Chapter 343: Rushing Water Floats Stones; Swift Decisions Like the Wind (Thanks to the book friend

Ever since Song Yingxing received an official post at the Academy of Sciences, the two Song brothers had moved out of the Jiangxi Guild Hall.

They rented a cheap, single-courtyard residence in Lingchun Ward, close to the Academy.

This area lay in the northern part of the capital, far from the Six Ministries' yamen and a fair distance from the Examination Hall as well.

But precisely because of this remoteness, the rent was very cheap.

Song Yingxing could conveniently go to the Academy for duty on ordinary days, and Song Yingsheng could prepare for the examinations in the quiet of the courtyard.

So, had he not gone to escort his elder brother to the examination yesterday, it truly would not have been easy for Song Yingxing to be late on a normal day.

After all, a mere hundred or so paces out the door was where he worked.

(Attached image: since many buildings in the northern city have just been updated, I'll take this chance to mark them all at once.)

But the next day, after Song Yingxing got off duty, he did not head straight home.

He took a very long detour, first going near Xuanwu Gate to seek out Jiang Yueguang for a talk.

When he came out again, he was already clutching a small bundle to his chest, hurrying home with quick steps.

But just as he turned into the lane entrance of Lingchun Ward—

Crackle-bang!

A deafening burst of firecrackers suddenly exploded, and a thick, acrid smell of gunpowder smoke hit him in the face.

Song Yingxing jumped in fright. Looking closely, he saw it was their landlord, Old Wang, standing at the street corner with a lit incense stick in hand, his face glowing with delight as he set off a long string of firecrackers.

Song Yingxing was baffled but had no time to ask questions, so he had to press himself against the wall and skirt widely around.

After finally making it past this stretch of street littered with red paper scraps, he looked up and saw his elder brother, Song Yingsheng, leaning against the doorframe of their own courtyard with a smile on his face, gazing in this direction.

Song Yingxing hurried forward a few steps and asked:

"Elder Brother, it's neither a holiday nor a festival—why has the Wang family suddenly started setting off firecrackers?"

Song Yingsheng smiled faintly. Instead of answering directly, he pointed at the bundle in Song Yingxing's arms.

"This matter, as it happens, is connected to the thing you're holding."

"Ever since you took up your post, you've been working overtime every day, so naturally you wouldn't know—the sweeping, fire-watch, and other corvée duties in Lingchun Ward were all monopolized in the past by that scoundrel Xu Qingtou."

"That wretch relied on having a distant uncle working as a clerk in the Five Wards Troops and Horses Office, and he's always run rampant and thrown his weight around."

"A one-tenth duty, once it fell into his hands, would inevitably be apportioned out as five-tenths, bleeding the neighbors dry to the marrow."

"Not long ago, he simply relied on his usual intimidating presence and went to the Wang family to propose marriage."

As Song Yingsheng spoke, he turned and walked into the courtyard.

"The Wang family is a respectable household—how could they be willing to give their flower-like, jade-like daughter in marriage to such a rogue and scoundrel?"

"Xu Qingtou then used every means to coerce them. The Wang family was truly in a helpless plight, crying out to heaven with no answer and calling to the earth with no response."

Hearing this, Song Yingxing turned it over in his mind for a moment and immediately understood.

He closed the courtyard gate behind him, and the sound of the firecrackers outside instantly subsided.

The two walked into the inner room. As Song Yingxing carefully unwrapped the bundle in his arms, he said with a smile:

"So, Xu Qingtou has been arrested?"

Song Yingsheng clapped his hands and laughed heartily:

"Exactly! When you went on duty today, you missed the scene in front of the ward gate!"

"The North Ward Troops and Horses Office sent several saber-bearing bailiffs directly. Right in front of the whole neighborhood, they clapped that scoundrel in chains on the spot!"

"The bailiff stood in the street and loudly asked, saying that His Majesty has ordered a campaign to sweep away the black and eliminate the evil, to root out all the city's thugs and ruffians. He asked if anyone in the neighborhood was willing to step forward and testify!"

