The wrecked vessel was impounded at the Jiulong River ferry crossing, and all those aboard were taken into custody and escorted back to the yamen.
Thirty-one people, every last one of them white-haired — anyone could see at a glance what the Qi Clan Hall was scheming.
On the way to custody, a young constable trailed behind Bao Bantou, muttering under his breath: “The Qi Clan Hall is truly ruthless — and generous, too. Sending dozens of clansmen all at once to hand that young official a meritorious deed. But the prefectural yamen is no longer under Qi Yi’s authority… Hey, Third Brother, what do you think that young official will do with these people? Will he really have them ‘beheaded’?” He drew a finger across his throat, then asked, “Or will he send them off to serve in the frontier garrison?”
Bao Bantou turned and snapped at the young constable, eyes blazing: “If you no longer want that tongue of yours, I’ll cut it off for you.”
Then he added: “Do your own duty. Don’t ask questions you shouldn’t.”
Those were his words, yet even Bao Bantou himself could not help craning forward, curious in his heart about how the Prefect would render judgment. If he was not mistaken, among the detainees being escorted in was a man who walked with a pronounced limp — the Twenty-Seventh Elder of the Qi Clan Hall, the most senior in generation among the Qi surname, ranked twenty-seventh.
The man was nearly eighty years old.
The closer a person stood to the edge of the grave, the more others sighed and lamented on his behalf.
If the Twenty-Seventh Elder truly died in prison, who could say how great a wave would be stirred up across Tong’an City.
——
Shuang’an Prefecture Yamen.
Pei Shaohuai swept his gaze across the assembled detainees and ordered them temporarily held, with formal court proceedings to commence at noon the following day. The sole exception was the Twenty-Seventh Elder, whom he had placed in the eastern side chamber of the yamen, with men specially assigned to stand guard and attend to him.
At dusk, Pei Shaohuai led Bao Bantou — who carried with him fine wine and good food — into the eastern side chamber.
The old man sat bolt upright, head tilted back, gazing at the skylight in the roof tiles where the last glow of sunset still lingered.
Only when the wine and dishes were set before him and Pei Shaohuai settled cross-legged across from him — the wine trickling into the cups with a soft murmur — did the Twenty-Seventh Elder finally look over, then cast his eyes downward to survey the few plates of delicacies.
Pei Shaohuai raised his wine cup first and gestured an invitation.
Pei Shaohuai had brought Bao Bantou along to serve as interpreter for the Min dialect; unexpectedly, the Twenty-Seventh Elder spoke fluent Mandarin. The old man drank first, picked up his bamboo chopsticks, and said: “Does the Prefect think I would not dare eat this last meal before the blade falls?”
Not the least bit courteous about it.
After sampling each dish, the old man stroked his goat-white beard — damp now with traces of wine — and declared: “Good wine. Good food.” Then he asked Pei Shaohuai: “I wonder whether my clansmen — those brothers aboard the vessel — have also been given a last meal as fine as this.” Only as he said it did something like sorrow surface in his eyes.
Pei Shaohuai instructed Bao Bantou: “Send the same meal to those in the cells.”
“Yes, my lord.” Bao Bantou withdrew.
“My lord is a straightforward man,” said the Twenty-Seventh Elder, still vigorous of voice despite his age. “This old man, over this last cup before the blade falls, wishes my lord a swift ascent and a rising career at every step… My lord has been in office for barely a month, yet the merit to your name is already considerable. I also ask my lord to honor his promise and leave the several hundred households of the Qi Clan Hall a path to survival.”
So that was it — this was the “merit” the Qi Clan Hall had offered up as the price of seeking peace.
After the Twenty-Seventh Elder drained his cup, Pei Shaohuai refilled it for him and said: “In the elder’s view, what sort of merit ought I to record in my report?”
“Unauthorized shipbuilding for sea voyage, colluding with pirates, trading with foreign merchants… so many crimes to choose from — my lord may arrange them however suits his liking. In the end, once the blade falls and the head hits the ground, what does it matter what charges are listed?”
Pei Shaohuai smiled without committing either way and continued to pour wine. He asked again: “How have I blocked the path to survival of the Qi Clan Hall’s people?”
