Chapter 482: Can't Proceed Without Killing

Zhu Yong stood on the platform, his expression calm.

The surrounding crowd's cheers rose louder and louder, shaking people's ears to numbness.

An old man pushed to the front, spat toward the execution platform, and cursed, "You… should have hoarded grain! You should have usurped usury! You starved so many of us; you deserve to die!"

Beside her, a young woman held a child; the child, gaunt and pale from hunger, cried weakly.

The woman stared at the beheaded squid people on the platform, her eyes reddened, lips trembling, and said only, "Heaven's Lord has opened his eyes."

Zhu Biao stood on the platform, his expression calm, but his fingers gripping the rail had turned white.

Zhu Yong glanced at him and whispered, "Elder brother, would you not go back first?"

Zhu Biao shook his head and said, "I won't go back; when Imperial Father was present, I helped him approve so many petitions, sign so many death warrants, every single one was on the platform.

Whether those people should die, I know it in my heart."

Zhu Yong said nothing further.

The elder brother was right; whether this group of squid people should be killed, he knows better than anyone.

In the tenth year of Hongwu, a drought struck Jiangnan, grain prices skyrocketed, and the court opened granaries to distribute food; they were the ones pulling the strings behind the scenes.

In the fifteenth year of Hongwu, floods hit Jiangnan, grain prices rose again, the court again opened granaries, and once more they were the hidden manipulators.

In the twentieth year of Hongwu, a locust plague ravaged Jiangnan, grain prices surged again, the court opened granaries again, and they were still the ones scheming behind the scenes.

Each natural disaster became their chance to get rich.

Each famine was their means of extracting wealth.

When the people starved, they earned silver.

When the people sold land and houses, they bought them up.

Such a scourge, should we let it live through the New Year?

"Lord! Lord! Have mercy!"

When a squid merchant was dragged onto the platform, he struggled and shouted, "I am Portuguese! Not a citizen of Great Ming! You cannot kill me! Killing me will cause a diplomatic dispute!"

Liu Zhen walked up to him, took a document from his chest, and unfolded it.

"David Ben Joseph, originally from Lisbon, Portugal, came to Great Ming in the seventeenth year of Hongwu aboard a merchant ship, settled in Suzhou, and engaged in the grain trade.

In the twentieth year of Hongwu, he colluded with the Ai family, hoarded grain, manipulated prices, causing countless Suzhou residents to starve to death."

After reading the document, he lowered his head, stared at the squid man, and said coldly, "You have done many misdeeds in Europe; now you speak of diplomacy… committing crimes on Great Ming soil makes you an enemy of Great Ming."

He waved his hand.

The executioner pressed the squid man to the ground, blade rising and falling.

The head hit the ground.

Fresh blood splattered everywhere.

Another round of cheers rose from the crowd.

A white‑haired old man pushed to the front, pointed at the squid on the platform, and shouted, "I recognize him! I saw him in Suzhou! It's him! He stole my family's land!

In the fifteenth year of Hongwu, my household couldn't lift the pot, borrowed five taels of silver from him at three percent interest, rolled for three years until it grew to fifty taels, couldn't repay, and he seized our three mu of paddy fields!"

As the old man kept speaking, tears started to fall.

"That three mu of land was passed from my father to me, from me to my son, from my son to my grandson; generations lived off that land… he took it away… my grandson starved to death… my daughter‑in‑law remarried… my son went mad…"

He crouched on the ground, wailing loudly.

People nearby comforted him one after another.

"Old man, stop crying; today they were beheaded, your great vengeance is fulfilled."

"Indeed, the heavens have eyes."

Zhu Yong stood on the platform, looked at the old man who had collapsed in tears, and was silent for a moment.

He waved his hand to summon Wang Gui and whispered a few words.

Wang Gui responded with a nod, stepped down from the platform, approached the old man, took a silver ingot from his chest, and slipped it into the man's hand.

The old man was stunned for a moment, then raised his head.

Wang Gui said, "Prince gave this to you; go back, buy some grain, and live well."

The old man looked at the man on the platform dressed in a black robe threaded with gold lines, his eyes even redder.

He knelt on the ground and kowtowed to Zhu Yong three times.

"Thank you, Lord, thank you, Lord…"

Zhu Yong waved his hand; the old man was helped to his feet by those nearby and staggered away.

On the execution ground, the executioner kept cutting.

One after another, blade after blade.

When he reached the fiftieth, the executioner swapped three knives.

The bloodstains beneath the platform had built up a thick layer, sticky underfoot.

In the crowd, some began to vomit, some fainted, some covered their mouths and fled.

Yet some still shouted, "Well killed!"

A middle‑aged woman pushed to the front, brandishing a kitchen knife, waving it at the platform.

"Let me kill one! Let me kill one! My son was killed by these people!"

The Jinyiwei stopped her, urged her a few times, but she refused to leave, crying and shouting that she wanted to kill a squid person with her own hands.

In the end she was dragged away, still shouting, "Let me kill one."

Zhu Yong watched the woman being dragged away, his expression calm.

He had seen worse; on battlefields ten thousand arrows rained down, corpses littered the ground, ten times more horrific than this.

Yet the deaths on the battlefield were connected to him; the deaths on the execution ground were also linked to him.

They have never feared killing; they once said that under their hammer there are no living people.

But they do not like killing; if they can kill less, they kill less.

But this time, they cannot kill less.

These squid men must be killed.

At noon, all 137 people were executed.

The executioner collapsed from fatigue on the ground, having already changed his sword seven times.

Blood on the execution platform flowed like a river, seeping through the cracks of the stone slabs and filling the low‑lying areas around the execution ground.

The air was thick with the smell of blood, mingled with the sour sweat of the townsfolk and the oily fumes drifting from street food stalls, making people's heads spin.

The townspeople gradually dispersed.

Liu Zhen walked over from the execution platform, clasping his fists and saying, "Prince, 137 people, all executed."

Zhu Yong nodded.

"There are another 137 names on the list that weren't captured; they fled. Some of them escaped to Europe, and the Brocade Guard is pursuing them," Liu Zhen paused, then added.

"Send someone to Europe to deliver a message, ask Prince Yan and Prince Jin to help capture them; once caught, execute them on the spot, no need to send them back to Great Ming," Zhu Yong said.

Liu Zhen replied with a single word.

Zhu Yong turned and looked at the bloodstains below the high platform.

Spattered and mottled, a swath of dark red.

The sun shone on it, casting an eerie glow.

"Prince, those squid men hid a lot of silver when captured, and the ledgers also recorded many names—merchants, officials, and townsfolk," Liu Zhen pulled several ledgers from his coat and handed them over.

Zhu Yong took them, opened them.

Names crowded together, numbers crowded together.

He closed the ledgers and handed them back.

"Copy the names and give them to me; merchants, investigate their businesses; officials, hand them over to elder brother for disposition; townsfolk, submit them to the local authorities for strict punishment."

Liu Zhen replied, turned, and left.

Zhu Yong stepped down from the platform and walked toward the carriage.

Zhu Biao followed behind, his complexion not very good.

"Elder brother, feeling unwell?"

"It's not that I'm unwell; it's just… 137 people, is that too many?"

Zhu Yong halted, turned and looked at elder brother.

"Elder brother, do you still recall the tenth year of Hongwu, when Jiangnan suffered a drought, grain prices skyrocketed, the court opened granaries to distribute food, yet the prices wouldn't drop; you personally went to Suzhou to investigate, searched for half a month but found no root cause."