gnovel Chapter 025 The bigger the storm, the more expensive the fish
Chapter 025 The bigger the storm, the more expensive the fish
Chapter 025
Song Xianze felt a chill run down his spine. The Hou family was one of the top wealthy families in Guide Prefecture. Hou Cheng, the ancestor of the Hou family, was a military household member who served in Guide Guard during the Hongwu period of the Ming Dynasty.
The Hou family truly rose to prominence with Hou Zhipu. He lost his mother at the age of three and his father at the age of eight. He was adopted by his uncle Hou Yu. Later, he and his cousin Hou Zhigong were both successful candidates in the imperial examinations in the sixteenth year of the Wanli reign and both became successful candidates in the imperial examinations in the seventeenth year of the Wanli reign, creating the remarkable achievement of "two successful candidates in the imperial examinations and both brothers becoming successful candidates in the imperial examinations".
Later, Hou Xun and his brother Hou Ke both passed the Henan provincial examination in the 43rd year of the Wanli reign (1614), and in the 44th year of the Wanli reign (1616), the two brothers also passed the imperial examination. The Hou family produced four Jinshi (successful candidates in the highest imperial examination) across two generations, a rare feat in the entire country.
Of course, Song Xianze did not know that Hou Xun's son, Hou Fangyu, and his brother, Hou Fangxia, had also both passed the imperial examination. What was even more extraordinary was that Hou Fangyu took the children's examination and ranked first in the county, prefecture, and academy examinations, which was also known as the "Little Three Scholars".
Throughout history, only eighteen people have ever been involved in such an operation. As a top-tier wealthy family in Guide Prefecture, the Hou family's property was confiscated simply because the Imperial Guards raided it. What does this signify?
Song Xianze was very clear that this indicated the collapse of the Ming Dynasty's system.
A fourth-rank commander of the Embroidered Uniform Guard said he would promote Chen Boying directly to the fifth-rank commander of a thousand households. But the problem is, Chen Boying is just a registered military household.
To build a carriage for Eunuch Wei, it would be much easier to just say that the Hou family, a prominent clan in Guide Prefecture, had been raided. Wouldn't that make it even simpler to deal with ordinary people?
Guide Prefecture is a city famous for its commerce, and the streets are very lively. As you turn the corner, a commotion suddenly breaks out ahead.
"The Demon King is coming! Run, run!"
A gasp rang out, and the entire street instantly descended into chaos.
The vegetable vendor hastily wrapped up the remaining radishes and cabbages, picked up his load, and ran off; the fishmonger hurriedly gathered up his fish basket, and several live fish jumped to the ground, splashing on the ice; an old man selling steamed buns, slow-moving, was bumped by someone behind him and stumbled, his steamed buns rolling all over the ground.
"My type, my type!"
A vegetable vendor's stall was overturned, with cabbages and radishes scattered everywhere. The man was in his thirties, sallow-faced and thin, his clothes patched upon patched.
He knelt on the ground, desperately trying to gather the vegetables into his arms, but there were too many to pick up.
"What time is it and you're still worrying about your food?"
Chen Ying looked up and saw a burly man with a thick waist and a face full of scars walking over, followed by five equally fierce men. This burly man was wearing a silk cotton robe, which made him look like a rich man, but his scarred face and fierce eyes made him look like a local thug.
"Young Master Chai...?"
The vegetable vendor was very defiant, yelling at Young Master Chai, "I rented this stall with my hard-earned money, what right do you have to...?"
"You son of a bitch, you dare talk back!"
Chai Mingyuan kicked him hard, hitting the vegetable vendor squarely in the stomach. The vendor screamed and curled up like a shrimp, rolling into the rotten vegetable leaves.
"Son of a bitch……"
Blood rushed to Chen Ying's head, and he rolled up his sleeves, ready to charge forward: "Is there no law anymore?"
Song Xianze held him tightly, pleading, "Brother-in-law, let's take another look!"
