Chapter 30: Mu Guiying’s? (Requesting Votes)

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Two days later, Wang Shen invited the Young Master to a teahouse in Qingyue Ward.

The place lay not far from the Imperial City. It was one of the Grand Princess’s dowry properties. Though not large, it supplied a great many miscellaneous goods to the palace and brought in a handsome income.

For that reason, it conducted little business with the outside world and was exceedingly quiet.

The two men settled into a private room on the third floor. As usual, Wang Shen first inquired after the health of the Senior Minister.

“Well? Who exactly is this Cao Rixiu?” Wang Pang asked impatiently.

Wang Shen lifted his teacup and gently blew across the scalding surface, wearing an expression of considerable satisfaction.

“For this sort of business, you could replace me with anyone in the world and they still couldn’t have handled it half so neatly. You could search every corner of Kaifeng Prefecture and never find a man named Cao Rixiu…”

As it turned out, no such person existed.

The Duke of Cao had four sons. The eldest, the heir, now held an honorary post as Commander of the Palace Guard. The second had gone to Hebei, where he served as superintendent of one of the auxiliary-army camps. The third, Cao Rui, had once been Deputy Commissioner of the Imperial City Office, but for reasons unknown had offended someone in the palace and was presently confined to his home.

The descendants of all three men were meticulously recorded. Among them, there was no one in his twenties whose style name was Rixiu.

As for the fourth son, he had once been a celebrated libertine. Unfortunately, two years earlier he had gone boating drunk on Golden Bright Lake, fallen overboard, and gone to meet the King of Hell.

He had lived a dissolute and amorous life. The Cao family acknowledged only two daughters as his legitimate children, but he had kept numerous concubines outside the household, and no one knew how many children he had fathered.

“It just so happens that I know a fellow who runs a wrestling betting house. He happened to know a little about the matter…”

Cao Rui had once been a grim, taciturn soldier who neither drank nor gambled. Somehow, beginning two years ago, he had undergone a sudden change of character and become utterly debauched.

After making inquiries, they discovered that the Cao family had intended to adopt a son for him. The family register and astrological birth document had already been prepared; only a few days remained before everything could be finalized, when the child died.

The boy had originally borne the surname Wang, with Min as his given name.

Later, when his mother was taken in by Cao the Fourth as an outside mistress, he changed his surname to Cao and became a minor young master in the capital.

He had enjoyed less than two years of prosperity when his patron suddenly collapsed. Presumably unable to bear the blow, he vanished without a trace.

In terms of build, appearance, and age, he was likely the only person who fit.

Most telling of all, he had once been involved with Li Chang’an, another notorious young wastrel of the capital. The two had disappeared from Bianjing almost simultaneously.

Afterward, in the winter of the first year of Xining, only Li Chang’an returned. It was said that he reeked of sheep.

Wang Pang bit his lip, his brows knotting together, his heart filled with alarm.

Li Chang’an. He had guessed correctly—this affair involved him yet again!

* * *

Wang Pang was not the only one muttering about Li Chang’an.

Sima Junshi had dug a deep cellar beneath his home so that he could keep cool in summer while writing his books.

But now there was no way to cool his heart.

Kaifeng and Xiangfu Counties kept submitting reports: cases involving household servants and casual laborers were multiplying by the day, and the two county offices could barely cope with the disputes.

In the past, they would have taken the householders’ side, letting the servants suffer a little loss. Ordinary people had no way to make their grievances heard by the Son of Heaven, after all.

But things were different now. The president of the Service Workers’ Guild was Sima Kang.

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Whenever a lawsuit arose, there was a professional legal advocate, along with jurors who observed the situation and passed along reports. The two county offices no longer dared to issue arbitrary judgments, and the wealthy families of the city were furious.

They complained that the cookmaid was plainly insubordinate: she collected her single string of cash in wages, yet guarded her porridge-making technique as though her life depended on it.

She was insufficiently deferential to her employers, and if they beat or cursed her a few times, she would run straight to the authorities.

In short, they demanded that His Excellency the Censor-in-Chief find a solution. How could they avoid offending the powerful while preserving the dignity of the young master?

Sima Guang was in torment. The memorials concerning Sima Kang on his desk were not limited to this one. Some even accused him of inciting the people and plotting rebellion.

At the beginning, he himself had secured his son a post as an Inspector of Public Sentiment and sent him down to oversee this wretched guild.

Everyone had assumed that a mere one or two thousand members could not stir up much trouble. Who could have imagined that in less than a month, membership had already surpassed ten thousand?

There were dockworkers’ guilds, coal-and-firewood guilds, cookmaids’ guilds, apprentices’ guilds, night-soil workers’ guilds—and most absurd of all, even a maids’ guild.

What had once been a heap of loose sand had suddenly crystallized into one organized group after another, forming a threat to the upper classes.

Most crucially, the organization’s official representative was none other than Sima Junshi’s only son.

