novelAbuy Chapter 110: Shao Chengzhang
Chapter 110: Shao Chengzhang
Faced with Zhao Bocong's direct challenge, Qin Hui did not refute him on the spot. He simply glanced at Zhao Bocong and said, "Your Highness is absolutely right," before changing the subject.
But after the court session ended, he returned to the signing room and summoned Wan Qixie, lecturing him for a full half hour.
When Wan Qixie came out, his face was ashen. Qin Hui's reprimand was essentially about one thing: Zhao Bocong already knew about the Imperial City Guard's deployment in Xiangyang. How was the information leaked?
Wan Qixie begins investigating the mole within the organization.
His first suspicion was that some of the low-level informants that Tian Ruyi had deployed around Xiangyang had been infiltrated by the other side, but Tian Ruyi's reply was very clear.
All personnel deployed around Xiangyang maintain single-line communication and are unaware of each other's identities, eliminating the possibility of reverse infiltration.
Therefore, the news could only have leaked from within Lin'an, either from the Ministry of Personnel, the Court of Judicial Review, or the Privy Council.
But this "leak" was not made by any one person.
Zhao Bocong's method of obtaining intelligence on the Imperial City Guard's deployment was not through inside informants, but through Yuwen Xu's copper bell system, which allowed him to monitor the rhythm of the Imperial City Guard's relay reports on the official roads segment by segment.
And information on the transfer of officials stationed in various prefectures and counties, which Qin Keqing collected through the network of clan members in Xiuzhou.
Neither of these intelligence lines planted any informants within the Imperial City Guard; instead, they deduced the movement patterns of the Imperial City Guard from the outside.
Wan Qixie's internal investigation of the mole will never yield any results.
At the same time, Zhao Bocong began to look for reliable allies among the imperial clan.
He held a small literary gathering in his residence under the guise of "making friends through literature," and invited members of the imperial clan from collateral branches of the Taizu lineage who maintained a distance from Qin Hui.
These literary gatherings were ostensibly about appreciating tea and discussing poetry, but in reality, one or two elders of the imperial clan were always present. Although these elders held no real power within the imperial clan, they wielded an influence on etiquette and public opinion that Qin Hui could not ignore.
At a literary gathering in mid-March, an elderly member of the imperial clan, who was over seventy years old, suddenly brought up an event that occurred in the twelfth month of the eleventh year of the Shaoxing era. He said that when Zhou Sanwei was interrogating Yue Fei that year, he had privately said to someone, "This case will surely be judged a hundred years from now."
The elder asked Zhao Bocong for his opinion.
Zhao Bozong was silent for a moment, then replied, "A hundred years is too long, ten years is enough."
Everyone present understood what he meant.
No one questioned it further, and no one echoed it.
However, this statement spread slowly within the imperial clan, only being passed down orally among the most reliable collateral branches of the Taizu lineage.
When Zhao Shi heard this, he only said four words: "Emperor Taizu has an heir."
At the last literary gathering at the end of March, Zhao Bocong made a subtle adjustment during the meeting.
He had the seating arrangement at the tea ceremony rearranged, no longer according to seniority, but according to the degree of kinship between each member of the imperial clan and the bloodline of the founding emperor.
This seating arrangement adjustment is perfectly legal and ethical, but its underlying message is clear: from now on, the Taizu lineage is no longer a loose, disorganized group, but a force with a hierarchy and a core.
Zhao Bozong is rallying support by acting as a leader of the imperial clan.
There was no power struggle or self-interest here; they simply used rules and established laws of the founding emperor that even Qin Hui dared not openly break, step by step, to reunite the scattered power of the imperial clan around them.
March 23, the back gate of the Prince of Puan's mansion.
The spring equinox had just passed, and the weather in Lin'an warmed up quickly. The willow catkins on the Imperial Street were swept up by the south wind and covered the stone slabs of the back alleys in a white blanket.
Zhao Bozong, dressed in an inconspicuous plain-colored long robe, accompanied only by Liu An, walked from the back gate to a side corridor outside Deshou Palace that Feng Yi had cleared out in advance.
