Chen Chong nodded. “We questioned them… They come from an escort house in the capital called the Five Elements.”
“Every job they take is a blind shipment. They take the money and do the work, and that’s all of it.”
The escort trade has open shipments and blind ones. On an open shipment you know what you are carrying. On a blind one you have no idea at all what is in the load.
Blind work naturally pays better.
Ning Chen made a cold sound in his nose. “Blind shipments or not, they’d still know an Inspectorate waist tally when they saw one.”
Feng Qizheng took up the thread. “We asked. Every time they take a job, somebody leaves an Inspectorate waist tally in a certain place for them to collect.”
“When the load has been delivered and left where they were told, the tally goes back too.”
“If we want the man behind it, the only one who knows is the chief escort master of the house.”
Ning Chen was quiet a moment. “Come on. We’ll join up with Old Pan first and talk after.”
They went back to the One Laugh House.
When they met, Ning Chen asked, “Old Pan. How did the questioning go?”
Pan Yucheng raised the ledger in his hand. “With this, they couldn’t deny it if they wanted to… Seven of them had a hand in it.”
“You’re certain the rest are clean?”
Pan Yucheng looked at him. “Are you doubting my work?”
Ning Chen laughed drily. “No. I only thought there’d be more of them in it than that.”
“Don’t be so gloomy. The Great Xuan still has plenty of good officials in it.”
Ning Chen nodded slightly.
Pan Yucheng said, “I’ve sent men to carry out confiscations on the convicted officials who took part, and their families are all in custody.”
Ning Chen made a sound of assent.
“Old Pan. Put the convicted officials in the prefectural prison for now and set a close guard on them.”
“The ones who are clean, apologize to them and let them go home… But warn them. Until this is cleared to the bottom, nobody is to send anything up to the court. No memorials, nothing.”
Pan Yucheng nodded slightly.
“I’m going to find Jiang Zhengyang. Come to me when you’ve finished.”
Pan Yucheng nodded.
“Ning Chen. What do we do?”
Chen Chong asked it.
Ning Chen thought a moment. “If you’re tired, take a room upstairs and rest. If you’re not, give Old Pan a hand.”
Ning Chen finished and went to find Jiang Zhengyang.
Jiang Zhengyang was in a room upstairs.
Ning Chen knocked and went in, and found Jiang Zhengyang writing fast, the brush flying.
“What are you doing?”
Jiang Zhengyang said, “A thing this size has happened. I have to report it to the court at once.”
“General Ning may rest easy. This lowly official has no thought of stealing the credit… I am only setting out the Lingzhou business for His Majesty exactly as it happened, and there is not a false word in it.”
Ning Chen smiled. “Wait a while. That memorial can’t go up yet… And if you did send it up, His Majesty might well never see it.”
“Lord Jiang. Do you know who is behind all this?”
Jiang Zhengyang shook his head.
Ning Chen said, “The Left Chancellor.”
It struck Jiang Zhengyang like a blow. He sat there stunned.
Ning Chen went through the thing in outline.
Jiang Zhengyang was shocked and furious at once. “The Left Chancellor himself, breaking the law he knows… I will certainly impeach him in a memorial.”
“Lord Jiang, you’ve forgotten again… His Majesty will never see your memorial at all.”
Jiang Zhengyang’s face went cold. “Then I’ll go to the capital and appear before His Majesty myself. I don’t believe he can stop me.”
Ning Chen waved that off. “Enough. Leave the rest to me… Zhang Yuancang is finished, and until the next Prefect takes up the post the common people of Lingzhou still have to lean on you.”
“But with the evidence in our hands now, there’s no touching the Left Chancellor at all.”
“The Left Chancellor’s weight tips the whole court. With a man like that, if you move on him you have to kill him with one stroke of the club… Break the skin and nothing more, and when he turns and bites, you and I are the ones who die.”
“So this wants a long view.”
They were still talking when Pan Yucheng came in.
“Finished?”
Pan Yucheng nodded.
