Taichang Ming Dynasty

Chapter 707 Du Chengshi and Wan Youfu

The next morning, after a simple breakfast, Wang Yingjiao and Zhang Sixiu boarded their respective sedan chairs and donkey carts and, under the attentive gaze of the postmaster, slowly headed towards the majestic capital city in the north.

As dawn broke, a thin mist, like a veil, enveloped the plains surrounding the capital. The fields lining the official road appeared somewhat sparse, and early-rising farmers, their bodies hunched over, worked in the fields. In the distance, wisps of smoke rose faintly from the villages. The scent of earth and dew temporarily washed away the heaviness of the previous night.

The carriage swayed and the wheels rolled, the sound monotonous and rhythmic, broken only by the occasional crack of the driver's whip. Zhang Sixiu leaned against the carriage wall, eyes closed, his face appearing even more gaunt and weary in the flickering light. Wang Yingjiao, on the other hand, sat upright, his gaze silently surveying the land he was about to help govern, peering through the gap in the curtain.

The journey wasn't long. As the sun rose higher and the thin mist dissipated, the massive outline of the capital city became increasingly clear on the horizon. The towering city walls and majestic gate towers, like a lurking dragon, silently surveyed the surrounding area. As the carriage approached, the flow of people and vehicles on the official road thickened. Peddlers carrying loads, porters pushing carts, minor officials riding donkeys, and gentry in sedan chairs gradually merged into a slow-flowing stream, surging towards the few open city gates. The cacophony of voices, the braying of livestock, and the rolling of carts intertwined, creating the unique clamor of the capital's outskirts.

Carriages and sedan chairs, following the flow of people, passed through the strict checkpoints of the Yongding Gate barbican and finally entered the heart of the empire. Upon entering the city, an even greater wave of noise rushed towards them, ten times louder than outside the city walls. Shops lined both sides of the wide streets, their signs fluttering in the breeze. Sunlight slanted across the bluestone pavement, illuminating the shadows of the people moving about.

The breakfast stalls were steaming, the sizzling of fried dough sticks, the shouts of vendors selling soy milk and fried dough rings, and the sounds of haggling filled the air. The air was thick and complex with the mingled smells of food spices, dust, sweat, and even animal manure.

Wang Yingjiao's sedan chair led the way, followed closely by Zhang Sixiu's donkey cart, as they slowly made their way north along the main street inside Zhengyangmen. Although the street was wide, it was teeming with people and congested with carriages and horses, making the journey much slower than outside the city.

As the group reached a crossroads near Zhengyang Gate, a sudden, even louder commotion erupted ahead, and the crowd seemed to be pushed aside by an invisible hand. The already slow-moving flow of people came to a complete standstill.

"Master," Wang Fu approached the sedan chair, his voice filled with helplessness. "It's blocked up ahead, we can't get through."

Wang Yingjiao lifted the small curtain on the side of the sedan chair and peeked out. He saw that at the crossroads ahead, a crowd had formed a dense semicircle, with people on the outer edge standing on tiptoe and craning their necks. Amid the noisy discussion, there were a few indistinct shouts and curses.

In the center of the street, several prison carts enclosed by rough wooden fences were being slowly and laboriously moved through the crowd, escorted by constables wielding fire and water sticks and carrying knives at their waists. The prisoners inside the carts were all disheveled and filthy, wearing dirty ochre prison clothes. Some had numb and blank expressions, while others had faces full of resentment and hatred. Their hands were bound to the bars of the cages with wooden shackles.

Wang Yingjiao's gaze swept over the faces of the prisoners who were being carried high in the prison carts. They were all unfamiliar faces, but judging from the remaining air of dignity on their faces, they did not seem to be ordinary people, but rather officials of some status.

Zhang Sixiu's donkey cart also stopped beside Wang Yingjiao's sedan chair. He too lifted the curtain, his gaze falling on the prison cart for only a moment before quickly lowering it. Something seemed to flash rapidly across his deep, pool-like eyes, only to be covered by a silent weariness. He didn't speak, but silently lowered the curtain, as if to shut out the clamor and unbearable conditions outside.

“Afu,” Wang Yingjiao withdrew his gaze and said in a deep voice to Wang Fu, who was standing beside him, “Go and take a look ahead.”

"Yes, sir," Wang Fu replied, then turned to greet the sedan chair bearers before squeezing his way into the center of the commotion.

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Wang Fu's thin figure moved like a fish, quickly weaving through the throng of people and squeezing onto a slightly higher step by the street. The view from here was much wider than from the street, allowing him to see the prison van procession much more clearly.

