The customs of the Great Mountains Department was called the Tiger Pass because it was a road cut out of the rocks. There were strange rocks on both sides of the road and it seemed as if it could collapse at any time. It was so steep that it got its name.
The customs of the Great Mountains Department was located in such a location. Leaning against the mountains on both sides, there was a decorated archway with three doors. After entering, there was a drum pavilion on the left and right and a gate on the left and right. In order to make it convenient for vehicles to pass, there was no screen wall in front of the gate. There was only a flag pole six to seven feet tall on each side. Then there was the room for the head servant, the room for the health workers, and the storehouse for the grain merchants and tax collectors.
The accounting room of the Tiger Pass was also huge. There were three halls in the middle with plaques such as "Correcting Old Abuses" and "Upright and Honest". There were also side rooms, side rooms, and so on. At this time, in one of the side rooms, there was a brazier in the middle of the room. There was a pile of things burning in the brazier. An old man in a green robe was squatting next to it. He threw account books into the brazier and used a fire drill to make them burn as fast as possible.
At the side, there was a person slowly pacing around the brazier. The flickering light reflected off his robe. It was the robe of a lowly odd-job official. There was only one real official in this customs, and that was the tax collector. This person should be the tax collector of this place.
In the dark room, his figure was projected on the wall. The figure on the wall moved slowly and its mouth opened and closed. Because of the magnification and distortion of the projection, it looked like a monster opening its bloody mouth. "Burn it all, burn it all! The new booklet must be flawless! There is confirmed news that Tongren Province allowed him to cross the border to handle cases. This Ye Xiaotian is not easy to deal with. Many officials in Hulu County have been cheated by him. We must not let him see any flaws! "
…
Ye Xiaotian successfully obtained the authority to cross the border to handle cases. This was not because Magistrate Zhang of Tongren had opened the door for him because of their cheap teacher-student relationship. It was because the smuggling of large quantities of Myanmar's goods was equivalent to giving money to the enemy. The imperial court had given him a lot of pressure.
It could not be denied that whether or not the government policies of the imperial court could be carried out in Guizhou largely depended on these chieftains. But even though they had this and that kind of thinking and also had their own interests, they still belonged to the Great Ming imperial court.
Their petty actions were only to protect the interests of their own clans as much as possible, and not to go against the imperial court of the Great Ming Dynasty and deliberately conspire against them. From this point of view, the bigwigs in the imperial court might not be much nobler than them. Those officials who could climb to high positions step by step all had a huge interest group behind them.
It was just that the interest groups formed around these officials would disperse in a few decades at most. They would form a new interest group after they were formed. It was not as long and stable as the local chieftains families in Guizhou.
Under these circumstances, under the severe reprimand of the imperial court, Magistrate Zhang had no choice but to do something in order to answer to the imperial court. In this way, it was reasonable for him to agree to the request of Gourd County. The Gourd County and the Great Myriad Mountains were under the jurisdiction of Zhang Duo, the local magistrate. He only needed to write a decree to solve this problem.
When Magistrate Hua received Magistrate Zhang's handwritten order, he immediately passed it on to Ye Xiaotian. Ye Xiaotian had been waiting for this moment. As soon as he received the handwritten order, he immediately set off.
On this trip, Ye Xiaotian had brought all the capable and capable men with him. Apart from the two tax collectors from the Department of Taxation, there were Hua Yunfei, Ma Hui, Xu Haoran, and the others. Monitor Zhou stayed in Hulu County. This was because there needed to be a capable and loyal guard at the checkpoint. Otherwise, even if there was a problem here, the stolen goods would have already been shipped out, and there would be no evidence.
Apart from these subordinates, Ye Xiaotian also transferred some people from Luo Li Gao Chariot to investigate the courier road. These people were the most proficient in this area, so Ye Xiaotian also borrowed Sun Weixuan. This person had climbed step by step from a coachman to the position of chief steward of Luo Li Gao Chariot. There were very few things he didn't know about the courier road.
