The young masters were called together to meet with the Tang clan people.
When these people saw that Ye Suijin was actually a woman, they all exchanged glances.
Ye Suijin had just asked "Who is below the hall?" when someone took the lead and burst into tears. Everyone else also cried mournfully as they wiped their eyes.
This left the Ye family young masters staring wide-eyed at each other in confusion.
Ye Suijin, however, was very patient and gently said, "Don't cry, speak properly."
The leader, in tears, wanted to kowtow to Ye Suijin: "Mistress, you have shown great kindness and virtue to our Tang family. The Tang family people will never dare to forget this for generations to come. We must set up a spirit tablet for the mistress and pray for her wellbeing day and night."
Ye Suijin's mouth twitched slightly: "I don't know any of you, what great kindness and virtue?"
The man wiped his tears and said, "The mistress doesn't know, but we are the Tang clan people. It's a pity that Tang Family Fort had been occupied by villains for many years. Fortunately, with the mistress's help, the villains were driven away and she helped us regain Tang Family Fort. How is this not great kindness and virtue? This is a heavenly great favor!"
The others all nodded: "That's right!"
"I see, so that's what happened," Ye Suijin said in surprise. "So this fort originally belonged to your family?"
The group immediately nodded like chickens pecking at rice: "Yes, yes, yes! It's ours!"
Ye Suijin asked: "So this trip you wanted to..."
The group fell silent again, looking at each other.
You nudged me with your elbow, I nudged you back with mine.
Finally, it was still the leader who spoke: "Ahem, the merciful mistress, if you return the fort to us, we would be eternally grateful."
Ye Suijin was surprised: "Give back everything? We found the land deeds, the Tang family still has a lot of good fields, what about those? Do you want those back too?"
The Tang clan people were all excited!
"Yes, yes, yes! We want..." "Ow!"
The leader stomped on the man's instep, abruptly cutting off his words.
The others' heated heads finally calmed down a little, and looked around. Those young masters with blades at their waists were already frowning.
These young masters were not easy to talk to like women, each looked quite fierce and arrogant. The Tang clan people involuntarily shrank their necks back.
Luckily, the one handling matters was a woman. Women were much easier to talk to.
"Mistress, how can this be?" That person was clearly smarter than the others. "The mistress and young masters went to war and showed your might, how can we shamelessly take everything back? Why don't we..."
He held out his hand, wanting to spread out five fingers.
Ninth Son had the quickest temper, and was already fuming.
The Ye family had fought and seized this place themselves, how could they give any of it to this group of people who didn't know where they crawled out from!
Seeing the man about to spread out his palm, clearly intending a "fifty-fifty split".
He was so angry that his eyebrows stood upright, and loudly "humphed"!
The man was startled by this, hesitated, and retracted his thumb from the five fingers.
Just as he wanted to hold up four fingers, feeling the ferocious stares from those young masters, he shrank back again, and the four fingers became three.
Hesitantly, in the end, he trembled as he held up two fingers: "Why don't we, the Tang family and you masters, split it twenty-eighty. We get twenty percent, you get eighty percent. What does the mistress think?"
Those behind him were unsatisfied with this "twenty-eighty" split, but didn't dare speak, and kept jabbing him.
The man had no choice but to fiercely jab them a few times back with his elbow before they calmed down.
Ye Suijin ordered: "Go, have someone take an inventory to see how much twenty percent is, then come back and report to me."
The guards immediately left.
With the appearance that they were going to split the property twenty-eighty with the Tang family.
This was accomplished!
The Tang clan people were both shocked and delighted.
They had quietly watched after hearing Tang Family Fort had changed hands, and discovered these people were very proper, not looting or harassing. So they hatched the idea to come try their luck, originally just wanting to see if crying miserably could get the leader of the Blue Shirts to let some slip through her fingers.
They didn't expect that the one handling matters turned out to be a woman, so these people's thoughts became even more active.
Their appetite grew as big as their courage, thinking that they could get away with as much as they dared ask for!
