Chapter 1133: One Wave Has Barely Settled

Ever since the Yellow River burst its banks at Xuzhou and flooded the countryside, destroying villages and even sending water into Xuzhou city itself — and with Pizhou likewise suffering a dike breach, Suining County nearly washed away by the Yellow River flood, Lake Luoma overflowing, Yutou Town taking on water, and many of the farmsteads in the northern Huai'an district also flooding — there was simply no way to keep any of this news hidden.

The Yellow River's raging flood had temporarily blocked the tribute grain route, stranding large numbers of grain barges around Qingjiangpu and Lake Luoma. The flood disaster reports they saw and heard were carried north and south once navigation resumed. Everyone assumed Xuzhou had suffered catastrophic losses this time — whenever the Yellow River acted up, it meant major disaster; what chance did Xuzhou have of escaping? It probably wasn't total annihilation, but it couldn't be far off.

In Xuzhou, Yutou Town, and Qingjiangpu, things were still manageable — everyone had seen with their own eyes whether disaster had struck or not, so people's minds remained fairly steady. But in Jining, anxiety was running high and speculation was rampant.

In times like these, wealthy households had a habit of depositing their idle silver with large merchant houses to earn interest, and the merchant houses in turn used that silver to keep their operations turning. In the Jining area, Cloud Mountain Trading, though open less than three years, was the most solid and reputable firm, and with the backing of the Zhao Battalion behind it, many of Jining's wealthy families kept their silver at the Cloud Mountain Trading Jining branch — whether for peace of mind earning interest or to express goodwill.

Moreover, merchants who regularly worked the tribute grain route and the Jiangnan trade knew that once they deposited their silver with Cloud Mountain Trading, they could spare themselves the hardship of carrying large sums of gold and silver on the road. They would receive a receipt here, and could redeem it at any of the three locations — Xuzhou, Yutou Town, or Qingjiangpu — and could even exchange it over at Yangzhou Prefecture. This was an enormous convenience, so people in trade were happy to deposit their silver there.

However, after word of the flood reached Jining, the first ten or twenty days remained fairly calm. The Cloud Mountain Trading Jining branch had made preparations for a run, and by this point was beginning to breathe easier. Yet just when the news should have blown over and things should have stayed quiet, rumors and gossip suddenly began to multiply. People's nerves started to fray, and more and more of them went to the counter to withdraw their silver — some even willing to forfeit the interest, so long as they could get their principal out.

When a merchant house does business, it earns a great deal and spends a great deal. On paper it may be making a fortune, but most of its silver is out in circulation, turning over. The silver deposited at the counter gets used in that turnover as well. If an ordinary merchant house, even a powerful one, were suddenly hit with a run like this, it would be in serious trouble — shutting its doors and going bankrupt was a real possibility.

But for the Zhao Battalion's enterprises, taking in deposits from local wealthy figures was merely icing on the cake, not something that touched their lifeblood or foundation. Since people wanted to withdraw their silver, Cloud Mountain Trading would not make any difficulty whatsoever, and even paid out the interest according to the rules. Such straightforward dealing did much to settle people's nerves. Yet the Internal Guard and patrol officers soon picked up more rumors — some were saying that Xuzhou was only putting on a brave front, that they had drained all the deposits from Qingjiangpu and Xuzhou just to barely scrape by, and that the Xuzhou Zhao Battalion had already been utterly broken by the flood, a mere paper tiger.

This rumor left the various Zhao Battalion principals in Shandong utterly baffled. Such gossip did indeed cause trouble for the Zhao Battalion, but only the sort of minor, harmless trouble — what was the point of it?

Still, everyone understood that rumors and slander often arose from the slightest stirrings — idle chatter, a careless remark could all lead to such results. So the patrol officers and Internal Guard followed procedure and went to investigate, but they turned up nothing out of the ordinary. Officials, runners, the jianghu underworld, the marketplaces, and merchants everywhere all said they had merely heard it from someone else, and no root could be found.

The matter was thus left unresolved, but then several lawsuits came knocking. Six gentry households from inside and outside Jining city jointly filed a complaint accusing Cloud Mountain Trading of seizing farmland and private property by force. As soon as the yamen let word of this case slip out, it caused an immediate sensation throughout the city — and Cloud Mountain Trading was the first to get the news.

Six gentry members: five Xiucai degree-holders, one Juren degree-holder. One of the Xiucai had a relative in the capital who was a fifth-rank capital official. They all claimed that their rural estate properties had been coerced and forced into sale by Cloud Mountain Trading around the time the Incense Sect rebels passed through — that the prices given were only ten or thirty percent of market value, which was no different from outright robbery, and they beseeched the authorities to uphold justice.

When the great Incense Sect rebellion broke out, anyone with property outside the city had rushed to sell, terrified that if chaos erupted they would be left with nothing. And once the rebellion passed, with no one to hire for labor, farmland and estates easily fell into neglect. So many people, unable to hold on, sold at rock-bottom prices. It was at that moment that the Zhao Battalion brought out silver to buy. The deals were entirely a matter of mutual consent. Though Xuzhou's power at the time was intimidating — when they made an offer, others dared not refuse to sell — Xuzhou had never engaged in forced purchases. Every transaction had been notarized and contracted at the yamen, leaving no grounds for anyone to find fault.

