More than half a month ago.
It was still snowing outside the tent, and the charcoal fire inside was burning vigorously, yet no one felt warm.
He Minghu, the deputy general of the Northern Frontier Central Army, slammed his teacup onto the table, his voice harsher than the wind outside: "Lord Ma, have you reported the matter of County Princess Xu from Jiangning sending military rations?"
The supervising censor Ma Jin'an slowly took a sip of tea, "Reported, and His Majesty even commended it."
"Commended." He Minghu sneered, pressing both hands on the table and leaning forward.
"The commendation goes to the Xu family, not us, Lord Ma. Have you thought it through—those six families in the capital! Which one haven't we dealt with?"
Ma Jin'an put down his teacup, his eyelids lifting slightly.
He naturally knew.
The deficit in military supplies, the withheld silver for medicine, those unaccounted-for materials—they were all landmines, missing only a fuse.
"That batch of Xu family military rations allowed the brothers to win the battle." Ma Jin'an slowly spoke, "Winning a battle means rewarding merits, rewarding merits means auditing the accounts, auditing the accounts..." He paused, his voice flat without any fluctuation, "means digging up those pits we've buried."
He Minghu stared at him, "What do you want to do?"
Ma Jin'an put his hands behind his back, walked to the tent curtain, and looked at the vast white snow outside.
......
The north wind, carrying half-melted snow, poured in through the gaps of the dilapidated cowhide tents.
Half a month ago, the wounded soldiers' area of the outpost camp exuded a sickening smell of rot.
A few days ago, the victorious night raid on the barbarian vanguard camp earned enough face for those high-ranking officials in the capital's court, but it didn't bring even half a coin's worth of life-saving medicine for these lowly soldiers holding broken swords and spears to fill the pits.
On the communal bed made of long wooden boards, Zhou Daniu's remaining left hand dug fiercely into the rotten straw mat beneath him.
His right arm was severed at the root, and the broken sackcloth haphazardly wrapped around the wound had long since formed a hard, black blood scab, with the surrounding flesh rolled up and oozing turbid yellow-green liquid.
He opened his mouth dryly, his throat making a "wheeze" sound like a leaking bellows. The high fever caused the man to twitch and shiver abnormally.
"Doctor... give me a quick end, the pain is making my heart spasm..." Zhou Daniu panted heavily, his voice so weak that even the wind could cover it.
The military medical officer squatted in the corner in front of the red clay charcoal basin, coldly adding a piece of inferior firewood to the basin, his hands tucked in his sleeves.
"Endure it. The higher-ups haven't issued the coffin money. If you die now, you can only be wrapped in a straw mat and thrown to the back mountain to feed the wolves."
"Hold out for a few more days. When the compensation silver from the capital arrives, at least you can leave your wife a few taels of life-buying money."
In fact, the military doctor knew clearly in his heart that the money would never reach this outpost camp in this lifetime.
The military supply department allocated nothing but moldy, green-haired rotten medicinal roots. Applying them not only failed to stop the bleeding but also made the wound rot faster.
Seventeen-year-old new recruit Goudan leaned against the tent pillar, his back molars grinding loudly.
He reached into his chest. In the pocket of his close-fitting undershirt, he had three hard oil-paper packages, still retaining the residual heat of his body temperature.
Those were the "Xu's meat bricks" he had secretly hidden in a hole dug in the snow while enduring his cravings when the pay was distributed.
Ever since the camp ran out of meat, these three pieces of things were now hard currency.
Under the cover of the night wind, Goudan hunched over and stuck to the dark shadows of the camp wall, climbing out through a collapsed gap.
Thirty miles north of the outpost camp, there was a border mutual market not under the jurisdiction of the imperial court.
He trudged through the snow, one deep step and one shallow step, his boots filled with ice dregs.
The heavy lard, fine white salt, and sickeningly sweet syrup boiled out of the meat bricks were rare items in the mutual market that couldn't be bought with a thousand pieces of gold.
Goudan slapped the things onto the broken tabletops of those smuggling merchants, exchanging them for two large bags of dried herbs that could clear heat and stop bleeding, plus half a string of rotten copper coins strung together with grass ropes.