"What are you still looking at? Beating up ordinary people in broad daylight, is there no law anymore?!"
In the past, Chen Ying would not have bothered with this matter. He was thin and weak and could not afford to offend such a powerful figure. However, the problem was that Xu Xianchun was in Guide Prefecture, and Chen Ying could speak on Xu Xianchun's behalf.
Then let's seize the opportunity and use the Embroidered Uniform Guard to deal with such villains. It can be considered fighting violence with violence and poison with poison.
"Brother-in-law, look..."
Song Xianze had long heard of Chai Mingyuan, the "Demon King": "Brother-in-law, take a look!"
Chen Ying was taken aback, and only then did he notice his surroundings.
Although the streets were chaotic, the vendors didn't run far. Instead, they hid under the eaves at the alley entrance, peeking out. Their expressions were strange; there was no anger or fear, but rather a sense of anticipation.
Chai Mingyuan kicked the vegetable vendor a few more times, until his mouth was full of blood and he screamed in pain.
After he had beaten him enough, he waved his hand, and the burly man behind him reached into his pocket, pulled out a handful of loose silver coins, weighing about five or six taels, and threw them in front of the vegetable vendor.
"Take my money and get lost! Don't let me see you again, or I'll beat you every time I see you!"
The vegetable vendor shakily grabbed the silver and scrambled away, abandoning the vegetables on the ground.
Chen Ying was dumbfounded.
What is this? Paying you for beating someone up?
The vegetables sold by the vegetable vendors, when put together, weren't worth a single tael of silver.
Before he could react, another peddler happened to block Chai Mingyuan's way.
The peddler carried a load of small items such as needles, thread, rouge, and face powder.
"Hey, are you blind?!"
Chai Mingyuan grabbed the peddler by the collar: "Are you blind?!"
"Young Master Chai, please spare me! I didn't mean to!"
The peddler bowed repeatedly, and accidentally bumped his head into Chai Mingyuan's stomach.
"Spare me? I'm in a bad mood today, you're just unlucky to run into me!"
Chai Mingyuan punched and kicked the peddler, leaving him bruised and battered. The peddler's carrying pole overturned, his rouge box shattered, and rouge spilled all over the ground.
After the fight was over, Chai Mingyuan had someone throw out a silver ingot: "Get out!"
The peddler picked up the silver, thanked him profusely, and ran away.
Chen Ying became more and more confused as he read on.
Chai Mingyuan's beating was real; every punch landed squarely.
They really gave money.
Those who were being beaten screamed, but there was no real fear in their eyes. Instead, they seemed to feel a sense of relief.
"Bo'an, this..."
Chen Ying seemed to understand that the Ming Dynasty actually held a contradictory attitude towards disaster relief for wealthy households. On the one hand, it needed wealthy households to provide disaster relief to alleviate social conflicts, reduce the number of displaced people, and maintain local stability.
However, there was also the concern that wealthy local families might become too powerful. If these families used disaster relief to win over the people and expand their influence, the government might see it as seeking praise from the local community, forming cliques, or even suspecting them of treacherous intentions. The Ming Dynasty strictly prohibited the formation of private associations and gatherings, so large-scale private relief efforts might violate these taboos.
Under normal circumstances, donations were made to the government, and the money and grain were handed over to the government for overall management, or relief was provided on a small scale through traditional channels such as local gentry and clans, avoiding the direct organization of large-scale activities.
When donations are made to the government, it is inevitable that some officials or clerks will line their own pockets through disaster relief. For example, Li Xiaojie, the clerk of Yongcheng Workshop, used his position to enrich himself and forced women into prostitution.
Many wealthy households were also suppressed by officials for being falsely accused of "gathering a crowd to plot rebellion" because of their high reputation for disaster relief.
Chen Ying seemed to realize that Chai Mingyuan was like the strategist of later generations who had personally entered into the scheme.
In just half an hour, Chai Mingyuan beat up seventeen or eighteen people, including a vegetable vendor, a peddler, an old man selling charcoal, and a pot mender. Each of them was badly beaten, and each of them received a sum of money.
