Chapter 542: I Am a Two Tiji—How Could I Lie?

Baoding Prefecture had 604 weizhai, each with its own weizhu, and Lin Fu had meticulously listed the circumstances of all 604 weizhu households.

Zhu Zhu Yijun held the complete version of the field visits; Lin Fu could not write of officials driving the people to rebellion, so he could only list them all out—he jotted them down in his small notebook to avoid forgetting, and this notebook eventually fell into the hands of the Young Master Huang.

Zhu Zhu Yijun gave the data to the Imperial Treasury eunuch Cui Min, who performed a data analysis; the Imperial Treasury eunuch's duty was accounting, so data analysis was arguably within his purview… sort of.

After several months of investigation and supplementation by the Two Tiji, these 604 weizhu households were finally categorized.

The Imperial Treasury eunuch Cui Min divided them into four categories.

First were the 230 households whose crimes were so heinous that, even under the extremely lenient Great Ming legal code, they were worthy of being composted.

For these 230 households, Zhu Zhu Yijun's records detailed how each had begun, how they became weizhu, what vices they practiced, how they oppressed those within their weizhai, and their current conditions.

The Yan family of Qizhou was merely one among them—a single case.

Of these 230 heinous households, only about thirty lacked gambling dens—or at least, the Two Tiji had not uncovered any gambling dens under their control; the remaining two hundred each operated gambling dens within their weishì, and they themselves were especially fond of gambling.

Two weizhu had gambled away every last possession, even betting their wives and children to others.

Gambling dens were the greatest means of land consolidation in Baoding Prefecture—and also a tool for mutual rivalry.

Beyond gambling dens came moneylending pawnshops.

Each of these 230 weizhu households operated pawnshops and rice shops; in the countryside, people primarily borrowed rice and seed grain, and during this process, the imperial government's distribution of sweet potato seedlings became yet another tool for profit—because the seedlings deteriorated from disease, they required nurseries for sterilization and tip-pruning.

Profiting from the Emperor's benevolent policies—isn't that tantamount to placing one's nine clans before the King of Hell?

Zhu Zhu Yijun, the Emperor of Great Ming, who once supervised executions at the Meridian Gate before his wedding! The architect of the Four Major Cases! Even the Confucian family of Yanzhou had members executed by imperial hounds! Such a brutal emperor—these weizhu households had no fear at all!

Was Zhu Zhu Yijun not ruthless enough? Of course not—it was simply that the Emperor was distant, dwelling high in the Nine Heavens, a celestial being; why should these weizhu fear him? For years, they had lived this way; all these weizhu households had done the same!

Beyond gambling dens and moneylending came brothels, whose operations were systematic: typically, several households jointly owned one brothel, mostly located in county towns; only powerful, influential clans like the Qizhou Yan family had the status to open a brothel in the prefectural capital, and Baoding Prefecture had exactly four such brothels.

Where did the prostitutes come from? Forcing decent people into prostitution—these 230 heinous households each had human traffickers; every household operated a human trafficking den, with sources of supply extremely widespread.

Many came from gambling dens: desperate gamblers, blinded by loss, had gambled away their wives, children, and elders.

Others came from pawnshops and rice shops: those unable to repay their green rice debts could only settle with family members.

Finally, there were dispossession and sales due to natural disasters and human calamities: some weizhu might not have operated trafficking dens, but still kept traffickers on retainer; during famine years, people naturally sold their sons and daughters, and traffickers would drive rice carts to barter grain for people.

Xu Xu Jie at least had the pretense of the Huishan Hall; that abandoned infant tower of his provoked universal outrage, yet at least Xu Xu Jie raised the non-deformed children—even if his intent was to sell them, it still offered a sliver of survival.

Green rice loans were taken when grain was still green, when households had no surplus grain left—even their seed grain was consumed—and they had no choice but to borrow from wealthy households; once they borrowed, they almost invariably descended from self-cultivating farmers to tenant farmers, and from tenant farmers to vagrants.

The entire trade of forcing decent people into prostitution was systematically organized: human traffickers found sources, selected the most attractive girls, and sold them to brothels in county towns; the less attractive were sold to poor families as brides, euphemistically called "matchmaking"; the best girls from county brothels were sent to the prefectural capital's brothels.

The "fairies" of the prefectural brothel were not all from Baoding Prefecture; for instance, in the ninth year of Emperor Wanli, the Qizhou Yan family bought three red-haired foreigners from Songjiang Prefecture, instantly making their brothel the largest in Baoding—rarity commands value; red-haired prostitutes, rare even in Songjiang, had never been seen in Baoding.

