Chapter 256: 254 The Great Unity Army Smeared

Fei Ruhe looked at the corpses on the ground, his feelings somewhat mixed.

Shen Youlong, who had blocked him in Longchuan County for two months, had very crisply and cleanly taken his own life. Vice Regional Commander Shi Wangzheng, on the other hand, fled like the wind after the rout, vanishing into the mountain forests where he was hard to hunt down.

"Search everywhere again — don't miss a single arquebus!"

Fei Ruhe went back to sweep the battlefield, his eyes gleaming as he looked at those arquebuses.

They were all fine guns made in Foshan — Shen Youlong had paid for them out of his own silver, not the shoddy junk the court issued.

With Shen Youlong's main force annihilated, eastern Guangdong held no more suspense.

Fei Ruhe returned to the outskirts of Heyuan County seat and had Shen Youlong's corpse tossed right at the city gate. That night, so terrified was the defending commander that he fled with his household retainers.

Huizhou Prefecture — one department, ten counties.

Chaozhou Prefecture — eleven counties.

Of these twenty-two cities, all except the Huizhou prefectural seat, which was still resisting, were simply waiting for Fei Ruhe to come and occupy them. The prefects, department magistrates, county magistrates, and garrison troops — all who could flee, fled. The local officials could not even recruit village braves to hold the cities.

Because Guangdong had suffered great disasters for two years running, and then three years of military calamity — even the gentry and powerful families no longer wished to fight.

Fei Ruhe had gone two months without opening for business, and once he opened, it was the whole of eastern Guangdong.

Chaozhou Prefecture in particular — Fei Ruhe could not even be bothered to go occupy it. Not only would it consume time, he would also have to split his forces to garrison it, and he did not have that many officials to dispatch. The fellow simply led his troops straight to Huizhou and surrounded the prefectural seat so tightly not a drop could leak through.

Guangzhou Prefecture, outskirts of Nanhai County.

Many merchants had gathered together — the Guan family, the Huang family, the Deng family, the Feng family, the Xie family... no Li family!

Aside from the Li family, everyone had arrived three quarters of an hour early.

"Is everything ready?" Guan Jialun asked.

Huang Xuanshen said, "Foshan is ready. We move tonight."

"Nanhai County seat — my Guan family will handle it," Guan Jialun said. "What about the Guangzhou prefectural seat?"

Feng Yucheng said, "Several families combined have already smuggled over six hundred men into the city in batches. Add the household slaves inside the city, plus the village braves guarding the walls — that's certainly enough to take Guangzhou!"

Feng Yucheng's clan cousin was called Feng Yushun, and he was none other than an aide to the Governor-General of Guangdong and Guangxi.

At a critical moment, one could not worry about the life or death of clan kin.

Deng Yunqiu held his tea bowl and said, "My Deng family and the Xie family guarantee we will take Xiangshan County. The Li family's running dogs in Xiangshan County won't escape this time — not a single one of them will live!"

These Guangdong gentry and powerful families wanting to restore trade as quickly as possible was only one of the reasons.

They also had a common enemy: the Li family!

The current Minister of Revenue was called Li Daiwen, a native of Foshan, Guangdong.

The Li family had originally been ordinary merchants, utterly inconspicuous among a crowd of great traders. But during the Wanli reign, Li Daiwen became Director of the Bureau of Appointments, and the Li clansmen rapidly grew insolent.

His clan cousin Li Chongwen not only sold ironware to foreigners, but also shipped Guangzhou rice to disaster-stricken Fujian.

At the time, Guangzhou itself was suffering a minor disaster, and grain was already insufficient. To reap exorbitant profits, Li Chongwen, heedless of whether the common people of Guangzhou lived or died, forcibly bought up rice and shipped it out via maritime merchants to Fujian. This act provoked a popular uprising — the people of Guangzhou killed Liang Guolun and two others, all three of them Li Chongwen's running dogs.

This case was handled by Yan Junyan — a minor official, but one of great renown.

When Yan Junyan served as Prefectural Judge in Guangzhou, he handled a great many smugglers. Unfortunately, the Li family's power was too great. He could only arrest Li Chongwen and have him caned, while simultaneously submitting a memorial requesting that Li Chongwen be stripped of his degree status (Imperial Academy student).

