Chapter 049: Picking Mulberries (VI)
It was a rare sunny day, and the snow on the eaves was melted a lot. The snow water dripped along the eaves, which was quite relaxing to listen to the rain.
Xu Hexue sat by the window, one hand on his knee, silently looking at the book on the table. He had prepared this copy before handing Du Cong's private account to Jiang Xianming.
There are several transactions of money on it, spanning a full fifteen years, and the unnamed persons involved have added several clear threads.
The tea on the stove was boiling, making a "humming" sound. The coolness of Xu Hexue's fingers was enough to dissipate the heat of the clay pot. There was no expression on his face. He filled a bowl of tea and took a sip.
Still tasteless.
He could only smell its faint fragrance with his sense of smell which had not yet disappeared.
Looking up, the tassel curtain concealed the figure of the woman sleeping peacefully on the bed . She was actually a person who was used to getting up early, but today was an exception.
Just because she came out of the Taiwei Mansion last night, she suddenly decided to take him to Jiang Xianming's mansion to find out what was going on, but she caught a cold because of this.
Jiang Xianming was a well-known honest official, but his home was old and poor, not even as spacious and comfortable as the residence of Du Cong, a fifth-rank official.
"Will you take me with you?"
Ni Su was still worried that this distance would be a hindrance to him, so she pointed to the ridge above the eaves of the study and said, "I can wait for you there."
Xu Hexue nodded, put his arm around her waist, stepped on the treetops to gain leverage and leaped, landing lightly on the roof opposite.
At this late hour, Jiang Xianming was still working at his desk in the study. Xu Hexue glanced at the green tiles under his feet. He helped Ni Su steady herself and made her stand still, then leaned over and gently lifted a piece of the green tile.
In the study, Jiang Xianming was talking to the old eunuch who had followed him for many years.
"Sir, I don't know who threw this account book to you. It is clearly a hot potato. You have been looking for it for the past few months, and you were almost stopped in the tile house that day..." The old housekeeper advised earnestly, "In my opinion, they know that the government will only listen to your advice, so they throw all the trivial things to you. Now that Mr. Du is dead or alive, what's the point of you checking his old accounts?"
"The incident in the tile house that day was not directed at me. It was clearly someone who was dissatisfied with General Miao's petition advocating war and deliberately made trouble for him."
Jiang Xianming sneered, "Although I have never gotten along with that rude warrior, General Miao, his memorial is correct. We in the Great Qi cannot keep paying tribute to the Hu people to survive. Even if we want to, the Hu people are insatiable. How can we be satisfied with this?"
"Let's talk about Du Cong. Just because he's missing doesn't mean we can't settle his old accounts? For fifteen years, more than a dozen officials under him gave him money regardless of weather conditions. And he gave money to those anonymous people above him. Needless to say, this money must be the people's hard-earned money! If it's the people's hard-earned money, how can I let these parasites go easily?"
Jiang Xianming flipped through the account books on the table. "Mr. Meng is now pushing for a new policy with only the strategy of 'high salaries to maintain integrity', but I think high salaries are not helpful in maintaining integrity at all, and will only make people more greedy, and in the end the people will suffer."
"According to you, this time, Mr. Meng is... afraid?" The old eunuch was not just sorting out trivial matters at home. He also followed Jiang Xianming to serve as the governor of Yongzhou. He was experienced and naturally had a say in these matters. "It has been fourteen or fifteen years. Could it be that Mr. Meng no longer dares to be as aggressive as he was in Wen County? But talking about what happened back then, Mr. Meng was at least demoted to Wen County. The most miserable one was Mr. Zhang, who was exiled for more than ten years... I heard that he even had the word "exile" tattooed on his body. His wife and son died on the way. Now he is the only one who has returned."
Xu Hexue's hand holding Qingwa trembled.
During the time since he returned to the world of the living, he had heard about the story of Meng Yunxian and his teacher Zhang Jing. He knew that after his death, his teacher went from being a high-ranking official in the Great Qi Dynasty to being exiled.
He was tattooed, shackled, and as a criminal he lived in exile for many years and lost his wife and son.
He knows all this.
But every time he heard these words from other people, he would always feel tormented in his heart.
"Mr. Zhang was exiled not only because of the failure of the new policy, but also because he was..." Even if he was just at home and facing his most loyal old servant, it would be difficult for Jiang Xianming to tell the other hidden reason behind Zhang Jing's exile, which was actually because of the government's anger.
Zhang Jing is Xu Hexue's teacher.
It happened that Grand Tutor Wu Dai presented to the emperor a collection of New Calendar Poems compiled by several famous talents among the people. It included 31 famous poems, and two poems written in response to each other by Zhang Jing and his student Xu Hexue were among them.
In the year when Xu Hexue passed the imperial examination and became a Jinshi, Zhang Jing broke down his name and characters and wrote a poem called "Midnight".
"Ice Soul and Snow Spirit" is the annotation given to Xu Hexue by Zhang Jing.
