Chapter 141: Demanding Back Pay (3)

While everyone present was still stunned, Le Wuya looked at the burly, bristly-haired centurion who resembled a wild boar, raising an eyebrow: "Hey, what's your name?"

The man rumbled three words from his throat: "Cai... Cai Zhi."

"Good, you're the ringleader. I'll allow you to go report." Le Wuya pointed at Cai Zhi. "The rest of you, I'm keeping. Have your chiliarch come with military law to collect you. This government office of mine isn't made of paper and clay, nor is it some city gate you can waltz through—you can't just come and go as you please."

With that, Le Wuya waved a hand: "Guards. Bring a big lock, string them together, find a firewood shed, and let them sleep it off properly."

He stepped down from the carriage with perfect composure, chewed them out with ringing authority, and swept away elegantly.

He came out of it completely unscathed.

Yuan Zijin had been lurking around inside the office earlier. Seeing Le Wuya descend the steps with such easy grace, he hurried after him and, for the first time, praised him warmly: "Not bad, you! You held your own!"

Though he'd never had anything to do with military affairs, Yuan Zijin loved his father and by extension felt affection for soldiers, naturally feeling goodwill toward men in uniform.

Seeing soldiers so poor they had to come beg for their pay, he felt quite sympathetic.

But he also knew that the office was strapped for cash right now. That Wen Ren fellow had just arrived, and there were too many gaps to fill—there was no money to spare.

These men, emboldened by drink, were raising a ruckus, truly barbaric.

Stuck in a bind, he could only hang back, slowly trying to figure out a solution.

Unexpectedly, Le Wuya showed considerable skill. The moment he appeared, he wrapped up the whole mess in no time.

He handled the troublemakers with a fair mix of rewards and punishments, promised to make up the back pay, and even subtly hinted he'd look into the practice of padding the payroll...

Even Yuan Zijin, who usually looked down on Le Wuya, couldn't help wanting to run up, wag his tail, and sing his praises.

Le Wuya ignored Yuan Zijin, muttering as he walked: "He'd calculated it perfectly. No one carried weapons, no smashing or breaking in, numbers didn't exceed a squad, not technically trespassing on official grounds—at most I can hit them with a drunk-and-disorderly charge, ten lashes with the military cane and that's that..."

Yuan Zijin, for once, had extended an olive branch, only to see him absorbed in his muttering. He wouldn't let it go: "Hey, I'm complimenting you, did you hear me?"

Le Wuya didn't turn around: "Beat it!"

Yuan Zijin, caught off guard by the rebuke, stood there dumbfounded for a long moment before it slowly dawned on him. Just as he was about to chase after him and have it out, Wei Yixian glided past him like a breeze, catching up to Le Wuya directly.

The sweltering summer breeze carried Wei Yixian's voice—polite but barely hiding his panic: "My lord, my lord... the matter of the seal—I only ever mentioned it to you. As for how it got out, Jianzhang really has no idea."

Yuan Zijin turned around and saw Mu Jiazhi striding toward Le Wuya with a face like a slab of iron.

Knowing these guys must have real business to discuss, he swallowed his complaints and went off to vent to Zhong Piaoping instead.

Zhong Piaoping was currently studying.

He'd been a lazy good-for-nothing for years, and getting back into his studies now was genuinely hard. Even Hua Rong read more books, and deeper ones, than he did, but after much hesitation, he'd decided to go to war with books.

Because Lord Wenren had advised him: in life, listen more and talk less; look for answers within yourself, and also in books.

Yuan Zijin talked on and on for a while, and Zhong Piaoping nodded frequently, saying nothing.

Only when Yuan Zijin had talked himself dry did he speak, slowly:

"I don't know much about military matters. But I've seen my father buy furs and do business, dealing with hunters. Hunters often said they'd gone out in groups of three or four to catch these foxes and musk deer, and begged my father to tack on a few coppers per piece so they could split more silver with their hunter buddies. My father never checked whether these 'hunter brothers' were real—he only looked at the quality of the furs. If the hides were damaged, no matter what anyone said, he wouldn't take a single one; if a batch of furs was all decent quality, he'd just add a bit more silver. So what?"

Yuan Zijin listened, totally captivated, and couldn't help drifting off-topic: "What counts as bad fur?"

He'd grown up in the capital using only fine furs and had never seen inferior goods.

But Zhong Piaoping just smiled at him and said nothing more.

Yuan Zijin sat at the table, slowly mulling it over.

He said hesitantly: "You mean... Wen Ren Mingke shouldn't look into the empty-pay business?"

