Chapter 152: Turning Himself In

That very afternoon, while Hu Tinglu was discussing countermeasures with Song Sizhang, Cheng Fang arrived at Hu Tinglu's residence together with Wang Fu, Liang Zan, and others—and they brought bad news with them.

According to Cheng Fang, the group had pooled together twenty thousand taels of gold and sent men rushing to Nanjing, of which fifteen thousand taels were for Zhang Yixian and the remaining five thousand for Xin Cheng Earl Zhao Zhilong.

Though Zhang Yixian and Zhao Zhilong had both personally received the steward of the Cheng household upon hearing that heavy gold was being delivered, the moment they learned that the Huai'an matter was being handled by the Embroidered Uniform Guard, their reactions were identical—they immediately had the man thrown out of their residences, and the unloaded gold was loaded back onto the carts and driven out along with him.

What a joke—only the Emperor could command the Embroidered Uniform Guard. One of the two was a servant of the imperial household by status, the other a hereditary noble whose fortunes rose and fell with the state—who would go against the Emperor for the sake of an outsider? For the sake of your years of tribute, go back and tell your master: do not bring ruin upon yourself. Amassing such a great family fortune was no easy feat—better to quit while ahead.

Upon hearing Cheng Fang's account, the color drained from Hu Tinglu's face, turning it a waxy yellow. His eyes went vacant, and his mind went completely blank.

Cheng Fang exchanged glances with the others, then spoke in a low voice: "Lord Hu, what should we do next? If this matter is mishandled, the consequences would be unthinkable!"

Hu Tinglu muttered to himself: "What is to be done? Could it be that this old man cannot escape disaster this time? What should I do? What should I do?"

Though Cheng Fang and the others secretly despised him, they urgently needed to settle on a course of action. Hu Tinglu might be greedy and incompetent, but he was still a man of official standing—there were certain matters that required him to take the lead out front.

If the Embroidered Uniform Guard had come solely for Hu Tinglu, Cheng Fang and the others would not have planned to risk themselves to save him. But this time their target was clearly not the man—they were aiming straight for the salt profits of the two Huai regions. Hu Tinglu and Song Sizhang were merely collateral damage. Saving Hu Tinglu was saving themselves; at this critical juncture, they had to get him to pull himself together.

With this in mind, Cheng Fang spoke up to console him: "Lord Hu, do not lose your composure so easily. The matter may not yet have reached the dead end you imagine. If handled properly, perhaps there may yet be a turn of fortune!"

Upon hearing this, Hu Tinglu latched onto it like a drowning man grasping at a straw. He hastily sat up straight and asked in rapid succession: "Brother Cheng, what clever plan do you have? Pray enlighten me! Speak quickly!"

Cheng Fang said gravely: "Lord Hu, I will not belabor the current situation. The men behind the private salt trade are now known to us. If we were to step forward and resist in person, that would be pure suicide! The only course now is to muddy the waters, to make the affair bigger, to draw in more participants—only then will we have an opening! But this matter requires a decision from you, Lord Hu!"

Hu Tinglu slumped back against his chair in dejection, laughed at himself bitterly, and said in a low, heavy tone: "This old man has pondered at length. As things stand now, the only path is to cut off one's own arm to save the body! I am a court-appointed official—I am not without a way out. So long as I voluntarily surrender the gains of all these years and then petition to retire, I believe the court will show leniency and not drive me to death! And as for you all, so long as you follow Eunuch Zhang's advice and quit while ahead, declaring your withdrawal from the Lianghuai salt trade, the court will not hunt you down to the last! I have some inkling of what you mean, Brother Cheng—but if we truly stir up an incident and things go awry, I fear we will die without even a place to be buried!"

Cheng Fang, Wang Fu, and Liang Zan were all astonished to hear this.

They had never expected that Hu Tinglu, who usually appeared utterly indecisive, could display such foresight and resolve at a critical moment. Indeed, no one who had climbed to a third-rank position was ever a mediocrity.

