Coercive Interrogation (Readers Have Sent So Many Gifts! All Thanks Are Posted Together in the Author's Note!)

This grain was clearly disaster relief grain the court had transported from places like Fortune Prefecture and Cool Prefecture.

How had it ended up in the private granary of a wealthy merchant like Chen Dayou?

The other Imperial Guards scattered to inspect the place and confirm their findings, then reported to Su Fei.

"Sir, we can be almost certain that all of this is disaster relief grain."

Hearing this, Su Fei was furious.

It took only a moment's thought to understand what had happened.

Li Qinghe must have colluded with the grain merchant Chen Dayou to embezzle the relief grain allocated by the court, then sell it to those short of food at twenty or thirty times the price.

Who besides Li Qinghe, the governor of Kuaiji Commandery, could have access to this relief grain?

"Well done, Chen Dayou. Well done, Li Qinghe. You two bastards."

"Tie up all these laborers. They're all witnesses. Don't let a single one leave."

"And go arrest Chen Dayou. Hurry."

"Yes, sir."

The Imperial Guards answered in unison and immediately split up, with several men restraining the laborers.

The remaining Imperial Guards left the granary to hunt down Chen Dayou.

The laborers trembled with fear, and one of them stammered out a plea.

"Sir... we only came here to work. None of us can read. We didn't know this was relief grain! Master Chen said he bought it from other regions."

Su Fei ignored their explanations. His gaze swept over the mountain of grain sacks as he swiftly calculated. There were at least twenty or thirty thousand shi of grain here, enough to feed the refugees at the resettlement site for a month.

And this was only part of what Chen Dayou had embezzled. Who knew whether he had other granaries?

Before long, a