Chapter 296: A Foreign Merchant Woman Can Save the People of the World
Luoguxiang is not far away, and it only takes a quarter of an hour to get there by horse.

As the address was confirmed, the officers and soldiers rushed into the seemingly dilapidated and desolate yard like wolves and tigers.

The beams covered with spider webs and the shabby house with bare walls did not look like a place where silver could be hidden.

Is that woman talking nonsense?
Dai Zhifang looked around and pointed to a well in the corner of the yard and ordered, "Someone, go down to the well and take a look!"

In full view of the crowd, a guard who was good at swimming stepped forward, took off his clothes and went down the rope wearing only a pair of pants.

There is really silver hidden in the narrow well opening which is just wide enough for one person to go down?

Everyone was skeptical.

A moment later, the imperial guard who had been swimming came up, his eyes filled with shock: "Commander, there is gold all down there! I don't know how much there is!"

Dai Zhifang's eyes lit up too: What a great contribution!
"Fishing!"

In the small yard, the sound was so clear that you could hear a pin drop: everyone was afraid that they could not hear the sound coming from the well.

Along with the sound of water splashing and the muffled "dong dong" sound of heavy objects being put into a wooden barrel, soon a wooden barrel was pulled up by a rope.

There are yellow lumps of gold in the wooden barrel. What else could they be but gold ingots?
Dai Zhifang was also unambiguous: "Let's put them up one by one so that it will be convenient to count them later."

Two imperial guards immediately stepped forward and placed the poured gold ingots neatly on the bluestone slab.

"It must have been put in there temporarily! It was to frame the Duke of Min's Mansion!"

Some students refused to believe that what they saw was the truth and shouted loudly.

But no one responded to him. Everyone was stunned by the gold.

We'll talk about it after we finish fishing.

Dai Zhifang thought so too: let’s talk about it after we get all the fish.

As bucket after bucket of gold ingots were fished out and placed into piles of gold, everyone's eyes turned green.

The further back you fish out the gold ingots, the darker they become. Some even have strands of moss and even small screws clinging to them...

Now, even the students who had previously clamored to be "temporarily released" no longer dared to say so.

How could the gold that was temporarily placed there change color and have moss attached to it? !
It had obviously been submerged for years...

Because the entrance to the cave was too small, the gold could only be pulled up from the bottom one bucket at a time using small buckets.

From early morning to dusk.

When the salvage was finally completed, the lights were already on!

There were piles of gold by the well, five thousand taels per pile, and there were fifty piles in total...

Everyone was excited: Two hundred and fifty thousand taels of gold!
The imperial guards who were collecting gold were so tired that they were replaced several times, but the common people and several students never left during the whole process.

They were amazed!

They were also shocked and lamented the greed of the Duke of Min's Mansion.

The people were so excited that they whispered to each other: There is so much gold in front of us!

This is a scene he has never seen in his lifetime, and he will be able to brag about it for the rest of his life!

The students all looked ashen. Just at this moment, the emperor ordered: "Bring the students into the palace."

The students all collapsed in fear: It’s over!

The emperor is going to settle the score later.

Under the pretext of serving the people, they ran to the palace gate and knelt down for Duke Min, but they were shocked to find that Duke Min had hidden so much gold!
They can all predict that they will become a laughing stock in the capital tomorrow.

Their careers are doomed to be hopeless from now on...

Thinking that entering the palace would mean being sent to prison, the students suddenly discovered that they were not entering a prison cell, but a wing room.

There were several full portions of food in the room. Although not rich, it was enough to fill the stomach.

There is a floor heating in the house, which makes people feel warm to the bone.

The guard pointed to the big bunk bed and said, "You will sleep here tonight. The food will be on the table. Eat and then go to sleep."

After saying this, the imperial guards closed the door and went out.

Several students looked at each other, and began to eat the food doubtfully. But after only two bites, they vomited.

"Brother Chen, this dish tastes bitter! It's poisonous!"

"That's right! It's bitter! It must be poisonous!"

"That bastard surnamed Fu, he wants to lock us up here and poison us quietly!"

"Fu Zhonghai, you are plotting to usurp the throne..."

Just as the students started shouting and cursing, the door was suddenly kicked open and the Minister of Revenue Cui Chaoyong stood at the door with a frosty face.

The students’ shouting and cursing stopped abruptly: What does that mean?
The Minister of Revenue has come to collect the bodies?

Shouldn't the imperial guards be the ones to collect the bodies?
Minister of Revenue Cui Chaoyong stepped forward first and said, "You are right. The food is poisoned. I ordered someone to put it there."

The students didn't believe it.

Chen Yangzu said bluntly: "You are just a dog of the Fu family. How dare you poison the sons of several of our great families?!"

"It must be the Fu family father and son who asked you to poison me!"

Cui Chaoyong was not annoyed: "This poison is the lowest quality private salt from the salt mine."

"It's the kind that the innocent Duke Min's Mansion you mentioned sold to the people of the world."

As he spoke, Cui Chaoyong waved his hand, and someone brought in a bowl of coarse salt with rough grains of varying sizes and yellowish color.

"Here, this is it."

"The salt produced by the salt mine is highly toxic. To remove the poison requires experienced craftsmen, and it takes a lot of effort and manpower and material resources to do it."

"In order to reduce costs, Duke Min did not strictly follow the process to remove the poison from the private salt and just sold it quietly."

"Everyone in the world knows that illegal salt is poisonous. If you eat it for a long time, it will shorten your life."

"But people cannot live without salt, otherwise they will die faster."

"They had to choose the lesser of two evils, so they had to buy private salt and poison themselves."

Chen Yangzu didn't believe it at all: "Impossible! Absolutely impossible!"

"How can private salt be poisonous?"

"You must have lied to me!"

Cui Chaoyong sneered: "This is a secret known to everyone in the world!"

"If you think I'm lying to you, when you get home, just go to the lowest servant's room in your house and taste their food."

“See if their food tastes bitter too?”

"Ask them if this salt is poisonous?"

After saying this, Cui Chaoyong asked someone to bring out a bowl of fine white but slightly bluish salt.

"This is the salt you usually eat. The bitterness has been basically removed, and the toxicity has also been dealt with. When diluted in the dishes, you can hardly taste it."

"The price of this salt is five times that of the private salt just mentioned. Ordinary people cannot afford it in their lifetime."

"The salt you have been eating for more than ten years is all this kind."

Cui Chaoyong then asked someone to bring up a bowl of fine white salt without any other colors.

"This is the salt that the foreign merchant woman you mentioned brought. It is harmless and has no odor."

"This salt was obtained by Miss Xiao and is now on the market in large quantities in the capital."

"The price of this is the same as the private salt currently on the market."

"You said that His Royal Highness the Crown Prince ignored the young lady of an aristocratic family for a foreign merchant girl."

"The foreign merchant woman can save the people of the world! She will save them from having to eat the poisonous private salt sold by the Duke of Min's mansion!"

"You read the books of sages and want to establish a mission for the people, but have you ever thought about: What does it mean to establish a mission for the people?"

"If you put yourself in their shoes, in your heart, is a foreign merchant woman who can save the people of the world really inferior to a young lady from an aristocratic family?!"

(End of this chapter)