Another brothel, seeing this trend, immediately bought back Korean courtesans as a gimmick; for a time, both establishments became wildly popular.

The prefectural brothel primarily bought Yangzhou slender horses, Datong wives, West Lake boatwomen, and Taishan nuns; among these, Yangzhou slender horses were the most expensive and hardest to obtain, while Datong wives were the most numerous.

Through gambling dens, usury, human trafficking, and brothels, the weizhu households completed their consolidation, seizing over eighty percent of local land; the extreme concentration of production means created intense personal dependency, so tenants had no means to resist when the weizhu demanded they pile bodies into compost pits.

Besides these 230 heinous households, there were twenty-eight others who had reformed after the Emperor Wanli Reforms—specifically, after the land survey. Their reasons for reform were many.

Some were frightened—mainly because the imperial land survey demonstrated the court's administrative revival, and with Altan Khan in decline, the Ming army grew ever stronger; after careful consideration, they shut down their gambling dens and human trafficking dens, became far more cautious with lending, and some timid ones even dared not visit to collect rent.

For instance, the sweet potato seedlings: these twenty-eight households had distributed them fully to the people; these were the Emperor's seedlings for the people. The Great Ming Emperor was Zhang Zhang Juzheng's student, known to hold grudges like a needle's point; rumors said His Majesty had a heart smaller than a pin's eye—when a wealthy household in Jiangsu Liyang seized the wasteland reclaimed by Ma Ma Yilong, Gao Qi went to Liyang and ordered its return.

Zhu Zhu Yijun proved this was no rumor.

Some weizhu had suffered losses: their sons were killed by mountain bandits and they could not retaliate; others, after their homes burned down, saw every neighbor as a malicious villain trying to harm them; still others had fallen down the social ladder, lost everything in gambling dens, even gambled away their ancestral graves, and no longer had the power to continue their tyranny.

Beyond the heinous and the reformed, there were the 230 "day-to-day" households.

The "day-to-day" households merely lived their lives, did not oppress excessively, grumbled about imperial decrees but still carried them out—though often half-heartedly: they underreported during land surveys, secretly withheld some seedlings when distributing them, dared not gamble heavily, lent money cautiously for fear the poor laborers could not repay, lacked the shamelessness of the heinous ones, and did not wish to drive people to ruin; all things come full circle.

The remaining 114 households could be called village virtuous gentry; these people were not poor—they treated their weizhai as their own home, and saw their hometown's ruin as unacceptable. Of these 114, over seventy had able-bodied men serving as elite soldiers in the capital garrisons—these were the foundation of Great Ming: good families.

Though 114 households constituted only 18.8% of 604, the Great Ming's population base was immense; nearly two-tenths of the total, combined with the 230 wavering "day-to-day" households, was more than enough to secure the empire.

Chen Mo, the Thousand-Household of the Northern Garrison Command, had assembled his Two Tiji and prepared to depart for Qizhou, to fulfill the Emperor's command: to raze the Yan family of Qizhou to the ground and investigate all involved criminals.

The "Leisurely Gossip" was published in the morning; Chen Mo departed in the afternoon. Six hundred Two Tiji, each with three horses, raced day and night toward Qizhou; thanks to the level roads, they arrived in Qizhou territory in just one and a half days.

Chen Mo rested at the Jintai Relay Station on the official road, resting until dawn the next day, fully refreshed before continuing onward.

To Chen Mo's surprise, the capital was in uproar, yet Qizhou remained eerily quiet—as if nothing had happened; information traveled slowly in this age, but the court's response had been swift—Lin Fu's publication had been pre-planned, so it moved with exceptional speed.

Chen Mo set out at dawn and arrived at the Yan family compound just at noon.

The Yan family compound lay three li outside Qizhou city—not because the Yan family lacked the means to acquire land within the city, but because Qizhou city had 350,000 souls, a chaotic mix; living inside was convenient, but certain matters were not: curfew, for instance—openly violating it was trampling on the faces of imperial officials; plague, for instance—if an outbreak occurred, water came from stagnant pools, and the plague would inevitably spread.

When Chen Mo arrived, he did not launch an immediate assault, nor did he present the imperial edict to knock on the door; instead, he observed the Yan compound through his long-range spyglass.

Chen Mo had accompanied Lin Fu to Baoding and Qizhou; he knew the local temperament was fierce. He had five years' experience as a frontier outpost commander and had participated in Wang Wang Rulong's recapture of Kaiping Guard. After receiving his orders, he prepared for battle—he saw this as a rebellion.

