Chapter 145: The Game (4)

Yuan Zijin knew that if Le Wuya could truly petition the emperor and secure funding for an additional three thousand soldiers, it would indeed resolve their most pressing crisis.

Since the emperor himself had authorized the funds, officials along the route would naturally "show leniency"—even if they skimmed some off the top, they wouldn't dare take too much.

Once the money reached Tongzhou, most of the back pay owed to the troops could be settled, and many lurking crises could be defused—big problems reduced to small ones, small ones reduced to nothing.

Yuan Zijin understood all the logic.

But he couldn't stand by and watch Le Wuya walk straight into death!

He didn't hesitate—he snatched the brush from Le Wuya's hand. "I'm not letting you write this!"

He moved too fast—ink went flying, splattering Le Wuya's sleeve and cheek.

"Fine, I won't write—but why'd you have to grab it?" Le Wuya shook his sleeve at him, complaining. "Look what you did to my outfit!"

Yuan Zijin grabbed his hand and pushed it down. "I'll wash it for you! Wen Ren Mingke, can you stop trying to get yourself killed? I'm literally begging you, okay?!"

Le Wuya blinked, playing innocent. "How am I trying to get myself killed?"

Yuan Zijin snapped: "The one in charge of military funds right now is Wei Yixian! You think he won't notice three thousand extra soldiers' pay just appearing out of nowhere?! That bastard's definitely got something up his sleeve! When he writes to the emperor to impeach you, you'll become the laughingstock of the entire realm! The biggest joke in the world—a prefect dragged before the Ministry of War less than a month into the job!"

"Don't worry. The man in charge of military funds won't be in charge for much longer." Le Wuya said, grinning. "I'll find some excuse to hand military affairs over to Mu Jiazhi."

Yuan Zijin: "...That big a piece of meat—how much has Wei been skimming off it all these years? You think you can just slice it off and hand it over? Wei Yixian would rather die than agree!"

Le Wuya said, dead certain: "He will have no choice but to agree."

"Why?"

Le Wuya rocked his head back and forth, speaking in a theatrical singsong: "Why, because our esteemed prefect is pure as jade and second to none, of course."

Yuan Zijin wanted to scoff at that, but seeing how animated Le Wuya was—and he did have a certain graceful bearing—he felt it'd be unfair to badmouth his looks.

He paused, then snapped: "Have you no shame?! Say something serious!"

"Oh wow, what a rare occasion—Young Master Yuan actually cares about something serious for once."

"Scram, scram!"

Le Wuya propped one hand on the desk, facing the glaring Yuan "Little Tiger," and slowly spelled it all out: "That's only the first reason."

"Reason two..." He lazily twirled a curl around his finger. "As the saying goes, 'A new official lights three fires.' The purpose of those three fires is to establish authority and lay down the law—to help a newly arrived official get his footing. Only once you're steady on your feet can you start making moves. And the fastest way to establish authority is to pick someone to take a swing at. Since we got to Tongzhou, tell me—who's the easiest target?"

Yuan Zijin answered right away: "It's gotta be Wei Yixian! How many pits has he dug for you? If it were me, I'd pick that target and beat him into the ground! But I know you're sneaky—if you're asking me like this, I must be wrong. Quit messing with me and just tell me straight!"

"You're not wrong there." To his surprise, Le Wuya's answer caught him off guard again. "Wei Yixian is indeed the best target."

In Tongzhou, the two men who actually ran things and had real pull were Wei Yixian and Mu Jiazhi.

Mu Jiazhi was an odd duck—terrible at sucking up to his superiors, but first-rate at both glaring at them and getting things done.

To make an example of a man who actually did real work would be cutting off your own arm.

The new prefect had been hand-picked by the emperor, promoted over everyone else, and sent to Tongzhou—clearly to clean up the bureaucracy and give the whole prefecture a fresh start.

Wei Yixian, knowing full well he was the most deeply rooted and most visible figure, had been deliberately picking fights and setting traps, all to bait Le Wuya into going after him and using him to establish authority.

Le Wuya: "Since he's already braced himself for me to come down on him, he won't try to stop it. I think even if I really carved a chunk out of him, he wouldn't turn on me—he'd applaud me instead. If I don't take advantage of him playing nice to cut deep, when would I ever get another chance?"

