While Yuan Shikai was being feted and escorted into the gilded cage of the Forbidden City, the true work of his undoing was taking place in a room deep in the bowels of Beijing. It was a space that did not officially exist, a soundproofed chamber in the hidden heart of the Eastern Depot's headquarters. There were no windows, no decorations, no comforts. The only furniture was a simple wooden table and two chairs. The air was cold, still, and utterly devoid of hope. The room's purpose was singular: to serve as a place where complex truths were stripped of all their comforting lies.
Shen Ke stood before the chamber's main wall, his hands clasped behind his back. A single, harsh lantern hanging from the ceiling illuminated his masterpiece. It was a vast, intricate web, a sprawling diagram drawn on rice paper and pinned to the wall, detailing the full extent of Yuan Shikai's treachery. It was the serpent, dissected and laid bare.
In the very center, in bold, black calligraphy, was the name: Guo Liang. From that central point, dozens of threads of crimson string branched out, a spider's web of conspiracy. Each thread connected the stable master to another name, another entity. There were the names of river merchants in Shanghai who owned the boats used in the raid. There were the lieutenants of the Green Gang who had led the attack. There were anonymous, numbered accounts in the British and French concessions, with ledgers detailing payments in sterling and francs. One particularly thick thread connected Guo directly to a man Shen Ke's agents had identified as the chief paymaster of Yuan Shikai's personal household staff in Mukden, the man who controlled the Minister-President's unofficial finances.
It was a work of art, a testament to the terrifying efficiency of Shen Ke's network. In the few short days since Yuan's train had departed Mukden, a city teeming with the traitor's spies and thugs, Shen Ke's agents had moved like ghosts, interrogating, observing, and seizing documents. They had unraveled a conspiracy a decade in the making in less than a week.
Shen Ke felt a cold, quiet satisfaction, the detached pleasure of a mathematician who has finally solved a complex and elegant proof. He had not used brute force or crude torture. He had simply applied overwhelming, inescapable logic. But he knew, with the certainty of a master hunter, that this beautiful, damning diagram was not enough. Yuan Shikai was the master of the plausible lie, the indignant denial. He would sacrifice every name on that wall without a moment's hesitation, proclaiming his own shock and horror at having been so thoroughly betrayed by his subordinates. The Emperor demanded more than evidence. He demanded certainty. He demanded a confession that would nail the coffin shut. He needed the final thread.
The heavy wooden door to the chamber creaked open, and two of Shen Ke's agents escorted a third man inside. It was Guo Liang. The stable master had been snatched from his bed in Mukden in the dead of night, bundled into an unmarked carriage, and brought to Beijing on a military supply train. His arrogance was gone, replaced by a sullen, simmering rage. He had been stripped of his fine clothes and dressed in a simple prisoner's tunic. But he was not in chains, and he showed no signs of physical mistreatment. Shen Ke knew that a man like Guo did not fear pain; he feared irrelevance.
Guo was forced into the chair opposite Shen Ke. The Spymaster sat down slowly, his movements calm and deliberate. He did not speak for a full minute, simply observing the man, letting the crushing, absolute silence of the room do its work.
This was not to be an interrogation. It was to be a deconstruction. A systematic dismantling of a man's world until nothing was left but the terrified, naked truth. Shen Ke did not ask a single question. He simply made statements, each one a hammer blow against the crumbling walls of Guo's defiance.
He began by placing a thick, leather-bound bank ledger on the table between them. "This is the transaction record for the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation branch in the Tianjin foreign concession," Shen Ke said, his voice a soft, almost academic murmur. "The account is in the name of your wife's third cousin, a woman who has not left her village in ten years. The deposits, however, are quite worldly. Five thousand pounds sterling, deposited on the day the Emperor's Siberian campaign plans were finalized. Another eight thousand on the day the first German envoy arrived in secret. The deposits match, to the dollar, the standard payment schedule for a high-level asset of the British Secret Intelligence Service."
