The Fierce Teacher of Zhenguan: Starting with Teaching the Crown Prince to Make a Comeback

Chapter 140 Who...who are you people?

The night was as dark as ink, shrouding Linyi County in a stagnant darkness.

Only the area where the Crown Prince's residence was located flickered with scattered firelight, reflecting the occasional cold, hard gleam of the weapons in the hands of the patrolling soldiers.

The air was thick with dust, lime, and a faint, pungent stench, making it hard to breathe.

Li Yichen did not rest.

He stood in his simple tent, his gaze fixed on the even deeper darkness in the depths of the county town.

The reports from his officials during the day, and the strange numbness and deep sorrow of the disaster victims when they exchanged salt, haunted his mind like ghosts.

This is completely different from the reaction of the people in Yexian County, who, despite their hardship, still harbored a sliver of calculation and hope.

There must be a demon in the abnormal situation.

He had a vague feeling that the waters of Linyi County were much deeper and more murky than those of Ye County.

He turned and went into the tent, where he spread out a record of the daytime food exchange.

This family, surnamed Wang, exchanged a shi (a unit of dry measure) of millet in one go, making them one of the households that exchanged the most grain today.

This is the place.

He needed to see for himself, to hear for himself, what was hidden beneath this numb silence.

He did not alert Dou Jing or Wang Cong, but only brought two elite soldiers belonging to the Eastern Palace Guard.

One of the two men was named Zhao Jia, who had an honest-looking face but sharp eyes.

One of them, Qian Yi, was taciturn and had been to Wang Laowu's house.

As a study companion, Li Yichen does have this small amount of power.

The three did not ride horses. Under the cover of night, they quietly left the camp and entered Linyi County.

The city streets were deserted and lifeless; the few people who could be seen during the day had completely disappeared.

They quickly found the marked neighborhood in the east of the city.

The walls of the ward were low and many had collapsed, making them almost useless.

The neighborhood was even more dilapidated, with most houses having their doors and windows tightly closed, devoid of any life.

Only deep within the neighborhood, in the courtyard of a relatively intact adobe house, could one faintly seep the light of an oil lamp, almost swallowed by the darkness.

Li Yichen gestured for Zhao Jia and Qian Yi to spread out and keep watch, while he himself slowly walked to the gate of the courtyard.

The wooden door was old and had large gaps between it.

He did not knock on the door immediately, but stood quietly outside, listening intently.

There was no talking in the courtyard, only a few suppressed, almost inaudible coughs, and a heavy silence that seemed to make even breathing difficult.

A moment later, Li Yichen raised his hand and knocked on the door knocker with his knuckles, neither too hard nor too soft.

"Boom, boom, boom."

The sound traveled far in the dead of night, sounding particularly abrupt.

The faint light in the courtyard flickered and then went out.

Everything returned to deathly silence; even the suppressed coughing sounds disappeared.

Li Yichen didn't move, and knocked on the door knocker again, this time with a little more force.

"Who...who?"

Finally, an old and terrified voice came from inside the door; it was the homeowner, Wang Laowu.

"At the Crown Prince's headquarters, inquire about the grain exchange arrangements."

Li Yichen's voice was steady and not loud, yet it carried an undeniable penetrating power, clearly reaching into the courtyard.

A series of rustling sounds of panic rose from the courtyard, mixed with low, tearful whispers.

After a long while, the bolt was finally pulled open a crack with trembling hands.

Wang Laowu's deeply lined face, which appeared even more ashen in the darkness, peeked out, his eyes filled with fear, as if the grim reaper standing outside the door was a deadly figure.

When he saw that only Li Yichen, a young man in a blue official robe, was standing outside the door, along with two soldiers standing a little further away with their hands on their swords, the fear on his face did not lessen, but instead added a touch of despair.

"M-Master..." Wang Laowu's voice trembled uncontrollably, his body shaking violently, almost collapsing.

Li Yichen reached out and pushed open the door, then stepped inside.

Zhao Jia and Qian Yi followed closely behind, closing the door behind them and standing guard inside, one on each side.

The yard was small, and the ground was uneven and full of potholes.

In front are three low adobe houses, and on the left is a crooked thatched shed, probably the kitchen.

As Li Yichen and his two companions entered, several more heads peeked out from behind the dilapidated wooden door of the main room. There were men and women, young and old, all of them thin and pale, with frightened eyes.

One of the men, around thirty years old, was Wang Laowu's eldest son. He nervously rubbed the hem of his clothes with both hands, not daring to look up.

Li Yichen's gaze swept across the courtyard, finally landing on Wang Laowu's face. Without any pleasantries, he spoke directly, his voice cold and stern.

"Old Wang, did you exchange a bushel of millet for the fine salt of the Eastern Palace during the day?"

"Yes...yes...yes..." Old Wang knelt down with a thud, kowtowing repeatedly.