"At first, everyone was still a bit afraid. Only the eldest son of the Li family stiffened his neck and stepped out."

"The bailiff asked three more times. In the end, the accumulated grievances of ordinary days overcame the fear, and the whole neighborhood—whoosh—all raised their hands!" "And guess what happened? The bailiffs took the man to Shuntian Prefecture for trial at the noon hour, and by the shen hour, the verdict was out!"

"That Xu Qingtou was sentenced on the spot to military exile in Datong! Deported that very day!"

Song Yingsheng spoke with excitement, but Song Yingxing's attention was not on the sentence at all.

His fingertips twisted the beard beneath his chin, and his eyes shifted slightly, instantly seizing upon the true crux of this matter!

"The eldest son of the Li family?"

Song Yingsheng was first taken aback, then immediately caught the implication as well.

The two brothers exchanged a glance across the table and, without prior agreement, both let out a sly chuckle.

"A youth pining for a fair maiden... well, it's entirely forgivable."

One was forty, the other fifty, but the way they gossiped about this tidbit was exactly the same as when they were young.

—Still just as lecherous!

Song Yingxing joked as he spoke, but his hands never stopped moving. He had already taken the several booklets from the bundle and laid them out neatly on the table. "Elder Brother, these are the detailed plans for each subdivision of the Great Sweep Campaign that Brother Juzhi (Jiang Yueguang) copied in the secretariat."

"He said to just return them to him after the metropolitan examination is over."

Song Yingsheng looked at the thick stack of booklets on the table, his expression turning solemn. He nodded and sighed:

"Brother Juzhi has truly gone to great trouble. So many pages—it must have taken him a very long time to copy."

On this point, Song Yingsheng was indeed overthinking it.

Jiang Yueguang was, after all, a secretary now, however minor.

All these detailed plans had been copied out by the interns he ordered around.

Under the fine-sounding name of: deepening their understanding of the new policies.

Song Yingsheng walked over to the Yongchang stove in the corner of the room and, from the pot that had been kept warm all along, ladled out two bowls of dumplings.

The brothers each took a bowl, casually dealt with a few mouthfuls, then each picked up a booklet and began to study them intently under the flickering candlelight.

There were eight plans in total, adding up to nearly seventy thousand characters. It took the brothers a full two hours, until their heads swam and their eyes blurred, before they finally finished reading them all. But this very dizziness and blurred vision—how many candidates in the capital right now would long to experience it, yet could not find the temple door even carrying a pig's head as an offering!

The Great Ming Times, issued today, had only published abridged versions of two plans: "Sweeping Away the Black and Eliminating the Evil" and "Bandits in the Capital Environs." The remaining plans were not published at all.

Even if they were published later, they would absolutely be official bulletins with excisions, never a verbatim reprint of every clause and detail.

And though the full text of the proclamation had been posted at the Gate of Accepting Heaven, how could ordinary examination candidates get anywhere near it?

So in the end, it was still the black-hearted booksellers at Zhengyang Gate who made a killing.

They had the original draft copied out by clerks they were on familiar terms with, then raced against the clock, hiring Confucian scholars to transcribe and reproduce it.

Now a complete set of the proposals on the market, riding the window of the metropolitan examination, had been bid up to as high as three hundred taels of silver per copy — and even at that price, supply could not meet demand!

This is the power of connections.

Relationships in officialdom are not maintained solely by the back-and-forth of sending hundreds or thousands of taels of pure white snow-silver.

That sort of crude, cash-flinging exchange does exist, but it is more common between superiors and subordinates than among fellow provincials, teachers and students, or men of the same examination year. The more numerous and more stable relationships are like these few unremarkable booklets on the table. Delivered quietly at the most critical moment, they form a ladder to the heavens that an ordinary man, even bearing mountains of gold and silver, could never beg his way onto.

"Elder Brother, what do you make of it?" Song Yingxing rubbed his sore, stinging eyes and was the first to break the quiet of the room.

Song Yingsheng pondered for a moment, then finally shook his head.

