They stopped in Wuling for a day to establish a memorial altar for Wang Yu. That very night, Ji Fu led people to repair the black-canopied boat that had transported the coffin. The next day, Han Daoxun had two household soldiers accompany Yu Cheng and others to escort Wang Yu’s coffin home. He also specifically had Han Qian take out ten gold cakes to give to Yu Cheng as travel expenses.

Of course, originally they could have erected a shed on the river beach for memorial services, but instead they made such a production of setting up a memorial hall in the city’s courier station, using horse carts to transport Wang Yu’s coffin in and out. In just one night they expended so much effort and caused considerable disturbance to the people. Wuling County officials, watching this, all felt Han Daoxun really had the taint of seeking fame and fishing for reputation.

However, with Han Daoxun passing through and the Military Governor’s heir Ma Xun even dispatching warships to escort them, the local officials of Wuling County, no matter their inner dissatisfaction, being within bureaucratic circles, still rose early to accompany County Magistrate Du Yu in seeing them off outside the city.

Han Daoxun was still bidding farewell to Wuling County Magistrate Du Yu and others when Fan Xicheng brought over a sturdy man from the river beach and walked before Han Qian, saying:

“The Yuan River’s current is extremely strong. For our three boats to go upstream, we still need to hire forty or fifty people as trackers for the speed to be somewhat faster. This person is called Feng Xuan. He’s a leader among those waiting for work on the river beach, and happens to be a Shanyue tribesman from Xuzhou’s Qianyang. He has over thirty men under him and is very enthusiastic, willing to escort us to Qianyang.”

Qianyang was the first stop upon entering Xuzhou and also where the prefectural seat was located. Formerly called Longbiao County, after Great Chu’s founding, to avoid the taboo name of Emperor Tianyou’s ancestor, it was renamed Qianyang County. It was the gateway location at the eastern foot of Witch Mountain.

From Wuling County, passing through Chenzhou territory, they still had to travel four hundred li of waterway to reach Qianyang.

Along this route the waters were rapid and shoals dangerous, and the wind was blocked by peaks and ridges. They needed to hire trackers to pull the boats to pass through smoothly.

Han Qian sized up this Shanyue man Fan Xicheng had found. His skin was dark, his upper body bare, muscles bulging on his body as if cast from molten iron, full of vigorous power about to burst forth. However, his back was severely peeling, blotchy with black and red patches—who knew how long he’d been exposed under this scorching sun.

The Five Streams tribes, as a branch of the ancient Yue people, were also called Shanyue or mountain barbarians because they lived among deep ridges. But actually, since the Qin and Han dynasties conquered the Hundred Yue, various tribes had lived intermixed. The Shanyue people’s appearance had no particular distinctive features. Even their surnames followed Han surnames. They only retained the tribal customs of living in clan groups and obeying chieftains in all matters.

Thousands of people along the Yuan River made their living by boat—pilots and trackers, both primary and secondary households. But due to their large numbers, the scouts the Left Division had dispatched in advance found it very difficult to investigate everything clearly in less than a month. However, this Feng Xuan that Fan Xicheng had found from the river beach—Han Qian had already seen his name.

Feng Xuan was a Shanyue tribal leader from Qianyang, but not all tribal leaders could live lives of luxury and dissipation. Quite a number of small and medium tribes, under oppression from great clan chieftains, found life quite difficult even for tribal leaders.

The tribal village where Feng Xuan lived had just over forty households. The mountainous land where the village was located was barren and unproductive. The fields’ output wasn’t enough to feed the village’s young and old. During farming off-seasons, Feng Xuan would lead the village’s able-bodied men to make their living as trackers along the Yuan River.

Han Qian had just taken out ten gold cakes to give to Wang Yu’s household servant as travel expenses and was feeling heartache over his empty purse. He asked Feng Xuan how many days it would take to hire them to pull boats to Xuzhou and how much it would cost in wages.

“Replying to the young master, the river beach currents are rapid. If there’s no heavy rain, we can reach Qianyang in six days. There are over a hundred mouths crying for food in my small village. If the young master can bestow eight thousand coins, we’ll be completely satisfied.” Feng Xuan replied in not very fluent official speech.

