Hot flashes

The disbandment of private armies and fortified villages by aristocratic families lasted for nearly twenty days.

In twenty days, more than 3,000 farmhands were dismissed in the seven prefectures of Jiangnan, and more than 40 fortified villages, farms, and estates were seized, reduced, or ordered to be disbanded.

Han Zhang compiled the results of the abolitions into a long memorial, attaching a detailed list of the abolitions in each prefecture, and sent it to the capital along with the account books, confessions, and correspondence cleared from the treasuries of each prefecture.

At the end of his memorial, he wrote: "The foundation of a prominent family in Jiangnan, built over a century, is now crumbling."

The reaction from the powerful families was more intense and more powerless than Han Zhang had anticipated.

Several Cui family officials in the capital jointly submitted a memorial, which was strongly worded, saying that Han Zhang "used the name of disaster relief to carry out the real work of weakening the power of the princes, disbanding private troops and sealing up fortified villages, with the intention of cutting off the wings of the court and shaking the foundation of the country."

The memorial was read aloud in the court, and the hall was silent for a moment before Xiao Jue spoke. His voice was not loud, but every word was clear: "Private army? Whose private army? The court's army, or the army of aristocratic families?"

The officials turned pale, kneeling on the ground with their foreheads pressed against the cold gold bricks, unable to utter a single word. Xiao Jue neither told them to get up nor said anything more, simply leaving them kneeling until the court session ended.

The Lu family's officials in the court changed their strategy. Instead of attacking Han Zhang directly, they approached the issue from the side, impeaching Han Zhang for "appointing his cronies and excluding dissidents" in Jiangnan. They claimed that the attendants he brought were his fellow townsmen, classmates, and classmates, and were not capable officials at all.

After listening, Xiao Jue said, "The people Han Zhang used in Jiangnan were all poor scholars from the Hanlin Academy. They couldn't even afford a decent house. You should investigate whether they embezzled any money." The officials looked at each other, none of them daring to respond.

The Zheng family held the greatest influence in the court and was also the most composed.

Instead of rushing to submit their memorials, they secretly worked together to unite several other factions, attempting to form a united force in the court and force Xiao Jue to retract his order.

But as they made their connections, they discovered a chilling fact—those colleagues who used to call them brothers and drink with them on ordinary days had all retreated. Some said they were unwell and took leave, some said they had family matters to attend to and returned to their hometowns, and some simply wouldn't even open their doors.

When the saying "When a wall falls, everyone pushes it down; when a tree falls, the monkeys scatter" applies to them, and it certainly doesn't feel good.

What made them even more uneasy was the voice of the people.

When the news spread that Han Zhang had dismissed his private army and sealed off the fortified villages, the people of Jiangnan were as happy as if it were New Year's Day. Some people set off firecrackers in the streets, while others told stories in teahouses, portraying Han Zhang as an upright and just official and the stewards and managers whose houses had been sealed off as rats crossing the street.

There was a storyteller in the east of Jiangning City who turned Zhao Mancang's story into a play. He performed it in teahouses for three days straight, and every performance was packed, with no room to even stand.

In the play, Zhao Mancang was dressed as a fat man with a bloated belly, wearing a bright red silk robe and holding a golden abacus. He twisted and turned on the stage, and was finally kicked to the ground by a scholar in a blue robe. Copper coins all over the stage clattered and scattered all over the ground. The audience clapped and cheered, laughing so hard they were doubled over.

Those powerful family stewards who had held sway in the region for decades were now exposed to the sun like peeled eggs, with nowhere to hide.

Some people were paraded through the streets in prison vans, and people along the way threw rotten vegetable leaves, rotten eggs, and even excrement at them, cursing them as "locusts," "giant rats," and "beasts that eat people without spitting out the bones."

Those tenants and small vendors who usually wouldn't even dare to look them in the eye were now standing in the crowd, shouting louder than anyone else, as if they wanted to vent all the pent-up anger they had endured over the years.

Han Zhang gradually pieced together the mess in Jiangnan. Grain prices fell, soup kitchens were set up again, and the dikes were repaired.

The silver, grain, and medicine that had been withheld by Wu Huai-ren and divided up by powerful families were cleared out of the treasuries of various prefectures, re-registered, and redistributed.

Han Zhang gets up before dawn every day and doesn't rest until dark. Sometimes he's so busy that he doesn't even have time to eat. He stands at the door of the signing room with a bowl of cold porridge, drinking it while reading the reports sent by various prefectures.

He had lost weight and aged; his eyes were sunken, his cheekbones were prominent, and he had more gray hair at his temples. But his eyes were brighter than before, like two burning flames.

On the ninth day of the twelfth lunar month, Xiao Jue publicly read aloud the memorial sent by Han Zhang from Jiangnan at the court assembly.

The memorial was very long, taking almost half an hour to read. The eunuch's high-pitched voice echoed in the hall, each word clear and distinct.

The memorial detailed the progress of disaster relief in Jiangnan, the verification of funds and grain, the results of disbanding private soldiers and sealing off fortified villages, and attached a long list at the end. The people on the list were all officials, clerks, grain merchants and managers who were found guilty in this corruption case in Jiangnan.

At the end of his memorial, Han Zhang wrote: "The troubles in Jiangnan are not the result of a single day's accumulation, nor can they be resolved in a single day. However, I believe that although the troubles are deep, they can be resolved; although the problems are serious, they can be eliminated. I only hope that Your Majesty will persevere, and we will do our utmost."