Chapter 436 - Account Books

In the afternoon, several people arrived from the machine factory, bringing a gas engine, a water pump, and hoses. After the gas generator ran for an hour, the diesel engine finally started up, and the water pump began continuously emptying the well, discharging directly into the moat.

In less than two hours, the water was pumped dry, revealing the dark bottom. Several powerful police flashlights shone down together, and the iron box that Gou Er had sunk on the night of D-Day appeared conspicuously in the beams. It was intact and sat squarely at the bottom of the well.

"Quick, fish it up!" Lin Baiguang said excitedly.

Wu Xiang responded and was about to climb down after rigging the ropes, but Mu Min stopped him.

"Wait a while! The water was just pumped out; there's likely insufficient oxygen down there."

After waiting a suitable interval, they lowered a burning candle to test the air before allowing Wu Xiang to slide down the rope. Then another native staff member descended to help secure the box with rope hitches. Only then did they hoist it up bit by bit using a hand chain hoist.

The box was extremely heavy. Lin Baiguang estimated there were many valuables inside, so he ordered the people below to be pulled up first—lest the box slip and fall halfway. The space at the bottom was narrow with nowhere to dodge, which would surely cost lives.

With great care throughout, they finally hoisted the box up and placed it, dripping wet, beside the well. Lin Baiguang examined it carefully—though called an iron box, it was actually hardwood reinforced with iron. The exterior was intact, even the hanging lock in good condition.

However, since the box had been soaked in water like this, it likely contained only gold and silver. It could not possibly hold things like letters—otherwise, they would surely be soaked to mush...

Thinking of this, he was slightly disappointed. Treasure was pleasant, but it was not what he sought.

That said, they should transport the box back first. The box was immediately loaded onto a cart and hauled away.

The box was opened in a dedicated room of the Internal Affairs Commission. Mu Min, filled with intense curiosity, had long wished to see what this ancient treasure looked like. She grabbed a hammer and smashed the lock in short order. Opening the box, they saw it had been sealed well with oilcloth and grease. The box itself was built very tightly, and inside it was lined with a layer of thick animal skin, coarse and prickly to the touch.

"Wolf skin." Mu Min, who had handled cases involving illegal trade in protected animal hides, recognized it at a glance. "Insulates against cold and damp. Gou Er was really meticulous."

Unfolding the wolf skin, there was no box full of glittering gold and treasures, but packets of various sizes carefully sealed in oil paper. Mu Min was about to open them when Lin Baiguang suddenly stopped her.

"Don't open them."

"?" Mu Min was puzzled.

"Ideally, we should have someone from the Planning Commission present," Lin Baiguang said. "Register as we unseal, so there's proof."

Reminded by him, Mu Min realized that besides her and Lin Baiguang, no one else was present. If any issues arose later, it would be difficult to explain.

"My hands were too quick. I should have waited for the Planning Commission before smashing the lock."

"Not a significant problem. It's still not too late."

They immediately called the Planning Commission. After a while, Sun Xiao arrived, bringing the specialized forms for inventorying spoils of war.

They opened the sealed oil paper packets one by one, counting and tallying. The items taken out were diverse: gold ingots and silver ingots of various sizes, stacks of gold leaves, pillar-shaped packages of Spanish silver dollars, various pure gold and gem-inlaid jewelry, and utensils and weapons inlaid with jewels—some with distinctly exotic styles. Sun Xiao photographed, numbered, and registered them one by one.

The box had taken on a little water, and there was some moisture, but the items were preserved very well. This reassured Lin Baiguang—even if there were paper documents, the damage should not be too severe.

Clearing all the way to the bottom, they found two more small iron boxes. These were genuine iron boxes, sealed with several layers of oilcloth on the outside. Lin Baiguang's heart stirred—paying such attention to moisture protection, nine chances out of ten these were documents.

Prying open the boxes, inside were oil paper packages once again. Lin Baiguang opened one, revealing a stack of letter envelopes. He said excitedly:

"Found them!"

Sun Xiao and Mu Min both leaned over to look. Sun Xiao laughed: "Truly remarkable. You didn't get this excited seeing a box of gold, silver, and jewelry, but a few letters have you HIGH like this!"

"You don't understand. A single piece of paper is worth far more than these boxes of gold and silver treasure." Lin Baiguang patted the small iron box. "I dare say Gou Er would rather lose all the treasure here than lose this small box."

After registration was completed, the gold and silver treasure was carted away by the Planning Commission, while the seized documents and materials went to the Political Security Bureau. He called over several native interns from the Security Bureau to catalog these documents.

Besides letters, there were many other important items—primarily quite a few account books. Lin Baiguang flipped through them but did not quite understand the format inside, so he decided to ask Sun Xiao for assistance. Though ancient and modern financial regulations differed, people who worked as accountants were always more sensitive to numbers and organization.

