Chapter 144 Heaven's will demands she admit defeat unless she dies and her cultivation dissipates. ...
"Yes. Zhang Wanyun, the transport commissioner of the Grand Canal, is my subordinate and one of the few people I can trust. I had her take the initiative to guard this batch of military equipment. Today she returned to Yanjing and handed over all the intelligence she had gathered to me."
Zhou Congyi lowered his eyelids and took out a document from his sleeve.
“Once the people of Yue see this, they will understand.”
Yue Yining took the document from her and opened it.
"On the third day of the first lunar month, the fleet departed from the banks of the Jingxi River. The commander of the General Administration was Hu Shan, a close confidant of Zuo Yingfeng. The route out of Beijing was circuitous, avoiding major waterways, and there were no abnormalities along the way."
"On the fourth day of the first lunar month, we arrived at Huangshi Ferry on the edge of the capital region. A minor official from the River and Lake Bureau led his men onto the boat, claiming it was a routine inspection. They demanded that the cargo be reloaded on the grounds that it was not properly bundled, and requested the assistance of the River God's guards. Although there was a dispute, Hu Shan yielded and agreed in order to expedite the journey."
"On the fifth day of the first lunar month, the convoy arrived at Pinggu Granary for transit. The Granary Commissioner personally led a group to inspect the military equipment. Under the guise of testing and comparison, he randomly selected several fine crossbows and several bundles of new arrows, resulting in the loss of some military equipment. During this period, the convoy was delayed for a day and a night. Hu Shan intervened to bribe the Granary Commissioner and tax officials, and the next day it was announced that the military equipment inspection had passed."
...
"On the seventh day of the first lunar month, the goods were transported by land and arrived at Wuyang Post Station. When passing through customs, the post station official stated that goods passing through the post station would be subject to a 'regular fee,' the amount of which far exceeded the usual rate. Hu Shan argued his case, and after a stalemate of half a day, he was forced to produce a secret order from the Central Secretariat. However, the post station official remained unmoved, claiming that he could not verify the authenticity of the secret order and that the evidence was incomplete, making it difficult to allow passage. Helpless, Hu Shan negotiated with the post station official again. The two went inside to discuss the matter in detail, and finally, Hu Shan ordered his men to unload one-tenth of the military equipment and hand it over to the post station official of Wuyang Post Station."
"On the eighth day of the first lunar month, the caravan arrived at Panlong Ridge. When they passed through the checkpoint set up by the patrol office, the patrol office claimed that there were notorious bandits in the area and that the caravan leaving the city must be reinforced with guards, otherwise it could not go north. Hu Shan negotiated repeatedly without success, and finally compromised, hiring dozens of guards from a local security agency, paying the fees, and the caravan was then able to pass through the checkpoint."
"On the ninth day of the first lunar month, the convoy arrived at Yunmen Pass. The border army captain inspected the convoy's weapons and found that the quantity, quality, and type did not match the list of items. He was furious and reprimanded Hu Shan for dereliction of duty, demanding the arrest of the escorts. The manager of the military supply depot intervened, proposing that they had readily available military supplies in their warehouse, which they could sell to the border army at a fair price to make up the difference in weapons and equipment. After half a day of discussion, Hu Shan agreed to the decision, the military supply depot made up the missing weapons and equipment, and the border army representative signed for them to be put into storage."
These are just the main items. The various small towns along the way have seen countless instances of goods being subject to random inspections, investigations, and reloading for various reasons.
Even though she had already foreseen and guessed at the rampant corruption, Yue Yining was still unable to come back to her senses for a long time after closing the document.
After reading the document, Yue Yining, like Zhou Congyi, understood everything.
Zhou Congyi: "The exploitation began as soon as the army left the capital and arrived at Huangshidu. The heavy cargo was just a pretext. The River God insisted on using his own soldiers, with the aim of secretly embezzling some of the fine military equipment during the reloading process."
"Hu Shan must have realized something was wrong at that time, but the caravan had just set off, and he thought that He Bo would stop while he was ahead, so he chose to turn a blind eye."
"In contrast, the officials in Pinggu Granary were much more sophisticated. The granary magistrate had the power of inspection, so he didn't need to use any pretext to steal. During their so-called spot checks, they could switch out weapons and create 'losses' that conformed to the rules."
"The inspection process can be fast or slow, and it's not difficult to drag it out for several days. It all depends on whether the passing convoy is in a hurry. Those who can't wait, like Hu Shan, will naturally take the initiative to negotiate with them and then willingly pay money in exchange for a faster processing speed."