Every word in the poem contains a teacher's earnest hope and unstinting praise for his favorite student. In fact, Zhang Jing had never praised his students so openly before.
That poem was written by Zhang Jingchu when he heard that Xu Hexue had passed the imperial examination. He was so happy that he wrote it immediately. It should have been unknown to anyone, but another student of his, He Tong, included this poem in his collection of poems when he was compiling them for publication, so it became known among the people.
His poems were once very popular.
Xu Hexue also wrote a poem "Bamboo Heart" in response to his teacher's praise, expressing his wish to take bamboo as his heart, taste its toughness, feel its straightness, and be consistent in his knowledge and actions, in order to repay his teachers, friends, and his country.
However, no one expected that these two famous poems, written in response to each other by the teacher and the student, would become the key to Zhang Jing's conviction and exile five years later.
How could "a soul as cold as ice and as sharp as snow" be used to describe a criminal who was sentenced to death by lingchi for the crime of treason? The government was furious and issued an imperial decree to destroy the "New Calendar Poetry Collection" and strictly ordered that anyone who compiled and published these two poems again would be punished with thirty strokes of the cane.
This is the famous "New Calendar Poetry Case".
After the "New Calendar Poetry Case", Zhang Jing was no longer the prime minister of the Great Qi Dynasty.
Jiang Xianming sighed, "I don't really know what kind of person Meng Xianggong is. He is too deep. But Zhang Xianggong has served the country and the people. Even if he was exiled, he was still respected by scholars all over the world. In fact, I didn't mean to make things difficult for him when I said that when he returned to Beijing. But if I didn't ask him clearly, if I didn't let him break off the old things in front of everyone, I'm afraid the emperor would have some thoughts in his mind. It's not easy for him to come back, so he can't cause another "New Calendar Poetry Case." "
"Last month I went to the palace to look up the 'Case Studies of the Performance of Officials Over the Years' but failed. Later I learned that I was asked to go to the Political Affairs Hall. It seemed that it was requested by Prime Minister Zhang. I think Prime Minister Zhang is determined to rectify the administration of officials."
Jiang Xianming stroked his shaved chin with one hand, "If that's the case, I can check Du Cong's old accounts and get some help."
Xu Hexue, who was on the roof, realized what Jiang Xianming was up to almost immediately after hearing his words. He immediately turned around and said to Ni Su beside him in a low voice, "Wait for me here. If you are scared, squat down and don't look down."
Before Ni Su could respond, he saw him standing up with a lantern, and then his figure turned into long mist and dissipated into the courtyard below.
"who?"
The old housekeeper raised his eyes casually, but suddenly saw a dark figure reflected on the window screen. He was startled and wanted to rush out of the house immediately.
But just as he opened the door, he heard a sword being unsheathed, and the hilt of the sword hit the old clerk's knee. The old clerk staggered back and fell to the ground. The door, which was half opened, was slammed shut from the outside.
Jiang Xianming immediately stood up and helped the old eunuch to stand up. He stared at the shadow reflected on the window screen and said in a deep voice, "Who are you?!"
"Since I have handed the account book to the censor, I naturally want to hear what you have found out."
Xu Hexue stood sideways by the window, holding a lamp.
"Is it you?"
Jiang Xianming looked surprised.
The old eunuch suddenly realized that this person was the mysterious man who hit his master on the head with the account book and disappeared without a trace.
"Censor Jiang knows that the two gentlemen Zhang and Meng have just returned to Beijing and that the implementation of the new policy is difficult and there are obstacles everywhere. Isn't it a bit naive for you to take advantage of the East Palace at this time?"
Xu Hexue lowered his voice.
Jiang Xianming paused, and naturally thought of the depth of the matter, but he looked at the shadow and said coldly: "Do you think you gave the account book to the wrong person?"
"I just thought that Censor Jiang should have a better way."
"for example?"
"Du Cong's account book records a statue of a horse stepping on a flying swallow, made of white jade and five feet long. If I remember correctly, this object should be a treasure from an ancient country in the Western Regions. It disappeared on the way to be presented in the first year of Zhengyuan."
Jiang Xianming had some impression almost immediately after the man finished speaking. He turned around and flipped through a few pages in the account book. As expected, he found the item. He immediately looked up and asked, "Who are you?"
Xu Hexue did not answer him, but only said: "This thing is obviously the east wind, why does Censor Jiang go to the faraway place instead of the near one?"
Jiang Xianming actually didn't have much impression of these gold and jade items, so he didn't know where the Horse Stepping on Flying Swallow in the account book came from or how precious it was. After this person reminded him, he was indeed enlightened.
"Who did Censor Jiang go to see in the tile house that day?"
Suddenly, Jiang Xianming heard someone outside the window asking questions again. He immediately became alert, "How did you know? Have you been monitoring me?"
The person outside the window didn't answer.
Jiang Xianming waited for a moment, but only heard a very light sneer.
