Ye Suijin, the newly appointed prefect by the new court, had been in Biyang City for fourteen days, and blood had already been shed in Biyang City.
The Li family mansion occupied a whole street by itself.
Passersby peered curiously into the alley and saw the Green Uniform Army blocking off the street and gates. They could vaguely hear shouts, cries, and screams from inside the high walls.
Suddenly a servant burst out from the gate, desperately trying to escape.
Without thinking, the Green Uniform Army guarding the gate thrust their spears, accompanied by a miserable shriek as they pierced him through several holes.
Someone dragged the corpse back inside. The guards at the gate remained expressionless.
Only the bright red blood trickled down the steps.
The onlooking passersby at the alley entrance were scared away like frightened birds and beasts.
Everyone returned home and closed their courtyard gates, pushing their families into the house and even pulling up the windows. Yet their hearts continued pounding wildly.
The frightened families asked: "What's happening?"
"Murder... The officials are killing people." The eyewitness could barely swallow his saliva to speak.
Everyone was horrified.
Killing was quick, but the aftermath was troublesome.
With clear goals, Ye Sanlang and Duan Jin ransacked the Li and Ke households, interrogated prisoners, and finally found what they were looking for and presented it to Ye Suijin—
box after box.
Household registration records, tax records, city defense maps.
As well as the manor and land deeds and account books of the Li and Ke families, piled high in the prefect's hall.
When Jiang Yinxue received the order in Deng Prefecture, Ye Suijin had already told him what kind of people she needed.
Now he brought a group of accountants from Deng Prefecture who stared at the piles of ledgers and documents filling the hall.
Abacuses clicked softly in their hands, like the swords at the officials' waists and the spears on their horses. Everyone had their own battlefield.
Ye Suijin tapped the boxes. "I'll leave this to you."
Naturally a big city had designated places for executions.
On this day, the execution grounds were packed inside and out with crowds standing on tiptoe and craning their necks, all trying to see more clearly.
There was no public interrogation, but documents were read declaring the crimes, listing the egregious offenses committed with the Li family as ringleaders.
Among them, embezzling taxes, illegally running prisons, and all kinds of bullying men and women, seizing by force—none of these surprised the people of Biyang City. They had long known this was happening, just powerless against these powerful households.
However, aiding and abetting bandits, especially masterminding the two shocking cases of massacring Fang Village and Niu Village to seize their land—this truly shocked the people of Biyang City!
"After investigation, the four families conspired to massacre 471 people in Fang Village and 602 people in Niu Village, old and young alike, in order to seize their land. Shocking and appalling. Their actions were evil, provoking the wrath of gods and men, intolerable by the Way of Heaven or the laws of the state..."
Someone shouted, "So does this mean the bandit attack on the city was also arranged by them? A sham?"
The document reader looked up and affirmed, "That is indeed what happened. Some already confessed during previous interrogations."
In the crowd, someone wailed, "Damn them! My son died!"
Many were furious. "After that we started listening to them, paying taxes whenever they said, sending corvee laborers whenever they said!"
Out of fear of the external bandits, when the powerful households stepped forward offering protection, commoners believed, supported, and followed them. And so they bore all kinds of exploitation obediently and paid all kinds of taxes and fees.
Who would have thought the bandits were backed by these dogs of powerful households!
"Execute them!"
"Off with their heads!"
"Your Excellency, please deliver justice for us common folk! These evil wealthy households have lost all conscience!"
"Behead them! Off with their heads!"
The people's rage surged into the winter sky like hot waves. Many had eyes bloodshot with fury.
Without executing these powerful households, how could public wrath be appeased!
With popular sentiment at this point, it was only natural to oblige.
To cries of "Execute them!" heads rolled as blood sprayed and headless bodies convulsed and fell lifeless in death.
The former masters who once rode roughshod over the common people were now parted from their bodies. Their wives and children were reduced to prisoners, the men to laborers, the women to slaves. Servants became property to be sold by officials. Sturdy young servants were conscripted.
With each household handled, the commoners erupted in cheers.
The formerly influential families of this great city were all wiped out, falling completely under the new prefect's control.
Swept clean.
After the last patriarch's head rolled, the sun had slanted westward.
Ye Suijin rose and strode through the blood onto the platform.
This was the commoners' first time seeing the prefect up close. Although they had caught sight of her beauty when she entered the city half a month ago, seeing her so closely now was still a first.
The people craned their necks looking up at her―as beautiful as she was cold, commanding both awe and fear.
The aura of authority she radiated as a woman exceeded what many could remember from Wei prefects in the past.
She spoke concisely, no wasted words:
"Shangma, Ciqiu, and Biyang are now under my administration. The rest will come in time."
"From today, Biyang shall be my seat of governance."
"Deng and Tang Prefectures will unite as one from now on. All extraneous taxes and levies in these two prefectures are abolished, returning to the two tax system of Wei's early years."
"I am Ye Suijin of Deng Prefecture."
Her robe sleeves billowed in the cold wind. She held her sword hilt, waist bound tight by leather belts, vigorous and resolute.
Under the bright sun and blue sky, she raised her hand and pledged to the people: "Within three years of my governance, taxes will not be raised!"
