As soon as the words left his mouth, the hall fell silent.
Yang Bonian stepped forward and stared straight at Xu Youde. His voice was cold. “My lord, even if you moved an entire mountain of gold into this hall today, if this old man nodded and surrendered our ancestral lands, I would become an unworthy descendant of six generations of the Yang family!”
“When I die a hundred years from now, what face would I have to show the ancestors in the underworld?”
Yang Bonian suddenly flung back his sleeve and shouted, “Steward! See our guest out!”
Before the words had even faded, several burly guards strode into the hall, hands resting on the sabers at their waists, blocking Xu Youde’s path.
Xu Youde remained seated. He did not move, merely giving Yang Bonian a long look.
His expression barely changed, but his mind had already turned over several possibilities.
His Majesty intended to build a new capital in Jiangnan. The first thing that had to be done was to survey and requisition land.
Yet these great clans of Jiangnan had roots far too deep. As long as they held their ancestral estates and tombs in their hands, they possessed a death-defying shield. They did not even take the prefectural government’s official seal seriously.
They were far more difficult to deal with than the established aristocratic families.
Take the Xie family, for example. Its power lay in the capital. Its clansmen became vice ministers and Hanlin scholars through official connections, marriage alliances, and prestige. Land was merely one of the family’s assets.
Moreover, most of its principal estates lay in the clan’s ancestral commandery. In Jiangning County, at most they had a few secondary residences, gardens, and several ancestral farms.
But if he truly mobilized troops to seize the land by force, the Jiangnan literati would surely erupt. A popular uprising might follow, and the grand plan to move the capital would be doomed before construction even began.
Suppressing the thought, Xu Youde put on a smile and replied with a pointed remark, “The Yang clan head certainly has admirable principles. This official has learned a thing or two. Farewell.”
With that, he flicked back his sleeve, turned around, and strode out with the accountant at his side.
He left without the slightest hesitation.
…
The news that Yang Bonian had closed his doors to Xu Youde had spread throughout the southern part of the city before the lamps were lit.
It was not that the Yang family had deliberately publicized it.
Rather, when Xu Youde left the residence, the stewards of the Chen and Fang families happened to be checking their accounts at the Grand Canal wharf. They had witnessed the entire scene from beginning to end.
That night, there were neither stars nor moon.
The Chen family ancestral shrine in the south of the city blazed with lamplight.
For the first time, the heads of the three great clans gathered under one roof.
“Xu Youde’s origins are no small matter.” Chen Shichang, the Chen clan head, was lean and gaunt, with a sinister look covering his face.
His bony finger tapped the vermilion seal as he sneered repeatedly. “Isn’t that obvious? He may be the Minister of Revenue, but more importantly, he carries the official seal of the Southern Capital Prefecture—and the documents in his hand are blank!”
“No matter how great his backing is, can it surpass our ancestors? Can it surpass the learned men of Jiangnan?” Yang Bonian sat in a grand chair. The Guzhu Purple Bamboo tea beside him had long since gone cold, and his expression was grim. “I’ll make this perfectly clear today: not one inch of our ancestral foundation will be surrendered!”
At those words, Chen Shichang slammed his hand on the table, equally incensed.
“Brother Yang speaks the truth! Think about the conduct of those northern merchants these past few days!”
He swept his gaze around the room, his teeth clenched in fury. “At the northern wharf, they pay top silver for massive logs that would take three men to encircle, without haggling over a single coin! Then they turn around and come to the south of the city, offering three times the price to acquire that stretch of wasteland and shanties!”
“They’re buying up giant timber and enclosing level ground. This is a massive construction project! They’re building an undertaking that will reach the heavens!”
He fixed his fierce gaze on the other two men.
“They’ve set their sights on the land belonging to our three families. If anyone is tempted by a few measly ounces of silver and surrenders the ancestral estates, I’ll stake my own head on this—”
“Tomorrow, those ruthless officials will dare mobilize soldiers, dig up our ancestral graves, and level our clan shrines!”
The Fang clan head had the appearance of a portly merchant. Sweat covered his forehead as he repeatedly wiped it with a silk handkerchief. “Then… what does Brother Chen propose?”
“An alliance!”
Chen Shichang drew a short dagger from his waist and drove it into the offering table with a sharp thunk. The hilt trembled and hummed.
