MLMD -Chapter 204 The Collapse of Faith

As if it were a signal, the first gunshot rang out—and soon after, gunfire erupted all around. Mixed in with the shots were screams and cries of alarm. The dozens of thugs who had been charging at the front let out miserable howls as they fell to the ground. The household servants and hooligans who had been eager to prove their loyalty to their masters were instantly terrified, screaming at the top of their lungs in sheer panic.

“People are being killed! The soldiers are killing people!”

The deafening gunfire jolted everyone awake. Whether it was Jia Zizhen and Wang Chenglin, who had moments earlier been delivering impassioned speeches, the scholars below who had been eagerly applauding them, or the merchants who had funded and supported the effort—every face turned deathly pale in that instant. If something like this happened a few more times, they wouldn’t need anyone to teach them; they’d master Sichuan’s famous face-changing art all on their own.

As the instigator of it all, Fang Yingdi trembled, his cracked lips quivering as he muttered, “Th-this… how is this possible? How dare they really open fire? Isn’t Yue Yang afraid of being impeached by the officials? Isn’t he afraid of punishment from the court?”

Yes—within Fang Yingdi’s way of thinking, Yue Yang was a court official. As long as he hadn’t raised a banner in open rebellion, he couldn’t and wouldn’t dare lay a hand on merchants, gentry, or scholars like them. After all, doing so would mean becoming an enemy of the court, an enemy of the entire realm.

What Fang Yingdi hadn’t realized was that the opponent he was facing was someone who couldn’t be judged by ordinary standards. Inside that body was the soul of a modern man.

Trying to measure or restrain the behavior of someone from over four hundred years in the future by the standards of this era was utterly absurd. To Yue Yang, merchants, students, and scholars were all worth less than nothing. Scholars? Heh. Four hundred years later, college graduates without jobs filled the streets—give them a few thousand yuan a month and you could hire as many as you wanted. As for merchants, they weren’t much different from roadside vendors; when the city enforcement squads showed up, they’d still be chased all over the place. Firing on people like this? Yue Yang felt absolutely no pressure at all.

There was an old saying in Huaxia: A scholar can rebel for ten years and still fail. Another went: Of a hundred pursuits, scholarship is the most useless. Though phrased differently, the meaning was the same—scholars were unmatched when it came to wagging their tongues, but once things turned real, they were worse than useless. The scholars before them were living proof.

Moments ago they had shouted louder than anyone else, but now, faced with real life and death, they immediately cowered. The behavior of countless scholars and merchants was scarcely better than that of a young woman confronted by bandits. Screaming and crying, everyone panicked like headless flies, scrambling in all directions in a desperate attempt to flee.

But it was already too late.

More than a thousand soldiers had surrounded them completely. Every road was sealed off. There was nowhere left to run.

Unit after unit of soldiers advanced toward them in neat formation, muskets in hand, their barrels glinting coldly in the winter sunlight. At the same time, loud shouts rang out from their ranks.

“By order of General Xuanwei, the Yingzhou Army has entered the city to suppress unrest and arrest Jurchen spies and traitors collaborating with the enemy. The entire city is under immediate lockdown! All citizens are ordered not to gather in the streets, not to provoke the authorities, and not to insult the authorities. Violators will be treated as rebels and executed on the spot!”

“The Yingzhou Army maintains strict discipline and will not harass the people. Fellow townsfolk, please remain safely in your homes and await the suppression of the disturbance. There is no need for panic!”

At this moment, Yingzhou Army troops appeared throughout Hunyuan Prefecture. Especially in key areas such as the main market district, the prefectural yamen, and the grain transport office, large numbers of soldiers were deployed, carefully searching the streets.

As they watched rows of fully armored soldiers, muskets in hand, advancing straight toward them, a murderous aura shot into the sky. The scholars and merchants who had earlier clamored that the soldiers would never dare fire now fell utterly silent.

At the front rode a commanding officer on a tall warhorse, gripping a gleaming saber. The flashing blade looked terrifying.

Facing this army brimming with killing intent, Fang Yingdi suddenly felt that everything he had done these past days was laughable. Like a clown, he had exhausted himself devising one scheme after another, always believing he controlled everything. Only now did he realize that a group of people had been watching his performance with amusement all along, that everything he did was firmly within their grasp, and that the other side could grind him and everyone around him into dust at any moment.