"One hundred and sixty taels."
"What?"
"He gave away 160 taels of silver today."
Upon closer inspection, Chen Ying saw that, sure enough, every time Chai Mingyuan beat someone, a man behind him would pull out a small notebook and make a note.
Why did he do that?
Chen Daniu muttered, "Is he so rich he can't handle it?"
"Look at those people who are being beaten. What are they doing?"
Chen Ying looked over and saw the vegetable vendor who had just been beaten squatting in the alley, carefully hiding the silver in his pocket.
Several other people who had also been beaten surrounded him, whispering among themselves.
A moment later, the vegetable vendor stood up, knelt down in Chai Mingyuan's direction, kowtowed, and then turned and left.
Chai Mingyuan didn't see the head; the person kowtowing was sincere.
"I understand, Chai Mingyuan... is doing disaster relief."
Chen Daniu was stunned: "What kind of disaster relief is this? Beating someone up first and then paying them?"
Chai Mingyuan was currently grabbing an old man selling firewood, cursing, "You old geezer, blocking my way!"
The punch didn't land directly on the old man's shoulder. The old man suddenly realized what was happening, staggered to the ground, and Chai Mingyuan threw down the silver and strode away.
The old man picked up the silver, tears streaming down his face, and kept kowtowing to Chai Mingyuan's retreating figure.
"But why didn't he give it to me secretly? Wouldn't it be more discreet to provide assistance privately?"
"Giving it privately, who can guarantee everyone will keep quiet? If someone reports it, it could be a disaster for the whole family. But if he commits violence in the street, everyone sees him hit someone and pay compensation. Even if someone reports it, the government will investigate and find that Chai Mingyuan did indeed hit someone and did indeed pay compensation. As for whether he paid too much or too little... the law doesn't specify how much compensation should be paid."
Chen Ying fell silent. The Chai family was one of the four prominent families, eight great families, and seven major households in Guide Prefecture. Chai Mingyuan moved on to his next target.
This was a woman holding a child. The woman was pale and thin, and the child in her arms was crying from hunger. Chai Mingyuan snatched the half-eaten cornbread from the child's hand, threw it on the ground, and crushed it.
"You little bastard, how dare you block my way!"
The woman trembled with fear. Chai Mingyuan raised his hand to strike, but hesitated in mid-air. In the end, he grabbed the child's clothes and tore them gently. The child's tattered clothes were already rotten and exposed his buttocks.
The child in the woman's arms reached out to grab Chai Mingyuan. The woman was startled and quickly covered the child's hand. She twisted the child's arm, and the child cried loudly.
Chai Mingyuan threw down a silver ingot, cursed, and left.
That silver was enough for the mother and child to get through the winter.
"Let's go."
Song Xianze pulled him back: "If you keep watching, people will become suspicious."
The two turned around and continued walking towards the government office.
Behind them, Chai Mingyuan's curses and the victims' wails continued...
In this world, if you want to do something good, you have to pretend to be a villain.
In this world, to survive, you have to endure a beating.
The carriage continued on its way, and order gradually returned to the streets. Vendors set up their goods again, and their shouts rang out once more. It was as if the farce that had just occurred had never happened.
But Chen Ying knew that some things were different.
He originally thought that the world was black and white, that the eunuch faction was evil, the Donglin Party was good, corrupt officials were evil, and honest officials were good.
But Chai Mingyuan showed him the gray area: a kind person disguised as a villain, a demon king who does good deeds through violence.
What about himself?
If someone were to build a car for the eunuch faction, they would most likely be falsely accused of being a member of the eunuch faction by the gentlemen of the Donglin Party.
Are eunuchs really evil?
From a national perspective, the Donglin Party originated from the Donglin Academy, advocating public opinion and morality. Its policies favored the interests of southern landlords and merchants, resisted emerging taxes such as mining taxes and commercial taxes, insisted on the traditional agricultural tax base, and exacerbated the depletion of the national treasury.
