Chapter 397: Successive Blows

Yan Tiexia openly admitted to the brawl: "The other day the two families were fighting over water, a dispute broke out, and when it was over each side had its dead and wounded — that's all there is to it."

Hearing this, Magistrate Lai knew it was another hopeless muddle of a case.

In medieval times productivity was backward, and farmers had no means to drill machine wells or build waterworks, so villagers clung fiercely to what little living water there was.

Under such conditions, water feuds were practically part of everyday farming life. Under Ming rule, village armed clashes over this broke out nearly every month.

As a rule, if the people didn't report it, the officials didn't pursue it — the authorities had no way to manage such muddled affairs, and they were left to the villagers to settle among themselves. The few cases that did reach the yamen could only be smoothed over with vague compromises — in a mass brawl between two villages of farmers, who was right and who was wrong?

This sort of thing remained equally unsolvable in later generations.

During drought relief, villagers would fight pitched battles over a little reservoir water, and deaths occurred just the same. And the government? The government could only mediate, pacify, call village chiefs to coordination meetings, and incidentally discuss compensation payments for the families of the deceased... what else could they do? Both sides had lost people — who was right and who was wrong? Everyone in a village was an accomplice — were they supposed to arrest them all?

So when Magistrate Lai heard this, he turned his gaze with an easy expression toward Steward Xu.

Steward Xu naturally would not sit still and await his doom: "Reporting to Your Honor, the other day this gang of soldiers deliberately stirred up trouble — first they cut off the river, then they released poison smoke to knock out the villagers. Not a single tenant farmer in the entire manor escaped their vicious attack. Now every household in Xu Family Manor has wounded, women and children are weeping and wailing, the scene is too pitiful to behold. I beseech Your Honor to punish these soldiers for the crime of brutalizing the villagers."

After the prosecution finished presenting its case, it was the defense's turn again.

Yan Tiexia began loudly proclaiming his grievance: "Your Honor, as the saying goes, kill a thousand of the enemy and you lose eight hundred of your own. In that clash the other day, the fire-smoke drifting from Sangyuan spread everywhere, and quite a few of my brothers were also laid out. On top of that, every man, woman, and child of the Xu Manor that day was like a mad tiger, fierce and fearless in the face of death, wielding hoes and spades — my brothers suffered no small number of injuries, and several of them look like they're beyond saving..."

At this point Yan Tiexia's tiger-like eyes glistened with tears, looking every bit like he was about to head to Wind and Wave Pavilion.

"Outrageous! A pack of nonsense!" Steward Xu, clutching his finger, jumped up cursing: "You pack of louts set a trap for the villagers, knocked them all down without losing a single man, and then went around delivering finishing blows with your clubs — truly, you are unfit sons of men!"

"And another thing!" Steward Xu, still cursing, suddenly remembered something else: "The private port doesn't even farm land — what did you cut off the river for?!"

Yan Tiexia once again began loudly proclaiming his grievance: "With prices soaring these days, a single picul of coarse rice costs a tael of silver — if we don't open up some fields, store water, and grow grain, we can't survive!"

At Yan Tiexia's cry of grievance, a wave of eye-rolling swept across the hall and the gallery — if a private port flowing with gold and silver was so poor it couldn't afford rice, then what was everyone doing at the county yamen today?

But the public hall was different. The public hall was about accusation, debate, and presenting evidence — no matter how absurd the argument or claim, it had to be refuted point by point, according to procedure, with evidence.

In later generations, the London tycoon Ehsan forced himself on a girl in his own mansion, and then during the court debate, he uttered that famous line: "I didn't sexually assault her, I just accidentally slipped in."

And the result afterward? Thirty minutes of lawyer debate, discussion, and presentation of evidence later, the court ultimately pronounced Ehsan not guilty.

In other words, the judge held that, at that moment, that part of him had indeed accidentally slipped in.

Tricks are the same in every age — no difference between ancient and modern times.

Back to the 17th-century Jiading County Office. The situation now was that unless Steward Xu produced the private port's revenue ledgers to prove that these louts could live perfectly well without farming, merely using hearsay and rumor to "slander" his opponent as a mega-tycoon was useless.

In fact, calling a deer a horse was something Steward Xu had done plenty of in the first half of his life. The same public hall, the same two sides of accusation and defense — only back then, the one playing the victim was Steward Xu himself. And his opponents were merely some owner-farmers and landlords whose lands and family estates were about to be swallowed up by the Xu family.

Now that he faced a powerful opponent, Steward Xu discovered, with extreme discomfort, that once official backing was withdrawn — or rather, once the yamen simply chose to remain neutral — others could likewise turn black into white and call a deer a horse right in front of him... In that moment, Steward Xu finally felt the grief, rage, and helplessness of those owner-farmers.

Having finished lamenting the soaring prices and the hardship of being unable to afford grain, Yan Tiexia then righteously refuted Steward Xu's false accusation that "not a single soldier was lost."

Here Yan Tiexia openly and honorably stated: the county yamen could take the lead in organizing "enthusiastic members of all social circles" to form an inspection delegation and go to the port warehouse to take a look at those pitiful old beggars with broken tendons and shattered bones... no, his own personal guards.

There might not be three to five hundred of them, but one to two hundred there certainly were — clearly, in that armed clash, both sides had taken losses, and no one had gotten the better of it.

Furthermore, if that really wouldn't do, he could also organize all the "wounded" to come to the county yamen on crutches for injury verification, to set the record straight.