Guo's face, which had been a mask of defiance, began to twitch.
Shen Ke placed a second document on the table, a transcript of a telegraph message. "This is the coded message you sent from the Mukden military post, confirming the destruction of the barges in Shanghai. The code was quite clever. Based on the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, keyed to a specific edition. It took my cryptographers a full six hours to break. They were very impressed. We now have the key. It seems to be based on a classical poem your private tutor taught you as a boy in Shandong."
The color began to drain from Guo Liang's face. This man knew everything.
Finally, Shen Ke placed a small, black-and-white photograph on top of the other documents. It was a picture of a young, handsome Chinese man in Western-style academic robes, standing proudly in front of a brick building. "This is your son. At Yale University, in America. A fine institution. He is studying engineering. He has a bright future."
Shen Ke leaned forward slightly, his dark eyes locking with Guo's for the first time. "It would be a tragedy," he continued, his voice dropping to a near-whisper, "if the American government were to learn that his very expensive tuition is being paid with blood money. Money from a foreign power actively engaged in espionage and sabotage against his own country. They are quite sensitive about such things, the Americans. I imagine they would deport him. He would be returned to China… in chains."
That was the final blow. Guo Liang broke. The facade of the hardened gangster, the loyal soldier, the cunning operative—it all dissolved, revealing the terrified father underneath. A great, shuddering sob escaped his lips. He had been laid bare. Shen Ke had not just discovered his crimes; he had dissected his entire life, his motivations, his weaknesses, his one, single point of vulnerability.
"I do not need you to tell me that you are a traitor, Guo Liang," Shen Ke said, his voice devoid of triumph, holding only the cold finality of fact. "I know you are. I am not here to ask you if you served Yuan Shikai. I am here for you to tell me how. I want the final, undeniable proof that connects your hand to his. Give it to me. Do so, and your son will receive his degree and become a great engineer, perhaps even one day helping to build a stronger China. Refuse, and he will be disgraced, his future destroyed, and he will be shipped home just in time to watch you die the death of a traitor. Your master is in the Forbidden City. He is not here to protect you."
Guo Liang, weeping openly now, began to speak. He confessed everything, the words tumbling out in a frantic, desperate torrent. He detailed the verbal orders, the secret meetings, the dead drops. But he knew, and Shen Ke knew, that the word of a disgraced traitor was not enough.
Then, he gave Shen Ke the final thread. The nail for the coffin.
"The ledger," Guo choked out between sobs. "He… he made me keep a second ledger. A private one. For him alone."
Shen Ke's eyes narrowed. "Explain."
"He is a suspicious man, the Minister-President," Guo explained, his voice a broken whisper. "He doesn't trust anyone. He made me keep a record of every bribe, every secret payment, every piece of intelligence sold… not just to the British, but to his own network. It was his insurance. Proof of their own complicity, to hold over their heads, to make sure they could never betray him. He thinks he is the only one who knows of it. It is hidden. In my quarters. In a secret compartment, built into the back of my wardrobe."
It was the ultimate act of a cunning, paranoid mind. A fail-safe created to control his own web of traitors. The serpent's own venom, now to be used as the antidote.
An hour later, after a frantic, encrypted exchange by military telegraph with Shen Ke's agents who were already inside Yuan's compound in Mukden, a confirmation arrived. They had found the wardrobe. They had found the compartment. They had found the ledger.
Shen Ke now held Guo Liang's signed and fingerprinted confession in one hand and the telegraph confirming the discovery of Yuan Shikai's own secret record of treason in the other. He had it all. The chain was complete, forged in the traitor's own iron.
He stood, his face as impassive as ever, and turned to his highest-ranking subordinate, who had been waiting silently by the door.
"The serpent is in the gilded cage," Shen Ke said, his voice flat and final. "It is time to inform the Emperor that the lock has been turned and the key has been thrown away."