Rushing to hand out money to the troops, and even needing to give them time to spend it—no matter how rich you are, you don't blow money like this. Anyone can hear that something's off.
Wu Jinliang asked suspiciously, "Chun Tian, what's going on here?"
With Feng Chi and Tong Mingshan right there, Shi Chun couldn't very well say what Mulan Jin had leaked, but he still laid things out clearly: "On one hand they say Heavenly Domain personnel are over quota, say it's over by half again. On the other hand they've been shorting the monthly pay. Now they're setting us up. You still don't see it? The money to open the prefecture and build the city is being skimmed straight out of everyone's monthly stipends. First they build the prefecture city with our money, then they kick us out. And it's not just us they're going to kick—once they slap on a charge of dereliction, they can use it to boot others as well. I'm afraid nearly half the troops are going to be thrown out under this pretext."
