Chapter 856

North of Yinzhou City, deep in the underground black market.

Gao Jiong followed the fat steward through three iron doors, each guarded by four blade-wielding guards whose eyes were colder than their blades.

The fat steward stopped before the third iron door, looked back at Gao Jiong, and lowered his voice extremely low.

"Brother Kulban, the person inside has a bad temper; watch your tongue and don't make him unhappy."

Gao Jiong straightened his felt hat, his voice carrying the carefree air unique to a Western Regions merchant.

"Rest assured, I am the best at talking; with silver to pave the way, there is no deal that cannot be made."

The iron door was pushed open from the inside, and a smell mixed with rust and saltpeter surged out from the crack.

Gao Jiong crossed the threshold, his gaze sweeping over the space behind the door; his pupils contracted for a split second before quickly returning to normal.

It was an underground warehouse three times larger than the black market outside; the dome of the warehouse was built of blue bricks in an arch, exceeding two zhang in height, and its length extended into the darkness beyond sight.

The warehouse was piled high with goods.

Bundles of pig iron ingots were stacked on wooden racks, layer upon layer, from the ground all the way to the dome.

Bags of coarse salt were lined up in a long row against the wall, the salt stains on the sacks shimmering with white crystals under the light.

But it wasn't these that made Gao Jiong's pupils contract.

It was the goods being loaded onto heavy-duty carriages in the deepest part of the warehouse.

A dozen heavy-duty carriages were lined up, their beds stuffed with iron ingots and salt bags wrapped tightly in oilcloth; the axles were bent under the weight, and the draft horses tied to the shafts were the tall Mongolian horses found only on the grasslands, with saddles and tack also in the grassland style.

These goods were not meant to be transported into Yinzhou City for sale.

They were meant to be transported out of the pass.

Gao Jiong's brain turned three times in that single breath, but the expression on his face remained motionless, still that of a foolish, wealthy Western Regions merchant.

A lean man wearing a black short coat walked over from the depths of the warehouse, carrying a scale in his hand; the weight swung in his hand, emitting a faint metallic clinking sound.

The fat steward leaned into the lean man's ear and muttered a few words; the lean man's gaze swept over Gao Jiong, his voice as dry as sandpaper.

"You are the Western Regions man who wants thirty thousand jin of iron?"

Gao Jiong untied the deerskin money pouch from his waist and placed it on the table in front of the lean man; the pouch hit the tabletop with a heavy, muffled thud.

"Thirty thousand jin is just the first batch; there is an order for one hundred thousand jin after this—you name the price, I won't haggle."

The lean man's eyes lingered on the pouch for two breaths; he reached out to untie the bag, poured out a few gold cakes, picked one up to bite with his teeth, and checked the depth of the tooth marks.

"The quality is not bad."

He put the gold cake back into the pouch, the dryness in his voice replaced by something more intense.

"Thirty thousand jin of iron, eight hundred wen per jin, totaling twenty-four thousand taels of silver—can you afford it?"

Gao Jiong fished out an even larger deerskin bag from his bosom, filled entirely with pure gold cakes; he placed the bag on the tabletop, and the sound of the gold cakes colliding echoed twice in the warehouse.

"Here are three thousand taels of pure gold, equivalent to thirty thousand taels of silver; the excess counts as a deposit—keep the next batch of one hundred thousand jin for me."

The lean man's fingers stroked the gold cakes, the wariness in his voice completely suppressed by greed.

"Straightforward; I'll make friends with you."

He put the gold cakes into an iron box under the table, turned and walked two steps toward the depths of the warehouse, then looked back at Gao Jiong.

"The goods will arrive in three days; just send someone here to pick them up, but there is a rule: once you walk out this door, everything you saw today must rot in your stomach; if word leaks out..."

His fingers patted the hilt of the short blade at his waist.

Gao Jiong waved his hand, his voice carrying a hint of dismissal.

"Rest assured, I have been doing business for so many years, my mouth is tighter than an iron box."