When the crowd was herded into the center of the street, the leading officer urged his horse forward, took a sheet of white paper from his robe, and read aloud word by word:

“By order of General Xuanwei: Arrest the Jurchen spies Jia Zizhen, Wang Shoucheng, and Fan Meier, among others. Additionally, Fang Yingdi, registrar of Hunyuan Prefecture, and Fang Jiuming, president of the merchant guild, father and son, are suspected of aiding the enemy and are to be apprehended together. You scholars are the pillars of the Great Ming and should distinguish right from wrong, placing the nation above all else. Do not assist evildoers. Any who dare obstruct the arrests will be punished severely!”

The order left everyone stunned.

If they had been accused of refusing to pay taxes or storming the yamen, they could still have righteously argued for several minutes. But now, with the charges of collaborating with the enemy and espionage hanging over their heads, none of them dared utter a word. These were not minor accusations—once proven, they meant extermination of the entire clan.

Jia Zizhen and Wang Chenglin, however, immediately turned pale. Ignoring his sixty-two years of age, Jia Zizhen leapt up and roared, “You’re lying! I have been steeped in the teachings of the sages—how could I possibly collaborate with the enemy? You’re framing me!”

The officer sneered coldly. “Whether it’s a frame-up or not will be clear once you’re back. Your concubine, Fan Meier, has already confessed. Acting under orders from the Jurchen barbarians, she came to Hunyuan Prefecture to steal military intelligence of the Great Ming. We also found secret letters she wrote to the barbarians in your home—irrefutable evidence. Don’t even think of denying it!”

He continued mercilessly, “And you, Fang Yingdi. You and your father colluded together, secretly selling weapons and armor to the eastern barbarians for profit. Do you not know that the barbarians use those very weapons to slaughter our Great Ming people? Don’t bother denying it—once we search your home, everything will be clear. And you, Wang Chenglin, ever since you arrived in Hunyuan Prefecture you’ve been desperately slandering Lord Yue…”

One by one, the officer laid bare their disgraceful deeds, completely ignoring their increasingly ghastly expressions. He spoke for nearly a quarter of an hour before finally shouting: “Men! Seize all these eastern barbarian spies at once! Any who resist—kill them without mercy!”

“Yes!”

The moment the order was given, more than a dozen fierce soldiers lunged forward to make the arrests.

Fang Yingdi, his face deathly pale, had already collapsed onto the ground. Hardly anyone dared stand near him now, afraid of being tainted by his misfortune. When two soldiers came to seize him, several Fang family servants instinctively stepped in front of him—only to be met with gunfire.

“Bang! Bang!”

With the shots, white smoke rose and blood sprayed everywhere. The servants screamed as they fell to the ground. Those not yet dead wailed loudly, writhing in agony.

“Murder! They’re killing people!”

At the sound of gunfire, the hundreds trapped in the middle exploded like a kicked-over chicken coop. Many screamed hysterically while desperately trying to break out. Wang Chenglin, relying on his youth, charged ahead.

“Bang! Bang!”

Before they could get far, several thunderous shots rang out again. The first few to run were struck down instantly, clutching their legs and collapsing to the ground—their legs shattered by lead bullets.

In this round of shooting, Wang Chenglin was lucky enough not to be hit. But his luck quickly ran out. Amid the smoke, a rifle butt slammed viciously into his shoulder with a dull crack, dislocating the bone.

The searing pain made him collapse to the ground. Before he could even cry out, two soldiers pounced on him, trussed him up tightly, and stuffed something foul-smelling into his mouth to silence him.

“No one move! Anyone who moves will be killed on the spot! Stand where you are, hands on your heads, and wait for inspection!”

A booming voice shouted nearby. This time, no one dared act up.

When scholars who only knew how to talk and street toughs who only bullied the weak ran into real soldiers, they suddenly realized just how fragile they were. Facing naked, brutal force, they were no different from lambs waiting to be slaughtered.

Under the threat of death and killing, the usually eloquent scholars obediently stood in place. The thugs were even more compliant, dropping to their knees, stones and bricks long gone, raising their hands like the most well-behaved children as soldiers pressed them to the ground. The soldiers clearly despised these thugs to the core—many forcibly ground their faces into the gravel-strewn street, rubbing back and forth until blood and flesh smeared together, their screams piercing the air.

A cold wind swept by, carrying the thick stench of blood through the crowded street. Many scholars could no longer hold it in and vomited openly.

In the past, they had always believed themselves to be heaven’s favored sons, thinking there was nothing in the world they didn’t understand and nothing they couldn’t do. But today, the soldiers showed them, with this blood-soaked scene, that aside from wagging their tongues, they were capable of nothing at all. No matter how eloquently they quoted Confucius and Mencius, once a black gun barrel was pointed at them, they were powerless.

At that moment, countless scholars watched as the once-imposing education officials and instructors were dragged away like dead dogs.

And in that instant, their spiritual faith collapsed completely…