Chapter 9
1159 Words
*Bang.*
The iron padlock shattered under the blade’s hilt.
The heavy double doors swung open.
The stench of age-old mildew mixed with dust filled the air.
Zheng Wantang stepped across the threshold, raising her goat-horn lantern.
Before her lay sacks piled into a small mountain. Stamped on the coarse fabric was the vermilion seal of the Ministry of Revenue.
Three hundred thousand *dan* of grain for the front lines.
She pulled a short blade from her boot.
The tip drove into the bottom of the nearest sack.
Her wrist twisted, ripping upward.
*Crash.*
No heavy thud of fallen rice.
A torrent of dark yellow sand, mixed with blackened, mold-ridden husks, poured out.
It buried her boots in an instant.
Zheng Wantang moved quickly. Blade in hand, she slashed open four more sacks.
Sand.
All sand.
The great granary was an empty shell, its stores stripped clean.
Thirty thousand *dan* of grain meant to buy lives at the front had long since become gold and silver in Zu Ting’s private treasury.
A clatter of hoofbeats broke the night outside.
Horses slipped on the frozen blue stone. A black stallion, foam dripping from its mouth, crashed onto the snow-covered street.
The rider flew from the saddle, tumbling down the stone steps.
His dark iron armor was scored with wounds from blade and axe.
The left shoulder guard was sheared off, flesh and all.
Dark blood spread across the snow.
It was Han Changluan.
He pushed aside the guards who tried to help him. One knee slammed into the snow.
With shaking hands, he pulled an oilcloth packet from his chest—soaked through with blood.
He raised it high above his head.
Inside was a crumpled letter.
No sender. No seal.
Six charcoal characters, written in blood:
*Grain exhausted. No reinforcements. Send help immediately.*
The last stroke cut deep into the paper, where the charcoal had snapped.
Gao Changgong’s hand.
Zheng Wantang took the blood-stained letter. “What happened?”
“Thirty li out of the city, the escort guards fled with the wagons!”
Han Changluan’s eyes were crimson. Each word bled.
“One hundred thousand Northern Zhou troops bypassed Pingyang. They’ve got Zhangzi City surrounded. The governor of Jin Province won’t fight. The western defense line has pulled back.”
“The Prince is cut off. Three days without grain.”
“He has less than eight thousand men. The Emperor’s army is right there, watching, not a single arrow loosed.”
This was not defeat.
This was a hunt, long planned.
Lu Lingxuan and Zu Ting had cut the supply lines from behind.
Gao Wei sat on his dragon throne, watching from across the water.
They were all using the Northern Zhou blade to kill Prince Lanling.
Zheng Wantang tucked the blood-stained letter against her chest. “Back to the mansion.”
---
One incense stick later.
The study.
A half-man-high map of Northern Qi lay spread across the long desk.
Zheng Wantang held a charcoal stick, its tip pressed hard on the position of Zhangzi City.
“Zhangzi City is five hundred li from Yecheng. Changluan rode for two days to reach us.”
“Preparing grain for eight thousand men will take a day. Transport will take six more.”
“That’s nine days.”
“The Prince has already gone three days without supplies. Even if we move now, he must hold his starving city against one hundred thousand men for another twelve days.”
Lin Ruo’s voice trembled. “Princess, we spent everything on the intelligence network. If we try to buy grain on the open market now, Zu Ting will see it. Not a single grain will leave the city. Could we petition the Emperor?”
“He wants Prince Lanling dead.”
Zheng Wantang dipped her brush in ink and crossed out three names on the paper.
Gao Wei. Lu Lingxuan. Zu Ting.
A dead end.
She needed tens of thousands of *dan* of grain by tomorrow.
She needed a private trade route that bypassed the Ministry of Revenue.
Old comrades of the Prince? Men who could barely feed their own families on military pay.
The Prince of Langya, Gao Yan? A young man whose salary barely covered his own guards.
Ink pooled on the paper.
Zheng Wantang’s wrist turned. She wrote three characters.
**Gao Xiaoyu.**
Prince of Henan. The senior clansman. Gao Changgong’s elder cousin.
Lin Ruo shook her head. “That won’t work. The Prince of Henan has claimed illness for months. He never leaves his study. Everyone in Yecheng knows him as a useless prince who does nothing but paint.”
“Claiming illness. Indolent. Useless?”
A mask. A perfect mask.
A man who had watched his father assassinated. Who had watched a mad emperor destroy his wife until she died. He had never fought back. In the grip of absolute terror, he had learned to endure.
Around Yecheng, a third of the hidden estates. The salt trade going south. The furs coming north. All of it flowed through the Prince of Henan’s shadow network.
He had more grain than the imperial treasury.
And he had secret roads out of the city.
“He stays out of the court because this rotting court is not worth his life.”
Zheng Wantang dropped her brush into the water pot.
“But Gao Changgong is.”
Lin Ruo pressed. “Why would he risk his whole clan for us?”
“Because my life is worth nothing too.”
Zheng Wantang turned toward the inner chambers.
When she emerged, her heavy consort’s robes were gone.
She wore plain black—no markings, no rank.
Her hair was bound tight with a plain silver hairpin.
She pulled on a pair of leather gloves, finger by finger. “Lin Ruo.”
“Here.”
“Go to the cellar. Smash the Yue ware celadon. The old pieces. Choose the ones that will make the most noise.”
Zheng Wantang walked toward the door. Wind and snow rushed in.
“Raise a commotion in the front courtyard. Tell them the Prince is without supplies. Tell them I am sick with rage, my illness returned. Summon a physician in the middle of the night.”
“Make enough noise for Zu Ting’s spies to hear.”
Lin Ruo looked at the black hour outside. The curfew was at its strictest.
“Where are you going?”
“To the Prince of Henan’s mansion.”
Zheng Wantang stepped across the threshold, leaving the warmth behind.
“Every day we wait, hundreds die in Zhangzi City.”
She stopped. She did not turn.
“If I am not back by dawn—if you hear I have been taken—”
The wind whipped snow against the pillars of the corridor.
“Tell Han Changluan not to come for me.”
“Tell him to go to the Prince of Langya’s gate. Find Gao Yan.”
- Writer
