Take control of Wei Zhongxian at the start and confiscate 100 million from him!

Chapter 99 Those who follow me will prosper, those who oppose me will perish
At the end of the Yin hour (3-5 AM), Suzhou was shrouded in a thick, dark hue, typical of the period before dawn.

The morning mist in the water towns is always stickier than elsewhere, and the air is filled with the fishy smell of the river and the lingering scent of cosmetics from the previous day. This is the languid charm of Suzhou that has remained unchanged for thousands of years, a sense of prosperity and tranquility ingrained in its very bones.

However, today's languor was torn open by an unseen and intangible yet bone-chilling fear.

The first to notice something was wrong were the workers who got up earliest.

On the canal outside Changmen Gate, a boatman rowing his oar was about to shout to cheer himself up when he suddenly realized that the dock, which was usually bustling with activity, was deathly silent.

Several cargo ships that should have been loaded overnight were moored forlornly, with no one on board, only a few lanterns flickering in the wind, like ghostly eyes peering into the human world.

At the city gate, an old man carrying a shoulder pole to sell breakfast habitually tried to find a good spot, but was forced back to a corner by several expressionless men dressed in ordinary cloth clothes with bulging waists, who looked at him like he was dead.

The old man trembled. He couldn't recognize where those people came from, but he recognized their eyes.

Rumors are like a pebble thrown into stagnant water.

At first, it spread silently in the deepest ripples of the water, without a sound, yet it penetrated everywhere.

"Have you heard? Yesterday... there was a big commotion at the Chen family's place."

"It wasn't just a commotion; my cousin who lives in the west of the city said that from afternoon until night, there was the sound of horses' hooves, like thunder! They almost trampled the bluestone slabs on the street!"

"Are they government troops? Have they got some nerve? Daring to touch Chen Bancheng?"

"Soldiers? Soldiers wouldn't dare! I think I saw... I saw the shadow of someone in a flying fish robe..."

The words "Flying Fish Robe" seemed to possess some inexplicable magic, instantly silencing the previously whispering crowd.

This word is too distant and too bloody for the people of Jiangnan, who have long been living in wealth and comfort.

It doesn't belong to this gentle land of poetry and moonlit nights; it belongs to the cruel tortures of the imperial prison, the slaughter in the border towns, and the dark secrets of the capital that can never see the light of day.

But now, it has appeared in Suzhou.

When rumors, initially whispered, coalesced into a surging undercurrent and eventually breached an invisible dam, the entire city of Suzhou went mad.

It's going viral!

It wasn't an orderly transmission, but an explosive, illogical, and frantic spread fueled by immense panic, as if overnight, a vengeful ghost was whispering in the ears of everyone in Suzhou:

The emperor confiscated the Chen family's property!

This news was like a thunderclap in a dry season, exploding across the entire Jiangnan region.

The Chen family's revenue exceeded the government's tax revenue. Their banquets were attended by high-ranking officials from the imperial court, and a single word from the head of the Chen family could cause the price of rice in Jiangnan to skyrocket.

Such a powerful figure, such a behemoth that had been operating in Jiangnan for four or five generations, was wiped out overnight by the fastest knife from the capital.

Nobody believed it, but nobody dared to disbelieve it.

Because the suffocating, chilling atmosphere that hung over the entire city couldn't be faked.

……

Mao Shi.

Daylight finally broke, but the air in Suzhou was even colder and more biting than it had been at dawn.

The Prefectural Government Office of Suzhou.

The main gate of the yamen was wide open, and two rows of Jinyiwei officers, dressed in flying robes and with embroidered spring knives at their waists, stood on either side like cast iron sculptures.

They simply stood there, doing nothing and saying nothing, but the murderous aura forged from mountains of corpses and seas of blood formed an invisible wall, causing even the most boisterous commoners to only dare to watch from a distance of ten feet away with eyes filled with extreme awe.

