On the eighteenth of the third month, in the fourteenth year of Jinghan, after Qin Siyuan was thrown into prison, everything took an unexpectedly sharp turn for the worse!
The shift in the political winds came with breathtaking speed, and although everyone had already braced themselves for a hard blow, it was only when several key developments suddenly emerged that Ning Yi and the others truly caught the scent of something deeply ominous.
On that same day, the eighteenth of the third month, even as Qin Siyuan was being imprisoned under the pretext of clearing his own name, another case, in some obscure corner no one had yet noticed, was quietly being stirred up.
That case traced back over two years, to the winter of the eleventh year of Jinghan—a case of corruption and bribery involving Tang Peiya, magistrate of Hengshan County in Jinghu South Circuit. Tang Peiya happened to be transferring posts at the Ministry of Personnel at the time, and he was seized and interrogated immediately. Without going into the details of the process, by the nineteenth, this case had extended to touch Yao Zunian’s eldest son, Yao Jiyuan.
Yao Zunian was a well-known elder statesman in the capital, with a family of considerable wealth and standing throughout the Bianliang region. Having spent decades steeped in the workings of officialdom, over the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth, he had been the one primarily responsible for clarifying the details of Qin Siyuan’s case. On the morning of the nineteenth, when officers from the yamen went to the Yao household to summon Yao Jiyuan for questioning, they had done so quite politely, saying only that he would be asked a few questions and then allowed to return home. As a result, the Yao household had failed to notify Yao Zunian in time, and by the time he learned of it, it was already evening on the nineteenth.
The old man immediately sensed something was deeply wrong. He hastily summoned his eldest son, who had by then been released and sent home, to question him about what had happened. At the same time, he chose to notify Jueming, Ji Kun, and Ning Yi. At this point, Yao Zunian and Jueming had the most extensive connections among the upper ranks of officialdom; Ji Kun had the most control over the Chancellor’s household itself; and Ning Yi had the widest reach and the sharpest eyes and ears among the common people and lower-ranking clerks.
Before this, everyone had been trying to gauge just how far the Emperor’s blade would fall this time. In theory, with the court currently in the midst of rewarding merit, some path to survival, some kind of example, had to be preserved for all the officials involved. However severe Qin Siyuan’s own troubles might be, having him swept entirely from power represented, at worst, the single worst-case outcome—though, of course, even that would need some pretext to justify it. But with this new development now emerging, the whole nature of the affair had changed entirely.
The group immediately began reaching out through their connections at the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Personnel. At the same time, Tang Peiya took his own life in the Ministry of Justice’s prison, leaving behind a letter written in his own blood. And on the official record, through Yao Jiyuan, the matter had already been formally linked to the Qin family.
A simple thread had now been drawn, tracing the matter back two years, to the disaster relief effort of that time. Qin Siyuan had used the authority of the government to protect the trade routes, clearing away obstruction from local power-holders, allowing grain to reach the various disaster-stricken regions. To claim there was no trace of factional dealing in all this would be impossible. Though Tang Peiya’s blood letter and suicide that same night did not, on their own, constitute sufficient evidence, by the morning court session on the twentieth, seven separate memorials of impeachment concerning this matter had already been submitted, two of them bearing what could be considered concrete evidence. Faintly, the outline of a vast criminal network was beginning to take shape.
At the time, three officials in the capital had been tasked with jointly reviewing Qin Siyuan’s case: Zheng Sinan, in charge of Ministry of Justice affairs; Tang Gui, a judge at the Court of Judicial Review; and Tian Yuqing of the Censorate. Zheng Sinan had originally been one of Qin Siyuan’s own former subordinates; Tang Gui, too, had old ties to the Qin family; and Tian Yuqing served under Qin Hui, who was, in a manner of speaking, also family. For this reason, most had assumed that Qin Siyuan’s imprisonment would prove little more than a formality—that even if found guilty after review, the punishment would likely be light, at worst simply preventing him from continuing as Right Chancellor with real power, and letting him step down gracefully. But this time, these seven memorials didn’t merely implicate Qin Siyuan—they also, quite skillfully, managed to draw both Zheng Sinan and Tang Gui into the affair as well.
Some of the accusations were built on little more than baseless rumor, while others carried half-formed evidence, but though the seven memorials had come from different individuals, they fit together with remarkable, deliberate precision. The atmosphere in the throne hall on the morning of the twentieth was tense and forbidding; not a few officials finally sensed something was deeply amiss. There were indeed some ministers who genuinely tried to stand up and analyze these memorials with a clear head—Tang Ke was among them: he questioned the authenticity of the blood letter, pointed out the suspicious coordination between several of the impeaching memorials, and argued that Qin Siyuan, a man of such great service to the court, must not be allowed to feel that loyalty went unrewarded. Zhou Zhe sat upon the throne, his gaze calm as he regarded Tang Ke, and seemed rather pleased with him.
