With a faint creak, the hidden door on the side of the bookshelf was pushed open from the outside.
A figure stepped over the high threshold from the shadows at the base of the wall, without kicking up even a speck of dust.
The newcomer was not wearing his conspicuous Flying Fish suit, nor his black gauze hat, but was dressed only in ordinary clothes.
Shen Lian stepped into the light, casually pulled out a black iron waist tag from his belt, and tossed it onto the desk.
There was no one else in the room, only two elongated shadows.
Xu Youde walked to the desk, not touching the black iron waist tag that symbolized the Imperial City Bureau.
"Commander Shen, scaling the walls of my Chengyi Count Estate in the middle of the night instead of taking the main gate, surely you aren't here on His Majesty's orders just to see if the blood I coughed up today was real or not."
Shen Lian pulled over an armchair and sat down in a bold, sprawling posture, completely ignoring the cup of cold tea on the table.
"If you had truly coughed up blood, My Lord, you wouldn't have struck back so ruthlessly in the Golden Throne Room today, forcing Shang Qitai into the dead end of a closed-door self-investigation. Your move of retreating to advance was played beautifully, fooling the entire court of civil and military officials."
Xu Youde pulled out another chair and sat down, separated from him by that wide red sandalwood desk.
"Commander Shen flatters me. Shang Qitai was pressing hard at every step in the court; I was merely forced to bite back in order to protect my son."
Shen Lian did not entertain this evasive pleasantry.
He pulled several tightly rolled yellow hemp paper secret transcripts from his chest, untied the red string binding them, and flattened them out on the table one by one.
"Those people outside the court all think that His Majesty is using this year's autumn examination to stir up trouble in order to investigate examination fraud, using Lord Xu Youde as a broom to sweep away the filth of the examination halls. They think this is just a warning."
Shen Lian's fingertip poked heavily at the first secret transcript.
"The Cui, Lu, and Zheng families, along with those deeply entrenched prominent scholarly clans in the provinces, have held the local examination quotas, the candidates' travel permits, and even the guarantee documents entirely in their own hands for the past ten years."
"This list records the chief and associate examiners of the provincial examination halls. Take a look; seventy percent of them are disciples and former subordinates of these three families!"
Shen Lian looked up, his gaze pressing directly on Xu Youde.
"Before scholars enter officialdom, they first bow to their examiners as mentors; after entering officialdom, they first acknowledge their fellow graduates."
"The imperial court gives them their official hats, but the local prominent families use these hats to gather loyalty from below."
"The examination halls of the Great Qian Dynasty have long become the private vegetable gardens of the noble clans. What His Majesty wants to dismantle is not some examination fraud at all, but this net pressing down upon the national treasury!"
Xu Youde stared at the secret transcript list, his face not twitching even a bit.
Having struggled and schemed in the court for decades, how could he not see through the intricacies of this?
"The autumn examination is merely the first cut of the blade."
Xu Youde stretched out his finger, tapped on the table, and crossed over the pile of lists, tracing over to that blank sheet of Xuan paper.
"Whoever controls the autumn examination, controls the disciples."
"When the disciples go to the provinces, they become county magistrates, supervisors, and transport commissioners."
"What do these people hold in their hands? Who sets the grain prices? Who issues the waterway permits? Who manages the local granaries?"
Xu Youde's voice was deep and low.
"Water transport is His Majesty's second blade."
"Those people in the Ministry of Revenue only sit in the capital looking at account books and checking numbers. The keys to the national treasury are essentially all hanging on the belts of those waterway gangs and local noble clans."
"If they want to report natural disasters and floods, they report them; if they want to stamp the seal for goods lost in transit, the Ministry of Revenue stamps it for them."
"They collude from top to bottom, emptying the national treasury, converting it into silver, and lining their own pockets."
Shen Lian clapped his hands and pushed the remaining secret transcripts over all at once.
"You have a good eye, My Lord. You see the bones and sinews inside with perfect clarity."
"The imperial examinations gather men, water transport gathers grain, the Ministry of Revenue gathers accounts, and military supplies gather power. As soon as these four areas are moved, the roots that old bones like Cui, Lu, and Zheng have buried in the dirt will be pulled up entirely."
Shen Lian paused, leaning forward slightly, looking at the calculating and powerful minister across from him.
"The Xu family holds the ironclad evidence of the Guangyi Firm's corruption, and the original files of the water transport reform from twenty years ago. As long as this fire is lit, these four lines will connect into a ring of fire, burning all those noble clans to death inside it."
Xu Youde picked up the cup of cold tea and blew away the non-existent foam on the surface of the water.
"This disturbance is too great. Combining the four lines is a matter that shakes the foundation of the state. How many years does His Majesty plan to take to finish this?"
Shen Lian did not beat around the bush; his tone was cold and hard.
"His Majesty does not plan to wait for years. The blade has already been drawn; there is no reason to put it back into the scabbard."
Xu Youde was greatly shocked in his heart.
"Commander Shen, in the Golden Throne Room today, I did not hand over that account book that Xu Wuyou risked his life to send back."