Goudan tied the medicine bags tightly to his belt. Just as he climbed back from the gap in the camp wall, before his feet could even stand firm, he ran head-on into a wall of fire.
Dozens of pine resin torches as thick as a child's arm were raised in unison, illuminating the surrounding ten-zhang radius brightly.
Fully armed armored soldiers of the supervising camp erected half-person-high wooden shields, tightly blocking this section of the camp wall.
On the grand armchair in front of the central army tent sat a civil official.
He wore a brand-new peacock rank badge robe, the Great Qian supervising censor, Ma Jin'an.
Two armored soldiers stepped forward and kicked the back of Goudan's knees.
Goudan's knees crashed heavily onto the frozen ground, his belt was roughly torn off, and the two bags of dried herbs and the half string of copper coins scattered all over the floor.
The yellowish-brown medicinal herb roots rolled in the muddy snow, covered in dirt.
Ma Jin'an didn't even lower his head, his two hands covering a carved hand warmer, slowly baking:
"Great Qian Military Law, Volume Three, Article Four, those who leave the main camp without authorization, beheaded; those who privately sell military supplies and secretly communicate with the barbarian market, beheaded immediately."
"Lord! Those are life-saving herbs exchanged!" Goudan stiffened his neck, ignoring the oppression of the armored soldiers, and howled loudly, "Uncle Zhou is dying! The military supply department won't even give a clean cloth for wrapping wounds! I only exchanged medicine, I didn't collude with the enemy!"
The armored soldiers didn't give him any room to argue at all. Two people dragged his arms, dragging him like a dead dog towards the three-zhang-high wooden watchtower by the camp gate.
A rough hemp rope was tied into a dead knot and put over Goudan's neck. The other end of the hemp rope was pulled hard, directly hanging him in mid-air for public display.
The sound of galloping horse hooves trampled the rules of the camp.
Xu Zhan, with a head full of messy hair covered in muddy snow, was leading a team of light cavalry returning from a patrol on the outer line.
Before he even dismounted, he heard the screams coming from the direction of the watchtower.
He looked up and saw Goudan hanging up there, his tongue sticking out, his legs kicking wildly in the air.
Xu Zhan's right hand reached towards his waist, and with a crisp "zheng" sound, the horse-chopping saber was unsheathed.
His boots borrowed strength fiercely on the stirrups, and he rushed straight to the central army tent like a fierce tiger out of a cage.
The two supervising camp guards blocking the way didn't even have time to draw their waist swords before Xu Zhan slapped their chest armor with the back of his saber. The sound of ribs breaking was tooth-aching, and the two of them flew more than a zhang away in unison.
"Ma Jin'an!" Xu Zhan's saber point pointed straight at the person on the grand armchair. In the blood groove of the saber blade, the dark red blood grime left from hacking barbarians hadn't been washed clean yet.
"I led the brothers to hack through the barbarian vanguard camp with our lives! Where are the court's rewards? The medicine? The compensation? You've deducted all the military supplies, and now you want the lives of the soldiers in my hands?"
Ma Jin'an slowly placed the hand warmer on the small red sandalwood table next to him and stood up.
There was no panic on his face. On that fair-skinned face, there was only the calmness of a successful scheme.
"Lord Ma, it is rumored that the Minister of Revenue praised us as the pillars of the country in the court, and His Majesty's commendation order was circulated through the nine borders last month."
Xu Zhan stared at his fair face, and a sudden coldness crossed his heart.
He remembered.
On the third day after that batch of Xu's meat bricks arrived, Deputy General He had visited the central army tent and stayed for nearly an hour.
He hadn't taken it to heart at the time.
Thinking about it now—after the great victory, the court rewarding merits would inevitably lead to a thorough investigation of the military supply accounts for the past half year.
Once the medical funds embezzled and the supplies intercepted by He Minghu were uncovered, it would be enough for him to lose his head three times over.
Yet, it was the military rations sent by his younger sister that saved three thousand men, making the deficit in the quartermaster's department glaringly obvious.
Xu Zhan suppressed his seething anger.
"You are holding onto the supplies and refusing to release them. Are you trying to defy the Emperor's will?"
"The Emperor's will? The sky is high and the Emperor is far away. His Majesty's eyes have been blinded by wicked traitors like you."
