Fine beads of sweat appeared on Zhao Yong's forehead as he stammered, "This... this subordinate does not know. They are all old matters..."
"Old matters are not limited to this one! During last year's spring plowing and autumn harvest, some people from the workshop left the county seat to return home and farm, yet the Cotton-Carding Workshop's output did not decrease in the slightest! Furthermore, last October, the cotton padding in the cotton clothes and quilts of Qingwu Prefecture's Prefectural Army all came from your Cotton-Carding Workshop. Yet after the new year, I saw a court bulletin stating that the capital had dispatched a great quantity of frostbite medicine to Qingwu Prefecture's Prefectural Army last winter—dozens of times the usual amount! Could there be some connection between the two?"
Zhao Yong's arm trembled slightly.
Ao Huang looked at Fang Yun with wholehearted admiration. This was not merely a matter of having a good memory. Without formidable analytical ability, who would connect an ordinary official report with shoddy cotton clothes and quilts?
At last, Fang Yun sneered. "What puzzles me even more is that cotton in Mi Prefecture is harvested every September, so cotton is most expensive in June and July. Last July's cotton was fully thirty percent more expensive than it was after the September harvest! Yet just before the cotton harvest, your workshop suddenly purchased one million jin of ginned cotton at a high price, with detailed warehouse records. They specifically stated that Songyuan Trading House transported it. Strangely enough, several days ago, I had people retrieve Songyuan Trading House's carriage records. During those days, every one of Songyuan Trading House's carts was used to transport grain, and there were no records of borrowing other carts. How did that one million jin of ginned cotton enter the warehouse? Could