High Position and Handsome Salary 09

In the imperial palace of the capital, the new emperor frowned at the man brought before him by a eunuch. He glanced at the man, then looked down, flipping through the thick ledger in his hands.

To think that Qingzhou had devolved into such chaos!

To think that such an arrogant faction actually existed within his Great Zhou dynasty!

When the imperial army arrived at the gates of Qingzhou to suppress the rebellion, the city's defenders were utterly bewildered, as were the commoners. Only Fang Zhiyi stood atop the city wall, hurling abuses at the emperor who was personally leading the expedition. Everyone stared at Fang Zhiyi, their eyelids twitching violently.

"Dog Emperor! I'll give you one chance—abdicate and yield the throne to someone more worthy!" Fang Zhiyi drew his sword and pointed it at the cold, stern young man below.

"Attack the city!" The new emperor could no longer suppress his blazing fury.

The defenders of Qingzhou offered absolutely no resistance; they simply could not fathom how they had suddenly been labeled as rebels.

Fang Zhiyi did not resist either and was captured on the spot.

The entire city was thrown into pandemonium. By nightfall, the Qingzhou prison was packed to the brim. The imperial guards arrested people according to a roster, thoroughly ransacking every corner of the city.

"Fang Zhiyi! What on earth did you do?!"

As the prime culprit, Fang Zhiyi was held in solitary confinement. Someone shouted a furious question through the iron bars; they had just been eating hotpot and singing songs, so how were they suddenly thrown into prison?

Fang Zhiyi merely hummed a little tune, his face full of disdain.

Fang Hongyuan never expected that he, too, would be arrested. Upon entering the cell, he saw his two sons, Fang Heng and Fang Yan, sitting dejectedly in the corner.

"Fang Zhiyi! You traitorous son! You took bribes and bent the law, oppressed the commoners, monopolized the markets, and even forged imperial decrees! Your doom is at hand!" Fang Hongyuan knew that Fang Zhiyi was the one who committed these crimes; he figured he himself would be locked up for a few days at most before being released.

"Hold it right there. I never oppressed the commoners. Don't forget, I was the one who hired people to dig the canal, and I was the one who paid to clear the barren mountains. Even the iron mine was... no, wait, that was mined by all of us together."

Fang Hongyuan froze for a moment. "Iron mine?"

He seemed to realize something.

Fang Zhiyi laughed. "You missed a few. I have plenty of crimes: colluding with enemy states, illicitly forging weapons, training a private army..."

"You... you!" Fang Hongyuan finally realized something was terribly wrong. If what Fang Zhiyi said was true, then this was high treason!

"Fang Zhiyi! It was one thing for you to abuse your power and cover up the truth, but why commit treason? Have you lost your mind?!" someone accused.

Fang Zhiyi found this incredibly amusing. Why? Because there were simply too many of them. How else was he supposed to get rid of them all without resorting to such extreme measures?

"Stop stammering. Not a single person sitting here is innocent. You should know that our syndicate keeps a detailed ledger. The smuggling of ironware to enemy states was spearheaded by my two idiot brothers, but none of you can escape your involvement in it. Then there's the matter of illicitly forging weapons..." Fang Zhiyi recounted everything in a leisurely tone. It was only at this moment that everyone suddenly realized the truth: this madman had intended to drag them all down to hell with him from the very beginning!

"Wait, wait a minute, where's Zhang Qi?!" someone suddenly noticed Zhang Qi's absence.

Fang Zhiyi replied leisurely, "I sent him to report us and earn a pardon. Otherwise, how do you think the emperor got here so fast?"

"You absolute madman!"

Fang Zhiyi curled his lip. "I'm mad? It's this whole world that has gone mad."

"Fang Zhiyi, what good does this do you?" Fang Hongyuan asked, still feigning composure.

Fang Zhiyi paused for a moment. "Good? It doesn't do me much good at all. But without all of you, it will do the commoners a whole lot of good."

"Don't listen to him! We were all deceived by him. If we just explain that to His Majesty, we can survive! Fang Zhiyi, you can go to hell by yourself!" someone shouted.

Fang Zhiyi gave him an eerie smile. "I've already had my men plant hidden armor and weapons in every single one of your estates. And those refugees, remember them? They participated in my training, which makes them a private army... Not to mention the military deployment maps of the various provinces that I procured. Oh, right, and Fang Hongyuan—hidden down in your cellar is a dragon robe I had specially tailored just for you..."

Dead silence fell over the prison. Everyone gasped in horror. This bastard had left them absolutely no way out!

Fang Zhiyi scratched his head. "Oh, by the way, as a scholar, I also wrote a letter cursing out eight generations of the emperor's ancestors. Coupled with the charge of high treason, the punishment will likely be the execution of our entire extended families. So, everyone, I'll see you in the underworld."

Immediately, the prison erupted into a chorus of wails and curses. Fang Zhiyi just looked at them and shook his head.

