Chapter 598: Extermination Squad (Part 1)

Shanxi, Taiyuan Prefecture, Qingyuan County.

Qingyuan, later renamed Qingxu, lies not far southwest of Taiyuan's prefectural seat. It is the authentic birthplace of Shanxi aged vinegar and has long been known as the "Vinegar Capital." As the saying goes, "Mountain folk live off the mountain, water folk live off the water" — the people of Qingyuan naturally live off vinegar.

Firewood, rice, oil, salt, soy sauce, vinegar, and tea are daily necessities for the common people. Even if profit margins are thin, the sheer volume of demand is overwhelming, and Qingyuan's aged vinegar is famed far and wide. Thus, around the vinegar trade, guild after guild formed inside and outside Qingyuan's walls, and every year a steady stream of merchants came to buy goods in bulk and ship them out.

Within Qingyuan's borders, the Li family was an undisputed great clan. For generations they had run the vinegar business here, possessing deep-rooted connections. The Li clan head had long served as the president of the local vinegar guild.

Like all Shanxi merchants, they also paid great attention to cultivating ties with officials and merchants, and devoted themselves to nurturing scholars within the clan. After generations of commoners, at last, green smoke rose from the current clan head's ancestral grave: his son, Li Zhenping, passed the highest imperial examination and became a Metropolitan Graduate. His official career thereafter prospered — from County Magistrate to Department Magistrate, and now he had been promoted to Prefect of Guide Prefecture in Henan.

Although the Li clan head had many brothers, his direct line was sparse in progeny — only this one son, Li Zhenping, and his sole grandson had died young. Yet because of Li Zhenping's standing, he overpowered his brothers and held the clan head position for many years.

Moreover, he was very pleased that he still had a worthy and astute granddaughter-in-law, Chu Wanyun. Born of a scholarly family, she was capable, composed, and well-versed in commerce. After her husband died of illness, she single-handedly shouldered the clan's heavy responsibilities, managing the clan's livelihood and commercial affairs in perfect order.

Although clan members whispered that Lady Chu was a broom star with a husband-killing fate, the old clan head valued this granddaughter-in-law immensely and was always willing to heed her counsel in all matters.

Just as the old clan head was urging his son to labor diligently and bear another child, son or daughter, to continue the family line, and was full of hope for the future, calamity struck from nowhere. The great Jin merchant houses suddenly turned their spears against the Li family, as well as their in-laws in Taiyuan. Moreover, in many parts of Shanxi, merchants close to the Eastern Route likewise suffered disaster.

First came the rumors — claims that the Li family and others colluded with outside bandits, bringing harm to the local worthies and elders.

Then, under the crushing pressure of the great houses, one after another, major merchants ceased cooperation with the Li family. Their sales channels and raw material supply routes began to be cut off, or were seized by local rich merchants exploiting their misfortune. Shop after shop teetered on the brink of having no goods to sell, and the Li family's remaining enterprises also began to hemorrhage losses.

Consider Qingyuan's geography: Qi County, Pingyang, Pingyao, Yuci, Taigu, and Jiexiu encircled it. The great houses were entrenched within; once they blockaded, the Li family's enterprises suffered devastating casualties.

Closing down shops was only the first step. What followed was the true nightmare: large crowds of incited fellow villagers, along with ruffians and thugs seizing the chance to cause chaos everywhere, gathered before the Li residence. Every day they shouted curses and wailed accusations, until eventually, the moment any clan member stepped onto the street, they met a barrage of harassment, beatings, and abuse.

Once, when the Young Madam went out, she too was mobbed by several shrews. In her panic, even her clothes were torn to shreds.

What enraged her further was that a series of salacious rumors about her spread throughout Qingyuan and beyond, claiming that the vixen Chu Wanyun was utterly shameless — having brought death to her husband, instead of chastely preserving her widowhood, she flaunted herself in public all day, exchanging flirtatious glances with men, clearly a seductress.

Some even recounted with vivid detail how the Chu vixen, for the sake of commerce, secretly traveled to the Eastern Route, colluded with the villain Wang Dou, and, more shamelessly, in the dead of night, offered herself upon his bed, climbing stealthily onto the villain Wang Dou's couch — how wanton, how lewd, and so on.

These rumors had beginnings and endings, vivid and lifelike. The pitiable Young Madam, who held fast to her chastity — how could she endure such slander? She was so furious her lovely face turned ashen.

After this string of events, the Li household was already in turmoil, the family fortune ravaged — all because the clan head and others had befriended the Eastern Route. No benefit had been seen, yet they were drenched in filth. Did he, this clan head, still have the right to hold his position?

The clan elders were already discussing deposing the clan head. Kinsmen, fearing trouble by association, grew even more distant. To add frost to snow, the local vinegar guild had already dismissed Old Clan Head Li from his post as guild president.

From the start of the rumors to this late tenth month, the once bustling and illustrious Li family was, as they say, a tree fallen and the monkeys scattered. Within the vast compound, only a pitiful few remained. The local authorities likewise looked on with cold indifference, allowing the ruffians to besiege the Li residence.

It seemed that as the storm grew, the clan elders in the end could not even be bothered to depose the clan head. One after another, they adopted the thirty-sixth stratagem — fleeing being the best plan — rolled up their wealth, and left Qingyuan on their own, no longer caring about the safety of the main direct line.

After this blow, Old Master Li's once ramrod-straight back was now bent and stooped. Yet his spirit remained; his deeply wrinkled face was still full of stubbornness.

"There was nothing wrong with cooperating with the Eastern Route. What lies before us is but a hurdle. Once we step over it, our Li family can welcome even greater development."

Looking at his granddaughter-in-law, the old man spoke with finality.