Several prison carts crawled slowly forward, pushed and shoved by the guards. In the lead cart was a man around fifty years old. He was disheveled, dressed in filthy ochre clothes, and bound to the bars in heavy wooden shackles. The lingering official air in his eyes mingled with his current twisted, resentful expression, making him appear particularly jarring. His mouth was tightly shut, his gaze fixed on the empty space ahead, as if trying to pierce through the cage and the crowd.

"Tsk tsk! That's most likely Du Chengshi, the Governor of Gansu, the esteemed Governor Du." At the edge of the steps, a man dressed in a worn silk robe, looking like a clerk, pointed at the prison cart and whispered to his companion. His tone carried a hint of gleeful excitement and barely perceptible schadenfreude. "Who would have thought that just a few days ago, this powerful provincial governor would become a prisoner paraded through the streets?"

"What's the big deal?" The clerk's companion rolled his eyes. "He's just a fourth-rank official. He might be considered someone important in other places, but in the capital, humph."

Wang Fuben, who had overheard the conversation, had a sudden thought and quickly moved closer: "Sir, sir."

"Are you talking to me?" The clerk-looking man turned his head and glanced at Wang Fu.

"Yes, yes, yes." Wang Fu wanted to bow, but the space was too cramped, so he could only force a smile. "Sir, may I ask, who did you just mention as the Governor of Gansu?"

The clerk did not answer immediately, but smiled and said, "Judging from your accent, you must be from the south?"

“Yes, I’m from Nanjing, I just arrived in the city,” Wang Fu nodded.

"No wonder." The clerk casually pointed to the first prison cart that had just passed the steps. "That one is most likely Du Chengshi, Master Du."

"Please tell me, what did he do wrong while in office?" Wang Fu pressed. "How did he get imprisoned and paraded through the streets?"

“Hey! You’re mistaken. He didn’t commit the crime while he was serving as the governor of Gansu,” the clerk said, his voice rising eight octaves, “but when he was the military commissioner of Xuanfu!”

"The military commissioner of Xuanfu." Wang Fu surprisingly seemed to have some recollection of events from that distant place. "So that was before the year before last?"

The clerk was taken aback by his words. "That's right, you know about what happened in the forty-sixth year of the Wanli reign, don't you?"

“I’ve read the official gazette,” Wang Fu said, looking at Du Chengshi. “But all I know is that Du Chengshi was promoted to governor the year before last. I don’t know what case he committed.”

"The official gazette." The clerk narrowed his eyes slightly. "Are you a member of the government, sir?"

"Not really, just a little bit related," Wang Fu replied casually, then asked, "What did Du Chengshi do while he was in Xuanfu?"

The clerk grew wary, thinking to himself that this fellow might have some past connection with Du Chengshi. Unwilling to elaborate, the clerk began to give a perfunctory answer: "You probably entered the city through Yongding Gate, right?" "That's right," Wang Fu nodded, then asked, "What's wrong?"

"You can go back over there, or go straight to Zhengyang Gate and see if there are any notices posted there," the clerk said.

“Now that the notice has been posted, what’s there to be afraid of?” Wang Fu smiled, then looked around. “Tell us about it in detail.”

"That's right! Hurry up and tell us! How can you leave things unfinished?" Not only Wang Fu, but also a large crowd of people unaware of the details had gathered on the steps. Some were illiterate, others literate but hadn't read the notice. While Wang Fu and the clerk were talking, they all listened intently. Now that the clerk had fallen silent, they began to urge him on.

The clerk remained wary, and even the surrounding commotion couldn't get him to talk. Instead, his companion chimed in, saying disdainfully, "Oh dear. He's just a lowly clerk in the Ministry of Revenue who colluded with Du Chengshi, who was then the military commissioner of Xuanfu, to embezzle the court's funds for buying horses!"

"Ministry of Revenue!" Upon hearing the words "Ministry of Revenue," Wang Fu immediately sprang to his senses. But before he could ask any further questions, a prisoner in the second prison cart on the street began to shout and curse: "Bullshit! It was that son of a bitch Du Chengshi who ruined me!" The prisoner in the cart was younger, around forty years old, and similarly disheveled, dressed in ochre clothes and wooden cangues. He not only shouted but also glared menacingly at his surroundings with bloodshot eyes.

"He seems to have heard you speak," the clerk teased.

"So what if I heard? They're all going to die anyway. Do you think I'm afraid of him?" The clerk's companion not only didn't back down, but instead raised his voice sharply at Wang Fu and the onlookers, "See that? This is another ringleader, Wan Youfu, the former clerk of the Ministry of Revenue! It was him who took a whole 120,000 taels of silver that the Court of Imperial Stud and the Ministry of Revenue had scraped together from all sides to buy horses at the Xuanda market, which was originally intended to help Liaodong in an emergency! And what happened? Heh! These parasites, scheming and embezzling, have at least embezzled 30,000 taels!"

