Apart from the provincial office complex including the rear residence Lotus Garden, the provincial prison was probably the largest-scale building in the city—a super-sized compound enclosed by walls one zhang and eight chi high.
Besides being extremely tall with sharp clam shells and ceramic shards embedded in the middle and upper sections to prevent climbing, the prison’s outer walls were built a full six chi thick, consisting of two rammed earth walls with river sand filled between them.
Even if prisoners wanted to dig through the walls to escape, opening a breach in one side’s rammed earth wall, the river sand inside would come pouring out from the hole, making it difficult for prisoners to break out.
Additionally, tall guard towers were built at the prison’s four corners, with jailers on duty in them day and night, able to survey conditions inside and outside the prison compound.
Apart from a tightly locked corpse-dragging hole in the northwest corner, the prison had only one entrance and exit in the southwest corner. Walking through the main gate, one first entered the prison office where the prison warden and jailers normally worked and stationed, then further in were the outer cells, women’s cells, and inner cells holding serious criminals.
The prison had only sixty cells, and they were extremely cramped—each merely three paces square, meaning each cell averaged nearly twenty prisoners.
Fortunately, Xuzhou’s weather remained quite cool even after entering summer, with rare high temperatures. Otherwise, in furnace-like terrain like Jinling, who knows how many would be suffocated or heat-stroked to death in these cells after summer began.
It was now approaching midnight. The final night patrol had been completed. Most jailers and duty clerks had returned to the barracks in the front prison office to rest, with only a dozen jailers responsible for the night watch. No one had imagined the new Prefect would storm the prison office on the very first night of assuming his post.
Seeing Fan Xicheng holding high Prefect Han Daoxun’s bronze seal and Prison Warden Zhang Xiaochuan being escorted to the prison office gate by Zhao Kuo and others, the head jailer on duty in the front gate tower even had someone lower a small basket, wanting Fan Xicheng to place the prefectural seal inside for him to verify.
At Han Qian’s signal, Gao Shao and Zhao Wuji both struck simultaneously. Two arrows pierced straight through that head jailer’s throat. The head jailer gave a muffled grunt and fell straight backward, followed by a dull thud as he hit the ground.
Lin Jingzong led a team using rope hooks to swiftly climb the guard tower, confiscated the weapons and crossbows from the three jailers in the high tower who were already pale with fright, and quickly opened the gate from inside.
Seeing the household guards the Prefect had brought to Xuzhou act so decisively and ruthlessly, Zhang Xiaochuan and Liu Bin turned pale.
The gate before the prison office swung open. The duty clerks and other jailer leaders who had already gone to sleep ran out from the barracks, not knowing what was happening. They only saw a group wearing official robes, clustered by fierce soldiers, directly storm into the prison office stronghold, while the head jailer on duty, Liu Genzhu, already lay dead on the spot, two arrows piercing his throat, blood still continuously seeping out.
“I am the new Prefect Han Daoxun.” Han Daoxun took the seal from Fan Xicheng, held it high under the pine resin torchlight, and declared sternly, “All jailers on duty tonight, remove your armor and weapons and await inspection. All other personnel, unless summoned, are not to leave the barracks. Anyone who dares resist will be killed without exception! Which duty clerk is present? Quickly bring all jailer and prisoner rosters to the office!”
Han Daoxun had previously served as Judicial Officer in Chuzhou. Fan Xicheng and two other household guards had followed Han Daoxun since then and were quite familiar with contemporary prison structures.
Without need for deliberate instructions from Han Daoxun, Fan Xicheng immediately led a team to check the closure of passages from the prison office to the cells. Guo Nu’er, Gao Shao, Tian Cheng and others each led teams to replace the jailers on duty at the four corner guard towers, temporarily monitoring activities inside and outside the provincial prison.
Zhao Kuo and Zhao Wuji led ten men to guard the office area.
Han Daoxun silently reviewed the rosters and account books in the prison office. The prison office was silent as death.
Xue Ruogu mustered his courage to ask, “Your Excellency the Prefect, is there confirmed intelligence of changes in the provincial prison?”
“Thirty-six new prisoners detained just in the last three days—is Xuzhou truly a bandit’s lair? Moreover, the prison has only sixty jailers despite several expansions. Last night, citing weapons and armor wear, new requisitions were made for sixty iron spears, sixty simple sabers, sixty iron shields, and sixty sets of armor. Whose idea was this? Are all the prison’s soldiers supposed to get a new set of armor?” Han Daoxun ignored Xue Ruogu’s question and stared fiercely at Prison Warden Zhang Xiaochuan.
Seeing this commotion, everyone nervously speculated whether the new Prefect had obtained inside information knowing the prison had problems. When Han Daoxun clearly laid out the suspicious points in the prison office rosters and accounts, everyone finally realized the prison faced not a simple problem, but an imminent riot involving internal and external collusion.
Xue Ruogu and the others turned pale. They weren’t stupid—with the new Prefect just arriving in Qianyang City and the prison already having people colluding inside and out plotting a riot, anyone could deduce that extremely key figures must be involved to create such a situation.
