Chapter 169: Wiping Them All Out

In the Dezhuang Hotpot restaurant in Suzhou city, several members of the Embroidered Uniform Guard were busier than ever — ever since "Uncle Biao" had come up with this method, the volume of intelligence coming in each day was overwhelming.

All kinds of intelligence flowed in — which young master had brawled with someone over a courtesan in a brothel, which widow in the Wang family had been caught in bed with a lover, and so on.

Each day they sifted out the useful pieces, filed them away by category, and burned the useless ones outright.

Wu Cheng had already expanded Dezhuang Hotpot to all two capitals and thirteen provinces of the Great Ming, with a branch in every city of strategic importance — these also served as intelligence stations for the Embroidered Uniform Guard in each region.

The Embroidered Uniform Guard's intelligence network was now divided into four main branches: Heaven, Earth, Dark, and Yellow, corresponding respectively to surveillance of the Qing, the roving bandits, officials, and the gentry. Each branch was further divided into twelve sub-branches named after the twelve Earthly Branches, corresponding to twelve key regions nationwide. Below the regions were teams, and below the teams were squads.

Every person had a unique code name. As the head of this vast intelligence network, Li Tingbiao's code name was "Uncle Biao."

On the twenty-third day of the second month, the main force of the Yongwei Camp entered the borders of Suzhou. Li Tingbiao hurried out from the city and handed a compiled document to Zhu Cilang inside the dragon carriage.

Zhu Cilang, who had been lying down resting, sat up abruptly after reading it and said loudly: "What a pack of national parasites!"

One hears that official corruption is especially severe in the twilight years of a dynasty, but one never realizes that reality is even more brutal than the rumors. These local officials who were supposed to shepherd the people had extorted and plundered wealth from the common folk by every means imaginable — their methods so despicable, their hearts so venomous, their pretexts so absurd that one's eyes were truly opened!

Outside the city of Suzhou at this time, the prefect, the Garrison Commander, and other civil and military officials of all ranks, along with various local gentry and elders, had already been waiting outside the city gate for some time.

Hearing a rumbling like thunder rolling in from afar, every official was greatly startled. Around the imperial envoy's procession stretched a sea of over ten thousand troops marching forward. They were not deliberately stamping their feet hard, yet the thunderous sound was produced simply by ten thousand soldiers' feet landing in unison.

Such a formidable army — several times stronger than the guard station troops of Fengyang's Eight Guards. No wonder they could go head-to-head with the Tartars; it was said the Tartars were far more formidable in combat than the roving bandits.

Seeing the army drawing closer, the officials of Suzhou quickly composed their rattled nerves and knelt on both sides of the city gate to receive the imperial envoy procession, crying out in unison: "We humbly welcome His Highness the Crown Prince to Suzhou!"

What puzzled the Suzhou officials was that the procession passed through the city gate without stopping at all, and no one even acknowledged them — as if they did not exist.

"My lord, what do we do? Do we get up or not?" the Vice Prefect of Suzhou asked.

The prefect said: "This must be the custom of the imperial household. Let us kneel here and wait a while longer. I am certain that eunuch officials will soon summon us — and while they're at it, they'll be asking for ceremony fees."

"How wise, my lord!" the assembled officials praised.

After kneeling in the biting cold wind for two quarters of an hour, the prefect finally rose silently, then walked into the city without a word.

As soon as Zhu Cilang arrived in Suzhou, he took up residence in the prefectural office, and he refused to see a single one of Suzhou's officials. This threw the officials into a panic — not knowing what it meant, they sent their household retainers scurrying through the city, fishing everywhere for rumors and inside information.

Zhu Cilang was in no hurry to act. He was waiting for intelligence and evidence from the Longxiang Night Scouts. When you kill people, you must kill them in a way that convinces others — only then is the killing satisfying!

But he was not idle either. That same day, Zhu Cilang ordered the Suzhou prefect to prepare three thousand dan of grain for the army to continue its march south. After waiting a full day, however, the prefect had only managed to scrape together five hundred dan — and he kept whining about how poor the prefecture was.

On the afternoon of the second day, Zhu Cilang ordered that all officials in Suzhou city, civil and military alike, report to the prefectural office to have their names called and be admitted one by one.

The highest-ranking civil official in the city was the prefect at rank 5b, followed by the Vice Prefect, several of them, and the assistant prefects, several of them.

The military officers were the Garrison Commander, along with the various levels of officials from the local guard command — such as four Assistant Guard Commanders at rank 4a, two Provosts at rank 5b, and also record keepers and clerks, and so on.

A large crowd of civil and military officials stood before the prefectural office awaiting summons. Many hoped to hitch a ride on the Crown Prince's bandwagon.

Zhu Cilang sat in the quiet main hall of the prefectural office, appearing calm on the surface but seething with rage within. From the investigations conducted by the Embroidered Uniform Guard and the Longxiang Night Scouts over the past two days, the corruption of the local officials exceeded his imagination — officials and gentry colluding, seizing prime farmland, bullying the market and dominating trade!

"Pass the order: all officials shall have their names called and be admitted according to rank!"

On both sides of the main hall, fully armed guards of the Eastern Palace stood in two lines stretching from the hall all the way to the office gate — a scene of solemn silence.

The Suzhou prefect straightened his cap and robes, and was the first to step into the main hall. This was the first time he had stood in the very place where he worked every day and announced his own name.

"Your servant, Prefect of Suzhou—"

"Seize him!" Zhu Cilang suddenly barked.

The Eastern Palace personal guards on both sides of the hall immediately pounced forward and forced the prefect to the ground, frightening him until his face turned pale.

The prefect cried out in panic: "Your Highness, what is the meaning of this? What crime has your servant committed?"

Zhu Cilang said coldly: "Shut him up!"

Two Eastern Palace personal guards ignored the official's shouts and protests, stripped off his official robes, bound him, and tossed him aside. Seeing that he was still yelling, one guard delivered a resounding slap across his face, sending blood spraying from the prefect's mouth and two of his big yellow teeth flying out.

"Continue!"

Seeing this, the officials standing outside the hall were all shaken to the core, but they could only steel themselves and file into the hall one by one according to their rank, announcing their own names.

Wu Zhong stood beside Zhu Cilang, holding a register. Whenever an official came in to report, he would check the name against the register, and when he saw a name that had been pre-marked, he would bark: "Seize him!"

In the end, eighty percent of the officials in the city who ate from the imperial granary were arrested. Only a handful remained relatively clean, with embezzlement amounts below sixty taels. Zhu Cilang decided to show a bit of mercy and spare these few — he worried that if he disposed of everyone at once, he would not be able to find people to govern the prefecture for some time.

After the roll call was finished, Zhu Cilang deployed one thousand soldiers from the Yongwei Camp to cooperate with the Embroidered Uniform Guard in confiscating the households.

Ranks of soldiers carrying firearms began to appear in the streets and alleys of Suzhou city, carrying out household confiscations against the dozens of offending civil and military officials. Wails filled the city, and an endless stream of family members of the condemned officials, shackled and cangued, were escorted into the prison.

Some wealthy merchants secretly watched from the upper floors of their own homes, beating their chests and stamping their feet in despair — many of their fields had been registered under the officials' names to avoid taxes, and now that the officials had fallen, their land would be confiscated too.

After the household confiscations, the Embroidered Uniform Guard moved on to seize the warehouses and shops registered under these officials' names, sweeping from within the city to without. All land holdings were confiscated outright!

The common folk, who had learned the news through various rumors, were ecstatic. They clapped and cheered, and some even splurged on firecrackers to celebrate the event.