Chapter 125: Burning the Ancestral Hall

A raging inferno consumed the Zhou family ancestral hall. One could only guess at the filth hidden within those walls, as the thick, dark smoke billowed so high and wide it could be seen from ten miles away.

The clan elders, tied to trees, wailed and lamented their fate, crying that life was no longer worth living. Zhao Hengyi ordered his men to untie them. Despite their histrionics, none of these old relics actually dared to throw themselves into the flames to join their ancestors.

The second master of the Zhou family, having practiced a bit of martial arts in his youth, worked up the courage to lead a few servants in an attempt to block them. He was swiftly brought down by a blow from the hilt of Wang Erhu’s blade; he lay on the ground feigning death, and no one else in the Zhou family dared to make a sound.

A commotion broke out in the main courtyard—the old master of the Zhou family had been so enraged that he had collapsed into a faint. It remained to be seen whether the old man would pull through.

The third branch of the Zhou family and the head steward stepped forward together, offering two hundred taels of silver and pleading for mercy, begging Zhao Hengyi and his men to spare them from further destruction.

This Zhou the Third, much like Zhou Xingwang, had studied for a few years. Though he had never earned a degree, he always carried himself as a man of letters, constantly boasting of his classmates and friends throughout Dangyang County—though no one knew if there was any truth to it.

"Master Zhao, you have injured our clan elders and burned our ancestral hall. If you stop here, our Zhou family will accept the loss! But if you continue to act so recklessly, even if it means the ruin of my entire family, I will strike the drum at the county magistrate’s office and demand justice! I may be a nobody, but I have several classmates in the county town who are acquainted with the Magistrate!"

While offering the two hundred taels, Zhou the Third attempted to posture and threaten. Zhao Hengyi did not even bother to blink at such a scoundrel, who would likely refuse to shed tears even when faced with his own coffin.

"Is it not embarrassing for the Zhou family to claim they only know the Magistrate? Others may not know, but I am well aware—the Zhou family’s connections go far beyond a mere county official! You even have ties to the Prefect, Su Shenchang!"

Ignoring the pallor of Zhou the Third’s face, Zhao Hengyi continued, "Oh, I forgot—Prefect Su was assassinated a couple of days ago... I wonder if the Zhou family has made any new friends in the Jiangling Prefecture office yet?"

The Zhou family had previously colluded with Su Shenchang, secretly harboring straggling soldiers gathered from the borders. The younger members of the Zhou family had even joined these deserters to become bandits in the mountains—a secret so deep that even Zhou the Third knew little of it. Now that Zhao Hengyi had laid it bare, Zhou the Third was struck with sheer terror. If this matter were to be exposed, such a crime alone would be enough to see the Zhou family completely wiped out.

The elder had spent vast fortunes and risked the lives of his entire kin to secure a connection with Prefect Su Shenchang. They had expected the Zhou family to soar to new heights, yet those deserters had proven useless and died mysteriously in the mountains. The Zhou family had spent a period of time in anxious dread, fearing Su Shenchang’s wrath, only to hear news of his death a few days ago. Those in the know within the family did not know whether to cry or laugh, believing the matter had vanished with Su Shenchang’s life—yet here was Zhao Hengyi, who knew every detail.

"Zhou the Third, go back and tell your father: from now on, the Zhou family is not to obstruct anyone who wishes to work at Yushu Bay. If you do, the next thing to burn will be much more than just your ancestral hall!"

Leaving behind this chilling threat that left Zhou the Third utterly soul-broken, Zhao Hengyi departed with his guards. Accompanying them were Ergou’s family and seven other households. Many of the young men from Zhou Village who had been detained for forced labor at the kiln still had families who had not yet moved to Yushu Bay, but after such a display, surely their relocation would proceed far more smoothly.

The fate of the Zhou family spread throughout the areas surrounding Dangyang County within days. In villages where clan influence was strong, elders and chieftains trembled, a sense of shared dread rising from their hearts. For countless years, these elders had used the authority of the clan to rule and imprison ordinary people, exercising powers they had no right to hold and committing all manner of abuses.

This had only been possible because of the poverty of the common folk. In this Great Yan Kingdom, to leave one's village and fail to secure land to farm was, for most, a death sentence. It was precisely for this reason that the clan elders could suck the lifeblood from the peasants with such impunity.

But things were different now. The rise of Yushu Bay and the arrival of Zhao Hengyi had provided the poor with a new, better path to survival. Anyone who understood the true state of Yushu Bay knew what choices the tenant farmers, who had spent their lives working for landlords, would make once they learned of this alternative.

The Zhou family was not the only one blocking their people from working at Yushu Bay; other great families closer to Yushu Bay had long been doing the same in secret. However, once the news of the Zhou family’s fate reached their ears, these so-called great families quietly abandoned their underhanded tactics.

The ancestral hall had been burned, the old master had died of rage, and the Zhou family hadn't dared to make a peep—was that not proof enough?

Among the villages around Dangyang County, those closest to Yushu Bay were the poorest, with the most barren land. Several villages adjacent to Yushu Bay were actually begging for the chance to work there. Some even offered to let Zhao Hengyi build workshops on their land, promising that whatever plot he chose would be provided free of charge.

Under these circumstances, the only reason the workshops at Yushu Bay still felt a labor shortage was that the manpower in these poor, clan-less villages had already been tapped dry. To gain more workers, the shackles of the clans in other villages had to be broken. The incident at Zhou Village caused those invisible shackles to vanish overnight, and suddenly, a steady stream of new workers flowed into the workshops. Once the floodgates were opened, it was impossible for the clan elders to close them again.

Within days of returning to Yushu Bay from Jiangling City, Zhao Hengyi had solved the daunting problem that had left the old village chief and the stewards at their wits' end. Everything in this world follows its own natural law; as a massive amount of labor shifted into industrialized workshops, it inevitably left the landlords' fields without tenants. Ground rents were forced to drop, and land prices began a slow decline. The landlords around Dangyang County could only weep in silence; as they sat at home, their wealth inexplicably dwindled.

Zhou Xingwang was released, and it was said he immediately fell into a vicious struggle with the second and third branches of the family over the inheritance. The people of Zhou Village cheered, watching as the largest clan in the vicinity of Dangyang County fell into disarray. Many villagers left, and it was unlikely the clan would ever regain its power.

Zhou Yonglin, who had initially come to Yushu Bay to tip off the family, now settled into his life as a teacher at the night school. The only thing was that the textbooks provided by his employer were becoming increasingly incomprehensible—or perhaps, increasingly alarming to read.