Hot flashes

When the imperial edict ordering Han Zhang to act as the financial and grain regulator of the seven prefectures of Jiangnan reached Jiangning, it coincided with the first snowfall of the winter.

The snow was light, like fine salt sprinkled on the glazed tiles of the government office, accumulating into a thin layer that melted by dawn, leaving only a few damp streaks on the eaves.

Han Zhang didn't rush to take over the account books and warehouse keys. Instead, he sat in the signing room for an afternoon, sorting out the mess left by Wu Huai Ren from beginning to end.

During his three months in Jiangnan, Wu Huai-ren handled no less than 500,000 taels of silver for disaster relief, allocated more than 200,000 shi of grain, and managed more than 100,000 taels of silver for engineering projects.

The accounts were meticulously prepared, with every transaction documented and supported by evidence, and even the signatures and fingerprints of the people involved were complete.

But Han Zhang had the grain in the warehouse weighed again, stone by stone, and the figures in the ledgers recalculated, one by one. The result left him speechless for a long time—

The grain stored in the warehouse was nearly 40% less than the books showed, and the cash in the treasury was nearly 60% less than the books showed. As for the dikes that were supposedly completed, he had personally inspected them and found that in some places, the foundations were not even solid. When you stepped on them, gravel and soil would fall down like a piece of pastry that was soft to the bone.

He wrote these figures in a secret memorial and sent it to the capital with a trusted confidant. After the memorial was sent out, he began to take action.

Han Zhang summoned the officials in charge of money and grain from various prefectures to Jiangning for a meeting.

He spread out the account books sent by various prefectures one by one on the table, opened them, pointed to the numbers on them, and asked questions about them one by one.

The officials were sweating profusely from his questions. Some stammered and couldn't answer, some gave incoherent answers, and some simply shifted the blame to the already dead Wu Huai-ren, saying that it was all ordered by Lord Wu and that they were just following orders.

After listening, Han Zhang nodded and said, "Alright, since you are acting under orders, write down whose orders you are following and what you are doing, then sign and affix your fingerprints." The officials turned pale.

In less than half a month, five officials in charge of money and grain in the seven prefectures were replaced. The remaining two were not unwilling to be replaced, but simply could not find suitable replacements.

Han Zhang didn't have enough attendants he brought from the capital, so he had to pick a few low-ranking officials from various prefectures who seemed honest enough to fill in temporarily.

When these newcomers arrived at their posts, they found that the ledgers in the warehouse were piled up higher than a person, and the backlog of receipts was enough to fill several sacks. The mess left by their predecessors was like a ball of yarn that had been scratched by a cat, with no end in sight.

The second task was to clear the accounts. Han Zhang brought over all the money and grain account books from the seven prefectures for the past five years and piled them up in several empty rooms in the backyard of the prefectural government office. He then hired more than a dozen experienced accountants to check them day and night.

Most of the accountants were retired officials from various prefectures, and they knew the details of the finances and grain reserves in Jiangnan better than anyone else. Wearing reading glasses, they flipped through account books with one hand and calculated with the other, the clattering sound echoing from morning till night, like the croaking of frogs on a summer night, rising and falling in a continuous chorus.

The verification results were delivered to Han Zhang's desk one by one. Each one was shocking. Of the disaster relief funds handled by Suzhou Prefecture in the past five years, 40% had gone missing.

Thirty percent of the funds allocated for water conservancy projects in Huzhou Prefecture were not used for dike repairs at all; in Songjiang Prefecture, large sums of money were written off annually under the guise of "losses," but the actual losses were less than one-third of what was recorded in the accounts.

The missing silver, the misappropriated grain, and the falsely reported project funds flowed silently underground like underground rivers, eventually merging into a huge, bottomless abyss.

Han Zhang compiled these figures into a long list and sent it to the capital along with the confessions of officials from various prefectures.

The lights in the Qianqing Palace stayed on very late the night the list was delivered.

Early the next morning, the officials from the three judicial departments set off, carrying Xiao Jue's handwritten order, to various prefectures in Jiangnan to interrogate those involved in the case and seize the assets involved.

At the same time, under the pretext of "stabilizing the disaster area," Han Zhang issued an ultimatum to the private armies and fortified villages of various prefectures in Jiangnan.

The ultimatum was written in a very polite manner, stating that the disaster in Jiangnan was severe and that the imperial court needed to concentrate manpower and resources on disaster relief. Private soldiers and fortified villages in various places should cooperate with the imperial court and be reduced by more than half in order to save food and supplies to the disaster area.

The wording was in a consultative tone, but the sentence at the end of the ultimatum, "Those who fail to make a decision by the deadline will be considered to have defied the imperial decree," completely blocked any room for negotiation.

The private armies of aristocratic families in Jiangnan were the accumulated wealth of several generations.

Nominally they were guards, farmhands, and militia, but in reality they were private soldiers.

The Cui family owned a manor outside Suzhou that covered more than 100 acres. The walls of the manor were higher than those of the county town. More than 300 servants lived there, and the manor was fully equipped with knives, guns, bows and arrows, and even several crossbow carts.

The Lu family's estate in Huzhou was even larger, with more than 500 servants who did not engage in production but instead collected rent, demanded debts, and suppressed tenants for the Lu family.

The Zheng family's fortified village in Songjiang was even more extravagant. Built against the mountain and surrounded by water on three sides, it was easy to defend and difficult to attack. The grain stored inside the village was enough to feed 500 people for three years.

Han Zhang visited each of these villages, fortified villages, and farms one by one.

Wherever he went, he would call out the local officials, read out the ultimatum to them, and verify the number of people to be laid off on the spot.

Some of those in charge turned ashen-faced, some sneered and remained silent, and some agreed readily to his face but then sent people to the capital to file a complaint.

Memorials accusing Han Zhang flooded the capital like snowflakes. Some impeached him for "overstepping his authority and oppressing local officials," others accused him of "using disaster relief as a pretext to weaken the power of regional governors," and still others went so far as to say that Han Zhang "harbored ulterior motives and had treacherous intentions." Xiao Jue kept those memorials to himself and did not reply to a single one.