Chapter 526: In the Dark Beneath the Lamp, Someone Dares to Be Utterly Reckless

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Clutching a few copper coins, Zhao Pu walked a long way before he managed to buy a single sesame flatbread.

Compared to the markets of earlier years, the eastern capital of Kaifeng had grown much more desolate.

You could tell just from this sesame flatbread. In the past, the streets of the eastern capital had been full of peddlers selling flatbreads. Though sesame flatbread was indeed much pricier than other coarse grains, it had never been like now, when even Zhao Pu found it something of a luxury.

Moreover, the current price was three times what it had been before the Khitan entered the eastern capital, and it was not easy to buy. The sesame seeds on the flatbread were almost nowhere to be seen.

Zhao Pu took a bite rather cherishingly. His wife's family, the Wei clan, had originally been a great local house, but after the Khitan entered the Central Plains, they had suffered the ravages of war, and now it fell to him to support them instead.

Thus, although Zhao Pu's income could still be considered secure, he still felt quite strained, so much so that he could only bear to buy a single sesame flatbread.

This Son of Heaven of Zhou was, after all, a benevolent ruler who did not kill or plunder. It was only a pity that life grew harder by the day.

With a sigh, Zhao Pu turned and walked into a building adjacent to the Great Xiangguo Temple. Passing through several rooms, he came to a somewhat dim chamber.

By the door stood several burly, shaven-headed men. These men wore thick oxhide armor, with long daggers tucked at their waists, and heavy weapons such as spears and maces leaning against the corner of the wall.

"Zhao Dalang is here. Hurry to the side room and change your clothes. Master Minghui has already arrived, and the third storehouse of the Jia section must be inventoried today."

Zhao Pu nodded and headed toward a small room. Before long, he had changed and come back out.

Only, these so-called clothes were nothing more than a sleeveless half-jacket clinging to his body, and below the waist there was only a pair of calf-nose shorts.

This was because Zhao Pu was about to enter the vault to take stock of its stores. Such exceptionally close-fitting clothes, with no pockets or the like, were meant to prevent him from smuggling gold or silver out.

That's right! This building behind the Great Xiangguo Temple also belonged to the Great Xiangguo Temple.

Moreover, it was the account-book office of the temple's money house, which specialized in managing silver and coin, and Zhao Pu was a junior manager responsible for counting at the money house.

Unlike in history, the Khitan invasion had come several years earlier. Zhao Pu had only just married, and so he could not bear to leave his lovely wife and go join the army in Yanzhou.

At the same time, the money-house business of monasteries such as the Great Xiangguo Temple was flourishing, and they were short of men who could write and calculate, so Zhao Pu had remained in the eastern capital.

Wearing the sleeveless half-jacket and calf-nose shorts, he was blindfolded and helped onto a carriage. In the dimness, there was a constant clinking and clanking, and he had no idea how much time passed.

After being supported by the arm and led a certain distance, and then having the blindfold removed, Zhao Pu found himself inside an enormous storehouse.

In an instant, Zhao Pu was deeply shaken. This storehouse, called Jia Three, was even larger than the Yi Five storehouse he had inventoried a few days earlier, and it held a far greater pile of valuables.

A fat, burly monk, accompanied by more than a dozen shaven-headed warrior monks, was already standing inside the storehouse.

Looking at Zhao Pu and the other junior managers of the money house, he haughtily tossed down a gold ingot the size of an infant's fist.

With a clink, the gold ingot was thrown like a stone into a pile of glittering gold and silver.

Master Minghui's icy voice followed, sounding nothing like a monk of a temple, but rather like a man-eating demon.

"Two matters. First, no smuggling. Whoever dares smuggle out even a little will be beaten to death and thrown into the Bian River. These are chaotic times; the death of one or two people is no great matter.

Second, no whispering among yourselves. If you don't want to lose this job, and if you still want to feed your families, then keep your mouths tightly shut.

Finish the inventory within three days, and there will be a rich reward."

Zhao Pu felt no resentment at Master Minghui's threatening words, because he truly needed this job very much.

Without this job, his ailing wife, his young son, and his beautiful young sister-in-law would all starve to death.

But in the endless counting and estimating, Zhao Pu's hand touched something. It was a gold tablet stained with dark-brown blood, and on the tablet were carved three large characters: Zhenbao'er.

"My child, my Zhenbao'er, she was only twelve! Only twelve! You beasts!"

