Chapter 588
Chapter 588
After a full four hours, all one thousand noble sons had signed and thumb-printed the donation certificates, returning home weeping with the documents in hand. From this day on, they would never again mention Shen Lang's swindle.
*You all donated voluntarily, even kneeling and crying as you handed over your money.*
The thirty unlucky men got their money back, but they were about to lose their lives. The act of killing the chicken to scare the monkeys was finally over. With that, the protest where a thousand noble sons surrounded Shen Lang's estate officially ended, and the incident of Shen Lang swindling them was completely closed. The hundreds of corpses left at the scene were quickly cleared away. For some time to come, at least, no one would dare approach the Marquis of Changping's estate. Because too many people had died there.
* * *
Everything that transpired on Shen Lang's side was merely one part of Operation Spring Thunder. While this part of the operation unfolded in a somewhat absurd manner, Operation Spring Thunder across most of the capital proceeded with solemn gravity. The moment the fully armed palace guard entered the capital, everyone was stunned. Immediately after, all the city gates were sealed shut. Following a list, the guards kicked down doors, house by house, and dragged people out. Anyone audacious enough to resist was killed without mercy.
Soon, everyone in the capital was terrified by the slightest rustle of the wind. The local ruffians and underworld forces that had run rampant for months were almost completely uprooted. Moreover, the scope of Operation Spring Thunder was not limited to the capital; it gradually expanded to the surrounding cities and prefectures. In just a few days, a staggering ten thousand people were arrested, and nearly every prison was filled to capacity.
The Grand Court of Revision, Ping'an County, Wannian County, the Admiralty, and even the Central Commandery of Tianyue dispatched large numbers of officials to conduct public trials. Following the king's will, every case was handled with severity. As a result, heads rolled at the execution grounds every day. At first, people gathered to watch the executions, but later, no one could bear to look. The mere sight made one's scalp tingle and brought on relentless nightmares.
Every day, a large number of prisoner carts left the capital. Prisoners with lighter sentences were all sent to various mines for hard labor. The common people watched as the so-called heroes and gallants, who had once acted tyrannically and brandished their power, were all either put to a dog's death, beheaded, or exiled. And what of those with high martial arts skills? Their fate was even more miserable. Their tendons in their hands and feet were severed before they were sent to the mines.
The numerous underworld bosses in the capital were used to boasting, commanding legions of disciples and grand-disciples, their single word deciding a person's life or death. The rules governing markets, brothels, the labor market, and carriage trade were all subject to their whims. Anyone who disobeyed them was threatened with death or was actually drowned in the river. Among these martial arts experts were even officials, at least serving as Chiliarchs in the militia or holding unofficial positions within the Blackwater Terrace. They were all wealthy and often boasted.
"There's nothing we can't do in the capital. Above ground, you listen to the officials, but underground, our word is law."
They were just that arrogant. After Zhang Chong was dismissed and Ning Zheng took over the Tianyue Admiralty, the capital's public security deteriorated drastically, and the culprits were none other than these underworld bosses. Their goal was simple. They acted as Zhang Chong's lackeys to make Ning Zheng appear incompetent, reminding the world how orderly the capital was and how peacefully the people lived and worked when Admiral Zhang Chong was in charge. Now that Ning Zheng had taken his place, the capital was in chaos, and the people could not live in peace—how incompetent did that make him look? They even tried to paint Ning Zheng as a corrupt and vile official.
In truth, their strategy had actually succeeded. The people of the capital all cursed Ning Zheng, swayed by public opinion without ever seeking the root cause of the chaos. Fortunately, the king remained resolute and looked deeper into the matter. Had it been another foolish monarch, Ning Zheng's future would have been ruined. And if that had happened, these underworld organizations would have continued to disrupt the capital while currying favor with the Crown Prince and the Third Prince.
But why didn't the underworld bosses stop their activities even after Ning Zheng's unprecedented and perfect performance at the Grand Heavenly Rite? They were stunned for half a day, but then they began to cause even more trouble. In the three days following the Grand Heavenly Rite, the capital's security deteriorated to an extreme degree, with hundreds of robberies, murders, and kidnappings occurring. The marketplace became even more chaotic, giving even Ning Zheng's Admiralty a severe headache.
But the underworld bosses had another motive for their actions. They wanted to negotiate with Ning Zheng, just as they had with every previous admiral. To gain a more favorable position in the negotiations, they needed to put immense pressure on Ning Zheng. That was why so many vicious incidents had erupted simultaneously across the capital in recent days.
They then waited for Ning Zheng to send someone to negotiate with them. The underworld bosses believed they were indispensable to the capital and that they were essential for maintaining order in the underground world. But they never expected Ning Zheng to react so fiercely. To unleash such a massive slaughter!
For decades, there had never been a crackdown of this scale. The king had issued the edict directly, bypassing even the Blackwater Terrace, so not a single rumor had leaked before the operation began. Everyone only learned of the situation after the large army stormed into the city and executed the operation with the ferocity of a tempest. By then, it was too late for the underworld bosses to react.
