Chapter 321: External Force

After entering the city, Li Banghua declined Zhao Zhilong's invitation to stay at the Marquis of Xincheng's residence, instead setting up the imperial envoy's temporary office at an inn called the East Fence Pavilion, which had long been the customary lodging for imperial envoys over the years. The two hundred Capital Camp cavalry guards were quartered in the barracks of the nearby Nanjing Central Guard station.

Li Li divided the two hundred men into four groups of fifty fully armed soldiers each, who took turns guarding the inn under the leadership of their squad leaders.

After bathing and resting, around the hour of you (5-7 PM), the sedan chair inviting Li Banghua to the banquet at the Great White Tower arrived outside the inn. The File Leader on sentry duty went inside to report, then came out to tell Qin Shaowen, the Vice Minister of the Court of State Ceremonial from Nanjing who had come to receive him: the Imperial Commissioner was unwell and could not attend the banquet, and thanked the Marquis of Xincheng and all the Nanjing colleagues for their generous hospitality.

Qin Shaowen said nothing more upon hearing this, turned around, boarded his sedan chair, and departed without a word.

The scene at the docks that afternoon had already spread throughout Nanjing city. Nearly all the officials and gentry in Nanjing were quite displeased with Li Banghua's conduct. His rebuke of Lü Weiqi was widely seen as an attack disguised as criticism of someone else, a clear declaration of enmity against the entire officialdom and gentry of South Zhili.

In the rear garden of a four-courtyard residence on the western side of Nanjing city, Lü Weiqi, Xu Wenyuan, Qian Shisheng (Right Vice Minister of the Ministry of Rites in Nanjing), and Lang Shizhen (Bureau Director of the Zhejiang Clearance Bureau of the Nanjing Ministry of Revenue) were drinking tea and discussing matters in the pavilion at the highest point of the garden.

"Brother Jieru, Li Meng'an has come with menacing force this time, disregarding all rules of officialdom, openly uttering rude words to a high-ranking official of the second rank before the eyes of all. This act is no different from treating us here in Jiangnan as if we were nothing! Brother Jieru, as the head of all officials in South Zhili, has suffered such humiliation—it truly stirs our indignation! No matter how Brother Jieru chooses to strike back, we shall share your hatred and fight together against him!"

Xu Wenyuan, around forty years of age, with a fair face, long beard, and an air of righteousness, spoke with impassioned fervor.

Ever since Xu Qiming, Jiao Yunfeng, and others had been arrested one after another by the Embroidered Uniform Guard, and the market-strike movement that had begun in the four prefectures including Yangzhou—before it could spread to surrounding counties—had failed, Xu Wenyuan had felt a sense that great trouble was brewing.

This method, which had worked flawlessly time and again since the Wanli era, had this time completely failed. The Zhu emperor, who in their impression sat in the palace as if blind and deaf, had suddenly become sharp-eyed and keen-eared, and without the slightest regard for the civil unrest that might erupt in Jiangnan, had resolutely resorted to armed force and brought the matter to an end with extreme speed. The agents of the Eastern Depot and Embroidered Uniform Guard seemed to have been waiting there all along, watching them step step by step into the net before drawing the rope tight, then laughing as they pocketed a great fortune.

All these unorthodox methods chilled Xu Wenyuan to the bone. Xu Qiming and the others had fallen into the hands of those ruthless Embroidered Uniform Guard agents, and this time he feared it would be very difficult to extricate himself.

The vast majority of high officials who had been sent off to Nanjing found it very difficult to ever return to the capital's court, that center of power. Their political enemies would never permit such a thing to happen, and those political enemies were precisely the bigwigs currently in the court. In light of this, even if Xu Wenyuan wanted to find someone to plead for leniency on his behalf before the emperor, he could not find anyone at all.

After consulting several times with close friends and old acquaintances like Lü Weiqi and Qian Shisheng, everyone was at a loss for what to do about the matter, and could only hope that the Embroidered Uniform Guard would not resort to widespread implication of others.

And Xu Wenyuan, knowing full well that he had fallen into a desperate situation, for the first time felt a sense of dread that left him unable to rest easy day or night, constantly worrying that the Embroidered Uniform Guard's riders would come knocking at his door to take him to prison.

After passing more than ten days in this state of anxiety, the imagined riders never appeared in Nanjing city, and Xu Wenyuan's suspended heart relaxed somewhat.

Just at that moment, however, the emperor's imperial envoy suddenly arrived in Nanjing, which made Xu Wenyuan's nerves, which had only just begun to relax, tighten once again.

Upon receiving Lü Weiqi's invitation to come to his residence for a talk, Xu Wenyuan immediately hurried over to Lü Weiqi's mansion.

Lü Weiqi and Qian Shisheng had passed the imperial examinations in the same year, the forty-fourth year of Wanli. Although Qian Shisheng was five or six years older than him, the two had similar temperaments—both were straightforward and outspoken—and thus had become close friends.

Qian Shisheng was warm and hospitable by nature, generous with his wealth in aid of others. During the Tianqi era, he had spent large sums to rescue Wei Dazhong, Wan Jing, and other core members of the Donglin Faction who had been arrested and prosecuted by the eunuch faction. This act earned him a fine reputation within the Donglin Faction and won him the esteem of Donglin partisans throughout Jiangnan.