“Minister Tang is truly a pillar of the state, upright and selfless. In the past, you and Chancellor Qin have often been at odds, and yet here you are, standing up to speak in his defense. Chancellor Qin’s loyalty and integrity—how could I not know it as well as anyone? There’s really no need for such excessive caution. As for the Jurchen calamity, I have already issued a self-reproaching edict. As for this matter—if there is a real problem, it must be uncovered, so that all under heaven receive justice; and if there is none, then Chancellor Qin, too, deserves to have his name cleared… Very well, then. Let Ministers Zheng and Tang step aside for the moment, to avoid any appearance of impropriety. I shall appoint two others to handle Chancellor Qin’s case instead. Given the gravity of this matter, I must entrust it to men of unimpeachable reputation. Let’s see… Minister Yan Zheng, you shall take over Minister Tang’s role for the time being. And for the other— Minister Tang, since you trust Chancellor Qin more than anyone, I trust you as well. You shall take over Minister Zheng’s role, and see this matter handled properly on my behalf…”
That afternoon, Zhou Zhe summoned Qin Hui for an audience.
“As for the matter of the Right Chancellor, to be reviewed jointly by the Three Judicial Offices—ordinarily, the Censorate’s own minister would be the most fitting choice for this. These past years, you’ve served as Censor-in-Chief with unwavering loyalty and integrity. Do you know why I have not assigned this task to you?”
“Your servant must avoid any appearance of conflict of interest,” Qin Hui answered forthrightly.
“Indeed, you must avoid any such appearance.” Zhou Zhe, seated behind the long desk in his study, raised his head slightly. “But not quite in the way you might be thinking.”
“Your servant does not understand.”
“The Censorate holds all officials of the realm to account, cleansing corruption in the bureaucracy. As Censor-in-Chief, you must be scrupulously impartial. Let us set aside the fact that the Right Chancellor is not truly of your clan—even if he were, if I trust you, I would let you handle the review regardless; otherwise, you’d have lost your head long ago—do you think just anyone could hold the post of Censor-in-Chief?”
Qin Hui bowed respectfully. “Your servant thanks Your Majesty for this trust.”
“I trust you because what you’ve done has earned my trust. When I say you must avoid appearances of impropriety, it’s because, should the Right Chancellor step down, I intend to have you take his place—and for that, you need to steer clear of this matter now. It wouldn’t do for you to have just finished reviewing the Right Chancellor’s case only to then take his position immediately afterward, would it?”
Qin Hui hesitated for a moment. “Your Majesty, Chancellor Qin has always conducted himself with the utmost integrity in office. Your servant believes in his innocence…”
Zhou Zhe waved a hand. “Don’t try to be evasive with me on matters of officialdom. As for who the Right Chancellor truly is, do you think I don’t know? His scholarship runs deep, his conduct is upright—this, I believe. That he’s never formed factions… well… I’m not so certain of that anymore. Of course, in this review, I intend only to see justice done fairly. If the Right Chancellor is innocent, that would be a great blessing for the nation. But if he is guilty, then I mean to choose between you and Tan Zhen to fill his place.”
“The Jurchen have only just invaded from the south—our dynasty’s first priority now must be to revitalize our military strength. Lord Tan has previously overseen military affairs; he could well serve as Right Chancellor.”
“As for who is fit to be Right Chancellor, I have my own judgment on that.” Zhou Zhe glanced at him. “You’ve done well. You may go now.”
Once word reached the Chancellor’s residence that the presiding judges had been changed, there was, at first, some cause for cautious optimism among Ji Kun, Wenren Buer, and the others—the Censorate’s Qin Hui was known for his loyal, upright character, and combined with Tang Ke, that made two out of three potentially favorable, which might yet offer some hope of a turnaround. Yao Zunian, however, remained pessimistic. He knew Qin Hui rather better than the others did, and his confidence in him was considerably weaker. Of the three men now assigned, Tang Ke was, admittedly, genuinely upright and incorruptible, but frankly speaking, the peace faction had been suppressed for years now, and Tang Ke’s own faction had, by this point, essentially scattered into disconnected fragments. Beyond his reputation for integrity, he held virtually no real influence at court anymore. Jueming, meanwhile, was busy working the imperial clan, trying to sway the Emperor’s intentions, and had not come by.
