Daming: Brother, there is no future for monks, let's rebel

“I understand,” he said. “Tomorrow, I will order a complete inventory of all temporary work teams that have been requisitioned in the city, regardless of the year.”

Gu Qingping looked at him and said, "This will cause quite a commotion."

“There must be some activity,” Zhu Han said, “but not an investigation, but an inventory. The reason will be different, so the reaction will be different.”

Zhu Biao nodded.

“Uncle,” he suddenly asked, “what about you?”

Zhu Han looked at him.

“I won’t show myself,” he said, “but I will deliver everything you need to see to you.”

Zhu Biao did not try to persuade him further.

He knew very well that only he could take this step.

As night deepened, Zhu Han left the Eastern Palace.

The carriage moved very slowly, not taking the usual route, but instead circling around the north of the city.

The city was unusually quiet after the rain. Occasionally, the shadows of patrolling lights would flash by, but no one paid much attention to the inconspicuous royal carriage.

Upon returning to the mansion, Chen Shu was already waiting in the study.

“Your Highness,” he said in a low voice, “we’ve gotten halfway through the journey of that letter.”

"explain."

“The last resort came from the old river works camp,” Chen Shu said. “That place was abandoned three years ago, but recently someone went in at night.”

Zhu Han was not surprised.

"What about people?"

"We didn't catch them." Chen Shu shook his head. "Our men followed them for half the distance, but they lost contact on their own."

Zhu Han nodded.

"Well done."

Chen Shu was taken aback.

“Arresting people now is useless,” Zhu Han said. “The leads have already been laid, so the people themselves are no longer important.”

He walked to the table, took out the old hydraulic engineering manual, and opened it again.

The system notification still hasn't appeared.

Zhu Han did not wait any longer.

He turned to the last page and, in the blank space, used an extremely fine pen to write down several locations and several years.

It's not evidence, it's a comparison.

Just as dawn was breaking, someone suddenly requested an audience outside the mansion.

They are not from the Crown Prince's palace.

It is the Ministry of Revenue's Bureau of Personnel Management.

The scholar in the blue robe stood outside the door, his expression still calm.

“Your Highness,” he bowed, “I have some old grievances that I would like Your Highness to take a look at.”

Zhu Han looked at him and suddenly smiled.

“The accounts aren’t with me,” he said. “The road is there.”

The clerk paused slightly, then lowered his head.

“That’s perfect,” he said. “We’ve come here to ask for directions too.”

Zhu Han stepped aside and opened the door.

By the time the sky was truly bright, Zhu Han had already been sitting in his study for two hours.

What the Ministry of Revenue sent was not an account book, but a very ordinary gray cloth bag.

There was no seal in the bag. Inside was a stack of rewritten lists. The paper was of varying ages, but the handwriting was deliberately imitative of the old style. If you didn't look closely, you could easily mistake it for the original document that had been preserved from that time.

Chen Shu stood aside, glanced at it only once, and whispered, "This is the work registration."

“It’s not complete,” Zhu Han said, flipping through a few pages, “but it’s enough.”

These lists contain no amounts, no approvals, only names, places of origin, work periods, and a most inconspicuous column—reason for transfer.

The writing is extremely concise, mostly consisting of clichés like "river section repair" and "temporary requisition." However, once these clichés are put together on the same piece of paper, and the years and locations are compared, they appear excessively dense.

“They started to voluntarily disclose their information,” Chen Shu said.

“It’s not a disclosure,” Zhu Han said. “It’s a switch of sides.”

Chen Shu was taken aback.

Zhu Han closed the list and placed it on the table: "The deeper the investigation into the old accounts, the more those who are closer to the inside will understand. Those who acted first may not be able to protect themselves."

"So they want to get away first?"

"I want to become someone who 'cooperates with the inspection'," Zhu Han said calmly, "even if it's just half a foot."

Chen Shu paused for a moment, then asked, "Should we stop them?"

"Don't stop them." Zhu Han shook his head. "Let them move."

He got up and walked to the window. The old locust tree in the courtyard had been washed by the rain, its leaves a deeper color. As the wind blew, water droplets fell along the veins of the leaves, dripping onto the stone steps with a very soft but continuous sound.

"It is precisely at times like these that we must avoid traffic jams," he said. "The roads must be open for people to walk on."

Just after Chen Shi (7-9 AM), commotion broke out in the city.

It's not from the imperial court, it's from the common people.

Several old sheds that should have been demolished long ago were suddenly renovated; several waterways that had been neglected for years were cleaned up by people hired by the local government; and even the abandoned old salt warehouse in the north of the city had a few seemingly unrelated laborers working from sunrise to sunset.

