Chapter 791: Facing It with Composure

"The principal offender is the bodyguard beside Zhao Jin, and Zhao Jin himself bears the guilt of shielding him — this time we'll take them both for interrogation!" Guarding Judge Wei Hui spoke with ringing conviction.

Judge Xia made an "Oh" sound, picked up his tea bowl to skim the floating leaves, and took a sip without another word. His manner infuriated the Guard Commander who had come along from the Prince of Lu's estate. The man slammed the table and shot to his feet, roaring, "You old wretch, you still dare be this insolent about our prince's business! Our prince is the reigning Son of Heaven's own uncle. One memorial sent up, and that official's robe will be stripped right off your back. Everyone in Xuzhou, high and low, is in league with the bandits — when the time comes, dying won't be so easy."

At this outburst, the clerks and runners who had come from Weihui Prefecture could only stare, while the men from the Prince of Lu's estate all joined in the cursing, every word a threat.

Judge Xia unhurriedly set his tea bowl on the table, shook his head, and said, "A government office is a place of decorum. With all this racket you're making, it's like a marketplace — truly no sense of propriety."

"What did you say? It won't take me ten days to ride express back to Weihui. Once I'm back, the next to come will be the capital's Depot Guard, and then don't you regret it." Seeing that the other man wasn't buying his act, the estate's Guard Commander couldn't help but let loose a torrent of abuse.

"You're lucky you knew to come to the magistrate's yamen first instead of heading straight to the He Family Village." Judge Xia sighed unhurriedly, then turned to the young runner and said, "Eleventh Son, this old man can't manage things here anymore. You'd better handle it."

"Thank you for your trouble, Uncle Xia. Another day, Uncle Chen will invite you for a drink at Cloud Mountain Tower," Zhao the Eleventh Son said with a smile.

Judge Xia shook his head, rose from his seat, and left the reception hall with a leisurely, swaying gait. This air of complete indifference left the men from Weihui Prefecture and the Prince of Lu's estate utterly baffled. Arrogant and overbearing as they had been, their conduct was still within the bounds of officialdom — nothing more than pressuring the other side to comply, and even their threats were perfectly conventional. Yet this Xuzhou judge showed not a trace of fear and simply swaggered off. What on earth was going on?

"You insolent bastards, what exactly do you take the Prince of Lu's estate for? I demand to see your magistrate, and quickly!" The Guard Commander pounded the table and cursed, while Judge Zhang's face darkened.

But before they could finish, the young runner pulled out a whistle and blew it hard. The sound was sharp and piercing, drowning out every roar and curse.

"Have you gone mad?" Everything about this Xuzhou yamen was steeped in strangeness, leaving the men from Henan completely at a loss.

"Did you all hear what His Honor Xia just said? You're lucky — you came straight to the yamen," Zhao the Eleventh Son said coldly.

Before anyone could resume their shouting, the sound of dense footsteps came, the door was flung open, and a fierce young runner charged straight in.

What kind of insolence is this? The men from Henan were about to bark a rebuke when they saw one runner after another enter the room, each gripping a blade or axe, all glaring at them with murderous intent.

At the sight of the cold light flashing off those sharp edges, at the sight of those runners' killing looks, the legs of the men from the Henan Weihui government and the prince's estate all went weak.

"You… what are you trying to do?"

"You are impostors — impersonating government officials, impersonating a princely estate's subordinate officers. This is a capital crime. Seize them all, give them a few dozen strokes of the board, and throw them into prison for a thorough interrogation!" Zhao the Eleventh Son announced loudly.

"You… you…" Judge Zhang was shaking with rage, unable to string a sentence together. The Guard Commander, at least a military man by origin, was fat but not slow. He reached for his waist token and shouted at the top of his lungs, "I am a guard of the Prince of Lu's estate! Who dares frame me!"

At this juncture, the men from Henan all rose with angry shouts, each declaring his identity from the government or the estate, thinking that even if this outrageously bold Xuzhou constable wanted to confound black and white, he still had to see whether the runners under him would join in such madness.

"I say you're fake, so you're fake. Move! Kill anyone who resists!" Zhao the Eleventh Son shouted the order.

The runners who had charged into the room answered with a single roar. The men from Henan were dumbstruck — the scene unfolding before them was beyond all reason. Yet seeing the other side coming to seize them, they could hardly just wait to die. Some reached for their weapons.

Though the room was spacious, so many people had crowded in that numbers offered little advantage, and the men from the Henan prince's estate and government all assumed the other side wouldn't dare actually strike.

A shrill, agonized scream rang out. Every gaze shot toward it. One of the estate guards had his forearm hacked off onto the floor, blood gushing wildly as he shrieked in agony. The Xuzhou constable facing him had a cold, hard expression, without the slightest sign of flinching or hesitation.

The moment they saw this, every last shred of wishful thinking vanished from the hearts of the men from the Weihui prefectural yamen and the Prince of Lu's estate. Though they could not fathom why the other side had such nerve, they obediently handed over their weapons and the like.

The instant each man surrendered his weapon, two men would seize him, strip his clothes clean off, leave him with nothing on his person, and shove him outside.

Outside, others were waiting. Without a word, they pressed each man to the ground and laid on the boards. After a few dozen strokes, there was no blood to be seen, yet the men howled in pain like slaughtered pigs, unable to stand on their own. Then someone brought them old clothes to put on and hauled them straight into the prison.