Disobeying imperial orders, defying the Emperor's edict—this was no longer the conduct of village virtuous gentry, nor even of a wicked gentry, nor even ordinary banditry; this was seated banditry!

The compound was divided into eastern and western sections, covering five thousand mu including gardens and hills, but only about fifty mu within the weiqiang contained the Yan family's buildings; the two sections were separated by a central gate flanked by two large stone lions, behind which stood three shoutou gates: a central gate and two side gates.

The central gate remained closed; all entry and exit used the side gates. The weiqiang was Chen Mo's primary focus—such militarily fortified walls were hard to breach and could cause heavy casualties; the Two Tiji, traveling swiftly, had not brought heavy artillery.

Chen Mo could have waited for the Baoding Provincial Governor to bring up cannons, but after careful observation, he decided on a surprise attack.

Bearing the Emperor's mandate and leading the most elite Two Tiji, Chen Mo, as Thousand-Household, chose to launch a surprise attack on a village virtuous gentry of Qizhou—this was not a difficult decision for him.

When he served as a frontier outpost commander on the steppe, to survive, he had deliberately ambushed rutting roe deer.

Ambushing roe deer on the steppe saved energy; now, ambushing the Yan compound was to minimize casualties. A frontal assault would allow the enemy to prepare and possibly fight to the death; guarding against the weiqiang's defenses was something Chen Mo had to consider—controlling the gate by surprise was his decision.

The "invasion" was an old story from Emperor Jiajing 29—thirty-three years had passed; the Tumens' incursion in Emperor Longqing 1 had mainly targeted Jimen and Zunhua, barely touching Tianjin, and had not reached Baoding Prefecture.

After prolonged peace, the Yan family's gates stood wide open, with no defenses whatsoever; the entrance was not particularly busy—it was a manor, not a gambling den; the Yan family's business was conducted in Qizhou city, not within the compound.

Two Two Tiji disguised themselves—wearing upper garments and trousers, slouching and carefree—as they approached the Yan family gate.

Both Two Tiji were former frontier outpost commanders; infiltrating enemy camps to gather intelligence was a mandatory skill; their attire clearly made them unworthy of entering the Yan mansion's main gate. Soon, they clashed verbally with the gatekeeper and were driven off by several servants.

The Two Tiji had done this deliberately; the gatekeeper and servants cursed and mocked them, believing they had chased away beggars seeking bribes, then laughed and chatted as they returned inside.

Meanwhile, two squads of twenty Two Tiji had silently approached the gate from both sides; as the gatekeeper and servants returned inside, the twenty Two Tiji suddenly surged forward and pinned the gatekeeper to the ground.

The performance was necessary to ensure the servants would not quickly reach the gate to raise an alarm. Clearly, the Two Tiji's operation succeeded perfectly: once the gate was secured, they entered the compound, achieving complete surprise.

Chen Mo's Two Tiji divided into twenty groups of thirty, advancing from the gate to assault the Yan compound; armored Two Tiji were well-trained and in perfect sync, effortlessly seizing the entire Yan compound without a single casualty and subduing everyone.

"Who are you? Get out, get out! How dare you barge in here? Tell the kitchen to serve lunch a bit later." Yan Wang Chongyi had just finished smoking opium, his head spinning; seeing Chen Mo's unfamiliar face, he was slightly wary but dismissed it—he'd faced countless poor laborers who wanted him dead, and none had succeeded.

Chen Mo and his Two Tiji had already reached Yan Wang Chongyi's side; Yan Wang Chongyi didn't even know he was being invaded.

The Yan family was vast and powerful; whenever anyone plotted against them, they always received advance warning—even from bandits or the court—so Yan Wang Chongyi assumed this was just a servant wandering into his quarters, and the commotion outside he took for servants quarreling, ignoring it entirely.

Had Yan Wang Chongyi not been smoking opium, he would have recognized their armor and attire immediately—but he couldn't care less; he was lost in clouds and smoke, drunk on oblivion.

Chen Mo surveyed the study: the display shelves held strange stones, antiques, teapots, and two potted plants, quite elegant; bookshelves on both sides were filled with books; the study was bright and clean, even using glass windows—but from their neatness, the Yan family had never opened or read these books.

Chen Mo had seen the Emperor's study; the Emperor's study was chaotic.

It wasn't that palace maids and eunuchs lacked respect—it was that the Emperor forbade tidying; to others, it was messy, but to Zhu Zhu Yijun, every item was precisely where it belonged.

