Take control of Wei Zhongxian at the start and confiscate 100 million from him!

Chapter 158 Go investigate. If the prefect only embezzled fifty-nine taels, then he won't have to die.

The imperial carriage departed from Xuanfu.

The three thousand Mongol cavalrymen were all elites who had survived countless battles from various small Mongol tribes. The arrogance they had shown when they arrived was gone, replaced only by awe for the strong.

Add to that the two thousand new soldiers of the Beijing garrison who had fought their way out of Shaanxi, and the five thousand iron cavalry escorts, their banners fluttering all the way, the dust they kicked up carrying an inescapable murderous aura.

The carriage was not moving very fast.

Upon entering Zhili territory, the scale of the procession became even more magnificent, with banners waving and armor gleaming in the sun. Officials along the way had cleared the road early and knelt by the roadside, shouting "Long live the Emperor!"

Zhu Youjian sat in the imperial carriage, his face ashen.

He lifted a corner of the carriage curtain and saw only the clean official road and a few scattered figures of farmers working hard in the distant fields.

Zhu Youjian knew that this was all a performance for the emperor.

The real suffering was swept behind the curtain by this massive procession, like an invisible broom.

His gaze shifted from the window, a deep, unfathomable coldness beneath his calm expression. He could not bear to be treated like a caged waste, only able to see what his ministers wanted him to see.

"Stop the car," he said calmly.

Li Ruolian immediately stepped forward and asked in a low voice, "Your Majesty?"

"The imperial carriage is too conspicuous," Zhu Youjian said calmly. "I want to see for myself what the real scene is like under the emperor's nose."

The commander felt a chill run down his spine, instantly understanding the emperor's intention, but he remained silent, simply bowing and obeying the order.

"Issue my decree," Zhu Youjian's decision was swift and decisive, "The main entourage will continue along the original route as a diversionary force and must not stop. You, select several dozen of the most elite captains, have them change into civilian clothes, and follow me along the back path."

Half an hour later, an inconspicuous caravan of dozens of people quietly left the magnificent imperial road and turned onto a dusty country lane.

Deprived of the protection of ceremonial guards, the peaceful picture carefully embellished by bureaucrats was instantly torn open with a hideous gash.

Everywhere you look, there is tragedy.

Unlike the desolate, barren landscape of Shaanxi, where countless people starved to death, the scene in Zhili was a different kind of flowing sorrow.

Along the official road, on the paths, and between the fields, groups of two or three, or even in large numbers, were ragged, emaciated refugees.

They moved numbly and unsteadily toward the capital, like a gray river of despair and hunger with no end in sight.

Zhu Youjian reined in his horse, and a member of the Imperial Guard silently seized a slightly stronger refugee. The man was so frightened that he was trembling all over.

"Where did you come from? Where are you going?" the Imperial Guard asked in a cold voice.

"From...from Henan...my family had no harvest, and I heard...I heard that under the emperor's nose...there might be food to survive..."

Zhu Youjian listened silently, looking at the refugees' cracked lips and sunken eye sockets, and then turned his gaze to the endless crowd.

They fled from Shandong and Henan further south, carrying with them their last and most humble illusions about the capital region.

Zhu Youjian's face was unreadable in the gloomy light, but the knuckles of his hand gripping the reins had turned white.

The refugees were emaciated and had empty eyes. Their clothes were more like tattered rags hanging from their skeletons than covering their bodies.

They just kept walking, numbly moving forward, as if the end of the road led not to the capital, but to the underworld.

There is no large-scale cannibalism, which would be a sign of complete breakdown of order, but here, even more chilling transactions are commonplace.

Under a withered tree by the roadside, a man knelt on the ground with a straw marker stuck in front of him. Beside him sat a gaunt woman and a girl who looked about four or five years old.

The girl, unaware of what was happening, reached out her little hand to touch her mother's chapped lips, while the woman stood like a statue, her tears long since dried.

The man, the pillar of this family, simply lowered his head so that passersby could see the few words crookedly written in charcoal on his straw marker—"Selling my wife to save two lives."

Further away, there were people selling sons and daughters, with prices ranging from a few bushels of rice to one or two taels of silver.

The dragon carriage slowly came to a stop outside a prefecture or county.

Outside the county town, the government set up several simple soup kitchens as a form of "relief by imperial decree." Zhu Youjian watched from afar, secretly protected by the Embroidered Uniform Guard.

The so-called porridge was so clear you could see the bottom, with more soup than rice grains. It was more like rice water than porridge, or even less than rice water.

If you can scoop out three or five grains of rice with a spoon, you're already doing a good deed. The refugees held their broken bowls carefully, afraid of spilling a single drop.

