Transmigrated into a Grandpa, Embracing the Laid-Back Life

Chapter 428: The Hall of Golden Chimes

Boom!

A single stone stirs up a thousand ripples!

The entire Hall of Golden Chimes erupted into chaos in an instant!

“Silence!” The sharp, cutting voice of the palace eunuch suppressed the buzzing murmurs of the hundred officials.

The officials in the Yongchang Marquis’s faction were all stunned and furious. They never imagined that Xu Qing, a man who would normally bow and scrape at the sight of the Yongchang Marquis’s Heir, would dare to launch such a lethal attack directly against the Marquis himself in front of the entire court and His Majesty!

As for the upright officials and censors, they all exchanged bewildered glances, their eyes filled with shock. Although they harbored resentment toward the Yongchang Marquis’s overbearing tyranny, none of them expected the first shot to be fired by the one person who seemed the least likely to do so!

The Yongchang Marquis’s face turned a livid iron-gray in that instant. But he was, after all, a seasoned military commander who had weathered countless storms and battles. His eyes were so dark and somber they seemed ready to drip water.

Xu Qing acted as if he were oblivious to everything around him. The hand holding his memorial was as steady as a rock.

“First crime: Embezzling military funds and trafficking military equipment!”

“In the fifth year of Great Xing’s reign, the Marquis’s ironware shop, under the pretext of ‘battle losses,’ falsely reported the loss of three thousand suits of armor, embezzling three hundred and seventy thousand taels of silver from military funds! This sum was funneled through Tongyuan Money House into the account of the Marquis’s third son…”“In the sixth year of Great Xing’s reign, the Northern Frontier suffered a great drought. The Marquis’s household colluded with a treasurer from the Ministry of Revenue to exchange old grain for new, trafficking two hundred thousand shi of military rations for a profit of five hundred thousand taels! This led to over three thousand garrison soldiers at Heaven’s Moat Pass falling ill after consuming moldy grain!”

“In the seventh year of Great Xing’s reign…”

“Since the founding of Great Xing, battle losses of military equipment have all had fixed quotas. However, Your Majesty’s minister has reviewed the Ministry of Revenue’s ledgers for the past ten years and discovered that, starting five years ago, the losses of military equipment in the Northern Frontier suddenly surged by more than threefold! Among them, the equipment manufactured by the Marquis’s ironware shop accounted for false losses and embezzled funds totaling… three million seven hundred thousand taels of silver!”

“Whoosh—!”

The court erupted in uproar once more!

thousand taels! That was nearly thirty percent of

couldn’t help but step forward and bellow in anger. “Lord Xu, do you know the grave crime it is to falsely accuse a first-rank military

him. Instead, he slowly retrieved the first thick stack

single piece of falsely reported equipment, every tael of silver embezzled—its source in

descended the steps, took the archives from Xu Qing’s

glance at the Marquis, whose expression was growing uglier by the moment, and then

Emperor’s voice betrayed neither joy nor anger.

the ranks of officials. He did not look at the Emperor on the dragon throne. Instead, step by step,

a head taller than Xu Qing. The bloodthirsty, murderous aura honed from years on the battlefield descended upon Xu Qing like an invisible mountain. An ordinary civil official, under that gaze, would have already been trembling in both legs

Qing was

calmly and met those eyes, full of aggression and

for five years.” The Yongchang Marquis’s voice was low and hoarse, with a metallic, grating texture. He appeared to be praising Xu Qing, but his words

in this entire court not know that the accounts of my Hundred Refinements Hall are famously watertight? Even if you, a mere Vice Minister of Revenue, had another five

the hundred officials. His voice suddenly

Marquis wants to ask is… these accounts, were you, Lord Xu, investigating them all by yourself, or… was there someone

heavy hammer,

deadly blow aimed straight for

Xu Qing was not fighting alone, but had the support of a higher, more hidden power! He was trying to forcibly escalate a case of corruption into

strike fear into the upright officials who might have

vicious, to

gazes—scrutinizing, doubtful, probing—fell squarely upon Xu

on the dragon throne narrowed his eyes

as if

wide; it lets nothing slip through.

brushed his sleeve, as if flicking away