Past the middle of the Chou hour, beneath the Observatory Terrace of the Imperial Astronomical Bureau.
Sun Ming, a junior clerk who had only been on the job for two months, hunched his shoulders against the cold, clutching a secret letter delivered from the inner court.
He looked up at the patch of stars due south—the celestial region that represented Jiangnan.
He needed only one glance for his knees to go weak.
The Year Star in the south had not moved at all. It still hung in the same place, listless and half-dead.
But the letter in his hand…
“This is a disaster! A real disaster this time!”
Sun Ming’s lips trembled. Forgetting that the road was slippery, he scrambled away on all fours, rolling and crawling as fast as he could.
…
Bang!
The old chief astronomer, his hair white with age, was bent over a great bronze celestial globe. Startled, his hand jerked and carved a long red mark across its surface.
“Outrageous! This is the Observatory, not a funeral hall! Stop wailing!”
The rebuke had barely left his mouth when Sun Ming threw himself before the desk, his voice breaking with sobs. “Master! My lord! The Directorate of Ceremonies sent this letter personally!”
The old chief astronomer stopped mid-scold.
His face turned grim as he snatched the secret letter away.
There were only a few words on it.
He stared at the note as cold sweat streamed down his face. Then he turned toward the open skylight to the south.
The stars outside were perfectly ordinary.
Yet the death warrant in his hand ordered him to compose an astrological pronouncement.
The cinnabar brush trembled violently in his grip as it hovered in midair.
Once he put it to paper, the entire realm of Great Qian would be turned upside down.
One wrong move, and his old bones would be ground into dust.
“Master… The stars clearly haven’t changed. If we write what they’re asking for, aren’t we deceiving Heaven?”
Sun Ming knelt on the floor, his teeth chattering.
The old chief astronomer closed his eyes.
When he opened them again, only ruthlessness and grim understanding remained.
He seized the cinnabar brush and ground his back teeth together. “Deceiving Heaven? Is the Emperor not Heaven itself? If His Majesty wishes to speak through our mouths, then that is the will of Heaven!”
…
Three days later, the astrological pronouncement that was destined to overturn the realm traveled a thousand miles through the skies and reached a major town in Jiangnan.
Jinling City. The main headquarters of the Jiangning Wood Guild.
The morning mist had yet to clear from the river. Along the great wharf stretching for miles beside the water, the laborers’ chants thundered through the air.
More than a dozen broad-bottomed heavy cargo junks, riding low in the water, docked one after another along the Yangtze.
Wrapped in a fur-lined coat and biting down on half a dry tobacco stem, Fifth Master Zhao narrowed his eyes as he inspected the enormous cargo being unloaded from the holds.
Century-old fir. Premium nanmu thick enough for three men to join hands around. Once stripped of its bark, the timber revealed a fragrant golden heartwood.
The Jiangnan Wood Guild had spent three full years hauling this valuable lumber out of the ancient forests of Sichuan and Guizhou, paying for it with human lives.
“Fifth Master, this timber is too fine,” the chief accountant murmured as he approached. “Under the court’s regulations, beams of this size may only be used for imperial palaces and the Imperial Ancestral Temple. Which salt merchant or clan patriarch in Jiangnan would dare use them for his own halls? Violating the regulations is a capital offense.”
Fifth Master Zhao exhaled a cloud of smoke, smiling without warmth. “What’s there to fear? Those great families have plenty of ways around the rules. They can cut the beams shorter, join them together, and use them in secret. For now, send word to the prefect’s office and the major clans south of the city. Test the waters. If they want this shipment, they’ll have to pay more.”
He was still calculating how to drive up the price when the dockhands had yet to fasten the mooring ropes around the stone posts.
Suddenly, the crowd along the riverbank parted.
Seven or eight stewards in lake-blue brocade robes strode onto the gangplank, each wearing an unmarked saber at his waist and accompanied by two or three dozen guards.
They did not present a calling card from the local merchants’ association, nor did they wear the insignia of any shop or trading house.
