The Mad Dog Inspector of the Martial Alliance

Chapter 91 : Pacifying the Western Great Mountain (4)

The bastards' ledgers were not just a mess. They were a complete disaster.

Since the numbers at the front and the numbers at the back were different, there was no way to do any calculations. The ledgers, which couldn't even properly record monetary transactions, only had the form of a ledger and were worse than a child's writing practice book.

Jang So-gil had originally made it his specialty to look at ledgers and calculate taxes. His sense of numbers was unparalleled even in the Embroidered Uniform Guard of the world, to the point where even they would shake their heads and trust him.

But if it was this much of a mess, even Jang So-gil couldn't do anything. As Jang So-gil clicked his tongue, Sect Leader Daltap grinned.

'I don't know for sure, but this guy can't do the calculations because our ledgers are a mess? Then the Embroidered Uniform Guard won't be able to do the calculations either, so I can avoid the collection.'

Jang So-gil, who had read his mind, hit his head with the ledger.

"This is not the time to laugh, thinking you won't be able to collect the taxes, you idiot."

"Ugh, don't call me an idiot!"

"I call you an idiot because you are an idiot. I look at the ledgers and calculate your taxes, and because I do it, the numbers are at least not wrong. They are calculated normally without any omissions. You bastard, do you even know why other people write ledgers?"

"I don't know."

"They write ledgers diligently, put their thumbprints, and stamp them so that they don't get their faces smashed in with taxes. Do you know how the Embroidered Uniform Guard handles it when you organize your ledgers like a mess? Of course you don't. Aigo, you morons. You're holding a memorial service, begging to be killed."

The atmosphere was unusual.

Sect Leader Daltap, glancing sideways, asked.

"H-how does the Embroidered Uniform Guard handle it?"

"They look at your ledgers and pick out a few places that look reasonably okay. And among them, they impose all the taxes based on the five days with the most taxes."

"W-what?"

"You still don't get it even when I tell you like this? Based on the five days when your operating profit was the highest. They charge you taxes as if you had earned that much for the entire period since you opened your business. Do you know what happens then? The taxes will increase by hundreds of times the original amount."

"H-h-h-hundreds of times!?"

The law regarding tax evasion was concise. A person caught evading taxes must first pay the amount of tax they evaded. And according to the judgment of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, an additional fine is imposed, and even if the tax is fully paid, if the fine is not paid, one becomes a slave.

"So you have to pay all the money by any means necessary. But you have no way. Let alone the fine, you don't even have the skill to pay all the taxes..."

"Then what happens to a person who can't pay the evaded tax and can't pay the fine?"

Jang So-gil closed the ledger and shook his head.

"Since you don't know the ways of a merchant, you don't even know the punishment for tax evasion. The crime of insulting the imperial family. And for the crime of treason, three generations of your family will be exterminated."

"Hiiiiiik-! What are you talking about! Treason, what treason have I committed!"

"If the country is a person, money is blood. If blood stagnates, it rots. So it has to keep circulating around the body so that it doesn't rot. But what happens if you bastards don't pay taxes? The blood that should be circulating and circulating stagnates in your storehouses and rots. That is an act of trying to ruin the country, so it's only natural that it's a crime of treason."

"No, no. That was not my intention! I just, I just didn't organize the ledgers."

"I know. From the looks of it, a fist-fighter who doesn't even know how to properly organize a ledger heard something somewhere and created a ghost sect. He ran an inn, held gambling dens, and gathered money by transporting liquor and such."

"That's right!"

"But something like that is not very important to the Embroidered Uniform Guard. You stupid bastard, you lacking bastard. Organizing a ledger is not something you do for the good of others, but something you do to secure your own survival. Why didn't you bring in a general manager who was good at looking at ledgers and do business? Tsk, tsk. A martial artist who clumsily imitates a merchant won't live to his full life."

Jang So-gil closed the ledger and narrowed his eyes.

"A merchant who knows nothing about martial arts but somehow obtains a manual, if he reads and practices it alone, he will die from qi deviation. The same goes for a martial artist. If you act like a merchant without knowing anything, you will die."

"Great person! Great person! Can't you do something?"