The person he was to meet today, Feng Yi had only written one identity in his secret report: the former head of the Imperial Household Department's archives, surnamed Shao.
Shao Chengzhang.
Zhao Bocong had heard of this name. In the early years of the Shaoxing era, Zhao Gou had two closest eunuchs: one was Feng Yi, and the other was Shao Chengzhang.
Seven years after the Shaoxing era, Feng Yi was transferred to Deshou Palace to retire, while Shao Chengzhang was demoted to the old archives of the Inner Palace Department as a steward due to a palace scandal, and was completely removed from the center of power.
Later, Qin Hui used this position as a "retirement position" to install his own people, but Shao Chengzhang was never replaced, simply because the old archives was a low-paying department that Qin Hui looked down on.
However, the old archives contain all the official correspondence records of the Inner Palace Department from the first year of Shaoxing to the tenth year of Shaoxing.
Those records contain countless clues that were not destroyed, including the actual number of troops mobilized during the expansion of the Imperial City Guard, the date of the secret document in which Qin Hui bypassed the Privy Council and directly mobilized local troops through the Inner Palace Secretariat, and the complete court schedule for the trial of Yue Fei by the Dali Temple in the twelfth month of the eleventh year of Shaoxing.
Shao Chengzhang was a short, thin old man with white hair, but his eyes were still bright and piercing.
He spent five or six years in the old archives, and every day he would dust the file shelves with a feather duster. After dusting for five or six years, he memorized the number and location of every file.
"Your Highness, this old servant saw a court schedule record from the twelfth month of the eleventh year of Shaoxing in the old archives."
The record states that Yue Fei was interrogated on the 29th day of the twelfth lunar month, with Zhou Sanwei as the presiding judge, Wan Qixie as the assistant judge, and Qin Hui as the supervising judge.
At the end of the record is a line of vermilion annotation: "The offender does not sign, therefore no confession is required." These four characters were written by Zhou Sanwei himself, indicating that Zhou Sanwei withstood the pressure from Qin Hui and did not force Yue Shaobao to sign the confession.
This scheduling record is still in the old archives and has not been destroyed.
Qin Hui filed it as a routine court record, completely unaware that Zhou Sanwei had left those four words at the end.
After listening, Zhao Bozong remained silent for a moment. "Eunuch Shao, would you be willing to copy this record out?"
"This old servant cannot copy it. Every file in the old archives has a number, and if even one page is missing, it will be discovered."
However, the old archives are aired out once a year before Qingming Festival, and all the files are moved out and spread out in the yard to dry in order to prevent mold.
This year, the day for airing the files was set for the second day of the fourth lunar month. On that day, all the files were spread out in the courtyard to air for two whole hours. The four eunuchs in charge of airing the files were too busy to keep up and could only focus on packing up the files.
"If Your Highness wishes to make this copy, that day is your only chance."
Shao Chengzhang coughed and pulled out a half-broken brush from his sleeve.
"This old servant has already made a catalog, listing all the case file numbers related to Yue Shaobao's case. When you air them out on the second day of the fourth month, Your Highness only needs to send someone to find the original case file by number and copy it page by page."
Zhao Bozong took the paper. The writing on it was done with a worn-out pencil. The marks were very light, but the number was clear. He folded the paper and put it in his sleeve, then bowed slightly to Shao Chengzhang.
"Thank you, Eunuch Shao."
Shao Chengzhang took a step back.
He was neither a pawn on Qin Hui's chessboard nor an informant in Zhao Bocong's intelligence network; he was simply an old eunuch who had offered Yue Fei a cup of wine after the Battle of Yancheng in the tenth year of Shaoxing.
He had remembered this glass of wine for nearly ten years, and now he was returning it with a piece of paper. He turned around and slowly walked along the long-sealed narrow corridor at the deepest part of the old archives. His back looked like a feather duster that had been used for six years, inconspicuous but very clean.