My daily cultivation progress is calculated.

Chapter 81 Liu Chuan's Zhang Yi: Behind every penny lies bloodshed.

Yang Wanli laughed and said:

"I'm entrusting this matter to you. If you can find out where the silver is, it wouldn't hurt to give him a glimmer of hope."

He asked Shen Yan to help him find out where the silver was.

In his words, he made it clear that if the man could reveal the whereabouts of the silver, he would be spared.

Shen Yan had received much care from the Shen family, and now that Yang Wanli had asked him for a favor, he couldn't refuse any longer.

With this leverage, he felt confident and didn't think the matter was that difficult.

Shen Yan knew how much obsession the Great Zhou Dynasty had with the heir apparent.

Countless prisoners in the imperial prison, whose entire families had been executed, offered him thousands or even tens of thousands of taels of silver, begging him to spare a single bloodline.

At this moment, Liu Chuan insisted that it was because someone had kidnapped his wife and children as a form of blackmail.

However, in Shen Yan's view, Liu Chuan's wife and children would not have survived the day he died.

No one leaves themselves with future troubles.

Yang Wanli didn't have high hopes for Shen Yan's success; he just mentioned it casually.

Hearing Shen Yan's confident tone, I couldn't help but feel a bit of anticipation.

"Don't worry, you won't be implicated in this. If anyone finds out, you can simply say that I ordered you to do it."

After speaking, Yang Wanli took out a round jade pendant from his pocket, one side of which was engraved with the traditional Chinese character "Yang".

The other side features intricate patterns, and the jade itself appears to be of exceptional quality.

Shen Yan didn't know what this meant.

But it's probably something like a symbol of status.

Yang Wanli said, "This is my token of trust."

With just a few words, Shen Yan understood the meaning.

He sighed inwardly, "This Yang Wanli is a responsible official. He offered the jade token before I even said anything."

Shen Yan did not ask him for a token, and Yang Wanli's willingness to give it to him was already more than that of many officials.

Yang Wanli then said a few more words of encouragement.

He then left the prison, as as the Vice Minister of the Ministry of Justice, he could not possibly spend all his time on this.

This was not Shen Yan's responsibility, and Yang Wanli really didn't have a better solution at the moment.

If he wanted to claim the credit, he could only ask Shen Yan for help. If the matter was successful, he would certainly not treat him unfairly.

Shen Yan summoned Chen Xiaoshuan.

"Order some dishes from Zuixianlou and have them delivered to Liu Chuan's cell. Remember to let me know when they arrive."

"Sir, are you going to make arrangements for Liu Chuan as well?"

"Don't talk so much, just go when I tell you to."

soon.

Chen Xiaoshuan arranged the meal, and Shen Yan set off for Liu Chuan's cell.

Looking at the sumptuous feast before him, Liu Chuan said:

"The roast chicken at Zuixianlou is so delicious, with its crispy skin, tender meat, and juicy meat that it's far superior to any other restaurant. I haven't had it in over a decade since I left Bianjing."

"Is this sending this old man on his way?"

He sighed softly.

"Lord Liu, you misunderstand. I've come to make a deal with you."

"A deal?! What can a prison warden like you offer me?"

Liu Chuan's expression changed slightly; he couldn't believe that a lowly ninth-rank official could have any real power.

Shen Yan didn't take it to heart and continued:

"You know what I want, just tell me where the money is."

Liu Chuan clearly didn't believe Shen Yan, and smiled faintly:

"For the sake of this delicious meal, if you'd like to hear it, I'll tell you the story. But I wonder if you, a mere prison warden, can bear such a heavy karmic burden."

He began to recall.

"I was a Jinshi (successful candidate in the highest imperial examination) in the thirtieth year of Xuanwu (1050). When I passed the examination, I was full of ambition and wanted to do something for the country and the people. But I spent ten years compiling books in the Hanlin Academy, which long ago wore down my enthusiasm."

