A single oil lamp as small as a bean pierced the night, its flame flickering precariously in the cold wind that slipped through the door.
Xu Youde sat motionless in his high-backed armchair, exuding an air of exhaustion, as if his oil had run dry.
On the desk lay a stack of memorials half a foot high. Flipping through a few revealed pages filled with the lamentations of local prefectures. Not one spoke of anything but disaster: the floods in Jianghuai drowning the fertile fields, or the drought in Shanxi and Shaanxi sending refugees scattering in all directions. Every word boiled down to a single meaning: if the imperial court demanded more grain, the granaries wouldn't even yield a single rat dropping, and as for silver—there was none to be had.
Though the gap in military provisions had already been resolved, and the grain shipments were nearly here, dealing with this pack of stubborn, dead-eyed civil officials was a bitter pill to swallow.
"What a bunch of worthless bastards!"
Xu Youde grabbed the blue-and-white porcelain lid bowl beside him and smashed it to the ground in fury.
The wooden door pushed open, and the steward Xu Fu entered, his back hunched, stepping carefully over the shards of broken porcelain.
The steward held a letter sealed with wax, raising it above his head with both hands.
"Lord Marquis, an eight-hundred-li urgent dispatch from Tongzhou."
Xu Youde tore off the wax seal roughly and shook open the two-inch-wide letter paper.
The moment his bloodshot eyes scanned the first two lines, he shot upright.
The letter read clearly: Lu Wenzhao had been captured, and one hundred and forty thousand taels of silver had been seized.
Standing nearby, Xu Fu lowered his voice and reported the rumors he had gathered:
"The young master made a real commotion in Tongzhou. First, he used imperial authority to lower the Tongjin Sluice gate, cutting off Lu Wenzhao's river escape route."
"Then—no one knows quite how—he even mobilized troops from the Imperial Secret Service."
"That Shen Lian led his mounted riders and used repeating crossbows to turn Lu Wenzhao's private soldiers into sieves."
"The old servant heard from the underlings that on the dock, the blood had stained half the river red. Heaven truly blessed us—the young master, precious as ten thousand pieces of gold, managed to escape the blades of that mob alive."
As the old steward spoke, he kept reciting Amitabha, his face full of relief as if they had narrowly escaped disaster.
Yet Xu Youde showed no sign of lingering fear.
Those few rotten fish and shrimp raised by Lu Wenzhao—how could they possibly harm the eldest young master?
That fool who devoted himself entirely to the single art of drawing his blade—who had once moved through a hundred-man formation with ease—these few bodyguards raised by a mere accountant were barely enough to fill the young master's teeth.
Xu Fu sighed, his old face wrinkling. "But the young master is still too hot-headed, after all. I heard he took that entire lacquered box of secret ledgers recording the illicit grain shipments, along with the full one hundred and forty thousand taels of silver, and handed every single thing over to Shen Lian without keeping a single coin."
The steward shook his head repeatedly, pained.
"Master, those ledgers were a life-preserving talisman to grip over the officials of Jiangnan and half the court! If we'd held back just a fragment of the accounts, no official in the court would dare trip up the Xu family again. As for the silver... a single hair from it would feed the household staff for generations. The young master did the job thoroughly but got nothing tangible out of it. What was he thinking?"
Slap!
Xu Youde's broad palm slammed hard onto the zitan wood desk.
"You fool! Your vision is so shallow it can't hold even two drops of water!"
Xu Youde jabbed a finger at Xu Fu's nose and cursed loudly.
Xu Fu, terrified, fell to his knees and dared not utter a word.
But instead of growing angrier, Xu Youde threw back his head and roared with laughter.
The laughter carried a vindicated triumph that startled the crows nesting in the old locust tree outside the window, sending them flapping away in alarm.
"A life-preserving talisman? That's a blade hanging around your neck!"
Xu Youde pinched the thin letter paper, his eyes gleaming with sharp light, stroking it repeatedly under the dim lamplight.
"Do you think the officials involved in court matters are corpses? A tattered ledger could control them? It would only force those old relics to join hands and devour the Xu family alive!"
Xu Youde paced behind the desk, his voice growing louder with each step.
"This one hundred and forty thousand taels—whose money is it? It's a minefield that'll cost you your head! If the Xu family dared to skim even a single copper coin's worth of grease off it, tomorrow the Censorate would impeach us for embezzling military funds and plotting rebellion!"
He stopped and pointed toward the imperial palace to the north.
"The young master handed over the accounts and surrendered the silver. What does that make him? A pure and loyal minister!"
Xu Youde gritted his teeth, chewing those two words before spitting them out. Then he let out a long, relieved breath.
"The Son of Heaven is at his wit's end, searching for a sharp blade that has no attachments and doesn't form cliques or factions."
"With this act of sealing the accounts and refusing the silver, Wuyou is delivering a letter of allegiance to the palace! He's telling the man on that dragon throne that the Xu family doesn't covet wealth or cling to power—they only serve as the blade that strikes where the court points!"
Xu Youde sighed deeply, his tone brimming with unrestrained pride and astonishment.
