Chapter Forty-Four: Battling the Assembly of Scholars

Through meticulous calculation by Zhang Chen, the gold, silver, treasures, damask, silk, iron blocks, grain, and other valuable items from the Qishan Thousand-Household Office and Futou Village amounted to a total equivalent of slightly over 49,600 liang of silver. Zhao Chengxuan, Liu Lige, Dengzhou Prefecture Magistrate Liu Zongyuan, Jinyiwei Company Commander Yang Fulai, as well as Tian Xuewen, Qi Dazhi, and Shi Keren in the living room were all so startled that they staggered backward.

Among the hundreds of people in the Zhang Village militia, words spread easily. That night, the amount of gold, silver, treasures, damask, silk, iron blocks, grain, and other valuable items seized by Zhang Village was known to most of the villagers.

Zhang Chen was utterly shameless. Zhang Er'an and the few maidservants in the living room all had the urge to cover their faces and walk away. Well, comrades deeply sympathized with Zhang Chen; on that particular night, Zhang Chen had led the Zhang Village militia to bravely face over two thousand Japanese pirates or bandits, fighting with utter disregard for life and limb to seize a batch of loot.

Today, people dispatched by the three prefectural yamens of Dengzhou City had come to Zhang Village simply to snatch away that batch of loot.

Zhang Chen lacked powerful patrons; he was merely a lowly former son-in-law who had exhausted his wits to maneuver between the yamens of the Governor, the Regional Commander, and the Prefect. It was no easy feat for him!

Although they did not know the exact value in silver of the gold, silver, treasures, damask, silk, iron blocks, and other valuables that the Zhang Village militia had plundered from the Qishan Thousand-Household Office and Futou Village, Zhao Chengxuan, Liu Lige, Liu Zongyuan, and the others were certain that the true worth of those assets was several times higher than the 49,600-odd liang stated by Zhang Chen.

Zhang Chen was completely shameless. Infuriated, Liu Lige suddenly leaped to his feet and drew his waist saber: "Toying with this general! Zhang Chen, you have some nerve! Do you take it that I wouldn't dare execute you?"

"You wouldn't dare!"

Zhang Er'an rose unhurriedly, casting a disdainful glance at Liu Lige: "Drawing a blade here in Zhang Village, thinking we are easy to bully, are you? If you've got the guts, measure yourself against me! Don't worry, I won't beat you to death—at most, I'll just break your legs."

"Zhang Chen, are you planning a rebellion?" Liu Lige blustered, putting up a fierce front.

"There's a well-known phrase called 'officials drive the people to rebel,'" Zhang Chen replied calmly, glancing at Liu Lige. "If you push me too far, I wouldn't mind doing away with you and setting up as a mountain king in Cishan."

"Father-in-law, Brother Zhang, let's all calm down," Qi Dazhi cursed Zhang Chen inwardly before speaking. "The silver, treasures, damask, silk, iron blocks, and other supplies looted by the Japanese pirates from our Qishan Thousand-Household Office were worth over 280,000 liang of silver. Zhang Chen, aren't your calculations mistaken?"

"Brother Qi speaks well. Your Qishan Thousand-Household Office did indeed lose over 280,000 liang worth of goods to the pirates. That night by the shore, however, I led fewer than five hundred men in a bloody battle against over 1,200 Japanese pirates, wiping out nearly a thousand of them."

Zhang Chen took a sip of water: "More than two hundred pirates took advantage of the chaos to board their ships and escape. Brother Qi, this younger brother is incompetent and failed to keep every single one of those thousand-odd pirates here. Those two hundred escaping pirates sailed away with dozens of large vessels."

"Our Zhang Village militia only managed to capture over forty ships, and the wealth aboard all of them combined came to less than 50,000 liang. Old Qi, I'm sorry, I failed to recover that 280,000-liang batch of loot the pirates stole from your Qishan Thousand-Household Office. You aren't going to make me compensate you for it, are you?"

Zhang Chen cast a look at Qi Dazhi. The pirates had been formidable, and as Li Dahua had said, right at the start of the battle, Qi Dazhi had fled with his personal retainers; thus, Qi Dazhi surely knew nothing of the situation at the shoreline.

Over the past couple of years, as he grew older, Qi Dazhi had lost much of his martial spirit. He no longer dared to risk his life fighting pirates, having instead taken three concubines this year and devoting himself to enjoying life.

