1848 Great Qing Charcoal Burners

Chapter 106 Have you worked hard all these years? Have your incomes increased?

As night fell, Peng Gang and his entourage enjoyed a greasy, high-carbohydrate, and high-protein feast at the county government office, using the fine rice, poultry, and livestock confiscated from the homes of the county magistrate, county assistant, registrar, and several clerks.

Although Peng Gang's students in Honglian Village received a sufficient daily ration of food, they could only eat a little meat on the first and fifteenth of each month.

The only time we can eat refined rice and meat as freely as we do today is during the Lunar New Year.

Everyone enjoyed the meal.

After finishing his meal, Peng Gang did not rest. Instead, he summoned Xiao Guoying and the county's criminal and civil advisors to gather and compile the charges and evidence against the four major families.

The reason he postponed the public trial to tomorrow was not only because it was getting late, but more importantly because there were too many charges against the four families, and the witnesses and evidence had not yet been found.

Needless to say, Xiao Guoying's family, being Peng Gang's people, naturally did their utmost to tell Peng Gang all the evil deeds and crimes of the four major families that they knew.

Peng Gang now has his own pen and no longer needs to take notes by hand. Instead, he asks Huang Bingxian and Qiu Zhongmin, two students who write well and write quickly, to temporarily act as recorders.

Of course, Peng Gang didn't let the other students sit idle either. Instead, he made them watch as he compiled the charges against these local tyrants and bullies and convicted them.

Wuxuan County was just the beginning; Peng Gang would later conquer the prefectural city and even the provincial capital.

He couldn't be present every time a city was captured, and Peng Gang hoped that when he wasn't there, there would be someone under his command who could handle things independently.

The evil deeds of the four families were too numerous to list. By the time the records of their crimes were compiled, it was already 2 a.m.

Everyone was exhausted and had to stop here to rest.

Xiao Guoying told Peng Gang that the crimes of the four major families were far more than these. If they really investigated, it might take them a month to compile a complete list of the crimes of the four major families of Wuxuan.

Peng Gang did not investigate in detail, but only picked out the most serious crimes to convict them.

The next day at dawn, Peng Gang circled the names of more than a dozen victim witnesses in the compiled materials and instructed Xiao Guoying, Huang Bingxian, and Qiu Zhongmin to make sure that these people came. If the victim witnesses dared not come, they should be tied up and brought to the county government to testify.

At noon, the aggrieved witnesses that Peng Gang had asked to find, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, arrived in front of the county government office.

The porridge stall in front of the county government office was just as lively as yesterday, with the county residents lining up in long queues to receive porridge under the guidance of Peng Gang's students.

If the Qing government had followed the method of distributing porridge in official sheds, such order would certainly not have been able to be maintained.

However, Peng Gang has already stated that everyone will receive porridge, so there is no need to fight for it.

Since everyone who came to collect porridge yesterday did receive some.

In addition, the young men who were distributing porridge and maintaining order were either carrying guns or long guns, so no one dared to break their rules and they all lined up obediently.

Seeing that the time was almost up, Peng Gang ordered a temporary halt to the distribution of porridge, and announced with gongs and drums that the four major families of Wuxuan County would be publicly tried in front of the county government.

Hearing that Peng Gang was going to publicly try the four major families of Wuxuan County, the thousands of people in front of the county government were both astonished and curious, and couldn't help but look around the high platform that had been temporarily erected in front of the county government.

The main members of the four major families of Wuxuan in the county town were escorted to a high platform by a group of young militiamen wearing red scarves and forced to kneel on the ground.

The scions of the four great families, who usually flaunted their power and rode in fine clothes, and could roam freely in Wuxuan County and even the entire Xunzhou Prefecture, were all disheveled, with dry lips and pale faces. However, some of them still had an air of arrogance in their eyes.

Dressed in an indigo-blue earthen robe and with a saber at his waist, Peng Gang walked onto the high platform in front of the county government office amidst the gaze of thousands of Wuxuan residents.

The knife at his waist was not drawn, yet its chilling aura was already palpable.

Standing on either side of Peng Gang were Luo Dagang, Chen Chengrong, Lu Liu, Qiu Ersao, and others, all expressionless, coldly glaring at the four powerful criminals who were tied to the wooden floor.