“The three clans will swear an oath in blood and sign a pact of life and death! Starting tonight, anyone who dares to keep the court’s compensation for himself or sell out our ancestral property…”
He pointed at each person present in turn.
“The three great clans of Jiangnan will unite against him! His name will be struck from the clan register, and he will be banished from Jiangning forever!”
“Agreed! That’s what we’ll do!” Yang Bonian answered in a deep voice, the first to give his assent.
Blood from the blade dripped into the wine bowl.
On that very night, the three great clans of Jiangnan, families of a century-old standing, were bound together as tightly as a single rope.
…
Once the news spread, the southern part of Jiangning City was thrown into an uproar.
The next morning, scarcely had the first temple bell fallen silent when seven or eight impoverished households—who had previously been dazzled by the enormous sums of money and signed away their land—came back after a night of scraping together every coin they could find.
In the depths of winter, a crowd knelt on the frost-covered ground outside an abandoned granary, kowtowing until their heads struck the earth like pounding drums. They stubbornly insisted on returning the silver and redeeming their land deeds.
The power of the clans outweighed the law. At a time like this, anyone who dared associate with outsiders would offend the local powers. Before long, even their own ancestral graves might not be safe.
“My lord! Eight households have already come to return the money!”
The steward rushed up to the desk, trembling as he spoke. “The three families have sworn an alliance! The entire southern district is watching their faces. If this stalemate continues, even those who have already signed will turn against us!”
The steward swallowed. “My lord, this has become an unbreakable deadlock! Why don’t we produce the Southern Capital Prefecture’s warrant and ask the prefectural government to send troops and seize the land deeds by force?”
“Apply pressure?” Xu Youde let out a scornful laugh. “With what? The Great Qian statutes and proclamations? Or the few hundred pampered constables at the prefectural yamen?”
“Go outside and take a look for yourself!” Xu Youde pointed toward the darkness beyond the door.
“Their ancestors, worshiped for six generations, are buried right there! Their clan rules and ancestral instructions are displayed plainly in their ancestral shrines! The court is trying to carry out the grand undertaking of moving the capital to Jiangnan, and you want this official to order the forcible excavation of graves people have guarded for centuries?”
“Do you believe that once the military order to requisition ancestral estates is issued, within three days the denunciations of a million scholars throughout Jiangnan will tear the roof off the grand council hall?”
“The spittle of the entire realm will drown us. They’ll curse us as tyrannical officials who defy Heaven and destroy the ancestors!”
“If matters truly reach that point…” Xu Youde’s voice turned cold. “This imperial mission will no longer be merely difficult. It will become a crime for which death cannot atone.”
The steward was driven back several steps by the rebuke, his face turning pale.
Seizing the land of the great clans should have been the safest course.
Trying to take the two poor acres belonging to impoverished tenant farmers would be tantamount to forcing them to hang themselves. The estates of the great families, on the other hand, were merely liquid assets. They had enough wealth to maneuver and enough alternatives to preserve themselves.
Xu Youde had already weighed the matter carefully: in Jiangnan, he knew exactly whom he could exploit—and whom he absolutely could not afford to offend.
Besides…
Xu Youde furrowed his brows, thinking inwardly: The thing that ultimately convinced His Majesty to move the capital must have been Qinghuan’s grand plan for maritime exploration!
Shifting the center of power to Jiangnan was an excellent choice.
But the cost lay here as well. The great clans held the blade of public opinion among the scholars, and they were truly difficult to handle.
“Then… what are we supposed to do? If we go around them, where are we going to find several thousand mu of square, orderly land suitable for the imperial foundations?” the steward cried anxiously, his voice breaking.
Xu Youde paced back and forth.
After the time it took to drink a cup of tea, a calculating look surfaced on the weathered face that had spent half a lifetime immersed in officialdom.
“What’s there to panic about?”
He lowered his eyes to the account book.
If the deadlock could not be untangled, then there was no need to untangle it!
Xu Youde turned his head and looked out into the darkness.
“We’re not buying land anymore.”
The steward froze. “N-not buying it?”
“That’s right.” Xu Youde picked up the purple-clay hand warmer beside him. After tossing out one final remark, he walked through the door.
“Let’s take a look at the Yang family’s feng shui first!”
