294: Chapter 294 Problems Found

The heavy snow had stopped. On the roofs of the police cars parked in the yard of the Heishi Town Police Station, a thick layer of white snow had accumulated.

In the corridor outside the interrogation room, cold wind drilled through the cracks in the iron door. In the corner, over a dozen men wearing tattered cotton-padded jackets and military overcoats squatted in a row, their breath mingling into a cloud of white mist.

On New Year's Eve, instead of staying home to keep watch, they had gathered in an abandoned brick kiln outside the village to roll dice, only to be caught in a single swoop.

Police Chief Zhao Gang pushed open the door of the interrogation room and walked out, holding a stack of newly completed transcripts.

"Chief, I've questioned them all," Deputy Police Chief Li Sanqiang said, walking over with a police baton. "This bunch is stubborn. They all insist they just gathered to get into the festive spirit, winning or losing a few dollars, and refuse to admit it was a gambling den."

Police Chief Zhao Gang didn't respond. He walked over to a man squatting at the very end.

This man's cotton-padded jacket was riddled with holes, revealing the gray-black cotton inside. His hands were tucked into his sleeves, his entire body curled into a ball.

"Gathering for the New Year's spirit?" Police Chief Zhao Gang looked down at him. "How much money do you have in your pocket?"

The man mumbled a number: "Two hundred."

Police Chief Zhao Gang turned his head and said only one word to Deputy Police Chief Li Sanqiang: "Search."

Two police officers stepped forward and yanked the man up.

The pocket of his outer jacket indeed contained only two hundred yuan in loose bills.

One officer reached out and squeezed the lining of the man's jacket, his movements freezing.

"Rip."

The officer used a letter opener to pick the stitches, and a plastic bag warmed by body heat fell out.

Opening the plastic bag, it wasn't money inside, but a dozen IOUs with red thumbprints.

The slips of paper were yellowed and cut into perfect squares.

Police Chief Zhao Gang picked one up to look.

The loan amounts ranged from five thousand to twenty thousand, and clearly written at the bottom were the terms: Daily interest of 3%, doubling if overdue.

Police Chief Zhao Gang recognized some of the names of the borrowers; several were miners working in the Heishi mining area, and others were villagers from South Street who had just received the Town Government's Spring Festival relief funds.

The meager survival money the common people had just received was immediately targeted by an underground bank.

Deputy Police Chief Li Sanqiang walked over, carrying a mud-caked tin box from the trunk of a police car.

"Chief Zhao, the brothers dug this out from a crack in the wall at the brick kiln."

Using a crowbar to pry open the latch of the tin box, a musty smell wafted out.

Lying inside the box was a hard-covered handwritten ledger with four characters written in black marker on the cover: "Spring Festival Turnover Fund."

Opening the pages, it was densely recorded with lenders, borrowers, interest collection dates, and collection progress.

The further one flipped, the larger the numbers became.

The capital flow at the end of the ledger didn't point to individuals, but to several newly registered engineering service companies and logistics consulting firms in Qingjiang County.

A few dice games in the countryside were actually connected to shell companies in the county seat.

"Deputy Secretary Qin Yuanshan's old subordinates," Police Chief Zhao Gang said, recognizing the background of one of the companies. "The leader of the lending ring is called Wang San. I'll take my people back to investigate and root out this gang's nest tonight."

At the Heishi Town Government, in the Deputy Secretary's office on the second floor.

The tea leaves in the white porcelain cup on the desk had already settled at the bottom.

Zhu Wenhao sat behind the large desk, listening to Police Chief Zhao Gang's report, and picked up the hard-covered ledger, flipping through it casually.

He closed the ledger and tossed it to the corner of the desk.

"Going to arrest a few errand boys will only startle the snake, and this ledger will become waste paper," Zhu Wenhao said, his voice steady.

Police Chief Zhao Gang pulled out the chair opposite and sat down: "Secretary Zhu, this interest rate is predatory. It's the New Year; the little money the common people have will be sucked dry by them."

"Governing a country is like cooking a small fish; the same applies to governing a locality. The pain is in the skin and flesh, but the root is in the bones," Zhu Wenhao leaned back in his chair. "Do you think this underground bank really cares about the few thousand yuan in interest from the common people?"

Police Chief Zhao Gang was stunned.

"Underground banks specifically choose to lend before the holidays; what they are after isn't the money at all," Zhu Wenhao tapped his finger on the desk. "What they are after is the anxiety in the villagers' hands."

During his sixty-year reign as emperor, Zhu Wenhao had seen plenty of methods used by powerful families and corrupt gentry to annex land.

Lending at high interest was never about collecting interest, but about making people unable to repay, eventually using their indentures and land to settle the debt.

Once the common people lost their economic independence, they could only rely on the powerful.

"The common people just received the government's relief funds and the back pay from the mines; this small amount of money cannot satisfy the appetite of the big bosses behind the scenes," Zhu Wenhao analyzed clearly. "They use high-interest loans to trap these poor people. By next spring, these villagers who cannot clear their debts will be the henchmen they can command at any time."