"You speak first. I have a vague idea forming in my mind, but I cannot quite grasp it clearly yet."

Song Yingxing nodded, and without hedging, said bluntly:

"I believe the wind of the New Policies is about to shift entirely!"

"Ever since His Majesty ascended the throne, his posture has been moderate and cautious."

"After the promise made at the Feast of the Plucked Tassels was given, His Majesty has kept his word and never once broken it."

"But these vermin in the court have simply taken His Majesty's benevolence for weakness! Taken his faithfulness for retreat!"

Song Yingxing's tone grew increasingly agitated as he reached this point.

"Brother Juzhi told me."

"These proposals were all carried out in secrecy in the early stages. Even he and many colleagues in the Secretariat knew nothing of them beforehand."

"But now, His Majesty has finally stopped being polite to these black crows that only take in and never give out! The men of the Secretariat naturally have every reason to follow close behind!" The more he spoke, the more excited he became, his eyes glinting with fervor in the candlelight.

"There were also a few young secretaries there whom I did not know."

"But everyone spoke with one voice, all clapping and cheering! All saying this great purge had come not too quickly, but far too slowly!" Song Yingxing abruptly rose to his feet and paced back and forth in the cramped room, as if only this could vent the pent-up satisfaction long stifled in his heart. "So I believe! The pace of the New Policies, the attitude of the New Policies — from yesterday onward, they have undergone a great transformation!"

"The great Way of self-cultivation, family regulation, state governance, and world pacification is unchanging!"

"But for the nearer spheres of 'self-cultivation' and 'family regulation,' the methods and demands must surely be harsher, more thorough, and more merciless than for the farther spheres of 'state governance' and 'world pacification'!"

Song Yingxing halted his steps and looked at his elder brother with burning eyes.

"So, Elder Brother, in the next two sessions of the examination, if you encounter questions concerning the southern provinces or the Southern Metropolitan Region, your policy essays may be written somewhat more moderately, leaving some room."

"But if the question asks about the Northern Metropolitan Region or the capital, you must write with strictness and severity!"

Song Yingsheng listened quietly to his younger brother's impassioned analysis.

He remained silent for a long while before slowly speaking.

"This matter of slowness and severity... perhaps..."

His speech was very slow, halting and hesitant, his brain clearly racing, trying to seize that fleeting thread of an idea.

"Perhaps... is not the key to the great game His Majesty has set in motion."

He raised his head, looked directly into Song Yingxing's eyes, and said darkly:

"When you spoke just now of the attitude of those colleagues in the Secretariat..."

"What came to my mind was the attitude of those neighbors at the lane entrance today, when they faced Xu Qingpi's arrest."

Song Yingxing froze, looking back at him in confusion.

A newly risen secretary at the very center of Great Ming's power, and a thuggish rogue.

The distance between these two was like the clouds and the mud — what connection could there possibly be?

Song Yingsheng closed his eyes, straining to capture that glimmer of insight in his mind.

After a long moment, he suddenly opened his eyes wide.

"I think... the key is not the slowness or severity of the methods."

"It is..."

He thought for a long while, then his hand clawed fiercely at the air, as if seizing hold of something.

"It is timing..."

Yet the moment the words left his mouth, he immediately shook his head in denial.

"No, it should be the people's hearts... no, that is not it either... it is..."

"Yes! It is the momentum of the times!"

The instant the answer came clear, Song Yingsheng felt a sudden, sweeping clarity!

All the seemingly unconnected clues instantly linked together in his mind into a single, perfectly lucid logical chain.

"Why is it not timing?"

"Because for His Majesty, any point in time could have served to launch a great purge."

"At the very beginning of his reign, he could have used Wei Zhongxian's death to sweep away all the old corruption in one stroke — but he did not."

"In the tenth month, he could have used the 'dispute over land and people' to rectify officialdom — but he still did not."

"Or he could have waited until the seventh month of this year, and then, holding the fruits of the New Policies after the summer harvest, used the prestige of a great victory to cleanse the court and the provinces — but he still did not."