These events may seem insignificant on their own, but when they occur on the same day, they appear too orderly.

Zhu Biao received the complete report in the afternoon.

In the inner study, Gu Qingping sat by his side, her brows furrowing as she watched the messages being sent in.

“They are proving themselves,” she said softly.

Zhu Biao nodded: "It's also about getting ahead of the curve."

"What are you robbing?"

“The looting has been going on for a long time,” Zhu Biao said. “As long as we can prove that people have been moving around in these places all along, we can push the responsibility back to an earlier time.”

Gu Qingping looked at him: "So what do you plan to do?"

Zhu Biao did not answer immediately.

He stood up, walked to the wall, and unfolded the newly copied city defense map. Some areas on the map were marked with faint red dots, inconspicuous yet dense.

"The places they moved just happened to avoid these areas," he said.

Gu Qingping took a closer look and immediately understood: "Did you have these secretly counted?"

“Yes,” Zhu Biao said. “They thought I was only targeting the old waterworks, but I was more concerned about which areas they dared not touch.”

Gu Qingping was silent for a moment: "That means the real thing is still inside."

Zhu Biao nodded.

“So,” he closed the blueprints, “I can’t follow their path.”

That evening, an inconspicuous order was issued from the Eastern Palace.

It's not about investigating or sealing off, but about "verifying".

Verify the actual number of workers along the river and whether it matches the reports submitted by the local authorities.

It was just a routine verification document, without even a time limit.

However, once this document was issued, those in the city who thought they were ahead suddenly found themselves a step behind.

Because what we're checking isn't the accounts.

are people.

Night fell again.

In Zhu Han's residence, the lights were turned on late, but they burned steadily.

After reporting the reactions from various parts of the city, Chen Shu couldn't help but ask, "Your Highness, isn't the Crown Prince's move a bit too slow?"

Zhu Han was looking at the hydraulic engineering book when he heard this, and gently closed it.

“Not too slow,” he said. “Just right.”

"But they've already started wrapping things up."

“The person who finishes the job is most likely to reveal their flaws,” Zhu Han said. “The more eager they are to get things done as if it were “already done”, the more likely they are to forget one problem.”

"what?"

Zhu Han looked up: "People may not remember."

The statement suddenly dawned on him.

On the list of laborers, names can be changed and places of origin can be copied, but where the people who were actually transferred went, what they did, and who did it with them—these things are not on paper.

And in the mouth.

On the morning of the third day, several people who shouldn't have been sitting at the same table appeared in an inconspicuous teahouse in the east of the city.

They were dressed casually and spoke in different accents, but after sitting down, they didn't talk much and just lowered their heads to drink tea.

Then one of them suddenly spoke up: "You...you also came from the river?"

This sentence is like a pebble thrown into water.

Some people looked up, some hesitated, and some instinctively looked around.

"Which river?" another person asked tentatively.

"The southern section," the first person to speak replied, "three years ago."

The teahouse fell silent for a few moments.

Then someone muttered a curse under their breath. "That godforsaken place," he said, "isn't a dam at all."

As soon as the words left his mouth, it was as if something had been weighing on him for too long, and suddenly he felt relieved.

The conversation gradually drifted out of control.

Inside the Eastern Palace, Zhu Biao was reviewing a newly delivered summary.

It's not a confession, it's a comparison.

The locations and times mentioned by different people for the same group of laborers began to overlap.

Gu Qingping stood beside him and said softly, "This is faster than paying the bill."

Zhu Biao nodded.

"Because they didn't expect anyone to directly ask these people."

"So what's next?"

Zhu Biao closed the summary, his gaze calm: "Next, we should ask—who sent them?"

This time, we didn't have to wait too long.

On the evening of the third day, a rather unusual commotion suddenly broke out in a courtyard in the south of the city that had already been "named".

It wasn't a raid.

It's about hiring someone.

Several officials from the Ministry of Revenue's Bureau of Personnel entered, but only took away an elderly official who was nearly sixty years old.

There was no lock, no shouting.

Just please.

When the news broke, many people's first reaction was not panic, but bewilderment.

Because that person had already been included in the list of those who had been dealt with.

Zhu Han heard the news the following morning.

Chen Shu whispered, "Did they arrest the wrong person?"

"No," Zhu Han shook his head. "It was caught perfectly."

"But he wasn't among the first batch."

“But he remembers those batches the most clearly,” Zhu Han said. “And—”

He paused.

"He is alive."

Chen Shu felt a chill run down his spine.

To be alive means to still be able to speak.

And once someone starts talking, those corners that were deliberately smoothed out will reappear.

That afternoon, Zhu Biao invited Zhu Han to the Eastern Palace again.

