Chapter 493: He Biandan

From the fact that Grand Commandant Cao precisely identified Chen Shiai's associates, the claim that he was "just passing by and happened to overhear someone reporting me" simply doesn't hold water.

This was, without a doubt, a premeditated operation.

As for exactly where the Chen Family's information leaked, that's impossible to verify now. Perhaps it was the County Yamen, perhaps it was one of their own people eager for demolition — no one knows for sure.

Of course, none of that matters.

What truly demands attention isn't really the lives of these few scholars, but the significance behind the Transmigrators launching this offensive.

Prior to this, the Huangpu Special Zone's land requisition and construction work had begun at the same time Grand Commandant Cao led his troops north. This created a problem: both sides were somewhat constrained.

On the Transmigrators' side, since Grand Commandant Cao had yet to earn military merit in the north and become the Emperor's golden thigh, they didn't dare go all out and could only proceed step by step. During this process, the local government offices had basically all received complaint petitions from Ming gentry opposing the demolition, with Panyu and Nanhai counties and the Provincial Surveillance Commission receiving the most.

Guangdong Officialdom, under this pressure, naturally grew discontented. Fortunately, Regional Commander Cao had just wiped out a large number of pirates and his residual authority remained, plus there was a group of collaborators and allies, so the situation remained deadlocked. The officials could only muddle through, and the demolition work kept encountering resistance.

There was another reason: when local officials sent messages to Beijing, attempting to use the imperial court to restrain Cao Dachong, they were told that Beijing was besieged by the Tartars, the outer perimeter had become a complete mess, and no one cared about these trivial, shit-flinging matters.

Just as that Presented Scholar from the Chen Family had judged, under these circumstances, the gentry and their spokesmen could only wait patiently for the situation to clarify.

However, the Transmigrators thought the same thing.

And then this scene reached its finale: not long ago, Cao won a complete victory in the north and became a pillar of the state valued by the Emperor.

By this point, the well-informed upper echelons of Guangdong Officialdom had actually already abandoned their concern over the land requisition issue — since there was no way to bring that man down no matter what, why keep screwing around with this? Let it go.

So today's incident of Regional Commander Cao storming the yamen was, in fact, a direct answer to all previous problems: I'm back now, wreathed in sparks and lightning, riding a rainbow cloud — of course I'm going to pick a few chickens to slaughter and settle the demolition and land requisition issue once and for all.

Chen Shiai and his group just happened to walk right into the line of fire.

Whether ancient or modern, East or West, unlucky souls who walk into the line of fire usually don't end well. It's a crackdown — a graze wounds, a hit kills.

So Scholar Chen was certain to die this time, along with those Broken Boot Gang members.

The standing cage, also called the standing cangue, was the fighter jet among eunuchs, invented by Liu Jin, the self-styled Emperor during the Martial Emperor's reign.

As the name suggests, a standing cage is a tall, narrow wooden cage, trapezoidal in shape — wide at the base, narrow at the top — just big enough for one person to stand inside. Once the prisoner is locked in, their head is fitted into a cangue board and they stand confined within the cage, their body suspended or standing on a stool, their whole frame curled up unable to stretch, in unbearable agony.

Some upgraded versions of the standing cage are also lined with iron spikes inside. Usually, a person will stand dead inside within three days. Some, unable to endure the torment, will voluntarily kick away the stool and hang themselves.

The standing cage was often used for interrogation, torture, or detaining serious offenders. Since its invention, it had been used as a standard instrument of punishment by successive dynasties, right up until the Nationalist period when it was still widely employed, and was finally abolished after Liberation.

Local officials typically had little psychological burden when using the standing cage. As mentioned in the late Qing novel *The Travels of Lao Can*, Yu Xian, the acting Caozhou Prefect, in order to earn the title of "Capable Official," had the 12 standing cages in front of his yamen stand dead over 2,000 people in less than a year, nine and a half tenths of whom were Good Citizens.

There was a particular subtlety here: in normal times, if a local official formally sentenced a prisoner to death, the case files had to be reviewed by superior offices and ultimately sent to the Emperor for final approval before the execution could be carried out after autumn.

The back-and-forth paperwork was not only troublesome and inefficient, but the court was also unwilling to see the number of death penalty convicts "increase compared to the same period last year."

So the standing cage came in handy — people who "stood" dead inside were not counted in the death penalty figures. This number was lumped together with a series of "natural deaths" such as dying of illness, dying in custody, choking to death, or dying from playing hide-and-seek.

Another point that sets the standing cage apart from other instruments of torture is that, beyond interrogation, it also carries the flavor of public "humiliation." In medieval society, this method more or less served to educate the populace and prevent crime.

Of course, this so-called educating the populace depends on who's doing it. In this case, Grand Commandant Cao putting people in the cangue was to teach the leeks not to resist stubbornly as Nail Households, but to obediently welcome the demolition.

And so, the anti-demolition scholar clique, totaling six men, after Grand Commandant Cao issued his order, was dragged out from the crowd by fierce, towering soldiers, then shoved to the ground and stripped of their large headscarves and blue robes — the symbols of a scholar.

These men were then seized by the neck and belt by the soldiers, stuffed like chickens into the row of standing cages at the base of the County Yamen's outer wall — the group of Broken Boot Gang members later propagandized by the evil gentry as the "Six Gentlemen of Panyu" thus began the countdown of their lives.