It worked!
Truly, one can take bowls as big as one dares!
Tang Family Fort's lands had long been surveyed, and very quickly the accounting room came to report a number.
The Tang clan people's eyes went wide when they heard it.
Twenty percent was actually so much!
It was also because the fields were actually completely unrelated to these distant Tang relatives. They were just some distant collateral relatives, and didn't actually know exactly how much good land Tang Family Fort really had. Hearing this number, they were overjoyed.
Happy to strike it rich!
But also resentful that they had only asked for twenty-eighty earlier. If they had said thirty-seventy, forty-sixty, fifty-fifty, it would have been double the riches!
Slapping themselves for missing the chance!
Ye Suijin asked: "Is this enough for you to divide among yourselves?"
The leader was so excited he kept nodding: "Enough, enough, enough!"
Ninth Son was so angry his eyes rolled back.
Tenth Son's hand was already on his blade hilt, about to step forward. But Fourth Young Master raised his hand to stop him.
Since Third Son had taken Seventh Son out today to sweep the area, Fourth Son was the eldest left in the fort.
Ninth Son and Tenth Son were younger, and hadn't been involved in the power struggles within the Ye family fort after their Second Uncle passed away a few years ago. But Fourth and Fifth Son had seen what happened back then.
Their Sixth Sister was not someone to be bullied.
Let alone by this group of cowardly and greedy fools.
Sure enough, the Tang clan were excited about this windfall that fell from the sky, but Ye Suijin just laughed and said to Duan Jin, "What a large sum, I originally thought since the Tang clan people were dead and gone, what we snatched from others blade by blade was naturally ours. Who knew they weren't actually wiped out, now what do we do?"
The Tang clan people froze.
Duan Jin grew up by Ye Suijin's side, and in recent years had been personally taught by her. He knew best how to follow up on every word she said.
"That's simple," he smiled as he slowly drew his blade, "We'll just wipe them out."
Duan Jin was Ye Suijin's personal number one man. The guards all followed his lead. As he pulled out his blade, the hall instantly rang with the sound of blades leaving sheaths.
The air seemed to suddenly turn cold.
Only Ninth Son and Tenth Son were delighted.
The Tang clan people all stiffened.
Even fools could understand now. There was no windfall, they were dreaming.
People capable of driving away and killing the villains who had seized Tang Family Fort could not be good people.
"Mi-mistress, spare us, spare us!" The leader desperately tried to stay calm, "We were just joking earlier, Tang Family Fort was won back by the mistress leading troops, of course it all belongs to the mistress. We have no objections. We only came to thank the mistress for avenging our Tang clan."
The others all nodded rapidly: "Yes, no objections."
"Um, why don't we just...take our leave now?"
Some were already slowly moving towards the door.
Ye Suijin coldly laughed, "Am I a great philanthropist? You all came to harass us, and think you can just come and go as you please?"
Duan Jin shouted, "Why are you just standing there, tie them all up!"
The guards rushed forward, ignoring their cries and pleas for mercy, and tied them up, pressing them to the ground.
The leader was drenched in sweat, yelling loudly, "Mistress spare us! Young masters spare us! We won't dare anymore! We won't dare anymore!"
Ye Suijin's gaze turned icy cold: "Only now you know not to dare, but just now how did you dare?"
"Tang Family Fort was occupied for days on end, yet you never went to demand it back from the villains. Now that I'm here, how dare you come make demands of me?"
"All this talk of being Tang clan people, when Miss Tang was disgraced in the fort, just where were all of you?"
The Tang clan cried out: "We're just common folk, the villains kill without blinking. How could we commoners dare resist? Your Highness spare us!"
The mistress had now become Your Highness.
Ye Suijin coldly laughed: "Do I blink when I kill?"
Tenth Son couldn't help but ask: "Sister, should we kill them?"
These people really were so aggravating, yet also laughable. He couldn't decide if they should actually kill them or not, so he asked Ye Suijin.
