Xu Youde scrambled up from the ground, not even bothering to dust off his knees. He grabbed the blue-covered ledger from the table and clutched it to his chest as if it were a rare treasure.
"Huan'er! Did you see that!" Xu Youde could not contain his wild joy. "Heaven never seals off all paths! I was just worrying about how to collect taxes empty-handed, and the Third Prince hands us exactly what we need! With this thing, I will use the bones of his own disciples to fill the pit that old bastard Shang Qitai dug for us!"
Xu Qinghuan sat in the armchair, still holding her bowl of cold tea.
She was thinking: a mediocre Third Prince and a secret ledger detailing the accounts of six great noble families over the past seven or eight years.
Such a detailed ledger could never have been compiled on a whim.
Whether the Third Prince could even gather such information was a question in itself.
But one thing was certain: if he used this ledger to confiscate their properties, he would immediately become the target of all the other princes, and the forces behind those six families would focus their attacks on him. He was merely waiting for a scapegoat to take the fall.
Now, Emperor Tiansheng had thrown the Xu family into the massive cauldron of the capital, issuing an imperial decree with a strict deadline.
Her father, Xu Youde, thought he had grasped a lifesaver.
But in reality, Xiao Jingyan had simply let go, shoving this explosive-laden ledger into the hands of a desperate scapegoat who was about to be driven mad.
If the Xu family carried out the confiscations, they would offend all the noble families in the realm, their hands would be stained with blood, and they would become out-and-out vicious hounds.
Meanwhile, Xiao Jingyan would sever his rivals' financial lifelines without shedding a single drop of blood, while conveniently grasping the weakness of the Left Vice Minister of Revenue, becoming the true beneficiary in this game of chess.
"Father." Xu Qinghuan set down her tea bowl, the ceramic making a crisp clinking sound against the wooden table.
She stood up and looked at the heavy ledger in Xu Youde's arms.
"We can use this ledger," Xu Qinghuan continued. "But how we confiscate, how much we seize, and who gets to see the results must be done according to our rules. Since this blade is now in our hands, we cannot simply swing it exactly as others wish."
Holding the blue-cloth ledger, Xu Youde swept away the dejection he had shown earlier in the throne room and when facing Xiao Jingyan.
His chest heaved, and he muttered under his breath, already calculating this monumental transaction.
"Huan'er, what did you just say? According to your rules?" Xu Youde stopped in front of the desk. "I have looked through this ledger. The items recorded inside are undeniable proof of actual silver and gold.
The base seals of the Li family's water fortress in Taihu and the Delong Exchange are perfectly accurate. With this, we can mobilize the imperial guards to head straight for Huai'an and Jiangning, seal up the banks, and haul three million taels of ready silver back to the capital. Those old fools in the Ministry of Revenue who want to see us make fools of ourselves will turn green in the face."
"Father, when you did business in Jiangning, you always emphasized getting to the bottom of things. Even for a single tael of silver passing through your hands, you would ask for its origins. How is it that upon arriving in the capital, someone throws a ledger at your head, and you forget the rule of probing into the background?"
The fat on Xu Youde's face tightened. His merchant instincts caught a whiff of something wrong, and he swallowed hard. "Hiss! This ledger cannot be faked! It is solid, undeniable proof."
"The ledger is real." Xu Qinghuan raised her eyes and looked straight at Xu Youde. "What is fake is the person who delivered it."
Xu Youde furrowed his brows deeply. "The Third Prince? He is a prince, plotting for real power in the Ministry of Revenue. Using these six great families as a sacrifice to win us over, offering a pledge of allegiance to form an alliance, isn't that perfectly logical?"
"The political landscape of the Great Qian Dynasty has always been a joint rule between imperial power and the noble families." Xu Qinghuan turned around, walked toward the drafty wooden lattice window, and looked outside.
"Among the great noble families, marriages, disciples, and wealth are all intertwining vines of blood and bone. And these six families, while ostensibly engaged in commerce, have secretly been funneling their silver into the private coffers of the Six Ministries and the Nine Ministers in the capital for a long time.
They are the purse strings of the entire noble faction."
"If we touch these six families without good reason, it will drag out a whole mess of hidden connections. Let alone confiscating their estates and wiping out their clans, even if you just lead men to seal up one of their shops, the trade routes in Jiangnan would instantly go on strike.
The impeachment memorials in the royal court tomorrow would bury you and me alive. A ledger like this, which can restrict the six families in name and hold half the court hostage, is nothing but a death warrant."
Xu Qinghuan took a step forward, her embroidered shoes stepping on a crack in the blue bricks.
