CHAPTER 46: CHAPTER 45: TAKE THEM DOWN

The people of Qingshui County had never seen such a spectacle before.

An imposing man, clad in jet-black attire and wearing a golden mask, sat proudly on horseback, advancing like a deity descending to the mortal realm.

Behind him were fifty imperial guards, each exuding awe-inspiring presence. Their armor shimmered with dazzling silver light in the sun, swords hung at their waists, and hands tightly gripped iron spears.

No one raised their voice, and no one drove away passersby, yet the townspeople were so intimidated by their aura that they voluntarily stepped aside, allowing them to pass smoothly. The more daring ones, curious about the purpose of these men, simply followed from afar all the way to the vicinity of the government granary in Qingshui County.

The government granary was situated in a secluded area. In front, two government officials who watched over it were idle, one leaning against a pillar, nodding off. The sound of horse hooves awoke them, and they grudgingly opened their eyes.

Once fully awake, seeing the formation before them, they were startled, their drowsiness vanishing instantly as they scrambled up from the ground in a panic.

"Who... who are you?" The two governmental officials, unfamiliar with the Golden-faced Imperial Censor and unaware of Lu Qing’s identity, only saw a man with a fearsome mask and an aura of cold hostility, making them shiver involuntarily.

However, they weren’t entirely oblivious; they recognized the soldiers behind Lu Qing as imperial guards from their attire.

But recognizing them as imperial guards did not ease their anxiety.

While ordinary people might be unaware, these government officials who loaf around the government office certainly knew better.

The current Holy Emperor ascended to the throne through storms of blood and gore, climbing over mountains of corpses and seas of blood, narrowly escaping betrayal by his generals and near failure.

Therefore, after his coronation, he centralized military power, stationed imperial guards across all provinces, balancing their authority with the State Government, and ensuring they only followed the Emperor’s commands.

Mobilizing the imperial guards was no easy task.

Which means, seeing the imperial guard in ordinary times was rare, and seeing them now signified something significant.

Could it be that this significant event is about to fall upon them?

The two officials exchanged uneasy glances, still pondering in their minds when Lu Qing spoke.

With a wave of his hand, he instructed the soldiers behind him, "Seize these two."

The officials were startled, and before they could react, they felt their arms twisted behind their backs and were forced to the ground by the guards; their cheeks pressed to the dirt with no time for any response other than fear and shock.

This commotion caught the attention of other officials within the granary, and soon someone opened the door to check. Seeing the imperial guards outside, they were so alarmed that they forgot about their colleagues pinned to the ground outside and hurriedly tried to shut the door to keep them out.

"Leave ten men to guard the entrance, allow no one within two zhang of the granary door. The rest, follow me in," Lu Qing dismounted and instructed the Centurion.

The Centurion immediately assigned ten guards outside and led the others to break through the doors.

The handful of lazy officials within the granary, neither in numbers nor strength, could match the well-trained imperial guards, and the doors were soon forced open. Soldiers rushed in, rounding up the fleeing officials and waiting for Lu Qing’s judgment. The others lined up in the courtyard, awaiting further orders.

Zhu Yu, who had followed Lu Qing all along, dismounted as well and entered the granary with him.

Ignoring the captured officials, Lu Qing headed straight to the rice storage room with Zhu Yu and the Fu Lu.

The door opened to reveal mounds of bulging grain sacks, seemingly indistinguishable from any typical government granary.

Lu Qing sneered, drew his sword, and sliced open a long slit in one of the sacks.

"Be careful, sir!" One of the guards, alarmed, instinctively moved to intervene.

In his mind, slitting the bottom sack would spill rice everywhere, and the sacks above would collapse for lack of support.

But as he rushed forward, he realized nothing happened.

The tall stacks of grain bags remained unaffected.

Perplexed, he peered into the slit Lu Qing had made and his face changed — instead of rice, the sacks were filled with straw!

"Check this," Lu Qing ordered the guards, "Move all the sacks out. Stack the ones filled with grain in one pile and the empty ones in another."

Soon, the granary inventory was checked, with each storage room similarly examined.

In the courtyard, the pile of straw-filled sacks grew ever larger, while the grain pile was scant and easily counted at a glance.

As more sacks were moved, the guards gained a knack — if a sack was light, it was straw; if heavy, it was grain.

Yet, as they moved a heavy sack, it accidentally split open, spilling a stream of yellow sand onto the ground.

Everyone was shocked; they hadn’t anticipated such a ruse.

Hurrying to inspect past heavy sacks, another pile of sandbags emerged.

Zhu Yu, grasping the situation, mused that the culprits, cautious initially, had swapped the grain for sand of equal weight to avoid detection.

But growing bolder, they opted for lighter straw, easier to bag and stack, bypassing the harder labor sand required.

She recalled hearing "rats as big as buckets in government granaries" as an exaggeration.

Yet, viewing the Qingshui granary and the plush County Magistrate Li Wencai, who remained well-fed despite days without food, she harbored newfound sentiments.

Once all sacks were moved, the Fu Lu and soldiers weighed and verified the scant grain supply.

"Sir, the government granary in Qingshui contains only about a hundred jin of grain," reported Fu Lu, frowning.

Before Lu Qing could respond, two eager guards approached, holding items firmly in hand.

"Sir! We discovered another set of weights and measures inside one storage room," they announced, placing them beside those used earlier, "But... these scales and measures... they aren’t the same size!"