Chapter 629: - Strip Him

The carriage looked exquisite from the outside.

But its true specialty lay within.

There was a mechanism inside. Trigger it once, and the carriage could transform almost instantly into an iron cage with formidable defensive strength.

There was also a hidden compartment beneath the carriage floor, large enough for one person to lie inside.

So naturally, the carriage was extremely heavy.

The Pixiu, together with six horses, pulled it from the front.

It was not that Marquis Zheng wanted to abuse his mount.

The beast itself wanted to experience what it felt like to be the boss leading a gang of underlings, so Zheng Fan simply let it have its fun.

Sometimes even Marquis Zheng found the whole thing amusing.

Everyone was clearly swamped with work.

Everyone had more things to handle than they could count.

And yet in the middle of all that chaos, they had somehow found time to build him a ceremonial retinue first, then manufacture this elaborate carriage, which unquestionably must have taken a great deal of time.

In the end, one could only blame that damned aesthetic instinct.

No matter how urgent the outside world became, no matter how much work piled up, when it was time to indulge in petty-bourgeois tastes, one still had to indulge.

Still, the result was not bad.

Xue San had apparently built some shock-absorbing mechanisms into the carriage.

Lying inside with a little brazier keeping the tea warm was genuinely comfortable.

The only pity was the lack of Great Marsh Fragrant Tongue tea.

Marquis Zheng could not taste much difference between ordinary teas.

It was not that he could not distinguish aroma or flavor.

He simply felt that most of them were close enough, and anything could be brewed and drunk.

Only Great Marsh Fragrant Tongue felt perfectly suited to a trip like this.

Imagine sleeping sweetly through the entire journey, wrapped in that fragrance.

What could be better?

But reality quickly proved that Marquis Zheng had been daydreaming.

He did not need to review memorial after memorial wherever he went like his elder brother-in-law.

Marquis Zheng had delegated authority almost completely.

Never mind the Blind Man.

The authority Fourth Lady held within the Marquis Residence alone was enough to make Empress Lü, Wu Zhaoyi, and Cixi bow their heads in admiration while their men were still alive.

And yet reports from Yingdu began arriving without pause.

One portion came through Little Sixth’s people.

Ever since Zheng Fan had been made Marquis, he had lost some of his old enthusiasm toward Little Sixth.

But once the seller’s market became a buyer’s market, Little Sixth’s side became far more attentive toward the Marquis of Pingxi Residence.

The intelligence network had remained in place the whole time.

So information continued flowing eastward.

Another portion came from Sun Youdao, who kept sending follow-up reports.

The final portion came from the Marquis Residence’s own network in Yingdu.

But because the Marquis Residence had such shallow roots there, that third set of reports could almost be ignored.

The matter was far more complicated than the Fifth Prince merely being attacked.

The Fifth Prince had been attending a banquet.

The guests included the managers of Yingdu’s major merchant associations and representatives from the large families inside and around the city.

It was not a banquet for drinking and pleasure.

Its purpose was to raise silver and grain for settling disaster refugees.

In later generations, one might have called it a charity gala.

Then during the banquet, someone poisoned the wine.

A great many guests collapsed.

Even Yingdu Prefect Mao Mingcai was poisoned.

The Fifth Prince himself did not drink the poisoned wine.

Earlier, in his capacity as an imperial prince, he had set up an altar before the New Year and prayed for the people of the Three Jin lands, asking that the coming year bring favorable winds and timely rain.

According to ritual, during this period he needed to keep a vegetarian diet and live something like the life of an ascetic.

Wine and meat were forbidden.

At minimum, he could not openly touch them.

So during the banquet, he had probably substituted tea for wine.

But once the poisoning caused chaos and the Fifth Prince’s guards attempted to escort him away, they were attacked by a group of assassins.

The assassins were highly skilled.

Even under protection, the Fifth Prince still took one saber strike.

You did not drink the wine?

Fine.

The saber had been poisoned too.

So the Fifth Prince was severely wounded and unconscious.

He still had not escaped danger.

At present, agents from the Yingdu office of the Secret Intelligence Department had completely taken over his protection.

No one was permitted to visit him.

This had clearly been a premeditated and carefully designed operation.

The Fifth Prince aside, thirty-seven distinguished guests from that banquet ultimately died from the poison in the wine.

And anyone qualified to attend a banquet of that level was, by definition, no ordinary person.

Thirty-seven such people dead in one stroke.

No wonder Prince Cheng Residence had sent an official letter eastward in such panic.

