Hot flashes

Life at the Shen residence continued as usual. Shen Duan met with people in his study every day, and Shen Yu went to court and came home as usual. On the surface, there was no difference from before.

Zhou Heng flipped through the secret reports sent by Chen Shen. Each of the scattered pieces of information seemed insignificant on its own, but when pieced together, they formed an unsettling picture.

He sorted things out one by one, wrote them down on a piece of paper, and then crossed them out repeatedly.

The ink smudged in several places, and finally he crumpled the paper into a ball and threw it into the charcoal brazier. The paper curled up in the fire, its edges turning black, and finally turned into ashes. Zhou Heng looked at the ashes and tapped his fingers lightly twice on the edge of the table.

Then he stood up and went to find Xiao Jue.

Xiao Jue was reviewing memorials in the East Warm Pavilion. Seeing him enter, he put down his pen and extended his hand. Zhou Heng walked over, placed his hand in Xiao Jue's palm, and was pulled to sit down beside him.

"What's wrong?" Xiao Jue asked, looking at him.

Zhou Heng remained silent for a moment. "I would like to access the garrison deployment maps of the various prefectures and counties north of the Yangtze River."

Xiao Jue looked at him.

Zhou Heng continued, "There are also the income and expenditure accounts of the granaries in Xuzhou, Qingzhou, and Yanzhou over the past few years. The records of the construction of several water conservancy projects in Jiangbei by the River Conservancy Office, including how many workers were used, how much silver was spent, and who was in charge."

He finished speaking in one breath and looked at Xiao Jue.

Xiao Jue looked at him for a moment, asked nothing, and only said, "I will send someone to fetch it."

Zhou Heng opened his mouth, as if to say something, but then swallowed it back. He had prepared a whole lot of words—how to explain why he wanted to watch these things.

He reached out and grasped Xiao Jue's fingers. Xiao Jue returned the grip, holding his hand in his own palm.

"Aheng," Xiao Jue spoke, his voice low, "have you discovered something?"

Zhou Heng was silent for a moment. "I'm not sure yet. I want to find out more before I tell you."

Xiao Jue nodded. He didn't ask any further questions.

It was already dark when the maps and accounts arrived.

Zhou Heng lit all the lamps in the East Warm Pavilion, and the candlelight illuminated the room brightly.

He spread the map on the ground and lay down to examine it. The distribution of troops stationed in the six prefectures north of the Yangtze River, the location of every camp, and the troop strength at every pass were all clearly marked in small print.

Chen Shen stood beside him, handing him a ruler, a pen, and those account books with frayed edges.

Zhou Heng took it, opened it, and the dense numbers shone so brightly in the candlelight that they hurt his eyes. He looked at it line by line, copied the numbers onto the paper, added, subtracted, multiplied, and divided them to calculate the results, and then compared them with the markings on the map.

Chen Shen, watching from the side, couldn't help but ask, "Young Master, what are you looking for?"

Zhou Heng did not answer. He took his charcoal pencil and drew several circles on the map. Xuzhou. Qingzhou. Yanzhou.

These three states form a straight line, running from north to south and from west to east, encompassing the most prosperous area north of the Yangtze River.

The Cui family was in Qingzhou. The Zheng family was in Xuzhou. Li Chongrang frequently traveled to and from the capital, and among the people he met was someone from the Waterway Administration.

The River Management Office. Zhou Heng drew another circle next to the three circles.

The next day, he went to the Ministry of Works to review the engineering files of the River Conservancy Office.

When the Ministry of Works saw him, they treated him with utmost respect, bringing out the dusty files and piling them up on a whole desk. Zhou Heng flipped through them one by one.

Most of them were ordinary engineering records—the year, month, location, length of the dike, how many workers were used, and how much silver was spent. Zhou Heng flipped through them for most of the day, and when he came to a file from three years ago, his fingers suddenly stopped.

That was a record of the repair of a section of the Yellow River dike within Xuzhou. The file clearly stated that the dike was repaired for twelve li, costing 80,000 taels of silver, with a construction period of four months. The supervisor was a minor official from the river management office, surnamed Wu.

However, a secret report sent back from Xuzhou by Chen Shen's men a few days ago mentioned this section of the dike. The local people said that the dike was indeed repaired three years ago, but the repaired section was not twelve li long, but six li long.

The money didn't amount to much. The officials from the river management office came, made a round, and left. The dike was still the same dike, and it still flooded when the water came.

Eighty thousand taels of silver were used to build a six-mile-long dike.

Where did the rest of the silver go?