At this moment, Chen Hongmi, the prefect of Suzhou, was as pale as paper, and his forehead was covered with fine beads of sweat. His fourth-rank scarlet official robe seemed to weigh a thousand pounds, making it difficult for him to straighten his back.

It wasn't that he didn't want to maintain his dignity, but last night, when Tian Ergeng gently stuck a still-dripping embroidered spring knife into the table in front of him and said only, "I'll borrow your government office for a while," all his dignity, along with his courage, shattered into dust.

Standing beside him was a young man dressed in an ordinary scholar's robe, with a handsome face. He was an official from the Imperial Inquiry Bureau who accompanied the emperor. He represented the law, the procedure, and the emperor's ruthless side.

Chen Hongmi dared not look at the Imperial Guards or the young man; he simply stared intently at the sundial at the entrance of the yamen.

The slender copper needle was moving, little by little, with extreme slowness yet with unwavering determination, toward the inscribed line at the very center of the "Mao" hour.

At the exact moment the clock hand aligned with that mark, the young official from the Imperial Inquiry Bureau subtly raised his chin—an extremely subtle movement.

Immediately, several officers from the Imperial Guards emerged from the yamen, carrying bright yellow notices that had already been stamped with the official seal.

There was no reading or command.

One of the captains moved swiftly and decisively, stepping forward and unfurling a scroll of notice with a "whoosh." Another captain, holding a wooden bucket, rapidly smeared paste onto the screen wall outside the yamen with a brush, then slammed the bright yellow notice firmly against the wall with a "smack," smoothing it out perfectly. The entire process was fluid and dazzlingly fast, exuding a ruthless efficiency.

Chen Hongmi's pupils contracted sharply in that instant.

He did not see the humiliation he had expected, but instead saw something ten thousand times more terrifying than humiliation.

At the same moment the notice was posted, he caught a glimpse out of the corner of his eye of several Imperial Guards carrying the same scrolls, who mounted their horses on the fast ones that had been prepared in advance, and sped off like arrows from the streets on both sides of the government office toward the various city gates of Suzhou and toward the most crowded places in the city.

A thought suddenly pierced Chen Hongmi's mind.

This happened simultaneously!

This notice declaring the Chen family guilty of death was not written just now, but had been prepared long ago, and the act of posting it was not limited to the Suzhou government office.

At this very moment, in Hangzhou, in Songjiang, in Yingtian Prefecture, and in front of the government offices of every prefecture and county in the prosperous Jiangnan region, the exact same scene must be unfolding!

The swift action of the Embroidered Uniform Guard and the widespread public announcements throughout Jiangnan were launched simultaneously!
The confiscation of property and the conviction were not sequential events, but rather two sides of the same coin, both deadly moves that the young emperor, far away in the capital, had already planned and executed on the same chessboard!
This means that before Tian Ergeng led his men into the Chen family manor, all the evidence of the Chen family's crimes was already laid out on the emperor's desk.

No, it's not just the evidence; even this indictment listing dozens of crimes that would condemn the Chen family to eternal damnation has been written, sealed, distributed, and manned by countless people, just waiting for a unified time to announce it to the world!

What terrifying control! What meticulous planning!

That emperor never even considered talking to the gentry and powerful families of Jiangnan!
He had prepared the knife, the coffin, and even the obituary from the very beginning. He was just waiting for the perfect moment to kill, collect the body, and proclaim to everyone—those who obey me prosper, those who defy me perish!
Chen Hongmi's body began to tremble uncontrollably.

At that moment, he realized amidst his trembling that he, and the entire Jiangnan officialdom, might not even be qualified to be a "chicken" in the emperor's eyes.

They were merely the backdrop to this grand massacre, spectators forced to stand by and watch it all unfold, cheering for it all!
In front of the screen wall, the silent crowd was finally drawn to the brightly lit notice, and those who could read began to read it aloud.

