Chapter 65#

Zhou Bingjun’s actions were completely beyond Xu Yong’s expectations.#

The fact that the Minister of War was a useless piece had long been known to them. The Embroidered Uniform Guard had been using the Minister of War case to stir up the court. Those old foxes in the court, in order to protect themselves, had caused the storm in the court to gradually rise. If the Guard’s true objective was not exposed, the turmoil at court would only make the Grand Prince’s faction crush the Crown Prince’s faction to the ground. The Xu family couldn’t fall yet; that would be disadvantageous to their plan.

If the Guard’s objective were revealed, those old foxes would naturally understand that the Guard was fishing for clues, testing the Ministry of Works. Those in the court would then assess the situation and fall silent.

His hidden informants were all waiting outside, waiting for the Guard to take the bait and follow their plan. Who would have thought that the one who came would be Zhou Bingjun and not Qi Hanzhou?

Why? Had the Guard figured out their arrangement?

No, did the Guard know that much?

Xu Yong couldn’t afford to think about that. He had to get away as quickly as possible and get this news out to the hidden informants of that noble lord.

“Lord Zhou, this matter is of grave importance.” Xu Yong hastily explained.

Zhou Bingjun immediately ordered his men to seize Xu Yong, not listening to any of his explanations. Just as Xu Yong tried to resist, he was pinned to the ground by Zhou Bingjun’s men. When he saw the expression on Zhou Bingjun’s face, he suddenly realized the Guard’s true intention. But before he could say a word, he was knocked unconscious by an official from the Ministry of Works.

“Use the Ministry of Works’ internal connections. Take the man away secretly and lock him up. Do not make a sound.”

An official from the Ministry of Works quickly found a farm cart, stuffed Xu Yong inside, and mixed it in with the ministry’s daily carriages.

Once all this was done, Zhou Bingjun said viciously, “Investigate! Investigate every official in the Ministry of Works who has been in close contact with him!”

He took a few steps back, then suddenly thought of something: “Wait! Find every document he touched in the Ministry of Works today, even the ones he casually picked up. Not a single scroll can be missed!”

Recently, the Xu family and the Ministry of Works had been conducting an internal investigation into the hidden spies involved in the Artisan Case. Now that the Guard was fixated on the Ministry of Works, a single misstep could lead to political enemies framing them. Zhou Bingjun was already at a sensitive juncture. Now that all the officials he had dispatched had been arrested by the Guard, leaving only Xu Yong unharmed, no amount of explanation could be as important as finding out the result.

He had to immediately confirm whether Xu Yong had leaked the contents of key documents; otherwise, the next morning’s court session would mark the beginning of the Ministry of Works’ downfall.

Zhou Bingjun strode quickly to the document repository of the Ministry of Works, his sharp gaze sweeping over every sealed opening.

Finally, he stopped at a certain spot. The scroll sent by the officials was stained with a yellowish trace from a special powder.

“Record of Materials and Implements for the Huzhou River Works, Year 12 of Taiyuan Era…” Zhou Bingjun opened it, and his expression shifted slightly. This project had not been tampered with by them, yet several details in this document looked unusually unfamiliar. Someone had altered it beforehand, and judging by the ink, the alteration had been made at least a few years ago.

If this document fell into the hands of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, it would be the end.

This was the final scroll. Were there any other traces left in the other archives…

“Act in secret. Do not alert the enemy.” After giving his orders, Zhou Bingjun thought of his subordinates who had just been captured by the Guard. “Forget it. None of you are to make a move.”

Xu Yong of the Ministry of Works was quietly taken away by Zhou Bingjun. The hidden informants lurking outside the ministry, waiting for a signal, sensed something was wrong, but Xu Yong had already completely vanished. Not only that, but everyone connected to Xu Yong in the Ministry of Works had been placed under control by Zhou Bingjun’s orders. This was no longer just the loss of one or two hidden agents; the entire line connected to Xu Yong was compromised!

The Xu family had made a move against their people!

“Xu Yong is missing. This matter will likely be discovered by the Xu family.”

This affair had to stop at the Xu family…

The lamps in the Xu mansion burned all night long. When news of the Ministry of Works incident arrived, Grand Secretary Xu’s eyes were filled with a shadow of gloom.

The Ministry of Works had been infiltrated without his knowledge.

After reading the documents, he looked at Zhou Bingjun.

Zhou Bingjun already understood: not a single person who had entered or left the repository that day could be spared. “Your subordinate will handle it.”

Outside the Xu mansion, as Zhou Bingjun was secretly leaving, he had no idea that the real eyes had already been following him.