“How have you blocked it?” The elder’s chopsticks stilled mid-reach. A flare of anger entered his gaze. Rather than answering directly, he lifted a single leaf of vegetable on his chopsticks and held it before Pei Shaohuai, asking by way of metaphor: “Something that takes root in the earth — it thrives when the soil is rich, and withers when the land is barren and dry. But men are not seedlings in the end. A person only has one life — can it really be that from the moment of birth, he must be buried in his three-tenth of an acre?”
“If every family had land, and every plot had water, that would be one thing. But along this coastline, when everyone knows a single acre of salt-crusted ground cannot sustain a life, are people supposed to simply wither and die of thirst in the alkaline soil?” The Twenty-Seventh Elder pressed on: “The people of the coast, crushed beneath authority with nowhere to turn — is that what the court wishes to see?… The court wants to make the common people into seedlings, yet men are not seedlings in the end. They have hands and feet. Wherever there is a chance at survival, that is where they will go.”
The Twenty-Seventh Elder extended a pair of old, roughened hands — his nails thick and brown from years of immersion in seawater — and fixed Pei Shaohuai with a burning gaze: “Prefect, the court has banned the sea. The Qi Clan Hall’s trade, the skill of wresting a living from the water that has been passed down through generation after generation, has no place to be put to use. Is that not cutting off our path to survival?”
The old man let out a cold, bitter laugh and shook his head in resignation, murmuring to himself: “In this world — whether a man ought to eat by his three-tenth of an acre or by the work of his two hands — this old one has lost the ability to make sense of it…”
The wine trickled softly as Pei Shaohuai refilled the elder’s cup once more and asked: “So the elder boarded that old vessel of his own free will?”
Perhaps because Pei Shaohuai had continued to pour without pause, his manner calm and unhurried, the Twenty-Seventh Elder grew less guarded and let slip a few words of honest feeling: “The south wind is almost here, and the rice bins of several hundred Qi Clan Hall households are nearly empty. If the vessels that went out are stopped and cannot return — ah… I ask my lord to be merciful.”
He also said: “I am a man ready for the grave — no longer of use. By boarding that vessel, I at least counted as one more body; I spared the clan a few catties of coarse grain, and I gave my lord a meritorious deed to carry back to the capital… The coastal people who live on the crest of the waves — there are those among them who cannot be destroyed even if one tries. Thinking of it that way, why would I not board of my own free will?”
It was not the Twenty-Seventh Elder alone. The thirty men in the cells were surely all of the same mind.
“With the Qi family taking the lead, as long as my lord keeps his promise, the Bao family and the Chen family will follow next… My lord’s road back to the capital will not be delayed too long.”
Each side getting what it needed.
In the world’s eyes, being posted from the capital to Fujian was, in most people’s reckoning, nothing short of banishment.
The night gradually deepened; the room gradually grew dim. Pei Shaohuai looked at the Twenty-Seventh Elder’s eyes, bright as burning torches, and found his understanding of local clan culture deepened by several degrees.
With some things, there was no need to preserve everything — nor to destroy everything.
Pei Shaohuai rose and called for the yamen runner outside to light the candles in the room. Before he left, he said: “Elder, rest well. After tomorrow’s formal proceedings, the vessels sheltering at Wuyu Island will be able to enter the harbor.”
The words sounded as though he had agreed to the Qi Clan Hall’s terms — yet the Twenty-Seventh Elder was startled still. Pei Shaohuai actually knew that the Qi Clan Hall’s merchant ships were hiding at Wuyu Island.
Watching Pei Shaohuai’s straight-backed figure recede, the Twenty-Seventh Elder felt, in a daze, that he had never truly seen through this young official at all — that from the very beginning, he had been reading the situation all wrong.
The Twenty-Seventh Elder stared at the wine jar, pondering how Pei Shaohuai had filled his cup again and again, unhurried and steady. Then he thought of how young Pei Shaohuai was, and muttered to himself with a sigh: “Even if he turns out to be a great scoundrel, he ought to be a formidable one. That much is worth something.”
——
Deep in the night, inside the Qi household of Qi Tongzhi, a spy rushed into the residence seeking an audience.