"...Chen Wannian, a merchant from Jiangnan, received the Emperor's favor but instead of repaying it, he committed wicked acts. His crimes are tenfold: First, he hoarded rice to drive up prices, disregarding the Emperor's decree and causing the people to suffer; second, he defied the Emperor's decree, forming cliques for personal gain and attempting to use his position as a merchant to control the court; third, he plotted treason, colluding with border generals and engaging in secret dealings, endangering the nation..."

The sound travels from one person's mouth to the ears of ten or a hundred people.

Especially when they saw the words "bullying men and women, forcibly taking wives of the people" and "murdering and seizing land, exploiting the villagers," the awe and fear that the crowd originally felt began to ferment and transform rapidly.

The pen of the Imperial Inquiry Bureau is the sharpest knife in the world; it not only kills people, but also destroys their hearts.

It transformed the Chen family from a political symbol opposing imperial power into a notorious and universally condemned tyrannical landlord.

In this way, confiscating his property and exterminating his clan would no longer be seen as cruel imperial power, but as an act of a wise and enlightened emperor who was eliminating harm for the people!
When the final sentence, "By imperial decree, all his property shall be confiscated to replenish the national treasury and provide relief to disaster victims! He and his core clan shall be exterminated as a warning to others!" was read out, an incredulous buzz erupted from the crowd, like a beehive bursting open.

"Exterminate...exterminate three clans?"

"Good heavens! This...this has wiped out the entire Chen family!"

The initial gasps of surprise were not due to the crimes committed by the Chen family, but rather to the ruthless and decisive method of eliminating them completely.

For ordinary people, they could never have imagined that a large, vibrant family would come to an end in such a way that it was almost as if it had been wiped off the face of the earth.

However, the shock at the power of the emperor lasted for less than a moment.

As the accusations of "murder and land grabbing, bullying men and women" still echoed in the air, a man with a face full of resentment suddenly roared out, his voice hoarse, as if he had been suppressing it for decades:

"Murder and land grabbing? What's written on the notice is nothing compared to this!"

That sound was like igniting a powder keg that was already piled high with dry firewood.

“That’s right!” From another corner, a woman’s voice was full of pent-up resentment. “My neighbor’s daughter, Xiao Cui! She was only sixteen when that spoiled brat from the Chen family took a liking to her. She was abducted into the mansion in the middle of the night, and… she never came out again! Her father went to report it to the authorities, and the next day she was found hanged from the rafters of her own house!”

"That's not all! My third uncle's dyeing workshop was the best in Suzhou. Just because he refused to sell the secret recipe to them, they colluded with the government to frame him, and overnight, his family was ruined and his family was destroyed!"

"And there's Old Man Li from the west of the city! All he did was complain about the high price of rice, and his son was pulled out of the canal the very next day, supposedly because he was drunk and accidentally fell in! Bah! Everyone knows it was that wicked servant of the Chen family who did it!"

One by one, the crimes hidden in the shadow of the Chen family's illustrious power, the blood and tears of the people of Suzhou who knew about them but dared not speak of them, finally found an outlet at this moment with the imperial decree to exterminate them!
The previous silence was completely shattered, replaced by almost frenzied cheers filled with tears!

"Deserve it!!"

"Good riddance! They should have been killed long ago!"

“Your Majesty is wise!!”

Cries, curses, and cheers echoed through the sky.

Those ordinary people who once trembled in fear because of the Chen family's power now seemed to have broken free of invisible shackles, unleashing the fear and hatred that had been accumulating for years or even decades.

They corroborated each other's crimes, filling in the details not written on the notice. Each story was filled with blood and tears, making the bright yellow notice seem incredibly real, even... incredibly merciful.

After a brief period of shock, public opinion was cleverly guided by this blood-soaked proclamation that appeared out of nowhere, shifting towards support for the imperial court and resentment towards the Chen family.

Those who truly understood the meaning behind the notice and the simultaneous posting of it were no longer just terrified, but utterly horrified!
(End of this chapter)