Chapter 346: Opening the Port (Thirteen)

Zuo Hongtang picked up the contract from the table, fixed his eyes on it, and this time he was truly enraged: "Master Yu, this thing with the ink still wet—it cannot possibly count!"

The content on the paper was very simple: Zuo Shiqi's letter of intent agreeing to exchange land with the Rent Depot, complete with a thumbprint.

Yu Bende, all smiles, asked at this moment: "Sir, it's in black and white, and the thumbprint is already pressed—how can it not count?"

Zuo Hongtang slammed the paper hard onto the tabletop: "This dog-fart thing isn't even a title deed. Without public deliberation within the clan, privately buying and selling farmland naturally cannot count. That Shiqi will sooner or later be beaten to death under family law at the Ancestral Hall... Master Yu, you've overstepped your bounds!"

From this moment on, clan authority and imperial authority were locked in confrontation.

Traditional Chinese society was a social structure where three powers coexisted: imperial authority, religious authority, and clan authority.

Imperial authority exercised political power at the national level; clan authority exercised the power of local self-governance. Imperial authority only reached down to the county level—this is what is meant by "imperial authority does not descend below the county."

The townships and villages below the county level were all self-governed by clans and folk customs; only when matters involved the law and national public affairs could imperial authority extend into townships and villages.

And then, because people all followed traditional culture, the moral education, judgments of right and wrong, and ethical evaluations of the entire society could be carried out by the religious authority that held cultural mastery—thus a stable triangle was formed.

And so today, the moment this thin, yellowed contract was tossed onto the table, Yu Bende, representing imperial authority, formally clashed with Zuo Hongtang, representing clan authority.

Theoretically speaking, what this contract represented was actually a gray area: both sides had a case.

For Ming-dynasty clans under the principle of "imperial authority does not descend below the county," everything belonging to Zuo Shiqi, including his property and his very life, could be privately dealt with by the clan—this was how things had been done for thousands of years: "if the people do not report it, the officials do not investigate." Clans using family law to execute a person was perfectly justified; there was absolutely no need to register it with the authorities, let alone for a bit of farmland.

This was the reason Zuo Hongtang attacked Yu Bende for "overstepping his bounds": Clerk Yu had broken the traditional tacit understanding between the two sides.

And the reason they hadn't dealt with Zuo Shiqi ruthlessly from the start was, plainly, that the Left Family's Senate had underestimated the severity of this matter: handing Zuo Shiqi's title deed to his prudent elder brother and sister-in-law for safekeeping was, in their view, sufficient; there was no need to silence him as well.

After all, if you really wanted to kill someone, you still needed a reason. The man had merely attempted to sell land without success; he hadn't slept with his brother's wife or killed anyone.

Yet this was precisely where things went wrong. The Left Family lacked sufficient sources of information, so they knew very little about the aims and background of Yu Bende's group; they never imagined that their opponent's appetite was actually far greater, and that they were targeting the Left Family itself.

The matter of Zuo Shiqi selling land had precisely given Yu Bende the pretext and opportunity to intervene—in fact, if they had invoked clan law to privately bury Zuo Shiqi yesterday, Yu Bende would have been powerless to act today.

For Yu Bende, as long as Zuo Shiqi was still alive, this matter was easy to handle: he personally paid a visit today and, with great ease, persuaded Zuo Shiqi—lying on his bed, full of resentment—to press his thumbprint onto the paper.

Note that this contract was actually just a "letter of intent"; its content was Zuo Shiqi agreeing to sell his land to the Rent Depot. As for the most crucial item, the title deed itself, it was still in the hands of Zuo Shiqi's elder brother and sister-in-law, which Yu Bende would need to sort out himself.

Yet this was enough. Yu Bende merely needed an opportunity to intervene openly. Now, with him, an "official runner," acting as witness, Zuo Shiqi's land sale had transformed into "public business," and public business meant this dispute could be taken to the County Yamen's Public Hall to "argue reason."

So Yu Bende was now practically hoping the Left Family would finish Zuo Shiqi off; that way, he could blow the matter wide open—the premise of "if the people do not report it, the officials do not investigate" was that both sides had a tacit understanding. Once the authorities broke that understanding and insisted on pursuing a case, regardless of anything else, the involved parties would inevitably have to take a trip to the Public Hall.

These principles, though lengthy to explain, were things both sides in this confrontation could grasp in an instant.

After hearing Zuo Hongtang's argument, Yu Bende, still smiling, tapped the paper on the table with his finger, and then he posed a question laced with killing intent: "Whether Zuo Shiqi is drowned in a pond or keeps his life is not something I can control much. However, regarding this man's complaint that his elder brother and sister-in-law schemed to seize his property and forcibly took his land deed—it seems there is truth to this after all?"

Zuo Hongtang of course understood what this old dog meant: the man surnamed Yu wanted to blow the matter up and then let the Public Gate intervene. In the parlance of later generations, Yu Bende wanted to drag his opponent into an environment he knew well, and then use his rich experience to defeat him.

"Absolutely no such thing!" Zuo Hongtang instinctively opened his mouth to deny it.

"Hehehe." Wearing the skin of officialdom, Yu Bende—a fox borrowing the tiger's might—was clearly gaining the upper hand at this moment, even though he was just an old man who had come alone to the Left Family: "If there is no such thing, then in whose hands is Zuo Shiqi's title deed?"