"This old man...this old man is grateful for His Highness's kindness..."

“Grace?” Li Yichen interrupted him, his tone suddenly turning stern.

"I see that you have taken the Crown Prince's favor, but you are deceiving him!"

This sound, though not loud, was like an icicle, instantly piercing the oppressive silence of the courtyard.

Wang Laowu froze on the spot, even forgetting to kowtow.

The family members behind the door were so frightened that they shrank back, leaving only suppressed sobs.

"The Crown Prince's policy is to exchange salt for grain, thus saving the people from suffering."

Li Yichen took a step forward, his gaze sharp as a knife, sweeping over everyone he could see in the courtyard.

"Speak! Why did you exchange grain? Where is the salt you received in the exchange? If there is even a single lie,"

He paused, a chill creeping into his voice.

"That is the crime of deceiving the emperor, punishable by death according to the law!"

"My lord, spare me! My lord, spare me!"

Wang Laowu lay prostrate on the ground, tears streaming down his face, speaking incoherently.

"This old man...this old man wouldn't dare to lie...it's...it's..."

He kept saying "yes" for a long time, but couldn't get the rest of his sentence out.

Li Yichen saw all of this and already understood the situation.

He stopped looking at Wang Laowu and turned to his eldest son, who was cowering behind the door, and shouted, "You, come out!"

The eldest son trembled violently and practically crawled out of the room, kneeling beside his father, shaking even more than Wang Laowu.

"Zhao Jia, Qian Yi," Li Yichen ordered without turning his head.

"Take these two men to the east and west wing rooms respectively and keep them under guard. Without my order, they are not allowed to speak, and no one is allowed to approach them."

"Yes!" Zhao Jia and Qian Yi responded and stepped forward, each carrying one of the limp Wang Laowu and his eldest son, and dragged them to the low, dilapidated side rooms on the east and west sides of the courtyard.

During the process, Wang Laowu's eldest son tried to struggle.

Only a few terrified women and children remained in the courtyard, huddled at the entrance of the main house, too scared to even breathe.

Li Yichen walked to the center of the courtyard, stood with his hands behind his back, and said nothing more.

He is waiting.

After about the time it takes for an incense stick to burn, he first went to the east wing, where Wang Laowu was locked up. Pushing open the creaking wooden door, he found Wang Laowu huddled in a pile of straw in the corner, tears streaming down his face. When he saw Li Yichen enter, he tried to kowtow again.

Li Yichen raised his hand to stop him, his tone slightly softened, but still carrying an undeniable pressure.

"Wang Laowu, you are the head of this household, and your responsibilities are the greatest. I will only ask you once: where did the grain come from? And where was the salt sent?"

"If you tell the truth, perhaps you can be treated leniently because of your old age and senility. But if you wait for your son to confess first,"

His voice turned cold.

“All the blame will fall on your whole family.”

Wang Laowu trembled violently, his mouth agape, his cloudy eyes filled with struggle and fear.

Li Yichen said no more, turned around and left the east wing, closing the door behind him.

He didn't need to know the answer now; he wanted to let fear and suspicion fester between him and his son.

He then walked towards the west wing.

The eldest son is imprisoned here.

Qian Yi stood guard at the door like an iron tower.

Li Yichen pushed the door open and entered. The eldest son immediately knelt up, his face completely pale.

"Your father is old and senile."

Li Yichen looked at him, his tone calm, yet every word was piercing.

"My time is limited."

“If you tell the truth, your father will bear all the responsibility, and the rest of your family will be fine; but if he tells the truth first, then your whole family will bear all the responsibility.”

He paused meaningfully for a moment, then said, "It's up to you to choose."

He imitated a cold, bureaucratic tone, applying the essence of the "prisoner's dilemma" to this father and son trapped in information isolation in the most straightforward and contemporary way.

"I said! I said!"

The eldest son's psychological defenses collapsed instantly under the dual impact of his father's "possible confession" and the family's fear of death.

He practically blurted out, "It's the County Magistrate! It's Magistrate Chen! He sent five bushels of grain yesterday! He wants us to exchange them for salt today!"

"They also said...they also said that the salt they got in exchange should be delivered untouched to the back gate of the county government office after dark!"

"If you dare not go, or even leave behind a single grain of salt, you will be treated as a traitor and your entire family will be beheaded!"

He spoke extremely fast, as if slowing down would mean losing his only chance to live, and sweat streamed down his forehead.

Li Yichen sneered inwardly, "Just as I thought."

His face remained calm.

"What else did the people who delivered the grain say? Besides you, which other families received grain?"

"That man is Zhang Bantou, a trusted confidant of Magistrate Chen!" the eldest son exclaimed urgently.

"He said... that as long as the people from the Crown Prince's headquarters come to exchange salt, we households that have received grain must go and exchange it! As for which other households... I... I only know that the Li the Cripple's family in the next neighborhood seems to have received some too... I really don't know anything else, sir!"