Because this was no longer merely an assassination.

The damage it inflicted was little different from Yingdu suffering another political coup.

Imagine those powerful men who normally lived high above everyone else and believed themselves detached from ordinary worldly concerns.

Then suddenly, dozens of people exactly like them died in one night.

How could they not panic?

Who knew what the mastermind behind all of this intended to do next?

More than thirty major merchant heads and clan representatives were dead.

Others, such as Mao Mingcai, had survived but were bedridden.

Back when Marquis Zheng had used the imperial examination fraud scandal as an excuse to strike in Yingdu, summoning the Jingnan Army into the city to arrest people, it had looked as though many households were destroyed and many heads rolled.

But in truth, most of those people had been middle- and lower-level minnows.

The real upper class had no need to cheat in the imperial examinations for their descendants.

They possessed other channels.

So perhaps, in the eyes of ordinary Yingdu residents, this incident looked much smaller than the uproar that the former Count, now Marquis, had caused last time.

But Yingdu’s powerful elite had genuinely been frightened out of their wits.

They urgently needed a pillar capable of calming the sea.

Even if he arrived and did absolutely nothing, so long as he was physically present, everyone could breathe a little easier.

After Marquis Zheng received a rough summary of the Yingdu reports and understood that the city’s elite were craning their necks waiting for him, he still did not hurry.

His Pixiu continued happily leading its gang of horse underlings while pulling the carriage at an easy pace.

Because next, Zheng Fan accepted meetings with Gong Wang and Gongsun Zhi.

Their two commands had already dispatched troops.

Partly, this supported Marquis Zheng’s traveling column.

Partly, the troops moved toward Yupan City and, following instructions previously issued by the Marquis Residence, brushed a little closer toward the Wang River.

Nominally, it was not their defense zone.

But under the banner of clearing the way for Marquis Pingxi, crossing the line a little was acceptable.

Borders were like that.

If you never rubbed against them, they remained perfectly clear.

Rub against them often enough, and eventually they became blurry.

After the audience ended, the two Garrison Commanders went to see the sons they had placed at Marquis Zheng’s side.

Then they returned to their respective commands.

Marquis Zheng’s column continued west at the same unhurried pace as before.

When they reached Yupan City, Prince Cheng Residence, the Prefectural Yamen, and several other offices in Yingdu had all sent representatives to wait there.

They looked like starving quail chicks with their mouths open, desperately hoping Marquis Zheng would hurry up and reach Yingdu.

Marquis Zheng received the men from Prince Cheng Residence and the Prefectural Yamen.

He refused to see anyone else.

Even the first two delegations were only allowed to finish brief reports.

He gave them no message to carry back.

He merely waved his hand, indicating that they could leave.

Afterward, the Marquis of Pingxi’s party spent the night inside Yupan City.

Zheng Fan himself even took a bath.

This once-prosperous Jin city, where people had once been reduced to “two-legged sheep,” had spent several years recuperating.

Now a faint trace of its former prosperity was finally beginning to return.

The gambling houses and brothels inside the city had once again become pillar industries.

They gathered people quickly.

They brought in silver quickly.

Often, when there was no better choice, this kind of situation inevitably appeared.

Corresponding to that prosperity, outside Yupan City lay row after row of gaunt refugees huddling beneath the walls.

There should originally have been even more.

After all, these were merely the refugees left over after the Marquis of Pingxi Residence in eastern Jin had already absorbed a great many.

But perhaps even the Blind Man himself had underestimated the horrific damage caused to this region by the floods and years of warfare.

At first, he had happily planned to gather still more refugees and bring them east.

In the end, he began ordering the forces under Gong Wang and Gongsun Zhi to establish checkpoints and block refugee movement toward eastern Jin.

The propaganda effort that had once encouraged refugees to move east was also shut down.

Because the Marquis Residence was already full.

The Blind Man had prepared grain reserves early in anticipation of the food crisis.

At present, the common people of eastern Jin could at least eat two meals of mashed potatoes every day.

But if still more refugees poured in, the Marquis Residence would no longer be capable of settling and feeding them.

Population was an extremely precious form of wealth.

But too much of anything became harmful.

If you absorbed more people than you could house and feed, problems would appear immediately.

So they still needed to wait.

Wait until development of eastern Jin reached the next stage.

Wait until they had survived the hardest stretch.

Then they could slowly begin absorbing more people again.

