Chapter 164: Street Cleaning

Gazing down at the two beggars ceaselessly writhing at his feet, their whole bodies reeking and hands smeared with filth, Master Ma's long, thin horse-face was now a mixture of shock and fury, and he very nearly fainted dead away.

Fortunately, reinforcements arrived in time — the waiters of Deyue Tower came pouring out the door and, with many hands, rescued Master Ma from his predicament.

The next moment, Shopkeeper Duan, having gotten word, burst out of the establishment; in a towering rage he let out a great roar, and waiters grabbed door bars and broom handles and began beating the two beggars in a wild flurry.

Yet these two seemed richly experienced in taking a beating; as the blows fell they shielded their heads and hunched their waists while rolling chaotically on the ground, their mouths never ceasing to shout: "Well struck!"

When the waiters tired and pulled back, the area before Deyue Tower was already a complete mess. Quite a few odds and ends had fallen from the two beggars — rags, straw sandals, filth everywhere — and the stench was now radiating outward with the restaurant's front door as its epicenter; the crowd of onlookers, faces alight with excitement, could not withstand this biochemical assault and their viewing perimeter retreated a full two meters.

The two beggars now lay on the ground groaning; they had stopped moving, yet their spirits seemed still robust, and from time to time they would feebly yell out another "Well struck!" A moment later, a stream of liquid gushed out from beneath the two of them... they must have been beaten badly — incontinence.

Shopkeeper Duan was now shaking from head to toe with rage.

In the ten-plus years since Deyue Tower had opened, a scene like today's, with such lawless scoundrels kicking up a huge ruckus, had never once occurred. Even the yamen runners and common folk under the one prefecture and two counties of Hangzhou City dared not come and make a clamor at Deyue Tower; on the rare occasion some blind loafer or ruffian came to raise a din, a single visiting card delivered to the yamen and the man would be clapped in chains and taken away.

As for the beggars who came begging for food at the door, in Shopkeeper Duan's memory, tossing them a few leftovers and copper coins was enough to send them off — the Beggar Sect, from top to bottom, usually had a sharp eye and knew whose threshold was too high to provoke.

Today's performance, however, had utterly shattered the psychological advantage Shopkeeper Duan had built up over many years. That he was now trembling from head to toe was mostly from anger, but a small part was also from fear.

The yamen runners soon appeared; the Duan family visiting card was still quite effective. Yet the two runners who came today seemed a bit thin: they lacked the usual apprentices and unofficial runners who always accompanied them on patrol.

The Renhe County runner, all yellow teeth and built like a matchstick, arrived at the scene and, without a second word, shook out his iron chain to seize the villains and bring them to justice.

But since these fellows were called "villains," how could they be so easy to catch? Amid the jeering laughter of the crowd, the two filth-encrusted humanoid creatures used their hands to clamp the chains around their necks, rolled wildly all over the ground, and at the top of their lungs shouted: "Our legs are broken! Deyue Tower is killing people!"

Ever since the Beggar Sect's new policies, the traditional functions of the various branch halls had been gradually stripped away; the newly demarcated branch halls were now shifting toward the single function of refugee holding centers.

The various ancient trades of the lowly professions could now only be carried out by specialized personnel dispatched with the authority of the Head Hall.

And these two scoundrels, currently performing serpentine slithers before the doors of Deyue Tower with crawling skills clearly maxed out, had been specially transferred from the Head Hall just this morning; such men had a specific designation within the sect: "Ground Flat Snakes."

... The Renhe County runners, who had entered the scene with such bluster and posturing, now took this convenient way out, putting on guilty faces of helplessness before the villains and directing sheepish grins at Shopkeeper Duan.

Of course, evil could not triumph over righteousness, and in the end these two villains were still taken away.

Left with no choice, Shopkeeper Duan first publicly offered a reward. Yet the various loafers and ruffians who ordinarily would risk their lives for silver now did nothing but jeer from the sidelines; not a single one stepped forward to claim the reward.

In the end, he had to send out his own people.

After the reward was distributed among the waiters, a gang of high-end restaurant staff, all dressed in their Songjiang Fine Cloth tunics that on ordinary days emphasized cleanliness and neatness, now endured the stench and, with many hands, swarmed forward to pin the two filthy wretches onto a makeshift door plank and bind them tight.

After this... the filth-smeared waiters wrapped their standard-issue Moon-White Cloths around their mouths and noses, and amid the crowd's climactic whoops, whistles, and applause, hoisted the door plank and, diffusing a trail of stench, followed the yamen runners back to the County Yamen to report...

Shopkeeper Duan, his eyes already bloodshot, now saw the restaurant's honored guests scattering in flight and grew even more apoplectic; in three furious strides he crossed Hefang Street, jabbed his finger at the men chatting and laughing beside a table at the tea house entrance, and began cursing: "You damned scoundrel! You dare stir up trouble at my Duan family's door? You, surnamed Hu — watch that hide of yours, for tomorrow it shall be flayed off!"

After a thunderous "Smack!", Shopkeeper Duan shut his mouth.

Hu Zhengqi shook the tea water off his hand, glanced at the tea bowl smashed at Shopkeeper Duan's feet, and then, with a mirthless smile, said: "Old Duan, you must be blind as a dog. Weren't the troublemakers just taken away? Framing the innocent without a shred of proof — heh heh, if you can't flay my hide tomorrow, you and I still have some getting close to do!"

Hu Zhengqi's ferocious attitude as he suddenly turned hostile left Shopkeeper Duan, accustomed to calmly and coolly posturing, completely at a loss; he staggered back several steps, pointed a finger at Hu Zhengqi, then turned on his heel and left.

That evening, coordinates: Duan Residence.

