Chapter 66: Qi is in Shandong

Shandong.
Laizhou Prefecture.
Jiaozhou, Prefecture Yamun.

A crowd of officials from Jiaozhou shrank their heads like quails at this moment, standing shoulder to shoulder in the main hall.

At the head of the hall, in the seat originally belonging to the Magistrate of Jiaozhou, a new face sat securely.

It was none other than Gao Gong, the Left Vice Censor-in-Chief of the Censorate, who had arrived in Laizhou some days ago yet had deliberately dragged his feet until today before finally stepping into the Jiaozhou Yamun.

Bang!

A resounding crack of the gavel echoed through the air.

The officials of Jiaozhou, whose hearts were already in their throats, trembled violently, their legs turning to jelly, and they all dropped to their knees in unison.

Gao Gong, who had been perusing the financial and grain accounts of Jiaozhou for a long time, had a face as dark and gloomy as ink.

He picked up the topmost ledger and shook it at the officials before him. "Is this what you showed me?! Are these the ledgers of your Jiaozhou?"

As he spoke, Gao Gong hurled the ledger into the crowd of people in front of him.

It struck someone among them, eliciting a startled cry of fright from the victim.

Gao Gong's temples were throbbing with rage.

He looked with disgust and fury at the remaining accounts before him. If these could be called ledgers, then the Great Ming Dynasty would have long been in a golden age of supreme peace!

These were merely the financial and grain transaction records of a single prefecture.

Yet these fools had managed to make them look like heavenly books.

At least heavenly books could be deciphered with contemplation.

But these Jiaozhou grain and finance accounts were utterly incomprehensible!

Every single transaction lacked a source and a destination without exception.

How much money and grain had been spent last month had no total sum; what needed to be done this month and how much money and grain were required had no plan.

The whole thing was a complete mess of muddled accounts!

For a moment, Gao Gong even suspected that these Jiaozhou officials had hastily forged these fake ledgers right before his arrival in Jiaozhou.

Yet the yellowed pages, with their curled edges from being thumbed through repeatedly, proved beyond a doubt that these were indeed the account books used by Jiaozhou.

Xiao Junpeng, the Assistant Magistrate of Jiaozhou, knelt at the very front and hurriedly raised his head, his face bitter. "Your Honor... I beg Your Honor to calm your anger."

With another bang, Gao Gong rose furiously to his feet, clutching a ledger as he walked right up to Assistant Magistrate Xiao Junpeng. "Tell me, is this the account book of your Jiaozhou?! Calculate it for me: how much tax has your Jiaozhou collected since the beginning of this year, and how much money and grain has been spent!"

Xiao Junpeng trembled all over, sweat pouring from his face like rain. Driven step by step and pressed question by question by Gao Gong, everything went dark before his eyes.

At a complete loss, he stammered in evasion, "Your Honor! High and Honorable Sir... it is... it is..."

Gao Gong's eyes turned icy. "What is it? What excuse are you going to use to brush me off this time?"

"It was the Magistrate."

"No!"

"It was the former Magistrate of Jiaozhou, that criminal official now in custody!"

"It was him!"

"All of this passed through the hands of the former Magistrate alone; we subordinates never dared to touch the prefecture's financial and grain ledgers."

"I beg Your Honor to see the truth and forgive us!"

Having shifted the blame onto the death-row official who had already been arrested by Zhang Xiang, the Prefect of Laizhou, Xiao Junpeng trembled and prostrated himself flat on the ground.

Behind him, the Jiaozhou Vice Magistrate and other officials of various ranks vied with one another in denouncing the former Magistrate of Jiaozhou.

In short, whatever problems Jiaozhou had, they were entirely the work of the former Magistrate.

They had nothing to do with any of them.

Gao Gong sneered, "The Magistrate of Jiaozhou is not dead yet! If you want to shift the blame onto a dead man, at least wait until he is actually dead to do it!"

With an angry sweep of his sleeves, he turned and strode back behind his desk.

Instead of sitting down, he pressed both hands onto the tabletop and glared down furiously at the crowd.

An atmosphere of extreme tension hung in the air, where every tree and bush looked like an enemy soldier.

Suppressing the fire raging in his heart, Gao Gong said in a deep voice, "I don't care what you have all done in the past. Today, I have only one demand: within three days, give me a crystal-clear financial and grain ledger for Jiaozhou; within five days, submit the household registers and population census of Jiaozhou; within ten days, I want to see the commoners of Fengmeng Town restored to livelihood and production; and within fifteen days, the garrison camp at Fushan Qianuo must be completely rebuilt. All materials, labor, money, and grain required for the construction of the port and shipyard this month must be fully in place!"