"Line up! What are you pushing for! Do you want to die!" A bloated clerk brandished his whip and mercilessly lashed the back of a frail old man.

The old man stumbled, spilling half a bowl of porridge on the ground. Ignoring the pain, he immediately lay down and stuck out his tongue to lick the rice soup mixed with dirt.

The clerk, seeing his appearance, showed no pity. Instead, he spat out a mouthful of phlegm and cursed, "You worthless, spineless coward!"

Just then, a disguised Jinyiwei captain appeared silently behind Zhu Youjian and whispered, "Your Majesty, the largest restaurant in the city, Chunfengdu, is hosting a banquet for the prefect tonight. It's a grand affair with singing and dancing, and people are spending lavishly."

Zhu Youjian stood there quietly, watching the disaster victims licking mud and water from the ground, watching the arrogant clerks, and listening to the reports behind him about the peaceful and prosperous scene.

The surrounding air seemed to freeze. The soldiers of the Beijing garrison guarding him could clearly feel an aura even more terrifying than that of ten thousand troops clashing on the battlefield emanating from the young emperor.

That was murderous intent, suppressed to the extreme, waiting to return to the capital and wreak havoc on the world.

The emperor slowly turned around, but did not immediately mount his horse and ride towards the procession several miles away. His gaze passed over the numb disaster victims and the arrogant clerk, finally landing on the city wall of the prefecture not far away.

That gaze seemed to pierce through the thick brickwork and see the singing and dancing in the city's restaurants.

He couldn't swallow this insult until he reached the capital.

"Li Ruolian." The emperor did not turn around; his voice was eerily calm.

Jin Li Ruolian appeared behind the emperor in a flash, bowed and said, "Your subject is here."

“Go and investigate. If the prefect only embezzled fifty-nine taels, then he doesn’t have to die.”

"Your subject... obeys the decree!" Li Ruolian replied without hesitation, his voice steady.

Only at this moment did Zhu Youjian remount his horse.

Killing a prefect is like pulling out an unsightly weed by the roadside; it's not even enough to dispel the pent-up anger in his heart.

Back in the group, the carriage curtain fell, shutting out all the noise from the outside world. He closed his eyes, and the man selling his wife and children, the old man licking porridge on the ground, the smug face of the clerk... scene after scene, no longer just images that made him angry, but transformed into a cold realization in his heart.

The disease in Shaanxi is a terminal illness that has rotted to the bone, requiring drastic measures and the most brutal methods to scrape the bone and remove the poison.

Meanwhile, the disaster in the entire Beizhili, Shandong, and Henan regions was an out-of-control plague that was spreading rapidly and eroding the vitality of the Ming Dynasty.

Simply relying on transfusion-style relief from one province or region is utterly ineffective. The entire Ming Dynasty's ability to generate its own life force has deteriorated significantly, like a giant terminally ill with pus oozing from its body and parasites frantically sucking away its last bit of vitality.

Without removing this rotten flesh and excising these malignant tumors, any reform or new policy will be nothing more than building a tower on sand or lighting a candle in the wind—empty talk that vanishes in an instant.

"The disaster will get worse next year, the year after, and the year after that; we can't afford to delay any longer!"

Having resolved the immediate external crisis, Lin Danhan must now address the fundamental internal problems with overwhelming force.

"In Shaanxi, I learned how to keep people who were starving alive."

The emperor murmured to himself, his voice so soft it seemed as if it were just his own illusion.

"Now, it's time to return to the capital and make those who have nothing better to do return what they shouldn't have eaten, with interest!"

……

The capital city, the Eastern Depot.

As night deepened, this government office, already eerily gloomy during the day, resembled a ghostly realm shrouded in darkness.

Inside the room, the candlelight flickered dimly, its yellowish light distorted into countless twisted shadows by the walls and beams, swaying slowly on the floor like ghosts.

Wei Zhongxian sat in the center of this swaying shadow.

He was old. The wrinkles on his face were deep and crisscrossed, as if carved by a knife, and his eye bags drooped loosely, giving him an air of impending death.

But he still sat upright, his back straight like an old spear. The dim candlelight illuminated his still sinister face, and the occasional glint of shrewdness in his half-open eyes would make people forget his age and only remember that his title of "Nine Thousand Years Old" was built from the blood and bones of countless people.

A stack of documents from the cabinet awaiting approval lay before Wei Zhongxian. He flipped through them expressionlessly, his fingers dry yet remarkably steady.

He would only glance at most of the documents before tossing them aside.

Suddenly, he stopped moving.

Qian Qianyi.

There's another one below, this one is Qian Longxi.

