Tongxiang County, located southwest of Jiaxing Prefecture, bordered Hangzhou Prefecture.
At this moment, a high platform stood outside the city gates, with two to three thousand men gathered densely below, divided clearly into three groups.
One group consisted of about a thousand garrison soldiers, less than a third of whom were young and fit, the rest being old, weak, or infirm, hailing from the Hangzhou Garrison. Another group comprised over a thousand able-bodied civilians. The third group, numbering only around five hundred, looked like household retainers. Among them, a hundred stood out as exceptionally fierce, radiating a murderous aura, while the rest appeared as lax as wandering mercenaries.
Before them was the platform, where Zhao Chong, the magistrate of Jiaxing, stood brimming with ambition, surveying the crowd.
“I know there are many rumours about me, claiming I, Zhao Chong, am an incompetent fool who caused Jiaxing’s fall.”
“Of course, some rumours liken me to Zhao Mingcheng, saying I fled the city by rope when the Japanese pirates attacked.”
“There’s even an absurd rumour that I, Zhao Chong, surrendered to the pirates, a traitor who handed Jiaxing over to them.”
“Hahaha, utter nonsense, pure nonsense! These rumours crumble before the truth!”
Standing on the platform, Zhao Chong passionately listed the long-circulating “rumours” about him, denouncing them as baseless, his spittle flying like rain.
The crowd below buzzed. The man on the platform was the magistrate; they didn’t dare openly contradict or slander him. But in their hearts, they had their own measure of truth. Forty thousand pirates attacked Suzhou, and Suzhou’s Zhu Ping’an nearly wiped them out, with only four hundred surviving. Yet those four hundred attacked Jiaxing and took it in one fell swoop. When Jiaxing fell, you didn’t stand and die with the city—you escaped by rope.
By comparison, if you, the Jiaxing magistrate, aren’t incompetent, who is? If you didn’t abandon the city, who did?
Of course, they didn’t dare voice this to Zhao Chong’s face, only muttering quietly below.
Zhao Chong noticed the crowd’s reaction. To salvage his dignity, he continued spinning lies.
“Those pirates weren’t ordinary. Why did only they escape from the forty thousand who attacked Suzhou? Because they were the elite of the elite, each one a formidable warrior.”
“Do you know about the dozens of pirates who landed in Shaoxing six months ago? They burned, killed, and looted, storming cities and fortresses, rampaging over a thousand li, breaking through imperial forces, and strutting under Yingtian’s walls!”
“Every one of those four hundred pirates is on that level—each worth a hundred men, catching arrows barehanded, impervious to blades, unstoppable in battle!”
“Suzhou Prefecture and Lord Zhu Ping’an—why could they destroy forty thousand pirates but not these four hundred, only watching them swagger away? Because these pirates are that formidable. Neither Suzhou nor Lord Zhu could handle them!”
“A few dozen pirates of that calibre could rampage a thousand li and topple cities. That day, four hundred of them ambushed Jiaxing! Damnable, hateful! I had no prior intelligence. Suzhou didn’t warn us of these pirates or their movements to Jiaxing. Caught off guard, we lost the initiative. One misstep led to another. Though we fought fearlessly, Jiaxing still fell.”
“After Jiaxing’s fall, I personally led my guards, cutting down over a dozen pirates to break through and seek aid from Governor Li Tianchong. I wanted to strike back with reinforcements before the pirates could settle in. But alas, not only did I fail to secure aid, I was thrown in prison, missing the chance to retake Jiaxing.”
On the platform, Zhao Chong’s spittle flew as he excused Jiaxing’s fall, boasting of the pirates’ might and his own heroic resistance, blaming Suzhou for not warning them and Governor Li Tianchong for denying him aid and jailing him. He spoke with such conviction he almost believed it himself.
But a lie is a lie, and lies are a hundred thousand li from the truth.
“They didn’t warn us? That very night, Suzhou sent men shouting warnings about fleeing pirates. Even our village heard it.”
“Wasn’t Zhao caught in his Hangzhou villa? When did he go to Governor Li for aid?”
“This isn’t an explanation—it’s a cover-up.”
The crowd didn’t buy Zhao Chong’s excuses, muttering and scoffing below.
“Fine, I know many of you still don’t believe me. No matter. I’ll prove it with actions.”
Seeing his words hadn’t swayed them, Zhao Chong gritted his teeth and played his trump card, waving toward one direction.
Soon, from where he waved, two retainers emerged, carrying a heavy wooden chest.
“Open it!”
Zhao Chong ordered.
The two men opened the chest, revealing a dazzling gleam of silver that nearly blinded the crowd.
“This chest holds three thousand taels of silver—not from the court, but from my own pocket. My ancestral home is in Hangzhou, with a mansion passed down for over a century. Yesterday, I sold it for fifty taels below market price, getting eight hundred taels. My family’s hundred mu of irrigated land in Hangzhou, worth ten taels per mu, I sold for eight taels per mu to move quickly. Yesterday, I swallowed my pride and borrowed over a thousand taels from friends and gentry, scraping together these three thousand taels.”
“Some of you are borrowed troops from the Hangzhou Garrison, some are recruited civilians, some are my household retainers or borrowed from other estates. Regardless of who you are, each of you will get one tael of silver—today’s pay! From now on, you’ll get one tael daily. Don’t worry about me defaulting. My family still has valuable heirlooms. Even if I must sell everything, I won’t owe you a single tael. If I do, may heaven strike me dead!”
Zhao Chong kicked the silver chest, making his promise to the crowd.
The men grew excited.
One tael a day!
They might earn a few taels in a whole year.
One tael a day was an astronomical sum.
Morale surged instantly.
