Chapter 20
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 20
Chapter Title: Crushing the Embezzler
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A day later, the meeting began.
The staff officers lined up around the long table.
Most were in their thirties or forties. Faces hardened by experience on the battlefield.
Their gazes turned toward me.
Not curiosity, but skepticism.
I sat at the end of the table.
The chair was too big. My feet didn't touch the floor.
Someone had deliberately not prepared a smaller one.
Lize stood behind me, scribbling something on a piece of parchment.
Celine perched on the windowsill. In cat form. Her blue eyes slowly scanned the meeting room.
Valerius stood at the head of the table.
"Then let's begin."
He started the briefing standing up.
Looking down at me.
"Three thousand from the Kuman Tribe are moving east."
"Is the invasion confirmed?"
"Not yet. But they could cross the border at any time."
"Enemy composition?"
"Cavalry-heavy. It's a threat."
A few staff officers nodded.
Normally, this would be where it ended with something like, "Understood. Prepare accordingly."
But.
Since they were ignoring me, I couldn't help but get pissed off too.
"Cavalry-heavy... Is it a high proportion of archer cavalry? Or charging cavalry?"
Valerius's eyebrow twitched faintly.
"...We're confirming."
"Movement speed?"
"Fast."
"How many kilometers per day?"
Valerius's brow furrowed.
"...We're confirming."
One staff officer coughed softly.
I pressed on.
"Food supplies?"
"...A threat."
"I'm not asking if it's a threat—give me numbers. The Kuman Tribe uses a mobile supply system. What's the scale?"
Valerius opened his mouth, then closed it again.
The other staff officers averted their eyes.
"How much grain do we have?"
"...Sufficient."
"In terms of per-soldier daily consumption, how many days' worth?"
"Approximately..."
"Not approximately—exact figures."
Valerius glanced at the staff officer beside him. The man bowed his head.
"Hand over the supply ledger."
"...We'll prepare it by tomorrow."
"Why tomorrow?"
"It needs organizing..."
"Shouldn't the supply ledger always be up to date?"
"...My apologies. We'll prepare it as quickly as possible."
"I'll give you one hour."
"...Pardon?"
"We'll reconvene in one hour. Have the supply ledger, troop deployment charts, and precise intel on the Kuman Tribe ready by then."
Valerius's face stiffened.
The staff officers stirred uneasily.
Someone muttered softly.
"All that in one hour..."
"It's not about preparing it in one hour—it's about it already being prepared!"
My voice nearly cracked. Still a boy's voice before puberty, but it filled the room just fine.
"My apologies. But we'll have it ready by tomorrow."
"Cut the crap. Have it in one hour."
I stood up abruptly. My feet not reaching the floor made getting down from the chair a bit comical, but there was no helping it.
The staff officers rose one by one and saluted.
Formalities.
But no one dared ignore me outright.
Just a parachuted-in commander?
Whether in my past life or this one, a parachuted superior is always tougher than a regular one.
Parachuted.
In other words, someone with solid backing.
Who am I?
The bastard son of the duke's favored concubine.
Of course, she wasn't one to lavish special treatment on me just for being her son, but outwardly, that's how it was known.
I left the meeting room.
Lize followed, and Celine jumped down from the windowsill to my feet.
The corridor was quiet.
The staff officers were probably scrambling to prepare documents.
I returned to my room.
Lize closed the door, and I sat in the chair by the slanted bed.
Celine leaped onto the windowsill and wagged her tail.
"Lize."
"Yes?"
"What do you think?"
Lize hesitated. She looked away.
"Tell me honestly. I'll make the judgment."
A moment of silence passed.
Lize slowly opened her mouth.
"They're embezzling."
The answer I'd expected.
But to be certain, I needed evidence.
"Why do you think that?"
Lize unrolled the parchment with her meeting notes. The handwriting was crooked, but the content was meticulous.
"I smelled fancy liquor on the staff officers. Stuff no soldier could buy on his pay."
"Fancy liquor?"
"Yes. Southern wine from the vineyards."
"Not just one?"
"No. Three of them. Out of seven staff officers."
Lize pointed to her notes with a finger.
"And Deputy Commander Valerius first said 'We'll prepare it tomorrow,' right? But when you asked 'Why tomorrow,' he changed it to 'It needs organizing.' That wasn't a prepared excuse—he made it up on the spot."
Sound reasoning.