Yuan Zijin listened, confused: "Wait—why would he applaud you?"

"Why, to put on a show of meekness, of course." Le Wuya said. "Though I outrank him, his appointment and dismissal aren't mine to decide. For now, I can only strip away some of his authority—I can't truly shake his foundations."

Then he flashed a brilliant smile: "Besides, he only needs to appear compliant on the surface. Behind my back, he can pay lip service while dragging his feet, scheming quietly to make my life miserable. That way, with him hampering me at every turn, nothing I want to do would get done."

Yuan Zijin: "...Killing a thousand enemies at the cost of eight hundred of your own? Is he out of his mind? What's he even after?"

"He's after making me fear him more, and rely on Mu Jiazhi more."

Le Wuya said leisurely: "Suppose—just suppose—at the very moment Mu Jiazhi is at the height of glory, lifted high by my favor, someone were to discover that Mu Jiazhi had... committed some capital crime?"

Yuan Zijin shuddered, leaning in to whisper: "What capital crime has Mu Jiazhi committed?!"

Le Wuya: "I don't know yet."

Yuan Zijin: "...Huh?"

Le Wuya: "I've been reviewing Tongzhou's homicide case files over the years precisely to find some clue."

It would have to be a crime of the highest magnitude—murder, rebellion, colluding with enemies or bandits—to bring Mu Jiazhi down in one fell swoop.

Once that happened, Le Wuya would immediately be branded as having failed in his choice of subordinates, thrown into a passive position.

At that point, the only ally Le Wuya could turn to would be Wei Yixian—the very man he had thoroughly offended.

At that point, Le Wuya would have only two paths.

One: fight Wei Yixian to the death, plunging Tongzhou into endless political strife and making the common folk suffer alongside them.

Two: Le Wuya swallows his pride and begs Wei Yixian for peace.

Not "seeking" peace—begging for it.

And when that day came, Wei Yixian would, just as he did now, accept his surrender with all due civility and courtesy, continuing to outwardly defer to him while generously tossing him a few scraps from the table.

And from then on, Le Wuya would have no other choice but to stand shoulder to shoulder with Wei Yixian, to wallow in the same mire.

Whatever ambitions he wished to pursue in Tongzhou would be impossible.

To leave office intact and escape Tongzhou at all would be the greatest fortune.

Yuan Zijin's scalp tightened violently.

On reflection, cold sweat poured down his back in rivulets.

A mind this venomous—comparable to a scorpion's sting!

Shaken, Yuan Zijin found Le Wuya's foresight almost unbelievable: "You... he hasn't even made his move yet, and you already know he's aiming at Mu Jiazhi, scheming against you?"

Le Wuya: "I've seen it all before. The moment he lifts his hand, I know his next move. Why wait for him to strike before defending myself? Wouldn't that be squandering the advantage?"

Yuan Zijin's face went pale: "Wen Ren Mingke, you truly are a..."

His mouth went dry. He swallowed hard, forcing the two-word verdict back down his throat.

Monster!

In the days he'd spent with Le Wuya, Yuan Zijin felt like he met a whole new side of him every single day, learning more than he had in all his previous years combined.

Fighting back the wave of emotion, he asked, "You say you want to hand the military pay over to Mu Jiazhi to manage—what excuse do we use?"

Le Wuya lounged with his legs crossed, smugly curling his finger at him.

Yuan Zijin: "..."

Don't even try to play him for a fool!

Yuan Zijin had seen him call that skinny dog "Er Ya" with that exact same look and gesture!

But curiosity won out, so he grudgingly leaned in.

Le Wuya whispered to him, "You know Yunliang County?"

Yuan Zijin thought for a moment: "It's a county in Sanjiang Prefecture, right?"

Le Wuya remarked approvingly, "I've looked into it—that's a fine place, rich soil and neat fields. It'd be the perfect place for Brother Yingchen to settle. Old Qi probably never fought with such deep pockets in his life."

Yuan Zijin was baffled: "What the heck are you talking about? How'd we even land on Yunliang County? Yunliang has a County Magistrate—where's Ying Chen supposed to go when he gets there?"

Le Wuya: "If I play my cards right, soon Yunliang County won't have a magistrate."

Yuan Zijin stared at him, the goosebumps he'd just shaken off coming right back.