Treason? He actually had the capability to pull it off, but the current emperor was a good ruler, so why would he rebel? Besides, the original owner of his body deserved this ending. He had been too foolish, and it was because of him that the commoners had suffered so much.

Guided by Zhang Qi's testimony, batches of armor were unearthed, along with weapons, military deployment maps, the dragon robe, and that letter viciously cursing the royal family. The new emperor felt as if his temples were going to explode.

Following that was a meticulously compiled list of other crimes committed by the corrupt syndicate led by Fang Zhiyi. Every single misdeed had been neatly documented, saving the emperor a great deal of trouble. It was practically handed to him on a silver platter, ready for immediate conviction!

"Execute them! Execute them all!" the new emperor roared, his heart consumed by fury. He never imagined that Fang Zhiyi could be so brazen. If Zhang Qi hadn't traveled thousands of miles to whistleblow, Qingzhou would have undoubtedly descended into full-blown rebellion!

To provide an explanation to the world and to uphold the absolute authority of the imperial family, they had to be punished with the utmost severity.

The following day, blood flowed like a river outside the gates of Qingzhou. A massive crowd of commoners had gathered to watch. Hearing that the notoriously corrupt official Fang Zhiyi and the local noble families had all been arrested, they clapped their hands and cheered in jubilation.

Every person dragged up to the execution block had legs like jelly. Some screamed about their innocence, some hurled loud curses, and others simply fainted from sheer terror.

Fang Zhiyi's family was saved for last. Leading them was Fang Zhiyi, his head held high and his chest puffed out. Behind him were Fang Yan and Fang Heng, who could barely stand, followed by Fang Hongyuan, whose hair had turned entirely white overnight. He stared blankly at Fang Zhiyi at the front of the line. The previous night, he had a dream—a dream where Fang Zhiyi was the only one who lost his head.

He finally seemed to understand why Fang Zhiyi had done all of this.

But what right did he have? What right did that lowly bastard have to drag the entire Fang family down to their deaths?!

Because Fang Zhiyi was the one being executed, the emperor had personally come to oversee the execution. He locked eyes with Fang Zhiyi from afar. The latter suddenly flashed a smile. The emperor was momentarily stunned—what did this man mean by that?

Was he not afraid?

As Fang Zhiyi's head fell to the ground, a heavy silence descended over everything.

"Your Majesty, we have thoroughly investigated those private soldiers. They are all just refugees who fled from the Northwest. They truly knew nothing of the plot..."

The emperor took one final look at the execution ground and nodded. "Release them. They are nothing but commoners." He needed to use ruthless, thunderous methods to strike fear into the hearts of the corrupt, but he was not a bloodthirsty tyrant either.

"Speaking of which, why exactly was Fang Zhiyi considered a corrupt official?" someone suddenly asked as the crowd of onlookers began to disperse.

"Do you even need to ask? He bought and sold government offices, he extorted people, he... wait, huh?"

A few people fell deep into thought. Come to think of it, ever since Fang Zhiyi began forming his syndicates and cliques, instances of the commoners being oppressed had actually decreased significantly. Instead, the noble families had spent all their time fighting amongst themselves, allowing many ordinary folks to reap the benefits.

"Well, whatever the case, he was just a massive corrupt official!" someone finally concluded.

"Right!"

For his meritorious service, Zhang Qi was rewarded with a titular post by the Emperor. He declined the offer, asking only for permission to collect and bury the remains of Fang Zhiyi. The Emperor agreed. The recent case had implicated countless individuals, leading to the prosecution of several court officials. The wealth and estates confiscated from the guilty amounted to more than the money in the national treasury, leaving the Emperor in an inexplicably good mood.

Once his initial fury had subsided, the Emperor had wondered why Fang Zhiyi, a man of such monumental corruption, would compile all the damning evidence against himself, meticulously recording it item by item and stroke by stroke in a ledger. Was the man insane?

A faint thought began to take root in his mind, but he immediately snuffed it out. Impossible. How could a scoundrel like that be a good man? Regardless, he now had the funds in his hands, and he ought to do something that would benefit the common people.

Having laid Fang Zhiyi to rest, Zhang Qi still remembered the day His Excellency handed him that thick ledger of evidence. His face had shone with a strange brilliance Zhang Qi had never seen before. He still did not understand why His Excellency had chosen to seek his own doom, but he had long cultivated the good habit of obedience.

His Excellency had said that Zhang Qi's life must be preserved, for he was the only person who had ever been friendly to Fang Zhiyi.

Zhang Qi did not fully understand, but he knew that whatever His Excellency asked him to do must have its reasons.

"From the twenty-fifth to the twenty-seventh year of the Jinghe era, the notorious corrupt official, Prefect of Qingzhou Fang Zhiyi, did the only right thing. He hired a massive number of civilian laborers to excavate canals and reclaim barren mountains. Historians analyze that he perhaps only did this to seize more land and smuggle more goods."