“They mean to wipe us out entirely, root and branch.” It was Ning Yi alone who, after a long stunned silence, finally spoke this quiet line aloud. Even those still clinging to some last shred of hope fell silent upon hearing it, looking at him.
Like the emperor’s new clothes, so much of the truth of this affair had already been laid bare that most of them had already formed their own grim suspicions privately—clinging to one last flicker of hope was, after all, only human nature. Ning Yi’s words shattered even that. Just then, someone came running in from outside to report that officers from the Six Gates had entered the Yao household, formally taking Yao Jiyuan into custody. Yao Zunian’s brow furrowed. “Have him bear it for now.” Then, turning to the others, he said, “I’ll go to the prison to see old Qin. Let’s prepare for the worst.”
The group scattered at once.
Only now had the Chancellor’s household’s efforts to resist and push back escalated to the point of simply trying to save lives—but it was already too late. The sweeping upheaval engulfing the capital, driven forward by Zhou Zhe, Cai Jing, Tong Guan, and Wang Fu’s respective factions, riding on the positive, energetic wave of the capital’s reward-and-punishment campaign and its call for renewed vigor, had already spread throughout the entire court.
…
The regular patrons at the Fan Tower had suddenly changed, quite a few of them.
Whenever the capital grew tense and fearful, it was always like this. Shifts in the crowds visiting the pleasure quarters often signaled shifts at the very center of power itself. This particular shift was unfolding amid a wave of enthusiastic, overwhelmingly positive public sentiment—some people singing and clapping in celebration, others burning with righteous indignation.
“…Who would have imagined it—that the sitting Right Chancellor himself would turn out to be such a treacherous man!”
“…The court hasn’t yet concluded its review of this matter—don’t go spreading baseless talk!”
“Baseless, is it? Look at who’s being thrown into prison day after day now—do I even need to spell it out…”
“But the Qin family’s eldest son died a martyr’s death at Taiyuan—”
“Taiyuan was surrounded tight as an iron bucket—there was no escaping regardless, that much is true. Besides, even within one family, there’s no guarantee loyalty and treachery run the same in every member—look at the Grand Preceptor and his son, they don’t walk the same path either—”
“The storyteller downstairs used to go on and on about that eldest Qin son every single day—these past couple days, funny how he’s gone quiet on the subject—”
“The Right Chancellor’s factionalism is hardly less than Grand Preceptor Cai’s, and worse still, during this siege, he drove people up onto the city walls, commanded them poorly, and got all those righteous men buried up there. Afterward, without a word of explanation, he had all the bodies burned too. Tell me, has he ever once treated people as people—”
“Speaking of these ‘Seven Tigers’—if you ask me, he’s not just one of them, no—he’s the very worst tiger of the lot—”
These days, this was the kind of talk Shishi heard every single day at the Fan Tower.
By now, she had come to fully understand the way the political tides in the capital were shifting. The Right Chancellor’s faction had already been pried loose from its very foundations and was beginning to collapse. As the tree falls, the monkeys scatter; once a wall starts to lean, everyone rushes to give it a final push. Officials aligned with the Right Chancellor were being thrown into prison one after another, and the scope of the joint review by the Three Judicial Offices grew wider by the day. Though it had not yet formally reached the point of conviction, given how things stood now, there was simply no escaping it anymore—only the severity of the eventual sentence remained in question.
The shift in public opinion seemed to be closely tied to signals coming from the court itself, and Bamboo Records’ storytellers, too, seemed to be under some kind of pressure, no longer speaking of the Chancellor’s household’s affairs at all. A couple days earlier, there had even been rumors circulating of storytellers being beaten and arrested. Bamboo Records’ business was beginning to suffer—hardly surprising news within merchant circles.
But at the lower levels, it seemed there was still some resistance being mounted against those above. Word had it that a few of Bamboo Records’ shopkeepers had gotten swept up in the fallout from all this and ended up in the Kaifeng prefectural jail, only to be pulled back out again later. Shishi knew this was Ning Yi working behind the scenes to secure their release. She had gone once to find him, but hadn’t managed to—he was simply too busy.
Whenever Madame Li brought up the matter, there was always a note of resigned sighing in her voice: “Why does it always have to come to this…” Shishi’s feelings on the matter were complicated. She knew that Ning Yi’s business empire was crumbling, and that once it fully collapsed, he would leave. She kept wondering when he might come to bid her farewell, but in the end, he never came.
