followed Your Majesty, I heard that something very strange happened when the Temple of Heaven was being built."

"Strange things?!"

Shen Lian raised his eyebrows and asked, "What's weird?"

Deshun shook his head. "This... I am not too sure. It happened so long ago. I didn't take it seriously at the time. After all, anything abnormal in this palace is normal, so I didn't think it was a big deal."

"If Lord Shen wants to know, I happen to know a few people who helped build the Temple of Heaven. Lord Shen, you can ask them and it should be clear."

Shen Lian nodded slightly and said, "Then I'll have to trouble you, eunuch."

Deshun said quickly, "It's not a big deal. Lord Shen, please wait a moment. They will be here soon."

Having said that, Deshun immediately went down from the Temple of Heaven and whispered something into the ear of a young eunuch, who then left quickly.

Deshun did not go to the Temple of Heaven to disturb Shen Lian.

Instead, he was very sensible and stood under the Temple of Heaven, quietly waiting for Shen Lian's orders.

Shen Lian couldn't help but sigh in his heart when he saw this.

No wonder De Shun was able to work beside Li Shimin among such introverted eunuchs.

This kind of vision is not something that ordinary people can possess.

Shen Lian withdrew his gaze and looked at the Temple of Heaven.

He stepped on the Temple of Heaven and could feel the white marble ground beneath his feet, which was very solid.

There were no hollow sounds.

It seems that either there is no mechanism under the Temple of Heaven.

Or, the mechanism was built very covertly in order to conceal its presence, making it difficult to detect using normal means.

Shen Lian stood here, looking into the distance.

Standing on a two-meter-high platform, he could see through the courtyard wall and see the scenery outside.

He could see the guards patrolling in the distance.

You can also see some palace maids and eunuchs walking quickly with their heads down.

Although it is impossible to see the entire palace, the area within a few hundred meters to the southwest can still be seen.

At this moment, he found some people walking towards here quickly.

There are eunuchs and guards.

And they don’t seem to be particularly young, at least they are over 30, or even around 50.

these people……

Shen Lian's eyes flashed.

He knew who these people were.

"Master Shen."

At this time, Deshun's voice sounded, "Sir, the people you want to see are here."

Sure enough, these people were the ones who participated in the construction of the Temple of Heaven.

The Temple of Heaven was built more than ten years ago, and those who participated in its construction were at least twenty years old.

The older ones may be in their thirties or forties.

So after more than ten years, these people are generally not young anymore.

Shen Lian turned around and saw a dozen people standing behind Deshun.

When Shen Lian came down from the Temple of Heaven, these people hurriedly bowed to him respectfully and said, "Greetings, Lord Shen."

Shen Lian nodded slightly and looked at Deshun.

Deshun said, "Sir Shen, these people are the ones who participated in the construction back then."

"Over the past decade, the people in the palace have changed one after another, and these are the only ones left."

Shen Lian was not surprised.

The life span of ancient people was generally not long...

Not to mention, in this palace full of crises.

If you say something wrong, you will be dead.

In the deep palace, if one person dies, it is normal for both parties to become a dog.

In addition, the people who built the Temple of Heaven included not only those from the palace but also craftsmen from outside, and the total number of people was only a few hundred.

Therefore, it is normal that there are only a dozen people left in the palace now.

Shen Lian scanned their faces. In front of him, there were fifteen people in total, including five eunuchs and ten guards.

Shen Lian said, "Tell me what you were responsible for at that time."

The eunuch on the left, who was about fifty years old, spoke first, "I was in charge of supervision at the time, and I supervised these people on behalf of Your Majesty to prevent them from being lazy and slacking off."

Responsible for supervision?!
Supervise for Li Shimin.

It seems that this person is of high status.

At least more than ten years ago, he was quite trusted by Li Shimin.

But now, it should have been marginalized.

It may be because he was too old, or it may be because of something that made Li Shimin dislike him.

Shen Lian nodded slightly, the files he had read came to his mind, and he asked, "Your name is Li De?"

