Imperial manhunt warrants were rarely issued from the capital.
A county magistrate or prefect could only issue a local notice to a few counties; an auditor could only send a broad arrest notice to a few prefectures.
Only the Emperor, the Ministry of Justice, or the Imperial Secretariat had the authority to issue a hai-bu manhunt warrant that summoned the whole nation.
Usually such writs only came down for the gravest crimes — treason, the murder of a third-rank or higher official in the capital, a provincial governor, or a minister on imperial commission, or mass slaughter of a family or village.
Once such a warrant was issued, it meant crimes so severe the house would be ransacked and the clan exterminated.
At that moment, riders sped out from the nine gates of the capital in pairs, each pair carrying a black lacquer tube containing a hai-bu warrant, the horses thundering off in all directions.
At Anding Gate, two mounted couriers burst through the city gate heading north toward Changping County.
One rode for the Jiefan Guard, the other for the Secret Spy Bureau.
Neither spoke to the other; each carried a lacquer tube marked urgent for four hundred li and pressed on.
They rode together into the Changping county yamen.
The clerks and bailiffs hurried out to meet them.