The Mad Dog Inspector of the Martial Alliance

Beggars are everywhere. There are beggars in the bustling Beijing, in Chang'an, and in Luoyang. Needless to say, the same goes for Yunnan. Yunnan, where slash-and-burn farmers, mixed-blood children of southern barbarians, wanted criminals, and runaway slaves gather, is literally crawling with beggars. In terms of numbers, it's a place with so many beggars that it could even overwhelm Kaifeng, the holy land of the Beggars' Sect. That place is Yunnan.

If maintaining public order could be achieved by numbers alone, there would be no place more suitable than the Beggars' Sect. Sima Hui acknowledged that point and nodded his head, and pointed out the shortcomings because he knew them.

"Is there anyone more useless than beggars who can't unite? There is no focal point for the beggars in Yunnan. I heard there isn't even a Three-Knot Beggar."

"Why not?"

"First, because it's too far from Kaifeng, and second, because they don't think of Yunnan as the land of the Central Plains. There isn't even a branch leader here. Why? Because Yunnan is excluded from the world of the martial world and the imperial family. It would be right to say it's not even in their consideration."

"Not in their consideration..."

"There are countless people who don't even know of Yunnan's existence."

The reason beggars are called beings who are everywhere and nowhere is because they are everywhere due to being beggars, but they are not treated as human beings due to being beggars.

How would they, who don't even know how to read, know about the world outside the Central Plains? How would they know that there are beggars like them in the land of Yunnan?

"Will such people really be of help to Yunnan?"

"It's not a matter of whether they will be helpful or not."

"Then?"

"We have to make them helpful."

"That's a rather arrogant statement. Even though the Beggars' Sect belongs to the Martial Alliance, the Nine Sects One Union is not in a relationship where they unilaterally receive orders from the Martial Alliance in the first place. You can't just order them around as you please."

It was a structural problem of the Martial Alliance, an alliance formed by the union of the Nine Sects One Union and the Five Great Clans. Looking at its inner workings, each of the Nine Sects One Union sends one elder to gain voting rights. Each of the Five Great Clans sends one military advisor to support the Alliance Leader.

"Ten elders and five military advisors. Now that Diancang has been annihilated, it will be fourteen. If they don't receive their support, even the Alliance Leader has no choice but to take a step back. Even if you suddenly order the Beggars' Sect to take charge of Yunnan's public order, there's no way they'll follow."

Sima Hui was very negative about the Beggars' Sect's intervention. On the contrary, Jang So-gil thought this way.

"The Beggars' Sect will follow the opinion we present as it is."

"The basis for that?"

"Because it's the Beggars' Sect."

"...Can't you explain it at length?"

"Alright. To put it at length, it's like this. The Beggars' Sect has made two big mistakes this time."

"Two, not one?"

He could guess one. The misconduct of the Three-Knot Beggar of Luoyang, Do Jibaek. But he didn't know the second one.

Jang So-gil stealthily took Sima Hui's folding fan from the desk and covered his mouth. It was a very annoying sight.

"Think carefully. Don't you know?"

"I asked you to explain it at length, not to be cheeky."

"It's simple. Didn't the rest of the Nine Sects One Union move very busily because of this Diancang Sect incident?"

"They did."

The Nine Sects One Union moved, taking Diancang as a negative example and Hengshan as a positive one. They turned the debts they had incurred so far over to the sect, set up a repayment plan, and went to the Alliance Leader with their heads held high and admitted their mistakes. When they asked for punishment and even provided some funds, the Alliance Leader gladly forgave them.

And then, the Beggars' Sect showed an incredibly radical movement. Those who called themselves heroes came with the dog-beating staffs they used to beat dogs, wrapped the elder of the Beggars' Sect in a straw mat, and beat him to death. It meant that since he had sullied the honor of the beggars, he had to pay with his death.

"I heard that one branch of the Beggars' Sect was disbanded and dragged away."

"That is so. Is there a mistake in the Beggars' Sect's handling of this matter?"

