Chapter 63: Robbery

In the pitch-black night, a line of horse-drawn carts raced along the official road toward Zhaoqing Prefecture. The drivers lashed their horses as hard as they could, but the goods piled on the carts were too heavy, and no matter how fiercely the whips cracked, the horses could go no faster.

Besides the horse carts, there were many donkey carts on the road, and even a few ox carts. They too were packed with people, and those who could not squeeze aboard could only cling to the cart shafts and run alongside.

The convoy stretched a full two li from front to back, men and women, old and young, carrying who knew how many bundles great and small.

There were many carts and many people, but the night was too dark, pitch black, and they could only follow the torches at the front to find the way. Everyone was desperate to flee Deqing, which the Ming army was closing in on.

Soon, one horse cart, driven too recklessly, smashed into a big tree by the roadside. In an instant it overturned and its passengers were thrown.

Men cursing, women complaining, children wailing all mixed together, and those behind heard it and grew even more panicked.

The overturned cart belonged to the household of Wang Shiyun, who dealt in jewels and gems in Deqing. When a servant came to tell him a cart had overturned, Wang Shiyun hopped about in agitation and ordered his steward to move the jewels from that cart onto the others at once.

As for the injured servants, he paid them no mind and left them to fend for themselves.

"Steward, take us with you!"

"Master, you can't abandon us!..."

"Master, I've followed you for over ten years, you can't leave me behind!"

Several injured servants, dragging their children along, clung to the steward's legs, hoping their employer would take them along. But all they got was the steward's merciless cursing.

The master who was usually so kindly had changed his face as well, and with the utmost impatience he kicked away a hired hand who had worked in his house for over ten years, then strode off without a backward glance.

The hired hand's daughter, a little girl of only eight, saw her father beaten and rushed at the master, crying and shouting, grabbing the hem of his robe to keep him from leaving, but a guard hired by the household scooped her up with one hand and tossed her aside.

The hired hand's wife, seeing how heartless and cruel the master was, cursed him viciously in despair: "Wang Shiyun, you heartless wretch, may you die a terrible death!..."

After cursing, she threw her arms around her husband, whose leg was crushed, and her daughter, whose mouth was bleeding, and broke into loud weeping. The wretched sound was piercing in the deep night.

In a passing horse cart, an old woman heard the woman's weeping and frowned, asking outside the carriage: "Whose family is so cruel as to abandon their own people?"

The steward, sitting outside beside the driver, turned his head and said: "The Wang family of the Taida Firm."

"No wonder. Wang Shiyun is no good man, yet the master insists on keeping close with his family." The old woman shook her head, then her gaze fell on her husband beside her. She gripped his hand nervously and said in a low voice: "Master, the Ming army won't catch up with us, will they?"

Ye Jinglian gently patted his old wife's hand and reassured her: "The Ming army wants Deqing. Why would they chase us? Rest easy. We're already several li out of the city, and it's so dark outside you can't see your hand in front of your face. How would the Ming army even know we've fled?"

Hearing her husband's words, the old woman felt somewhat relieved, but then she complained: "Master once held office under the Great Ming. You should not have gone to work for the Manchus. Now look — the moment the Ming army comes, we have to run. Ah..."

"What does a woman know!"

Ye Jinglian hated hearing his wife's nagging most of all, and on top of that he was already irritable, so he could not help raising his voice.

"The Ming dynasty is already dead.

This realm belongs to the Manchus now. As they say, a wise man submits to circumstances.

Your husband is doing this for the sake of our Ye family. Do you really want the Ye family to vanish from officialdom forever and sink into being common folk?

That Yongli Son of Heaven of the Southern Ming won't last long!"

Seeing her husband angry, the old woman dared not argue, and could only murmur: "Still, there was no need to do those things that wronged the Ming."

"If your husband had not done those things, would Lin'er have won the Governor-General's favor?"

The moment her husband mentioned their son, the old woman had nothing more to say. The couple sat like that for a while, and then Ye Jinglian suddenly cursed: "Tang Sanshui actually dared to take a thousand taels of silver from me.

That scoundrel — doesn't he know who I am!... When we're back, I'll have Lin'er lodge a complaint against him with the Governor-General."

He paused, then sneered: "Though who knows whether that silver ended up in Tang Sanshui's hands or the Ming army's. If he dies at the Ming army's hands, that would save us the trouble."

The old woman said: "Master, silver is after all a thing outside the body. Battalion Commander Tang risked himself to let us out of the city — that was already righteous.

You shouldn't hold this against him..." As she was speaking, they heard the steward outside the carriage cry out in alarm: "Master, it looks like riders are chasing us from behind!"

"What!"

Ye Jinglian's body trembled. He lifted the carriage curtain and looked back. Far off, he saw a band of men on horseback, carrying torches, coming up from behind. In an instant, his face turned ghastly pale.

"The Ming army is here! The Ming army is here!"

The sudden appearance of cavalry behind them threw the fleeing crowd into an uproar. The last few carts all stopped, and the people on them screamed and scrambled toward the woods on either side of the road, terrified that if they ran too slowly the Ming army would kill them.

Zhou Shixiang rode at the very front, bold and highly skilled. Relying on his superb horsemanship, he cut through the crowd and charged straight ahead, forcing several horse carts to a halt. In an instant the official road was blocked, and the carts behind could not move even if they wanted to.

"Everyone run for your lives!"

Old and young from the families in the immobilized carts shrieked as they leapt down, clutching their valuables and goods tightly to their chests as they fled to either side.

"Stop them! Stop them!"

A few wealthy families with large estates and many hired guards and household retainers shouted at their guards, trying to put up a desperate resistance. But under the blades of those Ming soldiers, the guards and retainers could only be slaughtered like pigs and sheep.

Many did not even get out a scream before their heads, queues still attached, tumbled to the ground.

In the darkness, no one knew how many Ming cavalry had come. The guards and retainers were all terrified at heart. After forcing themselves to hold for a brief moment, no matter what rewards their masters promised, they paid no heed. With a single shout, they scattered in all directions.

"Ma Wu! Ma Wu! Get the master out of here, quickly!"

Ye Jinglian was so frightened he could barely stand. Clutching his old wife, he pleaded desperately with Ma Wu, the head of the guards, his voice on the verge of tears.

"Master, if it were ordinary bandits, I would surely protect you. But these are Ming soldiers. I'm just a household guard — how could I fight them? Master, take care of yourself. I'm off to save my own skin!"

With that, Ma Wu bolted toward the woods to the west, and the moment he ran, the remaining guards ran too.

All around, people fled in panic. Left with only his old wife and the steward, Ye Jinglian was so terrified he was about to cry. He pleaded piteously with Ma Wu, who had already run more than a dozen feet: "Brother Ma Wu, take me with you... I'll give you the silver, all the silver..."

Perhaps the silver did the trick, for Ma Wu, who had run off, actually gritted his teeth and came back with two of his men. One of them dragged Ye Jinglian and the other his old wife, but they had run only a dozen or so steps when their bodies jerked to a halt.

Looking closely, a long spear had punched a huge bloody hole through Ma Wu's back.

"Merciful heavens!..."

Ye Jinglian's old wife spent her days fasting and chanting Buddha's name. She had never seen such a scene, and she fainted dead away from fright on the spot.

Ye Jinglian's legs trembled violently, as heavy as a thousand catties, and he could not take a single step. The steward clamped his hand over his mouth, retching dryly.

The two guards who had turned back saw this and immediately let go, running off without a backward glance.

"Don't kill me, don't kill me! Take everything, take it all..."

Ye Jinglian lay on the ground kowtowing without pause, though he did not even know to whom he was kowtowing.