Chapter 71: The Busy but Orderly Yongchang Firm (Third Update)

Standing outside the door were a group of soldiers clad in helmets and armor.

The man at the lead stood tall and straight, clad in fine scale armor with a golden Xuanwu helmet atop his head—it was none other than Zhang Shize, Duke of Ying, who had been ordered to suppress the rebellion. He sheathed his still-dripping blade, stepped inside, swept his gaze across the room, and roared angrily:

"Where's Zheng Sanjun? Tell him to come out!"

"That piece of trash—I'll butcher him with my own hands and feed him to the dogs!"

Hearing this, the steward and several women covered their faces and wept. Zhang Shize was initially puzzled, but catching a whiff of blood in the air, he then saw Zheng Sanjun's corpse.

"What happened here?"

After listening to the steward stammer through the whole story from beginning to end, Zhang Shize's expression grew heavy, and the anger on his face faded somewhat. After thinking for a long while, he turned and ordered a Company Commander:

"Take your men and guard the Zheng residence. Until His Majesty's new decree arrives, not a single person may flee or enter—otherwise, beware that I'll cut off your head to consecrate the banners!"

"The rest of you, follow me to continue suppressing the unrest!"

The Company Commander shuddered and hastily clasped his fists and shouted:

"This humble officer obeys the order!"

At the same time, countless scout riders emerged from the Chengtian Gate and scattered in all directions, holding aloft a written decree as they swiftly spread the latest imperial edict from the palace throughout the city.

"By imperial decree, the chaos in the capital shall be pacified by the Capital Camps, the Regimental Camps, and the Shenwu Army! Only the chief culprits shall be executed; the rest shall be shown leniency!"

"The two relief houses in the north and south of the capital are reopening, and the five-city porridge stations will distribute porridge to aid the disaster victims—go and collect your porridge now!"

"Chief Grand Secretary Wei Zaode shall oversee the execution—the deposed Consort Kang is to be taken immediately to the Western Vegetable Market and beheaded before the public. No delays permitted!"

"The Li clan of the nobility drew arms within the capital, violating the ancestral laws of the Great Ming. By ruling of the Grand Secretariat, the Li clan shall be exterminated to the tenth degree of kinship, and their heads piled into a mound as a warning. Execute immediately!"

The Chengtian Gate opened, and countless Capital Camp soldiers marched out in orderly ranks, blades and spears in hand, led by various officers to suppress unrest across the city. The difference between Capital Camp soldiers and ordinary garrison troops was vast.

First, Capital Camp soldiers all wore finely crafted iron armor, with swallow-wing helmets on their heads that only capital troops were permitted to equip, and in their hands they carried sharp new weapons forged by the Armory Bureau and the Ordnance Directorate.

Second, after several months of reorganization, the Capital Camps were no longer what they had once been.

In the beginning, most Capital Camp soldiers were ghost soldiers drawing pay without serving—everyone knew that the so-called Great Ming Capital Camps were nothing but a decorative facade with zero combat capability. But now, clearly, that was no longer the case.

Ever since Zhang Shize replaced Wu Xiang as Superintendent of the Capital Camps, the camps had been transforming with each passing day.

The vacant slots were first filled, then the court made up the arrears in back pay, and led by the Duke of Ying's household, all the noble scions were dismissed and local hereditary military households were recruited into the ranks.

Beyond that, a considerable number of elite Regimental Camp troops stationed outside the city were absorbed into the Capital Camps. When these Capital Camp soldiers took to the streets, the situation rapidly improved.

Soldiers were not constables—their mission was to kill the enemy. Moreover, most of the Capital Camp men were recruited locally, and with their own homes in such chaos, there was no one who wasn't worried.

The Capital Camp soldiers showed no mercy whatsoever. Whether refugees, ruffians, or scoundrels—anyone who dared to resist was cut down on the spot.

"Anyone who resists shall be killed without exception!"

A squad of Capital Camp soldiers charged into the street and routed the rioters in short order. The Company Commander leading them had seen blood on the Liaodong battlefield. He stepped forward, kicked a refugee to the ground, sliced off the still-bleeding head with his saber, and bellowed:

"Here lies the chief culprit! His Majesty has decreed leniency for the rest—why do you not surrender at once!"

Seeing the blood on this Company Commander and the Capital Camp soldiers around him, the rioters lost all will to resist. They hurriedly threw down their weapons and knelt on the ground, begging for mercy.

According to the Chongzhen Emperor's decree, the two relief houses in the north and south of the capital needed to immediately begin taking in refugees, and the porridge stations throughout the city also had to immediately begin distributing rice porridge to aid the disaster victims.

These facilities had long fallen into disuse. Under ordinary circumstances, an imperial decree ordering their reopening would have seemed utterly fanciful—but this time, the decree did not specify the methods in detail.

