That night, Hanhai City was festooned with lanterns and decorations, brimming with joy. Many of the city's residents carried flower lanterns into the streets to celebrate the victory.
During the siege of the prefectural city, everyone had been gripped by panic. Now that the nightmare had passed, every face shone with a joyous smile.
The city's shops also seized the opportunity to throw open their doors, offering discounts and promotions as they celebrated alongside the people.
Yet while tens of thousands of citizens celebrated with abandon, Guard Army Commander Lu Yunfei, acting on Wang Chen's orders, led troops to surround the Prefectural Governor's Mansion and audit the prefectural treasury.
They discovered that the treasury's accounts were in utter chaos. More than half of the military supplies had vanished without a trace, and much of the army's grain consisted of moldy old rice passed off as good grain!
The findings sent Lu Yunfei into a towering rage.
When supplies in the prefectural treasury were embezzled, it normally caused no problems. At most, people would invent pretexts and smooth everything over with a coat of whitewash.
But once a war like the previous one broke out, and the prefectural city was trapped and needed vast quantities of supplies to sustain itself, the situation would become disastrously bad.
Because the enemy had not besieged Hanhai City for long, the problem had not been exposed.
The very thought of it made Lu Yunfei shudder with lingering fear!
After something like this had happened, even without Wang Chen's decree, as Hanhai City's Guard Army Commander, Lu Yunfei had neither reason nor intention to let the matter rest.
Thus, a new slaughter began.
Over the next three days, from the prefectural governor down to minor clerks in the yamen, several hundred corrupt worms were implicated and