With a "Smack!", for the second time that day a tea bowl was smashed at Shopkeeper Duan. Kneeling on the floor of polished green brick, head lowered as he stared at the shattered porcelain and tea before him, Shopkeeper Duan felt ten thousand grass-mud horses stampeding through his heart...

"Idiot! Wretch!" Duan De, the Family Head of the Duan family's Second Branch and a veteran Presented Scholar, was now cursing furiously.

"What have you been fooling around at all day? Has lard blinded your heart? That Beggar Sect, inside and out, is several thousand dead dogs, goods fit for a night-soil bucket — everyone else can't dodge them fast enough, and you, you fine fellow, twenty taels of silver? Is that even enough for a meal?"

The more Duan De cursed, the angrier he got: "All you know is sending visiting cards — how big is the Duan family's face? Several thousand dead dogs — can the yamen arrest them all, or can the Duan family deploy troops into the city? Do you want to plot rebellion? Idiot!"

The next day, at the hour of Si.

The familiar window-side private booth, the familiar person, the familiar dish of Crispy Butter Snails.

The beaming Adviser Hu swallowed the snail in his mouth, took a sip of tea to clear his throat, and then raised a single finger: "Twenty taels of silver per month."

Dejected and ashen-faced, Shopkeeper Duan could only nod weakly and powerlessly at his side.

"There is one other matter." Seeing Shopkeeper Duan capitulate, Hu Zhengqi continued with righteous solemnity: "Yesterday, two brothers broke their legs in front of Deyue Tower. Shopkeeper Duan is kind-hearted; surely a bit of silver for medicinal decoctions can still be bestowed."

Shopkeeper Duan nodded expressionlessly.

"That will be two hundred taels, with thanks." Adviser Hu, having said this, stood and patted the shoulder of the branch office accountant beside him: "From this day forward, the 'street sweeping' silver for Hefang Street — Luo Saner will come to collect it at the start of each month. Dare to be short a single wen, and I'll make sure you never know a day of peace!"

... After Adviser Hu finished, he beamingly picked up the half-plate of Crispy Butter Snails left on the table, and as he turned and walked toward the door, he muttered: "Today's plate shall be thrown in as a gift as well — Deyue Tower has a great enterprise and vast assets, after all."

Shopkeeper Duan's face now flickered between pale and blue; he said not a single word, his eyes fixed deathly on Adviser Hu as he walked out the door.

Once Deyue Tower, the biggest walnut on Hefang Street, had been cracked open, the role model was successfully established; the other shops, their frames not as tough as the Duan family's, naturally could muster no interest in resistance. And so, starting from Hefang Street, the Beggar Sect's campaign to collect "street sweeping" silver gradually spread across the entire city of Hangzhou.

Like so many things the Transmigrators did in this plane, the natives went from initial incomprehension and resistance to tasting the benefits within — and this process was usually swift. Before long, the shopkeepers, having felt the various hidden advantages of "clean and quiet" streets, no longer had a single word of criticism for this policy.

The authorities were equally satisfied — before the operation, Zhou Tong had promised the officials a certain governance outcome, and now it had been tangibly delivered.

This Sect Master Zhou was, in essence, an employee of the Transmigration Company, the Branch Manager of the Beggar Sect branch. Under corporatized management, the majority of the Beggar Sect's funds were effectively operated as public money and did not turn into hidden silver in the sect master's cellar.

Unlike the previous Group Heads who ran their affairs behind closed doors, Zhou Tong, from the very start of his tenure and under the Transmigrators' guidance, had frequently taken the initiative at the official level: paving the way with silver on one hand while deliberately strengthening mutual communication on the other; regarding the officials' requests, Group Head Zhou had always been quite cooperative, whether in public business or private matters.

It could be said without exaggeration that the latest Beggar Sect Group Head had reached an unprecedented height in public and private relations with the one prefecture and two counties of Hangzhou City.

This was also why the Beggar Sect could so easily launch the "Street Cleaning" operation: the groundwork had been thoroughly laid beforehand, and when the time came to act, a certain Zhou merely had to enter the back doors of the various yamens after dark, set down gifts, and then sincerely analyze for the officials the causes, effects, and benefits of the matter; Prefect Liu and the two County Magistrates, already his friends, were certain to nod and tacitly approve his operation — trying it out wouldn't get anyone pregnant, after all.

The performance of the Renhe County runners before Deyue Tower very clearly demonstrated the authorities' attitude on this matter.

And now the authorities had quickly tasted the benefits of "Street Cleaning": aside from a single row of old and weak beggars sitting neatly in designated spots, all the able-bodied youths who could cause trouble were reportedly confined by Group Head Zhou's men in certain dilapidated temples inside and outside the city, each issued some wild vegetable cakes to stay alive.

To transform overnight from a Queens district into a Manhattan district — this enormous contrast in environment and public order was something anyone could feel. Including the all-important positive reviews from the gentry and great households, this information would soon feed back to the yamen, and "roads peaceful, the realm tranquil, governance flowing and people harmonious" — this was administrative achievement, tangible achievement that could add points on a performance evaluation.

After this matter, a virtuous cycle formed between Zhou Tong and the government offices: I tacitly permit your actions, you give me silver and political achievements; whatever you want to do next, I will still support you. As for certain "rumors" regarding the buying and selling of population, I shall pretend not to hear them here — there will always be refugees flooding in from other regions anyway, and no one knows exactly how many of these people there are.

... The perfect execution of the Street Cleaning plan gave the Crossing Faction yet another stalling tactic and layer of insurance regarding the transport of Hangzhou City's population. Encouraged, Lu Cheng and Zhou Tong had begun discussing yet another plan these past two days.