The real reason for the fall of the Ming Dynasty was not the Little Ice Age or the Jurchen invasion, but the bankruptcy of the national treasury. In the factional struggles, the Donglin Party often attacked political enemies (such as Wei Zhongxian) with moral standards, but lacked pragmatic solutions for governing the country. The internal strife consumed the court's energy and hindered administrative efficiency.
Wei Zhongxian lacked formal education but was an extreme pragmatist. He represented the imperial power in checking and balancing the civil service, and his policies were more effective. He implemented the system of mining supervisors and tax commissioners, levied taxes on the wealthy, increased fiscal revenue in the short term, and suppressed popular uprisings.
However, the eunuch faction used torture and framing to attack the Donglin Party, targeting core members such as Ye Xianggao and Gao Panlong. This led to a deterioration of the political environment and disrupted the normal operation of the bureaucratic system.
Although Wei Zhongxian's methods were cruel, they objectively delayed the collapse of the treasury and prevented a large-scale popular uprising during the Tianqi reign. This was partly due to the heavy taxes levied on the wealthy by the eunuch faction, and also because the eunuch faction's crackdown on the rich and gentry alleviated class contradictions.
Just like Xu Xianchun fabricated the story that Hou Ke had secretly hoarded armor and plotted a rebellion, and confiscated the Hou family's property, most of the people in Guide Prefecture applauded and cheered.
But the gentlemen of the Donglin Party were as if they had lost their mother.
If Chen Ying had traveled back to the Ming Dynasty ten years ago, he would have felt sympathy for the gentlemen of the Donglin Party. But now, Chen Ying cannot feel any sympathy for them.
The two exist in different historical contexts.
The Donglin Party satirized the government and commented on officials, advocated integrity and public service, revitalized the bureaucracy, opposed corruption and bribery by the powerful and wealthy, and demanded open channels for free speech and the elimination of long-standing abuses in the government and the public. These behaviors are similar to the characteristics of public intellectuals who criticize society and pursue justice.
At the same time, the Donglin Party influenced the court's decision-making through the center of public opinion, similar to how public intellectuals use the media to voice their opinions. It can almost be understood that the Donglin Party was actually the public intellectuals of later generations. The only difference between them was that public intellectuals did not participate in power, while the Donglin Party did.
After Emperor Chongzhen came to power, he hated Wei Zhongxian's suppression of him and made use of the Donglin Party. After the Donglin Party came to power, they abolished the policy of raising funds from wealthy households that had been in place during the eunuch party's time. Instead, they increased agricultural taxes and implemented large-scale layoffs. These measures exacerbated social contradictions and indirectly intensified peasant uprisings.
It could also be said that from the establishment of the Donglin Party to the fall of the Ming Dynasty, the Donglin Party did not do anything worthwhile. Instead, it abolished the post station system, killed Mao Wenlong, and forced the Dongjiang Army to rebel.
It seems that Chen Ying had no choice. He was not a Jinshi (a successful candidate in the highest imperial examinations) and was not from Jiangsu or Zhejiang. Going to Changping to become a commander of a thousand men was a path of advancement by chance, which could be considered as currying favor with the powerful and wealthy. This would be despised by the "gentlemen" of the Donglin Party.
Since we can't avoid the center of this fiercest vortex, let's join in; the bigger the storm, the more valuable the fish.
So be it, Chen Ying decided to stick with the eunuch faction from now on.
"arrive."
Song Xianze stopped in his tracks.
Ahead, the black lacquered gate of the Guide Guard Commandery was wide open, stone lions stood solemnly, and inside the gatehouse, several guards were chatting together. When they saw them coming, they lazily raised their eyes.
Chen Ying took a deep breath and suppressed his distracting thoughts.
He straightened his clothes, stepped forward, and presented his official document: "Chen Boying, Right Commander of Guide Guard, requests an audience with the Commander!"
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