This time, when the authorities received the complaint, they were given a start. Initially they dared not accept it, but with all the talk of Xuzhou suffering grievous flood losses and being a paper tiger, the Jining authorities' courage grew somewhat bolder. Moreover, these several Xiucai and the Juren were people of face and influence in Jining city, with connections tangled deep and wide, not easy to offend lightly. So they accepted the complaint on one hand, and on the other sent someone posthaste to notify Cloud Mountain Trading.

Yet no sooner had the authorities accepted this complaint than four or five more households suddenly emerged to file suit. Their circumstances were identical to the earlier group — they too were local gentry and powerful figures of the first rank, who had also sold off considerable farmland and property during the great Incense Sect rebellion, and were now likewise claiming that Xuzhou merchants had bullied the weak and forced sales.

Faced with this, the Cloud Mountain Trading Jining branch was at first taken aback, but then promptly produced document after document, contract after contract — in black and white, signed and sealed by all parties, with yamen officials' notarization. By the law of the land, no one could argue otherwise.

After Cloud Mountain Trading made this firm show of stance, many of the households immediately backed down. But the few who had first stepped forward refused to let the matter drop, insisting that they had been threatened at knifepoint and dared not refuse, and even claiming that the runners and clerks who had notarized the deals had all taken bribes. The various Cloud Mountain Trading principals in Jining city dismissed this with contempt — it was nothing more than those gentry and local bullies losing their minds, their hearts aching as they watched the farmland and estates grow more prosperous by the day, so they wanted to stir up trouble. In the end, it would surely come to nothing.

After He Zheng, Li Can, and the others talked it over, they decided not even to use any hard measures. If it could be resolved with face and personal connections, there was no need to resort to blades — no point in making the locals raise a huge, endless fuss. And these people, babbling foolishly about clerks and runners taking bribes — weren't they just asking for trouble? Once they offended the authorities' dignity, the yamen probably wouldn't even go through the motions anymore.

But what no one expected was that the several clerks from the Revenue Office who had handled the transactions were actually taken into custody just like that. And some even voluntarily confessed, admitting they had taken silver from Cloud Mountain Trading and therefore processed those land deeds. Once this came out, the whole city of Jining and the surrounding countryside boiled over. Everyone who had sold off property cheaply at the time swarmed to the yamen to file complaints. In many people's eyes, the wind was about to shift.

In the minds of the Jining populace, this Xuzhou merchant house had always operated by leveraging underworld strength. That Zhao Jin of Xuzhou might be a powerful regional magnate, and he might indeed command tough troops, but after all, they were not imperial court armies. Without official rank or title, they were utterly fragile — the slightest setback and they would be nothing at all. Now this flood had dealt Xuzhou severe damage, and the local braves and militia under his command had naturally collapsed along with it. So how could they possibly hold out here in Jining?

"It seems this was never a case of madness or muddled minds from the very start. Someone behind the scenes must be orchestrating this. But whoever's behind it is cautious — they still haven't shown their hand even now. And this person is no simple figure either, to be able to push so many people into action and lay out such a scheme — truly impressive," Ma Chonghao remarked.

When those first six went to the yamen to file suit, Ma Chonghao had already dispatched patrol officers and Internal Guard to shadow them, but they found nothing out of the ordinary. So he, like everyone else, assumed these were just muddled fools who had lost their minds and would learn their lesson. The events that followed were likewise taken as normal shifts in popular sentiment. It was only when the clerks and runners voluntarily confessed to taking bribes that everyone realized something was wrong.

"It seems this person or power behind the scenes laid out the entire arrangement in advance before setting it in motion. Either those few households already have the string-puller's subordinates in their homes, or they have their own means of passing messages. But you two needn't worry — if they dare to die, we dare to bury them. We'll meet them blow for blow." Ma Chonghao showed no concern over this sudden turn of events.

"These wretched scoundrels — back then they were begging us to buy, and now it's turned into us forcing the sale! Commander Ma, you need to come down hard on this — kill who needs killing, arrest who needs arresting. Master Jin won't fault us for that. What worries me is that our response has been too slow this time — Master Jin probably won't be pleased." Li Can spoke through gritted teeth, seething with fury.

He Zheng, however, was not so agitated. He spoke in a deep voice: "When we bought up land back then, I can't say every purchase was made in perfect harmony. There was indeed some collusion with the yamen. But there's absolutely no way this many people were all forced into selling — there's definitely something fishy going on. Still, if we're going to take action, we must notify Second Master and Master Lei. And this Jining city, sitting right by the canal docks, is crowded and full of eyes — we need to act with proper restraint. We can't suppress one side only to stir up the other."

Ma Chonghao nodded with a smile. He knew that aside from reporting the news to Chen Sheng and Lei Cai — which he had to do — the rest of the advice was just for reference. But inwardly, Ma Chonghao could not help reflecting: the Zhao family truly was blessed by fortune. Without Zhao Jin, men like Li Can and He Zheng would be nothing at all — just ordinary town and village folk. Yet under Zhao Jin's command, they had now developed the ability to handle matters on their own.

As for sending an urgent report to Xuzhou, that went without saying. The moment the incident broke, every branch — trade, agriculture, land reclamation — had dispatched its own report to Xuzhou.

Everyone had agreed on a prudent approach, but Ma Chonghao was swift and decisive from the start. He demanded that the several clerks and runners who had confessed to taking bribes come to the Patrol Regiment commander's headquarters to answer questions, and that the few gentry who had first filed the forced-sale complaints also come to give their accounts. Obviously, neither party was going to show up, so Ma Chonghao had, from the very beginning, dispatched one patrol squad to fetch each of them.

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