Left with no choice, Li Chongwen, through his clan cousin Li Daiwen, had Yan Junyan promoted away to Fujian.

As it turned out, in Fujian Yan Junyan then offended Xiong Wencan, who sent him to co-opt and pacify Zheng Zhilong. This move harbored no good intentions — Xiong Wencan hoped Zheng Zhilong would cut Yan Junyan down. Instead, Yan Junyan succeeded in the pacification.

Xiong Wencan was instantly overjoyed, and no longer resented Yan Junyan for having offended him. He immediately claimed the merit as his own and reported it to the court.

After Yan Junyan was transferred away from Guangzhou, Li Chongwen was beyond anyone's control. He muscled into every kind of commodity — this was tantamount to offending everyone. Because which family smuggled which goods had all been mutually agreed upon; the Li family showed no regard at all for the rules.

Not only did Li Chongwen disregard the rules, he wanted to set the rules himself. He colluded with the Governor-General of Guangdong and Guangxi and virtually monopolized the ironware exports of Foshan Town. Whoever dared bypass the Li family to sell ironware — with Li Daiwen in the court and the Governor-General in Guangdong, working in tandem inside and out — was directly convicted of the capital crime of rebellion.

The ironware and grain trades had already been completely controlled by the Li family, and a great number of merchants could only attach themselves to the Li clan.

And now, they were still scheming to control the export of porcelain and silk!

The crowd waited and waited, but Li Chongwen simply did not appear — most likely he did not dare come to the appointment.

"If this man won't come, the plan to capture the ringleader first is no longer feasible. Wait no longer — move in Foshan Town at once!" Guan Jialun gave the order.

Foshan.

"Master, disaster! The great families of the town have all come to kill us!" A household slave rushed into the room in terror.

Li Chongwen gripped an arquebus, his face twisted with ferocity. "What are you shouting about? However many come, we'll kill them all!"

Inside the great Li family residence, there were actually two hundred arquebusiers, plus several hundred blade-wielding guards, and they had even forged over ten sets of armor. Sensing that something was wrong, this fellow had assembled all his private armed forces at home — normally they were dispersed across various locations.

And the forces attacking the Li family likewise had arquebusiers, and had even hauled over six Folangji cannons.

Was this strange?

Not strange at all, because Foshan was the iron-smelting center of Lingnan, and moreover the firearms manufacturing base of the south — even the Governor-General of Guangdong and Guangxi had to come to Foshan to purchase his arquebuses.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Gunfire rang out chaotically, the sounds of killing rising on all sides.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The six Folangji cannons blasted wildly at the Li family's courtyard walls.

Most of these attackers were merchants who had been dependent on the Li family, long yearning for the day they could break free. It was only a pity that Li Daiwen's official rank had grown ever higher, and now he had even become Minister of Revenue — they could only rely on Zhao Han to turn the tables.

If Zhao Han did not send troops to strike Guangdong, these people would not dare rebel against the Li family!

Once they rebelled against the Li family, they would thoroughly offend the Minister of Revenue, and henceforth could only loyally support Zhao Han.

After a bout of cannon fire, the courtyard wall finally collapsed.

"Kill!"

Not only were there the armed forces of each clan, but also many thugs from the strike gangs, wielding a motley array of weapons as they charged inside.

"Boom!"

The twenty-odd men at the very front charged into the courtyard and were blown sky-high — the Li clan had used barrel-packed "ten-thousand-men killers."

"Run!"

The thugs from the strike gangs fled in terror.

The merchant surnamed Deng roared, "Whoever takes the Li residence — a hundred taels of silver! Whoever takes the Li residence — a hundred taels of silver!"

He bellowed it several times in succession, swiftly halting the collapse. The strike-gang thugs steeled their nerves and turned back.

The arquebusiers on both sides did not form ranks to fire; they had likely never been drilled. They all stood behind cover, aiming through gaps in the courtyard wall and taking wild potshots at each other.

Crack-crack-bang — they kept it up for half an hour, and never mind killing anyone, not a single man was even wounded by gunfire.

A whole lot of noise for nothing.

"Kill!"

From another direction, the merchant surnamed Xie led commoners over the wall and into the Li residence.

These commoners had all been recruited from the seacoast. They were farmers and fishermen both, but their true trade was "smuggling and provisioning."