"Such an absolutely secret item would be hidden by the noble families deeper than their own lives. Even the pervasive spies of the Imperial City Bureau have not been able to touch a corner of it in over a decade. On what grounds could Xiao Jingyan get his hands on it?"
Xu Youde stood frozen in place, suddenly feeling as though the ledger in his hands had become as scorching as a branding iron.
Xu Qinghuan continued to peel back the layers of this logic: "First, he has no real power in the Six Ministries. Second, he has no investigative authority in the inner court. Think back carefully to the manner in which this man surnamed Xiao entered the room just now.
He wore a robe of autumn-water flowing-light brocade, specially supplied by the Imperial Household Department, and was accompanied by an imperial bodyguard wearing a bestowed goose-feather blade."
"He was blatantly flexing his muscles at you, showing off his immense influence within the palace."
But does a prince who truly possesses immense influence and absolute confidence need to rely on clothing and weapons to intimidate a newly appointed vice minister?"
"The more ostentatious he is, the more it shows his weak foundation and lack of leverage. Someone so desperate to establish merit and win over powerful officials is the easiest to be used as a pawn.
Could he really bypass the countless hidden sentries of the aristocratic families to dig out this core ledger? It's absolutely absurd."
A prince with zero advantage in the battle for the throne had produced a fatal ledger that even the old Emperor had never managed to find.
"Then... where did this ledger actually come from?" Xu Youde's voice was unusually dry. He looked down at the blue-bound book in his arms, his previous ecstasy having turned into a bone-chilling cold.
"Leaked by their own people, of course."
Xu Youde took a sharp breath, his heavy frame stumbling back half a step. His lower back hit the edge of the table with a dull thud.
"Their own people? You mean... the aristocratic families sold out their own?"
"Father, our Xu family has been secretly manufacturing weapons and raising death-sworn assassins in Sunset Valley. That is a capital crime of treason.
Yet, not only did the Emperor not pursue the matter, but he went along with Wei Zheng's impeachment, turning a blind eye to the truth to heavily reward us instead. He even gave us a blank imperial edict with discretionary powers.
You understand this move, and the Chief Grand Secretary, Xu Jie, understands it even better."
Xu Youde took out a handkerchief and haphazardly wiped the beads of sweat from his forehead.
"The imperial treasury is so empty that rats are running through it, and urgent military reports from the borders come three times a day like death warrants. The old Emperor's days are numbered; he has neither the time nor the patience to play political games with the noble families." Xu Qinghuan's fingertips traced across the tabletop.
"By unleashing the Xu family, a blade reeking of peasant origins, he is making his stance of mutual destruction crystal clear.
Whoever dares to hoard their silver and refuse to let go, he will use that blank edict to execute their entire extended family.
Those old foxes entrenched in the royal court are extremely shrewd in their calculations. They don't want to fight to the bitter end before the old Emperor breathes his last, so they must defuse the situation. And the price to extinguish the Emperor's fury is three million taels of pure silver."
Xu Youde's hands trembled violently, and the ledger dropped onto the table with a smack. "These six families... are pawns discarded by Xu's faction?!"
"They are the capital of compromise submitted by the aristocratic faction to the imperial power." Xu Qinghuan ruthlessly tore away the veil over the political truth. "Weighing the pros and cons, they sacrifice the pawns to save the king.
By cutting off these six pieces of infected, rotting flesh, they scrape together three million taels of silver. This fills the deficit for the frontier military pay, preserves the foundation of the great noble families, and shuts the old Emperor's mouth."
The hall instantly fell silent. A cold wind swept dead leaves across the courtyard, rustling as they went.
His hands and feet icy cold, Xu Youde asked, "Then what is the Third Prince after by coming here?"
"Xiao Jingyan considers himself clever. He thinks he just got lucky, that a pie fell from the sky and handed him the perfect leverage to win over the new elites of the Ministry of Revenue."
Xu Qinghuan smiled. "But in reality, he is nothing more than a porter in Xu Jie's hands. Xu Jie needed to deliver this capital of compromise, but he absolutely could not dirty the hands of the aristocratic families themselves.
If word got out that the noble clans were selling out their own kind, the aristocratic alliance would crumble from within. Furthermore, they cannot leave any evidence before the Emperor that the noble families are yielding and making private deals.
Xu Jie only needed to have his subordinates casually leak a few words in places the Third Prince frequents, or use his spies to deliver this ledger into the hands of the prince's trusted aides.
Everything else that followed simply happened naturally."
Xu Qinghuan's analysis drew blood with every word.
"Using the hands of a prince who has no real power and is visibly desperate to gather partisans to deliver the ledger is the safest method possible.
The Emperor cannot trace the source, and the aristocratic families have completely cleared themselves of any involvement.
This fire will absolutely never burn its way to Xu Jie."
