Chapter 1466: A Festive Execution Ground

Although the beginning of spring was approaching, a bone-piercing chill still lingered over Luoyang. For many in the Western Capital, this winter had been too cold—not just in body, but in heart.

Of course, this group referred to those implicated meritorious nobles and officials—the elite class of the Great Han Empire. Yet it was these very pillars of the state, these elites, who had been exposed in this series of scandals, losing all face and even shaking the court's prestige to a certain degree.

However, that was only speaking from a macro perspective. For most ordinary citizens of the Western Capital, there was in fact no great impact. There might have been surprise and astonishment, but absolutely no empathy or grief for the state—they had no possibility of being involved in the first place, and could hardly influence matters in the slightest. As for being disappointed in the court, it was nowhere near that point.

Most people were simply playing their role as spectators, discussing the matter over tea and after meals, displaying the Western Capital citizens' concern for and insight into national affairs.

Luoyang's South Market—though the breaking of the ward-and-market boundaries had greatly altered the city's layout—remained the capital's largest bustling market, still the liveliest place in the city, regardless of spring, autumn, heat, or cold.

Being already the twenty-seventh day of the twelfth month, it was even more crowded than usual—streams of people, carts coming and horses going, fully embodying the capital's prosperity. After all, the new year was approaching; the tenth year of Kaibao was striding swiftly toward the subjects of the Great Han.

No matter what great events or upheavals occurred within the court, life had to go on, and so did the new year festival. Beneath the gloom, whether in the homes of officials or commoners alike, everyone was joyfully purchasing new year goods to welcome the coming spring.

Emperor Liu had previously stated in a directive to his ministers that since the new year was approaching, matters of the current year should be resolved within the current year, and not left for the next. This was one of the reasons the clerks of the Three Judicial Agencies worked day and night without rest, under enormous work pressure, to urgently process all the cases—after all, the Emperor had already drawn a deadline.

Amid the noise and clamor, someone shouted out that heads were about to roll, quickly causing a stir. The crowd became orderly, streaming in an orderly fashion toward one direction.

Beside the fish market, before the meat stalls, the stench of fish and flesh mingled, human voices interwove with animal cries, and the breath of mortal life drove away the chill of late winter. Thousands of citizens who had heard the news came flocking, and their numbers continued to grow, soon stretching beyond sight, beyond measure.

Watching a spectacle—it's human nature, especially a spectacle this big.

In the center of the market, a massive execution platform had long been erected. Executioners with red turbans wrapped around their heads stood solemnly in neat rows upon the platform, holding executioner's blades—seventy-three of them in all. Even a city as large as the Western Capital could not maintain so many executioners on a regular basis; many among them were soldiers selected from the army, temporarily pressed into service as executioners.

The executioners all wore stern, indifferent expressions, utterly unaffected by their surroundings, as if they cared nothing for any disturbance. In their bearing, there seemed to be a kind of reverence for death, a respect for life, as they sincerely faced the lives they were about to personally extinguish.

The court had given this execution its utmost attention, not only because of the criminals' status, but because Emperor Liu was watching from above.

In the Great Han, there were certain powers Emperor Liu had never relinquished. The final endorsement of death sentences was always personally signed by Emperor Liu himself—so it had been for all these years, never changing.

According to Han law, crimes warranting the death penalty were few. Apart from rebellion, deceiving the sovereign, treason, usurping office, homicide, and other crimes of extremely grave nature, there were rarely cases that directly resulted in a death sentence. Thus, aside from the harsh laws of the early Qianyou period, in the past fifteen years, although the Great Han saw no shortage of cases each year, those constituting capital crimes were in the minority.

Even cases of usurping office or homicide were judged according to the severity of circumstances. Beyond that, most cases were punished with non-lethal sentences. Among these, exile and flogging were the main forms, and due to the court's need to populate the frontiers, exile made up the largest share.

Of course, viewed from another angle, exile might be more miserable than death itself. The suffering of frontier exile was already severe, but those exiled to mining and various labor projects faced the harshest fate of all—that nearly represented an abyss of despair, and those who managed to survive their sentences were one in a hundred.

Therefore, in recent years, whenever one reviewed the case archives compiled by the Ministry of Justice, one could find a great number of newly added crimes, yet the prisons and jails throughout the Great Han remained at an extremely low occupancy level.

The court did not keep idle people, let alone a bunch of criminals. This could be considered a hallmark of the Great Han's Qianyou and Kaibao eras: empty prisons. It wasn't that fewer people committed crimes, but that criminals were basically all sent to where they belonged—places where the court need not have scruples, places where they could be exploited without restraint.