His worry was like the oppressive heat beneath the eaves in midsummer—unable to disperse, clinging to the body and making him miserable.

* * *

Lü Huiqing had been exceptionally busy of late. As Director-General of the Regulations Office of the Three Departments, he had now also been appointed Commissioner of Revenue, with full authority over the issuance of government bonds.

In terms of rank, he might not even have made the top hundred.

But in terms of actual power, Lü Huiqing stood immediately below the assembled ministers.

With a thick dossier in hand, he emerged from the offices of the Three Departments and was on his way to a meeting at the Ministry of Personnel, where he intended to argue over the standards for assessing government-bond quotas.

The moment he stepped outside, he ran straight into His Excellency Ouyang Xiu. Startled, he hurriedly stopped and prepared to retreat indoors.

“Jifu, I was just looking for you!” Ouyang Xiu beckoned.

Historically, the old man should have been sent to govern an outlying prefecture after Emperor Shenzong, Zhao Xu, ascended the throne. For some unknown reason, in this timeline he had stubbornly remained in the capital.

After Wang Anshi’s New Policies had spread throughout the realm, Ouyang Xiu, as a veteran minister of three reigns, had been kept by the Grand Empress Dowager as a stabilizing weight in the court.

“Your Excellency, what do you require of Jifu? I’ve just remembered something I need to collect, and I’m already hurrying to the Ministry of Personnel for a meeting about the examination standards.”

The old man had spent his entire life fond of promoting younger talents. Though he himself had achieved little politically, Zeng Gong, Wang Anshi, and Sima Guang—all towering figures—had been closely associated with him.

Lü Huiqing dared neither offend him nor engage with him. He feared the old man had come to urge him to suspend the government-bond scheme.

“No need to hurry. It will take only a word or two.

“Kaifeng Prefecture is to underwrite eight million strings of government bonds. I want you to recommend a capable man.”

Lü Huiqing narrowed his eyes, his mind racing as he tried to determine for whom Ouyang was seeking the appointment.

The office of Prefect of Kaifeng had always been reserved for the reigning sovereign before his accession. If someone else held the post, he could only be styled Academician in Charge of Kaifeng Prefecture, or Acting Prefect of Kaifeng.

Ouyang Xiu had been clamoring for retirement for several years. Why had he suddenly emerged to seek office for someone today? Could the conservatives be preparing some major move?

The two men happened to be standing at the entrance to the Revenue Office, where people came and went in full view of one another.

With no alternative, Lü Huiqing escorted Ouyang Xiu inside and sent the doorkeeper away to stand guard outside.

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“Senior Minister, I am a man of little consequence and hold no more than a fourth-rank office. A matter as important as Kaifeng Prefecture surely is not suitable for you to discuss with me?”

Ouyang Xiu loved raw fish. After suffering a grave illness several years earlier, he had remained terrified of the cold ever since.

Yet even in the height of summer, he was wrapped tightly in three layers of clothing.

Trembling slightly, he drew a memorial from his sleeve and slowly handed it to Lü Huiqing. Had the Age of Exploration arrived a few centuries earlier, Lü Jifu would have known exactly what lightning felt like.

He took the document and unfolded it with one hand.

He had expected a list of ceremonial gifts or something of the sort. Instead, it contained the names of the great landowners and wealthy merchants across every prefecture and circuit in the empire.

“Oh!”

It was exactly what one needed when one was in a fix: a pillow delivered to the weary.

With this document, he would have solid grounds when wrangling with the Ministry of Personnel. At the very least, he would not end up committing the farce of imposing quotas unevenly.

Suppressing his excitement, he maintained an expression as calm and still as an ancient well.

“Who is it?”

Ouyang Xiu seemed almost to have fallen asleep. At Lü Huiqing’s prompting, he slowly came to himself.

“Su Zizhan.”

The name nearly knocked Lü Huiqing from his chair.

Why? Lü Huiqing had not reached the post of Commissioner of Revenue until the age of thirty-seven, while Su Zizhan was only thirty-two.

Was having a good godfather—no, a good teacher—enough to make someone this shameless?

“Impossible.”

Lü Huiqing’s expression turned cold, and he handed the document back without the slightest reluctance.

“Someone said you could do it, and that only you could! He wants to spend eight million strings of cash to buy this office for a friend.”

The old man did not give up.

Lü Huiqing snorted, his gaze sharp as a blade as it swept repeatedly across Ouyang Xiu’s face.

“Impossible. Unless you take charge of Kaifeng Prefecture, with Su Zizhan serving as…”

Supporting himself with his cane in his left hand, the old man pinched the document between two fingers and snatched it back into his sleeve.

“I knew you could manage it!”

The old man left. Lü Huiqing remained seated blankly in the gatehouse, unable to regain his composure for a long while.

Who was behind this? What was the purpose of pushing Su Shi into power? And on what grounds did he dare to guarantee the sale of eight million strings of government bonds in a capital teeming with powerful families?

Could this person be some prince?

And whom had Su Shi chosen to follow?

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