"Hahaha." Having impartially settled a case, Cao Qing rose from behind the desk, stretched lazily, and then let out a long laugh as he said to Magistrate Sun, "The vermin have been purged. With that, I've troubled you enough."

"Not at all, not at all."

By this point, if Magistrate Sun still couldn't see that this Cao had come fully prepared, then he truly was a fool. So he could only force an awkward smile... a Seventh Rank sesame-seed official, who didn't even know Liang Jingru — where would he find the courage to act tough before the murderous Earl Cao?

Afterward, Grand Commandant Cao swaggered out of the County Yamen and, under the gaze of a crowd of onlookers, climbed into his bulletproof carriage, illegally parked right in the middle of the main street.

Before leaving, Grand Commandant Cao pushed open the window and gave one last instruction: "Yan Tiexia, take your men and stand guard here for the next few days, until these men have stood dead. If anyone comes to fish them out, just give them my name. If that doesn't work, go to Huangpu and mobilize troops. I'd like to see who's so blind!"

Yan Tiexia, his personal guard officer, face black as a pot's bottom and features twisted with ferocity, immediately dropped to one knee and loudly acknowledged the order.

The next moment, having finished showing off, Grand Commandant Cao closed the carriage window, and the convoy, escorted by cavalry, drove steadily out of the city.

These few scholars absolutely had to die.

Earlier, after the King's Rescue team returned from the north, the Cabinet convened an Expanded Meeting and clearly set the focus of work for the next stage: gradually deploy resources to Guangdong, cultivate it meticulously, and while constructing, slowly erode the local official authority, military authority, gentry authority, and clan authority, preparing for the future relocation of the main Transmigrator force.

Today's show was one of the actions to implement the spirit of that meeting: these scholars, without any trial and without having their academic status revoked by the Education Commissioner, were forcibly convicted and thrown into the standing cages by Regional Commander Cao.

The hidden implication of this move was deeply malicious: it replaced the authority of the Great Ming's formal County Yamen and the Guangzhou Education Commissioner with sheer force, and it was a low-intensity conflict — after all, it was just a few scholars — perfectly in line with the meeting's spirit.

And this scene unfolding now before the County Yamen, accompanied by the slow deaths of the six scholars, would soon spread as a series of stories among the Ming People. The term "subtle influence" refers to exactly this kind of situation — in the days to come, the Ming People would gradually come to understand who truly calls the shots in present-day Guangdong.

Therefore, these six scholars had to die.

No matter if anyone came forward to fish them out this time, no matter how high the rank of the person intervening, even if all the officials of Guangdong united, the Transmigrators had to stand these six men dead: this was a reverse "buying horse bones with a thousand gold." Once the sign was erected, it absolutely could not be toppled.

On this point, the few Transmigrators currently in Guangdong had authorization: in the most extreme scenario, even if it meant sending troops into the city, the matter had to proceed smoothly.

So for today's show, Regional Commander Cao appeared utterly relaxed from start to finish, but in truth, the Transmigrators were outwardly calm and inwardly tense — the troops outside the city had already received orders to raise their combat readiness.

... By this day, the Transmigrators were long past the situation of personally raising guns to fight the Red Hairs. After three years of arduous effort, the Transmigrators now possessed core industry, loyal claws and teeth, and hardworking subjects.

In a word, even if they raised the banner of rebellion today, the Transmigrators would not be afraid.

As the convoy gradually receded into the distance, the crowd gathered at the entrance of the County Yamen actually grew larger: six scholar-lords crammed into standing cages all at once — this was not a sight one saw every day.

As for the scholars themselves, no one dared to let them out now — across the street, on the second floor of the wine shop, Yan Tiexia and his crew of soldiers were sitting squarely. Who would dare cause trouble? Not afraid of being thrown into a cage too?

The idlers the scholars had brought with them had long since scattered in all directions, off to inform the families of each lord.

A large crowd of onlookers, drawn by the news, had packed the entrance of the County Yamen so tightly that not a drop of water could seep through. Smiles spread across their faces as they savored the scholars' hoarse, desperate cries while vividly recounting the drama that had just unfolded to the latecomers, gesticulating with excitement at the best parts.

He Biandan, relying on his tall and sturdy build, was also squeezed into the crowd at that moment, enjoying the spectacle and listening to the stories. As he listened, he grinned broadly, chuckling to himself. During this time, following the direction of pointing fingers, he also spotted those wealthy soldier-lords on the second floor of the wine shop eating roast chicken.

Shaking his head and clicking his tongue a few times, He Biandan secretly swallowed his saliva, felt his empty belly, then tilted his head up to glance at the sky, which was nearing high noon. After that, he squeezed his way out of the crowd.

He ran over to a tea house by the street, tossed out a copper coin, tilted his head back and gulped down a bowl of cheap tea with tea stems floating in it, then called out to the waiter, bent down to hoist the carrying pole he had left at the tea house earlier, and headed off down the street.

He Biandan was a native of West City, in his early twenties, and his profession was a porter who carried goods on a pole for others.

He Biandan was gifted with an unusual physique — not only was his frame broad, but he stood 1.78 meters tall, a rare sight in South City. Tall as he was, however, probably from never getting enough to eat year-round, he always looked hollow and gaunt, a tattered short shirt draped over him, billowing loosely with every movement.