"Using the Imperial Secret Service's knife to clean house, using the emperor's authority to suppress the chaos on the river, and then washing his hands clean of it all."
"The art of leveraging others' power and advancing by retreating..."
The Old Fox clicked his tongue repeatedly, savoring the taste as if it lingered on his palate.
In the past, he had only regarded his eldest son as a reckless ox who only knew how to cause trouble. Who would have thought the boy had long been clacking away on the abacus of imperial strategy?
This level of shrewdness and ruthlessness—it was almost catching up to Qinghuan's abilities!
With the crisis resolved, it was time to press the advantage.
Xu Youde pulled a sheet of rice paper from the desk, spread it flat, took up his brush, and dipped it in thick ink.
"With one hundred and forty thousand taels of silver filling the gap and the Tongzhou waterways cleared, let's see which blind fool dares to use insufficient transport capacity as an excuse to defy me now!"
The brush danced across the paper, leaving behind relentless military orders.
"Bring me the Ministry of Revenue's seal!" Xu Youde barked.
A splash of bright red vermillion ink pressed heavily onto the official edict's signature line.
"Call in the clerks at the door. Send this decree to all six major granaries in the capital region tonight! Tell every granary officer: the silver is ready, and the deadline for loading ships is set. If they miss a single day, I'll feed their heads to the cesspit!"
With Xu Fu racing out after receiving the orders, the deathly stagnation of the Ministry of Revenue's office was swept away, replaced by the grim air of a war machine rolling into action.
The scene shifted back to the Tongzhou riverbank.
Deep in the night, behind the Waterways Hall, the darkness was absolute.
In a side room, four or five sheep-horn lanterns burned.
Lao Zhou sat cross-legged on a long couch.
After a long while, he set down his work, stacked a few thin booklets stained with blood, stood up, and entered the main hall.
Xu Wuyou lounged lazily in a chair upholstered with tiger fur, toying with a teapot lid in one hand.
"Hall Master," Lao Zhou placed the booklets on the desk. "In the Zhenghao number battle, including the elimination of the hidden posts outside the city, we lost thirteen brothers from the Waterways Hall, and twenty-seven were severely injured, losing limbs or hands."
Xu Wuyou didn't look at the blood-soaked roster. He sat upright, casting the teapot lid aside.
"Pay it from the Waterways Hall's public accounts. Don't touch the canal guild's silver."
Xu Wuyou picked up his vermillion brush and drew a heavy line on a blank sheet.
"For the brothers who died in battle, each receives one hundred and twenty taels of silver for their families."
"Send two tight-lipped men to personally hand it to their parents. Tell the elders that from now on, during every New Year and festival, the Waterways Hall will cover their grain and meat."
"As for those who are crippled or disabled, unable to make a living on the water anymore..."
Xu Wuyou paused.
"Support them until they grow old. Buy a big courtyard in the southern part of the city, hire attendants to care for them. As long as the Waterways Hall's flag flies over the river for one more day, they'll never go without a hot meal."
The seal stamped down, consecrating the new rule.
In the courtyard, dozens of Waterways Hall men, covered in knife wounds and wrapped in white bandages, stood sheltered from the wind under the eaves.
These river bandits and wild renegades, who daily lick blood from the blade’s edge, listened to the conditions emerging from the Qingzheng Hall.
No one could say who started it first, but their knees bent as one, and they knelt in unison on the cold, damp blue bricks.
There were no roaring oaths to the heavens, as was common in the jianghu—only the dull, solid thud of foreheads striking the ground.
One hundred and twenty taels of silver! That was a price a worthless life dared not even dream of in this era.
These lowliest boatmen were long accustomed to the big shots who would sacrifice them to fight for a dock.
But to actually pull out real silver and gold to buy this broken body? In all the world, there was only one such house.
Every man present understood: from this day forward, this life belonged to the Xu family.
The long night finally ended. The lingering echoes of the morning bell rippled through the skies above Tongzhou City.
Outside the council hall of the Tongji Caobo Assembly, a layer of stark white frost had congealed upon the stone slabs.
News that Lei Zhen had lost all face on the pier yesterday, crushed under the heel of the Imperial Guard cavalry, had already spread on wings to all thirty-six wharves.
Now, the incense masters of the five remaining departments—the Punishment Water Hall, Incense Water Hall, and the Officials’ Liaison Office—gathered before the great gate.
Each man wore a heavy fur cloak, but it could not suppress the chill gnawing at their bones.
They stared at the two tightly shut, vermillion-lacquered doors; not one dared to step forward and knock first.
Their murmured discussions shattered in the freezing wind, fragmented and vague.
The sudden upheaval of yesterday had ripped open the Canal Guild’s once-impenetrable hide.
Lu Wenzhao had fallen; Lei Zhen was now nothing but a breathing hollow shell.
And over by Tongjin Gate, a vicious new beast had bared its fangs, casting a cold eye upon this ownerless, fat prize.
Everyone knew that Lei Zhen’s chapter of the old calendar had come to an end.
The next storm of blood and power was already on its way.