Indeed, Qi Dazhi knew nothing of the actual situation. What Zhang Chen said sounded reasonable, and Zhao Chengxuan, Liu Lige, and Liu Zongyuan of the joint investigation team had already confirmed that the goods seized by Zhang Village from the Qishan Thousand-Household Office were worth just over 40,000 liang of silver.

"The gold, silver, treasures, damask, silk, iron blocks, and other items from the Qishan Thousand-Household Office and Futou Village found in Zhang Village total only a little over 49,600 liang of silver, and the ones from the Qishan Thousand-Household Office amount to a little over 40,000 liang."

Shi Keren wore an expression of absolute disbelief: "The wealth your Zhang Village militia plundered from Futou Village is only worth a little over 2,000 liang? How can that be possible?"

"What? Is a little over 2,000 liang of silver considered a small amount?"

Zhang Chen glanced at Shi Keren: "Does Master Shi suppose that the villagers of Futou Village are all as wealthy as you, sitting on fortunes worth tens of thousands? Our Zhang Village has hundreds of households, yet all our household possessions combined do not amount to 5,000 liang of silver. You must remember, our Zhang Village has nearly three thousand villagers, whereas Futou Village has only a little over a thousand."

"Liu Village boasts several major merchants and is quite a wealthy settlement, but villages as rich as Liu Village are rare! For the entire wealth of Futou Village to add up to over 2,000 liang is actually quite a substantial sum among the villages and towns of the Great Ming."

Zhang Chen looked at Shi Keren once more: "Master Shi surely has never heard the saying 'why don't they eat meat porridge?' I suggest Master Shi take the time to learn about it."

Shi Keren, a prominent local gentry figure in Dengzhou Prefecture, was exceptionally knowledgeable, well-read in the classics, and regarded as one of the preeminent Confucian scholars in the entire prefecture.

Yet Zhang Chen had publicly ridiculed Shi Keren, calling his erudition into question.

Most of the people present revealed hints of schadenfreude; after all, Shi Keren had come to Zhang Village precisely to grab a share of Futou Village's wealth.

Zhao Chengxuan, Liu Lige, and Liu Zongyuan of the joint investigation team already disliked Shi Keren, and they were more than happy to watch Zhang Chen corner him. They secretly hoped Zhang Chen would anger Shi Keren enough to make him flick his sleeves in disgust and storm out of Zhang Village.

"You—you ignorant child, how dare you humiliate me..."

Old Shi was so furious he was practically on the verge of exploding, causing him to blurt out recklessly: "With nearly all the able-bodied young men acting as pirates, Futou Village is literally a pirate den! How could they possibly possess a mere two thousand odd liang of silver?"

"There it is! Master Shi Keren has put it brilliantly. So Futou Village really was a pirate village all along."

A faint, mocking smile played on Zhang Chen's lips as he looked at Zhao Chengxuan, Liu Lige, and Liu Zongyuan of the joint investigation team:

"The three of you, nine hundred pirates from the pirate village of Futou Village launched a nocturnal raid on Zhang Village. After we shattered the invading pirates and launched a counter-offensive all the way to Futou Village, stripping the pirate village bare of its wealth, what crime have we committed? Could it be that pirates are permitted to plunder our property, but we are not permitted to seize the property of pirates? There is no such logic under heaven!"

"This..." Zhao Chengxuan, who served as the chief strategist to the Governor of Dengzhou and Laizhou Sun Yuanhua and headed the joint investigation team, cursed Shi Keren inwardly.

By backing Shi Keren into a corner and provoking him into a careless outburst, the sharp-witted Zhang Chen had successfully seized upon the loophole in Shi Keren's words. Righteously and defiantly, he cross-examined Zhao Chengxuan, Liu Lige, and Liu Zongyuan, leaving the three of them completely speechless.

This little bastard Zhang Chen no longer showed even a trace of foolishness or dullness.

Tian Xuewen cursed Zhang Chen inwardly:

Though exceptionally talented and capable, Zhang Chen had not even firmly established his footing in Zhang Village before taking Xiaohua, the personal maid who had remained steadfastly by his side through thick and thin, as his concubine. A man of deep loyalty, righteousness, and handsome appearance, Zhang Chen would have been a match made in heaven for Ya chun. What a pity that Ya chun failed to seize the opportunity. Alas—

After Ya chun and Zhang Chen were married on the twenty-eighth day of the eighth month, had Ya chun truly shared the bridal chamber with him, had she not driven Zhang Chen out to Zhang Village, Zhang Chen would right now be his second son-in-law.

Sighing inwardly, Tian Xuewen shook his head. There were no "what-ifs"—in a moment, he would simply drag that stubborn girl Ya chun away by force!