Twenty-one, Xigou Village Uprising

  Something happened in Xigou Village. It turned out that when Li Chujin replaced Zhu Yuanchang to inspect Xigou Village this morning, several big-footed women suddenly ran over, grabbed Li Chujin's sleeves and shook them violently, saying that early in the morning, their husbands were taken away by Chen Guanyu, the county magistrate of Baishui County. When asked why the county magistrate wanted to arrest people and what happened, these big-footed women had too little knowledge and couldn't say anything.

  Li Chujin's heart felt something was amiss and he ran back like flying, seeing Zhu Yuanzhang, immediately poured out the story like dumping beans from a bamboo tube.

  Zhu Yuanzhang listened quietly, his face sinking as he said: "Understood, hurry to the inner courtyard door and pass on a message. Let the family servants quickly call Second Young Master to come to the front courtyard. I will go to the front courtyard to find Ma Qianjiu, the chief manager. This matter is extremely serious and must be decided by Second Young Master and Manager Ma."

  Li Chujiao asked in a somewhat puzzled tone, "How did this matter get linked to the front yard? Second Master had instructed that if something happened on the west side of the village, we should just go there directly."

  Zhu Yuanzhang shook his head: "The situation now is no longer something that can be solved by fighting, go quickly, don't ask too many questions."

  Li Chujin went to the inner courtyard to report, but Zhu Yuanzhang hurriedly came towards the front courtyard.

  As he turned to the front gate, the imperial staff appeared once again in Zhu Yuanzhang's line of sight. He couldn't help but slightly raise his head and take a glance at the staff, thinking to himself: This time, things might not be small, I wonder if this imperial staff can protect the Ma family. When the nest is destroyed, how can there be unbroken eggs? It seems that this time, I must exert some effort to help the Ma family get through this difficult situation.

  After the housekeeper reported, Zhu Yuanzhang entered the gate and came to the hall. He saw Ma Qianji sitting on a chair at the side of the hall, holding several account books and looking at them seriously, calculating while pointing his fingers lightly on the books. Seeing Zhu Yuanzhang coming in, he frowned and asked: "Why did you run to the front yard? What happened?"

  Zhu Yuanzhang lowered his voice and said: "This morning, the county magistrate sent people to take away all the villagers of Xigou Village!"

  For a clever person, it's not necessary to say everything clearly. Just this one sentence was enough to shock Ma Qianjiu so much that the several account books in his hand fell to the ground with a "thud". But he didn't even bother to pick them up, and stood there frozen in place.

  After a while, he woke up from the shock, frowning and said: "I've been dealing with business in the front yard all along, and I don't know much about the farming affairs in the side yard. Tell me, are the villagers of Xigou Village all 'lodging' in our house?"

  "Exactly!"

  "That's not good...!" Ma Qianjiu's eyebrows were almost twisted together.

  "It's really terrible, the situation is extremely urgent!" Zhu Yuanchang nodded and said: "I've already sent someone to invite Second Master, hoping he can come and take charge of the situation. If not, our Ma family may be ruined by this matter."

  Ma Qianjiu nodded and the two of them looked up together, eagerly waiting for Second Young Master to arrive.

  The waiting time felt rather slow, Ma Qianjiu said to Zhu Yuanzhang: "Brother Zhu Ba, how do you see this matter? Speak out and verify with me, let's see if our thoughts are the same."

  Zhu Yuanchang coughed lightly and said in a low voice, "Last time, Chen County Magistrate blocked our family's 'guileful gift', and made it clear that this matter was instructed by Zhangshi of Chengcheng. It gave us a signal to quickly reconcile with Zhangshi of Chengcheng, otherwise there would be more tricks to deal with us. However, our family has not shown any intention, neither going to show goodwill to the county magistrate nor negotiating with Zhangshi of Chengcheng... it seems that the other party felt disrespected and took action again."

  "That's right, your trick is quite bright." Ma Qianjiu snorted: "He did a good job this time, which village people didn't catch, and caught the people of Xiguzi Village. It just so happens that the last fight was in Xiguzi Village. This clearly means he wants to settle old scores with us."

