Chapter 356: Opening the Port (23)

That night, in Steward Niu's study.

Steward Niu was a close friend of Steward Xie and also one of the Restaurant Alliance stewards. The man sitting opposite him at this moment was none other than Constable Cao, who had just made a big name for himself today.

"What you did today, Brother Cao, truly showed your skill." The pudgy Steward Niu narrowed his eyes, looking very pleased. As he spoke these kind words, he slid a large packet of silver across the table.

His good mood was hardly unwarranted: Constable Cao's awe-inspiring capture of Deng Hu and a gang of his underlings had, in effect, resolved a huge trouble for the Restaurant Alliance.

One had to understand that as long as Deng Hu was at large, these men had to live in constant fear, endlessly spending silver to subsidize the yamen runners. The cost was enormous, and if mishandled, it could easily turn into a bottomless pit.

"Since you gentlemen wanted him dealt with, I was naturally bound to put in the effort." Constable Cao was all smiles as well. Without a shred of shame, he claimed the credit entirely for himself, and conveniently swept the silver on the table into his own possession.

Seeing Constable Cao accept the silver, Steward Niu nodded and continued, "Well, having this Deng Hu sitting in jail right now is hardly a good thing in itself."

At this point, Steward Niu lifted his eyelids and swept a glance at Constable Cao. "I hear that scoundrel has many friends in the underworld, and people behind him too. With all the back-and-forth, the longer the night, the more dreams..."

Constable Cao, catching the subtle hint in his words, instantly grasped the other's meaning. "Very well. Three days from now, once the magistrate has pronounced this wretch's sentence, we'll see that he dies of illness in prison."

Constable Cao paused here and furrowed his brow. "But if we do that, the implications will be considerable. The jailers and everyone involved will bear responsibility, and it won't reflect well on His Honor the County Magistrate either."

"No matter!" Steward Niu now wore the bold expression of a man negotiating a major deal. He extended a plump hand, cutting off the rest of Constable Cao's words. "I'll grant you another five hundred taels of silver. Take it and split it with the prison head yourself. I only want Deng Hu's life. Silver on delivery of his life; I ask nothing else."

"As for His Honor the Magistrate, an old acquaintance will visit the county yamen tomorrow. Rest assured, His Honor will absolutely not make you lose face over this matter."

"Deal!" Constable Cao's face was a mask of resolve, but inwardly he was wild with joy: Deng Hu's life—he had already sold it to Butcher Zhang this afternoon, and now he was selling it all over again to Steward Niu. Doing business with the wealthy was simply too delightful; he was now brimming with motivation from head to toe.

Once the agreement was reached, both host and guest lifted their tea bowls in unison and took a smiling sip.

After setting down his bowl, Steward Niu drew a silk handkerchief from his sleeve to wipe his mouth, then cleared his throat before continuing. "There is one other matter. Those dozen or so hired thugs are no good either; they're all Deng Hu's die-hard cronies. To prevent future trouble, they must be disposed of together this time."

Constable Cao shook his head at this. "Difficult. We just smashed a nest of thieves a while ago, and now we've arrested Deng Hu. If we try to prosecute a dozen more men all at once, His Honor the Magistrate will likely suspend litigation. I can't exert any force there."

Ancient courts, in order to whitewash their own image, often engaged in some truly farcical acts. For instance, an emperor would grant an amnesty, releasing death-row convicts, and then boast about being a so-called benevolent ruler in a golden age of peace—Li Shimin was a master of this.

This custom had a long history, and at the local prefectural and county level, the crime rate could even affect an official's career prospects. To whitewash the peace, they would even use the busy farming season as a pretext to suspend the acceptance of complaints; the authorities would take no cases except for homicide.

This ostrich-like practice of quashing litigation was, in essence, a case of burying one's head in the sand... the authorities doing as little as possible in terms of filing cases—a truly farcical method of governance.

This was precisely what Constable Cao had been referring to. Recently, quite a few cases had cropped up in the county. For the county magistrate, he had only just sentenced a gang of bandits not long ago, and now this homicide case involving Deng Hu had emerged. If he were asked to sentence a dozen more thugs on top of that, His Honor would probably be unwilling.

"Mm, forcing it won't work either." Steward Niu agreed with Constable Cao's assessment. But then his eyes swiveled, and he quickly thought of a countermeasure. "However, if the complainants were to hear that their enemies have been brought to justice and flock to the county yamen to weep, petition, and clamor, surely His Honor the Magistrate couldn't ignore such inflamed public sentiment?"

"Haha." Constable Cao laughed, his expression one of anticipating a good show. "If it were handled that way, then His Honor, who loves the people as his own children, would certainly punish the villains severely."

"Those hired thugs have committed every evil under the sun on ordinary days; I imagine they have no shortage of enemies." Steward Niu's thinking on this 17th-century petitioning was growing clearer by the moment. "I'll arrange for people to stir up the complainants. Tomorrow, you go and dig through the case files; bring me the names, addresses, and case details of the complainants."

"That's easily done."

"Good. There's no need for overly harsh sentences either. Just keep these men in prison for a year or two; once the heat dies down, they'll slowly perish on their own."

"Steward, your insight is profound!"

Under the pitch-black night sky, the fate of Deng Hu and his gang was thus decided. Throughout the entire process, it seemed as though a certain power base had not intervened at all; everything was the natural evolution of the natives.

In the future, as time passed, the actions of certain individuals in this conflict might perhaps become known to some observant parties... but by then, circumstances would have changed, and it would no longer matter.

Three days later, the county yamen held court once more. With eyewitnesses, material evidence, and the criminal's confession all complete, the county magistrate promptly sentenced Deng Hu to beheading after the autumn assizes on the spot for murder. He was placed in a heavy cangue and thrown into death row, and the case files were reported up to the prefectural yamen, pending Deng Hu's execution in the autumn.

That same day, unable to bear the weeping and harassment of numerous complainants at the yamen gates, the county magistrate had no choice but to hold his nose and formally convict Deng Hu's gang of underlings on their various charges, throwing them into prison as well.

At this point, the tragedy sparked by a single business deal was brought to a close—Deng Hu's criminal gang had paid a painful price, its core members wiped out in one stroke, the remaining riffraff scattering like stars. The most prosperous strike agency in the county town collapsed and shut down overnight, existing no more.

The annihilation of Deng's Strike Agency was no longer significant news to Xiong Dao, who had a myriad of affairs to attend to. The gap in strength between the two sides was simply too vast. As long as the special agents trained by the Transmigrators performed at an average level, victory was a certainty no matter how they fought; there was no suspense whatsoever.

So when a subordinate came to report Deng Hu's final outcome to Xiong Dao, he, who was accompanying guests at the port at the time, merely listened to the gist of it and then tossed the matter to the back of his mind.

Today's guest was Feng Guanjie, who had traveled a great distance from Taiwan.

Feng Guanjie had been stationed in Miaoli all this time. His task sounded simple enough: construct the Miaoli Oil Field. But carrying it out was anything but simple. The various residential and storage areas, the construction of oil wells, and most vexingly, the mountain paths and cableways, had all consumed a considerable amount of his energy.

Back in the day, the Japanese in Miaoli had used a cableway system similar to mine carts to transport crude oil. And after surveying the local terrain, Feng Guanjie had no choice but to select a cableway system just as the Japanese had—building paved roads in the mountains was far too uneconomical, because once the route to the South Seas was opened up in a few years, Miaoli would be abandoned. Thus, stone slab paths plus a cableway system was actually the more suitable choice.

And so, Feng Guanjie, flying the banner of "I Offer Oil to the Motherland," was pinned down in Miaoli, reshaping the very earth.