When Magistrate Lai heard this, he understood that certain people had already made thorough preparations for the aftermath.

In this way, the logical chain of "villagers brawled — each side suffered casualties — each went home to lick their wounds" was now complete.

Realizing that Steward Xu could produce no new valid evidence, Magistrate Lai, who had been sitting on pins and needles for the better part of the day, promptly brought down the judgment block for the last time and closed this farce: "Each side shall restrain its own men. No further trouble shall be stirred up."

With that, the great Magistrate Lai rose to leave... he had already lost a great deal today and did not wish to remain in the hall a single second longer.

Yet there was never a shortage of people who failed to read the room. Just as everyone was ready to disband and go home, Steward Xu, reeling from the enormous blow, remained obstinate — he threw a tantrum right there in the hall, kicking up a huge ruckus, intent on dragging the match into overtime.

A certain magistrate, pushed to the absolute limit of his patience, finally exploded: "Guards! Drag this cur out and give him twenty... five strokes of the plank!"

"At your command!"

The news that the Xu family steward had received twenty-five strokes of the plank at the county yamen spread like lightning among those "in the know."

Although the yamen runners, afraid of offending the Xu family, hadn't really struck hard, the act of beating with the plank itself signified the Xu family's defeat and loss of face in the first round of engagement — this plunged many of the "in the know" who received the news into deep contemplation.

And Master Xu Jin, sitting in his study listening to the report, felt for the first time just how troublesome this opponent was. Ignoring the steward kneeling on the floor pouring out his grievances, Xu Jin clasped his hands behind his back, walked out to the porch, and after a long silence, sighed softly: "I underestimated the enemy. It seems we must plan for the long term."

In truth, today's spectacle had been within Xu Jin's expectations.

The day before yesterday, when Xu Jin had put forward the proposal to buy shares, it was tantamount to laying his cards on the table. From that moment on, though Xu Jin appeared outwardly calm and untroubled, he and his allies had in fact been closely monitoring the port's movements — when such enormous wealth was at stake, a forceful counterstrike from the other side was highly probable.

What Xu Jin had not expected was that Xiong Dao's side, the very moment they received word — that very night — had organized manpower to burn down Sangyuan, and by the next morning had engineered the water-cutting and armed clash.

That the counterattack came so fierce and vicious was something Xu Jin had never anticipated. In particular, that poison smoke of theirs, capable of wiping out several hundred tenant farmers without a single casualty of their own — this latest intelligence immediately brought the "Land Deed Alliance," poised and ready to strike, to an emergency halt.

The counterattack had also indirectly prompted the alliance to change its plans on the fly, shifting from a thunderous strike to a slow, deliberate approach — sending men to the county yamen to file a complaint, using the yamen to probe the opponent, was the Xu family's response and test after being caught off guard... the price paid was thoroughly offending Magistrate Lai.

Yet the price was still somewhat heavy after all. Judging from the steward's caning, the Jiading County Office — or at least the Jiading Main Hall himself — had realized it had been used as cannon fodder and had thus completely fallen out with the Land Deed Alliance. From now on, should the Xu family make any further moves, Jiading County would certainly no longer step forward; and if Xiong Dao's side offered sufficient benefits, it was even possible that Jiading County might secretly lend a hand.

At the same time, the result obtained at such great cost was also very bad: yet another Lin sister had dropped from the sky... Xiong Wencan.

So after standing beneath the porch in contemplation for a long while, Xu Jin ultimately sensed just how formidable his opponent was. From the incident of burning the mulberry trees that very night, he even had a premonition: Xiong Dao's side had been biding its strength all along, just waiting for him to make a move.

"Still, I underestimated the enemy." After uttering this lament, Xu Jin immediately returned to his study, summoned his core staff, and began assigning tasks one by one.

First: send men to the other families in the alliance to deliver a message — whoever could get in touch with Xiong Wencan should dispatch someone to Fujian at top speed to negotiate and communicate.

Second: order the steward to take grain, physicians, and silver to the manor to offer condolences, and announce to the tenant farmers that all rents for the manor, both last year's and this year's, were completely waived.

The Xu family's burned manor estate would, without a doubt, become the frontline battlefield in the next stage of this tug-of-war. So once Xu Jin came to his senses, he hurriedly sent men to pacify the tenants. Otherwise, if those tenant farmers who had lost their livelihoods began to flee or scatter — or worse, were instigated by others to turn on their own — it would inevitably put the Xu family in an even more passive position.

Third: Xu Jin ordered men to notify all the alliance families that there would be a tea gathering at his residence the next day, and to invite all the masters to come and taste tea.

With matters having developed to this point, now that he sensed his opponent had transformed from a hard walnut into an iron ball bristling with spikes, Xu Jin urgently needed to confer anew with the other alliance members and formulate a strategic plan.

After the three emergency measures were dispatched, the Xu household began operating at full speed. And upon receiving the express courier notice from the Xu residence, the alliance members all indicated they would come by the next day for a discussion — at a time like this, formalities like making appointments before visiting were set aside; tomorrow meant tomorrow.

However, at noon the next day, just as the guests were arriving one after another, messengers rushing in from various places brought several more pieces of dire news: on the gentry lands surrounding the port, three more mulberry gardens had been burned the previous night. In addition, in two fish ponds, all the fish had floated belly-up to the surface at dawn — one fish farmer had already hanged himself.

Upon hearing this news, the several masters seated in the Flower Hall were instantly dumbstruck.