The Grand Secretariat's offices.
A figure clad in a Golden Flying Fish Uniform entered the place from which the realm's decrees issued.
The High Ministers were bent over their desks, drafting official correspondence.
They were urging the Beiliang Governor-General and the Northern Liang Garrison Commander to soothe the troops and raise morale at all costs!
The Chief Grand Secretary set down his Wolf-Hair Brush and looked up.
"Commanding Commissioner Jiang, what brings you here?"
Jiang Wuyuan cupped his hands in salute and spoke with feigned nonchalance.
"A trifling matter."
"Jia Huan once entered the Embroidered Uniform Guard through the despicable means of bribery, paying eight hundred taels to an officer surnamed Ge. His intentions were crooked, and he corrupted the order of the court."
In an instant, the offices fell utterly silent.
The ministers exchanged looks.
Did that even count as a blemish?
Pacification Commissioner Jia's record of merit was dazzling. He had truly climbed step by step to become the realm's First Pacification Commissioner.
His entry into the Embroidered Uniform Guard had been a blessing for the state!
A distinguished Pacification Commissioner who had investigated so many major cases and arrested so many princes, dukes, and powerful ministers-and this was the only flaw they could find?
In the past, the court would merely have laughed it off.
After all, the Embroidered Uniform Guard had its own practice of withholding confiscated funds, almost an unspoken ancestral precept. People buying their way into lowly posts were commonplace. In Great Qian's history, two Commanding Commissioners had paid to cross the threshold, then risen on merit until they reached the very pinnacle of the Guard!
But now.
Jia Huan was a disgrace to the state, a foolish, arrogant laughingstock who knew nothing of warfare and had created the shocking scandal of three battles