"Could it be,"
Jiang Xianming was thinking over and over again, and he looked stunned, "It was you who saw through the Hu man in the tile house that day?"
In fact, Xu Hexue had never seen Jiang Xianming in the tile house, but at this moment, he calmly led Jiang Xianming's thoughts to this point, tempting him to confess: "The person waiting in the tile house for General Miao to take the bait may not be unaware of you, so Censor Jiang does not have to do everything himself."
Jiang Xianming was skeptical and asked tentatively, "Did you read the account book before handing it to me?"
"The accounts for fifteen years total 53.6 million strings of cash."
Xu Hexue said calmly.
Jiang Xianming was speechless. The number was correct. So the person who handed him the account book that night was really this person? He pondered for a moment and said, "Since you have seen it, you must know Manyu Bank. I didn't go to Wazili to look for someone that day. I met the shopkeeper on the way to Manyu Bank. I wanted to know who he was going to meet, so I didn't think much about it and followed him quietly."
The owner of Manyu Money House was often not in Beijing, and few of the people who stayed in Beijing knew much about the inside story. Jiang Xianming originally wanted to find out what the owner, who had just returned to Beijing, had to say.
"The case is still unclear, so I can't go to the bank to alert the enemy. But as you reminded me, I only need to find out where the statue of Horse Stepping on Flying Swallow is. Then I can at least find out one of the people above Du Cong. With this person, it shouldn't be difficult to find out the others."
Du Cong's money was circulated in Manyu Money House, but people in the money house probably had no contact with precious items like the Horse Stepping on Flying Swallow, so there was no fear of alarming them.
Jiang Xianming holds the power to report rumors, which can now be put to good use.
Xu Hexue said nothing. His goal had been achieved. He turned around and was about to leave, but he heard Jiang Xianming's voice coming from the room: "May I ask, Your Excellency, why did you hand over the account book to me? Why didn't you send it to Guangning Mansion?"
Hearing the voice, Xu Hexue turned around. The light from the lamp was reflected in his dead eyes. He silently examined the vague figure behind the window screen.
This year is already a new year, the 20th year of Zhengyuan.
In the fourth year of Zhengyuan, the owner of this house was still a young man in his twenties. He read books of sages and was determined to serve his country. Despite his frail body, he went to the war-torn border town of Yongzhou to serve as the prefect.
Before Jiang Xianming, the heads of three prefects had been hung high on the city walls by the Hu people.
The first thing he did after entering the city as the prefect was to fulfill the wish of the people in the border town who had escaped the brutal war to punish the traitors with death.
The imperial decree only mentioned the death penalty, but Jiang Xianming followed the people's wishes and supervised the execution by slow slicing.
Xu Hexue actually didn't know what this man looked like before, because when he was on the execution platform, his eyes had been injured by the golden knife of the Hu people and he could not see.
He could only hear the man's voice, powerful and indignant.
"Everyone knows,"
Xu Hexue said calmly, "You, Censor Jiang, are most reluctant to disappoint the people. They regard you as their voice that can reach the ears of the people."
"That's all."
The tea on the stove began to boil again. A few women's coughs were heard behind the curtain. Xu Hexue came back to his senses immediately. He supported himself on the table with one hand, stood up with difficulty, poured a bowl of hot tea and walked into the inner room.
"Have I slept for a long time?" Ni Su's voice was a little nasal. She took the tea he handed her and took a sip. Her dry throat felt better.
"Not long."
Xu Hexue shook his head.
He took the tea bowl she handed back and placed it on a stool beside him.
Ni Su rubbed her eyelids. She kept looking at him, even though he didn't show any expression most of the time. But she still felt that the little joy she had in playing snowballs with him last night had been completely worn away by his heavy worries.
"What were you thinking about while you were sitting there while I was sleeping?"
She tried to touch his heart.
Xu Hexue paused, then turned around and met her eyes unexpectedly.
She looked sick, but she lay on the edge of the bed, taking care of him seriously.
Xu Hexue's throat tightened. After coming back last night, he recalled some things from the past. He remembered that the teacher always had a stern face and never showed his emotions.
However, even such a teacher was so happy that he could not sleep on the night he learned that he had passed the imperial examination. He even wrote a poem "Midnight" to praise him.
Before that, Xu Hexue had never known that his teacher valued him so much.
Xu Hexue responded with "Bamboo Heart" to prove his own heart.
At that time, he really thought that he could serve in the same court as his teacher, and in his expectation, he could become a civil servant of the Great Qi and a person with bamboo as his heart.
The clearer the memory, the more difficult it was for Xu Hexue.
The teacher was already all alone, and he really wanted the teacher to live well, at least for the rest of his life, without having to wander around or get hurt because of anything.
He would never let Jiang Xianming involve his teacher in Du Cong's affair again.
He has to walk this road alone.
Xu Hexue placed his hands on his knees and grasped the edge of his robe. He faced the girl's concerned eyes for a long time and said in a hoarse voice:
"Ni Su, I miss my teacher."
