NOVPUB66: Chapter 63: Investigation in Jiangnan Prefecture
66 -63: Investigation in Jiangnan Prefecture
Xu Yuan had always been skeptical of Su Jinxuan’s words.
Just as Su Jinxuan didn’t trust him, he couldn’t possibly take the other party’s words at face value either.
However, the information in the confidential report indeed verified that Su Jinxuan’s family had experienced a huge disaster in her childhood.
When her parents were alive, Su Jinxuan’s family was very affluent.
Her parents ran a moderately-sized commerce assembly in the area between Jiangnan Prefecture and Jin City.
Su Qin Cloth Shop.
Their main business was textiles, satins, and women’s specific products such as perfumes and rouges.
Since Su Jinxuan’s father and one of the persons in charge of the Tian’an Commerce Assembly in Jiangnan Prefecture were schoolmates,
they were not especially close, but with that connection and some substantial bribes, Su Qin Cloth Shop and the colossal Tian’an Commerce Assembly reached a business cooperation on some leftover materials.
And because of this, when the other family was exterminated, the Black Scale Guards had conducted a private investigation into the matter.
One of their commerce assemblies vanished without a trace, exterminated no less; naturally, they had to investigate.
The other party was very secretive, but the Black Scale Guards still managed to reconstruct the general situation through their unique information channels.
Su Jinxuan’s enemies were two forces.
One provided the money, the other provided the muscle.
The financiers were three commerce assemblies within the Jiangnan Cloth industry,
and the muscle was a gang of outlaws outside of the prefecture city.
Once the job was done, the muscled outlaws were wiped out cleanly by the three financiers.
Having investigated this much, the Black Scale Guards did not delve further, as Su Qin Cloth Shop was just the lowest-level material supplier to the Tian’an Commerce Assembly.
Not involving core interests, there was naturally no need for further intervention.
The way Tian’an Commerce Assembly dealt with it back then was quite straightforward,
a mid-level manager stepped forward to give those three rule-breaking commerce assemblies a scare, let them pay a hefty compensation, and the matter was thus concluded.
The Tian’an Commerce Assembly received the compensation.
The three commerce assemblies got the properties at auction for a low price after the fact.
The official bureaucracy took both the auction money and cleared out the bandit plague.
Hmm, a world where no one gets hurt was thus achieved~
Of course, even though they profited, the files related to this case still remained in the archives of the local Black Scale Guards.
Now that Xu Yuan had ordered a reinvestigation, the past files were reopened, and the Jiangnan Prefecture Black Scale Guards immediately began thoroughly investigating the three cloth shops from before, but to no avail.
All the people from back then were dead.
Even with the full-force investigation by the Jiangnan Prefecture Black Scale Guards these days, they couldn’t find a single survivor, and the investigation was often halted halfway because the leads were deceased.
Qin Weijiu was highly professional in handling this matter.
But fortunately, the Black Scale Guards of the Prime Minister’s Mansion were also very professional.
After several changes in investigative angles, they finally discovered some clues in the properties that belonged to Su Qin Cloth Shop originally.
Su Jinxuan’s parents were dead, but the lands and deeds they controlled wouldn’t just disappear into thin air.
Su Jinxuan was rescued and had no heirs, so when the time came, the properties were directly auctioned off by the authorities.
Indeed, Qin Weijiu had only saved Su Jinxuan, not her family’s wealth.
There were many reasons not to help, but the most important one likely was the lack of motive.
While saving Su Jinxuan was a carefully planned action, Qin Weijiu had to make it look casual.
You pity her and save her, then you have to take all the trouble to help her protect her family property too?
To those unrelated by blood or kinship, such good deeds are nowhere to be found in this world.
With this principle in mind, even though he helped Su Jinxuan take her revenge, Qin Weijiu only started to take action several years later after slowly building a “familial bond” with her.
Everything was done with utmost caution.
But no matter how cautious, there’s no accounting for stupidity among subordinates.
These properties meant nothing to Qin Weijiu, but for some of his subordinates, they were tempting pieces of fat.
Over a decade had passed, and the properties that once belonged to Su Jinxuan’s parents, after several rounds of changes, ended up registered under the name of a person named Xi Cang.