Finally, with the help of my classmate, I had an epiphany. I spent a thousand taels of silver to get an opportunity to be sent to serve as an official in a remote area. I was assigned to Jiande County in Hangzhou Prefecture as the magistrate.

"Everything was difficult when I first arrived in Jiande. I could barely move an inch. If I didn't act according to the wishes of the powerful and wealthy families, my orders wouldn't even leave the county government office. I was suffering!"

Shen Yan said calmly, "So you were bought off by them and became their lackey?"

He felt utterly contemptuous. This was how scholars were; before doing something so unscrupulous, they would find excuses for themselves, claiming that someone else had a knife to their throat.

Liu Chuan looked bitter.

"I...yes, I became their lackey, or more precisely, the Zeng family's lackey. That year, Jiande County suffered a major flood; the riverbanks breached, drowning over a thousand people, and affecting more than one hundred thousand others. Do you know what my rank was back then?"

Shen Yan answered without hesitation:

"It should be above excellent?!"

Liu Chuan nodded.

"That's right, it's excellent. I didn't distribute a single grain of the disaster relief grain sent by the imperial court to the people."

The Zeng family instructed me to use disaster relief grain to buy fertile farmland from the people. That year, I bought tens of thousands of acres of fertile land. The Zeng family didn't spend a single penny, yet they acquired nearly ten thousand acres of fertile land, and my father-in-law also gained several thousand acres of land under his name.

Shen Yan sneered after hearing this:

"You deserve to die! The number of people who died back then must be more than the amount of land you owned! The Jiangnan region is six parts water, three parts mountains, and only one part farmland. You bought up tens of thousands of acres of fertile land from just one county. You're really ruthless."

Liu Chuan didn't seem to care and said calmly:

"Wearing this official robe, we are both hypocrites, and neither of us needs to laugh at the other."

Shen Yan was stunned, then suddenly laughed:

"Yes, you're right. There's no good person among those who wear official robes. Good officials are all dead long ago."

Liu Chuan continued, "The following year, I was promoted to the position of prefect of Hangzhou. Before that, I had served as the magistrate of Jiande County for five years. In the second year after I joined them, I was given an important position."

Shen Yan clicked his tongue and said, "From a seventh-rank county magistrate to a fourth-rank prefect, that's indeed a promotion. It seems they've treated you well!"

Liu Chuan suddenly sneered:

"They haven't treated me well at all; they just want me to help them acquire more land. Two years ago, His Majesty ordered the increase of mulberry fields in the Jiangnan region to provide silkworm farmers with more mulberry leaves for silkworm rearing, so that they could produce silk in large quantities for trade with foreign countries. Do you know what they did to promote the conversion of rice paddies to mulberry orchards?"

Shen Yan suddenly thought of the frequent floods in the Jiangnan region in recent years. Could it be related to this?

"Are they going to breach the dikes and flood the fields?"

"That's right. Last year, four of the nine counties under my jurisdiction were flooded. It was the Zeng family who sent someone to inform the local magistrate, Qian. Originally, all nine counties were to be flooded, but the Governor-General of Guangdong and Guangxi discovered this and stopped it."

Shen Yan was somewhat curious. "Why didn't they order you to do it yourself? Instead, they bypassed you and had your subordinate magistrate do it?"

"You think they didn't ask me to do it? It's because I didn't want to do this despicable thing that they bypassed me. It was also because I informed Governor Xu that their plans were ruined."

"Oh?! Have you suddenly had a change of heart?"

Liu Chuan sighed and said:

"What they've done is truly appalling. If this succeeds, it will affect far more than a million people; hundreds of thousands in Jiangnan will likely starve to death. When public resentment boils over and the people rise up in rebellion, won't I still face certain death?"

Shen Yan nodded in agreement.

"So that's why they abandoned you and handed you over as a scapegoat?"

Liu Chuan shook his head.

"That's not all. If it were just that, they wouldn't have attacked me. The land in the four counties is enough for them to divide up."