“Dong… Dong…” The bells tolled, resonating endlessly.
Amid the chimes, Emperor Jiajing’s imperial procession, guarded by the Embroidered Uniform Guard, arrived at the Meridian Gate. The bells ceased.
Honglu Temple officials knelt before the imperial carriage, respectfully inviting Jiajing to board the palanquin.
Distant village heads, gentry, and elders caught a fleeting glimpse of the emperor’s entourage and Jiajing himself, their faces flushing with excitement. One glance was enough—no regrets in this life.
Jiajing ascended the palanquin, and the Music Bureau struck up ceremonial tunes. When he took his seat on the dragon throne atop the Meridian Gate tower, the music stopped.
Below, the Embroidered Guard cracked whips to silence the scene. The air grew solemn.
For the captive pirates, the atmosphere was oppressively majestic, like standing in Yama’s hall awaiting final judgment, their souls nearly fleeing in terror.
“Advance!”
The ritual officers shouted in unison.
A Ministry of Rites official, bearing the victory report, stepped to the gate, performed four deep bows to Jiajing above, and presented the report.
“Read the report,” Jiajing nodded. Officers behind echoed his command loudly.
The official read aloud.
The ceremony proceeded step by step, building to the thrilling climax: the presentation of captives.
The pirates were led to their designated spot, facing north, kneeling with foreheads to the ground, awaiting their fate.
They knelt numbly, like lost souls. Facing such imperial might, their spirits had long shattered.
Even their leader, Chen Dong, was no better—pale and trembling.
The highest officials they’d ever seen were county lieutenants or magistrates when they sacked towns, maybe a prefect glimpsed on city walls.
Now, any official here was beyond their reach, let alone the figure atop the tower: the supreme ruler of the Ming, Emperor Jiajing!
The suffocating aura of authority crushed Chen Dong and the others, their hearts feeling squeezed to bursting.
“Xu Hai, Chen Dong, and their ilk have forsaken all conscience, burning, killing, and looting without restraint. These traitors, defying heaven’s law, seized Tuolin and other places as pirate dens, plundering far and wide. Nearly a hundred villages were razed, men, women, children, and elders slaughtered. Infants were skewered like gourds or drowned in latrines, eighty-year-old women violated to death. Such atrocities defy description… I, Minister of Justice He Ao, request all captured pirates be sentenced to death by lingchi, to be executed at the Caishikou market. I await Your Majesty’s decree!”
He Ao stepped forward, his voice thundering with righteous fury, denouncing the pirates’ crimes, echoing to the skies.
After his stern indictment, he prostrated before Jiajing, unmoving.
The crowd clenched their fists, glaring at the pirates, itching to tear them apart with their teeth.
“Approved. Take them!” Jiajing scrawled “Approved” in bold strokes, tossing his brush with flair.
“Approved. Take them!” Eunuch Huang Jin reverently lifted the decree, repeating Jiajing’s words.
“Approved. Take them!” Eunuchs and ministers on the tower echoed.
“Approved. Take them!”
Farther officials and soldiers roared in turn.
From near to far.
From the tower to the Imperial Way below.
From one voice to eight, eight to twenty-four, twenty-four to hundreds, then thousands—soldiers, Factory Guards, shouting as one.
“Approved. Take them!” thundered like divine judgment.
“Death by lingchi…”
Hearing their fate, the kneeling pirates collapsed, Chen Dong included, paralyzed with fear.
Lingchi—slow slicing, the cruelest punishment, no contest. Three thousand three hundred fifty-seven cuts, death only at the final slice.
While the pirates quaked, the crowd erupted in excitement at the sentence.
“His Majesty is wise! Long live, long live, ten thousand years!”
“His Majesty is wise! Long live!”
“Down with the pirates!”
“Down with the pirates!”
The cheers of “His Majesty is wise” and “Down with the pirates” rippled from the gate, spreading citywide.
Infected by the fervor, the entire capital joined, shouting in unison.
The cries, like tidal waves, shook the city, as if to tear the heavens.
Atop the tower, Jiajing heard the endless cheers and anti-pirate chants, a satisfied smile crossing his face. The ceremony’s purpose—to boost morale and rally the people—had succeeded.
The people’s spirit was usable. With such a populace, how could the pirates not be crushed?
Jiajing was pleased with the event.
The pirates, meanwhile…
Like heaps of mud, they were dragged up by the Embroidered Guard, marched to the West Flower Gate, then on to Caishikou for execution.
“Behead at the Meridian Gate” was just drama talk. The gate, the Forbidden City’s grand entrance, was too sacred for executions. Caishikou was the real site.
Its crowds made it ideal for public executions—kill one, warn a hundred, deter evildoers with fear of being next.
As the pirates passed the West Flower Gate, enraged citizens pelted them with rotten vegetables and eggs.
It was like a storm of filth, nearly burying them.
Soon, they were unrecognizable.
Amid curses and hurled refuse, they reached Caishikou, tied to execution posts.
When red-clad, red-turbaned executioners appeared, the faint-hearted pirates fainted, soiling themselves. Even the bold trembled like leaves.
The executioners doused them with cold water to clean the filth, preparing for the task.
Besides local executioners, many were rushed in from nearby towns.
Lingchi was skilled work. Not all executioners could do it—only seasoned ones. The capital had fewer than thirty such experts; nearby towns, less than ten.
This was normal. Only the worst criminals warranted lingchi. Since the Ming’s founding, fewer than a thousand had faced it, under ten a year. With little practice, skilled executioners were rare.
But now, with over 400 pirates to slice, they had to make do, pulling every veteran available.
The higher-ups relaxed the rule: no need for 3,357 cuts—just over fifty would do.