"The Kuman Tribe intel was off too."
Lize tapped the parchment with her finger.
"'A threat,' 'fast,' 'we're confirming'... All vague answers. If they were really monitoring the enemy, they'd at least have rough numbers."
Her single red eye gleamed with seriousness.
"If they're not scouting properly, where's the scout pay going? If they're not keeping proper ledgers, how are they hiding the siphoned grain?"
Lize set the parchment down.
"The answer's simple. Embezzlement."
I let out a slow breath.
Reasonable deduction.
Not proof, of course.
But Lize seemed convinced.
I decided to trust her this time too.
"Any sharp ideas?"
"If Sir Heinrich were here, we could just intimidate them. With overwhelming force."
"Agreed."
"But since he's not, we need to use our heads a bit."
"Use our heads... how?"
"Win the soldiers over to our side."
"The soldiers?"
She nodded.
It could work if we won the soldiers.
The staff were decent knights in their own right, but not stronger than the ones I'd brought as escorts.
If we got the soldiers' support...
But how?
I had authority, sure, but I was a brand-new parachuted kid commander.
If I executed all the staff, would the soldiers side with me?
But Lize was serious.
"Master, remember what Cao Cao did in the Battle of Shouchun when rations ran low?"
She was citing the Romance of the Three Kingdoms story I'd told her.
Battle of Shouchun, Cao Cao?
Ah...
In the novel, there's a character named Wang Hou.
Cao Cao's supply officer.
When rations bottomed out against Yuan Shu, Cao Cao secretly ordered Wang Hou to cut rations.
He did, and soldier discontent exploded.
Soon after, Cao Cao summoned Wang Hou and said, "I need to borrow your head. Someone has to die to quell the unrest."
Wang Hou was framed as a "grain thief" and publicly executed, unjustly.
The soldiers cheered. "The grain thief's dead—we'll eat properly now!"
Right after, Cao Cao restored full rations.
Morale soared, praising the purge of corruption.
The official histories don't name Wang Hou, but there's a similar record in the Chronicles of Jiang Man. Classic scapegoating.
The difference here? No innocent scapegoat this time.
In other words...
"...Those bastards are messing with the soldiers' food too?"
Lize nodded quietly.
"I passed by the barracks this morning... The bread the soldiers eat smelled weird."
"Weird how?"
"Not just mixed with barley... There was a faint smell of sawdust."
Sawdust.
Mixing sawdust into army rations happened even in my past world's wars.
In extreme shortages.
But now?
"Rations aren't short, are they? Valerius said 'sufficient' earlier."
"That's a lie. Sufficient on paper, short in reality. Because they're embezzling."
"So in reality, they're mixing sawdust into the flour, skipping the jerky entirely, and giving only wilted veggies?"
"Yes."
Embezzlement was common in pre-modern times, sure.
But this was too much. Way too far.
Messing with soldiers' food? That's real scum.
I breathed out slowly.
"So, what's your plan, Lize?"
"Make a Wang Hou-style scapegoat. But for justice, not injustice!"
"The staff? Kill them all?"
"No. The staff come later... Wiping them all out suddenly causes problems. First, sacrifice one supply officer."
Lize tapped her notes.
"Raid the supply depot, seize the ledger, find embezzlement proof on the spot. Execute the officer right there, then provide proper meals to the soldiers."
"...And the soldiers?"
"'The new commander executed the corrupt officer the moment he arrived and gave us real food.' That's what they'll think."
Lize's red eye sparkled.
"After that, the soldiers are yours. No matter what the staff does, the soldiers will follow you."
Logical.
But...
"Raid the supply depot? Me?"
"Yes."
"A ten-year-old busting into the depot, rifling through ledgers, and executing an officer?"
"Yes!"
Lize was confident.
I sighed.
Celine meowed from the windowsill.
Her blue eyes looked down at me.
Cat form, but it felt like agreement.
"...Crazy plan."
"It'll work."
True enough.
The surest way to win soldiers' hearts.
Fill their bellies.
"But will the supply officer go down easy? What if Valerius or the others interfere?"
"That's why we do it now."
Lize pointed out the window.
"The staff are busy with the documents you demanded. Only one hour left. We strike in that gap."
"...Raid the depot, find evidence, execute—all in one hour?"
"Yes!"
Insane.
A truly mad plan.
But...
It'd probably work.
I stood up.
"Let's go!"
"Yes!"