The name of this person is not important, what’s important is that he is the second elder brother of the Konghua Commerce Assembly’s chairman’s son-in-law.
The Konghua Commerce Assembly has quite a large scale locally and isn’t subordinate to any power.
Having found this, the trail seemed to break again.
Because large commerce assemblies swallowing up and integrating various industries is the most common thing in this world.
The Black Scale Guards in Jiangnan reported this and just as the investigation was about to draw to a close, a key piece of news came from the Black Scale Guards’ headquarters in the Imperial Capital—the Konghua Commerce Assembly is backed by the sect belonging to the Qin Weijiu family.
This piece of news immediately invigorated the Black Scale Guards of Jiangnan.
Qin Weijiu had not touched the industries of Su Jinxuan’s parents, but his hidden agents had occupied them.
If it were done openly, there wouldn’t be much to it, after all, Su Jinxuan trusts you so much, and your relationship is like that of siblings, managing on someone’s behalf and possibly returning it when the time comes would be probable.
But secretly taking possession, this information was worth pondering.
While it was still not any solid evidence, it provided the Black Scale Guards of Jiangnan with a new direction for investigation.
The exploration from the bottom up had been cut off due to the key individuals of those three families being silenced, but now with this new piece of information, they could investigate from the top down.
In researching, the Black Scale Guards of Jiangnan found that the broken links between these two trails fit together perfectly.
The Su-Qin Textile Storehouse which was established by Su Jinxuan’s parents did business with the support of the Tian’an Commerce Assembly, and their three families were supported by the Konghua Commerce Assembly.
The way this information was obtained was also very simple.
Just like modern clothing brands always collaborate with XX to create a joint name, these small textile stores, once they had reached cooperation with large commerce assemblies, would want to flaunt the cooperation details prominently.
It was a sort of alternative quality certification.
One just needed to visit and inquire with the seasoned stewards who had been in the textile business for over twenty years to know about this.
Of course,
What’s more important is,
All of the textile industries of Su Jinxuan’s three enemies originally hung under the Konghua Commerce Assembly’s name.
The Konghua Commerce Assembly directly took over all industries from these three textile stores.
Apart from the leading personnel being replaced due to death, there had been almost no changes in the middle and high-level management for over a decade.
Xu Yuan couldn’t help but laugh out loud when he first saw this.
After acquiring a company, even if it’s not advisable to immediately cause a stir that unsettles the people, you should at least switch a few of your own trusted people into key positions, right?
What do you mean by not changing a single manager in more than ten years after the Konghua Commerce Assembly acquired three textile stores?
Was it holding shares on behalf of others before, and now returning them to their original owner?
…..
An hour later, Xu Yuan arrived belatedly, pushing open the door and entering the room.
The lighting inside the room remained as dim as ever, the feast had been taken away by the maidservant, leaving only the woman sitting alone at the small round table.
Su Jinxuan sat with her back to the door, her back straight but somewhat frail.
Xu Yuan slowly approached and noticed her delicate body trembling slightly beneath her pale green silk garment.
Stepping forward two more paces,
Su Jinxuan’s voice carried a tremble as she softly asked,
“Do you…
do you have evidence, Mr.
Qin’s…
connection with the Konghua Commerce Assembly?”
Xu Yuan, upon hearing this, walked silently in front of her.
He had just gone out to find this.
He and Ying’er had used the messaging formation to have the key evidence sent over from the Imperial Capital.
Only, he didn’t expect that the genuine items would be somewhat plentiful, even taking over half an hour to print using the formation-powered printing press.
“Thud—”
With a thought, several thick stacks of account books were taken out by Xu Yuan from the Sumeru Ring, landing on the ground with a dull thud. n𝚘vp𝚞𝚋.com
Su Jinxuan stared blankly, gazing at these full accounts taken out by Xu Yuan for quite some time before speaking in a low voice,
“This is….”
Xu Yuan sat down, poured himself a cup of tea, and spoke in an unhurried tone,
“These are the account books of Konghua Commerce Assembly from the past decade.
They have a substantial amount of silver, medicinal herbs, and finished Elixir Medicine resources flowing to the Tianyu Sect every month; you can take a look for yourself.”
