Assistant Minister Xiao's selfishness ultimately stirred up all of the court, like a bowl of congee, and threw it into a tizzy. However, these disturbances didn't affect Jing Shao's army camp; they were going to set out in a few days, and everyone was busy sorting out internal affairs within the camp.
Since the court had yet to finish investigating the case, the properties of the officials who had embezzled funds were confiscated first. However, they were just small fry, so it wasn't enough to fill the gap in the army funds. Emperor Hong Zheng had the Treasury allocate more silver to make up for the lack.
All of a sudden, the army had a lot of money, and someone was needed to quickly take over and organize everything. However, Mu Hanzhang was only the military advisor, and had no authority to manage such things.
Zhao Meng suggested that Jing Shao promote Mu Hanzhang to military advisor general. Mu Hanzhang declined and said that he had just entered the army camp, and couldn't hold such a position. Finally, they compromised, and he was conferred a title with a lower rank: Military Advisor General of the Household. As Military Advisor General of the Household, he could manage military affairs but not command the military division. There were no other other ministers in the army now, and the power he had in this position was sufficient.
There was no time for the Ministry of Revenue to send new scribes. Mu Hanzhang promoted several literate soldiers to scribes. From his investigation a few days ago, these were the regular people whom most of the soldiers looked for to help write letters for them, since the previous scribes had been arrogant. Mu Hanzhang wrote down the names mentioned one by one. Then, he called them all to the center tent today and gave them some problems to write and answer. Finally, he was left with eight people who were literate and could also calculate the accounts.
"Do you all understand the accounts you are responsible for?" Mu Hanzhang put away the account books and asked the eight people below the platform. The army accounts were relatively simple. He had chosen a bookkeeping method that was fairly precise and easy to learn. After teaching all of them for a day, they were sure to have learned it all.
"Yes!" The eight people replied enthusiastically.
"The military advisor teaches so well that those who couldn't read have even learned to do so," Wang Er said with a smile. When he first saw the military advisor, he had thought that this man was just someone with an attractive appearance but who was useless in the army. But now, after the last few days, this Gentleman Jun's reputation in the army has soared. Wang Er had been transferred to become a scribe. Now, he wouldn't have to do the hard work of carrying food and keeping the fire going. He was one hundred percent willing to be a scribe.
Mu Hanzhang nodded slightly. "At the end of every ten days, hand over the account books for me to check. If you don't understand anything, ask me on that day. If it's not an urgent matter or it doesn't concern anything too important, you don't have to ask. You can make the decision yourselves."
Some people were overjoyed when they heard this. Not only could they escape a lot of difficulties now, this small power also brought many benefits.
"However, I'll say these ugly words to you now: if anyone dares embezzle army funds or cover up something extremely important, they will all be uniformly dealt with by martial law without mercy." Mu Hanzhang's face was cold and his voice dropped in pitch.
"Yes!" They quickly saluted. They were reluctant to throw away this good job; naturally, they wouldn't lose their heads over some small profit.
When those people left, Mu Hanzhang rubbed the place between his eyebrows a little tiredly. The expedition was near at hand and there were many things to deal with in the army. These days, there were also no scribes. It took a lot of effort to reorganize the accounts that had been messed up. He had spent the entire day yesterday straightening them out.
