Chapter 25: A Person Destined for Great Things

There are few able-bodied men left near the town of Fushan. Zhang Da'an and Zhang Er'an plan to send men tomorrow to the neighboring Muping and Qixia counties, which are less than a hundred miles away, to recruit able-bodied male refugees.

Although there are many refugees near Dengzhou, it is over one hundred and twenty miles from Zhang Village, which is a bit too far.

Water transport is the most vital method for moving people and goods in the Ming Dynasty; there is no alternative. Zhang Village needs to bring in raw materials and ship its goods out.

The economic lifeline must be firmly in one's own hands; Zhang Village must control a wharf. Zhang Chen has set his sights on the Futou Village wharf, which is closest to the village. The key issue is that the wharf is effectively controlled by the Axe Gang.

The leader of the Axe Gang is Fu Xiaotian, who is also the village head of Futou Village.

With two thousand residents, Futou Village is a large fishing village where the locals moonlight as pirates when they aren't fishing. They have committed many atrocities. In reality, the village is a black market where nearby bandits, pirates, Japanese marauders, and other outlaws fence their stolen goods. It is said that if a village so close to the coast had no such illicit connections, it would have long since been slaughtered, looted, and burned to the ground by pirates.

Therefore, Zhang Chen intends to wipe out Futou Village, seize the wharf, and secure an outlet to the sea.

Under normal circumstances, the village does not rob official ships, nor do they harass vessels or personnel entering and leaving their wharf. This is why they have managed to avoid ruthless suppression by the authorities. Zhang Chen believes the government will not pursue him if he eliminates the village, yet he still decides to find a righteous and impeccable excuse to destroy it.

"You plan to send Ya-chun home just to invite me to dinner alone? Zhang Chen, what are you plotting?" Zhu Weijin scolded him. "A man and a woman alone—don't tell me you harbor improper thoughts about this princess!"

"I wouldn't dare. But, if you were to marry me and bring the Qingzhou Trading Company as your dowry, I might consider granting you the position of an equal wife."

Zhang Chen shot a glare at Tian Ya-chun. Little Tian regretted her actions; she had changed her mind and no longer wished to divorce him. To marry Miss Xu, he had no choice but to kill more high-profile bandits wanted by the imperial court, hoping to petition the Emperor for a decree allowing him to take two equal wives with the same status as his primary spouse.

"Audacious! How dare you speak of marrying a princess? Zhang Chen, do you want the court to confiscate your property and execute your entire family? Hmph..."

Zhu Weijin's personal bodyguard, Zhu Qingzhu, rebuked Zhang Chen sternly before glancing at the princess. The thought of Zhang Chen taking this twenty-year-old spinster princess as an equal wife was, well, impossible. Though Zhang Chen was exceptionally handsome, he was but a lowly matrilocal son-in-law. This simply would not do!

"Delusional! You, a mere live-in son-in-law, want to take me as an equal wife?" Zhu Weijin kicked him. "You really have the gall to think it! I could never marry you. Get those thoughts out of your head!"

The so-called "three wives and four concubines" refers to one primary wife and two equal wives. Nominally, an equal wife holds the same status as the primary, but that is only in name. The marriage system of the Ming Dynasty is one wife and multiple concubines; the law does not recognize the status of an equal wife. Ming law dictates that a man who takes a second wife while his first is still alive shall receive ninety strokes of the cane. Generally, those in the know do not recognize such arrangements. Of course, if the Emperor issues a decree granting a man permission to take two equal wives, their status would indeed become equal to that of the primary wife.

"It was just a slip of the tongue, Princess Zhu. I am nearly penniless and merely coveting the lucrative Qingzhou Trading Company. It was just idle talk—how could I possibly dare to set my sights on you? If I can manage to win over Miss Xu in these two years, I shall consider myself fortunate indeed!"

Just then, Zhang Chen saw Zhang Xianghua running over. "Slow down, Xianghua. What is the matter?"

"Master, the Magistrate, along with the old madam of the Tian family, Young Master Tian Eryi, and Young Master Tian Yayi, have arrived with a village elder." Zhang Xianghua whispered a curse against Tian Ya-chun internally. "Young Master Tian is shouting that he will report your moral failings to the Education Commissioner, ensuring you never pass the examination to become a scholar."

Without the Tian family's permission, Zhang Chen, as their son-in-law, had indeed erred by taking a concubine. The preliminary examinations are presided over by the provincial Education Commissioner. If the Tian family were to join forces with a village elder and report Zhang Chen to the Commissioner's office in Jinan, the third-rank Commissioner, Wang Xiangqiu, would likely disqualify Zhang Chen from the examinations on the grounds of poor character.

"It is nothing. I shall return and play dead," Zhang Chen laughed. "Let them scold me. Let them scold me all they want; it won't cost me a single copper. I will worry about it once I pass the imperial examination."

"Master, are you 'sleeping on brushwood and tasting gall' to settle the score later?" Dongmei thought to herself. "If you make up with the young mistress, our master wouldn't just stop scolding you—he might even give you a sum of silver."

"If Old Man Tian gives me a sum of silver, let's say a hundred thousand taels..." Zhang Chen was truly destitute. Construction materials were cheap, but Zhang Village required so much that it would cost a fortune. He dared not forge steel blades privately yet, and those sold by the government were exorbitantly expensive. Xia Hua had given most of the family's savings to Zhang Chen; the coffers were nearly empty.

"You want my father to give you a hundred thousand taels? Husband... Zhang Chen, have you gone mad from poverty?" Tian Ya-chun scolded. "The funds allocated from above are not enough to support those one thousand militia members. My father is acting like a fool, paying out of his own pocket to feed them, and you swindled him out of sixty thousand taels yesterday. Now, he cannot even scrape together five thousand."

"In the eyes of a scholar, how can that be called swindling? That was me reclaiming my dowry." Zhang Chen glared at Tian Ya-chun and headed home to face the music.

"Smooth-talking, slick, and glib—Zhang Chen has absolutely nothing to do with being 'dull-witted'." Zhu Weijin remarked. "Ya-chun, you and your family have truly driven Zhang Chen to become a completely different person. You are all quite something!"

"Princess, you..." Tian Ya-chun thought to herself, resenting Zhu Weijin's schadenfreude. "A leopard cannot change its spots. Perhaps Zhang Chen was always a scoundrel and merely feigned stupidity before."

"That makes sense. A person cannot suddenly become someone entirely different." Zhu Weijin furrowed her delicate brows. "Zhang Chen has his eyes on Zihan. I fear she will not escape his clutches. Poor Zihan!"

Watching Miss Xu blush while seemingly flirting with Zhang Chen by stepping on his foot at the Ma family clinic, Zhu Qingzhu thought to herself, "Princess, I suspect Miss Xu is actually hoping Zhang Chen will come to Jinan to propose."

"After swindling over a hundred thousand taels in town yesterday, Zhang Chen immediately used our Qingzhou Trading Company to purchase iron, saltpeter, and other strategic materials. He has recruited hundreds of men and is undertaking massive construction projects at Zhang Village." Zhu Qingzhu gently stroked her bangs. "Zhang Chen is a man of great ambition. In the future, he may very well secure an imperial decree to take two equal wives, and I suspect Miss Xu would be more than willing to be one of them."