The piercing wail seemed still to echo in Zhao Pu's ears. A scene slowly unfolded in his mind.

The one weeping and wailing had been his neighbor, a minor clerk surnamed Zhou in the Salt and Iron Bureau. The family had considerable assets — the Salt and Iron Bureau, well, everyone understood what that meant.

The clerk also had a daughter he treasured like a precious jewel, and she was indeed as lovely as a flower. The clerk often boasted to Zhao Pu that she would marry no one less than the young lord of a military province.

Zhao Pu had seen this gold tablet carved with the name Zhenbao'er several times, because Zhenbao'er often came to play with his sister-in-law. The two were close in age, and Zhenbao'er would sometimes bring it out to show off.

As Zhao Pu touched the gold tablet, his whole body grew uneasy.

What a fine girl Zhenbao'er had been! Those brutal northern barbarians had carried her off like a kitten, and the clerk, wailing and cursing, had been beheaded with a single stroke.

Suddenly, a bolt of lightning flashed through Zhao Pu's mind. Hadn't Zhenbao'er been seized by the Khitan and vanished without a trace?

This storehouse belonged to the money house as well, a place meant only for storing gold, silver, and brocade. Why was Zhenbao'er's gold tablet here, along with all sorts of other gold hairpins and jade pendants?

Could it be? Could the money house be in league with the Khitan?

Or perhaps the Khitan who had earlier gone off to fight the Son of Heaven's great army had deposited large amounts of gold and silver in the money house.

At this thought, Zhao Pu felt cold sweat breaking out on his head. No wonder that recently, when clearing the vaults, even their eyes had to be blindfolded.

Were such tense and strict measures meant to cover this up?

Damn! If things were as he suspected, he absolutely must not be discovered. If anyone saw through him, he would surely be sent to take a swim in the Bian River.

Zhao Pu forced his trembling hand to still, flung the gold tablet into the wooden chest beside him, and then swiftly wrote in the ledger: "Gold tablet, weight two taels and three qian."

Inside the Daning Palace, in the side hall that Shi Chonggui had originally used to house the beautiful palace women offered from various regions.

Zhang Liecheng, Li Xiaojie, Cao Dong, son of Cao Wantong of the Hexi Chamber of Commerce, Zhang Lieming of the Shazhou Zhang clan, and other high-ranking members of the Brocade Guard were discussing countermeasures.

Zhang Lieming narrowed his eyes and slowly toyed with the short knife in his hand. This cousin-nephew of Zhang Zhao looked every bit the profligate young wastrel — and in fact, he really was a profligate young wastrel.

He loved fine food and delighted in horse racing and dog fighting, yet he had a genuine talent for intelligence work and underhanded schemes. So Zhang Zhao had thrown him into the Brocade Guard, where he became one of the three Deputy Commanders.

"Elder Brother, we underestimated those bald donkeys! If they keep this up, I'm afraid they won't finish redeeming even by next year," Zhang Lieming said, baring his teeth.

Following Zhang Zhao's instructions, the Brocade Guard had found Feng Yu and the craftsmen who printed the Liao silver notes, and had directly produced three hundred thousand strings of cash to stage a run on the banks.

They had also spread word that the Khitan had not merely carried off five hundred thousand strings of cash from the various monastery money houses, but two million strings.

They had hoped that this alone would directly bankrupt several of these great monks' money houses through the run, and teach them a lesson.

Zhang Liecheng and the others had also anticipated that the great monks might refuse to acknowledge the authenticity of these silver notes.

But that was exactly what they wanted! If the monks dared do that, their credibility would collapse.

To everyone's surprise, the Eastern Capital Money House Guild actually acknowledged the notes as valid, and gritted its teeth and redeemed several thousand strings of cash.

But just as the Brocade Guard was about to continue the run, the Money House Guild announced that because the places where the silver and coin were stored were far away and the roads unsafe, the daily redemption of Liao silver notes would be limited to five hundred strings.

When Zhang Liecheng saw this, he thought, oh-ho! So that's their game. He then mobilized the other merchants who had deposits in the Money House Guild and who held Hexi silver notes to go and redeem them.

This rule of exchanging only five hundred strings of cash per day would immediately destroy the bank's credibility.

But something even more unexpected happened — the bank had never set any limit on these people at all. Only when someone came with Liao dynasty silver notes to exchange did the limit apply.