As he said this, his gaze inadvertently swept over the heavy-duty carriages being loaded in the deepest part of the warehouse, as well as the entrance to the secret tunnel leading further in beside the carriages.

The iron door of the secret tunnel was half-open, and behind the door, one could vaguely see stone steps extending downward, with fresh wheel tracks on them.

Gao Jiong withdrew his gaze and patted the lean man's shoulder.

"Brother, where are the goods here transported to be sold? I have connections in the Western Regions too; if I can link up with your line, we can cooperate long-term."

The lean man's eyes darted once, his voice lowering by half a degree.

"Don't ask about that; knowing too much is no good for you."

Gao Jiong chuckled twice, didn't press further, and retreated from the warehouse with the two hidden agents.

After leaving the black market, the smooth merchant smile on Gao Jiong's face vanished completely within a breath, replaced by that chilling, hawk-like coldness.

He took the felt hat off his head and lowered his voice to a level only the two hidden agents could hear.

"Those carriages are being transported outside the pass, the horses are Mongolian horses, the saddles are grassland style, and the direction of the secret tunnel is due north."

The hidden agent disguised as a servant lowered his voice by half a degree.

"Does the Changshi mean they are transporting salt and iron to the grasslands?"

Gao Jiong's fingers clenched into a fist in the dark, his knuckles emitting a very faint cracking sound.

"Not transporting to the grasslands, but to the hands of the Rouran and the Turks."

His voice reached a temperature on the words "Rouran" and "Turks" that made both hidden agents feel a chill crawl up their spines.

"The Great Zhou's strategic materials, salt and iron, are being sold by these merchants at ten times the price to the Great Zhou's mortal enemies, using the blood of Great Zhou's people to feed the wolves on the grasslands."

The hidden agent disguised as an accountant's voice grew urgent by two degrees.

"Changshi, this is a capital crime of treason and selling out the country; should we send word back now?"

Gao Jiong unclenched his fist, the coldness in his voice suppressed by something more intense.

"No rush; what I've seen so far is not enough—I want to get their account books, ironclad evidence in black and white, so that Qian Wansan won't even have a chance to argue."

He turned and his gaze fell on the streets and alleys north of Yinzhou City swallowed by the night.

"Qian Wansan's concubine's residence is the third house in Willow Lane north of the city; Mingjing Si agents have been watching him for half a year—every time he returns from the black market, he goes there to spend the night; the most confidential things are not kept at the Chamber of Commerce headquarters, but in the partition walls of the concubine's house."

He put the felt hat back on his head, his voice carrying a chilling certainty.

"Tonight, I will go get them myself."

At the third quarter of the hour of Zi (12:45 AM), north of Yinzhou City, Willow Lane.

The moonlight was completely blocked by clouds, and the entire lane was pitch black; only the lantern at the entrance of the lane, about to burn out, swayed in the wind, casting a small circle of dim yellow light on the bluestone road.

The third house in Willow Lane was an inconspicuous two-courtyard small residence; the courtyard wall was not high, built of blue bricks, with a few clusters of withered ivy planted on the wall top, the vines swaying gently in the night wind.

There were two night-watchmen in the courtyard, one dozing off in the gatehouse, the other walking back and forth in the courtyard carrying a lantern.

Gao Jiong's figure flashed out from the darkness outside the courtyard wall, moving silently against the wall base, his footsteps so light that even the wild cat dozing on the wall top was not startled.

He stopped at the northeast corner of the courtyard wall, felt along the wall for three breaths, and found a blue brick that protruded by half a degree more than the surrounding bricks.

That was the mark the Mingjing Si agents had made on this wall half a year ago; three chi below the mark was a loose brick that could serve as a foothold for climbing.

Gao Jiong's fingers hooked onto the loose brick, his toes kicked against the wall, and his entire body flipped silently over the courtyard wall, landing behind a cluster of withered banana trees in the courtyard.