Because there were so many items, they invited several Transmigrators skilled in classical Chinese to help review them. First came registering the letters. The correspondence was classified by the sender's name and tied into bundles. Lin Baiguang retrieved the files on the Gou family—compiled from seizures and prisoner interrogations after the destruction of Gou Family Manor—from the archives to cross-check the names and identities of the senders.

Regrettably, apart from a portion of the letters, most either had no salutation and signature or used pseudonyms instead. It was either "Nanhai Liweng" (Old Man in Bamboo Hat of Nanhai) or "Qiongshan Yisou" (Old Man of Qiongshan), or designations like "Plum Knowing Hall," "Has-Not Pavilion," and so on. Some simply had a signature cipher. It was impossible to determine who was who. After comparison, they found that many names also appeared in Gou Da's correspondence.

If only we knew who these names referred to—at least we could send people to inquire. Lin Baiguang estimated that given Gou Da and Gou Er's range of activities, these people were likely in the Qiongzhou Prefecture and Leizhou area, not far beyond that range.

He ordered the documents seized from Gou Family Manor to be brought over as well, to be analyzed together.

Lin Baiguang could not help much for the moment. He had more carbide lamps added to the meeting room and had tea, food, and plenty of ice delivered to them. He himself studied the information already obtained in his office, trying to piece them together to reconstruct Gou Er's activity trajectory in Qiongshan.

Every hour, he sent an orderly to the meeting room to ask about progress. The answer was always: "No special discoveries for the time being."

Around ten o'clock at night, the first relatively major discovery finally came: Sun Xiao brought an account book.

"If this booklet were thrown into Guangzhou, the officialdom of Qiongzhou would probably experience an earthquake."

"What good stuff?"

"It's a record of bribes," Sun Xiao said, handing him the account book.

It turned out to be a registry of gifts and favors—the same thing as the "gift ledger" that private secretaries of prefecture and county officials routinely haggled over during handovers. It was nothing more than data on various official figures who needed greasing and the amounts of customary silver presented for the "Three Festivals." Doing this kind of business, the Gou brothers could not have lasted long without official protection. Even without collusion, they had to pay the customary fees to buy peace.

Gou Er's "favor ledger" was listed in great detail. Lin Baiguang took a rough look and saw complete lists of officials for Hainan's Lingao County, Chengmai County, Danzhou, Qiongshan County, the Qiongzhou Prefecture's five sets of leadership, and also Xuwen County in Leizhou. Each official had personal data including native place, examination degree, and birthday. Besides the officials themselves, there was data on their family members and children. It was compiled very meticulously. There were many alterations in this account book; some names were crossed out, with notes behind them stating not only the time of leaving office but also the reason: promotion, departure from office, transfer, death, conviction, and so on.

A rough look gave a clear overview of the movements and bribery prices in the local and surrounding officialdom generally between the first and seventh year of Tianqi.

Data on main figures in Lingao's officialdom, such as Wu Mingjin and Wu Ya, was also complete. There were standard gift rates for the Three Festivals and birthdays listed as well.

Lin Baiguang was not as excited as Sun Xiao; he had seen similar things long ago.

"It won't cause an earthquake, because this is merely a registry of officialdom's unspoken rules," Lin Baiguang said. "Gifts for the Three Festivals and birthdays, or 'ice and charcoal' respects, were considered legitimate income for officials in the Ming and Qing dynasties. Even the Emperor knew his officials below had this—it cannot stir up waves. We need the registry of true, large-scale bribes."

"I thought it was a time bomb..."

"In this space-time, this counts for nothing. Useless." Lin Baiguang thought, However, this thing is still quite useful. At minimum, it's a data sheet useful for navigating official circles. It has significant meaning for intelligence personnel infiltrating the Great Ming officialdom later.

"Is there a registry of genuine bribes?" Lin Baiguang was more concerned about this.

"Seems there is, but it's useless. All in code." Sun Xiao dug out another booklet.

This was the real bribery registry. Year, month, day, how much silver or property given to So-and-so for what matter, with what result—all written clearly. But the names of So-and-so were all codes used in letters. One could not determine who was who.

Lin Baiguang noticed the last bribe was in April of the seventh year of Tianqi. Gou Er had bribed someone, asking him to intercede with Wu Mingjin not to report his son Gou Chengxuan's cheating in the county school's routine examination to the Education Commissioner, thereby preserving his xiucai degree.

"What a pity." Lin Baiguang studied it for a while. "But judging from the matters entrusted, these people should be officials—at minimum, people very close to officials."

"Too bad we don't know who they are. Otherwise, mastering this set of data, they'd have to obediently listen to us."

"Hehe, it's not that simple." Lin Baiguang had mixed in official circles for many years and knew this material could be said to be useful or useless, depending on the circumstances. "However, we can use it. The key is to discover who is who."

(End of Chapter)