The Glory After Rebirth

After the apprehension of Wang Xiangxin, the rebel army were terribly demoralized and soon routed utterly. Some started fleeing towards the checkpoint in confusion, and some were captured on the spot.

Hai Mu, taking advantage of the victory, led the Haizhou garrison into Jiangzhou and at the same time had copies of the latest battlefield report quickly delivered to Xiao Jiangyue, the General Zhongwu (AKA the General of Loyalty and Valor), as well as the generals in charge of other checkpoints, telling them to join hands to attack Jiangzhou from all sides.

As regards Haizhou, the Haizhou governor and the commander of the Haizhou navy were responsible for the clean-up. Yuwen Tong and Ling Zhang moved into Pingtao City. Wang Xiangxin had been marched into Pingtao City for interrogation.

Tied with Qiu Bing’s whip, he didn’t dare move for fear of the poison on the whip, but his eyes were staring at Qiu Bing resentfully. During the journey, Qiu Bing had said a lot of provocative words to Wang Xiangxin, because he’d enjoyed very much the sight of Wang Xiangxin being consumed with fury but powerless to do anything about it.

“That’s enough. Take him there right away. Our masters will be there soon,” said Yao Yi, walking over.

“It’s your lucky day,” observed Qiu Bing, marching Wang Xiangxin into a room.

“Kneel!” Qiu Bing gave the hollows of Wang Xiangxin’s knees a kick, which instantly sent Wang Xiangxin slumping to his knees.

Wang Xiangxin’s face twisted in anger. “You–!”

Qiu Bing snorted flintily, “Be a peach and stay on your knees. If you dare play any tricks, I’ll kill you.”

The moment Ling Zhang and Yuwen Tong arrived, they caught sight of Wang Xiangxin obediently kneeling on the ground, Qiu Bing standing guard on the side, looking as ferocious as a warden.

“I’m honored to kneel before you, Your Majesty, Your Highness,” said Qiu Bing at the sight of them, replacing his fierce look with a deferential one, paying his respects to them with due formality.

“You may rise,” said Ling Zhang, looking at him. “There’s no need to stand guard here for the moment. Go and check if Dashan or any of the others is hurt.”

“Yes, Your Highness.” Qiu Bing rose to his feet, withdraw the whip coiling around Wang Xiangxin and gave him a dirty look before leaving.

…

It’d never crossed Wang Xiangxin’s mind that Yuwen Tong would really grant him an audience. His face grew quite sullen at the sight of Yuwen Tong and Ling Zhang entering, but he had to hold back all his bitter words despite the fact that he was quite unreconciled to the current situation.

He’d demanded an audience with Yuwen Tong solely because he wanted to live. He knew very well that it was impossible for him to save his hide by ratting on his subordinates in Jiangzhou and Zhu You and some others, so what he was going to betray was the Wan Kingdom and the Luohai Kingdom, both of which had offered to assist him.

The Wan Kingdom had been the first to contact Wang Xiangxin, and Wang Xiangxin still had a letter from the Wan Kingdom in hand, which was a key piece of evidence. It was these letters that Wang Xiangxin intended to offer in exchange for his life.

Unfortunately for him, in Yuwen Tong’s eyes, he was the kingpin of the rebel army and must die, for Yuwen Tong didn’t want there to be any loose ends. A key letter from the Wan Kingdom was of little significance, because the Wan Kingdom, after paying large amounts of war reparations twice in a row, was now terribly impoverished and unable to pay any more compensation. If pushed too hard, they might well put up a desperate fight. Currently, both the Wan Kingdom and the Great Wen were in dire need of a period of peace to recover and rebuild, and neither of them would wage a war in the next few years. After the two countries’ armies returned to full strength, there would definitely be another war, even if none of these things had ever happened.

“I’m not interested in that thing,” said Yuwen Tong flatly.

Wang Xiangxin’s heart sank. This was the only thing he had in hand that he believed of some value to Yuwen Tong. Now that Yuwen Tong had become the ruler of this country, his men would sooner or later conduct an intensive search of Jiangzhou, which meant that it was only a matter of time before some of the facts came to Yuwen Tong’s knowledge, no matter whether he told Yuwen Tong about them or not. If he was to survive, he must offer something Yuwen Tong couldn’t say no to!