He prostrated himself and bowed his head. The pronoun that had been 'this bastard, that bastard' had at some point changed to 'great person'.

The sight of him finally grasping his situation was not bad. The ruffians, who were hitting their heads on the floor in succession with a 'kung, kung, kung' sound.

The sight of the fellows, who were tied up tightly with a rope like dried corvinas, orderly burying their heads was truly a good sight to see, and Jang So-gil let out a chuckle.

"What do you want me to do?"

"Couldn't you write the ledger for us?"

"Falsifying a ledger is a grave crime in itself. Who are you bastards that I should take such a risk?"

"Th-then if you could just let it go once..."

"So I've been saying from before, why should I do that? These morons, since their three generations are about to be exterminated, they're trying to grab onto anything like a lifeline, but if I had to choose, I'm not your lifeline, but the axe that smashes your heads. I'm not the Maitreya Buddha who has come to save you, but the King of Hell who has come to catch you."

"Great person! Please!"

"Tell that nonsense to the Embroidered Uniform Guard."

Of course, it wouldn't work at all. The Embroidered Uniform Guard had also staked their lives on this matter.

In the first place, if they had failed to expose these guys and prove the charge of tax evasion, it couldn't have been helped, but now, Jang So-gil had cleaned up everything cleanly.

He had set the table, laid out the dishes, and even provided the spoons and chopsticks, and they couldn't eat this? The three generations of the Embroidered Uniform Guard in charge would be on the verge of being exterminated on charges of colluding with the tax evaders.

They would have tried to impose the maximum fine with all their might and slaughter them all, but there would have been no case of letting them live.

'These fellows won't live long.'

Thinking so, Jang So-gil turned his gaze. Those who had given up resistance, like the sect leader of the Yeosang Mun, were not even tied up in ropes. Since they had a knack for business in their own way, they were busy calculating the taxes and fines they had to pay, counting on their fingers.

They had to sell not only their relatives but also the friends of their in-laws' eighth cousins to survive. Since their lives were on the line, everyone's eyeballs were rolling around without rest.

Those who were wailing in despair and those who were busy trying to figure out how to survive.

Ye-er, who was orderly arranging them.

Leaving everyone behind, Jang So-gil put his hands behind his back and looked up at the sky.

"It's high, so high."

The sky was high. It was the season when horses got fat.

Autumn was the season of harvest and the season of blessing, but the winter that would come after it was a season with not a single good thing.

Jang So-gil had intended to conclude this matter before winter came. With this incident, the imperial family's tax revenue had to increase and their storehouses had to be filled.

The eccentric Emperor Yongle wanted a northern expedition. No matter how messy the current imperial finances were, he wanted war.

The fact that the remnants of the Yuan were alive and breathing was in itself an act of disloyalty to the Son of Heaven.

So his choice was one. A harsh additional tax collection that squeezed the ten thousand people of the world.

But a harsh tax collection would starve the common people. The coming winter was a harsh season for those who had nothing.

"Fortunately, I was able to make it in time."

A considerable amount of time had passed since he had chosen the shameful act of fleeing from Sichuan. Until now, the grand scheme that Jang So-gil himself had laid out had fallen into place.

No, on the contrary, the result was several times better than what he had predicted alone in his small room. The joining of Yang Gwan and Ye-er, and the cooperation of Sima Hui were things that were not originally in his calculations. The trip to Yunnan itself was not in his plan, so it was the same.

And yet, the fact that the result was good was due to Jang So-gil's own efforts, but he could not deny that he had been lucky.

"How long will this luck continue?"

Luck is seven, skill is three.

It meant that in achieving a great cause, what was needed was seven parts luck and three parts skill.

He had the three parts skill. Until now, the seven parts luck had also followed.

But it would not always be lucky and convenient.

There was no such thing as lifelong good fortune.

Doing one's best did not always produce the best results.

It was about time he tripped over a stone and fell.

Jang So-gil, feeling anxious, put the short pipe to his mouth. And he habitually looked for Yang Gwan, but he was not there. It was because he had been left behind with a shattered knee.

Jang So-gil, vowing to pour out curses on him first when he returned, fumbled for a tinderbox and lit the short pipe.