Moreover, the four fierce soldiers behind Zhang Xiaochuan and Liu Bin were practically holding blades to their throats.
At this moment, troops guarding outside the prison dragged in two jailer corpses: “These two tried to jump the wall and escape.”
Staring at the two limp, not-yet-stiffened corpses, Han Qian smiled coldly and had them piled in the courtyard corner with the head jailer who had been shot earlier.
As long as the riot on the prison side hadn’t erupted and they caught them off guard, the situation was still manageable. After all, Prison Warden Zhang Xiaochuan had been controlled by them immediately and couldn’t further incite people.
Even if there were still confidants of the four clans planted among the jailers, lacking sufficient prestige, they couldn’t incite other jailers and head jailers to rebel against the new Prefect. But if information reached the provincial garrison, the problem might become far more serious than imagined.
When Great Chu was founded, to compromise with the great Shanyue clans in exchange for allegiance from provinces like Xu and Chen, key positions like Military Advisor fell almost entirely into the hands of the great clans and powerful strongmen. This also meant the garrison’s four to five hundred troops consisted mainly of Shanyue descendants from the four clans.
If information leaked before they controlled the situation at the prison and the four clans desperately incited the garrison troops to riot, the situation would become a complete mess. The best outcome then would be fighting their way out and retreating to Chenzhou or Langzhou to request reinforcements.
Whether Jinling chose appeasement or suppression, there would be no foothold for his father in Xuzhou.
If appeasing, they would certainly transfer his father away, perhaps even reprimanding or prosecuting him to placate the four clans. If suppressing, they would send another commanding general to take charge, and his father could only stand aside.
To prevent this scenario, Han Qian only brought forty men into the prison office with Han Daoxun. The other forty-plus forces continued dispersing and lurking around the prison perimeter, completely sealing off the provincial prison.
Perhaps the changing of guard tower personnel allowed prisoners to spot discrepancies through the barred gates. The cells now grew restless.
Though the barred gates were all cast iron, the cells themselves were rammed earth, and the cell gates weren’t secure. Moreover, these gates had long been tampered with.
After disarming the soldiers on duty that night and confining them along with Zhang Xiaochuan and Liu Bin in a barracks room, Han Qian climbed a guard tower with his father. They saw that inside the inner prison yard, two to three hundred prisoners had already rushed out from their cells, crowding the narrow courtyard. While making noise, they searched for climbing tools—some even bare-handedly dug at the courtyard walls.
“Nine hundred violent criminals rioting—think about how much chance you and your families have of escaping this catastrophe?” Han Daoxun stared at Xue Ruogu and the others and asked.
Xue Ruogu’s lips twitched. It wasn’t hard to imagine what kind of catastrophic disaster they would face if nine hundred prisoners successfully rioted and immediately obtained large quantities of weapons directly from the prison office.
“What should we do? Please instruct us, Your Excellency.” Xue Ruogu wasn’t stupid. Regardless of anything else, only by controlling the prison side as quickly as possible would there be any room to turn the situation around.
“You lead the informed jailers to mount the prison walls and prevent prisoners from climbing out.” Han Daoxun knew that though Xue Ruogu was a civil official, his willingness to travel alone to the provincial border to greet him showed some courage. He had him lead those relatively reliable jailers who had returned to barracks to rest after nightfall to mount the prison walls and prevent prisoners from climbing out.
Though they could barely suppress the prisoners, they couldn’t concentrate all their forces on suppressing the restless prisoners inside the provincial prison. They had to leave some forces to monitor the garrison direction. That being the case, even these remaining jailers weren’t completely reliable, but they could only risk using them.
“Li Tang, Qin Wen, honorable brothers, in this critical moment, please join me in assisting His Excellency.” Seeing Han Daoxun trust him and not treat him as a suspicious element requiring precaution, Xue Ruogu lived up to this trust by calling out two men he deemed problem-free and quite courageous to assist. Together they led the jailers to mount the walls for defense.
“I am the new Prefect Han Daoxun. Those who return to their cells now will not be held accountable!” Han Daoxun watched Xue Ruogu and the other two lead forty-some nervous jailers up the prison walls, then sternly shouted to the rioting prisoners in the prison yard.
“We probably can’t avoid bloodshed.” Han Qian lowered his voice and told his father.
Having long served as Judicial Officer, Han Daoxun knew that once rioting momentum built, suppression wasn’t easy. Seeing Zhao Kuo, Yang Qin, Tian Cheng and others already assembled thirty heavily armored warriors wielding heavy shields in the courtyard, however reluctant he felt, he knew that to prevent losing control of the situation, he must drive these rioting prisoners back into their cells in the shortest possible time.
“Open the prison yard!” Han Daoxun’s gaunt face grew increasingly severe. After a moment’s hesitation, he finally signaled Fan Xicheng to open the second heavy gate from the prison office into the prison yard, having Zhao Kuo, Yang Qin, and Tian Cheng lead nearly ten heavily armored warriors to charge in and suppress the rioting prisoners.