“What about the Luohai Kingdom?! Mu Rongfeng also played a part in this. Do you not want to–”

“I’ve captured Mu Rongfeng already. What else do you think I need to get to negotiate with the Luohai Kingdom?”

What? Wang Xiangxin’s face went ghastly white. Mu Rongfeng had been captured? Didn’t that mean his last hope was gone?

The reason why Yuwen Tong had come to see Wang Xiangxin was merely because he’d wanted to find out what Wang Xiangxin would use as a bargaining chip to save his neck, but now it turned out that none of the things Wang Xiangxin could offer was of any use, so he naturally had no reason to keep sitting in this room.

He and Ling Zhang stood up and left.

Wang Xiangxin didn’t utter another word till the end, because there was no word he could say that would do any good.

Wang Xiangxin was executed right in the interrogation room. His body was burnt with those of the other rebels. After the news of his death spread to Jiangzhou, almost all the surviving rebels’ spirits were broken. One of Wang Xiangxin’s lieutenants had died with him in Haizhou, and the rest of them were disunited, unable to do anything to save the situation, powerless to defend against the attacks from the army of the imperial court who vastly outnumbered them.

Half a month later, surviving rebels in various areas were all disposed of. The officials that had colluded with Wang Xiangxin, and who were led by Zhu You, were all apprehended. Thus, the Jiangzhou rebellion was brought to an end.

Ling Zhang and Yuwen Tong set off to return to the capital city via Jiangzhou. They stayed in downtown Jiangzhou for two days, intending to find Zhu You’s assets which Ling Zhaowu had once mentioned to them, the large sum of unaccountable money.

As a result, Ling Zhang was very excited when the soldiers started searching Zhu You’s residence. He was eager to see how much money would be found in there.

In order to see it with his own eyes, Ling Zhang stealthily followed the soldiers into the residence. Yuwen Tong didn’t mind, but as Ling Zhang went there, he naturally went with him.

Because of this, Yao Yi didn’t let the soldiers do it. He personally took some men to conduct the search. Wang Dashan and some others came to his help.

Zhu You’s residence was located right in downtown Jiangzhou. The Zhu family had a high social status in Jiangzhou, and their residence was even larger than the prefectural yamen. Also, it was, in some sense, of much more pomp than the mansion of the former Jiangzhou governor was. Unlike his predecessor, Zhu You was a native of Jiangzhou, a member of a wealthy local family, or a local scoundrel, to put it bluntly, which was why he’d worked hand in glove with Wang Xiangxin, killed the former Jiangzhou governor and taken his place.

All members of the Zhu family had been taken into custody. Due to a particular order, Zhu You’s residence was guarded for the time being and hadn’t been ransacked yet.

“Do it.”

Ling Zhang was itching to start looking for the money, eyeing the residence like a hungry wolf eyeing a piece of juicy meat. According to his father, the amount of the money hidden in this place was huge. Right now the imperial court was strapped for funds, and this money had come as a godsend.

Yao Yi brought two teams of picked men to the residence. Wang Dashan and the other twenty-three, due to their acquaintance with concealment formations, first studied the overall layout of the residence after entering, and then began to search a couple of particular areas.

As Ling Zhang gave the order, everybody started combing the residence in their respective ways.

“It’ll take us a lot of time to find it if we do it this way. Don’t you think directly forcing Zhu You to make a confession would be much quicker?” said Yuwen Tong. Seeing how thrilled Ling Zhang was, he was worried that Ling Zhang would personally go in there to rummaged around in those chests, so he was keeping a close eye on Ling Zhang.

“That’s different. It’ll be a lot less fun,” replied Ling Zhang. “I have to see it with my own eyes how much the money that even my father described as ‘a large sum’ is exactly.”

Ling Zhaowu, who had possessed both great wealth and enormous power in his last incarnation, was barely struck on anything. Considering even he had described the money as ‘a large sum’, there were, without doubt, quite some silver ingots hidden in Zhu You’s residence. In Ling Zhang’s sight, this search was like an adventure. This residence had piqued his interest some time before.