The lantern-carrying watchman happened to walk to the west side of the courtyard, his back turned to him.

Gao Jiong's figure paused behind the banana cluster for two breaths, and only after the watchman turned the corner of the wall did he flash out from the darkness, moving along the shadows of the pillars toward the backyard.

The backyard was where Qian Wansan's concubine lived, a small three-room building with a dim light shining upstairs—that was the eternal lamp in the concubine's room.

Gao Jiong did not go upstairs; his target was downstairs.

The room on the east side downstairs was the study; the study window showed no signs of anything unusual from the outside, but Mingjing Si agents had discovered during half a year of surveillance that every time Qian Wansan returned from the black market, he would stay in this study for half an hour before going upstairs.

Gao Jiong walked to the study window, felt along the window frame, found the position of the window bolt, pulled an extremely thin iron wire from his sleeve, inserted it into the crack of the window frame, and flicked it lightly.

The window bolt slid open silently.

He pushed the window open a crack, squeezed in sideways, and his feet landed on the bluestone floor of the study without making a sound.

The study was very dark, with only a glimmer of light from outside the window barely enough to distinguish the outlines of the furniture.

Gao Jiong fished out a palm-sized bronze fire starter from his bosom, unscrewed the lid, blew on it, and a bean-sized flame lit up at the tip, illuminating the furnishings in the study with vague outlines.

Desk, bookshelf, grand master's chair, a landscape painting hanging on the wall.

Gao Jiong's gaze lingered on the landscape painting for a breath, then shifted to the lower right corner of the frame.

There was an extremely thin scratch on the lower right corner of the frame; that scratch was not decoration, but the trigger point for a mechanism.

Mingjing Si agents had spent three months figuring out the position of this mechanism, but had no opportunity to come in and verify it.

Gao Jiong held the fire starter in his mouth, freed both hands, pressed his finger on the scratch in the lower right corner of the frame, and pushed to the left by half an inch.

Click.

An extremely slight mechanical sound came from inside the wall, and the seemingly complete wall next to the landscape painting retreated inward by two inches, revealing a crack the width of an arm.

Gao Jiong reached his hand into the crack, his fingertips touching a cold iron box.

He took the iron box out from the partition wall; the box was not large, the length of a palm, but it was not light, feeling heavy in his hand.

The iron box was hung with an exquisite bronze lock with a tiny keyhole; an ordinary key couldn't be inserted at all.

Gao Jiong fished out a set of lock-picking tools specially made by the Mingjing Si from his sleeve, and three iron wires of different thicknesses danced in his hands before extending into the keyhole.

Seven breaths later, the bronze lock emitted a light click, and the lock shackle popped open.

Gao Jiong lifted the lid of the iron box, and the faint light of the fire starter shone on the thin booklet inside.

The cover of the booklet was black cowhide with no markings, but after flipping to the first page, Gao Jiong's pupils contracted to the limit in the firelight.

The first page recorded the date, type of goods, quantity, price, and the name of the buyer.

The buyer's name used a code, but next to each code was a place name.

Rouran Royal Court.

Turkic Yurt Camp.

Gao Jiong's fingers flipped rapidly through the booklet, scanning page by page; each page was a record of a smuggling transaction, with the timeline extending from six years ago to last month.

Six years.

In the span of six years, the Yinzhou Chamber of Commerce had smuggled over five hundred thousand jin of pig iron, twenty thousand jin of refined salt, and three thousand sets of military crossbow components through the Great Wall secret tunnel to the Rouran and the Turks.

Five hundred thousand jin of pig iron was enough to forge twenty thousand horizontal sabers.

Three thousand sets of crossbow components were enough to equip a crossbow battalion of three thousand men.

These things flowed into the grasslands, turning into sharp blades in the hands of Rouran cavalry and arrows shot by the Turks at the Great Zhou border army.

Gao Jiong's fingers stopped on the last page of the booklet; that page recorded last month's transaction, with the goods being one thousand jin of refined steel and five hundred sets of armor plates, and the place name noted next to the buyer's code was the Rouran Eastern Royal Court.