Seeing nearly forty trackers behind Feng Xuan, Han Qian thought that for them to pull boats to Xuzhou and return to Wuling County for work would take about half a month in total. The wage per person calculated to two hundred coins. Grain prices in the Xiang-Tan region were cheap, only two to three-tenths of Jinling’s prices. But even so, these trackers’ average daily wage only amounted to four or five sheng of polished rice. This wage really couldn’t be considered high.

Han Qian was too lazy to haggle over these minor details, so he had Feng Xuan bring his people to attach tow ropes to the three boats, preparing to depart southward.

Feng Xuan and the vast majority of his men appeared to have no problems, but two people, though their skin was dark, didn’t have backs sunburned and peeling like Feng Xuan and the others, and their shoulders bore no calluses scarred from tow ropes. Standing at the bow, Han Qian couldn’t help complaining to his father, “Small places are just small places. Inserting two spies—they can’t even do it without leaving traces. Life is truly boring.”

“You seem convinced there are suspicious points about Wang Yu’s death. Based on your observation, among Xuzhou’s many great clans and powerful families, who has the greatest suspicion?” Han Daoxun also didn’t mind at all that there were two spies hidden among the trackers, nor was he in a hurry to investigate whether the tracker leader Feng Xuan had been bought off or harbored ill intent himself. After all, these trackers only wore short pants as they waded through shallow water—they couldn’t hide a single weapon. Even if they were all problematic, along this route they had no way to pose a substantial threat. He was now more concerned with how to break open the situation as soon as they reached Xuzhou.

“Among Xuzhou’s great Shanyue clans, there are the four families: Xi, Feng, Xiang and Yang. Each leads about a thousand households of Shanyue natives. If you ask me, none of these four families is honest. Over the past few years they’ve all been disciplined by Wang Yu for matters like selling illegal salt, encroaching on land, and establishing private punishments. But if I must say which family has the greatest suspicion, or whether these four families joined hands—we’ve only just started beating the grass, the vipers haven’t been startled out yet.” Han Qian said.

Over the following days, except for a brief stop in Chenyang city, the seat of Chenzhou, Han Qian’s group spent their time on boats, arriving within Xuzhou’s Qianyang County territory on the twenty-eighth day of the sixth month.

In other places, when the chief official of a prefecture or county assumed office, officials great and small would have long since gathered at the prefecture or county boundary to await and welcome them respectfully. Even more so, along the route everything would have already been arranged. But when Han Qian’s group reached the border between Xupu County and Qianyang County, they only saw two old soldiers accompanying a middle-aged man in blue official robes, waiting by the river. Watching the fleet Han Qian’s group was aboard, he called out loudly:

“Is the vessel ahead the official boat of Prefect Han Daoxun? I am Prefectural Registrar Xue Ruogu, specially here to welcome the Prefect as he assumes office.”

“Father, your assumption of new office is perhaps a bit too desolate, isn’t it?” Han Qian said jokingly.

Even though Fan Xicheng and Zhao Kuo were mentally prepared, they still felt the welcoming scene before them was too desolate. But they hadn’t expected Han Qian could say it out loud as if it were a joke.

Han Daoxun smiled bitterly and said, “Wang Yu died in office, and it took three months before he was fortunate enough to receive Young Lady Zhou’s support to transport his coffin home. Should I really expect Xuzhou officials to lay out dozens of banquet tables at the prefecture boundary in celebration?”

Han Daoxun had the boat dock and welcomed Registrar Xue Ruogu and the two old soldiers aboard.

After boarding, Xue Ruogu performed his respects to Han Daoxun again. When he saw Zhou Yourui poking her head out from the cabin, he was slightly stunned, then with shame on his face performed a courtesy to Zhou Yourui. He thought to himself that since Han Daoxun had received Zhou Yourui aboard his boat, he should already know about the prefecture officials’ callousness toward their deceased superior. He became increasingly constrained in Han Daoxun’s presence.

The boat cabin was too cramped. Han Daoxun had people bring out two chairs and sat on the deck chatting idly with Xue Ruogu.

Han Daoxun didn’t ask much about why Prefecture Administrator Yang Zaili, Assistant Administrator Xiang Jianlong, Military Personnel Advisor Xi Zhen, Qianyang County Magistrate Feng Changyu and other prefecture and county officials hadn’t appeared, but instead chatted about ordinary household matters with Xue Ruogu.