Cheng Fang shook his head firmly and said: "Setting aside what you said about us, Lord Hu—you don't even believe it yourself! In five years in office, your family's wealth has accumulated to rival that of dukes and marquises. Can you truly bear to give it all up? Since the court opened the salt tribute system, our forefathers transported countless grain to the Nine Borders, exhausting every effort and draining their family fortunes to fund the frontier—that is how we earned what we have today! Yet now the court, forgetting old debts of gratitude, has turned on us so ruthlessly. How can we sit idle and wait for death?! Are we to simply abandon the great enterprise our ancestors left us? When we descend to the underworld, what face will we have to meet our forefathers?!"

Hu Tinglu hung his head in silence.

His words just now had been half sincere, half reluctant.

Over the past five years he had amassed great wealth through every means imaginable—he himself had no idea how much. He estimated it was at least five hundred thousand taels of silver, not counting this magnificent residence and its paintings, calligraphy, and antiques. Even if he didn't have to hand over everything—if he could keep even half—he would still be loath to part with it.

But if he didn't hand it over, he could only sit and wait for the Embroidered Uniform Guard to come knocking. The result went without saying—whether he could even keep his life was the question, and his family would likely be implicated as well.

Though Cheng Fang's words just now had not been fully explicit, Hu Tinglu could roughly guess his meaning.

It was nothing more than using the pretext of the court competing with the people for profit to incite the salt-producing households to besiege the government offices, creating the appearance of a popular uprising to pressure the court and force the Emperor to compromise—and then he and Song Sizhang would safely weather this crisis.

In Jiangnan, where literary culture flourished and the people were enlightened, there had been no shortage of incidents where crowds gathered to defy the court over infringements on private interests. Every year, Suzhou Prefecture would see one or two grain-resistance uprisings. Small peddlers, workshop laborers, great merchants, street toughs, and even brothel girls would all participate, protesting that grain prices had risen too sharply, invisibly increasing the survival pressure on ordinary households.

In the end, the local authorities, under pressure from all sides, would open the granaries and sell rice at reduced prices to quell the public anger.

The organizers of these so-called popular uprisings were always government students or local gentry.

Some government students also took part, using the opportunity to express their dissatisfaction with the court's control over the number of Jiangnan examination slots. As for the gentry class, they had always borne what society called the "duty of public righteousness"—these two groups were universally recognized in Jiangnan as the representatives of conscience.

As far back as the twenty-ninth year of Wanli, Suzhou's weavers had erupted in a large-scale uprising against the mining tax eunuchs, recorded in history as the "Weavers' Uprising."

That year there were floods and prices were high. The eunuch weaver supervisor Sun Long shifted the taxes onto the weaving households—three mace of silver per loom. First, hired workers Xu Yuan, Gu Yuan, and others gathered over two thousand people in protest. The weavers started from Feng Gate, beating and killing tax officials wherever they found them. Gentry and wealthy households who had curried favor with the tax supervisors were not spared either. In the end, though the court did not remove the eunuch weaver supervisor, neither did it use force to suppress the uprising.

More recently, there was the affair where officials and gentry incited the populace to gather and force Chongzhen to abolish the various mining and tax supervisors across the country, which ultimately led to Wei Zhongxian's suicide and the collapse of the eunuch faction.

If this scheme were ultimately carried out, the likely result would be the court compromising once again.

Especially in the current turbulent times—the court still depended on Jiangnan to provide enormous tax revenues to support the massive military pay and provisions expenditures of the northern armies, and stability was the court's foremost priority. So by all reasonable estimation, Cheng Fang and the others' scheme had a very high chance of success.

But what if the court took a hard line instead? How would it end then? Don't forget—this time the Embroidered Uniform Guard was taking the lead, and the outcome was not something the local authorities could control.

Hu Tinglu dared not think further.

Seeing that Hu Tinglu had not responded for a long while, Wang Fu, the eldest of the group, could not help but speak up: "Lord Hu, you must have already grasped what Brother Cheng means. So what is your stance? Will you let us know? We have known you for years and always counted you as a bosom friend—surely you do not fear we would harm you? This matter has great potential; there have been countless precedents before! To hesitate at the critical moment is not the act of a true man! Please make your decision quickly, Lord Hu!"

After a long internal struggle, Hu Tinglu finally hardened his heart and said: "Since you all have a complete plan, then I shall gamble on it! Only through our sincere unity can we weather this crisis!"

