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Wu Huai-ren's execution did not calm the situation in Jiangnan.

No one noticed that at the same time Wu Huai-ren was taken to the execution ground, another group of people silently entered the city through the north gate of Jiangning Prefecture.

The leader was Han Zhang. He was not wearing an official robe, but only a worn blue cotton robe and an ordinary felt hat. He rode a thin horse and was accompanied by only two attendants.

He traveled south from the capital, arriving a full five days earlier than Wu Huai-ren's secret edict.

For five days, he did not go to the imperial envoy's residence, nor to the Jiangning prefectural government office, nor even register his name at any inn.

He lived in a house deep in an alley in the east of the city. It was the house of an old acquaintance from his time at the Hanlin Academy. It was quiet, inconspicuous, and suitable for someone who didn't want to be known.

On the night Wu Huai-ren was killed, Han Zhang finally revealed his identity.

When he entered the Jiangning Prefectural Government Office, Zhou Min was sitting in the back hall, lost in thought. In just half a month, the Jiangning Prefect seemed to have aged ten years.

The matter of Wu Huai-ren, the smashing of the grain shop, the riots by disaster victims—one thing after another weighed heavily on his shoulders.

When he saw Han Zhang walk in and saw the bright yellow imperial edict, his face turned pale instantly. He knelt down with a thud, his forehead pressed against the cold blue bricks, and he didn't dare to raise his head for a long time.

Han Zhang did not make things difficult for him.

The imperial edict clearly stated: Wu Huai-ren has been executed, and his accomplices shall be handed over to the Jiangning Prefecture for trial in conjunction with the Provincial Surveillance Commissioner, and shall be convicted according to the law.

As for Zhou Min, he will remain in his original position for the time being, and will be allowed to atone for his crimes through meritorious

What truly shook Jiangnan was another imperial edict.

The edicts were directly sent to all prefectures, counties, townships, and villages in Jiangnan, and were posted all over every street and alley from Jiangning to Suzhou, and from Huzhou to Songjiang.

The notice, written in the simplest language, stated: Anyone who colludes with Wu Huai-ren, embezzles disaster relief grain, hoards grain, or inflates grain prices will have their property confiscated upon verification. The ringleader will be executed immediately, and accomplices will be exiled three thousand li away. The notice was stamped with a bright red imperial seal at the end.

For the first three days after the notice was posted, no one came to report it. It wasn't that no one knew what the grain merchants and wealthy gentry had done, but rather that no one dared to speak out.

Those people had been entrenched in the local area for decades, deeply rooted and with connections to all levels of society. Ordinary people couldn't afford to offend them, and even ordinary officials dared not.

Han Zhang was not in a hurry. He had someone add a line of small print below the notice: "The first person to report this will be rewarded with one hundred taels of silver and exempted from one year's taxes and duties."

On the fourth day, someone arrived.

The woman who arrived was in her forties, dressed in coarse cloth clothes covered with patches, her hair wrapped in an old cloth, and her face full of wrinkles left by wind and sun.

She stood at the entrance of the Jiangning Prefecture government office, hesitating for a full hour, turning around to leave several times, only to turn back again each time.

Finally, one of the guards couldn't stand it anymore and asked her what she was doing there. She opened her mouth, her voice barely audible, "I...I'm here to report something."

She reported Zhao Mancang, a grain merchant in the east of the city. Zhao Mancang was the largest grain merchant in Jiangning Prefecture, with shops in seven prefectures south of the Yangtze River, and was backed by the Cui family.

During Wu Huai-ren's time in Jiangnan, Zhao Mancang was the first person to send him silver and the first person to buy grain from the official granary.

The grain that should have been distributed to the disaster victims was transported out of the official granary, cartload by cart, and then put into Zhao Mancang's granary. It was then put into bags by Zhao's grain shop and sold on the market at three times the price.

While the disaster victims lined up hungry for porridge, Zhao Mancang's grain shop was piled high with rice and flour, which were more than five times more expensive than before the disaster.

After listening to the woman's words, Han Zhang ordered an investigation. The findings were far more extensive than the woman had described.

Zhao Mancang not only bought grain from the official granary from Wu Huai-ren, but also joined forces with several other grain merchants in Jiangning Prefecture to raise prices during the worst of the disaster, driving the price of grain from 100 wen per dou to 600 wen per dou.

Those families who couldn't afford grain either sold their children, fled the famine with their entire families, or hung a rope in their house, with the whole family hanging neatly from the beam.

Han Zhang transferred a small contingent of imperial guards who had accompanied him south—only a hundred men.

The hundred men split into three groups and left the city before dawn. By daybreak, Zhao Mancang's residence, shops, and granaries in Jiangning Prefecture were completely surrounded.

Zhao Mancang was having breakfast when he was arrested. He was wearing a silk robe and sitting in the flower hall, with four small dishes, a bowl of chicken porridge, and a basket of crab roe buns in front of him.

When the imperial guards kicked open the door, he still had a steamed bun between his chopsticks and hadn't swallowed the porridge in his mouth. When he saw the armored soldiers rushing in, his face changed, but he still insisted that he was a legitimate merchant, that he was innocent, and that he wanted to see the prefect.

The imperial guards didn't waste any words with him. Two of them grabbed his arms on either side and dragged him up from the chair. His feet, clad in soft-soled satin shoes, scratched two long, gray marks on the blue brick floor, like two dying snakes.