Once tidied, Zhu Zhu Yijun could never find what he needed—even with eunuchs standing by, he had to search; thus, the imperial desk appeared cluttered, with floating labels stuck on books—that was a properly used study.

Clearly, this study and its books were merely for show.

The study also contained a bed, and Yan Wang Chongyi lay upon it, smoking opium; he was impatient, unable to wait even to shoo Chen Mo away. Opposite him sat Yan Yan Youli, who had purchased this opium ball at great cost in Songjiang Prefecture; in Emperor Wanli 9, Yan Yan Youli first encountered the substance while buying red-haired foreigners in Songjiang.

Two maids trembled under the Two Tiji's swift blades; they waited for the Yan father and son to finish smoking before serving them, but the Two Tiji arrived before they finished.

The opium seller told Yan Yan Youli it enhanced virility; Yan Yan Youli immediately bought five opium balls. In truth, it did nothing of the sort—it was merely a gimmick.

Chen Mo was not in a hurry; he carefully observed the study's furnishings, waiting for his Two Tiji to secure the entire compound.

Capture the leader first; seeing Yan Wang Chongyi and Yan Yan Youli together, Chen Mo knew his imperial mission was complete.

Chen Mo stood outside the study, watching the father and son in blissful ecstasy—he knew the Yan family would collapse even without this raid; in the Northern Garrison Command, he had seen many reports: no household that touched this substance ever ended well.

It had little to do with wealth; for ordinary people, an opium ball costing two thousand taels was absurdly expensive, but among powerful clans, it was affordable.

The real danger was opium's physiological destruction: once the head of household became addicted, he became like a demon—easily angered, impatient, indifferent to everything except opium; such a man could not lead a household.

The Two Tiji closed the gates and segregated the captives; six hundred men within the compound were not crowded; they scoured the grounds like digging three feet deep, confirmed no one escaped, then began interrogations without delay.

The compound had eastern and western courtyards, each with four rows of siheyuan, each row three courtyards deep; all siheyuan connected front-to-back and side-to-side; from south to north stood the East Huahall, Sun Shangli Hall, Zunyi Hall, and West Huahall; beyond the eastern weiqiang lay a vast garden.

The gates were closed to guard against Qizhou's Prefect Li Li Anren.

To the Two Tiji, local officials were untrustworthy—especially since the Qizhou Yan family's composting crimes had gone unnoticed by local authorities.

This suggested Qizhou's local officials were likely colluding with the Yan family—so closing the gates ensured they could hold out until Baoding reinforcements arrived, even if the prefect led his constables to attack.

When Chen Mo seized the Yan mansion, the capital garrisons had just departed; even if Baoding's Provincial Governor Xin Xin Zixiu was aligned with the Yan family, Chen Mo was confident he could hold out until the capital troops arrived.

Chen Mo waited outside the study until the smoke thinned, then entered with two Two Tiji, covering their noses, dragging the two men—lifeless as fish—from the study, binding them, and stuffing their socks into their mouths.

The two men kept mumbling, incomprehensible; Chen Mo grew annoyed and stuffed their mouths shut.

"Sir, you must come see this yourself," said a Two Tiji, his face grim.

Interrogations had begun; according to the servants' confessions, the evidence the Two Tiji sought was in three side rooms in the back courtyard; they found armor, bows and arrows, long and short weapons, muskets, and gunpowder—all contraband—but the original imperial edict permitting weiqiang construction had stated: "Let the people build earth walls and forge weapons for self-defense."

These items fell under "forging weapons for self-defense"; when peace arrived, they failed to destroy them, and could still be excused.

But in the three side rooms, the Two Tiji found other things.

When Chen Mo arrived, behind an empty cabinet he discovered a cellar; the cellar was pitch-black, reeking of decay and feces, the stench detectable from afar; only the flickering torchlight revealed a scene of hell: twelve prison cells, each holding a few people, the cellar filled with corpses already putrid.

"The Punishment Chamber," said a Two Tiji solemnly; inside were men and women—those who disobeyed were thrown in for two days, and emerged obedient; the Punishment Chamber was for reprimanding.

This was irrefutable evidence: weizhu households were abusing private punishment.

"Bring them all out," Chen Mo exhaled a foul breath.

Even the Northern Garrison Command's prison lacked such complete torture instruments, such chilling horror; the Northern Garrison's Five Tortures were famed across the land—once subjected to metal, wood, water, fire, and earth, no prisoner failed to confess.