The reasons were all similar, such as "returning home to visit relatives at my mother's behest" or "my mother is in poor health and I hope to return home to take care of her."

Looking at the names of these two Donglin leaders who wielded immense influence in the court and whose disciples and former officials were all over the country, Wei Zhongxian's face, as bark as an old tree, twitched upwards very slowly.

He picked up his vermilion brush, dipped it in ink, and with a flourish, wrote the character "准" (zhun, meaning "approved") on each of the two slips of paper.

Wei Zhongxian put down his pen and softly called out to the shadows, "Chao Qin."

“Godfather.” A figure knelt silently at Wei Zhongxian’s feet. It was Li Chaoqin, the chief executioner of the Eastern Depot.

Wei Zhongxian didn't even glance at him, and immediately said, "The Emperor is coming back soon. Have you thought about how you want your head to stay on your neck?"

These words were like a bucket of ice water poured over his head. Li Chaoqin trembled all over, and cold sweat instantly beaded on his forehead. He lowered his head even further, his voice filled with fear: "Father is right, Chaoqin... Chaoqin is foolish!"

“Dull-witted?” Wei Zhongxian sneered, finally fixing his gaze on him. His gaze was like that of two venomous snakes flicking their tongues. “Dull-witted people don’t last more than three days in the Eastern Depot. You are clever, but you’ve misused your cleverness.”

He casually tossed the two signed leave slips in front of Li Chaoqin.

“Look closely. Qian Longxi and Qian Qianyi are both cunning, their noses are sharper than a dog's. They've caught wind of it, they know that the Emperor's return will bring about a change in the capital, a massacre, so they're rushing home. I've given them permission, I just want them to run home with peace of mind.”

Li Chaoqin looked at the two "quasi" characters and felt a chill run down his spine, but he still dared not reply.

“I’m getting old.” Wei Zhongxian’s voice suddenly became somewhat ethereal, as if he were talking to himself. “I’m like an old knife in the hands of Emperor Tianqi and the Emperor. I’ve sharpened it for so many years and cut down a lot of people. It’s about time it got dull. I can still cut down people for a few more years, but eventually I’ll have to be reforged. You’re still young. You can’t just think about being the shadow of an old knife.”

Li Chaoqin's heart skipped a beat. He looked up, his eyes filled with shock and confusion.

Wei Zhongxian looked into his eyes.

"To try to guess the emperor's intentions is treason," he said slowly, emphasizing each word. "But not trying to guess them will only lead to an even faster death!"

Wei Zhongxian extended a withered finger and tapped it lightly on the table: "You think about it for me, what did His Majesty have me and that dog Tian Ergeng secretly investigate before he went to Shaanxi?"

Li Chaoqin's mind raced, and cold sweat instantly soaked the back of his clothes.

“It’s…it’s nobles! And…salt merchants and grain transporters!” he answered in a hoarse voice.

"At least you're not completely stupid." Wei Zhongchen nodded, a hint of "you're teachable" in his eyes.

"These are the pigs and sheep that His Majesty is sharpening his knives to prepare for slaughter! His Majesty witnessed hell on earth during his trip to Shaanxi, and the fire in his heart must have grown into a raging inferno. He didn't come back to rest; he came back to slaughter pigs!"

Wei Zhongxian leaned forward slightly, the shadows enveloping him even more, and his voice became even lower:
"Those good-for-nothing nobles, those born with silver spoons in their mouths have long since lost their backbone. Now they're all like dogs with their tails between their legs, nothing to worry about. If His Majesty really wants to deal with them, it's just a matter of saying a word."

“What’s left are salt and grain transport!” He slammed a finger heavily on the table, making a dull thud. “These two are rotten to the core, affecting everything! One end is connected to the finances of the southeast, the other to the livelihoods of the north, and the two are intertwined, full of shady accounts and lives lost! The waters here are bottomless!”

Li Chaoqin's breathing became rapid upon hearing this.

"Listen up! Starting tomorrow, put aside all those trivial cases you're handling and gather all your men to investigate them thoroughly! The salt and the grain transport! That dog Tian Ergeng is investigating those two lines too, but what are the Embroidered Uniform Guards for? They're butchers, only good at ruthless killing! They can find crimes, but they can't get to the bottom of things! What I want you to do is go even further than them!"

Wei Zhongxian's voice suddenly turned cold, filled with the ferocity of a hungry wolf.

“We want you to be more ruthless than them, and also cleaner! Ruthless doesn’t mean killing innocent people indiscriminately, but rather to be single-minded when you strike! Don’t even mention the Duke, even if the Heavenly King himself is involved, you’ll dig him out of the ground! While the Embroidered Uniform Guards are still flashing their badges at the door, your men should already be in their secret chamber through the tunnels!”