Cheng Fang clapped his hands and laughed: "Now that is the true Lord Hu! We have already deliberated everything—we were only waiting for your decision! This matter has a nine-in-ten chance of success! We shall return at once and set our people to preparations. Lord Hu, simply await the good news!"

Hu Tinglu rose to his feet and said in a deep voice: "I will not simply sit back and reap the rewards. I shall depart immediately for Nanjing to make contact with officials I know well. When the incidents in Yangzhou and Huai'an erupt, we shall jointly submit memorials on the grounds of threatening Jiangnan's stability, pressuring the court to rescind its orders!"

Cheng Fang and the others voiced their approval in unison, then took their leave and returned to their residences, dispatching men in all directions to prepare for launching a large-scale popular uprising.

After seeing them off, Hu Tinglu immediately ordered a sedan chair prepared. He changed into a plain blue robe, boarded the sedan, and headed straight for the canal docks.

Because the Huai salt matter had not yet concluded and it was unknown how many days he would have to remain in Jiangnan, and since part of the Huai'an Salt Distribution Office's finances still required guarding, Liang Qi ordered his men to rent out a mid-sized inn not far from the confiscated silver warehouse, where he and his ten subordinates took up residence.

The warehouse was guarded by soldiers of the Fengyang Guard, with ten riders taking turns on watch duty. With nothing to occupy his time, Liang Qi spent five hundred taels of silver to purchase two prostitutes from a city brothel, spending his days wallowing in debauchery in the small courtyard he occupied alone.

Though the warmth of Jiangnan lingered in the ninth month, the daylight hours had grown considerably shorter—past the midpoint of the you hour, the sky would already be dark.

Liang Qi, who was drinking and flirting with the two prostitutes in his room, had grown noticeably thinner. Even he, who prided himself on his robust constitution, could not withstand night after night of pleasure. There had never been a plow that wore out the field—only oxen exhausted by their labor. Lust being a blade that scrapes the bone was a truth verified countless times.

Just as the three of them, warmed by wine, were reaching a fever pitch of passion, a knock sounded at the door outside.

Annoyed at having his pleasure interrupted, Liang Qi set down his cup in irritation and shouted sideways toward the door: "I told you all—no disturbances unless a superior gives an order! What business is there to knock at this hour?!"

A rider's voice came from outside the door: "Reporting to you, sir—someone has come seeking you outside, claiming to have important matters concerning the Huai salt to report! I came specially to inform you!"

Hu Tinglu, dressed in plain blue, hid in the shadows outside the courtyard gate, his heart in turmoil and deeply uneasy.

Under the pretext of going to Nanjing to contact others, he had boarded an official vessel. After the boat had sailed more than ten li out of the dock and he had confirmed no one was following, he ordered the boatman to turn the bow north and head straight for Huai'an.

After much deliberation, he had reached a conclusion: this time, he was almost certainly doomed. Even if Cheng Fang and the others successfully incited a popular uprising and the Emperor, yielding to pressure, refrained from moving against the salt merchants and the Huai salt trade, he would absolutely not be spared—nor would the upper echelons of the Salt Transport Commission, Song Sizhang included.

The Huai'an Salt Distribution Office was a perfect example.

The Embroidered Uniform Guard might withdraw, but before leaving they would certainly not let the Salt Transport Commission off the hook.

If officials of the Salt Transport Commission were arrested and tried, to the common people that was simply a matter of the court—utterly unrelated to the Huai salt affair.

Popular uprisings had occurred any number of times, but not once had one been launched because an official was arrested. The court had its own laws—surely arresting one official need not stir up a public disturbance?

Moreover, he was not a famed minister known for incorruptibility and love of the people. His arrest would amount to nothing more than fodder for idle gossip.

Since he knew the man behind this affair was the Emperor himself, all resistance would ultimately be futile—especially for a court official. However great your abilities, could you outplay the Emperor? He was not a general commanding massive armies whom the Emperor and the court had reason to fear.

Cheng Fang and the others had long since seen all this clearly. The only reason they had brought him along was to add one more source of strength.

Though they called each other brothers on ordinary days and shared deep friendship, at the critical moment only interest mattered—everything else was nonsense.

If he wanted to extricate himself cleanly from this affair, then his bosom friends of ordinary days were the best token of submission he could offer.