He closed the booklet, stuffed it into his inner lining, put the iron box back into the secret compartment of the partition wall, reset the mechanism, and returned the landscape painting to its place, restoring everything to its original state.

The entire process took no more than one stick of incense.

Gao Jiong flipped out of the study window, the window bolt was flicked back to its original position from the outside, and his figure moved silently along the route he had come, exited the courtyard, flipped over the wall, and disappeared into the night at the end of Willow Lane.

A quarter of an hour later, in an abandoned mill three li outside Yinzhou City.

Gao Jiong spread the black-leather booklet on the millstone, the light of the torch shining on the dense numbers and codes, illuminating every single criminal act clearly.

He fished out an extremely thin piece of silk paper from his bosom, used the fine-hair brush he carried with him to copy down the most critical content from the booklet, took a palm-sized bamboo tube from his other sleeve, rolled the silk paper into a thin scroll, stuffed it into the tube, and sealed the mouth with wax.

The hidden agent disguised as a servant led a gray carrier pigeon in from outside the mill; a thin copper tube was tied to the pigeon's leg, the thickness of the tube just right to fit the bamboo tube.

Gao Jiong stuffed the bamboo tube into the copper tube, tightened the screw cap, and patted the pigeon's wing.

The pigeon flapped its wings and flew out of the mill window, its gray figure drawing an arc in the night sky and disappearing into the clouds toward the west, in the direction of Xia Prefecture.

Gao Jiong watched the direction the pigeon disappeared, his voice squeezed out from his throat, cold enough to lower the temperature in the mill by two degrees.

"Zhuguo, the ironclad evidence of treason is in hand; the rest depends on how you close the net."

He hid the black-leather booklet back against his body and turned to walk toward the secret door of the mill.

"The specific location of the secret tunnel needs to be explored once more; tomorrow night that lean man has invited me to see a large batch of goods—I will follow his carriage for a trip, and I will be able to uncover both the entrance and exit of the secret tunnel."

The hidden agent disguised as an accountant lowered his voice by half a degree.

"Changshi, should we bring more people? In case we are discovered..."

Gao Jiong put the felt hat back on his head and tugged at the corner of his mouth; the arc in the torchlight carried a meaning that made people's spines tighten.

"If discovered, then kill; are the people of the Mingjing Si afraid of a few watchdog dogs of some merchants?"

He crossed the threshold of the mill, the night wind blowing up the hem of his brocade robe, revealing the edge of the dark red sleeve badge on the inside of his cuff.

At the same time, inside Yinzhou City.

The resentment of the common people had reached its peak.

Over a thousand people gathered in front of the Yamen gate in the south of the city, some holding empty salt jars, some carrying hoes, and some with voices raised to a level that could be heard half a street away.

"We want salt! We want grain!"

"The officials don't care if the people live or die; are we supposed to survive or not!"

In the middle of the crowd, several men wearing short coats darted back and forth, their voices louder than anyone else's, their shouts more vicious than anyone else's.

"It's all because that living Yama Chen Yan pushed some new law, angering the merchants, which is why they won't sell salt!"

"Right! If he hadn't insisted on going against the Chamber of Commerce, would we be unable to eat salt?"

"Down with the new law! Down with the One Heart Society!"

These few people had extremely loud voices, but there was no desperation in their eyes like the common people pushed to the end of the road; there was only an excitement that came from being directed by others.

They were thugs and hooligans Qian Wansan had hired from outside the city for five hundred taels of silver, specifically to mix into the crowd to stir up trouble and direct the public resentment toward Chen Yan.

Xia Prefecture Governor's Office, study.

Zhang Wenqian stood before the desk, holding the seventh urgent report sent from Yinzhou today with both hands, his voice hoarse to the point of breaking.

"Zhuguo, over a thousand people have gathered in front of the Yinzhou Yamen, and someone is spreading rumors in the crowd, saying that the new law angered the merchants, leading to the salt shortage; the public resentment has already begun to turn toward us."

