Chapter 428: The Hall of Golden Chimes |
Boom!
A single stone stirs up a thousand ripples!
The entire Hall of Golden Chimes erupted into chaos in an instant!
“Silence!” The sharp, cutting voice of the palace eunuch suppressed the buzzing murmurs of the hundred officials.
The officials in the Yongchang Marquis’s faction were all stunned and furious. They never imagined that Xu Qing, a man who would normally bow and scrape at the sight of the Yongchang Marquis’s Heir, would dare to launch such a lethal attack directly against the Marquis himself in front of the entire court and His Majesty!
As for the upright officials and censors, they all exchanged bewildered glances, their eyes filled with shock. Although they harbored resentment toward the Yongchang Marquis’s overbearing tyranny, none of them expected the first shot to be fired by the one person who seemed the least likely to do so!
The Yongchang Marquis’s face turned a livid iron-gray in that instant. But he was, after all, a seasoned military commander who had weathered countless storms and battles. His eyes were so dark and somber they seemed ready to drip water.
Xu Qing acted as if he were oblivious to everything around him. The hand holding his memorial was as steady as a rock.
“First crime: Embezzling military funds and trafficking military equipment!”
“In the sixth year of Great Xing’s reign, the Northern Frontier suffered a great drought. The Marquis’s household colluded with a treasurer from the Ministry of Revenue to exchange old grain for new, trafficking two hundred thousand shi of military rations for a profit of five hundred thousand taels! This led to over three thousand garrison soldiers at Heaven’s Moat Pass falling ill after consuming moldy grain!”
“In the seventh year of Great Xing’s reign…”
“Since the founding of Great Xing, battle losses of military equipment have all had fixed quotas. However, Your Majesty’s minister has reviewed the Ministry of Revenue’s ledgers for the past ten years and discovered that, starting five years ago, the losses of military equipment in the Northern Frontier suddenly surged by more than threefold! Among them, the equipment manufactured by the Marquis’s ironware shop accounted for false losses and embezzled funds totaling… three million seven hundred thousand taels of silver!”
“Whoosh—!”
The court erupted in uproar once more!
Three million seven hundred thousand taels! That was nearly thirty percent of Great Xing’s annual treasury revenue!
“Lies! Nonsense!” A military official couldn’t help but step forward and bellow in anger. “Lord Xu, do you know the grave crime it is to falsely accuse a first-rank military Marquis?!”
Xu Qing ignored him. Instead, he slowly retrieved the first thick stack of archives from his sleeve.
“Your Majesty!” He raised the archives high, his voice ringing through the hall. “These are all the ledgers from Hundred Refinements Hall over the past five years, compiled by Your Majesty’s minister! Every single piece of falsely reported equipment, every tael of silver embezzled—its source in the ledgers, the transaction date, the manager involved, and even the money houses and banks it ultimately flowed into—all can be verified! I beg Your Majesty to exercise your sacred judgment!”
As his words fell, a young eunuch quickly descended the steps, took the archives from Xu Qing’s hands, and presented them on the imperial desk.
The Emperor did not immediately peruse them. Instead, with his deep, profound eyes, he cast an intrigued glance at the Marquis, whose expression was growing uglier by the moment, and then at the upright, pine-like figure in the hall.
“Chen Yuan,” the Emperor’s voice betrayed neither joy nor anger. “Do you… have anything to say?”
Yongchang Marquis Chen Yuan slowly stepped out from the ranks of officials. He did not look at the Emperor on the dragon throne. Instead, step by step, he walked up to Xu Qing.
He was half a head taller than Xu Qing. The bloodthirsty, murderous aura honed from years on the battlefield descended upon Xu Qing like an invisible mountain. An ordinary civil official, under that gaze, would have already been trembling in both legs and drenched in cold sweat.
But Xu Qing was not.
He merely raised his head calmly and met those eyes, full of aggression and pressure, with a placid, direct gaze.
“Lord Xu, it must have been hard work, auditing the accounts for five years.” The Yongchang Marquis’s voice was low and hoarse, with a metallic, grating texture. He appeared to be praising Xu Qing, but his words concealed a venom-coated needle.
