The personal guards around her lowered their heads in shame, reporting, “We used three forms of torture, but they still refuse to speak.”
Zhao Hanzhang had them lower the two men somewhat so their toes could touch the ground, yet they couldn’t stand completely. This made them sway several times before finally stabilizing themselves with the help of their suspended arms.
When Zhao Hanzhang stood straight, she was only slightly shorter than them, but with their heads lowered, they actually appeared shorter than Zhao Hanzhang.
She took the whip from the personal guard’s hand and lifted the man’s chin to examine him carefully. After a moment, she stepped back two paces, looked them up and down, then smiled lightly. “You’re lucky. My beloved general Yuan Li is not currently in the northern lands, otherwise he could properly entertain you. You’re also rather unlucky—you’ve angered me, and I don’t have much patience.”
“Won’t open your mouths? What does that matter?” Zhao Hanzhang tilted her head and said, “Go find someone skilled at depicting people. Draw their faces for me. Search in Jiangdong, the Central Plains, and Jiangnan. Once found, I’ll have your entire clans reunite with you. How about that?”
The two men’s eyeballs trembled, but neither spoke.
Zhao Hanzhang stepped back several paces and sat in the chair the personal guards had brought over, asking, “Has someone been found?”
The personal guard quietly acknowledged and went out. Before long, he brought in a person with a hunched figure and gloomy expression. The man bowed and said, “This is the county’s executioner.”
Zhao Hanzhang nodded and said to him, “Choose one and perform slow slicing.”
The executioner was startled and immediately knelt down. “Your Excellency, please hear me. This humble one only knows how to behead, strangle, and bisect at the waist. I don’t know how to perform slow slicing.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Zhao Hanzhang said. “Just start from the arms. You know how to slice fish, right? I don’t need you to actually reach a thousand cuts before letting him die. Just slice the flesh as thin as you can. After finishing the arms, do the chest, the thighs, the legs—these areas all have plenty of flesh. Just be careful not to let him die immediately.”
Zhao Hanzhang finished speaking and raised her head to smile at the two hanging men. “Perhaps halfway through he’ll be willing to confess?”
The two men’s faces turned deathly pale, still not believing that Zhao Hanzhang, who had a reputation for benevolence, would actually do this.
But Zhao Hanzhang waved her hand. Immediately people brought over two wooden boards and set them up, then took the men down, stripped off their clothes, and bound them to the boards. The two struggled violently, shouting loudly, “Zhao Hanzhang, Zhao Hanzhang, you are so brutal and inhumane. Your regime won’t last long in this world. If word of this gets out, you’ll surely be condemned! Let me go, let me go! I am from an aristocratic family—how dare you treat me this way!”
Zhao Hanzhang turned a deaf ear. Seeing the executioner trembling and not daring to step forward, she went to the torture implements and selected a sharp small knife to hand to him, smiling. “Go ahead. If you can slice ten pieces of flesh from the man without him dying, I’ll give you a bushel of wheat. For every ten pieces after that, I’ll add another bushel of wheat, until he dies or confesses.”
The executioner’s eyes lit up at this and immediately took the small knife.
He was from Wuyi County. He had been starving for a very long time. His family had already lost five people to starvation. Now only one grandson and one granddaughter remained, and they too were on the verge of starving to death. Grain, grain……
Although the magistrate provided work-for-relief, it was still very difficult for one person to support three people. The family of three constantly teetered on the edge of starvation.
As long as they gave him grain, never mind just slicing people—even if they asked him to slice ghosts or gods, he would dare!
The executioner stepped forward, looked left and right, then chose the one on the left who was sturdier and fatter. Seeing the executioner walking toward him, the man screamed in terror, his body struggling desperately, trying to escape.
But he was bound with ropes and couldn’t move at all. He could only scream uselessly.
The executioner frowned, finding him too noisy. But seeing Zhao Hanzhang had no intention of stopping him, he could only endure the noise. He stepped forward, grabbed the man’s trembling hand, and said, “Stop struggling. If you struggle like this, the blood will flow faster and you’ll die quicker.”
He felt only a cold hand touching his arm. His whole body trembled as he screamed in terror.
Seeing he couldn’t persuade him, the executioner could only sigh. He pressed down on the man’s arm, and the small knife gently sliced down along the arm, cutting off a piece of flesh.
It seemed quite smooth, but the executioner knew the knife wasn’t very sharp—it had caught momentarily in the middle, so the piece of flesh cut was rather large.
The pain reached his nerves a beat later. He watched the executioner slap a piece of flesh onto the board. He could see it with just a turn of his head.
His eyes widened instantly. He convulsed several times in terror, then his head lolled to one side as he fainted.
The executioner’s eyes widened. He quickly felt for the man’s breath. Seeing he was still alive, he immediately breathed a sigh of relief. Without waiting for Zhao Hanzhang to speak, he took the knife and viciously stabbed the sole of the man’s foot, waking him. “Don’t die, and don’t faint either. You need to earn me at least three bushels of grain, three bushels……”
The man next to him had already lost control of his bowels, and a foul stench spread.
Zhao Hanzhang saw this and said to the executioner, “Continue. If I can’t get a confession tonight, both men will have to be sliced. No matter how poor your technique, one person should yield at least a hundred cuts, right?”
As she spoke, the personal guards had found people skilled at depicting figures. Zhao Hanzhang had them stand to the side. “Quickly draw them. There’s a difference between dead people and living people. If they die in a while, they won’t look good.”
The two acknowledged. They were scribes in logistics who had been following Fan Ying and had always followed Zhao Hanzhang. They had never seen her like this. For a moment, the hands holding their brushes trembled slightly.
The executioner pressed down on the man and continued slicing. This time he sliced eight pieces in succession. Just as he was about to get that one bushel of grain, he saw the man on the board realize he was pressing toward his chest. The man immediately screamed in terror, “I confess, I confess! My name is Shi Bo. I’m from Taiyuan. I was sent under orders to block your return to Yuzhou. It would be best if the northern lands erupted in rebellion again, delaying your steps.”
The executioner pressed his hand on the man’s chest, his gaze somewhat fierce. “Let me cut one more piece, just one more piece……”
Just as he was about to bring down the knife, Shi Bo screamed in terror. Zhao Hanzhang stood up and grabbed the executioner’s hand, smiling lightly. “What’s the rush? There’s still another person. I’ll count the total for you. This one has confessed, so cut the other one. You should be able to get ten pieces of flesh altogether.”
The executioner’s eyes lit up. He finally stopped insisting on cutting the flesh from Shi Bo’s chest.
Zhao Hanzhang leaned down to ask Shi Bo, “Under whose orders?”
Shi Bo’s lips trembled as he remained silent.
Zhao Hanzhang turned to the executioner and said, “Go ahead.”
Shi Bo squeezed his eyes tightly shut and shouted, “Wang Han! I was sent by Xuzhou Governor Wang Han.”
“Wang Han?” Zhao Hanzhang chuckled lightly and asked, “Was it Wang Han or Wang Dun who gave the orders?”
Shi Bo’s spine went cold. He insisted, “Wang Han. We all take orders directly from Wang Han.”
Zhao Hanzhang turned to look at the board next to him, asking softly, “Is that so?”
Although her voice was very gentle, the man on the board shivered and nodded repeatedly. “Yes, yes.”