He kowtowed repeatedly.

"Why are all the grain stores in the county town closed? How do you usually buy grain?" Li Yichen pressed.

"The grain stores... all closed down within days of the locust plague!"

The eldest son answered hastily.

"If you want to buy grain now, you have to wait... wait every half month for someone to transport grain to the city, next to the county government office! The price is outrageously high, a peck of millet costs... two hundred coins! And you still can't buy it!"

"What about the porridge stalls outside the city? Did the government provide porridge before His Highness the Crown Prince arrived?"

"A congee shop?" The eldest son gave a bitter smile.

"After a few days... it wasn't porridge at all... it was barely better than water, you couldn't even get a few grains of rice out of it... later, even that watery porridge disappeared..."

Everything suddenly became clear.

Why did the people show no joy, only sorrow, when exchanging their salt for refined salt?

Because what they exchanged was not their own life-saving food, but "props" sent by the county magistrate that they had to exchange back and hand over in the same way!
Not only did they fail to gain any benefit from this deal, but they also had to bear the risk of being discovered by the Crown Prince. How could they not be fearful and distressed?

Magistrate Chen dared not take out large quantities of grain to exchange for salt, for fear of arousing suspicion.

They then distributed the grain to these easily controlled poor families, allowing them to extort the precious refined salt and create the illusion that the "salt-for-grain" policy was widely supported—a win-win situation.

The real grain distribution channels are firmly controlled by him or those behind him, who sell the grain at high prices and reap huge profits!
Li Yichen asked no more questions, turned and walked out of the west wing, whispering to Qian Yi who was guarding the door, "Keep an eye on him."

He then quickly walked towards the east wing.

Pushing open the door, Wang Laowu was still huddled there. When he saw Li Yichen, his lips trembled, as if he was still hesitating.

“Your son has already confessed everything,” Li Yichen said coldly.

“Magistrate Chen, Headman Zhang, five bushels of grain, exchanged for salt, sold grain at high prices in dead-end alleys… he told them all.”

"Now, do you have anything to add? This is your last chance."

Wang Laowu was struck dumb, collapsing into the haystack, his last shred of hope shattered.

Tears streamed down his face, and he sobbed uncontrollably.

"We confess...we confess everything...it was Magistrate Chen...he forced us to do this...we dared not disobey, sir..."

Standing in the east wing, Li Yichen looked at the completely broken Wang Laowu. He felt little pleasure at uncovering the secret, only a cold heaviness in his heart.

Linyi County is rotten to the core, from top to bottom.

The Crown Prince's disaster relief plan became a tool for officials to line their own pockets and deceive their superiors.

He needs more testimonies, more solid evidence, and to know just how far-reaching this scandal is.

He walked out of the east wing and gave instructions to Zhao Jia.

"You must immediately sneak out of the camp and find either Grand Tutor Dou or Prime Minister Wang to secretly report the situation here."

"Please ask them to send more men to secretly control Zhang Bantou. The action must be swift and discreet; we must not alert him."

"Yes!" Zhao Jia accepted the order, and with a flash, he silently scaled the low wall like a cat and disappeared into the night.

Li Yichen then went back into the west wing and began to question Wang Laowu's eldest son more thoroughly and deeply.

He needed to know every detail of delivering grain, exchanging salt, and handing over salt, as well as Zhang Bantou's appearance and habits.

We need to know which other families might be involved, and whether there are any clues about the source of the high-priced grain…

Qian Yi stood silently outside the door.

Zhao Jia, dispatched by Li Yichen, accurately delivered the secret report to Dou Jing and Wang Cong.

Upon hearing the news, the two were both shocked and furious. They were shocked that such a daring person could exist right under the Crown Prince's nose.

What's infuriating is that these parasites dared to turn the Crown Prince's benevolent rule into a vicious scheme to exploit the people!
The situation is urgent and cannot be delayed in the slightest.

Dou Jing and Wang Cong acted decisively. Without even informing the Crown Prince who had already settled down, they immediately mobilized a team of absolutely reliable elite Crown Prince guards. Led by Zhao Jia, they charged straight at the county town like tigers released from their cages!
The darkness provided the best cover, but it couldn't conceal the chilling atmosphere that permeated the operation.

The target is clear—Zhang, the trusted confidant of the county government!

"boom!"

The wooden door that Zhang Bantou thought was sturdy was kicked open. Zhang Bantou, who was still dreaming of meeting his account books and gold and silver, was dragged out of bed by the wolf-like guards, and a cold blade was instantly placed against his neck.

"Who...who are you people?" Zhang, the squad leader, roared in shock and fear, his voice trembling with rage.

"The Crown Prince is handling this matter; bring you to justice!" Dou Jing's voice was icy and brooked no argument.

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(End of this chapter)