The man would occasionally drop some bone-chilling remark that sent a chill up his spine.

Le Wuya then walked Yuan Zijin through the case he'd gone over with Mu Jiazhi.

The ink on his cheeks had dried into two or three streaks like cat whiskers, which seemed to come alive as he talked, twitching smugly on his cheeks.

After hearing the whole story of those dozen or so young thugs who'd resisted arrest and been killed, Yuan Zijin—himself a former rich kid—felt a twinge of sympathy even as he said, "If what you say is true, there are definitely some suspicious angles, like it was a setup. But what's that got to do with the Yunliang County magistrate?"

Le Wuya: "What if I told you that the Yunliang County magistrate, Chu Huaimin, is also from the northern frontier, and that this Wu guy who's a Ba Zong is his dead wife's younger brother?"

Yuan Zijin: "...Where'd you dig that up from?"

Le Wuya jabbed a finger at the foot-thick military register.

Yuan Zijin remembered flipping through two pages yesterday, realizing for the first time in his life that reading made him dizzy—one more page and he'd have puked.

He had no clue how the clerks who copied these registers managed to write in such tiny print.

He exclaimed in surprise, "...You seriously read this thing?!"

Le Wuya countered, "They're all folks under my charge—why wouldn't I?"

"You're gonna use this criminal case as an excuse to reopen the investigation, get Mu Jiazhi to do his Vice-Prefect oversight duty, and take over Tongzhou's military for now?" Yuan Zijin struggled to deduce, "...But that Mu guy's a stiff, by-the-book type. If you hand him a weapon, he might impeach you faster and harder than Wei Yixian ever would!"

"He won't find a thing."

Yuan Zijin: ...Where's all this confidence coming from?

Le Wuya: "If I'm not mistaken, along with the military pay, there will also be an imperial decree."

"What?"

Le Wuya picked up the cold tea beside him and took a light sip: "Military downsizing."

Yuan Zijin was stunned for a long moment, then slowly opened his mouth wide.

He vaguely understood Le Wuya's intention.

But then again, he didn't.

"A standard guard should have 5,600 men. Tongzhou is equipped with two guards and ten battalions, each with 6,000 men—that's indeed over strength, but it could barely be explained away..." Yuan Zijin calculated slowly with his shallow military knowledge, "You've inflated the numbers, claiming 15,000, to get the pay for 3,000 nonexistent soldiers from the emperor, using it to cover the arrears?"

"Mm."

"And you're going to use the emperor's decree to order troop reductions?"

"Mm. Probably down to around 10,000 to 11,000. That fits the court's regulations, and we can toss out those '160-year-old elders' and 'miracle women who bore 15 children in 12 years.' The forgers of the registers won't have to work so hard, the military officers won't lose too much of their graft, and the annual military pay only needs to be issued for 10,000 men..."

Yuan Zijin was deeply shaken, stammering, "...Killing four birds with one stone?"

"Wrong, you've missed one more arrow."

Yuan Zijin's mind had stopped working: "...Huh?"

"With the troop reduction, we save a huge sum in military expenses each year. It's only fair to issue severance pay to the military households, isn't it?" Le Wuya said leisurely, "For four to five thousand men, that's at least a hundred thousand taels of silver, wouldn't you say?"

"In Mu Jiazhi's eyes, I've secured a large sum of military pay from the court, resolved the issue of military overstaffing, and earned a substantial military budget. Would he still impeach me? He'd be too busy loving me!"

Yuan Zijin was completely speechless.

After the time it took to drink a cup of tea, he finally spoke in a trembling voice: "This... isn't this still the crime of deceiving the emperor?"

"Not at all." Le Wuya crossed his arms, looking with great interest at the ashen-faced Yuan Zijin, "Hey, let me ask you—if you, Yuan Zijin, were the current emperor, and you'd just promoted an official, eager to see what he could achieve. After arriving at his post for over ten days and understanding the situation in the prefecture, he drafts a memorial, speaking earnestly, requesting a fifty-something-year-old magistrate as his aide, and also asking for pay for 3,000 soldiers to cover previous shortfalls and prevent civil unrest. Would you think this man was reporting truthfully, or that he was deceiving you, cheating you, trying to squeeze a hundred thousand taels out of your pocket?"