"And cleanliness means being swift and decisive! The Embroidered Uniform Guard might leave a mess behind when they arrest someone, giving those censors and officials ammunition to grumble. What you need to do is shut them up! How do you shut them up? Account books, letters, witnesses, or even our own evidence—smash the evidence right in their faces! Tian Ergeng could bring back a head for the Emperor, so you must bring back a head for the Emperor, along with a crystal-clear account book and all the confiscated silver, not a single coin missing! That's what it means to be decisive, that's what it means to act appropriately!"

"What His Majesty wants is not just a knife to kill, but a sharp blade that can scrape away the poison from the bone and collect the gold scraped off into the national treasury! What you need to do is be that knife! Tian Ergeng and his men are the hammer, smashing everything, while you need to be the chisel, precise and ruthless, striking deadly with one blow, and prying out the treasures inside intact for our family! Do you understand?"

"I understand... I understand!" Li Chaoqin felt a surge of heat rush from his spine to the top of his head, and his blood was boiling.

It was fear, but also an irrepressible excitement!

He kowtowed heavily, his forehead striking the cold ground, his voice hoarse but firm: "Father's teachings, I, Chao Qin, will never forget, even if it means my death! I, Chao Qin, am willing to go through fire and water for His Majesty and share Father's burdens!"

This time, Wei Zhongxian didn't make him kneel for too long.

He personally stepped down from his seat, extended his withered hand, and helped Li Chaoqin up. This gesture made Li Chaoqin feel flattered and he almost stood up with trembling hands.

"Good boy." Wei Zhongxian patted his shoulder, his cloudy eyes becoming incredibly sharp at that moment.

"You'd better remember this!"

“You can be greedy in front of His Majesty. My family has been greedy all our lives, and His Majesty knows it. You can even be domineering. What kind of Eastern Depot would it be if the people in the Eastern Depot weren't domineering? His Majesty can tolerate a vicious dog that bites people and brings back meat for him.”

Li Chaoqin held his breath, not daring to miss a single word.

“But you must not forget the most important point—” Wei Zhongxian said slowly and deliberately, each word piercing Li Chaoqin’s heart like a heavy hammer.

"You must be a 'knife'!"

"A knife that the emperor can pick up whenever he wants to use it; that is sharp and easy to use; and that can be quietly sheathed when he doesn't want to use it!"

"You cannot have your own ideas!" His voice suddenly turned stern. "You cannot befriend outside officials, and you certainly cannot try to influence the Emperor's decisions! Your mind can only be used to think about how to do the things the Emperor has entrusted to you perfectly, not to think about why the Emperor wants to do them!"

"His Majesty's thoughts are the will of Heaven! It took us three generations of His Majesties to come to this understanding. You must etch this into our very bones!"

A thunderbolt struck Li Chaoqin's mind, leaving him utterly devastated.

Wei Zhongxian was teaching him how to survive, but more importantly, he was warning him how to avoid death.

"Plop" sound.

Li Chaoqin knelt down again, this time bowing with greater sincerity and force than ever before.

His forehead pressed tightly against the cold ground, filled with unparalleled awe and a burning ambition.

He knew that a bloody storm was about to sweep across the entire Ming Dynasty. Wei Zhongxian did not want him to remain a shadow in the shadows any longer, and he himself wanted to be the sharpest knife in that storm!

……

Two days later.

The emperor's carriage could already see the majestic outline of Beijing in the distance, the afterglow of the setting sun gilding the gray city walls with a layer of golden-red edges, solemn and dignified.

The footsteps and hoofbeats of the emperor's private army of eight thousand converged into a muffled thunderclap that rolled across the land.

The carriage curtain was lifted by a hand.

Zhu Youjian looked at the capital city, which was both familiar and unfamiliar, with a cold, icy gaze.

Tian Ergeng, the commander of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, had already led his men thirty miles outside the capital to welcome the emperor, and was now riding respectfully beside the carriage.

"Issue the decree." Zhu Youjian spoke calmly, his voice not loud, but clearly reaching Tian Ergeng's ears.

"I will not enter the palace; I will go directly to the camp outside the capital."

Tian Ergeng was suddenly jolted. He returned to the capital but did not go to the palace. Instead, he went straight to the military camp.

The emperor's voice continued, unhurried and deliberate:

"Have Wei Zhongxian compile his list, along with all the troubles your Embroidered Uniform Guard has encountered in the canal transport these past few days, and send them to the main camp."

"Yes!" Tian Ergeng's heart pounded.

(End of this chapter)