Chapter 315: All Attack at Once

Now the reach of the Embroidered Uniform Guard and the Eastern Depot was overwhelming—around the capital region, mere wealth no longer counted for anything.

Wealthy? Once the Depot or the Guard fixed their eyes on you, a little maneuvering on their part, and those bone-gnawing, skin-flaying dogs could fabricate ten thousand crimes you'd never even heard of, turning you into a beggar in no time—or wrecking your family and ruining your reputation entirely.

This emperor now seemed to have suddenly woken up to things—the Depot and Guard's power in the capital was even greater than in the days of the eunuch faction's rule. So the sharp operators who'd made it in Jinling all understood one principle:

"A man with only money is called a nouveau riche. Besides money, you need connections to get by and live well in times like these! At the very least, when the day comes that you get struck down, you can scatter your fortune and still have the means to protect yourself!"

And what kind of connections did that take? Officials.

In the old days, it was said that if a household had ties to the Donglin Faction, then anything happening at court was nothing to worry about. If someone wanted to become an official, their career path would surely be smooth sailing from then on.

These scholars were each and every one of them masters at pulling strings for their own kind and playing the game of self-preservation.

Take, for example, the great master Jiang Zheng before us, who'd made his fortune through the tea-horse trade. Before the Donglin Faction was exterminated by the court, the Jiang family poured money into them by the fistful every year, and in return, the Donglin Faction never stinted on building up his reputation.

What did "building up a reputation" mean? In plain terms, it meant puffing up a name for yourself, making those ignorant common folk admire you and think you were the greatest of great men—and once that was done, everything else became easy for you.

And even in the worst case, when the court moved against you, considering your reputation among the people, they would generally think twice.

Even among merchants these days there were grades and classes. A man with a good reputation was a noble-like figure. Zhao Man and Jiang Zheng were different—comparing the two, Zhao Man was in truth nothing but a vulgar country rich man.

But Zhao Man had climbed to the position of number-one cloth merchant in Jiangnan. Though he lacked a good reputation, he always had something else—what the Zhao family had was a path through officialdom.

In Zhao Man's view: "Sure, your wealth may exceed mine, Jiang Zheng, but my Zhao family, like the Pang family before us, were officials too. I myself have held office. That's a deep game right there."

Those who'd navigated officialdom before going into trade occupied the highest status among merchants.

Because any clear-eyed person could see that the most common thing in officialdom was officials shielding one another. Never mind how high an office Zhao Man had held—at the very least, he was sure to have his protective umbrella.

The Zhao family's wealth was not weak, and their channels to the court were certainly numerous. With that path through officialdom, plenty of Zhao family members now held posts in various places—that was how they'd reached this position. The connections and doorways involved were beyond counting.

The Eastern Depot these days was truly busy enough.

How to put it? The court was exterminating the Donglin Faction. Setting everything else aside, just that old dog Qian's "ten clans"—how many people was that, how many households? Killing every day, how long would it take?

If it were the Eastern Depot in the capital, they'd have the manpower, and failing that, the Court of Judicial Review and the Ministry of Justice could help. But in Jinling city, the only organ Chongzhen trusted was the Eastern Depot—the Court of Judicial Review and the Ministry of Justice had been strictly forbidden from participating in this matter.

Li Youcheng had only recently arrived in Jinling, and the Depot's power here was far less formidable than imagined—by now they were already short-handed.

Several days earlier, Li Youcheng had already sent a swift message to the Depot's branch office in Shandong, ordering them to send men to Jinling. By his reckoning, they should be arriving around today.

To put it plainly, if it weren't for the ironclad protection of two men with real power—Ma Shiying and Zhou Jingwu—the Depot could never have developed a presence here at all; they'd likely have been beaten back the moment they arrived.

Now the Eastern Depot, seizing the opportunity of the imperial decree to forcibly arrest people, had quickly stirred up discontent among all sorts of folk in the streets and lanes.

Among them were those who'd long resented the Depot and Guard, quite a few with ties to the Eastern Depot, and plenty of idle ruffians looking for trouble—but the majority were deliberately arranged by the wealthy magnates.

