"I have something here that I want everyone to see." As he spoke, he took another document from his pocket and presented it.
The junior eunuch passed it to Baili Yan, who turned a bit pale after reading it, but still let it pass down.
"Have you all seen this? These are the annual expenses for the Shandong garrison." Ye Haoyang glanced at everyone and continued, "There are fifty thousand troops in Shandong. The total annual military budget is only sixty thousand silver taels. Averaged out, each person gets just over one tael a year, and this includes clothing and medicine for the soldiers."
"Gentlemen, I just want to ask you, does anyone in your household spend only one tael a year? Even your servants must spend more than one tael annually, right? The military budget allocated for Shandong barely covers food, let alone any embezzlement. If I were to embezzle anything, these people would starve to death."
