Daming: The system rejected my request for salted fish

Chapter 1351

However, his status was still not high enough, so he couldn't sit down and chat with Zhu Biao like Wei Wu did.

So after greeting him, he just stood quietly to the side, and just then Zhu Biao spoke up.

"Mao Xiang, is there any progress on the matter of the money exchange and the counterfeit banknotes?"

Upon hearing Zhu Biao's words, Mao Xiang couldn't help but sigh, then shook his head and said:

"Your Highness, there has been no progress in this matter so far. We can only increase manpower in the hope of making some progress."

Zhu Biao knew that there couldn't be much progress in such a short time, so he wasn't surprised by Mao Xiang's answer.

However, after Mao Xiang finished speaking, he immediately pointed to Wei Wu beside him and said:

"Then tell the Duke of Zhenguo the details you found! Perhaps we can find some details that have been overlooked."

"Yes, His Royal Highness!"

Mao Xiang responded respectfully, then immediately looked at Wei Wu, pondered for a moment, and said:

"We, the Embroidered Uniform Guard, have classified this incident as a counterfeit money case. There are two key points in this case."

"First, large amounts of silver were exchanged at money shops across the country. After receiving His Majesty's order, I immediately sent people to investigate this matter in detail."

"Due to the distance, we have only received news from Suzhou so far, and some clues have indeed been found."

Mao Xiang paused for a moment, organizing his thoughts before speaking again:

"According to information provided by the manager of the Suzhou money exchange, a merchant surnamed Li has exchanged cash three times in the past five days."

"And each time it was a thousand taels of silver notes. This is just the number of times the money shop clerk remembers. There must have been several other times before this."

"At the same time, because Suzhou was too prosperous, there were two money shops in the city, and this merchant surnamed Li had been to both of them."

"Because of some suspicion, the manager of the money shop sent someone to follow the merchant, but unfortunately, they found nothing."

At this point, Mao Xiang took out a piece of paper from his pocket, handed it to Wei Wu, and continued:

"Following the lead from the money shop manager, the Imperial Guards quickly discovered that the merchant surnamed Li was named Li Erda."

"However, this Li Erda is not a businessman at all. Just half a month ago, he was just a lazy bum who idled his time away."

"Nobody knows how he suddenly became a wealthy businessman, and how he ended up living in a large mansion in Suzhou."

While Mao Xiang was speaking, Wei Wu was also busy, keeping an eye on the piece of paper that Mao Xiang had just handed over.

This record contains all the information about Li Erda. Just as Mao Xiang said, this guy is a good-for-nothing lazy bum.

This is very strange. A lazy man inexplicably became a wealthy merchant and even owned a large mansion in Suzhou.

This is Suzhou, after all!

In this era, Suzhou's prosperity was unparalleled in the Ming Dynasty, and its housing prices were comparable to those of Shanghai in later generations.

Moreover, it's a large mansion; even merchants with slightly less wealth wouldn't have the financial means to buy such a place.

Thinking of this, Wei Wu suddenly raised his head and looked at Mao Xiang, asking:

"Old Mao, this guy named Li Erda is probably just a scapegoat pushed out to take the fall, and he could be abandoned at any time."

"The mansion in Suzhou is expensive; it's unlikely to be sold to him. Has anyone been sent to the government office to check the sales records of this mansion?"

"If we can find out who owns the house, that might be a breakthrough!"

As soon as Wei Wu finished speaking, Mao Xiang shook his head and explained:

“Our people have investigated and found that this house used to be a haunted house and has never been lived in. The brokerage firm only recently sold it.”

"Originally, I wanted to find out who bought the house, but it turned out that the house was not bought, but was just rented."

"At the same time, the person who rented the house disappeared more than ten days ago, and it is likely that the body was destroyed to cover up the crime."

Upon hearing Mao Xiang's explanation, Wei Wu's eyes narrowed slightly, inwardly marveling at how meticulously those people in the shadows had handled their affairs.

Just as Wei Wu was deep in thought, he heard Mao Xiang's voice again.

“Our people followed this lead and discovered that a man named Li Erda had exchanged tens of thousands of taels of silver from the money exchange.”

"He transported all the silver to that mansion, but strangely, the silver disappeared once it entered the mansion."

"The men below had sneaked into the house and searched every room, even the outhouse, but they found nothing."

"We couldn't find a single tael of silver. We asked the local people, and they said they had never seen the owner of the house move anything out."

Only in, no out?

How can it be!

Upon hearing Mao Xiang's description, Wei Wu's first thought was that there must be secret passages or mechanisms in the house to secretly transport the silver away.

Thinking of this, Wei Wu immediately looked at Mao Xiang and asked a question.

"So, has that guy named Li Erda been arrested?"

Based on Wei Wu's understanding of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, if the case reached a stalemate, he would definitely arrest Li Erda.

Regardless, we had to get some useful information from this guy, and it turned out that Wei Wu knew about the Embroidered Uniform Guard.

He had barely finished asking the question when Mao Xiang gave his answer.

"We caught them. At first, we didn't want to alert them, so we just investigated in secret. Unfortunately, we couldn't find any useful clues."

"In order to further search the house, we simply arrested the guy, but we didn't get any useful information out of him."

"That guy was just a scapegoat. He was hired to take silver notes to the money exchange and he was paid twenty taels each time."

"The person who was really in charge was actually the guard who went with him to the money exchange, but that person has disappeared."

Wei Wu was not surprised by this result. Those people in the shadows had arranged everything so meticulously, how could there be a problem at this stage!

So after Mao Xiang finished speaking, he set his sights on that big house.

"So, were any secret passages or hidden compartments found in that mansion?"

Mao Xiang shook his head and explained:

"They sent back the news as soon as they received it, but we'll probably have to wait for the second wave of news to get back about the search of the house."

"But it should be soon. If nothing unexpected happens, the message will reach me at the earliest tonight and at the latest tomorrow morning."

Since the news hadn't come back yet, there was no need to continue discussing the issues with the money exchange, so Wei Wu changed the subject.

"You just mentioned that the first key point was money shops, so the second should be the issue of printing banknotes, right?"

"That's right!"

Upon hearing this, Wei Wu did not hesitate at all and directly addressed the core issue.

"Let's talk about color-changing inks!"