"Then why is it not the people's hearts?"

"Because the people's hearts have never changed!"

"The secretaries detest those officials who feed on their posts without doing a thing, just as the neighbors in the market wards detest Xu Qingpi!"

"This loathing has never changed! Whether there are New Policies or not, whether His Majesty is there or not — it is all the same!"

Song Yingsheng's speech grew faster and faster, his face flushing with extreme excitement.

"Then where exactly does the difference lie?!"

"The difference lies in a single word: 'momentum'!"

【121】 "Sunzi's Art of War says: 'The force of rushing water, to the point where it can toss boulders — that is momentum!'"

"If three months ago, when that Xu Qingpi was arrested, not everyone would have raised their hands to inform on him — because deep down, people had no confidence. They didn't believe the authorities would actually convict him!"

"If three months ago, Your Majesty had launched this great purge in the court, the hundred officials of the court would not look the way they do now! Because everyone would have feared it was just the start of yet another factional struggle!"

"And so! Your Majesty has been waiting all along! Waiting for the right moment, waiting for the wind to shift!"

"The time arrived, the momentum arrived! That is the true key to this thunderous great purge!"

Song Yingsheng was so stirred by his own discovery that he waved his arms and stamped his feet in excitement.

"Little brother, do you understand? When answering the exam, you cannot simply write about urgency! Nor can you simply write about gradualism!"

"The key is to see through the timing and momentum! Once you clearly grasp where the great trend lies, you reach that supreme realm where urgency or gradualism, leniency or severity, all follow your will!" Song Yingxing stared dumbstruck at his elder brother, who now seemed utterly possessed.

He very nearly pounded the table in admiration for this insight that struck straight at the heart of the matter.

But in a single instant, he caught himself.

He swallowed, and hesitantly spoke:

"But, elder brother..."

"That theory of mine about urgency and gradualism, leniency and severity — it can be directly applied to adjust the details of a policy essay. For instance, when writing about salt-law reform, I could say three years, or I could say five years; I could say thorough investigation, or I could say minor compromise..."

"But elder brother, your theory of 'timing and momentum' — it sounds exquisitely brilliant, and it truly sees through to the truth." "Yet I can't help feeling... isn't it rather like that old style of empty, grandiose policy essays?"

"If you wrote such an ethereal, intangible policy essay on the exam paper... would the chief examiner even pass it?"

Song Yingsheng's soaring momentum, that spirit sweeping across ten thousand li like a tiger, instantly froze rigid in midair.

"Ah-ha..."

He scratched his head awkwardly and replayed in his mind the speech he had just delivered as if laying out the fate of the realm.

"It seems... that really is the case."

"I feel that what I've summed up is more like His Majesty's thinking when formulating policy."

"But this time, the current-affairs policy essay questions test concrete practical matters — I'm afraid they truly won't welcome that kind of approach..."

Song Yingsheng instantly deflated like a punctured ball and slumped back into his chair.

"Fine... got excited over nothing."

"Let's continue. We'll use your urgency-gradualism, leniency-severity theory to apply the formula. You set the questions, I'll break them down."

Seeing that his elder brother had grasped the crux of the issue, Song Yingxing said no more.

"Good! Then I'll set the first question..."

"At present, tax arrears across the various regions are extremely severe. If you were a County Magistrate in some locality, what strategy would you adopt to address this?"

Song Yingsheng swiftly adjusted his state of mind, pondered for a moment, and replied:

"If I were County Magistrate, I would first overhaul the county yamen's minor functionaries..."

This question and answer were, naturally, nothing like the hollow, insubstantial policy-essay style of the past.

This was the statecraft policy-essay style that was now all the rage in the capital!

The hottest sellers in the book market now — the *Compilation of Northern Zhili Governance Strategies*, the *Compilation of Statecraft Official Documents*, *Fifty Solutions to the Current Ills of the August Ming*, and so on — were all statecraft policy-essay works written by various star lecturers in line with current statecraft official documents.

