In the middle of the night, just as the sound of the night watchman's clapper died away, a dark shadow pressed against the base of the wall outside the back door of the Earl of Chengyi's mansion, sliding past silently.
Xu Wuyou didn't knock on the iron-plated side door; instead, he circled around to the base of the west wall, where there was a hidden drainage ditch half-covered by wild grass.
The early summer night breeze carried the fishy smell of the ditch water. Gripping the moss-covered brick crevices with one hand, he used his waist and abdominal strength to silently flip into the inner courtyard.
His short jacket and trousers were covered with dry grass scraps and the smell of saltpeter from the top of the Yanshan cliff, and the soles of his boots still bore some scorched earth.
He landed extremely lightly, avoiding the house servants patrolling the courtyard at night, and groped his way straight into the back kitchen.
The fire on the stove had long since gone out, and there was still half a pot of warm water in the iron wok.
Xu Wuyou took a large porcelain bowl, scooped a full bowl, tilted his head back, and gulped it down. After two bowls of warm water went down his stomach, he finally suppressed the burnt smell in his throat by half.
He rubbed the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand, turned around, left the kitchen, and walked towards Xu Youde's study.
Candlelight shone through the study window.
Xu Wuyou raised his hand and knocked his knuckles twice on the door frame, one heavy and one light.
"Come in."
Xu Youde wasn't asleep at this time. His fat body was stuffed into a grand armchair, and three blank account books were spread out in front of him.
On his left hand was a red sandalwood abacus, and on his right hand were neatly stacked six deposit ticket samples from different money shops.
Xu Wuyou stepped forward and placed two items on the corner of the table.
With a soft clink.
A deformed iron ball burned and pitted on the surface, and a half-broken jade crown. The jade had already been smoked black by high temperature, but the family crest of the Prince of Jiangning carved on it was still clearly discernible.
"Four hundred of them, not a single one left."
Xu Wuyou's voice was very flat: "The bottom of the valley burned clean. The fire was too big and rolled half the slope along the wind gap. Even if the people from the Ministry of War go to investigate, they'll probably just treat it as a mountain fire caused by lightning strikes, and won't be able to turn up any bone scraps."
Xu Youde stopped the hand fiddling with the abacus. He reached out and picked up the iron ball that still smelled of burning, turned it between the rough pads of his fingers, and then pinched the half-broken jade crown to examine it for a moment by the candlelight.
He didn't ask about the specific details of the Yanshan trail, nor did he ask where Xu Qinghuan's convoy had reached.
The old fox's rule: the belongings of the dead are never broken copper and rotten iron, but chips that can bite people in the dark in the future.
Xu Youde pulled open the bottom drawer of the desk, groped around, and triggered a secret mechanism. With a click, a hidden compartment popped out.
He threw the iron ball and the jade crown in, locked it again, and stuffed the copper key close to his body into his arms.
"How many people know about the letter sent by that girl from the Xie family?"
Xu Youde picked up the completely cold teacup at hand, skimmed the floating foam, and took a slight sip.
"Only Li Sheng and me. After the younger sister looked at the original letter once, she threw it directly into the stove and burned it to ashes."
Xu Wuyou answered crisply.
Xu Youde nodded, pulled over a piece of plain paper, picked up the pen and dipped it in ink. The tip of the pen was knocked twice on the edge of the inkstone to scrape off the excess ink, and then four words fell on the paper.
The fish has entered the net.
Before the ink dried, he folded the plain paper in half and pressed it under a paperweight.
"Tomorrow morning as soon as it gets light, send an unfamiliar servant to deliver this thing to the Xie mansion's separate courtyard."
Xu Wuyou looked down at the note and hesitated slightly: "Father, the Xie family at least gave us a heads-up this time. We just reply with these four words and don't even mention the word 'thanks'?"
Xu Youde sneered, the fat on his face shaking twice with it: "Thanks?"
"Xie Yunwan revealing the whereabouts of these four hundred death squads to us is not showing kindness, but borrowing our knife to scrape the last bones of the Wang family."