As the Blind Man put it:

Once the most brutal winter and spring had passed, the old, weak, sick, and disabled would already have been sifted out once.

What remained would be much easier to pick and choose from.

Cold-blooded?

Yes.

Cold-blooded.

And yet inside eastern Jin, many refugees and displaced people who had arrived earlier, after hearing that the mashed-potato gruel keeping them alive came from crops planted ahead of time by a blind adviser under the Marquis, began setting up spirit tablets and worshiping him.

Among the refugee camps, a story even began circulating that the reason “Mr. Bei” had lost both eyes was because he could not bear to look upon the suffering of the mortal world.

The Blind Man specifically reported the matter to Zheng Fan, his Master.

He had not created this story.

He had never intended to wrap himself in some halo of sainthood.

Zheng Fan merely laughed.

He even asked the Blind Man whether, a few hundred years from now, temples dedicated to them might appear throughout the region.

He himself would sit in the central seat, solemn and majestic upon a lotus throne.

Below him would be a group of child attendants.

At the very front would be a blind child attendant wearing an expression of boundless compassion for all living beings.

The Blind Man’s special report had been a matter of rules.

A procedure he believed absolutely had to be followed.

But in truth, neither Zheng Fan nor the Blind Man would ever grow suspicious of each other over something like this.

To them, it was merely conversation after a meal.

...

In the courtyard of the residence where they spent the night, Hero Chen asked with some curiosity:

“The people across the river are clearly waiting for him desperately. Why is he still so leisurely?”

Hero Chen rarely used honorifics when speaking of Marquis Zheng.

Because in Hero Chen’s simple worldview, Zheng Fan was not the Great Yan Marquis of military merit whose prestige now shook the realm.

He was still that minor garrison commander from Yinlang Commandery whom Hero Chen had once misunderstood.

A man Hero Chen had nearly killed, only for that same man to repay hostility with kindness.

A... close friend.

The Sword Saint sat in the courtyard wearing a bamboo hat.

Longyuan was wrapped in cloth.

His eyes were fixed on his son Liu Dahu, who was leading a group of boys around with solemn excitement, chopping firewood, heating water, and preparing Marquis Zheng’s bath.

The Sword Saint outside the home was completely different in bearing from the Sword Saint at home.

On top of that, he was not showing his true face.

So Liu Dahu had no idea that the white-robed swordsman sitting far away in the pavilion was actually his father, whose health had always seemed rather poor.

Watching his own son bustle around with such seriousness and dignity merely to attend that man, and seeing the boy’s face shining with a sense of sacred mission, the Sword Saint felt profoundly depressed.

Unable to stop himself, he muttered:

“Stupid beyond belief.”

“...” Hero Chen.

Hero Chen lowered his head in shame.

If Master criticized him like that, there was no possibility he would answer back.

Gou Moli, sitting beside them as usual and always eager to build some rapport with the Sword Saint, laughed.

“This is what you call stature. This is what you call status. If the Marquis rushed there in a panic, he’d lose the whole atmosphere. Most of the time, this kind of display looks completely useless, but at crucial moments, having it solves a great many problems. Besides, this is the first time our Marquis has formally traveled after receiving his title. He has to establish the tone himself. Once the tone is set, it becomes convention later. There is absolutely no reason for him to lower his own stature. Lower it the first time, and raising it again afterward becomes extremely difficult. Besides, the assassination happened quite some time ago. If the assassins or mastermind could have been caught, they would have been caught already. The people in Yingdu are not wine sacks and rice bags. Especially when the matter already threatens their own lives and fortunes, they become remarkably clever. So our Marquis is not going to Yingdu to catch assassins in the first place. He is Marquis Pingxi, not some official who also oversees the Ministry of Justice or Court of Judicial Review. Look at it this way: rushing there in a panic offers no benefit and accomplishes nothing. So why not take the journey leisurely?”

Hero Chen listened.

Then nodded.

“I understand what you mean.”

“Thank you.”

At that moment, He Chunlai walked over.

Before he could speak, Gou Moli stood, left the pavilion, and went inside with him.

Inside the room, Marquis Zheng had already finished bathing.

He wore the leopard-print pajamas Fourth Lady had made for him back in Tiger Head City and reclined lazily on one side.

In his hand, he played with a snuff bottle Little Sixth had given him.

He had never learned how to use snuff properly.

But turning the bottle over in his hand was still pleasant enough.

He Chunlai stood to one side.

Gou Moli sat down very naturally in a chair below.

The Marquis did not speak.

