Chapter Forty-Nine: The Hidden Mastermind

Inside the granary of Cliff Mountain, enough grain had been stored to feed the entire bandit stronghold for a whole year; Zhao Hengyi was well aware of this. But what Wang Erhu spoke of as treasure was not grain.

Staring into the cleverly concealed cellar, where copper coins lay scattered across the floor and silver ingots were stacked neatly in boxes, even Zhao Hengyi was taken aback.

Is banditry truly so lucrative?

Besides the silver and coin, various ornaments and gold and silver utensils were casually thrown about the cellar. Clearly, the Cliff Mountain bandits had plundered many households over the years.

He ordered men to haul out the silver and coin from the cellar and carefully tally the amount: together, the copper coins and silver ingots amounted to nearly five thousand taels!

Among those present, even Xing Xiaorong, the steward of the Anyang estate, had never seen such wealth. The boy claimed he had seen even more silver notes before, but the others dismissed it as boastful nonsense and paid him no mind.

Naturally, the silver must be guarded, and Zhao Hengyi had his own plans for its distribution. But it was the wooden chest solemnly presented by One-Eyed Golden Eagle Fang Dayong that Zhao Hengyi regarded with particular importance.

Inside were not only the correspondence between Fang Dayong, the bandit chief, and Huang Xin, the scribe of Anyang County, and Yuan Mei, the chief constable, but also numerous unsigned slips of paper.

These slips were likely Fang Dayong’s true lifeline!

He ordered everyone to clear out Cliff Mountain; all the bandit corpses were carried to the rear slope and burned, while the three brutally slain hostages and the woman who leapt from the stone wall were properly buried. All this took most of the day.

As for Zhao Hengyi himself, he found a quiet room and laid out the letters and slips from the chest, as if playing a game of riddles, trying to decipher the hidden messages behind them.

Among the letters were several requests for Fang Dayong to deal with Elm Bay; just like the letter Zhao Hengyi received at Elm Bay, none bore signatures or dates.

Moreover, in the letters from Scribe Huang Xin to Fang Dayong, the matter of dealing with Elm Bay was also mentioned.

Carefully pondering the content, Zhao Hengyi concluded that Scribe Huang Xin played the role of intermediary.

The one seeking to target Elm Bay and Zhao Hengyi, to seize the new loom technology, had contacted the Cliff Mountain bandits through Scribe Huang Xin!

Before his death, Fang Dayong had claimed to be Huang Xin’s man; this was corroborated by the correspondence. As for his boast of brotherhood with Chief Constable Yuan, it was likely a lie—while there was some exchange of letters, they were few, and it was clear Yuan Mei never truly regarded Fang Dayong.

In a county, aside from the magistrate, the scribe and constable together could sway most affairs of Anyang, and Scribe Huang Xin’s background seemed anything but simple.

Within the correspondence, Zhao Hengyi discovered something critically important!

The Cliff Mountain bandits trafficked people, and more than half were sold to lands occupied by the barbarians!

Selling their own people into slavery for the enemy—this alone was enough to brand Fang Dayong and those behind him as traitors, worthy of utter destruction!

Back in Yonggu City, Song Ying’an had mentioned that many spies were planted by the foreign tribes. Even within the Black Battalion, Zhao Hengyi had sensed something amiss.

Not that spies lurked within the Black Battalion itself, but Zhao Hengyi suspected that, even as the barbarian army approached, some in Yonggu City were passing information to the enemy!

The Cliff Mountain bandits were merely entrenched locally; even if they trafficked people, they lacked the means to deliver them directly to buyers.

The ones responsible for transporting the trafficked people were the true masterminds.

Through those slips—meant to be burned after reading—Zhao Hengyi guessed that even Fang Dayong’s arrival at Cliff Mountain and his eventual rise to chief had been orchestrated by the hidden hand!

Five years ago, the Cliff Mountain bandits had already fallen under the control of the masterminds trafficking people to the barbarian lands. What of the other bandit gangs near Anyang? Were they similarly subjugated?

There were no clear answers. To investigate, there was only one direction: Scribe Huang Xin.

Even if Zhao Hengyi wished to avoid provoking the mastermind, his uprooting of the Cliff Mountain stronghold would not go unnoticed.

Through Scribe Huang Xin, the mastermind had bribed the bandits to target Zhao Hengyi and Elm Bay; though unsigned, the trail vaguely pointed to Jiangling Prefecture.

The mastermind likely hailed from another powerful faction. In a letter to Fang Dayong, Scribe Huang Xin had mentioned that, if the deal succeeded, not only would the Cliff Mountain bandits earn handsomely, but Fang Dayong himself would win the favor of a prominent figure from another group!

It must be said, Zhao Hengyi’s decisive action was precisely the right move!

Had he hesitated, he would have faced mounting pressure from all sides, and the outcome would have been unpredictable.

By directly uprooting the Cliff Mountain bandits, he forced many to tread carefully, generating suspicion and buying himself time for maneuver and further development.

Carefully gathering the letters and slips, Zhao Hengyi hid them close to his body; their contents revealed countless threads and far-reaching connections. He would need to discuss them thoroughly with Steward Song San upon his return.

Cleaning up the foul mess of Cliff Mountain took considerable time. Zhao Hengyi’s men could only prioritize the heavy labor, leaving the lighter chores for the rescued women and children to handle once their health recovered.

As night descended, everyone sat cross-legged around the bonfire, and Zhao Hengyi began distributing the spoils.

Nearly five thousand taels’ worth of silver was handed out, almost entirely divided among those who participated in the assault on Cliff Mountain, regardless of status—everyone received a share!

To all present, this was an astonishing act. The team leader of the ten-man squad who first scaled the stone wall received a full hundred taels for his bravery and effort!

The veteran soldiers each received generous rewards as well. Many who had just joined Zhao Hengyi, yet to earn wages or settlement money, now found themselves minor gentry thanks to their share of the spoils!

With so much silver, everyone felt uneasy, their hands trembling as they accepted their share.

“What is it that you brothers follow me, Zhao Hengyi, through life and death for?” Zhao Hengyi declared in a clear voice, illuminated by the firelight. “To rid the people of evil, to rescue sisters trapped in the clutches of darkness, to steer this world toward a better path—these are grand causes!

But grand causes alone are not enough. We cannot let brothers go hungry and cold, unable to care for their families, relying only on courage and blood to accomplish these things.

Here and now, I, Zhao Hengyi, promise you brothers: follow me, and you shall have both the honor of great causes and tangible rewards aplenty!”