"Today they can make them block the entrance of the Town Government, and tomorrow they can make them cause trouble at construction sites."

"This is using the lives of the poor to cultivate their own power."

As the words were broken down, Police Chief Zhao Gang felt a chill run down his back.

Deputy Secretary Qin Yuanshan had lost power in the county; this was an attempt to re-cultivate henchmen in the soil of Heishi Town.

The door was pushed open.

Director Xu Jie walked in with the duty log for the night and stood before the desk.

"Director Xu Jie," Zhu Wenhao turned his head. "Pull up a new list of all the recipients of the Spring Festival relief funds in the town, along with the list of those who received back pay from the mining area."

"Tomorrow morning, arrange for village cadres and resident officials to visit each household according to the list, focusing on the impoverished households who received money, and see if they have purchased any goods for the New Year."

Zhu Wenhao issued the order: "If anyone takes the money and then turns around to take out a high-interest loan, the village committee must intervene in person and cut off the path of the high-interest loans. The rice bowls of the common people must not be broken."

Director Xu Jie picked up a pen and took notes: "I will go and arrange the personnel for coordination immediately."

Zhu Wenhao looked back at Police Chief Zhao Gang.

"Have you found out the background of that 'Wang San' in the ledger?"

"I checked the communication records," Police Chief Zhao Gang handed over the record sheet. "The number ends in six eights. This number appeared on the periphery of Ma Yunlong's mining area a while ago. The person is Wang San, who used to drive for Deputy Secretary Qin Yuanshan and was a henchman who helped him handle dirty work."

"The thread is connected," Zhu Wenhao pressed the record sheet under a paperweight.

Deputy Secretary Qin Yuanshan's hand had ultimately reached into the dark night of Heishi Town.

"The people cannot be moved yet, but the thread must be followed downward," Zhu Wenhao decided on the plan.

"Have Deputy Police Chief Li Sanqiang change his outfit, disguise himself as a mining contractor in urgent need of money, and make contact with Wang San's gang."

Deputy Police Chief Li Sanqiang was an old hand, stained with the ways of the underworld; he was the most suitable for this undercover work of fishing for information.

"What do you want him to investigate?" Police Chief Zhao Gang asked.

"Find out which pot this 'Spring Festival Turnover Fund' is ultimately flowing into," Zhu Wenhao's eyes were clear. "Underground banks lend money, and funds need to circulate. There is a bigger client behind Wang San coordinating this money. Follow the money, map out the network underneath, and then wipe them all out in one go."

Police Chief Zhao Gang nodded to accept the order, turned, and left the office to arrange for Deputy Police Chief Li Sanqiang to act overnight.

Sporadic firecracker sounds rang out outside; half of New Year's Eve had passed.

Zhu Wenhao stood by the window.

The Town Government courtyard was empty, and the whiteboard outside stood in the snow.

He watched the tree shadows gently swaying in the wind.

For a new order to be established, these bloodsuckers hiding in the dark must be completely eradicated.

Political maneuvering, in the final analysis, is a struggle for the survival space of the common people.

Whoever can provide stability for the people will be invincible.

Two in the morning.

Police Chief Zhao Gang pushed open the office door again. He was holding a mobile phone in a transparent evidence bag, his steps somewhat hurried.

"Secretary Zhu," Police Chief Zhao Gang walked to the desk and placed the phone on the desktop. "News from Deputy Police Chief Li Sanqiang."

Deputy Police Chief Li Sanqiang had found a pretext, using connections he had made on the streets during past cases, to successfully strike up a conversation with a debt-collection leader under Wang San.

At the drinking table, the leader had one too many and bragged that the capital they had put out for the New Year was quite substantial.

"Deputy Police Chief Li Sanqiang tricked them into revealing the storage location of their original loan capital ledger. He took a photo and sent it over while the guy went to the bathroom," Police Chief Zhao Gang pointed to the phone screen.

Zhu Wenhao tapped the screen to light it up.

The photo was taken in very low light, and the pixels were somewhat blurry.

It was a photocopy of an old bill.

The last line of the bill recorded an entry of two hundred thousand yuan, with the time column marked fifteen years ago.

There was a short note of only four characters at the back.

Zhu Wenhao's gaze fell on those four characters.

"[Old Reservoir Accounts]."

Fifteen years ago, the Yuejin Reservoir project in Liuhe Town was spearheaded by Deputy Secretary Qin Yuanshan.

That old account where Secretary Pang Jianguo of the County Commission for Discipline Inspection had just uncovered a huge capital gap, but suffered from a lack of a closed chain of evidence.

A project payment from fifteen years ago that was thought to have been settled long ago was actually continuing to bear interest in the ledger of an underground bank today.

The capital hadn't been severed; it had transformed into the principal for high-interest loans, circulating in the black market of Qingjiang County.

Zhu Wenhao put down the phone.

This executioner's saber had finally been delivered into his hands.