“Given that the Zhu family owns such a large mansion in downtown Jiangzhou, it must be one of the wealthiest families in this prefecture. How come I’ve never heard about any high-ranking officials bearing the surname ‘Zhu’ in the capital city?” Ling Zhang asked Yuwen Tong curiously.

Seeing as what the Zhu family was capable of, it was fairly inexplicable that the Zhu family was merely a distinguished family in Jiangzhou. However, during the reign of the former emperor, Ling Zhang had never heard of any high-ranking courtiers who were surnamed Zhu and from Jiangzhou.

Yuwen Tong responded, “There indeed used to be a high-ranking official from the Zhu family. He worked as the Assistant Minister of Revenue. Afterward, for some unknown reason, he suddenly resigned and returned to his hometown. Even the whole Zhu family left the capital city and moved back to Jiangzhou.”

“Is there any written information about it in the palace or the Ministry of Revenue?” inquired Ling Zhang.

“There might well be some kind of connection between that matter and the partisan wrangling at that time. Before the Zhou family pulled out, a prince of the Zhou family plotted to usurp the throne but someone blew the whistle on him, and he was suddenly apprehended when he was within an inch of success. The then Assistant Minister of Revenue probably had something to do with that prince of the Zhou family – maybe he was a trusted subordinate of the prince’s and betrayed the prince at the last moment… The complexity of that matter is known to nobody but those directly involved in it at that time. There was sure as hell some kind of deal between the Zhu family and the then emperor,” explained Yuwen Tong.

Ling Zhang didn’t fully understand, but he had got a general idea of what might have happened in the Zhu family. However, if the Zhu family did possess that much money, how had they accumulated it? With the help of the remaining influence of that progenitor who used to be the Assistant Minister of Revenue?

“Or maybe it also has something to do with this large sum of money hidden in this place,” added Yuwen Tong.

Ling Zhang looked at him. “What do you mean?”

Yuwen Tong replied, “It’s just a conjecture of mine. I’ll have to find the money first before I could decide whether it’s right or wrong.”

Ling Zhang curled his lip. “All right. Anyway, there’s no doubt we’ll know if there’s any money hidden in here by the end of the day.”

The two teams of crack soldiers Yao Yi had brought to this place were conducting an inch-by-inch search, followed by a number of men who were here to confiscate the Zhu family’s possessions. Every time the two teams finished searching a room, some of the men would go there to make an inventory of the possessions, sort them then box them up.

Wang Dashan and the other twenty-three were searching a couple of targeted areas. They were cooperating with each other and working with high efficiency.

They’d entered the Zhu family’s residence in the morning, and it was not until shortly before noon that they made a discovery.

There were many storerooms in the residence. Apart from Zhu You’s private storeroom, there was a smaller storeroom in almost every courtyard house, and then there was the public storeroom of the Zhu family. These places had been the first to be scoured, Zhu You’s personal storeroom being an important target. However, at first nobody had found any spots where large amounts of money could be hidden. So far they had found ten thousand taels of silver at the most, along with some antiques, calligraphy works and drawings by famous artists, jewelries and so on.

Afterward, Wang Dashan and his men studied the layout of the residence, searched a couple of targeted areas, combed the book chamber in Zhu You’s courtyard house intensively and found a hidden door leading to the entrance of an underground space.

“We’re still looking for the control switch of the entrance. Would you like to go there to take a look, Your Highness?”

Ling Zhang’s eyes lit up. “Of course.”

At the sight of the twinkle in Ling Zhang’s eyes, Yuwen Tong came to know that he wouldn’t be able to stop Ling Zhang, so he instructed the one who’d just reported the discovery, “Lead the way.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

The two of them followed the man into Zhu You’s book chamber. The chamber was quite unconventional in terms of its design. Both its frame and the disposition of walls were customized. Seen from the outside, it was nondescript, but the moment they walked inside, they found that there were several layers of defense in it, that it’d be very difficult for a common person to intrude into this chamber.

The entrance of an underground space had been discovered at the foot of a wall on the left-hand side of the book chamber. Wang Dashan and some others, when walking past that wall, had noticed that their footsteps sounded different, and thus confirmed that it was an openable entrance, but they hadn’t found the control switch yet. It must be hidden somewhere.

Seeing this, Ling Zhang was somewhat confused.