The twenty-fifth day of the twelfth lunar month, just past the Hour of the Tiger.
A blizzard had sealed the streets of the capital beneath a blanket of snow. Inside the Grand Secretariat’s night office, the charcoal fire had dwindled to a faint cluster of red embers.
The clerk on night duty sat hunched over the desk, sleeves pulled over his hands, nodding off.
Whatever was happening outside had nothing to do with him.
Suddenly, the rapid beat of hooves shattered the stillness of the night.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The clerk sprang to his feet in fright, accidentally knocking over the inkstone beside him. Ink splashed across half his sleeve.
“Good heavens! What is it? What happened?”
He hurried to open the door.
Wind and snow swept inside. An exhausted courier, his entire body crusted with ice, thrust a bronze document tube into the clerk’s hands.
“Eight-hundred-li emergency dispatch from Jiangnan!” the courier rasped. His voice was so hoarse that it was barely recognizable as human speech. After shouting those words, he collapsed limply onto the threshold.
The clerk shuddered, his drowsiness vanishing without a trace.
Clutching the bronze tube, he walked to the candle stand and pulled out the confidential report inside.
He had read only the first two lines when he staggered back in terror.
A chill crept up his spine. He could barely breathe as he stumbled toward the inner room.
“Lord Grand Secretary! Something terrible has happened!”
The door to the inner chamber swung open, and Xu Jie emerged with a faint furrow between his brows.
“What has caused such panic?” Xu Jie asked in a low, hoarse voice.
“The… the emergency dispatch from Jiangnan! The Three Offices have concluded their joint trial!” The clerk held up the confidential report with both hands, trembling like a sieve.
Xu Jie’s pupils contracted. He strode forward and snatched the thin sheet of paper from the clerk’s hands.
By the dim, yellow candlelight, the Grand Secretary’s gaze raced across the lines.
The contents were perfectly clear: The charges against the Chen and Fang families for seizing government-owned farmland had been proven. Their property was to be confiscated and their clans destroyed, while they themselves would be exiled three thousand li. Yang Bonian, having rendered meritorious service by presenting the map, was to be ennobled as a meritorious subject who had aided the accession.
Xu Jie gently lowered the paper. He raised a hand and stroked his long beard, an unfathomable light stirring in the depths of his eyes.
“What a masterful counterattack from the brink of defeat.” Xu Jie exhaled a breath of foul air, and there was even a trace of admiration in his voice. “That old dog, Xu Youde, has turned the entire foundation of Jiangnan’s great clans upside down.”
“Grand Secretary, this… this is far too serious. How are we to handle it?” the clerk asked in a hushed voice.
Xu Jie turned and slowly walked back to the writing desk, dipping his brush into the ink.
“Follow the usual procedure. Send copies to the Six Ministries.” Xu Jie carefully folded the original and tucked it into his robe. “As for the original, I shall personally take it to the palace and present it to His Majesty.”
The night wind howled.
Riding the wind and snow, the confidential report—one capable of overturning the political order of the capital—spread silently toward the various government offices.
After the Hour of the Rabbit.
The sky had yet to brighten when the vermilion gates of the Ministry of Revenue stood ajar.
The Left Vice Minister paced back and forth inside the gatehouse, wrapped in a heavy coat. His eyes were bloodshot from having stayed awake all night.
He had not closed his eyes even once.
At last, the sound of hooves came from the street corner. A messenger from the Grand Secretariat reined in his horse and handed over a copied document.
The Left Vice Minister snatched the envelope, hurried back into the gatehouse, and tore it open beneath the light of a wind lantern.
His eyes widened as he read every line.
When he reached the final sentence, the tension that had held his shoulders rigid for an entire night suddenly melted away. He released a long breath of white vapor.
“Excellent! Excellent indeed!”
The Left Vice Minister gave a loud shout and turned to rush toward the inner council chamber.
Several aides had already been waiting inside, frantic with worry. Seeing the expression on the Left Vice Minister’s face, they hurried forward to greet him.
“My lord, has news finally arrived from Jiangnan?” one of the aides, a man with a drooping mustache, asked anxiously.
The Left Vice Minister slammed the paper down on the table. Pointing at the words, he declared loudly, unable to suppress his delight, “Read it yourselves! Those Jiangnan clans have been crying injustice in public every day, claiming that Magistrate Xu forcibly seized their ancestral sacrificial fields. And what do we find? They were traitors who seized the imperial government’s farmland and falsified the household registers!”
The aides crowded around the table. Once they had read the contents, their faces lit up with wild joy.
“Magistrate Xu’s methods are truly heaven-defying! With the Jiangnan clans hounding him from every side, he actually managed to turn defeat into victory!”
“This is a crime warranting the confiscation of property and the destruction of their clans! Magistrate Xu hasn’t merely survived this ordeal—he has instead rendered an unparalleled service!”
The Left Vice Minister picked up the tea on the table, cold by now, and drained it in a single gulp. His eyes shone with satisfaction.