By contrast, the bestsellers of previous sessions — traditional policy-essay study aids like *Comprehensive Preparation for the Second and Third Sessions* and *Ancient and Modern Statecraft Literary Benchmarks* — were now left neglected, gathering dust and damp.

Still, no matter how much the empire's juren bet on the new policies, none dared put all their eggs in one basket.

The juren awaiting the exam in the capital were basically practicing both styles, only leaning slightly more toward the statecraft style of the new policies. In short, one red heart, two hands prepared.

When the time came to enter the hall, the papers would be handed out, and at a glance at the exam questions, they would naturally understand what the examiners — or rather, His Majesty behind them — truly wanted to see in this session.

And in truth, the reaction of the juren outside to the storm of new policies was indeed somewhat oversensitive.

The examiners were shut inside the examination hall, sealed behind layer upon layer of locks, their communications completely cut off.

The earth-shaking anti-corruption campaign unfolding outside could not yet so quickly influence these men's tendencies in setting questions and grading papers.

Of course, perhaps the juren had guessed at this possibility too.

But no one was willing to gamble on it, and no one dared gamble on it.

The twelfth day.

The second session of the metropolitan examination proceeded normally within the examination hall.

This session, according to regulation, required composing one "discourse," five legal judgments, and then selecting one from among edict, proclamation, or memorial to answer.

The so-called "discourse" was in fact somewhat similar to the first session, but no longer confined to the Four Books and Five Classics; rather, a topic was assigned and one's viewpoint expounded — it could almost be regarded as an assessment of memorial-writing.

Legal judgments required the examinee, based on the Great Ming Code, to pass sentence on actual cases, testing their familiarity with the Code. Edicts, proclamations, and memorials were purely an assessment of official document format and composition.

In sum, this second session was essentially testing these "Great Ming official candidates'" fundamentals of administrative office work.

For this reason, this session was not considered too difficult, and had never been highly valued by examiners.

But compared to the quiet scratching of brushes within the examination hall.

On this day, a bloody disturbance outside the examination hall shook the entire capital.

At around nine o'clock that morning.

Constables from the Five Districts Troops and Horses Office, conducting a routine raid to seal and shut down an underground gambling den in the Faxiang Ward north of the city, met with an unexpected turn.

The gambling den's owner, Liu Heiyan, was of the Daxing Left Guard origin.

He monopolized a third of the underground gambling dens north of the city.

Relying on his wealth and his code of brotherhood, he commanded high prestige within the Daxing Left Guard.

As the constables pursued and sought to arrest him, chasing all the way to the Daxing Left Guard compound, they were met directly by a seething crowd from the guard station's hereditary military households.

The guard station youths brandished spears and shouted; the elderly, women, and children climbed onto the roofs to hurl abuse; from time to time, stones flew out from the crowd.

The constables of the Troops and Horses Office had been under Zhang Zhiji's command for barely a month, just beginning to be whipped into shape.

Though they were now ever so slightly more honest, they ultimately had no intention of laying down their lives for a meager salary, and immediately froze in place. Word of the incident was reported up the chain.

First to the North District Troops and Horses Office.

Then to the Circuit Censor Zhang Zhiji.

Zhang Zhiji forwarded it to the Secretariat.

The Secretariat submitted it to the Emperor.

And then…

A mere three quarters of an hour passed.

At the far end of the long street outside Fafa Ward, two squads of the Valiant Guard Camp marched straight in.

No shouted warnings, no parley.

Two black-mouthed tiger-crouch cannons were pushed directly up to the ward's front gate.

Boom!

The gunpowder exploded, deafening.

The tiger-crouch cannons fired two blank rounds; the immense blast reverberated through the ward market, rattling the roof tiles of the street-side shops.

Next, the archers formed ranks, drawing their bows to the full in unison, their ice-cold arrowheads aimed straight at the crowd inside the ward.

Finally, armored veterans, spears in hand, advanced like a moving wall and stepped into the ward.

This whole set of brutal military formation tactics bore down without a word of reason.