Zhong Piaoping's mouth twitched.

From his merchant-family point of view, yeah, he shouldn't investigate.

When it came to big money, ignorance was bliss.

After all, in this world, water that's too clear never breeds fish. Touch the money, and you pull one thread and the whole web shifts—once you step on someone's toes, there's no way you won't end up bleeding yourself.

But he'd suffered greatly from a loose tongue before, so he shook his head and said: "Hard to say."

"But... but why? Is it that difficult?" Yuan Zijin couldn't wrap his head around it. "Kick out the freeloaders, and can't you do more with the same military pay? Everyone gets more money too, and wouldn't they fight the Japanese pirates more eagerly, with more spirit?"

Zhong Piaoping deflected with a smile: "...That really is hard to say."

Yuan Zijin wouldn't accept anything but a straight answer.

Zhong Piaoping wouldn't explain in detail, Le Wuya couldn't be bothered to tell him—so he'd just go investigate himself!

He'd dealt with the common folk of Nanting for quite a while now. He was no longer that arrogant young master spouting nonsense from on high; at least he could blend in with ordinary people, chat about this and that.

Yuan Zijin set out alone, wandering the streets and alleys.

While he was busy, Le Wuya had already dismissed Wei Yixian, who'd come half-heartedly to apologize, warning him as a local magistrate not to drag innocent merchants into the affair, and Mu Jiazhi as well.

Then he summoned Qin Xingyue.

The two put their heads together, talking late into the night, when the door was suddenly shoved open with brute force.

Yuan Zijin arrived under a sky full of stars, hand gripping the doorframe, clearly having sprinted all the way, panting heavily.

He was drenched in sweat, but his first words were a rude command: "Wen Ren Mingke, you can't investigate the empty-pay issue!"

Le Wuya exchanged a brief glance with Qin Xingyue, who rose and took his leave.

Once the door closed, Le Wuya raised an eyebrow at him: "Oh? And how do you figure that?"

Yuan Zijin wiped his sweat, caught his breath, and pulled a crumpled little booklet from his chest: "I know you're a civil official, you don't understand the twists and turns of military men. I—I found things out, and I'm here to tell you!"

Hearing this, not a trace of mockery appeared on Le Wuya's face.

Instead, with unprecedented gentleness and gravity, he handed Yuan Zijin a cup of cooled tea: "Go on."

Yuan Zijin, frantic with urgency, paid no attention to Le Wuya's shift in attitude. He drained the tea in one gulp, wiped his mouth, sat down across from Le Wuya with a swagger, and flipped open the booklet with a rustle:

"Our dynasty separates civil and military governance—in theory, each handles their own affairs without interference. But I looked at Nanting first, then Tongzhou, and found that while the court's rules are rules, once you get to the local level, military and civil affairs aren't really separated. If you're formidable, you get the final say; if the garrison officers have power and money, their word carries more weight. Even if you hold the rank of prefect, you can't control them—you can only stare helplessly."

Le Wuya nodded slightly: "So in Tongzhou, who calls the shots?"

Yuan Zijin's eyes widened: "Isn't that obvious? Whoever it is, it sure isn't you."

Afraid Le Wuya might be overconfident and fail to grasp the gravity of his situation, Yuan Zijin deliberately lowered his voice and gestured earnestly: "These garrison commanders and centurions—their power is huge! The court has military households farm the land in peacetime and take up arms in war. The grain they grow is handed up, then converted into pay. If the allocated pay from above isn't enough, the grain they submitted is given back to them as their daily rations. In all this back-and-forth, these chiliarchs, centurions, and squad leaders stuff themselves fat, and what actually reaches the soldiers is pitifully little. They couldn't care less whether those men live or die!"

"They even padded the numbers on military households to swindle more pay out of the government! At first, they kept it somewhat in check, using their own kin and buddies to fill the slots. At least those were real people. But later, once they saw nobody was checking up, they got bolder and just made up entire household registries, conjuring people out of thin air. One military household—a husband and wife—had sixteen children, so that one single branch had eighteen mouths to feed! Even a sow doesn't pop out that many piglets!"

"That's all?"

"Far from it!" Yuan Zijin slapped his thigh in fury, "They even go around grabbing land left and right, working soldiers like tenant farmers, sucking them dry, bone and all! They work these military households to the bone—men plowing, women weaving, kids herding cattle—working them like their own hired help!"

"No wonder these folks can't fight off the Japanese pirates; they fall apart like tofu hitting a rock the moment they clash! With training neglected and weapons rusting away, what's the difference between these military households and regular farmers in wartime? They'd definitely look out for number one and hightail it out of there!"