"No. The mistake is something else. It's that they couldn't participate in this subjugation of the Diancang Sect."

When the Beggars' Sect has to take any big action, everyone from the Five-Knot Beggars to the Eight-Knot Beggar, who is the sect leader, gathers and decides the policy through a majority vote.

Depending on the agenda, it requires a unanimous vote, so the decision-making is slow. Too slow.

"By the time the meeting was over, the ship had already sailed, and the Diancang Sect was annihilated. Those who prided themselves on being heroes had blown their chance to restore their honor. This is the second mistake."

"I see, so you're suggesting we extend a hand to them first."

"That's it. We're giving them something to do. The purpose is good, and the situation is good right now."

In fact, in terms of proportion, there were many righteous heroes among the masters of the Beggars' Sect, as befitting an orthodox sect. If they weren't such people, they would often break the rules of the beggars and be beaten to death or become criminals before becoming masters, so in a way, it was only natural.

As Jang So-gil had said with contempt before, there were fake beggars who learned martial arts and wielded the power of the Beggars' Sect, and there were people like Do Jibaek, but that was because the number of Beggars' Sect disciples was very large. Since there were over a hundred thousand beggars belonging to it, it was impossible for there not to be any deviants.

"For the beggars of Yunnan, for the ten thousand people of Yunnan. Maintaining public order with the power of the beggars. Isn't it a beautiful story straight out of a painting? If they can't do anything when we've laid out the stage for them to be active like this, they're not beggars, they're cripples."

"It's certainly a story that the heroes of the Beggars' Sect would like. The possibility is high. Entrusting the public order of Yunnan to the Beggars' Sect and we provide support..."

"That's right. We just need to support the Beggars' Sect. We just need to slightly block Sichuan's intervention and break the honeymoon relationship between the Dali Ye Clan and the Beast Palace. Then the Beggars' Sect will put down its second root in Yunnan."

"A second root... Ha."

In the past, there was also a branch of the Beggars' Sect in Yunnan. Because as they said, beggars are everywhere.

But that branch was disbanded after being caught up in the war waged by the first emperor of the Ming Dynasty, Hongwu, to conquer Yunnan, which was ruled by the remnants of the Yuan Dynasty.

Even now that the Yongle Emperor has taken power, succeeding the generation, there are still remnants of the Yuan Dynasty in Yunnan. That's why it's not treated as part of the Central Plains, and no new branch leader is appointed.

In the midst of that chaos, the Great War against the Demonic Cult broke out. With the soldiers of the Beast Palace coming up from the Southern Man and the forces of the Demonic Cult stirring, they couldn't be building a branch of the Beggars' Sect. Thus, Yunnan was forgotten from memory.

"But now, if we request it, a justification is created."

It was certainly a decent plan. It was more rational than watching the expansion of the Sichuan Tang Clan's power, than neglecting the stirring of the Dali Ye Clan, than supporting the unorthodox sect group called the Eight Sects, and than pouring funds into the Changzhe Sect without a plan.

The necessary budget would also be reduced, and the fact that they could reconcile with the Beggars' Sect, which had a politically delicate relationship, was also attractive. It was also possible to restrain the Beast Palace. Above all, the people could be helped. At this rate, it was a brilliant move that couldn't be faulted even if one tried, so Sima Hui kept his mouth shut.

"How about it?"

Jang So-gil smiled annoyingly and opened his folding fan. How much more annoying was it to see the fellow who had been bleeding from his nose until yesterday make such an expression. Sima Hui snatched the folding fan with a telekinetic grab. Then Jang So-gil, as if waiting for an answer, bent his body and brought his ear close. Sima Hui suppressed the urge to punch him because he was so annoying and said.

"I will accept the inspector's proposal and proceed with it as it is. So please, just get rid of that annoying expression."