Ye Xuanjiu, with two elite agents disguised as ordinary officials, quietly trailed behind him for several days.

During these days, the Xu family purged the hidden agents within the Ministry of Works, nearly eradicating the entire faction connected to Xu Yong.

Grand Secretary Xu made his move to clean house. The hidden informants who had originally wanted to stir up trouble were now too busy dealing with the Xu family’s affairs to pay any attention to the Embroidered Uniform Guard.

If the person behind the scenes wanted to break the stalemate of the Minister of War case, they would need to let the court know that all of this was merely a smokescreen by the Guard. As long as the Guard did not fall into their trap, they could seize the initiative. If they had gone to arrest Xu Yong just now, all their previous efforts would have been wasted.

Trying to find clues about the military fund case was like looking for a needle in a haystack. The shady dealings of the person behind the scenes were all hidden behind the Xu family.

The fastest way to investigate was to let the Xu family and the Ministry of Works investigate themselves. If Xu Yong had indeed tampered with anything, then Zhou Bingjun would act immediately! They didn’t need to check anything else; they just had to follow Zhou Bingjun and see what he moved!

“Young General, we have the clues.” Ye Xuanjiu handed over a detailed report.

The shady secrets of the Ministry of Works were now transformed into black characters on white paper. Qi Hanzhou’s gaze grew somber.

Ying Fusheng quietly poured tea, listening to Ye Xuanjiu’s report as if none of this concerned him. Yet the clues to the military fund case, which the Qi family had searched for in vain, were obtained through this scheme within a scheme. Ye Xuanjiu’s look toward him had changed. How old was His Highness the Sixth Prince, and he could already stir up the court like this?

Ying Fusheng seemed oblivious to Ye Xuanjiu’s gaze. He wasn’t even interested in the scroll of clues. He simply pushed the tea cup toward Qi Hanzhou.

Qi Hanzhou drank it down in one gulp, then stood up and turned away.

He was going to the palace to see the Emperor.

…

On the nineteenth day of the Minister of War case, the Embroidered Uniform Guard, after several days of thorough investigation, entered the palace to see the Emperor and submitted the results of their investigation into the military fund case.

Before the Xu family and the person behind the scenes could react, what was first presented to the court officials were several engineering records from the Ministry of Works. The records clearly showed how much material was needed for the Ministry of Works’ river construction projects, and how many carts and horses the Ministry of War and the Court of the Imperial Stud were required to dispatch for transportation.

These were all fixed figures. However, if the number of carts and horses leaving the capital did not match what the Ministry of Works had recorded, then what were the extra carts and horses transporting? It could only be military funds!

“Your subject has already retrieved the relevant station records, which do not match the Ministry of Works’ records.” Hu Buyu stepped forward and submitted the documents.

With these records presented, the court officials no longer cared about what the Embroidered Uniform Guard had actually uncovered in the Minister of War’s residence. What the Guard had discovered was shocking. They hadn’t been investigating the real culprit behind this particular military fund case; rather, they had used this case to reopen old cases.

Did the Emperor care about just one case of military fund misappropriation?

If one case of military fund misappropriation could occur, then there must be more than one.

During the Emperor’s military campaigns, just how much military funds had been embezzled? How had those funds disappeared, and where had they gone? That was what truly mattered.

But the evidence now submitted indicated that the Ministry of Works had used the carts and horses meant for transporting river construction materials to secretly move military funds. In collusion with the Vice Minister of the Court of the Imperial Stud—who had since committed suicide out of guilt—they had embezzled the military funds dispatched by the court during the Emperor’s campaigns and secretly transported them out of the capital.

“Zhou Bingjun!” The Emperor glared at him coldly. “What do you have to say for yourself now?”

This was no longer something that could be dismissed like the Ministry of Works case. When trouble came, the first to bear the brunt was Zhou Bingjun, the Minister of Works. For Zhou Bingjun to speak, he couldn’t even say where these military funds had gone. From the moment they uncovered this matter, the military fund case had completely spiraled out of control!

“Your subject is wronged. This matter is related to Xu Yong, a Secretariat Drafter of the Ministry of Works. Your subject discovered that he had secretly tampered with the Ministry of Works’ documents. I beg Your Majesty to investigate thoroughly!” Zhou Bingjun had no other evidence.

He could only discard Xu Yong and the other officials as sacrificial pieces, shifting the blame for the internal document tampering onto Xu Yong. Xu Yong was missing, but the officials connected to him, seeing the situation, desperately tried to defend themselves. The entire Ministry of Works turned into a scene of dogs biting dogs, with everyone shifting blame onto one another.

But these refutations were far from being as compelling as solid evidence. In the Emperor’s eyes, whether it was Zhou Bingjun or the missing Xu Yong, they had completely touched a nerve.