The old eunuch raised his head and looked at Shen Lian unexpectedly, "My lord, do you know me?"

Sure enough it was him.

The files record all the people who participated in the construction of the Temple of Heaven.

Li De is the inspector.

Shen Lian nodded slightly, but he did not answer Li De. Instead, he looked at the second person and asked, "What about you?"

"Your Excellency, I am responsible for purchasing materials. I am responsible for buying all the construction materials."

Just as Shen Lian was about to nod, he heard the eunuch suddenly say, "Sir, a strange thing happened that year, and I don't know whether I should tell you or not."

Shen Lian's eyes flashed.

He looked at the man deeply and said, "Speak!!"

Shen Lian looked at the eunuch in front of him. This eunuch was about 40 years old. Shen Lian remembered that his name was Zhao Heng in the file.

During the Tang Dynasty, eunuchs were still allowed to use their original names.

It was not until the Qing Dynasty that people completely lost their personality and were called little Dezi, little stool, little table and so on.

At this time, Zhao Heng said, "I remember that when the Temple of Heaven was halfway through construction, officials from the Ministry of Works came to me and said that they needed to buy new building materials."

"I was very surprised at the time, because according to the plan submitted by the Ministry of Industry, the building materials I bought for them should be used for at least seven days. How could they be gone now?"

"So, I went to check the warehouse, and sure enough... the building materials in the warehouse were almost gone, and they would only last for two more days at most."

"But this shouldn't happen at all."

Zhao Heng talked about the past with a puzzled look on his face. He said, "I can guarantee that I didn't deduct a single cent from the building materials I purchased. After all, this was designated by His Majesty, and no one would dare to deduct money from me."

"So, I think it might be the Ministry of Works that has accelerated the construction progress."

"But officials from the Ministry of Works said that they were carrying out the construction exactly as planned, and that the workload was so heavy every day that even if they wanted to speed up the progress, they simply couldn't do it."

"That is to say, they did not speed up the construction progress at all, but the construction materials were at least five days short."

Shen Lian understood what Zhao Heng meant.

He asked, "You mean... five days' worth of building materials disappeared?!"

Zhao Heng nodded, "Yes, he disappeared without any reason."

“Ministry of Works officials can confirm that they did not use more building materials because all the building materials consumed can be seen from the places where they have been constructed.”

"After I purchased the building materials, I asked the Ministry of Works to check them, and there were no problems at the time."

"That is to say, there was nothing wrong with either of us, but five days of building materials just disappeared for no apparent reason."

Deshun was listening at the side and couldn't help but frowning. He said, "Although it's normal for some strange things to happen in the palace, this one is really a little strange."

Shen Lian pondered for a moment and asked, "Is it possible that it was stolen?"

Zhao Heng shook his head. "That shouldn't be possible. The warehouse is always guarded by guards, and the building materials are not particularly valuable. It's really not worth stealing these things in the palace."

"Besides, the building materials are all stones and the like, which are very heavy. It would be impossible to steal them from the palace without alerting anyone."

Shen Lian nodded slightly, "So you have ruled out the possibility of theft, the possibility of embezzlement, and the possibility of the Ministry of Industry using it."

Zhao Heng nodded, "Yes, all the possibilities we could think of were ruled out in the end."

"That's why I think this matter is weird."

"When I heard Lord Shen asking about the past, I thought of telling Lord Shen about this matter."

There were flashes of brilliance in Shen Lian's deep eyes.

interesting.

I didn't expect to encounter such an interesting and strange thing as soon as I came here.

Five days’ worth of building materials is not small in size.

How could it disappear for no reason?
These eunuchs were under strict surveillance and there was no corruption. The Ministry of Works had counted them at the beginning, which could rule out corruption by the eunuchs.

There is no doubt that the Ministry of Industry did not use it either.

As for stealing...

There was always someone guarding it, and it is impossible that such a heavy stone was stolen without being discovered.

So how did these building materials disappear?
Is this incident the same as the problem Han Qian discovered?
Shen Lian pondered for a moment, then he leaned towards Zhao Heng and asked, "Did you guys investigate it carefully later?"