Xiao Junpeng, the Assistant Magistrate of Jiaozhou, wore a troubled expression. "Your Honor! I pray Your Honor will understand the situation; as things stand in Jiaozhou..."

Gao Gong ignored him completely and gave a sharp wave of his hand.

Then, his voice turning gloomy, he continued, "According to the latest imperial edict, His Royal Highness the Crown Prince requires me to inspect you all using the Method of Assessing Accomplishments and to decide on the candidates for the post of Jiaozhou Magistrate. I might as well make it perfectly clear to you: the court's intention is nothing more than using the position of Prefect as bait to lure you.

"However, I will do no such thing!

"As for the candidate for Jiaozhou Magistrate, I will never select or memorialize one from among your ranks.

"But if anyone fails to accomplish what I have ordered..."

Gao Gong's expression turned chillingly cold.

"Before I left the capital by imperial decree, the Emperor and the Crown Prince bestowed upon me supreme authority.

"I may not be able to kill Zhang Xiang, the Prefect of Laizhou, nor can I kill the Provincial Administration Commissioner, the Surveillance Commissioner, or the Regional Military Commander of Shandong.

"But I can kill you!"

Lure these vermin with benefits and make them work?

Gao Gong scoffed at the very idea.

Using their merits was inferior to using their past offenses.

And using their offenses was inferior to keeping a blade hanging over their heads.

Caught in the grip of mortal terror, these people would have no choice but to bow their heads, obey orders, behave themselves, and work with their lives on the line merely to survive.

Inside the Jiaozhou Yamun, Gao Gong's very arrival had dealt a blow of mortal terror to everyone present.

Meanwhile, four hundred li to the northeast of Jiaozhou, outside Penglai City in the seat of Dengzhou Prefecture, right in front of the Dengzhou Garrison Camp:

Yang Jisheng—who was absent from the Jiaozhou Yamun, yet held the titles of Right Vice Censor-in-Chief of the Censorate, Deputy Commissioner for Opening the Seas, Surveillance Vice Commissioner of the Shandong Surveillance Commission, in charge of the Deng-Lai Military Defense Circuit, as well as the Shandong Maritime Circuit and the Deng-Lai Inspection Circuit—arrived at the garrison camp on horseback accompanied by his personal guards.

The guards watching the camp gate immediately stepped forward to block his path.

Yang Jisheng's personal guards had already spurred their horses forward to form a barrier. Pulling a token from his bosom, one of them shouted loudly, "His Honor Yang, the Defense Intendant of Deng-Lai, Maritime Intendant of Shandong, and Inspection Intendant of Deng-Lai, has arrived! Order the Dengzhou Garrison to beat the drums and muster the troops! The Garrison Commander, Vice Commanders, and Assistant Commanders are to report to the parade ground at once to await inspection of the entire camp by His Honor Yang!"

Yang Jisheng's personal guards had all been transferred from the Brocade Guard, alongside veteran household soldiers borrowed from the Duke of Cheng's estate.

Those of rank wore flying-fish robes.

Those without rank all had murder in their eyes, their entire bodies reeking of the bloodshed of the battlefield.

The garrison soldiers of Dengzhou hurriedly pushed open the camp gates to let Yang Jisheng and his men enter, while others rushed inward to report the news.

Before long, the sounds of war drums echoed through the Dengzhou Garrison Camp.

The sounds of troop movements and gatherings rang out wave upon wave from various quarters.

Yang Jisheng had already arrived ahead of everyone else at the viewing platform of the garrison parade ground.

Scanning the many disorganized and scattered soldiers of the Dengzhou Garrison before him, his gaze suddenly locked onto a single company of troops moving with absolute precision. Gathering with lightning speed under the leadership of a young officer, they had formed up ahead of everyone else.

Yang Jisheng's heart skipped a beat. As he looked at the young commanding officer at their head, he could not help but recall the instructions given to him and Gao Suqing in a private audience by His Royal Highness the Crown Prince before they left the capital.

Among those instructions was one specific command.

He was to come to the Dengzhou Garrison and take away a certain young man.

That man was none other than...

Qi Jiguang, who, five years ago due to his father's critical illness, had inherited the hereditary post of Assistant Commander of the Dengzhou Garrison!