Their leader appeared to be in his forties, with a pale, clean-shaven face. When he spoke, his precise northern accent sounded especially jarring in this place.
“We’ll take all the timber on those ships.”
The wood guild’s workers froze for a moment, then burst into laughter.
The lumber on those dozen-odd ships, converted into silver, was enough to buy half the teahouses in Jiangning Prefecture. What northern bumpkins had come here, claiming they would take the entire shipment?
Fifth Master Zhao tapped the ash from his pipe. Stopping the workers who were reaching for their knives, he stepped forward and cupped his hands.
“This gentleman, I am the manager of the Wood Guild. This timber has already been reserved for several of our old clients in Jiangnan. If you’re interested, perhaps we could set aside one or two tenths for you as a gesture of—”
Thud!
A heavy iron chest was thrown down at his feet.
One of the guards kicked open the lock. Inside, bright silver ingots were stacked in perfect rows, with a bundle of banknotes pressed beneath the lid.
Across them were written: “Redeemable on sight at the Jiangnan Grand Exchange Bank.”
The rest of Fifth Master Zhao’s sentence died in his throat.
“Do you not understand plain speech?”
The steward took one step forward and casually drew out a slender iron spike over a foot long. He drove it into the nearest fir beam without even checking for water damage.
He did not look at Fifth Master Zhao. Instead, he asked the accountant, “What’s the current market price for this shipment?”
The chief accountant swallowed. “A hundred taels for each nanmu beam…”
“Two hundred.”
Fifth Master Zhao sucked in a sharp breath. His cupped hands remained suspended in midair.
“Good sir, in Jiangnan, we believe in doing business amicably. As for those old clients…”
“Three hundred.”
The steward turned and fixed him with a stare.
It was a gaze of utter superiority.
A chill immediately shot through Fifth Master Zhao, and he unconsciously took half a step back.
In the space of two short hours, the price of these massive beams, normally calculated by the piece, had been raised threefold by the northern steward.
In the end, even the dozens of slabs of black cypress in the corner—ordinarily used only by wealthy families to make longevity coffins—caught his attention.
“These are yours too?”
“They’re meant for coffins…”
“Add another fifty percent. Clear them all out. Find carts and move them immediately.”
The old accountants of the Wood Guild, each with decades of experience, exchanged stunned looks, their abacuses clutched tightly in their hands.
In all their lives, had they ever witnessed such a spectacle?
At that moment, everyone at the wharf seemed to go mad.
Those who had timber began hoarding it instead of selling, while those without any ran in every direction asking who might still have a shipment available.
…
As construction erupted at the northern wharf, equally dramatic events unfolded in the south of the city.
Ever since Great Qian was founded, the southern district had been desolate. Apart from a few dilapidated dye shops and abandoned government granaries, the area consisted almost entirely of wasteland inhabited by impoverished families.
Yet today, several unmarked black-canopied carriages drawn by pairs of horses arrived at the edge of this forsaken land—an area so wretched that even stray dogs rarely lingered there.
Several accountants in dark-patterned silk robes climbed down from the carriages using mounting stools. They carried not only ledgers, but also geomantic compasses and iron measuring bows.
They strode rapidly through the frosted fields, measuring out the land with sweeping motions of their bows without once raising their heads.
A short distance away, Sun the Rascal and several other down-and-out locals crouched against a wall in the shantytown, watching the spectacle. Farther off, the neighborhood guards and ward headman stood with folded arms, coldly observing the outsiders.
“Uncle, I reckon this lot has taken a fancy to those broken dye shops,” Sun the Rascal spat. “They’re probably planning to fence off the land and build workshops. Why don’t we invoke the ancestral shrine and squeeze them for a little land money? Unless they cough up a hundred or eighty taels, they won’t be leaving today.”
The old village headman stroked his beard. “Go find out what they’re really after first.”
Seven or eight men gathered their courage and approached.
“Gentlemen! This land has supported our families for generations! You can’t just measure it however you please. You’ll disrupt the feng shui…”
The leading accountant stopped.