The overall chain of smuggling under the Great Ming ran as follows: inland manufacturers — inland freight merchants — coastal receiving merchants — coastal fishermen — the sea merchants and pirates of every nation.

The smuggling hub of Guangdong was Xiangshan County (Zhongshan and Macao). Coastal fishermen used their fishing boats to move goods from Guangzhou to Xiangshan. One could say the fishermen of Guangzhou, Nanhai, and Xiangshan had already made smuggling their profession; if you suppressed smuggling, they would lose their entire livelihood.

If Zhao Han were to occupy this territory, he would have to solve the fishermen's livelihood problem. Otherwise, if he struck directly at smuggling, every one of these coastal fishermen would rise in revolt.

Under both the Ming and the Qing, when the maritime ban was at its strictest, why was it forbidden to live by the sea? Because everyone living along the coast was a smuggler!

Bang-bang-bang!

Another ragged volley rang out, and several commoners were shot dead on the spot.

In the panic, the commoners who had scaled the wall fled in every direction. The merchant surnamed Xie shouted with his household slaves, "Kill one of the Li clan — one tael of silver!"

Terrified as they were, with such a heavy reward on offer, the commoners still went running around the garden.

They dared not face the arquebuses, but they dared to break into the living quarters and fall upon the old, the weak, the women, and the children inside.

In moments, shrieks of agony rose from every corner of the Li family's inner compound.

Many of the household slaves holding arquebuses panicked — they had family of their own there — and every last one of them rushed over to help.

"Kill!"

At another section of the compound wall, more men came swarming over, and the battle was decided in an instant.

They went on killing deep into the night, letting not a single living thing escape — including the Li clan's maidservants and old serving women.

These merchants had endured the Li clan for over ten years!

At the same time, other merchants led men to seize the Li clan's various business properties.

They also brought household slaves, strike-gang men (thugs), provisioners (smuggling fishermen), and crutch-men (human traffickers), and began attacking Guangzhou, Xiangshan, and Nanhai from within the cities.

Once these motley "insurgents" had taken a city, they immediately set to burning, killing, and looting. Only the great households that had joined the uprising were left untouched.

The coastal region not only abounded in thugs and smugglers, but had even spawned the specialized trade of the "crutch-men."

Most of the time, they acted as overseas brokers, lending money to the poor so they could board ships and go abroad. Once these poor folk reached the Southern Seas, they worked off their debts as laborers. But some crutch-men simply kidnapped people outright and trafficked them — selling women and able-bodied young men to the Southern Seas, or to the red-haired devils in Macao.

In a single day, both the prefectural seat of Guangzhou and the county seat of Xiangshan changed hands entirely. The banner of the Great Unity Army flew from their gate towers.

Because those scoundrels had plundered so savagely, and had even violated women, the suffering commoners of the cities looked upon the Great Unity Army's banners with hatred in their eyes!

The people of the two cities knew nothing of any "Great Unity under Heaven"; all they knew was that the villains were in league with Zhao Han.

The merchants of the two cities, meanwhile, dispatched messengers north to request Zhang Tieniu to come at once.

The Regional Commander Lu Qian, who was garrisoning Yingde, heard that both cities in Guangzhou had fallen. Terrified, he fled through the night toward western Guangdong — otherwise he would be encircled yet again.

At the same time, the garrison of Huizhou's prefectural seat killed their commanders and surrendered outright.

Fei Ruhe took Guangzhou without lifting a finger — and then his face went black as the bottom of a wok. The commoners here regarded the Great Unity officers and soldiers as invaders. There was even a xiucai who had composed a children's rhyme, singing that Heavenly King Zhao was a man-eating demon king.

"Military Commissioner, the xiucai who was putting up the anonymous posters has been caught!"

"Bring him in!"

A xiucai was shoved before Fei Ruhe. He had been arrested for posting broadsheets.

Fei Ruhe asked, "Why did you post slanderous broadsheets?"

"Ptui!"

The xiucai spat in Fei Ruhe's face. "You lot burn, kill, rape, and plunder — sooner or later, Heaven's punishment will strike you down!"

(The afternoon chapter had many errors and omissions — Old Wang's brain was muddled from writing, and it was uploaded before being revised. It has now been corrected. Apologies.)

(End of chapter)