Kneeling below the stage were the scions of the four prominent local families: the Huang, Chen, Wei, and Liu families, as well as the six clerks of Wuxuan County who were related to them.

Behind each of these four families lies the dregs of an era, and each is a mountain weighing on the shoulders of the people of Wuxuan.

Peng Gang's voice boomed like a bell, his words striking straight to the heart: "You four families, whether you are old local nobles or newly rich outsiders, whether you abuse your official power or you control the market and take lives. The crimes you have committed are too numerous to be recorded even if all the bamboo in Wuxuan were used to record them."

He first looked at Huang Jingqu, the head of the Huang family, who was wearing a red silk mandarin jacket. The man was over fifty years old, with a fat face and thick ears. Although he was kneeling and bound, his back was straight, and he was still trying to maintain his last bit of dignity.

"The Huang family moved to Wuxuan during the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty. They occupied thousands of acres of fertile land on both sides of the Qianjiang River in Wuxuan and controlled more than 700 tenants. For families that paid only eight shi of rice per year, they forced them to pay twelve shi, and also demanded payment under various complicated names such as 'spring water money,' 'slash-and-burn money,' and 'dry grain money.'"

You control the market for cinnamon and tung oil, and the price fluctuations of grain in Wuxuan are also determined by your Huang family. Of the eight wharves along the Qianjiang River, six belong to your Huang family.

"Huang Jingqu, is your Huang family opening a shop or founding a nation?"

Huang Jingqu sneered: "You bandits! Although you may be triumphant for a time after entering the city, you are not the true king. My Huang family has thousands of acres of land and vast wealth, which are the inheritance of generations of our family. You cannot take them away with a single charge from a lowly bandit like yourself."

Peng Gang laughed: "You control half of Wuxuan County's fate, do you really think you're the reincarnation of the Yellow Emperor, calling on the people to speak?"

Immediately, three aggrieved witnesses were brought to the stage: a small grain merchant, an elderly tenant farmer, and a female head of household forced to sell her land. Their cries mingled together.

“Last month, I carried a load of rice across the Qianjiang Huang Wharf and had to pay three qian and two wen of ‘porter’ tax.’ I couldn’t make a single cent of profit! I even had to pay the Huang family one and a half qian of silver!”

“My family has been renting land from Huang Jia for ten years, and the rent has been increased every year. Now it has increased by 70%. They even say that ‘the rent will be increased if the harvest is good, and it will be increased even more if the harvest is bad.’ Before the end of the year, my husband took more than a dozen neighbors who really couldn’t afford to pay the rent to Huang’s house to discuss whether the rent could be reduced by 10% or 20% in a year of disaster!”

Without a word, the Huang family beat my husband to death and took my ten-year-old daughter away to warm her bed as payment for rent.

"Last year, during the famine, the Huang family's grain shop couldn't produce a single grain out of four thousand shi of grain. They just put up a price tag, and a dou of rice cost five hundred wen!"

A commotion arose among the crowd, who watched as the once imposing Master Huang knelt in disarray beside the God God Society's rebels.

He then glanced at the clerks of Wuxuan County who were connected to the four major families.

These people, who normally wouldn't even have the courage to look them in the eye, are now kneeling before these ordinary folks.

They gradually realized that not everyone in the world was incapable of subduing the all-powerful Huang family of Wuxuan. A moment later, some of the bolder citizens, having hardened their hearts, finally shouted out their long-held grievances: "Kill that damned Master Huang! Bah! That damned son of a bitch!"

Damn it, a man lives for his pride! I'm going all in today! If all else fails, I'll follow God up the mountain! I'm not living in Wuxuan anymore!

Seeing that the situation had been turned around, Peng Gang looked at the second person, Chen Changze, the head of the Chen family, a salt merchant family.

This man was nearly forty years old, dressed impeccably, and clearly someone who valued "rules" and methods.

"The Chen family is a rising power in Wuxuan. They made their fortune in salt. They monopolize all the salt permits in the county. Salt prices rise every year, and half of the salt permits go into their treasury. However, the common people have no salt to eat and can only watch helplessly as their salt shops are piled up like mountains, with salt costing eighty or ninety coins a pound for a bland diet."