The spy drew close to Qi Tongzhi’s ear and relayed in a low voice the intelligence he had just obtained.
“What?” Qi Tongzhi’s expression hardened. The two smooth walnuts he had been turning in his hand clattered to the floor and rolled, spinning, beneath the table — he did not bother to retrieve them. He gripped the spy by the shoulders and demanded: “Where did this information come from? Can it be trusted?”
The newly appointed Prefect Pei was, it appeared, the prized student of a Grand Secretary of the cabinet.
The spy replied: “Two merchants from the capital mentioned it. Their accounts differed in detail, but the substance was the same — eight chances out of ten it is true.”
“Then tomorrow at the hearing, I must not speak on behalf of the Qi clan, lest I give offense to this Grand Secretary’s disciple,” Qi Tongzhi said, pacing as he spoke.
To judge by the intelligence gathered, this Prefect Pei had some backing behind him — he looked rather more like a man sent to the provinces to accumulate a “record of practical achievement” before being recalled to the capital for more important use.
Qi Tongzhi continued: “Fortunately, I have not yet made an enemy of him — there is still room to recover the situation.” Then he gave a cold laugh: “Decades of painstaking cultivation, and in the end it all counts for nothing beside the two words ‘distinguished disciple.'”
One of the walnuts rolled languidly to his foot. He kicked it aside, and it disappeared beneath the bed.
——
The next day, before the hour of the court hearing had yet arrived, the Shuang’an Prefectural Yamen was already ringed three layers deep with onlookers.
It was not only the Qi Clan Hall’s own members who had come to watch the proceedings — people from the Bao family in the city, and from the Chen and Shen families of Nan’an City, had all sent someone to observe.
The outcome of today’s hearing would determine the future direction of Shuang’an Prefecture, and with it the survival or extinction of every surname clan.
The young men of the Qi clan pressed to the very front, faces suffused with anger, eyes shot through with red — as though one word out of place would see them erupt into open disorder in the courthouse.
When the hour arrived, Pei Shaohuai ascended the hall and took his seat. He struck the gavel block once and called out: “Court is in session!”
Amid the shouted declarations of authority, more than thirty white-haired detainees were escorted up to the court. The Qi clansmen cried out one after another — “Great-uncle so-and-so,” “Elder such-and-such” — and nearly broke through the line of constables to surge into the courtroom itself.
The Twenty-Seventh Elder bellowed: “Go home and take a good look at yourselves in a puddle before you come here making trouble. Every last one of you, settle down.”
Qi Tongzhi and the Qi clan head were seated below the dais as observers for the hearing.
The Qi clan head met the Twenty-Seventh Elder’s gaze; the two exchanged an unspoken communication. It was done. The shame in the clan head’s eyes deepened.
Bao Bantou reported the circumstances of the arrest before the court, then read aloud the signed confessions.
Pei Shaohuai addressed those below the dais in a stern voice: “The confessions just read aloud — do you acknowledge them?”
Silence below. That was assent.
Pei Shaohuai asked again: “Do any of you have grievances you wish to raise?”
Still silence.
All that remained was to see how Pei Shaohuai would pronounce sentence. The expressions in the room below were varied.
“Prefectural Vice Administrator Qi.”
“Your subordinate is present.” Qi Tongzhi rose and clasped his hands in a bow, his manner toward Pei Shaohuai most respectful — with a precisely calibrated smile besides, in complete reversal of his former attitude.
Pei Shaohuai said: “Please read aloud the Da Qing prohibition on maritime trade, and then read the Da Qing Code’s prescribed punishment.”
“This subordinate complies.”
By arranging it thus, Pei Shaohuai was in effect inviting Qi Tongzhi to state his sentencing opinion. Qi Tongzhi could have chosen to handle the matter lightly and let the detainees’ offenses pass with a soft touch — yet instead he assumed an air of righteous principle and iron impartiality as he recited: “Da Qing law provides: not a plank nor a sail is permitted to put out to sea. Any vessel with two masts shall be immediately and strictly apprehended; all cargo aboard shall be treated as foreign goods. Those directly responsible shall be sent to serve at the frontier garrison. Where a vessel carries prohibited goods to sea and conducts trade with foreign peoples, all involved shall be regarded as secretly colluding with maritime criminals and conspiring in organized assembly; principal offenders shall receive capital punishment, and the entire household shall be exiled to a frontier garrison.”
