The sky had just fully brightened, but the main hall of the Ministry of Revenue was already packed with people.
Minister Shang Qitai had arrived half an hour earlier than usual. The wrinkles on his official robes were not even smoothed out. His first words upon entering were directed at the Treasury Bureau.
"Are the four vaults sealed?"
Fu Heng, Director of the Treasury Bureau, immediately stood up, cupped his hands, and replied.
"To answer Your Excellency, before midnight last night, the Bullion, Granary, Expenditure, and Armory vaults were all locked. The keys have been delivered to your office, signed and registered by the night-duty clerks."
Shang Qitai nodded, sweeping his gaze across the directors of the various bureaus in the hall.
"In which vault are the records of the lost military rations for the Northern Border from the past three years?"
Lu Chengyi, Director of the Expenditure Bureau, quickly spoke up.
"They are all in Cabinet A of the Expenditure Vault, totaling twelve boxes. I personally counted them last night; not a single box is missing."
Only then did Shang Qitai let go of half the anxiety in his heart. He picked up the ginseng soup on the table and took a sip.
"Until what time did Xu Youde stay in the office last night?"
Lu Chengyi opened the night-duty ledger at his hand and read aloud.
"Vice Minister Xu entered the Old Archives Room during the hour of Xu and left during the hour of Chou. He took away three boxes of moth-eaten and moldy documents."
"The accounts date back to twenty years ago, categorized as reimbursements for obsolete repairs."
After reading, Lu Chengyi couldn't help but add a comment.
"They are just trivial ledgers about the prices of wooden planks, the amount of tung oil, and the wages of shipwrights. You couldn't even scrape together a round number from them."
Several officials in the hall exchanged glances, and someone let out a muffled laugh.
Shang Qitai leaned back in his chair, twirling the lid of his ginseng soup, just about to dismiss the matter as a joke.
However, Right Vice Minister Cui Jin leaned forward slightly from his seat nearby.
"Your Excellency, there is a matter I wish to bring to your attention."
Shang Qitai glanced at him.
"Speak."
Cui Jin looked left and right, then stepped half a pace closer.
"Which years were those three boxes that Xu Youde requisitioned from?"
Lu Chengyi flipped through the ledger.
"The years of Yimao, Bingchen, and Dingsi, three consecutive years."
Cui Jin's expression changed.
He looked at Shang Qitai.
"Your Excellency, the year of Yimao was the very first year the official grain transport was contracted out to private merchants."
The lid in Shang Qitai's hand dropped onto the table with a clatter.
The few people who had been laughing all shut their mouths, not understanding what hidden meaning lay in Vice Minister Cui's words.
Shang Qitai could no longer sit still. He stood up abruptly, the wings of his official hat trembling.
"Where is Han Bingnian? Go to the Old Archives Room and fetch Han Bingnian for me!"
A clerk jogged out.
In less than the time it takes half an incense stick to burn, Han Bingnian walked into the main hall carrying his bunch of rusty keys.
He yawned and bowed to Shang Qitai.
"Han Bingnian, which boxes did Xu Youde requisition from the Old Archives Room last night? Report everything to me in detail."
Han Bingnian pulled out a stack of handover receipts from his robe, flipped through them, and handed them over.
"To answer Your Excellency, Vice Minister Xu entered the archives with a stamped voucher from your office. He requisitioned three boxes: Ding-31, Ding-33, and Ding-35."
"Following the rules, I issued a checkout slip for repairs. The box numbers, page counts, and records of moth damage were all logged in the ledger. Vice Minister Xu signed it, and I affixed my thumbprint."
Shang Qitai snatched the handover receipts and flipped to the last page.
The red seal of the Minister's office was strikingly stamped on the bottom right corner of the voucher.
It was the one he had ordered to be issued just yesterday.
At the time, with a grand wave of his hand, he had laughingly told the clerk to issue the voucher and stamp it for Xu Youde, even mocking Xu publicly that he wouldn't be able to sort out two taels of silver from those moldy accounts.
He had personally watched the clerk press the red ink onto that very voucher.
Shang Qitai's hand gripped the handover receipt, crumpling the corner of the paper.
"What about the remaining five boxes?"
Han Bingnian replied.
"They are still in their original place. No one has touched them."
"Lead the way!"
Shang Qitai flicked his sleeves and strode toward the Old Archives Room.
Cui Jin and Lu Chengyi followed closely behind. Several officials looked at each other and trailed along as well.
The iron door of the Old Archives Room was opened once more, and a musty smell immediately washed over everyone's faces.
Han Bingnian held up a lantern to lead the way. They turned past three rows of archive shelves and stopped at the base of the innermost wall.
"The five boxes are all here. The seals haven't been broken."
Shang Qitai squatted down and personally lifted the lid of the first box, pulling out a few account books.
Ship repair silver, mast timber, tung oil reimbursements—all trivial figures.
He dug to the very bottom and found the index ledger.
The index clearly listed the categories of the eight boxes of accounts, as well as the years and contents covered by each box.
The three boxes taken by Xu Youde perfectly covered the years of Yimao, Bingchen, and Dingsi.
The first three years after the Tongji Transport Guild took over the grain transport from the government!
The repair records of those three years contained the registry of the first batch of merchant ships that undertook the official grain transport, the names of the shipmasters, the license numbers, and the signatures of their guarantors!
Shang Qitai slammed the index onto the ground, his voice squeezing through clenched teeth.
"He wasn't investigating the ship repair silver! He was investigating who took over the official grain transport back then!"
Cui Jin remained silent beside him, but his complexion was just as awful.