Chen Changze lowered his head. He was a merchant by birth and a newly rich man, so he did not dare to be as tough as Huang Jingqu. However, there was still a hint of cunning in his words as he tried to defend himself: "I am a merchant by birth, and I have a large family to support. I also have to make a living!"
Fellow elders, the Chen family has never cheated anyone in the salt trade over the years. I obtained the government's salt permits penny by penny.

The salt was transported from Guangdong, and the waterways along the way were treacherous, with numerous checkpoints. Every single one of them was subject to regulations. Bribes, silencers, river bandits, patrolling soldiers… who didn't try to extort money from me?”

At the height of his excitement, Chen Changze paused, his tone becoming increasingly sarcastic as he spoke with an air of self-righteousness:

“You say salt is expensive… Fine, let me ask you, where has the price gone up? The price of salt has been clearly stated all these years, written in the county government's register, and it has always been this price. You yourselves don't farm or work properly, you're lazy and can't afford salt, so you come here to blame us salt merchants?”
"For every pound of salt my Chen family sells, we also give away a blue cloth bag and a small salt jar. We do business with a clear conscience, and yet you repay kindness with enmity, coming to interrogate me? What kind of logic is this?!"

“Sometimes,” Chen Changze said slowly, narrowing his eyes, “you all need to reflect more on yourselves and find the reasons for your actions. Have you worked hard all these years? Have your earnings increased?”

Before he could finish speaking, the audience erupted in uproar.

An old man, his beard trembling with rage, shouted, "We toil from dawn till dusk farming, even mortgaging our own land to your Chen family's bank! And you still have the nerve to call us lazy?!"

A woman cried out in anguish, “My son is sick, and I can’t even afford your salt to cook some savory porridge! You said you were sending us a salt container—you’re sending us to our coffins!”

Luo Dagang, who had been watching coldly, couldn't hold back any longer and shouted angrily, "These are the words of salt thieves! Where has the price increased? The lives of the people of Wuxuan are at stake because of the price increases by salt thieves and grain thieves like you!"

Peng Gang was also secretly amused by Chen Changze's sharp tongue and ability to distort the truth.

He waved for Huang Bingxian to produce a salt tax register confiscated from the county government office. He then summoned a salt merchant, who knelt and kowtowed, weeping as he lamented, "I've been carrying salt for three years, and one of my legs was broken by Chen's henchmen, all because I stole ten catties of cheap 'foreign salt' that wasn't from Chen's family for my own consumption! My mother said before she died, 'Only Chen's salt is edible in this world; other people's lives cannot be lived!'"

Peng Gang walked up to Chen Changze, threw the salt tax register in Chen's face, and said coldly, "Didn't you want to see the county's salt tax register? Take your time looking at it! It's the lifeblood of the people. Your Chen family has turned salt into chains for hundreds of thousands of people in Wuxuan. What face do you have to argue here?"

Turning around again, Peng Gang faced Wei Liuren, a Zhuang chieftain with a wrinkled face, who lived in the mountains.

This person is not the head of the family, but a member of a collateral branch of the Wei family in Wuxuan, who runs the Wei family's pharmacy in Wuxuan.

Unlike other families, the Wei family's main residence was located in a mountain stronghold, and Peng Gang was unable to catch the core members of the Wei family's main residence for a while.

Wei Liuren had eyes like an eagle, and although he was old, he was not afraid.

Peng Gang began to enumerate the evil deeds and crimes of the Wei family: "The Wei family dominates the mountains and ridges. Even when we cut firewood or herbs, we have to buy 'mountain tickets' from your family, saying that 'there are ancestral rules for the mountains and forests.' Your Wei family has formed a marriage alliance with the Yao chieftain and recruited wolf soldiers under the guise of protecting merchants, but they extort money and blackmail everywhere, exploiting the people of Wuxuan Mountain to the bone, scaring the villagers so much that they dare not light lamps at night."

Wei Liuren laughed three times: "Hahaha, the mountains belong to the Wei family, and the roads were built by the Wei family! You, a mere child, are not qualified to settle accounts with the Wei family. Do you dare to come to our Wei family's mountain stronghold and test the sharpness of our three hundred swordsmen and axes, and the accuracy of our guns and cannons?"

The crowd below glared angrily, and someone roared, "Last year, my brother went up the mountain to chop firewood. He was clearly chopping firewood on an unclaimed mountain, but the Wei family slandered him, saying that he chopped the firewood on their own mountain! He was beaten to death by the wolf soldiers they raised and thrown down the slope!"