Xu Youde met Shen Lian's gaze without any retreat.
"His Majesty is using my Xu family as pawns crossing the river, and I accept that."
"After all, we eat the monarch's salary and bear the monarch's worries. The Xu family can manage this autumn examination, and we can also investigate the rotten accounts of the water transport over these years for His Majesty."
"But I cannot throw the lives of the entire Chengyi Count Estate, young and old, into the blades of the noble clans!"
Xu Youde reached out and tapped the black iron waist tag on the table.
"If we are to flip the entire table, my Xu family cannot withstand the dying counterattacks of all the noble clans."
"If we truly push Cui, Lu, and Zheng to a dead end, they can incite civilian uprisings, they can cut off the waterways, and they can ensure that not a single grain of military rations makes it to the northern borders! When that time comes, they won't even need to act themselves; the Xu family will become the scapegoat condemned by the entire court of civil and military officials!"
"What His Majesty wants is not for you to flip the entire table, My Lord. His Majesty only wants the Xu family to bite the fattened pig, Shang Qitai, to death."
Shen Lian, however, was calm and composed.
"Lord Xu, there are some things... that you have no choice but to do."
"Shang Qitai must die. The Tongji Water Transport Guild can be replaced with an obedient master, and those clerks in the Ministry of Revenue who take dirty money can all be arrested and purged."
"The transport rules of the granaries can also be re-established under the leadership of the Xu family. As for the outrageous things Xu Wuyou did on the docks, His Majesty will cover for you entirely."
"But the flow of dirty silver along the waterways in that blood-stained account book absolutely must not be traced to the First Prince."
Xu Youde's hand trembled uncontrollably.
Shen Lian stared at him intently, not missing any change on his face.
"Not a single tael of silver's whereabouts regarding the funding of private soldiers is allowed to leak out."
Xu Youde suddenly seemed to fly into a rage.
"That is impossible! I intercepted the Tongji Water Transport Guild's shipping log at the docks and took away their waterway permits that feed them! As long as we confiscate Shang Qitai's private properties and follow the vine to check the silver vaults, that transport route of silver will point right to it on its own!"
"How can this rotten account of millions of taels be balanced! Do you expect me to conjure up a way to stuff this massive deficit entirely into Shang Qitai's mouth out of thin air? Shang Qitai is just a temporary custodian of wealth; where is he supposed to conjure up millions of taels of hard silver to fill the hole in the national treasury!"
Shen Lian sat in his chair, not even shifting his weight.
"That will depend on your methods, My Lord."
"The evidence must end in Shang Qitai's hands. the First Prince must not be implicated in the slightest."
"As for how to fill the hole, that is a matter for the Ministry of Revenue's closed-door self-investigation."
If Shang Qitai wants to save his entire family line from extermination, he will naturally go and extort the merchants who profited. If he cannot squeeze it out of them, he will pay with his own life.
Shen Lian stood up and brushed the wrinkles from the hem of his clothes.
From deep within his sleeve, he withdrew a palm-sized black wooden token and slapped it backhandedly onto the white paper in front of Xu Youde.
Carved onto the token was a blood-red character for kill.
His Majesty wants Shang Qitai's head. This is a death warrant.
Shen Lian turned and walked toward the hidden door without looking back.
His Majesty also wants the First Prince to remain the clean and untainted First Prince. This is also an absolute decree.
My Lord, by taking this black wooden token, the Xu family now has an official status in this game.
How to deflect the blame, how to uncover the corruption to fill the deficit, and how to cover up the scandal for the Emperor, all depends on whether your blade, My Lord, is sharp enough.
However, if the blade is dull, the one wielding it becomes useless.
The hidden door was pushed open. A gust of cold wind, swirling with the lingering heat of the summer night, rushed into the room, making the candlelight dance wildly.
Shen Lian's figure crossed the threshold and instantly melted into the ink-black night, without leaving even the slightest sound of footsteps behind.
The study was deathly quiet.
A chill shot up from the soles of Xu Youde's feet straight to his head.
The Emperor's ambition to centralize local financial power, clean up the Jianghuai waterways, and take the opportunity to uproot the century-old noble families—such audacity was long within his expectations.
Yet, the Emperor specifically wanted to protect the First Prince, who was secretly recruiting troops and plotting treason!
Making Shang Qitai take the blame as a scapegoat was not difficult.
What was difficult was how to precisely sever Shang Qitai's neck within that massive web of interests without pulling up the deeply hidden root!
To cover up the whereabouts of millions of taels of military funds, the Xu family would have to take the initiative to forge accounts and actively shield those shady dealings!
The Emperor was actually fully aware of the First Prince recruiting troops beyond the Great Wall!
Not only did the Emperor not unleash his thunderous wrath, but he also specifically sent Shen Lian of the Imperial City Department to scale the wall in the middle of the night to warn the Xu family: they were absolutely forbidden from shaking the First Prince's military power!
Xu Youde's mind buzzed with a deafening roar.
Those private armies the First Prince had raised across various regions, the flagrant embezzlement of the waterway funds—these were fundamentally the products of the Emperor's tacit approval!