Shang Qitai stood up from the ground, wiped the sweat from his forehead, and sternly ordered his subordinates behind him.
"Pass down my orders. From this moment on, the Old Archives Room will be guarded directly by personnel from my office, working in day and night shifts. Any requisition of old records requires my personally written approval. If it lacks even a single word, no one is allowed access!"
Lu Chengyi quickly voiced his compliance.
The other officials nodded repeatedly and hurried outside.
Just as everyone returned to the main hall and took their seats, Xu Youde's figure appeared at the doorway.
Wearing his usual gray cloth robe that had been washed until it was faded, he walked in slowly, holding a stack of neatly arranged ledgers in his hands.
The gazes of everyone in the hall fell upon him simultaneously. The very atmosphere in the room shifted.
Xu Youde did not look at anyone. He walked straight to his own seat.
He placed the copy of last night's handover receipt on his desk, and only then did he turn around and cup his hands toward Shang Qitai.
"Your Excellency, last night I followed your orders to organize the miscellaneous old accounts. I went through three boxes of grain ship repair records. Seeing that they were heavily damaged by moths, I naturally issued a slip to check them out for repairs, in accordance with the rules."
"The copy of the handover receipt is here for your inspection."
Shang Qitai glared at him with eyes full of hatred, his teeth grinding audibly.
"Xu Youde, what exactly are you trying to do by investigating twenty-year-old accounts?"
Xu Youde stood perfectly straight, wearing a look of sheer surprise.
"Oh? Yesterday, Your Excellency publicly instructed that the accounts for miscellaneous reimbursements and old ship repairs be handed over to me for organization."
"I was merely following orders."
"If Your Excellency feels that I have handled this matter improperly, you may report it to His Majesty and impeach me for overstepping my authority."
These words choked Shang Qitai so much that he couldn't reply for a long time.
That voucher was issued by his order, and the red seal was stamped by his command.
What's more, in front of a hall full of officials yesterday, he had even mocked Xu Youde for digging through moldy accounts.
To pursue the matter now would be equivalent to slapping his own face.
Xu Youde did not give him a chance to catch his breath and continued speaking.
"Lord Shang, please allow me to say one more thing."
"What the Emperor wants is a clean and clear account. The loss of rations didn't just start in the past three years."
"If the source remains unclear, even if we make up for the deficit today, it will be nothing more than pasting a layer of paper over a window—it will tear at the first gust of wind."
The hall was dead silent.
Several officials who had been dead set on following the Minister's office quietly withdrew their hands from the edges of their desks.
They merely lowered their heads to look at the account binders in front of them, not saying a word.
A director surnamed Zhou from the Granary Bureau hesitated for a moment before speaking up.
"Vice Minister Xu's words also make sense. Why not take this opportunity of our internal review to verify the old tally boards as well..."
"There is no need!"
Shang Qitai slammed his hand on the desk, cutting him off.
"The Ministry of Revenue's internal review must prioritize current military supplies."
"Old cases must not be expanded to implicate others. No one is allowed to use the audit as an excuse to disrupt the supply of rations and pay to the Northern Border."
"This is an internal review, not digging up old scores!"
Director Zhou shrank his neck, not daring to utter another word.
Xu Youde cupped his hands in a polite salute and retreated to his seat. He opened the pile of discarded ledgers in front of him, picked up his brush to start copying, and did not say another word.
After the assembly was dismissed, the main hall emptied completely.
Shang Qitai did not return to the Minister's study; instead, he turned into a small duty room behind the main hall and locked the door from the inside.
The duty room contained only a long narrow table and a single chair. The windows were pasted with thick paper, making the room so stuffy it was hard to breathe.
He sat for a moment, then sent someone to summon Fu Heng, the Director of the Treasury Department.
By the time Fu Heng entered, Shang Qitai had already laid out the paper and ground the ink.
"Fu Heng, draft a document for me."
Fu Heng stood before the desk with his hands at his sides, waiting for what was to come.
Shang Qitai dipped the tip of his brush into the ink and wrote four words on the paper.
Temporarily suspend disbursement.
"The disbursement of funds for the Northern Border's military rations this month is to be suspended."
"You write the justification. Just state, 'During the period of account auditing, to prevent duplicate disbursements, the allocation of military ration funds for the Northern Border is temporarily suspended this month, to be settled in full once the audit is complete.'"
Fu Heng's hand trembled slightly.
I am to write it?
"My Lord, the Northern Border is currently at war. If the funds for military rations are cut off..."
"I said suspended, I did not say we would not give it to them."
Shang Qitai cut him off, resting his brush on the rack.
"An audit must have a sequence of priorities."
"When the Northern Border runs short of rations, their memorials will naturally make their way to the capital."
"When that happens, the entire court of civil and military officials will be fixated on the Northern Border's food shortage. Who will still have the mind to dig through twenty-year-old garbage?"
Fu Heng stood rooted to the spot. His lips moved, but in the end, he said nothing more.
He took the piece of paper bearing the words "Temporarily suspend disbursement" from the desk and walked over to the door.
Shang Qitai retrieved the official seal of the Minister of Revenue from a drawer and warmed the ink pad over the candle flame.
Fu Heng spread the draft of the document out on the desk.
Shang Qitai gripped the bronze seal, aimed it at the words "Temporarily suspend disbursement," and pressed down heavily.
The red seal landed on the paper, bleeding a ring of glossy cinnabar.
Shang Qitai released his hand and stared at the bright red official mark, his voice dropping low.
"When the border army lacks rations, the memorials will make their way to the capital on their own."