Another herb farmer shouted, "We were delivering herbs to the government, but the Wei family said they couldn't pass without the mountain decree, so they stole my herbs, preventing me from fulfilling my duties to the county!"

Peng Gang looked down at Wei Liuren with his cold, frosty gaze: "The mountain was created by heaven and earth, not by your Wei family. How can it be surnamed Wei and enjoyed by your Wei family alone?"
"Wei Liuren! You said it yourself, you go first, and I'll send your entire clan to the underworld to accompany you. The God of War is determined to destroy your Wei family's stronghold!"

The four great families of Wu and Xuan share both prosperity and adversity.

Peng Gang purged the other families, and the Wei family would not stand idly by. Later, when the Qing army marched to suppress Pingzai Mountain...

The Wei family's wolf soldiers are strong and brave, and they will definitely serve as the vanguard for the Green Standard Army.

Rather than waiting for them to lead the Green Standard Army into Pingzai Mountain, it would be better to wait until they had seized and transported all the money and grain from Wuxuan County, and then strike first before the Qing government troops arrived, directly eliminating the threat of the Wei family in Wuxuan.

The last person to be tried was Liu Wenkai, who was wearing a long gown. He was fair-skinned, beardless, and had a dignified posture, but his expression was full of resentment.

"The Liu family is a scholarly family that made its name through academic achievements. Although they do not engage in commerce, they have acquired a large amount of fertile land. Last year, during the flood in Guiping, they seized nearly two thousand acres of fertile land. Even when the local gentry of Guiping went to Gu Yuankai, the prefect of Xunzhou, to plead their case, it was to no avail."

"Just because your family has produced two prefects and three county magistrates, everyone in Xunzhou Prefecture has to avoid your Liu family. Even caravans passing by have to dismount and lead their horses. How impressive!"

Liu Wenkai retorted coldly, "Although my family owns a large estate, we do not engage in extortion. We scholars uphold poetry, literature, and etiquette, and disdain associating with merchants."

Peng Gang slowly approached him and asked, word by word:

"So your family's secret passage leads to the county government office, which is also a family tradition of passing down poetry and etiquette?"
Your direct descendants took advantage of the disaster to buy out the land deeds of six villages in order to spread their teachings.

If your Liu family is innocent and has a clear conscience, why did you bring your whole family to hide in the county government office?
"If you have a clear conscience, you have nothing to fear. If you think my God's Society is full of thieves, then you should ask yourselves why you're afraid of thieves!"

Liu Wenkai's face turned pale, and he fell silent.

The crowd below the stage gradually became noisy, with cries, curses, and applause all mixed together.

Peng Gang surveyed the four families and solemnly declared, "The Huang, Chen, Wei, and Liu families of Wuxuan are hereby ordered to have their land, silver, and grain confiscated for military supplies and relief purposes. The heads of these families and their relatives are guilty of undeniable crimes and shall all be hanged!"

From this day forward, Wu Xuan will no longer bear the surname Huang, Chen, Wei, or Liu. He will only bear the surname 'Min' (民).

Huang Jingqu had initially thought Peng Gang would at most kill a few of their family heads, but he hadn't expected this young man to threaten to exterminate their entire clan. He immediately became enraged and shouted threats at Peng Gang:
"Peng Gang! You rioters will eventually be wiped out! The imperial court is on its way. Once the imperial army arrives in Wuxuan, none of you will escape!"

Peng Gang, however, calmly looked up at the sky and laughed heartily: "We are here by the command of the Heavenly Father to eradicate evil. You fear officials and soldiers, but not the will of Heaven? Very well, very well indeed! Today I will gamble with you whether the soldiers will arrive first, or whether my noose will strangle your entire Huang family! Guards, bring the torture!"

At Peng Gang's command, the students on the platform who were in charge of the executions put the noose around the necks of the Huang family members one by one, and then kicked over the stools they were using as stepping stones, leaving them to struggle.
The four great families of Wu and Xuan, who enjoyed a century of glory, perished in a single day.

Among the crowd, seeing this group of God's Church righteous army attacking the four families, the old, young, women and children wept and laughed. Some of the elderly looked up to the sky and prayed, murmuring, "Heaven has eyes! It is truly a righteous army sent from heaven, truly protecting us and ridding us of this scourge!"

(End of this chapter)