Apart from these people, there was also the mighty "army of old people". These old people were the accountants of the various aristocrats in Hulu County. Relying on just a few people in the yamen to check accounts would not be enough. Moreover, since Ye Xiaotian suspected that there were eyes and ears of smugglers in the yamen, he wouldn't dare to use them.
These accountants came from various families, and they were all the private accountants of the aristocrats in Hulu County. It was unlikely that they had anything to do with this matter. Even if one of the aristocrats happened to be a smuggler hiding in Hulu County, and his accountant was also involved, there was no way he could hide the truth from the masses by himself.
However, most of these accountants were old and couldn't ride horses, nor could they walk, so they were sent by cart. When they arrived at Moonlight Bay, they fell behind Ye Xiaotian and the others.
When the courier road was first opened to Moonlight Bay, they wanted to go around the lake. However, that would have taken them seven or eight miles, and at the end of it were endless mountains. It was ten times more difficult to open a road. Lady She Xiang was eager to build a courier road to show her loyalty to Zhu Yuanzhang, so they used a ferry for this part of the journey.
Nowadays, there were docks on both sides of Moonlight Bay, and large flat-bottomed boats were used to transport carriages and goods. Because of the special terrain, it was difficult for carriages loaded with goods to go straight to the deck. Therefore, a large number of laborers were gathered here to help the passing merchants load and unload goods, or to lift carriages onto the ships. The surrounding people were boatmen and laborers, and this Moonlight Bay provided a lot of sustenance for countless people.
The accountants and their carriages were waiting to be ferried. Unlike Ye Xiaotian and the others, it was not convenient for Ye Xiaotian and the others to bring their horses onto the ships. Ye Xiaotian didn't wait for them and went straight to Tiger Pass. When the three words "Tiger Pass" appeared on the stone wall of the pass, he saw the Great Mountains Department's Commissioner of Tariffs and a few other officers waiting there. In terms of rank, Ye Xiaotian was a county magistrate, and his position was far above that of the Commissioner, so he needed to greet him respectfully.
Ye Xiaotian stopped his horse, and the Commissioner of Tariffs and Tariffs immediately led his men to welcome him. He crossed his arms and saluted Ye Xiaotian, "Great Mountains Department's Commissioner of Tariffs and Tariffs, Pang Shaojun, greets County Magistrate Ye Xiaotian."
"Oh! Ambassador Pang? "
Ye Xiaotian looked at him in surprise, and then dismounted from his horse. As soon as he moved, more than ten riders behind him dismounted one by one.
What surprised Ye Xiaotian was Pang Shaojun's name. The current Emperor Wan Li's full name was Zhu Yijun, so the two words Yijun were taboo. Before Wan Li ascended to the throne, his name already had this word in it, so after Wan Li ascended to the throne, it should have been changed or omitted.
Fortunately, the current Emperor was not called Zhu Yitian, otherwise Ye Xiaotian would have to change his name to Ye Xiaodi or Ye Xiaoxiao. It was also fortunate that he was not born in the Zhengde Dynasty. When Zhengde Dynasty's Liu Jin was in power, an imperial decree forbade all officials from using the word Tian as their name. As a result, Fang Tianyu changed his name to Fang Yu, and Censor Liu Tianhe changed his name to Liu He. When Liu Jin fell from power, this absurd order was rescinded.
But avoiding the name of the current Emperor was a taboo rule, and this Ambassador Pang … … If this was in the Central Plains, this kind of thing would never happen. It was only in a place where the Emperor was far away, and he was the tax collector appointed by the local magistrate himself, that no one paid attention to him.
Ye Xiaotian was not an imperial censor, so naturally he could not be bothered with this matter. But because of this incident, he knew that in this kind of place, it was often difficult for the imperial power and the Imperial Court to intimidate the local authorities. In this kind of place, he had to have his own set of rules. If he blindly followed the methods that he learned from the officials in the Imperial Prison, sometimes he would be rebuffed.
"Ambassador Pang, please rise. You are too polite, too polite!"