He placed the urgent report on the desk, bent his knees, and knocked his forehead against the bluestone.

"Zhuguo, this subordinate begs you, act now; if we drag this out any longer, the people will truly be bewitched by those rumors!"

Chen Yan sat in the main seat, holding a bamboo tube in his hand, which contained the secret letter Gao Jiong had sent back via carrier pigeon half an hour ago.

He pulled out the silk paper from the bamboo tube, unfolded it, and swept his gaze over the dense numbers and codes three times.

Then he placed the silk paper on the desk and slapped the edge of the desk heavily; the solid wood corner shattered into several pieces under his palm force, and wood chips splashed onto the bluestone.

Zhang Wenqian lifted his forehead from the bluestone and saw the expression on Chen Yan's face that made him feel the temperature dropping rapidly from head to toe.

Chen Yan's voice was crushed out from his chest, every word carrying a weight that froze the air in the entire study into ice.

"Treason and selling out the country, sucking the blood of Great Zhou's people to feed the wolves on the grasslands."

He picked up the silk paper from the desk and drew a line across the codes and place names on it.

"Five hundred thousand jin of pig iron, twenty thousand jin of refined salt, three thousand sets of crossbow components—six years, for six years, these merchants have been sending the lifeblood of Great Zhou to the grasslands cart by cart."

He threw the silk paper onto the desk, stood up, and strode to the study door, the hem of his cloak sweeping up an arc as he turned.

"Zhang Wenqian, get up."

Zhang Wenqian stood up from the ground, his spine straight as a rod.

Chen Yan turned around to look at him, the killing intent in his voice so thick that Zhang Wenqian felt as if he were standing next to a volcano about to erupt.

"Order Gu Yuci to lead five thousand elite iron cavalry, one man with three horses, to launch a night raid on the pass where the Great Wall secret tunnel is located; you must capture both the people and the stolen goods, and not a single living soul is to be spared."

Zhang Wenqian's fists clenched tighter by three degrees at his sides.

"This subordinate accepts the order!"

Chen Yan pointed his finger toward him again.

"At the same time, open the three secret granaries of Xia Prefecture, assemble five hundred carriages, load them full of affordable salt and iron, depart tomorrow morning, and you must arrive in Yinzhou before noon the day after tomorrow."

Zhang Wenqian's voice quickened by half a beat.

"Zhuguo, the amount in five hundred carriages is enough for the entire Yinzhou territory for three months."

Chen Yan's lips curved, the arc carrying a chilling kind of contempt.

"Three months? I don't want three months; I want to turn all the goods Qian Wansan has hoarded into waste, make him lose his entire fortune, and make him unable to even afford the rope to hang himself."

He turned and strode toward the depths of the study, his voice drifting back from over his shoulder.

"These fat pigs think silver can buy lives; today I will let them know that in front of me, silver is not even worth as much as scrap iron."

Zhang Wenqian watched the back that was moving further away in the candlelight, his fists clenched until his knuckles turned white, and he turned and strode out of the study, the sound of armor plates colliding growing more urgent with every step.

The study fell silent, with only the candlelight dancing in the wind, stretching Chen Yan's shadow long and short.

Chen Yan walked to the map of the Northwest Seven Prefectures trade routes in the deepest part of the study, tapped his finger lightly on the location of Yinzhou, his voice so low only he could hear it.

"Qian Wansan, your smuggling convoy will arrive at the Great Wall secret tunnel tomorrow night, and Gu Yuci's iron cavalry will arrive by dawn the day after tomorrow."

He withdrew his finger from the map and tucked it into the side seam of his cloak.

"Capture both people and goods, treason and selling out the country—Lingchi."

He turned, walked back to the main seat, and sat down, his finger tracing an arc on the hilt of his horizontal blade, the arc of his lips carrying a chilling kind of patience.

"I await your good news, Qian Wansan."