He tapped the tabletop with his fingertips: "Replying with these four words is telling her that we've received the intelligence and done the deed. The business is settled and no one owes anyone a favor. If we really write the word 'thanks', the Xie family will be able to hold this weakness and manipulate our Xu family in the court in the future."
Xu Wuyou nodded, pulled over an armchair and sat down, rubbing his knees with both hands.
"Father, little sister will break the situation in the Northern Territory, but we have to hold the bottom line here in the capital."
He lowered his voice: "But what about the 300,000 taels that Third Prince Xiao wants?"
Xu Wuyou knew how deep the water in the Ministry of Revenue was: "For the accounts of the Great Granary, moving a single tael of silver requires going through three procedures. The directors, department heads, and ministers sign layer by layer. 300,000 taels of ready silver is not a small amount. If it follows the normal memorial process, it will take at least two months for it to be approved layer by layer. But what little sister promised Third Prince Xiao was to see real gold immediately."
Xu Youde didn't answer. He reached out and pushed apart the six deposit ticket samples from the money shops, picked one out, and pushed it in front of Xu Wuyou.
The heading of the deposit ticket was printed with four seal script characters - Delong Money Shop.
"Do you think the place Third Prince Xiao designated for us is his own private property?"
Xu Youde lifted his eyelids slightly, looking at his eldest son.
Xu Wuyou stared at the deposit ticket: "Isn't it?"
"He asked us to put the money in naturally because the background of this money shop is clean and can't be traced back to him."
"Clean?"
Xu Youde's face was full of mockery.
He leaned back against the back of the grand armchair, his hands crossed and placed on his round belly.
"The proprietor of Delong Money Shop on the surface is surnamed Sun, named Sun Bonian. This person has been doing remittance business in the capital for twenty years. He is usually charitable and is a famous wealthy old man. But the true root of this money shop is not in the capital, but in Tongzhou, and on grain transport."
Xu Wuyou was stunned.
"The Governor-General of Grain Transport, Feng Shaotang, is Xiao Jingyan's biological maternal uncle."
Xu Youde sat up straight and tapped his fingers on the tabletop: "The silver that Delong Money Shop handles for the Grain Transport Yamen every year is no less than five million taels. The ship repair funds, river worker wages up and down the river, and those unmentionable tributes all circulate in various places through Delong's drafts. Third Prince Xiao asking us to put the money into Delong is wanting this 300,000 taels to roll around in the muddy water of grain transport, be washed completely clean, and then safely carried into his private treasury."
Xu Youde stood up and walked to the bookshelf in the corner of the study.
He didn't take those beautifully bound official account books, but pulled out an old book with a peeling cover and frayed edges from the bottom of a broken wooden box on the lowest level.
This book was a shadow account that he had secretly recorded stroke by stroke in private during these days when he served as the Left Vice Minister in the Ministry of Revenue.
Every large amount of silver going in and out of the Great Granary, what memorial it went through on the surface, whose pocket this money actually flowed into, which money shop it entered, and whose private land it bought, was clearly recorded on it.
He walked back to the table, opened the pages, and pointed to a line of tiny regular script.
"Look."
Xu Wuyou leaned forward.
"When the autumn grain entered the granary last year, the Grain Transport Yamen submitted a memorial saying that they encountered strong winds and waves in the Huai'an section, and more than a dozen grain transport ships capsized, reporting a loss of 1.2 million shi, equivalent to 360,000 taels of ready silver."
Xu Youde's finger tapped on that line of words: "This so-called loss is utter bullshit. The grain didn't even get off at the Huai'an dock, but went straight into Feng Shaotang's eight private granaries in Tongzhou. And the 360,000 taels of silver issued as compensation by the imperial court went through the internal accounts of Delong Money Shop, was divided into more than a dozen batches, and finally all entered the backyard of the Third Prince's mansion."
Xu Youde closed the book with a muffled thud.
"Third Prince Xiao thinks his bank is airtight and flawless, but little does he know that this channel is leaking like a sieve from top to bottom."
Xu Youde pulled the red sandalwood abacus in front of him. "By injecting these three hundred thousand taels into Delong, we aren't hiding money for him. We are conveniently drilling three more holes into the bottom of his broken ship."