The more Yuan Zijin talked, the madder he got, slamming his fists on the table, and fumed with righteous fury, "If my old man were here, would they dare pull this kind of stunt?"

Le Wuya, seeing the table was about to fall to pieces under all that pounding, quickly snatched up the two teacups: "Easy now! These are rare, fine cups from the manor—Ru ware, no less. What a shame to smash them!"

Yuan Zijin shot back without a second thought, "They're all blood and sweat squeezed from the people! Absolutely detestable!"

Le Wuya shot him a glance, "If they're squeezed from the people, then smashing them isn't a waste?"

Yuan Zijin choked on his words, then remembered how back home he'd been a spoiled young master, refusing to wear anything but silk and satin, and use anything but Ding or Ru porcelain. His face flushed red with embarrassment, and he went quiet, sulking.

Cups in hand, Le Wuya asked out of curiosity, "With all this going on, where did you hear about it?"

"I found a few military household wives who happened to be in town together buying yarn and thread, and had to rush back that same night to weave. I chatted them up, claiming my distant cousin was in a military household and had just died in battle, and my folks sent me to help my cousin's widow claim the body and stand up for her, so she and her orphaned children wouldn't be bullied. That got the conversation going. Before long, they started pouring out their grievances."

Yuan Zijin was in charge of mediating petty disputes in Nanting, and having been steeped in it daily, he could spin a tale with vivid detail.

At this point, he was deeply distressed, saying, "One auntie even cried!"

Le Wuya couldn't help but chuckle.

That kid really had a face that old women and aunties took a liking to.

He teased him, "So, if I clean up the military, root out the long-standing abuses, and squeeze out the excess, wouldn't that be good?"

"You fool!" Yuan Zijin rolled his eyes dramatically, "If you squeeze out the excess, won't the ones at the bottom still suffer?"

Le Wuya asked humbly, "How so?"

Yuan Zijin grew even more earnest, gesturing wildly, "If you really tell the higher-ups that we don't have twelve thousand registered soldiers but only six thousand, and they just say, 'Fine, we'll adjust your pay from now on, only issue pay for six thousand registered soldiers,' what do you do? You'd have made enemies of everyone!"

The higher-ups would still skim money, but with less coming in, wouldn't they resent Le Wuya for acting on his own and meddling?

As for the lower-ranking soldiers, they wouldn't understand the intricacies.

All they'd see is that after the prefect "spoke up" and "squeezed out the excess," their pay, after being siphoned off layer by layer, was even less than before.

If that sparked a mutiny among the lower ranks, Le Wuya's career would be over—he might even lose his life!

The more Yuan Zijin spoke, the more frightened he became. Cold sweat clung to his back, making his teeth chatter despite the heat of the dog days.

Human hearts were cruel, and dangers lurked everywhere.

Today, he'd caught a glimpse of that.

Suddenly, a warm hand pressed on his shoulder, patting it reassuringly: "Yuan Tiger would be proud of you for thinking this way."

Le Wuya remained composed, as if he weren't the one trapped in this predicament.

But Yuan Zijin hung his head in dejection, too disheartened to even take issue with Le Wuya's disrespectful nickname for his father.

"I can't do it," he murmured, "I can't think of a solution that works for everyone. I want those aunties to have money to buy a bit more cloth and make themselves a dress; I don't want to see military households marching to their deaths with hoes; I don't want the court's long-standing problems to erode our own defenses; but I also don't want... I don't want to see you..."

This spoiled young man's eyes brimmed with tears, and through his long, fan-like lashes, he looked at Le Wuya with a mix of grievance and pleading: "I hate you, but I don't want to see you make enemies and end up dead at someone's hands without even knowing why."

He lifted those amorous, glistening peach-blossom eyes: "Don't investigate the unpaid wages anymore. It's a bottomless pit. You... can't you do something else first?"

Le Wuya crossed his legs: "I'm going to investigate."

Yuan Zijin's eyes went wide with panic, and wiping away his tears, he urged, "Did you not understand what I said? I said—"

"I understood." Le Wuya leaned forward and pinched the little tiger's cheek, "You can't figure it out, but I can. However, first, it's not exactly a clean method, and you probably won't like it; second, it requires you to risk your neck and work with me. Can you do that?"

Yuan Zijin eyed him suspiciously: "I... if I risk my neck, you can come up with a plan?"

Le Wuya smiled: "Something like that."

"Then I'm in." Yuan Zijin crouched down, looking up at him, "...I'm in."