In the sixth year of Chongzhen, Zhu Youjian had appointed him Grand Secretary of the Eastern Pavilion and Minister of Rites, with participation in matters of state. But during his tenure, he consistently put the interests of the Donglin Faction first, deluding Zhu Youjian into issuing edicts to halt official-run smelting operations and to stop dispatching officials to Jiangnan to supervise the collection of overdue taxes. He also vehemently opposed the proposal to levy commercial taxes in Jiangnan, even going so far as to plan to have the proposer arrested and imprisoned. In the end, he came to be detested by Zhu Youjian, who gradually awakened to the truth, and was sent off to Nanjing the following year.

"Mingde's words are most reasonable. First, the officials and gentry of the four Jiangnan prefectures were arrested and imprisoned by the depot and guard agents for their legitimate grievances; now Brother Jieru has been humiliated on top of that. These two matters make it clear that His Majesty, misled by the slanderous words of treacherous courtiers, intends to strike hard against us in South Zhili. If we lack a corresponding strategy, we will surely be picked off one by one. The only way forward is for us to join hands against external forces—only then might we make His Majesty retract his reckless edicts, and prevent this prosperous land from falling into the hands of those with ulterior motives, so that our Jiangnan gentry and common folk may live and work in peace, free from the suffering of exorbitant taxes and levies!"

"Brother Yizhi, Brother Mingde—how could Weiqi be unaware of your concerns? But this time Li Meng'an has come bearing the weight of authority, and moreover holds the testimony of the offending officials and gentry from the four prefectures of Suzhou and Yangzhou. His determination to succeed is already evident. Though we have the will to resist his reckless policies, we truly lack the strength to oppose him! This matter is exceedingly thorny!"

From the time he returned from the docks to his residence, Lü Weiqi had been racking his brains for a way to make Li Banghua return in defeat, but after much deliberation he still could not find a solution. In desperation, he had summoned these three men with whom he was closest to discuss countermeasures.

The pressure brought by the two hundred cavalrymen Li Banghua had brought was simply too great for them all.

Never mind the present—back in the Jiajing era during the wokou troubles, a band of fewer than a hundred Japanese pirates, after landing, had swept through more than ten prefectures and counties along the Jiangsu-Zhejiang coast, and had finally fought their way directly to the walls of Nanjing. At that time, the Jiangnan guard station troops, which had not yet completely rotted away, had been gathered to surround and annihilate them, yet they had been defeated one after another by this small band of pirates. Let alone now, when the surviving guard station troops had become completely civilianized. To put it bluntly, this Capital Camp cavalry force could sweep through Jiangnan without any problem whatsoever.

Whether it was Lü Weiqi or the other three, their vast family interests all lay in South Zhili. Whether family businesses or the official positions of their protégés and old friends, everything was concentrated in the most prosperous places in Jiangnan. The relationship between them could be described as one where pulling a single hair moves the whole body. Once one of them got into trouble, the other factions would try every means to seize the resources that the person in trouble had occupied—this could be considered an unspoken rule of the Jiangnan officialdom. Although the two sides would not truly tear their faces apart, it was inevitable that the losing side would be gradually marginalized in every respect.

Precisely for this reason, for their group, even if Xu Qiming, Jiao Yunfeng, and others got into trouble, those at the upper levels who held power could not be implicated. They had to think of every possible way to defuse the crisis and protect Xu Wenyuan and the others who were directly involved.

"Your subordinate believes that what Minister Lü has said is most reasonable. Given the current situation, only by seeking external force can we break this difficult deadlock. Otherwise, relying solely on our own governance, I fear we cannot contend with the capital. But all the ministers seem to have overlooked one matter—besides this Li Meng'an, there is an even more troublesome opponent who has not yet shown himself. If he were to strike suddenly, the outcome would likely be even harder to control!"

Lang Shizhen, who had not been able to get a word in, seized the moment of silence to offer his view.

He was the son of Qian Shisheng's first teacher who had enlightened him in his studies. As Qian Shisheng rose step by step in his official career, Lang Yongzhen, who had considerable talent in the examinations, also passed successfully. After a year of observation duty at the Ministry of Revenue in the capital, Qian Shisheng used his connections to keep him in the ministry. But what builds also destroys—Lang Yongzhen was later implicated by Qian Shisheng's downfall and was sent off to Nanjing along with him.

"Oh? Ziqun has a view? Speak quickly! What is this external force?"

Qian Shisheng urged him on hastily.

Lang Shizhen's words weighed even more heavily on their hearts, especially Xu Wenyuan's, whose inner pressure suddenly increased.

The troublesome opponent Lang Shizhen referred to was, of course, the depot and guard. Against a literary man like Li Banghua, they still had some confidence and strategies, but these methods were utterly useless against the Embroidered Uniform Guard.

When the Embroidered Uniform Guard appeared, it was to arrest people. They did not reason with you at all—they took people away and left, then decided whether to confiscate the household property based on the circumstances.

"Your subordinate wonders whether we might borrow strength from two other quarters besides Minister Lü to dissolve this calamity? As long as we offer sufficient benefits, these two quarters might well be willing to lend their aid. When it comes to the closeness of their connections with the capital, they surely far surpass us, do they not? If the ministers have this intention, it would be best to act as soon as possible!"

The external force Lang Yongzhen spoke of referred to the other two giants of the South Zhili region: the eunuch garrison commander and the noble garrison commander. To persuade them to come forward and mediate with the court, each family would have to show complete sincerity.

After a period of secret discussion, Qian Shisheng paid late-night visits to the residences of Zhang Yixian and Zhao Zhilong. What exactly was discussed remains unknown.