Zhao Heng shook his head. "Although we lost five days' worth of building materials, these things are not valuable. We are also worried that this strange thing will spread out and may cause rumors inside and outside the palace. After all, this is the construction of the Royal Temple of Heaven. Once it spreads out, it may cause some rumors and influence."

"So we asked Lord Qin He, the Minister of Works who was in charge of building the Temple of Heaven at the time. Lord Qin He then went to see Master Yuan Tianshi. After they discussed it, they decided to suppress the matter and forbid anyone from making it public. At the same time, they arranged for more people to guard the building materials."

"If the building materials are lost again, there will be nothing we can do but alert His Majesty."

"But if the building materials are not lost, then just pretend nothing happened to avoid any trouble."

"Later, the building materials were not lost again, and the story was not spread... However, this matter has been lingering in my mind over the years, making it difficult for me to sleep or eat well. I have been hiding this matter in my heart, and I have been unable to sleep or eat well."

"If Lord Shen can find out the truth about this matter, I can finally let it go."

Shen Lian understood what Zhao Heng meant.

He looked at Deshun and asked, "Master Qin He, where are you now?"

He didn't remember that there was an official named Qin He in the court.

Deshun said, "He retired to his hometown ten years ago, and three years ago, I received news that he had passed away."

Retired and returned home ten years ago?!

The year when Han Qian built the Temple of Heaven and was replaced?
After all, the Temple of Heaven was built for Li Shimin.

It was the Temple of Heaven for private use by the royal family.

Therefore, once the news spread that such a strange thing happened during the construction of the Temple of Heaven, there would definitely be a lot of rumors.

For example, it is a bad omen.

For example, breaking a taboo.

Worse still, he might be used by traitors to say that the Li family is not the true emperor.

Once these rumors appeared, they would have dealt a heavy blow to the reputation of the royal family in this feudal ancient times.

Li Shimin would definitely be furious.

And those who built the Temple of Heaven will definitely be punished.

So it is understandable that they suppressed the matter in order to avoid rumors and to avoid being punished.

And because the lost items were not valuable and only amounted to a small amount of money, even if they were pressed down, no one would notice them.

Moreover, they also decided that if the same thing happened again in the future, they would have no choice but to fight back against Li Shimin.

Shen Lian could understand this approach, which was actually quite reasonable.

If it happens again, then there must be a real problem. If it is really a bad omen, it is better to solve it in advance than to make up for it afterwards.

But if that didn’t happen, then it must have been man-made, but otherwise the things wouldn’t have been lost, so if they were lost, they would have been considered fed to the dogs.

In short, Shen Lian could understand the way Qin He and Yuan Tiangang were handled, and he felt that it was relatively appropriate.

The only inappropriate thing was that no proper investigation was done at that time.

If Shen Lian encountered such a thing, even if he didn't make it public, he would have to get to the bottom of the matter.

Otherwise, this incident would be enough to make many people panic, and once it was spread out, it would still cause some disturbance.

Fortunately, not many people knew about this incident at that time, and most of them were tight-lipped, so Shen Lian lived in Chang'an and never heard about it.

I don’t know whether Li Shimin heard about this incident later.

Shen Lian asked Deshun, "Excuse me, sir, what kind of person is this Lord Qin He?"

Deshun did not dare to delay and said, "Lord Qin He is an old minister of the previous dynasty. When the emperor was conquering the world, he abandoned the dark and joined the light. Later, he followed the emperor to establish the Tang Dynasty. The emperor, considering his merits, reused him."

"However, compared to dealing with these national affairs, Lord Qin He obviously prefers fighting on the battlefield, but he is old, and the emperor can't bear to let him fight at such an old age, so he lets him work hard in the Ministry of Works."

"The Ministry of Industry is just about construction projects, there aren't that many people scheming, so it's also with Lord Qin He."

"The Ministry of Industry is just about construction projects, there aren't that many people scheming, so it's also with Lord Qin He."

(End of this chapter)