“We were right to stand firmly behind Magistrate Xu back then. We bet on the right horse! Once dawn breaks, this memorial will spread throughout the court. I’d like to see how those censors from the Censorate who were jumping up and down to impeach Magistrate Xu will have the nerve to show their faces in court!”
The Left Vice Minister let out a cold snort.
“This time, I doubt they’ll be able to wash the mud from their own trousers!”
That same afternoon.
The rear courtyard of the Ministry of Justice was warm from the underground heating pipes.
The old Vice Minister who had passed the civil service examinations in the same year as Magistrate Xu sat leisurely with a purple-clay teapot in hand, listening to a painted-brow bird chirping inside its cage.
A burst of hurried footsteps sounded outside the courtyard.
A young disciple pushed the door open without even bothering to announce himself. He was panting heavily.
“Master! The Grand Secretariat has leaked confirmation!”
The old Vice Minister did not even raise his eyelids. He took a slow sip of hot tea through the spout before asking, “Judging by that frantic look of yours, did that old devil Xu Youde tear a hole in the heavens?”
The disciple swallowed hard and nodded repeatedly.
“Your foresight is unparalleled, Master! The Three Offices have concluded their joint trial in Jiangnan! The Chen and Fang families have been sentenced to confiscation of their property and exile, while the Yang family has been made into meritorious informants!”
The old Vice Minister’s hand froze around the purple-clay pot.
He turned his head, eyes wide. Then he threw back his head and burst into ringing laughter.
“Hahahaha! Xu Youde! What a ruthless move!”
Pointing toward the south, the old Vice Minister laughed and cursed, “The entire court thought he was about to be swallowed alive in Jiangnan. Instead, he turned around and wrapped the Jiangnan clans up like dumplings, then sent them straight to prison for a lifetime of meals!”
The disciple stepped two paces closer and lowered his voice, a sly note entering his tone.
“Master, there’s something even better. I hear that Censor Zhou, Zhou Mingxiu, who went to preside over the inquiry, secretly accepted a full three million taels in banknotes from the Chen family!”
The disciple continued gleefully, “He planned to use the authority of the joint trial to overturn the Chen family’s case and deal with Magistrate Xu while he was at it.”
“Who could have guessed that the Yang family would bite back in open court, with ironclad evidence? Censor Zhou could only watch as his employer’s property was confiscated. He didn’t even dare utter a word!”
The old Vice Minister set the purple-clay teapot heavily on the table, producing a sharp crack.
“Three million taels? Zhou Mingxiu’s appetite is so great, he ought to worry about bursting his own belly!”
A mocking smile appeared at the corner of the old Vice Minister’s eyes.
“That money is a scalding-hot potato now.”
“Could the Embroidered Uniform Guard possibly fail to uncover where it came from after the Chen family was stripped of everything?”
“Zhou Mingxiu usually carries himself as though he were holier than a sage. So he’s nothing more than a vile, self-serving worm who sells out the court!”
The old Vice Minister gave a cold snort.
“His career is finished. His reputation will be ruined before long.”
Toward evening, the setting sun vanished behind the clouds, and darkness settled over the land.
In the Ministry of Rites, only a single dim oil lamp burned inside Deputy Minister Song Zhiyuan’s study.
Song Zhiyuan clutched the copy sent over from the Grand Secretariat. He had read it over and over three times, yet his two brows remained twisted into a single deep knot.
The room was utterly silent, save for the faint crackling of charcoal in the brazier.
The aide at his side saw the grim expression on his employer’s face and, mustering his courage, ventured, “My lord, are you worried about choosing sides? We’ve always been more or less aligned with the First Prince.”
Song Zhiyuan let out a long sigh. He crumpled the paper in his hand into a ball and tossed it into the brazier.
The flames leapt up and devoured the letter in an instant.
“The First Prince has lost disastrously in Jiangnan, while Xu Youde has won far too decisively.”
With his hands clasped behind his back, Song Zhiyuan paced the room. “The Chen and Fang families are deeply rooted great clans, yet they were uprooted in one stroke, without the slightest hesitation.”
Song Zhiyuan stopped and turned toward his aide, his eyes filled with profound dread.
“You think this is merely a case of embezzlement? You’re wrong!”
He pointed toward Jiangnan. “The court is launching massive construction there. His Majesty is determined to move the capital—and see it through! Anyone who stands in the way will die!”
His voice dropped to a murmur, yet it carried a bone-chilling menace. “Didn’t you read what the secret report said? The detailed map Yang Bonian presented to His Majesty doesn’t merely mark out the Chen and Fang families. It lays bare the weaknesses of more than a dozen other great clans in Jiangnan as well!”
The aide drew a sharp breath, cold spreading through his spine. “You mean… His Majesty intends to use that map to wipe out the old powers of Jiangnan entirely?”
“Uproot them down to the last root and leave not a single survivor.” Song Zhiyuan ground out the eight words through clenched teeth.
He closed his eyes and drew a deep breath to steady himself.
“Pass on my orders. From this day forward, everyone in the Ministry of Rites is to keep their mouths shut! Speak less and work more! No matter how the winds blow outside, we will be deaf and blind.”