At first, some still shouted, "I am so-and-so from Weihui Prefecture," "I am so-and-so from the Prince of Lu's estate." Later, everyone noticed a pattern: the louder they shouted, the harder the boards came down. More than one was beaten unconscious outright. After that, apart from cries of pain and pleas for mercy, no other sound was heard.

"Don't let them starve, but don't let them eat their fill either. Just keep them locked up inside," Zhao Eleven instructed the jailer.

The jailer agreed with a grin and led the turnkeys off to their work. He had heard clearly all the shouting about Weihui Prefecture and the prince's estate, but a man in Xuzhou ought to heed the Zhao family's word. He paid no mind to some prince from outside.

Once the jailers had left, another runner came over excitedly, lowered his voice, and asked, "Eleventh Brother, these fellows had quite a bit of gold and silver on them — easily worth a few hundred taels."

"Keep one-third of the silver. Master Jin said it's a reward for everyone. The clothes and all the other odds and ends, burn them all. You go and keep watch. Anyone who tries to steal anything pays with his life. Understood?" Zhao the Eleventh Son spoke evenly. The runner, who had been rather excited, shivered and nodded repeatedly.

The most desolate place in Xuzhou city now was this very magistrate's yamen. Any clerk or runner with actual duties had to go busy themselves at the Cloud Mountain Trading House in the city. If common folk had any grievance, they went there to settle it too. Who still paid any attention to this hollow government office? So the screams and commotion here were heard by hardly anyone.

Others might not bother with what had happened, but Xuzhou Magistrate Tong Huaizu cared a great deal. Although he had been sidelined for a long time, he could still learn this much clearly enough.

Upon learning that the men from the Prince of Lu's estate and Weihui Prefecture had all been thrown into the prison, Tong Huaizu bolted his gates and shut himself inside his house. Though the season was already quite warm, Magistrate Tong's face was pale, and he trembled uncontrollably from head to toe.

When Magistrate Tong's wife came in to see him, before she could ask, Tong Huaizu himself said in a tearful voice, "Madam, I have dragged you down with me. I fear we won't live to see the day I leave this post. This Zhao Jin is already on the verge of rebellion. Once he rebels, he surely won't spare the lives of our whole family. And even if he doesn't rebel, his followers have done so many things that if the higher-ups investigate, it will still be a crime that grinds our bones to dust!"

"Why must my lord worry so? Who says Zhao Jin has rebelled? Has he killed any officials? Has he declared himself king or emperor?" Magistrate Tong's wife was quite clear-headed.

"But the higher-ups…"

"My lord has never issued any order. Everything has been coerced by treacherous villains. Besides, in today's matter, did anyone report to my lord? Did anyone ask my lord to use his seal?" Madam Tong's thinking was very lucid.

Only after she said these few words did Tong Huaizu's complexion improve somewhat. Madam Tong also felt a headache coming on. Scenes like this happened every few days. Her husband had become a bird that startles at the mere twang of a bowstring.

"Husband, if Zhao Jin wanted to rebel, he would have done so long ago. If he wanted to kill us husband and wife, he would have acted long ago. As it is, everyone high and low still treats us with a measure of respect, and we still receive a decent regular stipend. If he meant us harm, why would he act this way?" Madam Tong held back for a long while, but in the end she still spoke her mind.

"We've already sent men to search both inside and outside the city, and we've placed men to watch the roads heading toward Henan. The men from Henan should all have been kept in Xuzhou. They were far too careless when they came and made no preparations for any follow-up measures."

Liu Yong was in Qingjiangpu, and Lei Cai was in Linqingzhou. The man currently in charge here was Nie Hei.

"Wang Ziyang has quite a few connections over in Weihui Prefecture. I've already arranged for men to follow him there. In a few days, we'll have someone keeping an eye on the Prince of Lu's estate."

After listening to Nie Hei's report, Zhao Jin nodded and said, "It'll be at least a month before that side can react. When they send more people, handle it the same way."

"With all this trouble, sooner or later that side will still mobilize government troops," Chen Sheng said in a muffled voice.

"But later is always better than sooner. Right now, it's nothing more than the buzzing of mosquitoes. One comes, we swat one dead," Zhao Jin said with a laugh.

After saying this, Zhao Jin asked Ruhui, "Is there any news from the Prince of Lu's estate in Shandong? Our Zhao Character Camp is really something — we've managed to offend two first-rank princely estates at once."

Everyone laughed. Ruhui said with a smile, "There's no more news from the Prince of Lu's estate. According to the reports Yan Blackface and Qi Erkui sent back, the estate's manors over there are all obediently following our instructions. There was one Kong Family estate that originally wanted to make trouble, but when they saw even the prince's estate being so compliant, they quieted down on their own."

Hearing this, the faces of several people in the room showed relief, but Zhao Jin frowned, shook his head, and said, "Strange."

"Big Brother, that foreigner master and servant actually frightened a child into crying. If our Internal Guard men hadn't been following them, the local militia would have nearly cut them down. They look just like ghosts," Wang Zhaojing said with a grin.

Everyone laughed again. Zhao Jin said with a smile, "They've just never seen one before. After a long time, you get used to it and there's nothing so strange about it. This Louis has some skill and can be of use to us."

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