This made things troublesome. The wealthy households and traveling merchants of the Eastern Capital had originally thought depositing their money in the bank was the safest option, because keeping it at home meant it might get robbed.

After a few days of runs on the bank, they saw it had no effect at all, and simply began depositing the gold, silver, and brocade they had withdrawn right back in.

Damn it! The Brocade Robe envoys had worked for nothing — though they'd gained six or seven thousand strings of cash for free, not only had they failed in their mission, they'd actually helped the Lanruo Bank make a name for itself.

Zhang Liecheng swept his gaze over the few people in the room and said in a deep voice, "Yesterday I heard you say, my lord, that if we Brocade Robe envoys do our work well, we will be promoted to the Brocade Robe Guard, called the Brocade Robe Imperial Guard.

From then on, not only will we continue to manage intelligence and reconnaissance as we do now, but the hereditary offices and the resident agents in every prefecture and county under Heaven will all be handed over to us.

The title of Brocade Robe envoy is always somewhat awkward — who knows when it might be abolished.

But once we are organized into a military guard, an imperial guard equivalent to the palace army, that will be a proper government office.

All of you are close to the Son of Heaven, so you should understand what is at stake.

But if we cannot even take down the Lanruo Bank, and the Son of Heaven deems us useless and does not establish the Brocade Robe Imperial Guard, then the wealth and power for ten thousand generations of our descendants will be gone."

Cao Dong's eyes lit up at this, drool nearly dripping from his mouth, and he grew so agitated he was scratching his ears and cheeks.

Their Brocade Robe envoys were now like an office merely affiliated to the government — Zhang Liecheng was right, they could be abolished at any moment.

Only by becoming the Brocade Robe Imperial Guard could they preserve the power in their hands and the wealth of their descendants.

With the matter laid out plainly, the four men in the room all began racking their brains at full speed.

Zhang Lieming's eyes suddenly brightened. He clapped his hands together. "I remember now! That day I went to the south of the city to amuse myself, and I happened to meet a beautiful young lady... uh! Ahem, ahem, ahem!"

At this point, Zhang Lieming suddenly coughed a few times, put away that lecherous look, and abruptly turned serious.

"That day I was conducting a routine investigation in the south of the city, and from a young lady of the Wei family I heard a piece of news.

She said her brother-in-law works as a goods and accounts manager somewhere, but she had secretly gone to look, and that place always seemed to have many strange, fat, large monks coming and going.

And her brother-in-law, whenever he went out for work, would disappear for at least two or three days, sometimes as many as five or six."

When Cao Dong heard this, he immediately leaned in and said cautiously, "I also uncovered a piece of news. It's said that when the Khitan were in the Eastern Capital, they also liked to deposit their goods and money in banks, but since it was rather disreputable, few people mentioned it."

Li Xiaojie suddenly opened his half-lidded eyes wide. "If what Commander Cao uncovered is true, then it corroborates a piece of news I received.

The chief accountants of the Grand Xiangguo Temple have rarely shown themselves recently, and the monks Minghui, Mingshen, and others who handle the temple's external affairs seem to have vanished overnight.

According to our agents' investigation, they have gone to the provinces to audit the storehouses."

At this point, Li Xiaojie, who had always been quick-witted and imaginative, looked at the other three and said slowly in a low voice.

"Gentlemen, what do you think — could it be that this Lanruo Bank in the Eastern Capital, while appearing to have been extorted by the Khitan for five hundred thousand strings of cash, actually took in the gold, silver, and brocade the Khitan looted in the Eastern Capital?

And now that the Khitan have unexpectedly suffered a crushing defeat, with even the Khitan ruler struck down by us, these bald donkeys are thinking of swallowing this ill-gotten wealth?"

"Hiss!" Zhang Liecheng drew in a sharp breath!

He was still fairly devout in his Buddhist faith, so for a moment he found it hard to believe. But he knew what his mission was, and after calming down, he looked at Zhang Lieming and said:

"Jiu Lang, assign men to bring that young lady of the Wei family and her entire household to our territory. Remember, you must avoid being seen as much as possible. Whether it is true or not, one investigation will tell.

Li Xiaojie, Cao Dong — the two of you immediately mobilize all remaining personnel to search the entire city. See if there are any other people who can write and calculate who have suddenly disappeared for several days recently. If there are, find them all for me.

The bank was founded by the Son of Heaven. No one may use it to hide filth and corruption.

The future of us Brocade Robe envoys rests on this one gamble."

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