Xue Ruogu had passed the Classics Literati examination in the previous dynasty. He had served in low-level positions like county assistant in prefectures and counties under Yuezhou Military Governor Dong Chang. After Dong Chang was destroyed and eastern Zhejiang was incorporated into Great Chu’s territory, low-level officials like Xue Ruogu weren’t greatly affected and were employed as usual by the new dynasty. However, they couldn’t compare with the direct lineage of the Huainan Army. In the eleventh year of Tianyou, he was transferred to Xuzhou to serve as Registrar, the chief clerk of the prefecture office.

But seeing that Xue Ruogu’s official robe still had several patches, one knew he really wasn’t doing very well in Xuzhou.

From the prefecture boundary to Qianyang city was still over thirty li of waterway. The three boats arrived below Qianyang city before dusk.

As an important frontier town of Xiang-Chu and gateway to Yunnan and Guizhou, Qianyang city was built at the confluence of the Wu River and Yuan River. The terrain was relatively gentle, surrounded by water on three sides, with extremely beautiful scenery. The poet Wang Changling of the previous dynasty had once written here the famous lines: “Cold rain spanning the river, entering Wu at night / At dawn seeing off a guest, Chu Mountain stands alone / If relatives and friends in Luoyang should ask / Say my heart is pure as ice in a jade pot.”

From Wuling County southward, all along the route towering mountains stood on both sides. Most areas along the banks showed few households. But Qianyang city, as the location of the prefectural seat and the largest water and land dock within Xuzhou territory, was somewhat more prosperous than imagined.

The dock was a section of stone-built river embankment. Though not long, the area was quite open and spacious, with dozens of boats moored. At this time, though the sky hadn’t yet darkened, on the several-li-wide river surface, many fishing boats still stopped in mid-river—a scene of fishing boats singing at dusk.

Qianyang city wasn’t large. The rammed earth walls were roughly five to six hundred paces square. But looking at the higher ground within the city, the dwellings visible from outside the city walls, quite a few had blue brick and black tile. Outside the city there were also many thatched cottages and wooden houses where many families lived.

Of course, excluding the wild tribes living deep in the mountains, among the primary and secondary households registered in the prefecture records, the three counties totaled only just over twelve thousand households. No matter how prosperous Xuzhou was, it was still quite limited.

“Prefecture Administrator Yang Zaili, Assistant Administrator Xiang Jianlong, Military Personnel Advisor Xi Zhen, Qianyang County Magistrate Feng Changyu and others still don’t know the Prefect could arrive today. They’re all not in the city…” Even Xue Ruogu himself felt this excuse he was fabricating was extremely weak, and explained with embarrassment.

Yang Zaili, Xiang Jianlong, Xi Zhen and Feng Changyu were the chieftain clan heads of Xuzhou’s Yang, Xiang, Xi and Feng families. Their strength lay not in the fact that they had held positions as Prefecture Administrator, Assistant Administrator, Military Personnel Advisor and Qianyang County Magistrate cumulatively for over ten or even twenty to thirty years since the previous dynasty. Rather, as chieftains of their respective tribes, they each led over a thousand households of Shanyue tribespeople. Together they accounted for about sixty to seventy percent of Xuzhou’s seven thousand-plus primary households. Moreover, internal tribal affairs were not subject to prefecture or county governance at all.

Therefore these four were unruly and intractable. Even the prefect, as head of the prefecture and counties, had no way to deal with them. To prevent the situation in Xuzhou from becoming even worse, as long as these people didn’t openly rebel, the Ministry of Personnel couldn’t easily dismiss them from their official positions.

But for all four to not be in the city today—this was more than just ordinary arrogant disrespect. Han Daoxun’s expression grew grave as he glanced at Han Qian.

Guo Nu’er, who had disembarked at the dock first, walked over at this moment and pressed a wax ball into Han Qian’s hand. Han Qian twisted out a palm-sized slip of paper. His expression also suddenly turned cold. He passed the paper to his father and to Fan Xicheng, Zhao Kuo, Yang Qin and others behind him to read.

Only then did they learn that not only were Yang Zaili, Xiang Jianlong, Xi Zhen and Feng Changyu not in the city—the family members of these four families within the city had also quietly left the city last night.

Although this meant their stratagem of startling the snake from its hole had achieved results, the opponents’ brazen intention to make a major move still exceeded everyone’s expectations.