* * *

Sima Hui's work continued, and the officials of the Martial Alliance moved busily. Goods, transport, calculation, prediction, execution. There was a mountain of things to do, so they had no choice but to move busily. And the person who was scurrying around and poking his nose into everything even more than them was Jang So-gil.

"My goodness, are you going to work only today and quit? The wooden slips go one, two, three, and then five. Did you sell off fou because it's unlucky? Or do you not know that four comes after three? I don't know how you became a scholar. The data is missing, so do it again, and get a grip."

He pointed out the work.

"Ah, that's not how you sell sleepers."

He pointed out the commerce.

"I don't know why you sold to a cheap place and bought food from an expensive place. Do you have a lover or a friend in this village? Did you receive a bribe?"

"Wow, shit. You really took a bribe? What's this jewelry? You're buying an amber necklace on your salary? You want to die?"

"Gwan, drag this bastard out. Take him straight to Brother Hui and have him punished."

He caught a corrupt official who had taken a bribe.

"The escort agency in charge of transporting rice to Nan Yue. As far as I know, it's a very small escort agency. Can it handle one thousand five hundred sacks of rice? It can? What it can handle is embezzlement and the bribe you took, you son of a bitch. Gwan, drag this bastard out too."

"Hey, if a gold ingot pops out of the drawer in plain sight, you're trying to pick a fight with me, right? Gwan, drag this bastard... No, I'll take care of this bastard myself. Come here, you punk!"

The inspector appeared here and there as if he had ten bodies and poked his nose into everything, and his appearance was like a hornet tearing down a beehive. With the spirit of one against a thousand, he brushed off the timid resistance of the bees and beat the officials with punishments like a thick hornet's stinger. The bees would curse the inspector whenever they gathered, and as much as they cursed, they feared the inspector.

But it was also true that the work went well because Jang So-gil ran wild and roasted the officials. The plan was going well with only half of the originally planned budget, and there were no minor problems, to the point of being bewildering.

Sima Hui let out a long sigh.

"I didn't know there were so many thieves. No, I gave them a job, why is the guy who received the job giving that job to someone else?"

"That's called subcontracting."

"Subcontracting?"

"If the money we give is a hundred, they first receive the job and then sell that job to another organization for fifty. Then in the end, they don't do the work and just by passing it on, they have fifty left over, don't they?"

"Then if there's someone who works for fifty, we don't need to give a hundred, do we? Why does that work?"

"Well, a high-ranking person like you, Brother, doesn't know that fifty is enough in the field. It's something only the guy who reports to you, Brother Hui, knows. Then will that guy report properly? If he tells the subcontractors, 'Hey, out of the fifty, thirty is mine,' he gets thirty taels for free, why would he report properly? They think of ways to make money by adding a little bit at each stage like this."

Sima Hui's sigh grew longer.

"I'm a blind man with my eyes open. It wasn't just one or two guys taking a cut."

"The officials take a cut, the escort agency takes a cut, the government office takes a cut, and the merchants take a cut, so it's a neighborhood party. What if for a job that can be done for fifty taels, you give a hundred taels, and the guys who are supposed to do the work with that fifty taels give a subcontract of a subcontract of a subcontract and use only ten taels?"

"It's like handling a job that should be done with fifty taels with ten taels, so there will be problems."

"That's why they get robbed by bandits while transporting goods, and to make up for what was robbed, they have to do another operation, so even though it's a job that could be finished with fifty taels, hundreds of taels are spent."

"I see very well why the Alliance Leader sent you here. The job of an inspector was a very important one."

"I'm so glad you understand. In that sense, can I beat up the son of a bitch who was holding the gold ingot we caught yesterday?"

"That fellow is a scholar of the Namgung Clan, and he's a hometown younger brother that Clan Head Namgung cherishes. Let the Namgung Clan handle it."

"I was asking for permission after already beating him up..."

"..."

"Please take care of the aftermath, Brother."

Jang So-gil ran away.

Sima Hui's sigh grew even longer.

"Ah, that complete scoundrel..."

(End of Chapter)