By midday, the wide stone plaza before the Thousand Treasures Pavilion was packed with three thousand river boatmen, independent herbalists, grain shippers, and artisan blacksmiths.
For a week, these working men and women had lived in terror. They held paper promissory notes issued by the Golden-Sable Trade ring that had collapsed to near-zero value in the panic. Rumors of bankruptcy had threatened to wipe out their life savings. That left them unable to purchase grain, repair their boats, or pay their winter leases.
Now, an official trial proclamation was posted on the twelve-foot star-bronze gates.
Standing atop the grand granite stairs was Lin Tao. He was flanked by Chief Judge Wu and twelve armed court scribes. Behind them, stacked in neat, gleaming rows upon heavy cedar frame stands, were thirty bars of refined Precursor star-silver bullion and forty ironbound chests filled with thirty-six thousand physical silver coins.
Lin Tao raised his hand. The murmuring crowd of thousands fell into immediate, breathless silence.
“Citizens of the Heavenly River,” Lin Tao announced. His voice carried clearly across the stone plaza. “The Golden-Sable Trade ring tried to defraud this metropolis by printing unbacked paper scrip while hiding physical limestone in their vaults. Under the power of the Grand Punishment Trial, the hoarded bullion of Guild Master Jin has been seized in full.”