The atmosphere fell quiet.

A great figure possessed the right to let a room go cold.

The people below him did not possess the right to sit there and let it remain cold.

So in order to liven things up, Gou Moli looked toward He Chunlai and asked:

“Little He, tell me. Do you think this assassination was done by your people?”

“...” He Chunlai.

“Mm?” Gou Moli asked again.

He Chunlai said:

“I’ve already cut ties with them.”

Back when Yan annexed the Three Jin lands, righteous men of Jin had begun an underground resistance movement.

Its nature was somewhat similar to the Heaven and Earth Society.

He Chunlai had come from that world.

Only, while disguised as a candied-hawthorn vendor in Yingdu and exchanging intelligence, he had been casually grabbed by Fan Li and taken away to make candied hawthorns for the Sword Maid.

“Hiss. Why cut them off? What a waste,” Gou Moli said, heartbroken. “Think about it. Our Master is a Great Yan Marquis. If he also kept one hand on a line of Jin rebels, he could be an official and a bandit at the same time. How comfortable would that be?”

“I...”

He Chunlai badly wanted to say that he disdained doing something like that.

But he could not bring himself to say it aloud.

Some thoughts could remain inside his heart.

Mr. Bei and the Marquis reclining there both understood perfectly well what he thought, and neither cared.

But if He Chunlai foolishly blurted it out, that would only prove he lacked tact.

So he could only say:

“I don’t think it was them. Last time the Marquis was in Yingdu, their hidden network there was already badly damaged. This operation was too large. Leave the poisoning aside. The group of experts who attacked the Fifth Prince alone should already be beyond what they can organize now.”

“Not necessarily. I have always heard that the Three Jin lands produce many heroes,” Gou Moli said.

He had spent half his life dealing with Jin people.

“But among us there are too many factions. There is no way to integrate them. Some are remnants of the Situ Clan and want to restore the Situ family. Some are remnants of the Helian Clan. Some are remnants of the Wenren Clan. Others want to restore the Yu Clan. And beneath each major remnant faction are smaller factions of their own. They simply cannot unite. Sometimes, when they meet, they even start killing one another over which house they ought to restore.”

“Heh...”

Marquis Zheng, still reclining above them, laughed aloud.

There truly was nothing new beneath the sun.

Look at the latest campaign against Chu.

Great Yan had mobilized national strength and in the end had only taken Zhennan Pass, seized Shanggu Commandery, gained the strategic initiative, looted a great deal, and then withdrawn.

Years earlier, when Yan attacked Qian and reached the walls of Shangjing, had they not eventually withdrawn then too?

Only Jin had been smashed apart completely.

And at the root of it all was the old division of Jin among three great houses, which meant the region could never fully integrate or unify.

Even now, the Jin people continued maintaining their fine tradition of internal struggle.

Once Marquis Zheng laughed, Gou Moli stopped teasing He Chunlai.

“Prince Cheng?”

Marquis Zheng spoke.

Gou Moli answered:

“Too improper. We need to leave him some face. And it would be too abrupt. Better to advance step by step.”

Marquis Zheng nodded.

“The Prefectural Yamen?”

“Marquis, Mao Mingcai is still lying in bed.”

Marquis Zheng shook his head.

Standing nearby, He Chunlai tried his best to listen.

Tried his best to think.

Then he suddenly felt that cooking suited him much better.

At that moment, a personal guard entered to report that Ma Changshan, Prefect of Yupan City, had arrived.

Marquis Zheng pointed at He Chunlai.

He understood immediately and went outside to investigate.

Before long, He Chunlai returned.

“Marquis, Ma Changshan requests an audience.”

“Not seeing him.”

“Marquis, Ma Changshan brought gifts. Seven virgin girls. He says all the indenture contracts were handled through proper channels. He personally selected them from among the refugees outside the city.”

Once refugees gathered, selling sons and daughters became commonplace.

Zheng Fan waved a hand.

“Give him ten lashes and throw him out.”

“In addition to the seven girls, their mothers are here too. They’ve all been washed clean and dressed in new clothes. They’re kneeling outside and are intended as part of the gift.”

Zheng Fan laughed.

He looked toward Gou Moli.

Gou Moli laughed too.

“Perfect, Marquis.”

Zheng Fan nodded.

Then he said to He Chunlai:

“Thank Prefect Ma on this Marquis’s behalf.”

“Yes, Marquis.”

“Then strip him naked and hang him from the city wall.”

[End of Chapter 629]