Song Zhiyuan opened his eyes, his gaze icy and severe. “At a moment when immortals are fighting overhead, anyone who takes the wrong step will have his head rolling in the marketplace tomorrow!”
The night was deep and dark.
Inside the Censorate’s duty office, the atmosphere was so oppressive it seemed to choke the air from one’s lungs.
Seven or eight censors who usually addressed Zhou Mingxiu as their sworn brother were crammed into a narrow room. Every one of them looked as though the sky had fallen.
“It’s over, it’s over! Lord Zhou has fallen straight into the mud this time,” said a round-faced censor, stamping his feet anxiously as he rubbed his hands together without pause.
“He went all the way to Jiangnan, yet not only did he fail to bring Xu Youde down, he actually helped Xu Youde establish the Chen and Fang families’ guilt beyond dispute.”
“If the First Prince finds out, he’ll be thunderous with rage!”
“Rage from the First Prince is the least of it!” another tall, thin censor cut in, panic coloring his voice. “Haven’t you heard? While in Jiangnan, Lord Zhou accepted no less than three million taels of silver from the Chen family as a bribe to spare their lives!”
“What? Three million taels?!”
The room erupted.
The tall censor nodded repeatedly. “It’s absolutely true! Now that the Chen family has been sentenced to extermination and their property confiscated, that enormous sum has become a dead account. If even the slightest hint of it gets out, Lord Zhou won’t keep his head. And all of us who have usually been close to him will be dragged down with him!”
The men exchanged glances, terror plain in their eyes.
“No! We need to submit a joint memorial immediately and impeach Zhou Mingxiu for accepting bribes! If we get him removed from the Censorate first, we can save our own lives!” the round-faced censor proposed through gritted teeth.
“Absurd!”
An elderly censor who had been sitting silently in the corner suddenly struck the tabletop with the bowl of his tobacco pipe.
He swept a cold gaze over his panicked colleagues and rebuked them in a low voice. “You want to throw yourselves into the fire now? The situation hasn’t become clear yet. What you’re suggesting is nothing less than confessing before anyone has accused you!”
The old censor tapped the table, every word seasoned with experience. “Put your hearts at ease! The wicked winds blowing through the entire court are at their fiercest. Whoever makes the first move will become a sitting duck! Wait until His Majesty’s edict arrives and we can see which way the wind is blowing. Then it won’t be too late to act.”
Late that same night.
Taibai Teahouse in the southern quarter of the capital was still brightly lit.
The official decree had yet to be issued, but the aftershocks of this earth-shaking case had already slipped through the gates of every great household and spread into the streets and alleys.
The main hall was so crowded that there was hardly room to stand. Every tea drinker craned his neck toward the storyteller on the stage.
“Smack!”
The storyteller brought his wooden clapper down hard on the table, and the entire hall fell silent.
“Ladies and gentlemen, listen closely!”
Spittle flew as the storyteller waved his folding fan. “There, in the courtroom of Jiangning Prefecture, the three judicial bodies convened for a joint trial, their authority on full display! The patriarchs of the Chen and Fang families had gone there to accuse Magistrate Xu of forcibly seizing sacrificial fields and oppressing honest folk.”
“But who could have expected a third party to burst onto the scene?”
The storyteller’s eyes widened as he pointed his folding fan toward the audience. “The Yang family patriarch, Yang Bonian, suddenly switched sides in open court! He pulled an old land register from the Xuande era out of his robes and slammed it straight onto the imperial envoy’s desk!”
“As it turned out, those so-called blessed lands and ancestral burial grounds of the Chen and Fang families were all government fields seized by force! They had bribed clerks and falsified official records. What do you call that? That’s thieves crying ‘Stop, thief!’”
The tea drinkers erupted in applause.
“Well done! They got what they deserved!”
“Those great clans may wear human faces, but who would have thought they were secretly up to such filthy schemes? They deserve to have their estates confiscated!”
Seeing how enthusiastic the crowd was, the storyteller lowered his voice and leaned toward the edge of the stage, preparing to reveal something even more shocking.
“And that’s not all! Word has it that the grand censor sent to preside over the trial secretly accepted a full three million taels of silver from the Chen family! He had planned to smooth things over in court and make the whole affair disappear.”
“But then Yang Bonian slammed that ironclad evidence onto the table. The censor was so frightened that he wet his pants right there on the spot! With tears in his eyes, he had no choice but to condemn the Chen family to death against his will! Those three million taels are now hanging around the censor’s neck—a noose ready to claim his life!”
“Whoosh!”
The teahouse exploded into an uproar.
A torrent of vile abuse was hurled at the unnamed censor. Silver pieces and copper coins rained down upon the stage, and the cries of generous patrons rang out one after another.
Outside, the snow was falling harder and harder.
That trial in Jiangnan was like thunder exploding across a flat plain. The furious waves it had unleashed were now spreading like a prairie fire, sweeping the entire capital into an upheaval without end.