It was still the inner study.

This time, there were no broken talismans or folded documents on the table, only a blank sheet of paper.

Zhu Biao stood in front of the desk, looking at Zhu Han.

“Uncle,” he said, “I need you to look after something for me.”

"explain."

“If I continue the investigation,” Zhu Biao said calmly, “some people will get restless.”

Zhu Han nodded: "Definitely."

"Some of them are beyond my direct control."

"I know."

Zhu Biao took a deep breath: "Then are you willing—"

Zhu Han raised his hand, stopping him from speaking.

“You don’t need to say anything,” he said. “I will stand where I’m supposed to be.”

Zhu Biao looked at him, his gaze softening slightly.

“But there’s one thing,” Zhu Han added, “you must remember.”

"what?"

“This time,” Zhu Han said in a very calm tone, “it’s not you using my hand.”

"It was them who forced me to show you the way."

Zhu Biao paused for a moment, then nodded solemnly.

On the third night, the city was quieter than usual.

It's not the stillness of a curfew, but a quietness that comes from deliberate restraint.

People were still walking on the streets, shops were still closed as usual, and the number of patrols at night was still there. However, the carriages, sedan chairs, and short footsteps that should have been active at night all slowed down, as if they were being suppressed by something invisible.

Zhu Han had dinner at the mansion and, as usual, didn't say much.

Chen Shu laid out the latest news that had been sent to him one by one on the table, without rushing to speak.

"Speak," Zhu Han said.

“That old official in the south of the city has already spoken,” Chen Shu said in a low voice. “Not in court, but during the transfer.”

Zhu Han paused for a moment as he turned the pages of the book.

What did he say?

“He said that he was only responsible for ‘copying names’ back then,” Chen Shu said. “The list of workers was not determined by him, nor was it arranged by him. He was only responsible for making three copies after the list was finalized: one for storage, one for the local government, and one… sent away separately.”

"Where to deliver it?"

“He said he didn’t know.” Chen Shu paused, “but he said that each time the people who came to pick up the list were not the same group.”

Zhu Han closed the book.

"That's enough."

The statement was somewhat confusing.

"He didn't say who was in charge, nor did he say where they went."

“It’s precisely because he didn’t say it that it’s important,” Zhu Han said. “If he had mentioned a specific person, he would have been easily seen as a scapegoat. But he talked about ‘method’.”

The statement suddenly dawned on him.

The list wasn't sent out in one line, but rather it was broken up and handled by different people.

This means that the real control over the destination of these laborers has never been held by any one person, but by a practice that has been in operation for many years.

"And what's next?" Chen Shu asked.

“Next,” Zhu Han stood up, “someone should realize that this approach itself is evidence.”

As the night deepened, someone gently knocked on the side door outside the mansion.

It wasn't a rapid tapping, but three very light and steady taps.

Chen Shu looked at Zhu Han, and Zhu Han nodded.

The door opened, and a court attendant entered. He was dressed in inconspicuously, but his expression was more tense than usual.

“Your Highness,” he said in a low voice, “the Crown Prince requests that you enter the palace immediately.”

Without asking any further questions, Zhu Han put on his coat and went out.

The carriage traveled very fast, but did not sound its horn.

When I entered the East Palace, the inner study was brightly lit.

Zhu Biao stood before the table, in front of him were several lists and oral accounts from different sources, none of which were signed, but were carefully annotated.

“Uncle,” he said as soon as he saw Zhu Han, “someone has made a move.”

"Who?"

“It’s not one person,” Zhu Biao said. “It’s three places.”

He pointed to one of the papers.

"Several places that were supposed to cooperate in the verification suddenly reported at the same time that some workers had 'remembered the wrong year'."

Zhu Han glanced at it, and his lips twitched almost imperceptibly.

"They've started to change their tune."

“And the changes are very consistent,” Zhu Biao said. “They all say it’s ‘a local correction of errors’.”

Gu Qingping stood aside and added softly, "But unfortunately, the village heads of these three places were replaced three years ago."

Zhu Han nodded.

"They're getting anxious."

“So I want to ask you,” Zhu Biao looked at him, “what would happen if I investigated these three places at this time?”

“It will disconnect,” Zhu Han said, “and disconnect very cleanly.”

"What if things don't go smoothly?"

“Then they’ll send the cable out themselves,” Zhu Han said confidently, “but the method will be less elegant.”

Zhu Biao remained silent for a moment.

"How far do you think they'll go?"

Zhu Han did not answer immediately.

He looked at the pile of rosters and documents on the table, then suddenly reached out and pulled out a page from the bottom.

That page contained only one name. (End of Chapter)