Years of exploitation and miscellaneous taxes and fees had long burdened the commoners beyond endurance. Returning to the two tax system of Wei's middle period would instantly lighten the load on every household.
And she had promised no new taxes for three years.
When the people understood, they erupted in ardent cheers!
Someone in front kneeled, and like waves it spread backward. A large swath of people knelt.
"Long live Your Excellency!"
"Your Excellency is a savior sent by Heaven! May you live a hundred years!"
"Please recover Tongbai quickly, Your Excellency. My uncle's family is there."
"Your Excellency!"
"Prefect Ye!"
...
On the platform, everyone made way and avoided the seats.
Ye Suijin stood on the platform, calmly accepting the people's kowtows.
Watching her, Fourth Uncle Ye was filled with both excitement and discomfort.
Admittedly, as a Ye, how could he not be excited by this scene?
Although the elder of the Ye family, he was self-aware enough to know he lacked the courage to calmly accept the kowtows of so many commoners. Yet his niece stood there holding her sword hilt completely undaunted, as if long accustomed to such scenes.
What pained him was how differently she and Sanlang had handled things in Biyang from his own conduct and principles over the decades.
While he understood the present outcome was far better than coexisting with a dozen families, it still conflicted with his perceptions over decades, smashing the mindset and living habits of a grown man and forcing him to discard ingrained ways of handling the world. This was naturally uncomfortable.
Fourth Uncle Ye couldn't help rubbing his arms and pressing his lips, smacking his mouth.
All these subtle movements and expressions were noticed by Duan Jin.
Duan Jin was skilled at reading people. He could roughly sense Fourth Uncle Ye's delight and wistfulness, admiration and awe. He understood what Fourth Uncle Ye was thinking.
He shifted his gaze again to Ye Suijin's figure, staring at her back.
Everyone wanted to contend with the status quo, only she never feared upending it all.
Then start over on a blank page and draw her own rules.
Duan Jin heaved a long sigh.
Refreshing, and captivating.
Zhao Jingwen had not falsely reported military exploits—he had indeed seized a patch of land.
It was called River Mouth Town, northeast of Gu City, no longer far from Gu City.
Gu City was the previous base of that mixed commander. Now it was vacant, temporarily unoccupied. From what he knew, the battle that led to the mixed commander's death originated from an exploratory skirmish launched southwest, which then turned into a pursuit battle as the commander was routed and fled.
With the commander's death, many of the troops had scattered. Some wandered to Deng Prefecture, directly bordering E County.
When Zhao Jingwen developed ambitions to expand outward, he realized slaughtering captives was not cost-effective for him. What he needed more were not dead heads, but living soldiers.
So he began pacifying and absorbing.
By now, besides absorbed captives, plus some young men who had joined him on the road, he had over 300 men, approaching 400.
Of course, it was a mixed bunch.
Before his eyes, he could only seek quantity for the time being, not quality.
At this moment, he understood very well why Du Jingzhong had to involve the common people.
When you have too few cards in your hand, you have to make a facade first. For people like him and Du Jingzhong, what could make others wary at first glance was the number of soldiers in their hands.
It had to be intimidating.
Going out with a hundred people, nearly four hundred now, sounded quite good. But only Zhao Jingwen himself knew exactly how things were.
So he still could not go back.
He had to turn these people into something presentable.
Since there were no survivors left in Fang City, it was evident how high Ye Suijin's requirements for her troops were. Now if he took these people back, she might not even look upon them favorably. If she did not look upon them favorably, it would just be a laughingstock.
Other than training them, he also had to gain complete control over these people.
If he returned to Ye Family Fort, the brigade of Ye Family Army he had brought out probably would not remain under his command. But as long as he could keep hold of these irregular forces, they could become a power belonging to Zhao Jingwen himself.
Just thinking about it made him have to take a deep breath to keep his heart from surging with excitement.
Since he could not go back, he had to have a foothold somewhere. Because winter was fast approaching, he and his men needed a place to spend the winter.
So he had occupied this town to temporarily use it as a foothold.
Fortunately, Xiang Da and Ye Mancang who had come out with him this time were both capable people. Xiang Da was formerly from the regular army, and Ye Mancang was skilled at handling details. They were simply tailored to be his right and left hand men.
What was even better was that they were both people he could see through completely.
What they wanted, where their weaknesses lay, he could see it all clearly with his eyes.
With just a little manipulation and hints in his words, he could make them listen to him.
It was not difficult at all. This was an innate ability he had been aware of since he was a child.
Even in Ye Family Fort it had been like this. What Fourth Uncle Ye, Yang Xiansheng, Lang Jun, the gatekeepers, the garrison commanders wanted, what motivated them to act, with just a flick of his eyes and a twitch of his lips he could guess their thoughts with eighty to ninety percent accuracy.
Up until now, the people he could not see through, whose hearts he could not grasp... were only his wife, Ye Suijin.
When he thought of Ye Suijin, he was suddenly overwhelmed by a tide of tenderness.
She was the most beautiful existence in his life since he was born. What virtues and abilities did he possess that allowed him to gain a wife like this?
When Ye Suijin was wreaking havoc in Biyang City, Zhao Jingwen in River Mouth Town was missing her.
At this time, Zhao Jingwen still did not know that the wife he was missing had not thought of him at all.
She even hoped that he would not come back.