"The regular fees collected at Wuyang Post Station are actually just kickbacks for local officials, just using a pretext. Starting from Wuyang Post Station, the emperor is far away, and even if Hu Shan presents a secret order from the Central Secretariat, they can say they can't verify its authenticity and require more complicated supporting evidence. If Hu Shan can't provide it, he can only go back home, complete the evidence and regulations, and come back again."
"But how could that be? The convoy has already come this far. They know it's impossible, and this argument is just to force Hu Shan to compromise; Hu Shan compromised because he had no other choice."
"As for the Panlongling Patrol Office, do the bandits they talk about really exist? Their insistence on hiring a local security escort agency is probably because the agency has close ties with the patrol office. I estimate that most of the payment will end up in the patrol office's pocket."
"And this final Cloud Gate Pass is the most vicious and ironic link in the whole chain."
"After the border officer finished his inspection, he was furious. Immediately afterward, the manager of the military supply store offered a solution. This back-and-forth was poor acting; who couldn't see through it? The quantity was wrong because it was reasonably lost during random inspections; the quality was wrong because it was switched during reloading; the type was wrong because it had been subject to layers of deductions, substitutions, and overt and covert thefts along the way."
"Thinking about it this way, why do each checkpoint on the road try every means to remove a portion of the military equipment? Why do some officials refuse bribes and instead ask Hu Shan to leave the goods behind? It's because all the difficulties in front of us are just paving the way for the final step."
"Only when the officials in charge of escorting the goods make a mistake can the border officers have a handle to use against them, forcing them to buy a large amount of military equipment from the military merchants to make up for the deficit. The military merchants provide inferior military equipment, take advantage of the situation to sell it at high prices, and the huge profits they make will be split equally among the border officers afterward. The two sides collude and cooperate to put on this big show where one plays the bad cop and the other plays the good cop."
The interception at Huangshi Ferry was a covert theft; the collection of customary fees at Wuyang Post Station was essentially extortion; the random inspections at Pinggu Granary were blatant robbery; the guard fees at Panlong Ridge were tolls; and the supplementary payments at Yunmen Pass were a case of collusion between officials and merchants.
A complete chain of exploitation, from beginning to end, was presented to them with unprecedented clarity. The connecting links were officials of all ranks, and the lubricant was the people's hard-earned money.
"...I imagined what kind of heinous crimes this document would contain. And I wasn't wrong either. The fine military equipment sent from the capital was plundered at every level—prefectures, post stations, waterways, patrols, border officials, local tyrants, and colluding military merchants—leaving nothing behind."
“But what I didn’t expect was that even Zuo Yingfeng, the Grand Secretary, couldn’t stop them,” Zhou Congyi said in a hoarse voice. “Your Majesty, look, most of the officials who are interfering are from humble backgrounds. I feel indignant, not because they are all corrupt and like snakes in a den, but because I see no hope for change.”
This is not a problem that can be solved by arresting a few corrupt officials or cleaning up a few towns.
As a man of integrity, Zhou Congyi once believed that reforming officialdom could change the status quo. However, this secret report revealed that corruption was a systemic rule, a lubricant for the operation of the system, and an unavoidable inertia.
The secret order from Zuo Yingfeng, the Grand Chancellor, practically represented the highest power in the central government. Yet, even this power was completely dissolved and distorted by the layers of exploitation within the system, sinking like a stone into the sea. Faced with such a system of evil, the efforts of an individual are insignificant.
Everyone who enters this system, regardless of their initial good or bad intentions, will eventually be coerced, exploited, and distorted by the rules, becoming part of maintaining its corrupt operation.
The dynasty's foundations are crumbling, riddled with wormholes.
Yue Yining's slender figure remained motionless.
She finally saw through the deep-seated corruption and flaws within the dynasty, and finally understood why she had been able to foresee the signs of the nation's decline.
Perhaps because they shared the same feeling, she and Zhou Congyi clasped hands tightly. One of the female officials had red eyes, while the other remained silent as a stone. Although the charcoal fire in the palace was burning brightly, they both felt a bone-chilling cold.
The snowy night was endless, but a trace of warmth remained only in their intertwined palms.
It was as if they were embracing each other for warmth.
“But I don’t understand…” Zhou Congyi said in a low voice, “They come from humble backgrounds and should be able to understand the hardships of ordinary people and the suffering of the common people. When I learned about all this, I was really disheartened and didn’t know what to do. In a daze, I came to the Princess’s Mansion.”
"I don't understand why the Left Chancellor would secretly procure weapons and transport them to the border?"
Yue Yining had already figured it out. She said softly, "When I first investigated the border army reform, I thought about the motives of the Left Grand Secretary. I thought he was embezzling state funds, fighting for power and profit, and I even suspected that he had already colluded with the enemy and betrayed the country."
"But now it seems that he deliberately concealed the news this time and secretly sent weapons to the border, perhaps in an attempt to salvage the situation."