Without even lifting his eyelids, he reached into his robe and flicked out a sheet of yellow paper. It landed against the old village headman’s chest.
There were no details of a sale written on it.
But in the lower right corner was a square official seal, bright red and glaring.
The seal of Yingtian Prefecture!
A blank official deed bearing the prefect’s seal! Once the names were filled in, it could be used immediately—no broker’s tax or transfer fees required.
The old village headman’s knees went weak, and he dropped to his knees in the muddy ground.
The accountant stood there with a cold expression. Behind him, two burly men carried over a wooden chest and set it down on the frozen earthen ridge with a heavy thud.
“This stretch of ramshackle huts and this patch of alkaline wasteland belong to us from this moment on.”
Sun the Rascal’s eyes widened. “My lord, this alkaline land isn’t worth much…”
“Three times the premium price of a prosperous street-front shop, paid in silver on the spot.” The accountant cut off his useless prattle. “The broken bricks, rubble, and scraps of cloth in the fields count for nothing. I only want you to sign and seal the deed now—immediately—and get out of here within half an hour.”
Everyone present was dumbfounded.
The foul ditch that no one would touch even for a hundred taels of silver had somehow been bought outright at three times the price of a prime street-front property!
Yet the gleaming silver really was sitting there on the millstone.
The news spread on the winter wind that very day.
Those down-and-out tenants who had rushed over intending to make a scene and extort money were dazed by the sudden windfall. They scrambled home to dig out their land deeds, then fought to crowd around the black-canopied carriages.
Sign! Take the money! Leave!
It took little more than half a day.
The land deeds of several wards south of the city, the foundations of dye shops, and even the remaining land rights to several collapsed government warehouses were swept up in one clean stroke.
Such thunderous methods and bizarre conduct could no longer be concealed.
All the prominent local brokers and major dealers in Jinling were alarmed. They began making inquiries everywhere, trying to uncover the identities of these mysterious buyers.
The winds were rising over Jiangnan.
……
The midday market was drawing to a close.
At the Watching the Moon Tea House, the Jiangnan scholars who normally held forth on romantic affairs and literary essays were now so shaken that their scalps tingled.
In a private room on the second floor, two groups of merchants were arguing until their faces turned red.
“They’ve gone mad! Every last one of them! The northerners bought timber at the docks without bargaining, and someone bought up all that rotten alkaline wasteland south of the city at the price of prime shops! The Jiangnan Grand Circulation Official Bank is nearly emptied of silver!” a fat merchant roared, slapping the table.
“Who on earth is behind this scheme?! What else could anyone want with such enormous timber except to build a palace? And what could they possibly do with that wasteland south of the city except build a great government office?!”
The two men exchanged a glance. In each other’s eyes, they saw the same terror that neither dared put into words.
Before the tea house could argue the matter to a conclusion, an unusually shrill cry suddenly rose from the street, which had been bustling moments before.
“Extra! Buy the news! Extra!”
The awnings shielding the street-facing tea houses had only just been taken down when dozens of beggars and young boys, all dressed in ragged jackets, came darting out from every alley.
Clutching thick stacks of freshly inked sheets, they ran through the streets, scattering privately printed copies of the Jiangnan Current Affairs Gazette.
The pages spun through the cold wind before fluttering down onto the avenue and the windowsills of the tea houses.
“Pick one up and read it! Quickly!”
The fat merchant shoved open the window and snatched a sheet from midair.
The tea drinkers scrambled to pass it around. Even the tea-house attendant at the entrance crouched down to pick one up.
The Watching the Moon Tea House had been roaring with noise, but the moment everyone saw what was printed in the gazette, the entire building fell deathly silent.
On the crude, yellowed page, there was none of the usual gossip or trivial news.
At the very center, eight large characters had been stamped in bold ink:
“Purple Aura Moves South—The Land of Dragonic Rise!”
“The Year Star enters the Southern Dipper; in the region of Dipper and Ox, Heaven’s Mandate points south. The Purple Star moves southward…”