Ning Chen went over and shut the door, then came back. His face was serious. “The evidence in our hands won’t move the Left Chancellor. So I have another idea.”
The two of them looked at him.
Ning Chen said slowly, “Tomorrow I am going to behead the officials caught up in this, in front of the whole city.”
It struck Pan Yucheng and Jiang Zhengyang like a blow.
Jiang Zhengyang said, “That’s against the rules. They are all officers of the court. The charges are proved, yes, but the sentence still has to come from His Majesty’s own brush.”
Pan Yucheng came in straight after him. “And Zhang Yuancang. He’s the most important witness we have against the Left Chancellor. Kill him and there’s even less chance of touching the man.”
Ning Chen waved them off. “Hear me out.”
“I have the imperial sword granted by His Majesty’s own hand, with the right to execute first and report afterward.”
“The convicted officials caught up in this must be beheaded in public… Zhang Yuancang has to be killed too. But not really killed.”
“The evidence in our hands won’t move the Left Chancellor for now, so we hide the evidence and wait for the right moment to bring it out.”
Pan Yucheng understood him. “You mean fool heaven to cross the sea.”
Ning Chen nodded. “The man who keeps Li’s Forge is a distant cousin of Zhang Yuancang’s, and there’s something alike about the two of them… Dress him up a little and the false one should pass for the true.”
“Jin Wu and Li Ji and the rest can’t die… Not many people know their faces. Take a few men under sentence of death out of the cells and put them in their places.”
“Zhang Yuancang alive is the Left Chancellor’s biggest weak spot… But if I behead him, the Left Chancellor will certainly let his guard down.”
“I can hear him already, when he learns of it… A boy with the milk not dry on him. A brainless bully. The one man who could have threatened this chancellor, and he cut the man’s head off with his own hand. Stupidity itself.”
Jiang Zhengyang and Pan Yucheng said nothing.
After a while Jiang Zhengyang said, “General Ning, do you understand that this is deceiving His Majesty and shutting his ears? If it ever comes out, it will go very hard with you.”
Ning Chen said, “My mind is made up. Whatever comes of it, I’ll carry it alone.”
Jiang Zhengyang thought a while. “Since General Ning’s mind is settled, this lowly official won’t argue further… If General Ning has need of it, this lowly official will gladly lend what small strength he has.”
Pan Yucheng said nothing. He only looked at Ning Chen and smiled without a sound, and everything was in that and needed no saying.
Ning Chen said, low, “What’s worrying me now is where to hide Zhang Yuancang and the others.”
“It has to be a hidden place. Nobody can be allowed to find them.”
Jiang Zhengyang thought a while. “General Ning, I have a place that would suit. See what you think of it.”
“Where?”
“This lowly official has an ancestral house outside the city, with only a few servants to keep it swept… Hide Zhang Yuancang and the rest there, and if General Ning leaves a few good men to watch them by turns, nobody should find them.”
Ning Chen’s eyes lit up. “Good. We’ll do it as Lord Jiang says.”
“Lord Jiang, I must trouble you to write out a notice too, telling the people of the city that Zhang Yuancang and the others will be beheaded in public tomorrow.”
Jiang Zhengyang said, “This lowly official will see to it at once.”
Ning Chen nodded and came out of the room with Pan Yucheng.
Pan Yucheng could not hold it in. “And what do you mean to do about Ma Kaicheng?”
“With Zhang Yuancang dead, if we move on Ma Kaicheng too the Left Chancellor is bound to grow suspicious… But there’s no saying he won’t close the man’s mouth himself and be done with it once and for all.”
“So I’ll write a letter and have it carried secretly to the capital, to Geng the Purple Coat… I’ll ask him to set men watching Ma Kaicheng. If the Left Chancellor really moves to close his mouth, then we have no choice but to take the man into our keeping first. If the Left Chancellor shows no sign of it, we leave Ma Kaicheng alone for now… and everything else waits until we’re back in the capital.”
(End of Chapter 150)