"This..." Zuo Hongtang realized he had fallen into a trap.

No matter what answer he gave now, his opponent could use Zuo Shiqi's testimony and the contract to make trouble, steering the matter toward judicial procedures—for instance, issuing a "summons ticket" to bring Zuo Shiqi's elder brother and sister-in-law to the County Yamen to explain the situation.

And how could a rural clan like the Left Family possibly contend with them in a legal battle at the County Yamen?

In fact, the matter was not nearly so simple. With the County Yamen's Household Clerk personally acting as witness—serving as both referee and player—even if the elder brother and sister-in-law had indeed taken the title deed in full public view, let alone if they hadn't, once inside they would be saddled with countless false charges. If things went badly, it could even implicate other members of the Left Family.

Even the checkpoint before that was hard enough to pass: in this era, summoned witnesses were all first detained in the "Detention House" privately run by the Runners. If they really wanted to mess with you, before the County Magistrate even held court, that brother and sister-in-law would already be finished.

This was why commoner households feared the authorities: win or lose, success or defeat, you'd lose a layer of skin if not your life.

... It had originally been the simplest of clan matters, yet now the opponent had seized on it and wouldn't let go. Realizing that no matter what, he could not avoid the other side using the advantage of the Public Gate to entangle him, Zuo Hongtang stopped following Yu Bende's train of thought.

He first quietly considered for a moment, then picked up his tea bowl and took a sip. Only after this did he ask, his tone mild: "Master Yu, harping on this one matter—you can't truly be doing this just to buy the Left Family's land, can you?"

"Indeed." Having circled around for so long, Yu Bende had finally managed to steer his opponent's thinking onto the right track. His expression turned stern as he stared coldly at Zuo Hongtang: "You didn't really think I came all the way to the Left Family just for Zuo Shiqi's measly forty mu of land, did you?"

"Master Yu, Left Family Village has so many mouths to feed. If the land is sold, where are we to go to make a living?" Zuo Hongtang still did not believe, even now, that Yu Bende had come to swallow up the entire village's land, so at this moment he remained somewhat incredulous.

"Heh heh, I won't hide it from you, Master Zuo. In the future, this place will be covered with large workshops." Yu Bende switched back to a smiling face at this point and began describing the Company's vision to someone: "Those villagers who have exchanged their land can go south to continue farming. Those unwilling to farm can also work in the workshops; they'll always have a full belly."

Zuo Hongtang abruptly stood up from his chair. The man finally understood now: these people hadn't come to fool around with him; they truly had a plan to uproot the Left Family entirely: "You surnamed Yu, do you really mean to force the thousand-odd members of my Left Family onto a dead-end path?"

Yu Bende also slowly stood up at this moment: "Master Zuo, this land must, by necessity, be requisitioned. Compared to the one behind me, your Left Family truly isn't much to look at. Please heed one piece of honest advice from old Yu: those who recognize the times are great men. Who knows, maybe after everyone sells their land, life will be even better?"

How could Zuo Hongtang possibly entrust the fate of his entire clan to a single sentence from this old wretch? In fact, he now believed he had seen through Yu Bende's tricks: "Bullshit! My Left Family has lived here for generations—how could we just leave on a whim? Hmph, you surnamed Yu, I don't care who the master behind you is. If you want to scheme for our land, you'll have to first step over the corpses of my Left Family's thousand people!"

After cursing him out with a pointed finger, Zuo Hongtang flung his wide sleeve, turned his back, and said furiously: "Farewell, and no need to see you out!"

Yu Bende, standing there, could not help but sigh: in the end, it had still come to this. And so, after a perfunctory cupped-fist salute, he turned around and took his leave.

The moment Yu Bende stepped out of the Left Family's gate, this drama entered its main act. Both sides now clearly understood their opponent's aims and thoughts; all that remained was a cold, hard contest of strength.

The first scene of the main act came very quickly: after lying on his bed for a day, Zuo Shiqi soon came, cheerfully supported by others, to the Land Requisition Office and slapped his title deed onto the table.

And Yu Bende, sitting behind the desk, seeing Zuo Shiqi produce the title deed, could not help but sneer a few times: "Good, very good. Someone come—process the paperwork for Brother Zuo."

From Zuo Shiqi's mouth, he learned: the Left Family had urgently convened another Senate General Assembly. At the meeting, while returning Zuo Shiqi's title deed, they had also simultaneously expelled him from the Left clan...

So Zuo Shiqi was now a man utterly alone. Bent on becoming the God of Gamblers, he now intended to cast off all restraint and quickly leave Zuo Family Village, this place overrun by villains.

And so Yu Bende, in the end, played the good guy one last time: he used silver to buy Zuo Shiqi's few rooms.

After sending off the God of Gamblers, the Land Requisition Office, sensing that the Left Family had already begun to shrink back into defense, unhurriedly waited a few more days. After settling matters with all the independent households willing to sell their land, they then posted another notice in the village: for those selling land now, each mu would receive an additional two taels of silver on top of the original rate.

Once this news came out, even a fool could do the math: by selling the family land, even if you bought land of the same size in a neighboring village or township, you'd still be left with a huge sum of silver. In these times, no household lived comfortably; with this silver, the crushing debts and burdensome taxes and levies could all be resolved!

And so another wave of land-selling emerged, this time encompassing nearly all the remaining independent households in the village.

Most importantly, members of the Left Family were once again coming to the door, title deeds in hand.