By the twenty-seventh of the third month, everyone at the Fan Tower was busy discussing the news of Li Gang’s ennoblement, as well as the ongoing matter of Qin Siyuan’s case. That day, Shishi happened to notice a man in the tower—dressed in a blue robe, gaunt in appearance, apparently nursing some injury, coughing occasionally. She had some vague impression of him; she recalled he had once been an advisor at the Chancellor’s residence, a man named Cheng Zhouhai. He had presumably come to the Fan Tower to meet someone on business, likely also working on the Chancellor’s household’s behalf. She had barely noticed him when someone came hurrying over and exchanged a few words with Cheng Zhouhai, who then rushed out at once.
Not long after, someone came to tell Shishi the news: “Something terrible has happened, something terrible…”
“What’s happened?”
“There’s been an incident at the Right Chancellor’s residence. The Ministry of Justice is trying to arrest the Qin family’s second son and bring him up on charges. The old matriarch is blocking them, refusing to allow it—the two sides are clashing, it’s about to turn into a real disaster…”
Shishi’s face went pale. “Not a single one of them spared? How could they… how could they… The Qin family has, after all, rendered such service to the nation!”
“Heh, whether it’s merit or fault remains to be seen…”
Having delivered the news, the man went off to watch the spectacle unfold. Shishi thought it over for a moment, then quickly had a carriage readied and hurried off toward the Right Chancellor’s residence. By the time she arrived, a large crowd had already gathered nearby. This time, the matter concerning Qin Shaoqian was a separate case, handled directly by the Ministry of Justice. Two chief constables from the Ministry had come, bringing official documents and a squad of constables with them, but had been blocked at the gate by the Qin family’s elderly matriarch. A large number of the family’s younger relatives and kin had joined hands to form a human wall at the entrance, and Cheng Zhouhai had already rushed over as well; the two sides were now negotiating, with the occasional exchange of heated words between the younger family members and the constables.
In the past, the Qin residence had wielded such power that a single word would have settled any such matter instantly. Now, reduced to this kind of standoff, all it conveyed was the bleak sorrow of authority scattered and lost—even before Qin Siyuan had actually been convicted of anything, an air of utter despair had already set in. Inside the residence, Qin Shaoqian appeared to be trying to force his way out, only for the old matriarch blocking the gate to strike him with her cane. “Get back inside— get back inside, I say— if you come out here, I’ll drop dead on the spot—”
Chief Constable Tie Tianying called out from outside: “Venerable Madame, this is the law of the land—you cannot simply block it like this—”
Some of the constables standing at the edge of the crowd muttered under their breath, “Hmph, so used to their wealth and power, still think they’re above the law…”
Others in the crowd echoed similar righteous indignation, whispering among themselves. Then, at the gate, the crowd began jostling and pushing, and Cheng Zhouhai stepped forward to block the way, calling out, “Young Master Qin Shaohe died for his country at Taiyuan, dismembered by the golden dogs—his bones are not yet cold, and now his younger brother, who once led troops outside the city to crush the rebel army in a great victory, a hero in his own right and the Qin family’s only remaining heir—if you mean to wipe out an entire family of loyal servants, you’ll have to step over my body first.”
Tie Tianying said, “Merit is merit, and fault is fault—they cannot be conflated. I’ve come only to escort Young Master Qin over for questioning to clarify matters—no one has said he’s already condemned. If you obstruct me like this, is it because you have something to hide? And besides, Lord Qin Shaohe died a martyr’s death at Taiyuan, where the Jurchen massacred nearly everyone—almost no one survived. How is it, then, that you managed to make it back? Afraid to die, were you—”
“Afraid to die—” Cheng Zhouhai let out a furious roar, and tore open his robe. His gaunt frame beneath was wrapped densely in bandages, and he tore at them, ripping them away. “Do you have any idea what conditions were like in Taiyuan? Surrounded on all sides, no help coming from anywhere! Provisions running out! When the Jurchen launched their full assault, in order to keep our soldiers fighting, what food we had went to them first—I was an official, and even I had my ration of chaff and husks cut in half every single day. My wounds still haven’t fully healed. Chief Constable, look at these wounds and tell me if this is what a man who feared death looks like—”
Cheng Zhouhai’s outburst outside the Right Chancellor’s gate left Tie Tianying momentarily speechless, unable to respond. Li Shishi, however, understood the situation clearly. If Qin Shaoqian’s matter had been raised as a separate case on its own, it might not have amounted to much—there were still officials in the capital who could intervene on such things, and the people of the Right Chancellor’s household were surely still working every angle behind the scenes to have this particular case dropped. The only question was when they would manage to act, and whether it would have any effect in time…