Wan Youfu spotted the speaker and his gaze swept over them. "Damn it! It's that bastard Du Chengshi!"

"Shut up! Did I tell you to speak?" The escorting officer immediately swung his fire-and-water stick and stabbed Wan Youfu hard through the fence. He screamed in pain, curled up, and could only whimper and curse intermittently.

"Thirty thousand? Tsk tsk. My God." A man carrying a load next to him calculated his meager income and immediately realized that this amount of money was more than he could earn in several lifetimes.

"Tell me, wasn't that battle two years ago one we could have won? It was only because these corrupt officials embezzled and cheated that we suffered such a crushing defeat?" A middle-aged man dressed as a vendor stood below the steps, one hand protecting the basket on his back, the other pointing at the slowly moving prison van.

“Who says otherwise? They’re greedy and don’t value their lives. They’re blinded by money, willing to take anything for themselves.” A young man who had just patronized the vendor said with a sneer, “Look, not only did he get punished, but he also dragged his family into it.”

"Are you going to implicate others too?" Someone tilted their head and looked over.

"Nonsense!" The clerk's companion looked down from the steps. "A case involving tens of thousands of taels of silver would leave even imperial relatives and nobles in dire straits."

"How so?" The man raised his head.

"Haven't you all seen the notice? It's been posted for two days already." The clerk, unable to contain his impatience any longer, chimed in. "The ringleaders, Du Chengshi and Wan Youfu, are sentenced to 'beheading,' and their entire families will be implicated. As for the accomplices who followed along and profited from the crime, the lightest punishment will be confiscation of their property and exile!"

"Are they beheadings today? I just came from the West Market, and I didn't see the execution ground." A voice drifted over from somewhere.

"I don't know about that," the clerk shrugged. "The notice is written very clearly; you can see for yourselves if you don't believe me."

The crowd buzzed with discussion. Wang Fu felt he had heard enough and prepared to leave. Before leaving, he glanced at the beginning and end of the procession again, trying to roughly estimate how long it would take for this transverse convoy to pass the intersection. He couldn't help but look at the prisoners a few more times—Du Chengshi still stood stiffly with his neck outstretched, his eyes lifeless; Wan Youfu was huddled in a corner, sobbing softly; the accomplices in the cars behind were all ashen-faced.

After some investigation, Wang Fu's thin figure disappeared into the surging crowd again, and he ran quickly toward Wang Yingjiao's sedan chair.

"Master." Wang Fu walked to the sedan chair and gently knocked on the window frame.

"What's going on up ahead? How much longer until we get there?" The voice inside the sedan chair was diluted by the increasingly loud noise from the outside world.

Wang Fu didn't quite catch what Wang Yingjiao meant, but he roughly understood. "Master! The Governor of Gansu, Du Chengshi, has been paraded through the streets. Besides him, there are dozens of other people. The procession is long, but they're not moving very fast. I'm afraid we'll have to wait another two or three quarters of an hour before we can get there!" Wang Fu leaned closer to the sedan curtain and raised his voice.

"What!" Wang Yingjiao lifted the curtain, nearly bumping cheek to cheek with Wang Fulai. "...Du Chengshi? What happened to him?"

Wang Fu took a step back and said, "It is said that two years ago, Wan Youfu, an official of the Ministry of Revenue, went to Xuanfu to buy horses. However, he colluded with Du Chengshi and together they embezzled more than 30,000 taels of silver. The verdict has now been handed down. Du Chengshi and Wan Youfu were beheaded and their property confiscated, while their followers were exiled. Today, they are just being paraded through the streets."

"When was this case filed? There shouldn't be any recent official gazettes mentioning that Du Chengshi has been arrested, right?" Wang Yingjiao asked, stepping out of his sedan chair and looking over, his tone uncertain.

“No.” Wang Fu had a very important task: reading the official gazette to Wang Yingjiao. “But this news should be true. The onlookers said the verdict has been announced for two days. When I entered the city just now, I did see people gathered around the Yongding Gate barbican looking at the notice. Sir, what should we do next? Should we simply reveal our identities and make those people move aside?”

"What are you trying to show off? Do you want me to flaunt my official power to the Emperor as soon as I enter the capital?" Wang Yingjiao said irritably.

"Then how about we take a detour?" Wang Fu shrank his neck.

"Which way to go? To get to the Ministry of Personnel, we have to go into the inner city. If we don't go through Zhengyang Gate, we have to go through Chongwen Gate. It'll probably take an hour to go around in a big circle." Wang Yingjiao turned around and sat back in the sedan chair, letting out a soft sigh.

(End of this chapter)