But because the Great Ming Emperor frequently visited the Northern Garrison Command to interrogate prisoners, the command was constantly inspected, and its chilling atmosphere had long been scrubbed clean.

Moreover, the Five Tortures could no longer be used.

Blood and gore were inauspicious; the Emperor visited often, so they could not be inauspicious; later, the Northern Garrison Command simply stopped torturing altogether—uncooperative prisoners were taken to the Dissection Chamber, where the sight of Zhang Zhang Siwei's preserved body alone would make them confess everything—even details like stealing a neighbor's bath at age six.

This strange, currently existing unit of measurement—a single room—was terrifying indeed.

"Bring the portraits," Chen Mo suddenly frowned, ordering portraits brought; after careful verification, he confirmed this man was the adopted son from the Qizhou composting case—the head of the Yan family's thugs—now locked in the Punishment Chamber, clearly suffering greatly.

"Are you Yan Yan Zhixiao?" Chen Mo waved his hand before the adopted son's face; Yan Yan Zhixiao was the name Yan father and son had given this adopted son.

Yan Yan Zhixiao spoke weakly: "Yes."

"How did you end up locked up? Aren't you the one who locks others away?" Chen Mo asked with a cruel smile; his gaze at Yan Yan Zhixiao was not that of a living man, but of fertilizer—this was fertilizer personally designated by His Majesty, and Chen Mo would personally see the Yan family tossed into the compost pit.

Chen Mo was born in poverty; back then, when he left his hometown, he was bullied by such tyrants and had no choice but to flee far away.

Chen Mo joined the army in Xuanfu as a mercenary, later being selected as a distant watchtower guard; he had once considered defecting from Great Ming to join Altan Khan—this was the most desperate, final choice for border folk.

But Chen Mo ultimately did not choose that path; instead, he resolved to fight the Northern Barbarians to the death—not for any reason, simply because he refused to be their dog.

Soon, Wang Wang Chonggu returned in disgrace to Xuanfu, plugging the gaps in the Great Wall's construction along the Xuan-Da stretch, and Great Ming began to flourish.

Chen Mo—"mo" as in insignificance.

"I was locked in the Punishment Hall because I had an affair with a maid in the Young Master's chamber, and the Young Master found out," Yan Yan Zhixiao frowned tightly; these men were not bandits—they were the legendary Embroidered Uniform Guard!

"What happened to the maid?" Chen Mo asked indifferently.

Yan Yan Zhixiao shook his head: "She was given to the footmen as a wife. I don't know what became of her."

"Good. Yan Wang Chongyi is unrighteous and unkind—why should you be filial to him? Tell me everything he's done these past years, word for word." Chen Mo's expression grew even kinder: "Forgive me—I haven't introduced myself. I am Chen Mo, Commandant of the Northern Office of Judicial Inquiry. I guarantee you: if you reveal the truth about the Yan father and son, you will come to no harm."

"Is this true?!" Yan Yan Zhixiao's legs turned to water at the mention of the Two Tiji.

He had been arrogant and cruel when bullying the poor and laborers, but now, facing the violence of Great Ming's court, his legs trembled uncontrollably, sweat poured from his body—the embroidered robes, flying-fish uniforms, matchlocks, long and short firearms, tiger-crouching cannons—all unmistakably real.

When the Commandant promised him safety upon full confession, a spark of hope ignited deep within Yan Yan Zhixiao.

Of course, Chen Mo was lying—how could he not? When composting, he would surely use a stick to shove these scum to the very bottom.

"Of course. I'm a Two Tiji—why would I lie?" Chen Mo did not lie; Yan Wang Chongyi, Yan Yan Youli, Yan Yan Zhixiao—these were not human beings.

The interrogation proceeded smoothly; with Yan Yan Zhixiao, the chief henchman, confessing, the Two Tiji's household raid became far more efficient: they seized twenty-seven ten-thousand taels in silver, one thousand four hundred taels of gold, seventeen land deeds for Qizhou city, twenty-four thousand mu of farmland deeds, three wine houses, one brothel, seven money shops, promissory notes totaling eleven ten-thousand taels in silver, and numerous rare jade and stone artifacts—all to be transported to the Imperial Treasury, not liquidated locally.

These were all assets.

Surprisingly, Chen Mo uncovered seventy-two slave deeds—all newly signed after the court abolished the jienu register, all pristine, including Yan Yan Zhixiao's.

This was irrefutable evidence: the weizhu households were defying the Emperor's edict and the court's decrees.