Zhou Congyi repeated: "Make amends?"
“Hmm.” Yue Yining lowered her eyes. “I think I know why he covered up the truth for these people.”
Zuo Yingfeng is a contradictory and divided person.
His proposal to reform the border troops stemmed from the idea of improving the national treasury and reducing the tax burden. His starting point was to benefit the country and its people, which can be described as good.
However, he could not shake off his identity as the leader of the "Humble Beginnings" faction. When he proposed reforms, from the promoters to the implementers, officials from humble backgrounds were given priority. The end result was that the "Humble Beginnings" faction used the reforms to gain more real power, formed a dense network of cronies, and became more deeply entangled in interests.
Without competition and balance, and without supervision and oversight, corruption can easily fester in the shadows.
By the time Zuo Yingfeng learned of Sun Cheng's death, it was too late.
The water that capsized the boat was like the tears of the common people; you wouldn't know this until you see it in a raging
As the Grand Secretary, he was the most prominent among those from humble backgrounds. At this critical moment, he could only conceal Sun Cheng's death and prevent the report from being sent back to the capital.
He spearheaded the reform of the border troops, a task entrusted to him by the emperor. Now that it has turned out this way, he has no choice but to resign and apologize to the emperor. But no one will let him go, and he himself does not want to leave.
He must have known the cause of Sun Cheng's death and the crux of the problem, which is why he spent his own money to buy weapons and try to transport them to the border. Even though it was just a drop in the ocean, he was still unwilling to give up and wanted to turn the tide by salvaging the situation.
It is unclear whether it stemmed from a guilty conscience and a desire to atone for their mistakes, or simply from a desire to evade responsibility.
He underestimated the strength of this chain of vested interests. Even as one of the highest-ranking officials wielding power, there were places his influence couldn't reach.
Yue Yining thought to herself that Zuo Yingfeng and Zuo Xulin were indeed two different kinds of people. At first, she had observed that their appearances were very different, but now it seemed that her divination skills were superb and she had never made a mistake.
Heaven gave her eyes to see the secrets of the universe, but also told her that this was destiny, making her see its invincibility.
It's either sit and wait for death, or struggle desperately in its death throes.
After this outpouring of emotions, Zhou Congyi gradually emerged from her emotional turmoil and began to regain her usual composure.
“…I lost my composure,” Zhou Congyi said. “I’m not saying this to give up. I won’t give up easily. I just really want to talk to someone. Maybe if I talk to them, I’ll know what to do. I’m really confused right now…I’m sorry.”
Yue Yining smiled. "Why should I apologize?"
“Even if I wanted to give up, it wouldn’t be a big deal. In countless moments of hardship and helplessness, I’ve thought about just giving up. Although I said it and thought it in my heart, I unconsciously got up again, staggered along the wall, and continued to move forward.” Yue Yining said, “Isn’t that how people live?”
Zhou Congyi slowly tightened his grip on her hand and nodded vigorously.
She took a few deep breaths, her eyes becoming clearer. "...Although we have figured out the whole story, it is still too little and too weak to bring down the Ministry of War and the Left Chancellor with these things. It is not enough."
Yue Yining shook her head, gesturing for her to look at her, and then said something that surprised Zhou Congyi: "There's no need to think about eradicating corruption at the border, nor is there any need to think about bringing down anyone. Just expose this matter to the emperor and make him believe it, and all the other problems will be solved."
Zhou Congyi: "But now, the Fourth Prince's spies and officials from the Ministry of War are closely monitoring our movements. Zuo Yingfeng's subordinates are everywhere in the court and the country. If we want to get more evidence, we will definitely alarm the Hanmen faction. This situation is really difficult."
“That’s right.” Yue Yining winked at her, smiling brightly and gently. “But I just came up with a good idea. Lord Zhou, would you like to hear it?”
Yue Yining understood that Heaven was also observing her, curious about her choice. She was a fleeting pleasure for Heaven, and Heaven was happy to give her a glimmer of hope, making her willing to put in the effort, only to find in the end that no matter how much she schemed and plotted, she could not escape the confines of Heaven's boundaries.
The road home in this life seems increasingly uncertain, with countless green hills and waters crashing against the sky.
Even so, for her to willingly admit defeat would be either death or the loss of her true self, or the fact that she was never Yue Yining to begin with.
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Author's note: Entering the second half of the third case.
Citation:
The water that capsized the boat was like the tears of the common people; you wouldn't know this until you see it in a raging
—Li Mengtang, "Ode to History"
The road home in this life seems increasingly uncertain, with countless green hills and waters crashing against the sky.
—Su Shi, "Five Poems on Being Blocked by Wind at Cihu Lake" (No. 2)
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