In barely a quarter of an hour,

the ruffians and shrews who had been swaggering so arrogantly moments before had scattered and fled in a stumbling, crawling rout.

And that insufferably arrogant Liu Heiyan was dragged out of a firewood shed by two wolf-tiger fierce Valiant Guard soldiers, hauled along like a dead dog. The wretch had been scared out of his wits by this utterly unexpected show of force; his crotch reeked, soaked with piss and shit.

Throughout the entire assault, not a single drop of blood was spilled, not one person was injured.

—The truth was, these scoundrels had scattered and fled the moment the first tiger-crouch cannon roared.

The principal offender Liu Heiyan and all his accomplices were sent directly to Shuntian Prefecture for trial. The Prefect of Shuntian, Xue Guoguan, was away serving as chief examiner, so Vice Prefect Zhang Zibing was handling prefectural affairs in his stead.

Vice Prefect Zhang needed only a quarter of an hour to complete the entire court procedure and pronounced judgment with extreme speed:

Under the Great Ming Code, Penal Code IX, Miscellaneous Offenses, Article 11: Gambling.

All who gamble for property or goods shall each receive eighty strokes of the heavy bamboo; the money and goods on the gambling premises shall be confiscated to the state. Those who operate gambling establishments shall receive the same penalty.

Further, under the Great Ming Code, Penal Code X, Arrest and Flight, Article 2: Offenders Resisting Arrest.

All who, having committed an offense, flee and resist arrest shall, for each offense, have two degrees added to the base penalty. The penalty shall not exceed one hundred strokes of the heavy bamboo and exile to three thousand li.

Further, under the Special Plan to Sweep Away Organized Crime and Vice, Detailed Penalty Provisions, Article 17: Inveterate Obstinacy.

All who resist the New Policies, incite and stir up trouble, or assemble mobs to assault government offices shall, for each offense, have three degrees added to the base penalty. The maximum penalty shall be immediate execution by beheading.

The three offenses combined, the final judgment for Liu Heiyan and seven other principal offenders: immediate execution by beheading!

Once the verdict was set, Shuntian Prefecture immediately drafted a report and submitted it to the Ministry of Justice for approval.

The Minister of Justice dared not permit the slightest delay; after signing and sealing it, he reported it into the palace.

A little past one o'clock in the afternoon that same day,

His Majesty, having just finished his midday rest, glanced at this case file, waved a hand, and directly ordered Gao Shiming to apply the red endorsement and affix the seal.

At two-thirty in the afternoon that same day,

Liu Heiyan and seven of his core associates from the ward were escorted to the Vegetable Market Execution Grounds.

The executioner was summoned urgently to carry out the sentence; the executioner's blade rose high and fell.

Eight heads, one after another, went tumbling and rolling onto the mud-stained ground, dark with clotted blood.

Merciless, cold, and so swift it was suffocating.

Not the slightest concern was given to whether there would be public criticism, nor to whether it would provoke discontent among the guard stations.

Under the requirement to "punish severely, strictly, and steadily,"

all resistance was treated as a matter of the highest priority!

All resistance would be suppressed at the fastest possible speed!

All resistance would be regarded as a provocation against the New Policies!

The fifteenth day.

The third session of the metropolitan examination began on schedule.

But when the examination papers were handed out, the topic caught every candidate completely off guard.

This session's policy essays on current affairs consisted of five questions in total.

The first four remained conventional, standard topics; only the final question required candidates to answer in the format of a statecraft official document. Moreover, this requirement was written clearly in red ink beneath the question itself, leaving no room for ambiguity.

The Emperor had stirred up the storm over statecraft official documents, yet when he could have pushed the reform forward with a wave of his hand, he advanced only a single step.

This familiar cautiousness, set against the present sweeping and thunderous purge, once again provoked all manner of speculation.

Yet no matter what, on this fifteenth day of the second month, calm ultimately prevailed, and no further violent resistance or disturbances occurred.

Everything simply proceeded step by step.

The Valiant Guard Camp no longer conducted long-distance training marches.