Though death sentences were rare, every time one occurred, it was a major case, a grave case, basically guaranteed to cause a sensation—even if it was just an ordinary murderer.

Of course, in the past, the most attention-grabbing cases were those involving meritorious nobles and bureaucrats, because their crimes often had wide-reaching implications, their offenses were hard to pardon, and moreover, they were members of the privileged class undergoing punishment.

Mass executions were not unusual in the Great Han, but one like this—over seventy people, every one of them either powerful or noble, with the highest-ranking official being a Vice Minister of the Ministry of Revenue, and even a member of the Fu clan among the noble scions—that was something else entirely.

How could such a spectacle fail to draw a crowd? To use a common idiom, the onlookers formed a wall. Within a very short time, the Western Capital citizens gathered at the South Market execution ground numbered over ten thousand, and they kept coming without end.

People pressed against people, people squeezed against people, directly causing traffic on the nearby broad streets to grind to a halt. The neighboring fish market, meat stalls, and other markets briefly closed their business. The citizens clearly held extremely high enthusiasm for this execution.

Even if similar situations had occurred in the past, never had there been such a sensation. The eagerness of the capital's citizens this time was comparable to a grand festival celebration. Clearly, watching those nobles' heads fall to the ground was, for the vast majority of ordinary citizens, a rare treat—even if it was a bloody slaughter.

Having foreseen this, the Luoyang Prefecture dispatched over two hundred clerks and constables to the scene to assist with the execution, and the Patrol Inspector's Office also transferred two thousand soldiers to maintain order on site.

Clearly a solemn execution to uphold national law, yet it was this lively, like a celebration—no cheers, but one could feel a kind of joy, as if the fall of authority were something worth celebrating.

Not far from the execution platform, a viewing stand had also been erected, guarded by armed soldiers. Emperor Liu had decreed that all meritorious nobles in the capital, as well as all sixth-rank and above officials not on duty, were to come and observe the execution.

Presumably for ease of viewing, the observation stand was built close enough and high enough for the nobles and officials to clearly see the entire process of heads falling to the ground.

Compared to the curiosity and clamor of the surrounding citizens, the upper echelons of the Great Han on the viewing stand were far more subdued—basically silent, each one quietly gazing at the execution platform, not a single relaxed expression among them.

Though they occupied the same execution ground, it was as if there were two different worlds—one world noisy, one world calm—and with the execution platform drawing everyone's gaze, these elements together formed a strange spectacle.

Even for observing executions, there was a VIP section. In a pavilion set somewhat farther back, several windows were thrown wide open, and a group of the Great Han's top nobles, including several imperial princes, had been waiting inside for some time.

The view from here was broad—not only could one see the execution platform, but also survey the crowds throughout the streets. Though seats had been arranged, apart from the elderly Fu Yanqing, Guo Wei, Wei Renpu, and a few others, most people stood before the windows, equally quiet, few speaking. It seemed no one was willing to break the somewhat solemn atmosphere.

Zhao Kuangyin was naturally among them. His bearing remained upright and tall, his expression as cold and stern as steel, yet in his eyes, an unmistakable trace of deep weariness inadvertently showed through.

The official responsible for supervising the execution was somewhat unexpected: by special decree of Emperor Liu, it was Zhao Kuangyi, Governor of Luoyang, who would oversee the executions. This duty, in many people's eyes, was not easy—indeed, quite awkward—but Zhao Kuangyi accepted it with complete composure.

Using nobles to execute nobles—that was roughly what Emperor Liu wanted. And for Zhao Kuangyi, he simply regarded it as a pledge of loyalty, a pledge to restore his image in Emperor Liu's eyes.

Sitting on the supervision platform as still as if in meditation, Zhao Kuangyi kept his gaze straight ahead, letting the noise rage, letting the clamor swell, fixing his eyes only on the seventy-three condemned prisoners on the execution platform.

These prisoners shared a characteristic: besides all being nobles and officials, their crimes were not among those voluntarily confessed—every single one had been investigated and ferreted out by the authorities piece by piece.

Perhaps what made it less difficult for Zhao Kuangyi was that among them was not his fourth younger brother, Zhao Kuangmei.

As the appointed hour arrived, as Zhao Kuangyi solemnly read the imperial edict, as the execution tokens fell to the ground, as the blades rose and fell, amid the tidal waves of gasps, the seventy-three criminals' heads rolled, blood staining the bustling market, bringing a touch of festive color to this bleak winter.