In the riverside pavilion, Tang Xiaobei was still leafing through the grain-merchant dossiers.
Suddenly, one entry caught her eye.
According to the file, the backer of this particular merchant was a powerful clan called the Hou family. More than a hundred years ago, one of their ancestors had been a provincial governor and seized vast tracts of land around Baling Commandery.
After that governor died, the Hou family began to decline.
What really drew Tang Xiaobei’s attention was the final paragraph.
In recent years, the Hou family had attached themselves to the Zhou clan of the capital.
“Go and find out who the Zhou clan’s current representative in Jiangnan is.”
Tang Xiaobei circled the name “Zhou” with her brush.
“Yes, madam!” Yuan Caiwei took the file and left.
As a major water-transport hub, Baling Commandery was a tangle of entrenched interests, far more complicated than Guang Yuan.
The Zhongming team were strangers here and had no idea where to start. They had worked hard, but the results were poor.
Now that Tang Xiaobei had pointed them in the right direction, the team sprang into action.
That very night, they delivered a full report on the Hou and Zhou families to her desk.
When she read that the Zhou clan had recently replaced their Jiangnan representative with one Zhou Jinrong, and that Zhou Jinrong had a son named Zhou Wenyuan, everything clicked into place.
Zhou Wenyuan bore a grudge against Jin Feng, and he was right here in Baling Commandery.
Who was stirring trouble behind the scenes needed no further explanation.
“Zhou Wenyuan is in Baling Commandery. Why is this crucial information only reaching me now?”
Tang Xiaobei looked up at the head of the Zhongming team.
The man lowered his head and said nothing.
The Zhongming team was still too new and lacked proper training; there were many shortcomings in their work.
Tang Xiaobei had no immediate solution. She waved a hand and said, “Never mind. From now on, keep the entire Zhou household under close watch. Report any unusual movement at once.”
“Yes, madam!” the man replied with a deep bow.
“Zhou Wenyuan…”
Tang Xiaobei tapped the table, lost in thought.
After a long pause, she summoned Yuan Caiwei. “I hear Baling Commandery has quite a few scholars who write story-scripts. Find several of them and bring them here.”
Zhou Wenyuan had smeared Jin Feng’s reputation; naturally she would not let him off lightly.
During her time at West River Bend, she had spent every day at Jin Feng’s side and learned a great deal from him.
The two of them had once discussed the art of propaganda warfare and public opinion.
Compared to the methods Jin Feng had taught her, Zhou Wenyuan’s petty tricks were laughable.
That same evening, Tang Xiaobei met several professional story-script writers in a restaurant.
Under the irresistible power of silver, the scholars worked through the night.
Back in the capital, the poems engraved on the black knives and soap boxes had inspired the capital’s storytellers to invent all sorts of tales about Jin Feng.
Tang Xiaobei had found them amusing and asked Luo Lan to collect some copies to send back to West River Bend as bedtime reading.
Now all the scholars had to do was reorganise those popular capital tales to her specifications and add a juicy role for Zhou Wenyuan.
By the next evening, every storyteller in Baling Commandery had a brand-new tale.
It must be said that Tang Xiaobei possessed a real talent for writing military-romance novels aimed at female readers.
In this version, Jin Feng was a towering, handsome great general stationed on the frontier, unmatched in both martial prowess and literary learning, and he had a stunning, talented confidante named Tang Xiaoxiao.
When the Xixia invaded, the general marched to the northern border, turned the tide single-handedly, and sent the once-arrogant Xixia scurrying like rats.
Back home, however, Tang Xiaoxiao caught the eye of a vicious young noble from the capital, Zhou Wenyuan.
The villain coveted her beauty. When his advances were rejected, he colluded with local tyrants in Guangyuan to ruin the Tang family.
The Tang family fell for the plot and was destroyed.
The villain then threatened Tang Xiaoxiao, but she loved the general too deeply to yield. With her maid’s help, she went into hiding.
Far away on the frontier, the general learned of his beloved’s plight and raced home with his troops. At the very spot where they had first met, he found the destitute Tang Xiaoxiao.
Just then the villain arrived with his thugs. Enraged, the general chased the scoundrel hundreds of li through the night, fighting his wicked guards to a standstill on a riverbank.
While the guards held the general back, the villain abandoned them and fled alone, a drowned dog escaping to Jiangnan, where he spread vile lies about the general.
In an age sorely lacking entertainment, the story of a heroic general, a gifted beauty, and a capital villain was irresistibly popular.
Add the deep-seated hatred between Great Kang and the Xixia, and the tale carried its own viral momentum.
At first only the storytellers Tang Xiaobei had paid were telling it, but once others saw how exciting it was and how generously the crowds tipped, they eagerly jumped on board.
With no television or newspapers, storytellers were the most powerful tool for shaping public opinion.
Thanks to them, the people of Baling Commandery performed a complete about-face regarding Jin Feng in just a few days.
“Have you heard? We all wronged General Jin. He really is buying grain to relieve the disaster!”
“Yes, it’s all because of that cur Zhou Wenyuan spreading lies to fool us!”
“Storytellers make things up. Don’t take it as gospel.”
“No, Master Jin’s story is true. My son studies at the academy; his teacher taught him several poems written for us common folk. The teacher said General Jin composed them himself.”
“You mean ‘Hoeing millet at noon’? My boy recited that one to me too.”
“The battles are real as well. My cousin fought the Xixia up north and came home this year. I asked him yesterday. General Jin truly led the Iron Forest Army and crushed the Xixia. Every soldier in the north knows it. Ask around if you don’t believe me.”
“Exactly! I checked too. General Jin beat the Xixia so badly they dared not show their faces, yet that cur Zhou Wenyuan slandered him everywhere, deceived His Majesty, and got the general stripped of his post.”
“If General Jin were still on the frontier, the Xixia would have been driven back long ago, and we wouldn’t have to pay so many taxes!”
“That cur Zhou Wenyuan, they say he’s right here in Baling Commandery?”
“Yes, the lame fellow who frequents the Nine Heavens Pavilion, that’s Zhou Wenyuan!”
“So it’s him! Next time I see him, I’ll spit right in his face!”
…
Tang Xiaobei’s tale merely exaggerated Jin Feng’s personal valour and added extra romance; the core of it was true.
When ordinary people asked soldiers home from the northern frontier this year, they could easily separate fact from fiction.
Once they confirmed that Jin Feng had indeed defeated the Xixia, and with all those magnificent poems as evidence, they believed the entire story without reservation.
After all, no ordinary storyteller could compose poetry of that quality.
In no time, Jin Feng became a celebrity in Baling Commandery, his reputation soaring ever higher.
Zhou Wenyuan, by contrast, became in mere days the most notorious villainous young noble from the capital.
A few days earlier he had gloated as people spat at the Jinchuan Chamber of Commerce door; now the tables had turned.
Every day countless citizens passed the Zhou residence and quietly spat toward the gate.