Ye Xiaotian laughed and helped Pang Shaojun up, saying with a smile: "Ambassador Pang, I am really sorry. Recently, a large amount of Myanmar's smuggled goods have entered the Central Plains, and the Imperial Court has repeatedly ordered a strict investigation. Unfortunately, my Hulu County is stuck at the exit of the courier road, so I have been scolded repeatedly, saying that I am not responsible. I had no choice but to investigate thoroughly, but I didn't find anything special. Today, I came to your Tiger Pass just to do as much as I can, so that when the higher-ups come to question me, I can at least answer to them. "
Pang Shaojun was in his early forties, with a long, thin face and a mustache. Hearing Ye Xiaotian's words, Ambassador Pang said with a fake smile: "Magistrate Ye, you don't have to be so polite. Since there is an order from Tongren Province, I will naturally do my best to cooperate. However, I am a diligent and dedicated official. Magistrate Ye, you can't find anything in your county, but when you come to our Great Mountains Bureau, hehe … … "
Ye Xiaotian did not know that the Great Mountains Bureau had already received the news before Tongren Province authorized it, but he still understood Ambassador Pang's attitude. If it were him, and the officials from other counties couldn't solve the case and were reprimanded by their superiors, they ran to his district to pick on him. He wouldn't be happy either.
Therefore, Ye Xiaotian, who had always been short-tempered, smiled good-naturedly this time. He did not take offense and said, "Thank you, Ambassador Pang. Please lead the way."
Ambassador Pang indifferently led Ye Xiaotian's party into the market. There were tax collectors and headmen bustling about at the gate. There were three gates. The gate on the left was for trucks coming from the south, the gate on the right was for trucks coming from the north, and the gate in the middle was for travelers who did not carry large amounts of goods.
There were barricades in front of the gates on the left and right, and the officers inspected the goods one by one. There was a desk next to the gate, and a secretary sat behind it. When the officers reported the types and quantities of the goods, the secretary recorded them one by one. At the same time, he used an abacus to calculate the amount of tax to be paid and recorded it at the back.
The inspector held his saber and walked back and forth, inspecting the inspection site. The door in the middle was filled with travelers and traveling merchants. Most of them only had one bag on them, so the secretary of this door only recorded the number of people passing through and collected taxes based on the number of people. Of course, the bags they carried also had to be checked.
Search, supervision, bookkeeping, collection, issuing tax bills, and stamping the pass with the customs seal. The entire process was done in an orderly manner. Although there was definitely an element of putting on a show due to the arrival of Ye Xiaotian and his group, it could be seen that the management of Tiger Pass was not bad. Otherwise, even if they were pretending, they would not be able to do it in such an orderly manner.
Ye Xiaotian and his entourage looked around and nodded frequently. Although Ambassador Pang was not very friendly to them, he could not help but feel a little proud when he saw their expressions.
Ambassador Pang led Ye Xiaotian into the pass and said to Ye Xiaotian, "Magistrate Ye, why don't you take a rest first and have some hot tea? We can talk about the audit later."
Ye Xiaotian smiled and said, "No, Ambassador Pang, please take us to the accounting room first. We will talk about the account books for the past five years."
"Alright, this way please, Your Excellency!"
Ambassador Pang smiled and did not bother with pleasantries. He led Ye Xiaotian and his entourage to the accounting room.
"Open the door wide!"
Ambassador Pang pointed to a tall door and said. An accountant stepped forward to unlock the door and pulled it open. With a crash, the account books piled inside poured out like quicksand, burying his two thighs. Ambassador Pang pointed to the warehouse full of account books and said to Ye Xiaotian with a smile, "Your Excellency, these are the account books of the merchants from the north and south of Tiger Pass for the past five years."
Ambassador Pang smiled from ear to ear and said, "The two rooms on the right are the same. Take your time to check. It won't be too late to check the other two rooms after checking this one!"
Su Xuntian stared at the pile of messy account books and was tongue-tied. "Oh my god, so many!" he exclaimed.
Ye Xiaotian was also shocked. Although he had expected it, he did not expect it to be so many. But in front of Ambassador Pang, Ye Xiaotian's expression did not change and he said with a serene smile, "How is it? Now do you know why I brought so many accountants with me? "
Su Xuntian and his entourage said in unison, "Your Excellency is indeed Your Excellency, wise! Wise! "