For the officers and soldiers below, this small margin of discretion was the key to solving the problem. Wang Xiantong, the newly enfeoffed Earl of Xinjian, understood at once what the Chongzhen Emperor meant upon receiving the decree. He immediately turned and bellowed at the top of his lungs:

"I don't care what methods you use—if you can't procure the grain needed to suppress the unrest within one stick of incense's time, then you and I alike will lose our heads!"

"Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures. Do you all understand?"

Hearing this, the other Battalion Commanders and Company Commanders exchanged glances, each seeing the resolve of a last stand in the other's eyes, and clasped their fists as they roared:

"Understood!"

"This humble officer obeys the commander's order!"

When it came to grain, Wang Xiantong, Earl of Xinjian, immediately thought of Wenchang Street.

In this era, every trade and industry already carried a hint of capitalistic flavor, and some business tactics were no different from those of later generations.

Take the capital's rice shops for example—setting aside the small mom-and-pop stores, virtually all the established large shops and merchant houses in the capital were concentrated on Wenchang Street.

In other words, Wenchang Street could well be called Beijing's grain and rice thoroughfare.

It was a short street—walking it from end to end took less than the time to burn one stick of incense—yet it now housed nearly twenty large rice shops. These interconnected big establishments monopolized the capital's grain trade, and prices naturally depended on their whims.

In normal times, despite the extortionate prices, business on Wenchang Street had always been booming. But now, with great disasters and unrest erupting across the land, even the capital beneath the Son of Heaven's very feet was unstable.

Many people had no food to eat, and with hearts full of anxiety, everyone naturally wanted to buy some rice and flour to take home for emergencies. Thus, for a long time now, Wenchang Street had grown even more bustling than before.

For merchants, such times were opportunity. Apart from the small rice shops with no connections, no one would directly sell their grain—even selling at a markup was considered a fool's move.

The truly clever merchants would claim they had no rice in stock, hoarding their grain all the while, watching the situation, waiting for the right moment to release a small portion, then continuing to hoard—this way they could reap maximum profits.

As for the survival of the court or the safety of the common people—who had the leisure to care about such things?

The poor grew ever poorer, but to say the imperial family was wealthy would not be entirely accurate either. Setting aside the feudal princes and nobles scattered across the realm, the Zhu family within the Forbidden City was arguably the poorest imperial house in all of history.

The court was not wealthy—taxes from most regions couldn't even be collected. Last year's total tax revenue was only a little over three million taels, not even enough to cover the Liaodong levy alone.

It was almost laughable—the Chongzhen Emperor had casually confiscated the households of a few ministers and merchants, and the take had already approached ten million taels.

Among these, the household of Zhai Tang alone—one of the eight great merchant houses of the later Tartar Qing—had over six million taels in ready silver. When farmland, calligraphy, paintings, and other assets were converted, the total was anyone's guess.

The military pay for Zhou Yuji's Ningwu Army, which was fighting the Dashing King in Shanxi, came from exactly this source. The fickleness of the world was truly hard to believe.

As emperor, Chongzhen lived no better a life than an ordinary commoner.

The Chongzhen Emperor wore undergarments patched with mends—this was common knowledge. Beyond that, his daily meals consisted of no more than three dishes and one soup, and Empress Zhou, who was supposed to set an example for the realm, personally cooked the emperor's meals in the kitchen. The palace didn't even have a few pieces of jewelry presentable enough to show.

These unprecedented and unheard-of oddities were now all happening to the Chongzhen Emperor alone.

On the other hand, the great households, merchants, and scholar-officials were rapidly growing wealthy and prosperous by exploiting the realm's chaos and the people's misery.

This kind of distorted prosperity existed not only in the capital—most of Jiangnan was the same way. Yet this situation was something the Donglin scholars delighted in discussing.

On Wenchang Street, the Yongchang Firm was the largest of the merchant houses. It was said that the owner behind the counter had deep connections—neither the constables of the Troops and Horses Office nor the local thugs and ruffians of the city dared to come looking for trouble on ordinary days.

Even under the current circumstances, with government offices unable to protect themselves, Wenchang Street remained largely undisturbed. All sorts of people gathered there, yet the Yongchang Firm stayed busy but never chaotic—compared to other parts of the city, it could even be called orderly.

"Heavens, how are we supposed to live like this—" some commoners carrying rice sacks exclaimed in fury as they looked at the newly changed price board: "Yesterday it was still five taels and three maces of silver per dan—how can it go up another three maces of silver after just one day!"

"Exactly, how can prices rise faster than a child changes his mood? Isn't this just cheating people!" The speaker seemed to be a scholar, speaking in a refined, bookish manner.

"I haul sacks all day and earn barely three fen of silver, but him—he jacks the price up, and my whole day's work is for nothing! Damn it, I'm not buying!"

A burly man with a dark, weather-beaten face finished speaking indignantly, then turned and walked away.