From the hour of the rabbit to the hour of the monkey, at every designated time and point, they rotated shifts according to schedule, fully armored and helmeted, making a circuit around the city.

In the fine quarters cleared out by the Ministry of Justice,

the officials on the list had food and drink, but they had to line up in order to stand trial before the Three Judicial Offices.

Some confessed their crimes outright;

some remained stubborn, denying everything flatly;

and some old foxes, seeing the tide turning against them, had already begun, by old tradition, to wildly implicate their political enemies.

Unfortunately, this anti-corruption campaign gave no ear to such accusations; all charges pursued only the individuals named on the list themselves.

So even if someone implicated another in a grand treason case, it was useless — far better to confess one's own circumstances early.

The capital residences of the metropolitan debt merchants were all sealed off.

The tax offices went door to door, checking and counting according to the list of names.

After the New Year, all merchants who had issued capital loans — regardless of the amount, regardless of which person or official had borrowed — would not be pursued.

Only, each merchant, depending on the size of their assets, was to contribute a military relief silver donation ranging from ten thousand to one hundred thousand taels. Once the full sum was paid, their assets would be unfrozen.

If they felt it was unfair, felt the Emperor was persecuting merchants and the people, and were unwilling to pay, that was also acceptable — then the matter would be handled directly according to the old statutes of the Chenghua era.

"Those who lend money or goods to others, and those who travel with the debtor to his post to collect repayment — both the official and the creditor shall be banished to the frontier garrisons."

— Submitted by Yao Kui, Minister of the Ministry of Personnel, on the twentieth day of the third month of the sixth year of Chenghua.

This old statute seemed immensely imposing: anyone involved in capital loans, whether official or merchant, was to be banished directly to the frontier garrisons.

But when the law is disproportionate, it is tantamount to no law at all.

In the present day, with capital loans running rampant, to actually enforce this would be to empty out half the bureaucracy in one stroke — utterly impossible to carry out.

This was precisely why Zhu Youjian had devoted the bulk of his energy this month to legal matters.

Before resolving the problems between the relations of production and the productive forces, he first had to resolve the problems between the law and reality.

As for the other items of the Great Sweep, progress was proceeding normally across the board.

The superintendent eunuch of the imperial shops was among the first seized by the Embroidered Uniform Guard and thrown into the Imperial Prison, and was currently disgorging the full extent of his personal assets.

Household retainers, officials, and merchants — each were treated and processed entirely differently.

The estate managers from the various imperial estates across the country, who had long thrown their weight around and abused their power, were also being arrested in chains and sent to the capital one after another.

Only, their illicit gains were not so substantial, so they would have to wait a little longer in the queue.

As for the local ruffians, thieves, and scoundrels in the various wards and markets, they were being shipped off like goods on an assembly line, delivered in an endless stream to the great jail of the Shuntian Prefectural Office. The Shuntian Prefectural Office managed to maintain normal operations for barely two days before it simply declared collapse.

Zhang Zibing, frantic with blisters bursting on his lips, urgently submitted a memorial and requisitioned judicial clerks from over a dozen counties around the capital — Daxing, Wan County, Liangxiang, and others — to come to the capital as reinforcements, and only thus did they withstand the subsequent workload.

And amid all this chaotic, earth-shaking upheaval —

some rejoiced, while naturally some wept bitterly, and some were uneasy.

Many of the ennobled houses and wealthy merchants, who had in fact already been quite restrained since the New Policies began, even though they were not within the scope of this round of crackdowns, now hid themselves away even more deeply in this suffocating atmosphere of severe suppression, never venturing beyond their gates.

Business on the streets, though public order had improved, gradually grew desolate.

On the once-bustling Zhengyangmen Avenue, the goods were still dazzling in their variety, but the magnificent carriages and horses of former days were nowhere to be seen.

The Great Sweep movement, in a mere seven days, had forcibly flattened the brocade-and-flowers prosperity that the capital had enjoyed since the New Policies began.

But the King did not care.

His loyal ministers and officials did not care either.