The Jade Swirl Teahouse was a respectable, if unremarkable, establishment in the outer city of Beijing. It was a place where merchants haggled over contracts in quiet corners and minor officials gathered to gossip and complain about their superiors. Its very mediocrity made it the perfect location for a meeting that could alter the balance of power within the Forbidden City.
Shen Ke sat at a small, secluded table in the rear of the teahouse, a simple clay pot of steaming oolong before him. He was dressed not as a scholar of the Hanlin Academy, but in the drab, functional robes of a junior secretary to a provincial magistrate. His entire demeanor was different; the proud, academic bearing was gone, replaced by a quiet, almost nervous humility. It was the perfect disguise. Across the room, disguised as a coarse northern traveler drinking alone, Meng Tian sat with his back to the wall, his gaze seemingly fixed on the street outside, but his senses were alert, providing silent, deadly overwatch.
Their target arrived precisely on time. He was a man named Wu Jian, a mid-level official from the Board of War. He was stout, with a perpetually worried expression and shifty eyes that never seemed to rest in one place. He approached Shen Ke's table with the cautious air of a man accustomed to clandestine meetings. He believed he was here to meet a new contact, a representative from a foreign military attaché, to sell state secrets for a pouch of silver.
"You are the one I was told to meet?" Wu Jian asked, his voice a low, conspiratorial whisper as he sat down.
Shen Ke nodded, pushing a small, heavy silk pouch across the table. The official's eyes lit up with greed as he heard the soft clink of silver taels within. He quickly pocketed the pouch. "Excellent. Now, what information do you require? I have recently acquired the updated deployment rosters for the garrisons along the Grand Canal."
Shen Ke took a slow sip of his tea, his expression calm. He let the official wait, allowing the man's greed and arrogance to fully bloom. "The silver is a gift," he said at last, his voice quiet but clear. "A gesture of… appreciation for your many past services to your various clients."
Wu Jian frowned, confused. "I don't understand."
"Specifically," Shen Ke continued, his eyes locking onto the official's, "we appreciate the service you rendered to Head Eunuch Li Lianying on the fourteenth day of the ninth month of last year. You provided him with a detailed report on General Tso's supply lines in the west. The payment was three hundred taels of silver, delivered to you by a eunuch named Wang."
Every word was a hammer blow. Shen Ke recited the exact details of a past treasonous transaction, a detail taken directly from the stolen green-bound ledger. The color drained from Wu Jian's face. The pouch of silver in his robe suddenly felt as heavy as a gravestone. His shifty eyes darted around the teahouse, looking for an escape, but he saw only the impassive form of the large northern traveler watching him from the corner. He realized, with a surge of pure terror, that he had walked into a trap.
"Who… who are you?" he stammered, his voice barely a whisper.
"Your previous arrangement with the head eunuch is over," Shen Ke stated, ignoring the question. His voice was cold, clinical, the voice of a man stating an undeniable fact. "His records of your transactions were unfortunately destroyed in a fire. But you should know that we have a copy."
This was the killing stroke. Wu Jian understood immediately. He had been caught, but not by the Imperial Censorate or Cixi's spies, the authorities he had always feared. He had been caught by another power, a more mysterious and seemingly omniscient one that knew his deepest, most treasonous secrets.
"What do you want?" Wu Jian asked, his voice trembling. He was no longer a seller of secrets; he was a condemned man begging for his life.
"Your life," Shen Ke said simply. "And your continued service. You now serve a new master." He leaned forward, his voice dropping lower. "You will continue to meet with your foreign contacts. You will continue to meet with any of Li Lianying's people who approach you. But you will no longer sell them the truth. The truth now belongs to us."
He laid out the new terms of employment. Wu Jian would become a double agent. He would be provided with carefully fabricated documents, altered troop movements, and misleading political intelligence, all prepared by Shen Ke's growing analytical unit. He would sell these lies to his foreign contacts, polluting their intelligence on the Qing military. He would also act as a loyal "informant" for Li Lianying, feeding him a stream of believable but ultimately useless gossip, while simultaneously reporting all of Li Lianying's requests and suspicions back to Shen Ke.
"Your life," Shen Ke concluded, his eyes cold and hard, "now depends entirely on the quality of your acting. If you betray us, we will send a copy of this page from the ledger directly to Prince Gong. He has little tolerance for men who sell secrets about his armies. If you serve us well, you will be permitted to continue your profitable career. You will simply be working for a new board of directors."
Wu Jian, trapped and terrified, his face pale with sweat, could only nod in frantic agreement. His entire world had been turned upside down in the space of five minutes.
Shen Ke placed a few coins on the table for the tea and stood up. "We will be in contact," he said, then walked out of the teahouse without a backward glance. Meng Tian, the silent traveler in the corner, finished his own drink and followed a minute later.
The operation had been a complete success. Ying Zheng's network had not only neutralized one of Cixi's assets, but they had successfully converted him into a powerful tool for disinformation. They could now control what a foreign power thought they knew about the Qing military.
This was the new phase of the war. They were no longer just collecting intelligence; they were actively manipulating it, turning the enemy's own network against them. Shen Ke, the proud scholar, had proven to be a natural spymaster, his calm intellect a perfect weapon for this kind of psychological warfare. And Meng Tian, the superhuman general, provided the silent, lethal threat that ensured their new recruits remained loyal. The Emperor's blade and the Emperor's mind were learning to work in perfect, deadly harmony.