Ma Jin'an flicked his sleeves and said flatly.
"As the army inspector, my primary duty is to purge the military of vermin and restore order. What does that Lord Shang from the Ministry of Revenue know about military strategy and formations? He only knows abacus beads."
A harsh sound of iron armor plates clashing together rang out, and the curtains on both sides of the central command tent were violently thrown open.
Three hundred armored soldiers wielding heavy Modao swords poured out in a single file, surrounding Xu Zhan in the center.
These men walked with heavy steps, fully clad in heavy lamellar armor, with even their faces covered by iron masks.
These were not border troops; they were the personal executioners directly assigned to the inspecting censor by the Ministry of War.
Ma Jin'an clasped his hands behind his back and walked down step by step, his boots crunching on the snow fallen on the stairs.
"Centurion Xu, when did I ever deduct from the pensions?" His tone was not loud, but it was highly penetrating.
"The imperial decree clearly states that the northern frontier is bitterly cold, and all captured supplies are to be used locally as military provisions for the outpost camp. But what on earth is this thing you handed over?"
Ma Jin'an raised his hand and made a gesture. A scribe-like aide stepped forward, holding a shattered clay pot in his hands.
The bottom of the pot had fallen off, spilling a large patch of water-stained lime powder that emitted a pungent odor.
"The bottom of this clay pot conceals gunpowder and saltpeter, which generates high heat when it meets water. Xu Zhan, you privately altered the imperial court's formula for firearms and explosives, and mixed it into the army's rations."
"Are you developing military rations, or are you trying to take this opportunity to cause chaos in the army with the intent to rebel?"
Every word from Ma Jin'an was meant to condemn.
Xu Zhan gritted his teeth. "Screw you! That is quicklime! It's used to heat up cold rice and soup! That batch of rations just saved the lives of three thousand men in this camp a few days ago!"
"Just to swallow that sum of silver, you'd even make up such a rotten excuse to frame me!"
"Military rations?"
Ma Jin'an let out a contemptuous laugh.
"Those meat blocks sent from Jiangning, I specially had an imperial physician examine them. They are heavy in sugar, heavy in salt, and mixed with all sorts of messy extracts."
"When ordinary soldiers eat them, it causes severe internal heat and unbearable restlessness. In mild cases, they lose their minds; in severe cases, they act completely insane! In that night raid, the soldiers fought without fear of death not because their morale was greatly boosted, but because they were poisoned by the effects of this demonic substance!"
The sound of soldiers gasping in shock could be heard all around.
Ma Jin'an's chain of schemes not only logically erased the merit of the great victory in the night raid, twisting the soldiers' bloody battles into "going mad from drugs," but also poured a basin of dirty water right over the heads of the Xu father and daughter.
As for the reason, it was nothing more than the military pay making the man surnamed Ma unhappy.
In the open space outside the tent, the shouts of guards escorting prisoners rang out.
Dozens of disabled soldiers, still wrapped in bloody bandages, were shoved to their knees in the snow.
The executioners pressed their gleaming, cold blades firmly against the back of these veterans' necks.
Goudan, who had been on the watchtower, was also brought down. An armored soldier pinned him to the ground by stepping on his back, a long sword pressed against the center of his back.
The armored soldier stepping on Goudan applied pressure with his foot. Goudan's ribs let out a teeth-grinding creak of compression, and he spat out a mouthful of blood mixed with mud and sand.
"Centurion Xu, your swordplay is quite good. You can certainly try to break out." Ma Jin'an looked at him provocatively. "Let's see if your blade is faster, or if the beheading speed of the executioners under my command is faster."
The veins on the back of Xu Zhan's hand, gripping his horse-cleaving sword, bulged and popped out.
He turned his head and looked at the disabled soldiers in the snow. Those were his old comrades who had taken blades for him and crawled out of piles of corpses.
Goudan, pinned to the ground with a mouth full of mud, was still shouting indistinctly, "Boss Xu, leave us be!"
Xu Zhan wished he could chop off this dog official's head with a single strike to use as a chamber pot. However, under the absolute suppression of force and the threat to his brothers' lives, he had no way out.
If he made even the slightest rash move, these dozens of lives would be lost right here.