Word by word, each one rang out clearly.
He then reported: “My lord, this subordinate is of the opinion that, in order to determine the proper sentence, the vessel must be more carefully searched to establish whether it carried prohibited goods, before any final judgment can be rendered.”
Whether prohibited goods were found or not — was that not entirely a matter of how the search was conducted?
Convicting someone for “collusion with foreign merchants” earned far greater merit than convicting them for “unauthorized seafaring.” Qi Tongzhi was implicitly suggesting that Pei Shaohuai might wish to “add to” his record of achievement.
The words had barely left his mouth when several worn-out shoes came flying in from outside the courtroom and struck Qi Tongzhi squarely in the face, leaving red marks and smearing him with dirt. The Qi clansmen spat curses in the Min dialect: “You wolf-hearted, dog-lunged wretch — all those years of money given to you might as well have been fed to the dogs.”
They would have liked nothing better than to tear Qi Yi apart with their bare hands.
The onlookers of other surnames, witnessing this, felt a chill at heart as well.
Qi Tongzhi wiped his face, spat out some grit, suppressed his cold expression, and again turned a smiling face toward Pei Shaohuai to report: “My lord, Da Qing has enacted the mutual-guarantee ward system — reckoned by city lanes and alleys, ten households form one unit, with each unit overseeing ten households… The clan head of the Qi family is far more versed in this guarantee system than this subordinate; it would be more fitting for him to recite it.”
This was to magnify the matter and strike at the very heart of the clan.
Ten households linked in mutual guarantee — anyone who knew of unauthorized seafaring and failed to report it would be held jointly liable; if one household offended, ten would face collective punishment.
The Qi clan head’s face went white as paper. Shocked, furious, and ashamed all at once, he stepped forward and knelt, tears streaming as he spoke: “Prefect, let this suffice — and if a number must be made up, add me as well.”
Events were unfolding like a horse that had broken free of its tether — entirely beyond anyone’s control.
From outside the hall, the noise rose in waves.
Pei Shaohuai struck the gavel block once. Sudden silence descended. No one could read what attitude Pei Shaohuai held.
“Head Constable.”
“Your subordinate is present.”
Pei Shaohuai asked: “Did the vessel have two masts?”
Bao Bantou weighed his words for a good while before answering: “The vessel had two broken poles aboard. This subordinate cannot say whether they were sail masts.” That was the most he could do for the Qi Clan Hall.
“Since they were broken poles, they cannot be counted as two masts.” Pei Shaohuai asked further: “Did the vessel carry any iron implements?”
Bao Bantou heard this and immediately knew he had answered correctly the first time. He replied: “The vessel carried not a single piece of iron.”
Only then did Pei Shaohuai strike the gavel block. His voice was still stern: “The matter is plain. This official has investigated and established the facts. One must expect that when the Jiulong River flows outward and fishermen and common folk are casting their nets in the river, it is perfectly ordinary for a vessel to be carried by the current out toward the river mouth. There is no need to make a great matter of something small, or to make a show of force where none is warranted.” He defined the matter plainly as a fishing vessel that had inadvertently drifted out to sea — not a case of unauthorized seafaring for trade.
He added: “The Qi Clan Hall ought to take more care. Where is the virtue of filial loyalty and family discipline, if a group of old men are allowed to board a vessel and go fishing in the river? This is not proper conduct.”
The people inside and outside the hall were struck dumb. The sensation of being swung up and then dropped — no one could quite find words for it.
And the reversal had come so abruptly. Even a mountain road did not bend so sharply.
Would this young official not fear being impeached for rendering such a verdict?
Pei Shaohuai straightened his official robes and prepared to adjourn the session, when he suddenly recalled something. He added as an afterthought: “Oh yes — see that the bill for last night’s wine and food is settled. Then each household may come to collect their people… One matter is one matter. The two must not be conflated.”
Before the crowd could fully take in what had happened, Pei Shaohuai had already swept out through the side door.
He had not hastened to announce the opening of maritime trade. But he had nevertheless pronounced all the detainees not guilty.