The military fund case was the Emperor’s untouchable scale. The Emperor acted swiftly and decisively, directly ordering a raid on the residence of the Minister of Works!

As a result, a hidden engineering blueprint was discovered in the Minister of Works’ mansion. The moment he saw that blueprint, Zhou Bingjun was beyond words. He knew that when this item inexplicably appeared in his residence, he had already become a discard in this game of power and scheming.

When the Minister of Works was taken to the Imperial Prison for interrogation, he revealed the secrets of Xu Yong and other officials. The hidden informants that the Xu family and the Ministry of Works had uncovered during this period all confessed in the Guard’s prison. For the Xu family, all of this was a frame-up by someone with ulterior motives. For Xu Yong and the others, they had to pin the military fund affair firmly on the Minister of Works.

“Is Xu Yong dead?” asked Ying Fusheng.

“He is.” Qi Hanzhou replied, “By the time the Embroidered Uniform Guard arrived, he was already gone.”

Ying Fusheng was not surprised. Xu Yong had already been a discard the moment he failed to bait the Guard.

The Xu family would deal with him, and the person behind the scenes wouldn’t let him off either.

“Too bad,” Ying Fusheng remarked lightly. “But it doesn’t matter. We’ve already gotten everything we wanted from him.”

Qi Hanzhou looked at him, at the casual manner in which he spoke. This man was always like this, but their current advantage had all come from that impromptu move that day.

If the Guard had moved against Xu Yong, the situation would have been turned around by the person behind the scenes.

But by pushing the conflict onto the Xu family and pitting Zhou Bingjun against Xu Yong, the situation had swung back into the Guard’s hands.

As long as the Guard struck first, before Zhou Bingjun could, this military fund case was doomed to end in nothing but dogs biting dogs.

The Xu family would do everything they could to use this matter to root out the hidden informants, while the hidden informants behind the scenes would try every means to shift the blame onto the Minister of Works. But for him, standing outside the chessboard, using a single military fund case to easily dispose of Zhou Bingjun, whom the Xu family had painstakingly kept, and also clearing out hidden informants like Xu Yong—that was a perfect outcome.

Portal: Rankings | Shameless Revenge Stories, Main Character Receives Reverence, by Li Wenjiu

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What was submitted to the Emperor was the result that was meant to be delivered from the scheme using the Minister of War’s residence. This matter had been carried out with the Emperor’s tacit approval. The greatest gain from this incident was uncovering the hidden network behind the military fund case—the person behind the scenes—and finding out how the Ministry of War and the Ministry of Works had been connected to smuggle the embezzled military funds out of the capital. That was the key to this network.

Dismantling this network undoubtedly meant a thorough cleansing of both the Ministry of War and the Ministry of Works.

What could be seen from the documents was not just this hidden network, but also the destination of the military funds embezzled in earlier years. To transport these military funds, they had to use official relay stations and hide them among the Ministry of Works’ carts and horses, which could be transported to various parts of Dayuan. If so, the transfer of these military funds would have taken place along the routes the Ministry of Works had traveled.

Thus, it was possible to pinpoint certain regions.

“Then that confirms our earlier speculation.”

Ying Fusheng’s tone grew slightly lighter. “The person behind the scenes is not in the capital.”

Qi Hanzhou met his gaze. Not in the capital, yet possessing the ability to infiltrate the capital.

Thinking further, this was a vast, silent web hidden right under the Qi family’s nose.

Such erosion had not happened just once or twice. During the Emperor’s years of military campaigns, the court had undoubtedly fallen under the control of these civilian officials, especially with Grand Secretary Xu still present. The military funds were being continuously drained, leaving no trace. There was only one possible explanation.

Ying Fusheng looked into Qi Hanzhou’s eyes and spoke the only possibility: “This man is raising private soldiers.”

The military power of Dayuan was in the hands of the Emperor and the Qi family. And the Qi family was an impenetrable fortress, obedient only to the Emperor’s orders. Even if the person behind the scenes could infiltrate the court, without military power, it would be very difficult for him to contend with the Emperor and the Qi family. Even if he seized power, as long as the Emperor was alive, a military unification was still possible.

So in his previous life, he had pushed the new emperor onto the throne.

With a new emperor on the throne, the Qi family’s military power would fall into the new emperor’s hands… But the Qi family rebelled.

Ying Fusheng had died, so in the end, he never knew whether the Qi Hanzhou of his previous life had managed to root out that person… But in this life, he would not give the person behind the scenes any chance to push forward a new emperor.

Because the Crown Prince was soon to be deposed.