Auditing the Accounts
When Zhao Ruxi was in the capital, Gan Lun trained her to check accounts. During this time, she used this knowledge to examine the account books, focusing on the accounts related to salt, grain, and river defense.
Salt and grain are obviously lucrative positions, and you can easily make a killing by skimming off the top. As for river defense, the government frequently allocates funds for the maintenance and construction of river embankments, and it's also easy to embezzle a portion of the money to line your own pockets and create shoddy projects.
Therefore, if Zhao Ruxi wants to find fault with Cai Yaozong and Chen Kang, or even bring them down, she doesn't need to spend much effort on anything else; she only needs to investigate these three accounts thoroughly.
She has a good memory and learns quickly. But she still lacks experience and needs Gan Lun to guide her.
The night the safe was moved in, Zhou Chun and Qingfeng moved their things into her office and decorated it. They used bookshelves to create a private space, and through the books and vases on the shelves, you could vaguely see the person inside.
Within this area, she used a blind spot to enclose a small space with a screen the same color as the wall. Inside, she placed a rectangular table, just big enough for six people to sit around it. If you didn't go inside to take a closer look, but instead looked from the doorway through the bookshelves, you would only see her sitting there doing something, and wouldn't notice the partitioned area inside.
Zhou Chun and Qingfeng moved a lot of things from the Zhao Residence. Besides this place, they also rearranged the entire house, placing large items such as desks, chairs, and long tables, as well as smaller items such as vases, clocks, and various decorations, replacing all the original items in the house. After this arrangement, the whole house looked brand new.
The next day, when the people from the yamen passed by the room, they saw that the style of the room was completely different from the simple yamen. It was like an elegant study of a wealthy family. Everyone sighed in admiration, thinking that Zhao Ruxi was indeed a young lady from a noble family. Even when she came to the yamen to do her work, she had to arrange the room so exquisitely.
If it were a male official, people might gossip. But Zhao Ruxi came from a noble family and was a woman, so her competence was immediately apparent upon arriving at the yamen. Therefore, from the officials to the clerks and staff, people only marveled at and discussed her wealth and refined tastes, without saying anything negative.
No one in the entire yamen, including Liu Hongyu and Cai Yaozong, noticed the little trick Zhao Ruxi had hidden when arranging the room.
Before officially starting work, she had a good talk with the two bodyguards and Xiang Ming, and confirmed that the two bodyguards and Yang Jie could all write and calculate, and could understand simple account books.
So the next day, after arriving at the yamen, she sat behind the bookshelf looking at the files and accounts. When she saw an account that seemed off, she would pass it through the gap in the screen to the five people sitting in the inner cubicle. The five people would then take turns copying down the accounts.
Cai Yaozong and Chen Kang were naturally uneasy about handing these files and accounts to Zhao Ruxi, as they were worried that Zhao Ruxi might discover something from the accounts.
The row of main buildings were where the officials worked, Chen Kang couldn't just wander around there all the time, so the task was handed over to Cai Yaozong.
So, during the few days that Cai Yaozong handed over the salt, grain, and river defense records and account books for the past five years to Zhao Ruxi, he would often come out for a stroll. His steward and attendants would also frequently walk past Zhao Ruxi's house, glancing at what Zhao Ruxi was doing inside.
To their relief, Zhao Ruxi sat behind the bookshelf, intently looking at the files and accounts without copying anything. She even drank tea and ate snacks while reviewing the files, appearing quite relaxed and at ease.
Meanwhile, Zhou Chun, Ma Sheng, Lady Luo, whom Zhao Ruxi brought, stood or sat in the outer room, quietly reading or idly daydreaming.
What reassured them even more was that Zhao Ruxi obtained the salt administration files and accounts and finished reviewing them in just three and a half days. He then ordered the yamen runners to move the items back and return them in full to the household registration office.
The files and accounts of the grain department took longer to review, about five days. But since the grain department had more files and accounts than the salt department, it was normal that it took longer.
In such a short time, even if Zhao Ruxi were to browse the files and accounts with a very serious attitude, she could only manage a cursory glance. She simply didn't have the time or energy to carefully search for problems, let alone copy down all the problematic accounts. Not to mention, she was also eating and drinking, showing a very unserious attitude.
Cai Yaozong and Chen Kang were immediately relieved.
If Gan Lun knew of this idea, he would certainly scoff at it.
Could Zhao Ruxi's mind be the same as an ordinary person's? Her eyesight was sharper than anyone he had ever met. Given her ability to spot problems, she only needed to glance at the ledger to detect anything amiss and pinpoint the flaws.
The account books that the five guards copied were taken back to the Zhao Residence and delivered to Gan Lun.
Gan Lun originally came here to have fun, but now Zhao Ruxi has dragged him here to do hard labor, looking at account books every day. He doesn't find it hard at all; on the contrary, he enjoys it.
Teaching a student like Zhao Ruxi is so enjoyable.
During the day, he looked at the account books that Xiang Ming and the others had brought back the previous night. After Zhao Ruxi finished her business and had dinner, he took out the account books, let Zhao Ruxi take a quick look at them, and then asked her to point out where the account books were wrong.
As it turned out, the results Zhao Ruxi gave were similar to the problems he had identified. Even if there were any omissions, after he explained how to check these kinds of problems, she wouldn't make the same mistake a second time.
After reviewing all the accounts for salt, grain, and river defense, one learned with great interest, while the other taught with great enthusiasm, uncovering a whole host of incriminating evidence against Cai Yaozong and Chen Kang. Gan Lun felt that teaching Zhao Ruxi was far more interesting than going sightseeing with those three artists.
"Zhiwei, do you want to bring them down?" Gan Lun asked, looking at the evidence of Cai Yaozong and Chen Kang's embezzlement and bribery that Zhao Ruxi had recorded on the paper.
Zhao Ruxi said, "I'll tell my senior brother and see how they handle it."
If the two men were to tamper with the river defenses, Zhao Ruxi would certainly not let them off the hook. This was a matter of great importance concerning the lives and safety of the people. Whether the two men still had a conscience or were afraid of being held accountable if something went wrong, they did not embezzle funds in this area and used all the money allocated by the authorities for the river defenses.
To this end, Zhao Ruxi even had Gan Lun and Zhou Chun go and take a look at the river embankment to confirm that the embankment was built very solidly.
Even if it was petty corruption, it was still corruption. The two were still suppressed by Liu Hongyu, a capable minister. If they had a weaker superior, or if Cai Yaozong had been the head official, they might have been able to embezzle even more.