One by one, the underworld organizations were uprooted, and people died every day. The bosses all went to see their patrons, but every one of them was turned away at the door. Ning Zheng's lack of a backing faction in the court was a disadvantage, but it was also an advantage. He was not entangled in the interests of others. With the Imperial Sword of Authority in his hand, he could kill whomever he wished, and no amount of pleading from anyone could sway him.
Of course, in the beginning, people did come to plead with Ning Zheng. For the first time, civil and military officials of the court humbled themselves and sought him out. For the first time, they spoke to him with amicable faces, promising to repay him if he would grant them a favor. These officials were of very high rank with long political careers, and they expected Ning Zheng to give them face.
*We are masters of politics, and you're just a prince with no foundation. We're giving you a chance to have us owe you a favor, so why aren't you taking it?*
But Ning Zheng remained impartial and unswayed by personal connections. He gave no one face, handled his duties with fairness, arresting those who needed to be arrested and executing those who needed to be executed. His actions earned the ire of many political veterans, but it also inwardly astonished them.
*Who knew Ning Zheng was so resolute? Isn't he competing for the throne? How can he show such little regard for the face of his ministers? How will you contend for the throne if we don't support you?*
What was Ning Zheng thinking at that moment? He was truly a man without selfish motives, a man of great magnanimity. When he worked, he did what he believed was right, disregarding personal feelings or customs. He even temporarily set aside the matter of whether his bid for the throne would succeed. If something needed to be done, it had to be done without hesitation. What good was it to be afraid of this and that, unable to act? What kind of monarch could such a person become? But when a fire this large burned, it had no boundaries and could engulf everything, even himself.
* * *
The Plum Blossom Snapping Gang! The name had a rather literary and elegant ring to it, but in reality, it was a human trafficking organization. Of course, selling slaves was illegal, so it wasn't that. They sold servants and bondsmen to powerful families and women to brothels, which was a highly profitable business. To be precise, the Plum Blossom Snapping Gang was in the business of human resources. They brought women from the Western Regions or from primitive tribes deep in the mountains. They dealt with large sums of money every year, and such business was not yet illegal.
However, people in this line of business were fundamentally without character. For profit, what wouldn't they do? They colluded with the Beggars' Gang, having beggars kidnap children and sell them to the Plum Blossom Snapping Gang. The Plum Blossom Snapping Gang would raise these children for a few years and then sell them to powerful families for a high price before they reached sixteen or seventeen. During Operation Spring Thunder, Ning Zheng raided the various secret bases of the Plum Blossom Snapping Gang and rescued hundreds of children.
*These bastards don't have a shred of conscience!*
Enraged, Ning Zheng ordered the execution of the hundreds of beggars who had kidnapped the children. Then, he re-examined the ledgers of the Beggars' Gang and traced the connection to the Plum Blossom Snapping Gang. But the patron of the Plum Blossom Snapping Gang was none other than Bian Qing, the third son of Duke Bianwu. He was the Duke's biological son, had studied in the capital for three years, passed the military jinshi examination last year, and was serving as a Chiliarch in the Northern Army. When he was in the capital, Bian Fei treated him like her own son. Now, everyone watched with glee, anticipating Ning Zheng's misfortune.
*Don't you claim to be impartial and selfless? Now that someone close to Bian Fei, the son of Duke Bianwu, is involved, what are you going to do? Can you still enforce the law fairly?*
Nevertheless, without even asking for the king's opinion, Ning Zheng immediately ordered the arrest of the Plum Blossom Snapping Gang's members and uprooted the entire organization. However, the gang's leader was merely a figurehead. The true master of the Plum Blossom Snapping Gang was the great talent, the Flower-Cherishing Young Master, Lian Jin. Lian Jin's reputation was second only to the empire's great scholar, Yun Mengze. He had written numerous elegant poems and was idolized in the brothels of the capital. He was the kind of great talent who could sleep with famous courtesans without paying, and they would instead be eager to pay him.
He was not only a civil juren but also a military juren, a true talent skilled in both letters and arms, and was twenty-three years old this year. He had no intention of becoming an official, so he never participated in the metropolitan examinations, instead spending his days writing poetry and burying himself among flowers. He was like an idol to the sons of the nobility. Moreover, he had another identity: he was Duke Bianwu's nephew-in-law, Bian Qing's closest friend, and a fellow student.
When Ning Zheng investigated the true master behind the Plum Blossom Snapping Gang and discovered this, he was completely dumbfounded. Because this man was a refined young master with an excellent reputation and outstanding talent. Ning Zheng had even considered him an ally in his heart. He had thought that once his position was more secure, he would personally invite the Flower-Cherishing Young Master to join him, even imagining a place for him in the future Grand Secretariat. But unexpectedly, this Flower-Cherishing Young Master was the mastermind behind such inhuman deeds, and had committed so many of them.
How many elegant poems had he composed? How affectionate he was, how much compassion and care he showed for women and the poor. His reputation was at least ten times better than Shen Lang's. Yet the kidnapped children had all been taken from their parents at the age of three or four—what a conscienceless and insane act! You can know a person's face but not their heart. Who would have thought that such a refined young master was, in fact, such a cruel beast?