A cold sweat broke out on Xu Wuyou's back as he listened.
"Then how exactly are we going to route these three hundred thousand taels?" Xu Wuyou asked.
"We split it up. Three transactions, one hundred thousand taels each."
Xu Youde rested his right hand on the abacus. His middle and index fingers expertly flicked the beads, producing crisp clicking sounds.
"The first hundred thousand taels will go under the guise of river maintenance funds allocated by the Ministry of Revenue to the Ministry of Works."
Xu Youde flicked down a row of beads.
"The Left Vice Minister of the Ministry of Works, Shen Tongji, looks like a respectable and upright official, but in private, he is a degenerate gambler. Last month, he gambled until his eyes turned red at the Changle Casino in the south city, racking up a bad debt of eighty thousand taels. That IOU is currently sitting right under my pillow."
Xu Wuyou swallowed hard.
"I will approve these funds for the Ministry of Works tomorrow. To keep his official hat, Shen Tongji will obediently follow my orders and transfer these one hundred thousand taels to three lumber firms in Tongzhou under the pretext of purchasing river construction materials."
"Heh! Coincidentally, these three lumber firms are all affiliates of the Delong Bank. Once the silver enters their accounts, it is equivalent to entering Delong."
The abacus beads clicked again.
"The second hundred thousand taels will go as an advance payment from the Ministry of Revenue to the Court of Imperial Entertainments for palace procurement."
Xu Youde picked up his teacup and moistened his dry throat. "The Deputy Minister of the Court of Imperial Entertainments, Yang Bingwen, is an old acquaintance of mine from the past. We still have some private rapport. This money will be issued under the name of purchasing... Jiangnan autumn silk in advance."
Xu Youde sneered coldly. "Yang Bingwen's hands have never been clean. Once he gets the money, he will transfer it into the public account of the capital's silk guild."
"I've pretty much figured it all out over the past few days. I now have my people inside the guild. Within a few days, this money will be broken down into dozens of small transactions of a few hundred taels each, and deposited separately into Delong Bank's three branches in the south city."
The abacus beads were flicked to the last row.
"The most troublesome is this third hundred thousand taels. It cannot be moved around within the capital; it would cause too much of a stir and must be shifted outside."
Xu Youde looked up at the heavy night outside the window. "We will use the pretext of military pay escort attrition."
"Huan'er is going north to escort the military pay this time. The journey is long. The loss of horses on the road, vehicle repairs, and the boarding and lodging expenses at various relay stations along the way—all of these can be manipulated. I will break the hundred thousand taels into hundreds of small accounts, all mixed into the total expenditure breakdown of the military pay escort."
Xu Youde drew a circle on the table with his finger. "This money will be directly allocated from the Great Granary to twelve pre-designated relay stations along the route, as well as four government-run horse farms."
"The postmasters of these relay stations and the managers of the horse farms have long tasted the sweetness of phantom payrolls. After receiving the silver, they will balance their books and then remit the cash to Delong Bank's northern branches under the guise of refunding excess material funds."
The study was so quiet that only the ticking of the water clock could be heard.
These three financial chains went through completely different government offices, were handled by completely different people, and used completely unrelated pretexts, but their ultimate destination was all Xiao Jingyan's Delong Bank.
"Father, you are..."
"This is called weaving a web."
Xu Youde stood up and locked the shadow ledger back into the bottom of the wooden chest. "The three lines are completely independent. Even if Xu Jie's people detect one of them, tracking it down will absolutely not implicate the other two."
He looked at the deposit receipt from Delong Bank, his tone icy.
"The most crucial point is that every handler on these three chains—Shen Tongji's IOU, Yang Bingwen's private ledger, the embezzlement receipts from the relay stations along the way—are all firmly in my grasp. Xiao Jingyan thinks he has grabbed the lifeline of the Xu family."
"I, Xu Youde, will let him see exactly who has the final say over the money and grain ledgers of the Great Qian Dynasty."
"Your duty and mine is to secure the rear."
"This is true for Qinghuan, and it is true for the Emperor as well."