Everyone looked to Ye Suijin.
"Killing the likes of them will only dull my blade." Ye Suijin turned to the accounting room and said, "Take a count of their numbers, divide that twenty percent of land among them, calculate it into silver based on our Dengzhou land prices."
The accountant took out his abacus from his sleeve, quickly calculated, and reported the exact figure.
"The people outside are theirs?" Ye Suijin asked.
The ones who came were from the more well-off branches of the Tang extended clan, and had also brought along some servants, all waiting in the courtyard.
The doors of the great hall were wide open, so those followers could see everything clearly inside. But the courtyard was also filled with armed Blue Shirts, glaring fiercely. The followers were so scared their legs turned soft, yet didn't dare run away.
"Send people to follow them back and report," Ye Suijin said. "Have each family pay ransom according to this number. Those with gold pay in gold, those without gold pay in silver and copper coins. If they have nothing else, bring all the silks, satins, fields and houses, pots and pans from their homes."
"String these people up on the city wall. Whoever's family pays up first, let them go."
A group of people were dragged out, wailing and crying. The attendants and servants outside were escorted out trembling with fear.
They resented that their masters had been so greedy as to provoke this pack of demons.
"Sister, are you really making them pay?" Tenth Son still couldn't quite believe it. It seemed too much like what bandits would do.
Ye Suijin was helpless.
Children were so innocent and naive.
But she had deliberately called her younger brothers over to show them that some people could be utterly shameless and thick-skinned.
She retorted, "What else? Should we let them shit on our heads and then leave untouched?"
They had grown up well-fed and carefree, and by now the boys could accept taking land and spoils by grappling with enemies.
But when faced with these seemingly unarmed "commoners," they didn't know what to do.
Tenth Son scratched his head.
"Tenth Son, all of you, remember this," Ye Suijin said solemnly. "Our Ye family has its rules. We act with integrity and do not engage in such petty deeds, especially bullying the common people."
The family rules had always been thus.
Ninth Son and Tenth Son nodded vigorously, but then Ye Suijin turned her words. "But even more important is that we Yes will never allow others to bully us."
"While we don't go bullying others, if they try to bully us, we must ruthlessly fleece them. Let them know pain, so they won't dare to try again."
"Among these people today, some will be reduced to penury. But is that our fault?"
"Fort Ye has always been here, never moving. Why did they never come before? It's just because they saw the Ye troops as honest and easy to bully."
"Since they dared try to extort us Yes, they should be prepared for severe punishment."
"They brought this on themselves."
Just as Ye Suijin said, some families really were reduced to utter poverty.
The Ye troops in their green shirts and black pants came and took away their gold, silver, and silk. Even when that was not enough, they brought out the deeds to their land and houses. The accountants followed to calculate if it was still not enough.
Truthfully, Fort Tang's assets were not small. Divvied into portions for these dozen or so people, the ringleaders of the wealthy households could still pay up. But the ordinary tribespeople who had tagged along hoping for a share simply didn't have the means.
In the end, wives, children, and parents were all chased out from their own homes.
Right in front of their countrymen and neighbors, the Ye troops in green shirts and black pants confiscated their fields and sealed up their mansions.
Gripping their sword hilts, they told the onlooking crowd, "This man was audacious and reckless, extorting money from our masters. Our masters showed mercy and spared his dog life. A death sentence may be absolved, but a living sin is hard to escape."
"Now the man hangs from the city wall. According to the amount he demanded, ransom must be paid. This mansion now belongs to the Ye family."
The parents, wives, and children wailed, "Damn him! We told him not to go! Greed clouded his mind!"
The villagers immediately understood what had happened and buzzed in discussion.
So that's what went on. Pah!
The upright Ye troops did not loot or bully, and the new steward even set the tenant fees lower than before. Everyone was deeply grateful, saying Fort Tang had gotten a great philanthropist.
But in such times, with no thunderous might and iron-hard heart, how could one be a good person!