“But this Marquis is very curious,” he leaned forward slightly, getting close to Xu Qing’s ear, and spoke in a voice only the two of them could hear, enunciating each word deliberately. “Does anyone in this entire court not know that the accounts of my Hundred Refinements Hall are famously watertight? Even if you, a mere Vice Minister of Revenue, had another five years, you’d never find a thing wrong.”
He slowly straightened up, sweeping his gaze across the hundred officials. His voice suddenly rose, filled with a tone of accusation.
“What this Marquis wants to ask is… these accounts, were you, Lord Xu, investigating them all by yourself, or… was there someone behind you, secretly lending a hand?!”
This sentence landed like a heavy hammer, smashing down on everyone’s heart!
A needle hidden in silk floss—a deadly blow aimed straight for the heart!
He was implying that Xu Qing was not fighting alone, but had the support of a higher, more hidden power! He was trying to forcibly escalate a case of corruption into a factional struggle, a political purge!
He wanted to sow suspicion in the Emperor’s heart and strike fear into the upright officials who might have originally supported Xu Qing!
This move was vicious, to say the least!
In an instant, countless gazes—scrutinizing, doubtful, probing—fell squarely upon Xu Qing.
Even the Emperor on the dragon throne narrowed his eyes slightly.
However, Xu Qing’s face still bore that same calm, ancient-well demeanor. He acted as if he hadn’t heard the trap in the Marquis’s words, and only said lightly:
“The Marquis jokes. If you don’t want anyone to know what you’ve done, don’t do it. Heaven’s net is vast and wide; it lets nothing slip through. In this world, everything that is done leaves a trace. Your Majesty’s minister… simply had a bit more patience than others.”
He gently brushed his sleeve, as if flicking away some non-existent dust.
“Besides, Your Majesty’s minister’s evidence doesn’t stop here.”
As he spoke, under the stunned gazes of everyone, Xu Qing once again retrieved a second set of archives from his robe!
If the first set was a heavy bomb, then this second set was a blade sharp enough to tear through all the disguises of the Yongchang Marquis’s household!
“Your Majesty!” Xu Qing raised the archives high again. “Your Majesty’s minister impeaches the Yongchang Marquis for a second crime: colluding with a foreign enemy, acting in concert from within and without!”
“Boom!”
If “embezzling military funds” was only enough to wound the Yongchang Marquis, then “colluding with a foreign enemy” was a crime of annihilation, enough to have his entire family executed!
“Three months ago, the Northern Barbarians raided our border. In the Battle of Wind Crossing Ferry, Great Xing’s Soaring Dragon Camp was ambushed, and nearly all three thousand soldiers were wiped out!” Xu Qing’s voice suddenly rose, becoming high-pitched and mournful. “The defeat in that battle was not due to a lack of courage among our soldiers, but because our troop deployments and supply routes had long been an open book to the Northern Barbarian scouts!”
He suddenly pointed straight at the Yongchang Marquis, a unprecedented fierceness bursting from his eyes!
“And just three days after the Soaring Dragon Camp’s defeat, the capital headquarters of ‘All-Seas Unite’ Money House, under the name of the Yongchang Marquis’s Heir, Chen Jingming, secretly received a remittance from the Northern Barbarian merchant caravan, the ‘Black Wolf Trading Company’! The amount was—eight hundred thousand taels of gold!”
Eight hundred thousand taels of gold!
This figure made the entire hall gasp in shock! It was nearly three years’ worth of surplus for Great Xing’s national treasury!
“Your Majesty’s minister has here a duplicate of the deposit voucher from All-Seas Unite Money House, as well as the source of the Black Wolf Trading Company’s funds! The time of this remittance perfectly coincides with the time of our Great Xing’s defeat!”
Xu Qing held the second set of archives high above his head.
“I implore Your Majesty, launch a thorough investigation into this case! Give an account to the three thousand heroic souls who perished at Wind Crossing Ferry!”