Jinling city was in an uproar, though thanks to the timely suppression by the Shenwu Army, no major disorder had broken out yet. At this moment, from far off outside the city walls came a troop of riders—at their head was a Centurion of the Eastern Depot.

This troop had come from Fengyang, dispatched by the Depot's yamen there after receiving Li Youcheng's swift message.

There were roughly three hundred of these lictors. Seeing the three large characters "Guanyin Gate" above their heads, the Centurion let out a sigh of relief and waved for the lictors to dismount and proceed on foot to the branch office to see Li Youcheng.

They hadn't walked far when they passed a teahouse. The Centurion was observing the city of Nanjing, marveling at its splendor, when suddenly a stream of sour liquid splashed over him from who-knows-where.

Instinctively, the Centurion wiped his face, turned his head, and shouted: "Motherf—! Which blind bastard did that!?"

Seeing this troop of lictors, everyone scrambled to get out of the way—who would dare provoke their wrath? Naturally, no one dared answer. The Centurion cursed and questioned a few of the local constables around him, but they all shook their heads, saying they'd seen nothing.

He'd just turned and taken a few steps when a great crowd of scholars came straight at him from the opposite direction—several hundred of them at least, filling the entire street.

"Centurion, sir, what do we do?" The constable, seeing these scholars meant no good, slowly placed his hand on his blade and asked.

The Centurion wasn't yet certain whether these were the people he was supposed to arrest. Though he was Depot himself, Director Wang had after all instructed all lictors to keep a low profile. He thought for a moment, then shook his head and said:

"Don't provoke trouble—make way!"

The truth was, this crowd of scholars coming head-on had no good intentions whatsoever. The street was only so wide, and the Depot men were numerous—no matter how they tried to avoid it, if the scholars wouldn't yield the way, a collision was inevitable.

One lictor in the formation was shoved out and accidentally came into physical contact with a scholar. Just like that, the scholar suddenly clutched his stomach, collapsed to the ground, and began wailing.

"The lictors are killing people!"

The other scholars surged forward, pointing at the lictors' noses and cursing: "What, just because you're Eastern Depot you can go around injuring people at will!"

"Is there no law anymore? Is this the realm of Great Ming, or the realm of you eunuch dogs!"

"Everyone, come look! We scholars were walking along the street when we were beaten by lictors for no reason, without even an explanation. By this logic, Old Qian must surely have been framed by these eunuch dogs too!"

"Yes! Old Qian has always devoted himself to the public good. He's already in his eighties now—how could he possibly plot rebellion and usurpation?"

It must be said that scholars in this era had formidable powers of mobilization. After a few shouts from the scholars, a crowd of idle onlookers gathered around, and in the spirit of enjoying a spectacle without fearing it too big, they began denouncing the lictors.

As for the scholars' words—in the capital, the common folk, steeped in the Depot, the Guard, and the imperial newspaper, had come to treat them as nothing but hot air. But Jinling was the Donglin stronghold, and the people here took them quite seriously.

"Shing!"

To protect themselves, the lictors who'd come as reinforcements all drew their paired blades, eyeing these commoners and scholars with wary looks. It was well known that in times past, quite a few Embroidered Uniform Guard officers and lictors had been beaten to death in the streets of Jinling.

If it came down to it, they would have no choice but to unleash a slaughter.

The Centurion, however, was cautious—he still hadn't drawn the embroidered saber at his waist. He led the lictors into the city with gritted teeth, and the crowd had no intention of letting them pass, following along behind the lictors and shouting.

By the time they passed through the outer city wall and reached Guqigeng outside the Taiping Gate of the inner city, the crowd directly surrounded this troop of lictors, began tightening the circle, and kept throwing rotten eggs and spoiled vegetable leaves at them.

Most of the scholars, though their mouths never stopped shouting, kept well away from the lictors, standing outside the circle—merely guiding more common folk to join the ranks of the protesters.

Watching the lictors, who were usually so arrogant, now looking like rats afraid to strike the vase, they all sneered coldly:

"Fortune's wheel turns—today it's our turn!"

"Never thought you'd see the day, did you, you lictors who eat human flesh without spitting out the bones!"