As he inhaled the smoke of the medicinal herbs that calmed the mind, which was recorded in the Sima Collection Record, peace settled in his mind and body.

Letting out a white smoke with a 'hooo-', Jang So-gil muttered.

"It'll work out somehow."

One could not live just looking at the sky, fearing that it would fall.

He would just prepare so that he could overcome it even if luck did not follow.

"Then I should hand over the data to the Embroidered Uniform Guard and prepare to go back."

All the groundwork had been laid.

Jang So-gil, thinking of the future, had reduced the room for the Huashan Sect to intervene with the words 'loyalty and righteousness'. And he had planted the seeds of distrust among the merchant guilds of the Western Great Mountain.

Since the local merchant guilds could not collude with each other and were rather monitoring each other to bring each other down and denouncing corruption. In the future, the entire Western Great Mountain would not be able to act as if tax evasion were a natural right.

From now on, it was the work of the Embroidered Uniform Guard.

Jang So-gil's work in the Western Great Mountain was coming to an end.

* * *

The Embroidered Uniform Guard was originally a secret group created by Emperor Taizu Hongwu, Zhu Yuanzhang. They were called the 'Gold-Clad Guard' because they wore golden clothes, and also the 'Brocade-Clad Guard' because they wore brocade clothes. And they were also called the 'Forbidden Army' because they guarded the king or the emperor.

In contrast to the fact that the head of the Eastern Depot had been a civil official for generations, the head of the Embroidered Uniform Guard was a military official. They had the powerful authority to dispose of those judged to be the emperor's enemies as they pleased. And in contrast to the Eastern Depot, which moved in the shadows as a 'for external use only' secret, they were the emperor's military force that was completely revealed on the surface.

So when the Embroidered Uniform Guard appeared, the common people, even if they had no crime, had to kneel, put their hands and head on the ground, and prostrate themselves, trembling in fear.

Such an Embroidered Uniform Guard had appeared in the Western Great Mountain. And hundreds of them at that.

They ran through the villages of the Western Great Mountain, wearing black-dyed spears and flying flags with dragons embroidered on them, symbolizing the emperor's authority.

The common people, with fear, could not even bat an eyelash and watched them.

A group of the Embroidered Uniform Guard entered a store. A moment later, a wailing sound spread from inside, and soon the store owner was dragged out by his hair.

The Embroidered Uniform Guard, who had entered a blacksmith's shop, aimed their spears at the blacksmiths and drove them all out. They checked the ledgers, and a few civil officials who were good at calculations flicked their abacuses and calculated for three days and three nights.

Until then, the blacksmith and the blacksmith shop owner were tied up in ropes and paraded around. So the common people, guessing that a big incident had occurred in the Western Great Mountain, trembled in fear.

A few days later, severed heads were hung up here and there in the marketplaces of the villages of the Western Great Mountain, and official documents listing their crimes were posted.

"People of the Western Great Mountain, listen-!"

So-and-so, with the status of a secular disciple of the Huashan Sect, had founded a secular sect. But he had later abused the privilege granted by His Majesty and had run an inn without paying any taxes.

So-and-so, a cloth shop, so-and-so, an escort agency. Every time the Embroidered Uniform Guard shouted, a group of people was dragged away.

The appearance of the criminals was very familiar to the common people. It was because they were all local powerful people who were said to be something in the neighborhood.

"Tax evasion?"

"T-tax evasion, you say?"

To think that the cause of this commotion was tax evasion. The common people, who were illiterate and could not read the official documents of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, looked at each other in bewilderment.

Then, among them, a person who knew how to read and knew some tax law nodded his head and explained to the others.

"If it's tax evasion, it's worthy of the extreme punishment."

"No, is it natural to die just for being a little behind on taxes?"

"If one has intentionally been in arrears with taxes for a long time, it is right to exterminate their three clans for the crime of treason. This is a matter stipulated by the law of the Great Ming, so it is an undeniable fact."

To think that it was natural to be beheaded just for not paying some taxes. The crowd murmured in fear of the situation where the heads of familiar people were cut off and hung up.

But it did not take that long for that atmosphere to be reversed.

(End of Chapter)