Next day the Chancellor entered court and memorialized the Tang sovereign:

入朝, to go in to court, takes 朝 as cháo — the same character that was zhāo, morning, one line ago. He said tomorrow morning, and this is it.

'Your subject's son-in-law, the Top Graduate Chen Guangrui, took his household to his post at Jiangzhou,'

臣婿, your subject's son-in-law: in front of the emperor he calls himself 臣, servant, before he calls himself anything else. 家小 is the household, wife and children — literally the small ones at home.

'and was beaten to death by the boatman Liu Hong, who seized his wife, impersonated your subject's son-in-law, and has held office for years.'

梢子 is a boatman, the man who works the 梢 or stern-oar, with 子 unstressed as zi. Both 占女為妻 and 為官 take 為 as wéi, meaning as: as a wife, as an official. And 假冒 is to counterfeit, the word you would use of a forged trademark — the charge most likely to interest a government, since it means a fake magistrate has been drawing a real salary for years.

'The matter is monstrous; I beg Your Majesty to send forth troops at once and stamp out the bandit.'

異變, an aberration: the language of something that has gone against the natural order, which is how a court would want this classified. 賊寇 promotes Liu Hong from bandit to rebel, and 剿除 is what armies do to rebels — put down and wipe out. Note what is not being requested here. Nobody has asked for a trial.

The Tang sovereign, on reading the memorial, was greatly angered, and dispatched sixty thousand of the Imperial Forest Guard, ordering Chancellor Yin to lead the troops out.

御林軍, the Imperial Forest Guard, is the palace army: the emperor's own household troops, not a provincial garrison. Sixty thousand of them, for one boatman. 著 is zhuó again, to set somebody to a task — the same reading his mother's instruction took two passages back, used here by an emperor. 丞相, 相 = xiàng.

The Chancellor received the edict, left court, mustered his troops at the drill-ground, and set out straight for Jiangzhou.

教場, the drill-ground, takes 場 as chǎng, an actual place — as against the cháng of 大哭一場, one bout of weeping, where the character counts an episode instead. 點兵 is to call the roll. 丞相, 相 = xiàng.

Travelling by day and resting by night, swift as falling stars and flying birds, before they knew it they had reached Jiangzhou,

曉行夜宿, travel at dawn and lodge at night, is the set formula for a hard road; 星落鳥飛, falling stars and flying birds, is the set formula for speed. 不覺, before they noticed it — the novel covers several hundred miles in eight characters and freely admits as much.

and Chancellor Yin's forces all encamped on the north bank.

北岸, the north bank. The river is between them, and the chapter has not forgotten which river this is. 下營寨, to put down a camp. 丞相, 相 = xiàng.

By night, a golden tablet of summons called in the Jiangzhou vice-administrator and the assistant prefect, two men,

金牌, a gold tablet: the highest-priority summons the imperial system had, the physical token that meant drop everything and come. 同知 and 州判 are the prefecture's deputy administrator and its judicial assistant — the two men who have worked under Liu Hong for eighteen years, called out in the middle of the night to be told who their superior really is.

and the Chancellor told them the whole matter, bidding them bring troops to assist, and together they crossed the river.

One line, two readings of one character. 丞相 takes 相 as xiàng, the minister; 相助 takes it as xiāng, the mutual one, to help one another. Then 過江, across the river — and this time the crossing goes the other way.

It was not yet light when they surrounded Liu Hong's yamen.

天尚未明, the sky not yet light. The murder happened at night on the water; the arrest happens in the dark on land.

Liu Hong was deep in a dream when he heard the boom of a cannon and the clash of gongs and drums;

正在夢中, right in the middle of a dream. The other dreams in this chapter belong to people about to be given something back; this one belongs to the man about to lose everything. 聽得 takes 得 as the unstressed de, pinning the verb to what it caught. 金鼓齊鳴, metal and drums sounding together, is the noise an army makes when it wants you to know it has arrived.

the troops cut their way into the private yamen, and Liu Hong, caught off guard, was taken before he could move.

私衙 is the private quarters behind the government offices: his home, which is also the murdered man's home. 措手不及, no time to put a hand to anything, is still ordinary Chinese for being caught flat-footed. Eighteen years, and it takes one sentence.

The Chancellor handed down a military order and had Liu Hong and his whole gang bound and marched to the execution ground,

一干 is the whole lot connected to a case — a legal term rather than an insult. 法場, the law-ground, is where sentences are carried out, with 場 again as chǎng, a place. 丞相, 相 = xiàng.

and ordered all the troops to make camp outside the city.

安營, to settle a camp. Sixty thousand men are parked outside the walls, and the chapter turns straight back indoors for the part it actually cares about.