Jinghe Year Fifteen, Third Month, Twenty-Ninth Day. Night.
The official vessel sailed north against the current, already a hundred li from Suzhou.
The water spread wide, the river ran deep; the moon hid and the stars sank from sight.
Lamps along the banks grew sparse. The intermittent creak of oars sounded like an old monk striking a chime.
The boat glided soundlessly, with only one lamp burning in its cabin.
Wei Nisheng sat alone inside.
He had taken off his Scarlet Robe and wore only a plain white Inner Robe, with a loose gown draped over it.
His topknot was loosely bound, a Silver Hairpin thrust in at an angle.
All the official bearing of daylight had fallen away, leaving only a quiet weariness.
Spread across the desk before him was the consolidated ledger of silver and cash, several vermilion slips tucked between its pages.
[Total assessed: just over 3,200,000 taels of silver. Equivalent in cash: 4,500,000 strings.]
The sum had not exceeded his expectations.
Far from exceeding them, this figure had circled in his mind for a long time...
So long that even he could no longer remember on which night, beneath which lamp, he had calculated and recalculated it.
From his first day in Suzhou, he had been reckoning.
What proportion of the temple farmland could be taken into government ownership; how much of what He Yanming had withheld over the years could be recovered.
How much could be reclaimed from the inflated procurement costs that had passed through Li Jin's hands.
How much in total could be seized from the merchants' secret accounts.
Over those months, every Military Order, every court hearing, every sealing of a door-
Each and every act had driven toward this sum.
Three million two hundred thousand taels.
Great