Standing before him was the Young Madam, wearing a purple-red outer jacket, her hair done up in a goose-heart-shaped bun with a dangling hairpin inserted at the side. She was two or three years younger than Wang Dou. Time had left no trace on her face; her figure remained exquisitely curvaceous, and the elegant, noble air about her was even richer, yet full of the charm of a young married woman.

When Li Zhenping went to Guide Prefecture to take up his post, the Young Madam and her mother-in-law had accompanied him. But as bandit hordes surged, Li Zhenping grew worried and sent his wife, concubines, and daughter-in-law all back to the old home.

Because the old clan head valued her, the Young Madam devoted herself even more intently to managing commercial affairs, only occasionally traveling to Yongning City on the Eastern Route to meet her close friend Ji Junjiao.

Hearing the old clan head's words, the Young Madam raised her head and said through tears, "Though that may be so, having implicated the family in disaster, this child's heart is ever uneasy…"

Just as she spoke, a stone flew in from outside the residence, striking the roof tiles not far overhead. Amid a clattering crash, mud, sand, and shattered tiles rained down, startling everyone in the hall into shrieks. Her mother-in-law clutched her chest and stood up trembling: "Th-this… what are we to do?"

"Give us a way to live…"

"Beat to death the traitors colluding with the Eastern Route!"

Outside the Li residence, a dense, dark mass of local commoners had gathered — many were shop assistants from various merchants and shops, along with their families and kin, plus even more onlookers drawn by the spectacle.

Among the crowd were also many ringleaders. At their instigation, men resembling storytellers loudly agitated the onlookers, fanning the flames, while from time to time ruffians hooted and echoed in response.

The great houses had already amassed a trove of allegations about Wang Dou's misdeeds and crimes. Under their widespread propaganda, in many prefectures, counties, and cities across Shanxi, it was as if overnight Wang Dou had transformed from an upright and incorruptible Regional Commander who shed blood for the nation into a villain guilty of every evil, a scoundrel who betrayed his sovereign, a black sheep loathed by all.

Many commoners who had held favorable feelings toward Wang Dou also began to waver after hearing these reports.

In particular, the great houses' influence ran deep and firm. Many clerks, officials, and military officers across Shanxi were either their clansmen or had close ties of interest with them.

They turned a blind eye to attacks and curses against Wang Dou, but if anyone spoke up for Wang Dou or for the Eastern Route, they took notice. The light punishment was a sound thrashing; the heavier was being inexplicably thrown into jail; the heaviest was disappearing without cause — nine times out of ten, losing one's life.

The storm of rumors grew ever thicker. Even in remote rural hamlets, many humble folk and peasant women knew that up north in Shanxi, in the Eastern Route of Xuanfu Garrison, there lived a Regional Commander whose head sprouted boils, whose feet oozed pus, and whose heart was blacker than coal.

This Regional Commander betrayed his sovereign, showed no courtesy to the gentry, and was debauched beyond measure — every night he needed eight women to fall asleep. Not only that, Han women could not satisfy him, so he went to the steppes and seized thousands of Tartar women. Those Tartar women bathed only a few times in their entire lives, yet that Wang Dou still had the appetite — showing his utter shamelessness.

What was even more hateful was that he wanted to snatch away everyone's rice bowl and starve all the elders and brothers to death. Look — Eastern Route goods kept flooding in; how could local merchants have any way to survive?

As for those who claimed the Eastern Route was prosperous, that was pure lies. Those merchants were as black-hearted and shameless as that Wang Dou. If they could eat their fill, it was solely by sucking the blood of the common folk — just like mosquitoes and flies, which one is not bloated and gorged?

They eat and drink their fill — are the common folk supposed to starve to death?

The profiteering merchants of the Eastern Route should be treated like mosquitoes and flies — swatted dead in one blow.

Wang Dou and the Eastern Route profiteers were shameless, utterly brazen, and even more hateful were those traitors who colluded with outside bandits — for instance, that Chu woman, Chu Wanyun. Not only did she bring death to her husband, she also engaged in adultery and kept lovers, offering herself upon his bed before she could hook up with that Wang Dou. Truly a pair of adulterers!

Outside the Li residence, the agitators spoke with eloquence, and the listeners around them nodded frequently, every one of them sharing a common hatred, looking utterly indignant.

A woman in tattered clothes, emaciated beyond words, was so moved she began to weep. Her man worked in a shop. As the various bosses said, if Eastern Route goods kept coming in, wouldn't her man lose his livelihood? How would she and the children at home survive?

With natural disasters and man-made calamities everywhere, was it easy to find a job that put food on the table? Did those black-hearted Eastern Route merchants just want to starve her and her children to death?

And those hateful traitors inside the Li residence, that so-called Lady Chu — she put on an appearance of chastity, seemingly inviolable, yet who would have thought she was a slut!

In extreme fear and fury, she let out a shriek, her hair disheveled, and suddenly snatched a stone from the ground. Summoning all her strength, she hurled it into the residence, screaming hoarsely: "Beat these traitors colluding with outsiders to death!"

"Beat them to death!"

"Beat them to death…"

"Charge in and club these traitors to death!"

"Drag that slut out and drown her in a pig cage!"

For a moment, the crowd seethed with fury. Stones and bricks rained down upon the residence, the clatter of tiles incessant. Even several lit torches were hurled inside. Many ruffians battered the gate with all their might, and some were already preparing to scale the walls.

Far off from the crowd, some government office runners merely watched lazily, showing no intention of intervening.

Inside the residence hall, the Li household was even more terrified. The crowd had lost control. The already scant household guards and retainers could not possibly hold them back. If the enraged mob stormed in, they would likely be beaten to death on the spot.

For women like the Young Madam, their fate would likely be even more tragic.