The working conditions of the salt laborers. How minor officials held nominal posts to pocket money. How the saltworks’ recording commissioners engaged in buying and selling.
How many government offices and officials a jar of salt passed through in the process of having its price set. How those who set the price kept inflating it higher.
Finally appended was a comparison of the salt tax revenues that Great Sheng had collected in past years against what the tax revenues should have been at current market prices.
Li Bingsheng would have liked to say that salt was the foundation of the nation and could not be lightly disturbed, or that he was a man of the Ministry of Justice who ought not to be venturing unsolicited opinions on these matters — but after reading line after line of those characters, she found she could not say any of it.
Zhang Zhixu was a madman. He had even appended a full roster of officials connected to Shangjing’s salt transport.
Looking at that dense list of names — every single one of them backed by a web of complex connections — and he had dared to write them all down, plainly and directly.
Among them were even his own paternal uncles from the Zhang family.
Li Bingsheng closed her eyes and pressed a hand to her forehead, her emotions momentarily unreadable.
“Your Majesty, Chen Baoxiang requests an audience,” came an announcement from outside.
“At this hour?” Li Bingsheng looked up in surprise. “She doesn’t sleep, but I do.”
“Your Majesty—” Chen Baoxiang’s voice carried in from far away.
Li Bingsheng pressed a hand to her temple: “Fine. Let her in. Howling like that in the middle of the night — people who didn’t know would think something had happened to me.”
The female official hastily went to open the door.
Chen Baoxiang came rushing in, and in the blink of an eye she was beside the pile of memorials. Standing on tiptoe to peer through the gaps in the stack, she said: “Would Your Majesty kindly write an imperial directive?”
The way that was said was even more presumptuous than last time.
Li Bingsheng tapped the edge of the desk: “Chen Aiqing, I hope you understand that I am an emperor who holds the lives of all under heaven in my hands — not a scribe for hire at your front gate.”
Who asks for an imperial directive like that?
“Write it, please, just write it.” She blinked. “It’s only summoning Cheng Huaili to the palace — nothing major.”
The middle of the night, wanting to see someone that disagreeable — what for?
Li Bingsheng hesitated, but looking at Chen Baoxiang’s expression — pitiable, earnest — it was likely she truly had some use for it.
With a resigned sigh, she picked up the brush, wrote a few lines, applied the seal, and set it down: “Take it.”
Chen Baoxiang received the directive with both hands, took a few steps back — and then her expression turned serious. She swept aside her robe and knelt.
“Your servant reports to Your Majesty: General Cheng Huaili, charged with defending the northern frontier, has defied the imperial decree. At the beginning of the hai hour, he led three hundred troops to break through the city gates and flee in the direction of Nanzhou.”
She held the imperial directive aloft with both hands, her voice ringing out so clearly that even the eunuchs on duty outside the hall steps heard every word.
“Your servant has failed in her duty. I beg Your Majesty to grant permission to mobilize troops in pursuit, so that I may atone for my failure through meritorious service.”
Li Bingsheng: “……”
There’s such a fortunate turn?
She had just been thinking that as long as Cheng Huaili behaved and gave her no cause, he could likely keep himself alive for several more years. And now somehow this man had lost his mind, taken troops, and broken through the city gates?
Was this not heaven-sent thunder?
Composing herself and pressing down the corners of her mouth, Li Bingsheng assumed an expression of imperial fury: “What is the meaning of this? How dare General Cheng defy the decree?”
“This man apparently harbors treacherous intentions.”
“After all the consideration I have shown him.” Li Bingsheng struck the armrest of her chair. “Hua Lingyin — summon immediately the Ministry of War, the Ministry of Personnel, the Ministry of Justice, the Imperial Censorate, the Minister of State, and the Court Historians to the palace to deliberate a response.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
What strategy could the Court Historians deliberate? The historians could only stand to the side, brush in hand, and record: Cheng Huaili’s ambitions remained unextinguished; at last, after the new Emperor’s ascension, he launched a rebellion, seeking to avenge his former master.
His Majesty, in great magnanimity, dispatched Chen Baoxiang to invite him back, indicating that if Cheng Huaili came without resistance, he would still be permitted to serve as General of the Northern Frontier.
Very good. Very flawless.
Cheng Huaili, who had slipped out of the city in disguise with his men, knew none of this.
He only felt that the guards at every city gate tonight had been infuriatingly thorough, inspecting his luggage and travel documents again and again before finally letting him through.
When at last he was released, Cheng Huaili felt an almost giddy sense of having escaped certain death. He immediately ordered his men to ride hard — they must reach Nanzhou before anyone in the city discovered he was gone.
The carriage raced forward at full speed.
Cheng Huaili turned and gazed back at the city of Shangjing from a distance.
Blazing with lights, towering and magnificent — this was the city that had witnessed his ascent to the highest reaches of power and glory. Though he was leaving it for now, one day he would return, bearing with him the rank and wealth that were rightfully his.
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