  Zhu Yuanchang said in a low voice, "Ma Guanshi, after the failure of 'Gui Ji' last time, the county magistrate's hostility is already very obvious. Why didn't our family go to make some moves and send some gifts to the county magistrate to try to solve this matter?"

  Ma Qianjiu let out a soft sigh, pointed to the inner courtyard and said in a low voice: "Sending gifts requires spending a large amount of silver. This is something I have no control over. In this household, only Second Young Master can dispose of silver, if he's unwilling, there's nothing I can do."

  "Second Master, why are you unwilling?" Zhu Yuanzhang asked strangely.

  "Good face, huh!" Ma Qianjiu shook his head: "Young people can't take the air, he said that County Master hitting Qi Guanshi was a slap in the face of the Ma family. If our family still wants to turn around and send gifts to please them, it's like we're lowering our heads. This matter should be County Master sending gifts to our family instead..."

  Zhu Yuanzhang was silent, and the second young master was indeed too foolish. The Ma family is just a local wealthy family, although the old man in the house had been a county magistrate before, but after all, he has passed away, you actually dare to rely on the old man's yesterday's identity, and the county magistrate of this county are at odds with each other, it's really a child who doesn't know what's important.

  "Alas, if only the young master were here." Ma Qianjiu sighed: "If the young master were in charge of this household, there wouldn't have been that fight last time. Even if a fight did break out, County Master's side would have handled it properly."

  The two of them waited for a little while longer, but still didn't see the second young master's shadow. Just as they were getting anxious, a servant in a green robe and small hat ran over and said to the two people in the hall: "The second young master is having a great nap and has no time to deal with things, he told you to take care of it yourselves."

  "What?" Ma Qianji suddenly jumped up, with one foot on the servant who had brought the message, and scolded: "What's going on here? Second Young Master is still taking a nap? The Ma family is in great danger, the house is almost gone. You good-for-nothing, I don't care what method you use, bring Second Young Master here to discuss matters within half a cup of tea." Others were afraid of Second Young Master, but he wasn't very afraid, after all, he had Eldest Young Master backing him up, even if he offended Second Young Master, he could still get by in this house.

  The house servant was beaten, but didn't move a step, crying with a sad face: "Second Master was woken up from his nap and also wanted to hit people... You hit me, Second Master hits me too, I don't know which side's beating I should take."

  Ma Qianjiu was furious, and with one kick, he knocked him to the ground, cursing: "Then just bear my blows, I'll go find Second Master myself. Zhu Ba, you come with me."

  Zhu Yuanzhang nodded and followed behind.

  Ma Qianjiu walked towards the inner courtyard, between the front and inner courtyards there was a courtyard and a corridor connected, in the long corridor there was a beautiful hanging flower gate. The ancient saying "the main gate does not go out, the second gate does not step over" refers to this hanging flower gate, it is the dividing line between the front and inner courtyards. Women of large households, especially those who have not yet come out of the boudoir, are not allowed to pass through this gate to the front courtyard, going out of this gate is called "exposing one's face" and is a manifestation of not following the rules for women. This gate does not allow women to go out, at the same time it also does not allow men to enter, not only must male guests from outside follow this rule, even the male servants of the household must pay attention to it.

  On either side of the vermilion gate stood two household guards wearing green robes and small hats, responsible for guarding the entrance to the inner courtyard and preventing idlers from entering.

  As they saw Ma Qianjiu and Zhu Ba walking over, two green-clad house servants with small hats stretched out their hands to block the way: "Ma Guan Shi, Zhu Guan Shi, what do you want to go into the inner courtyard for? If there's something, it's not a problem for us to pass on the message." Although they blocked them, their attitude was still quite respectful, especially towards Ma Qianjiu, whom they didn't dare show disrespect.

  "Go and inform him at once." Ma Qianjiu said angrily, "I have an extremely urgent matter to discuss with Second Master, if I'm late it will lead to changes, where is the time to wait for you two to slowly pass on the message... Eh? Not right! I am a lifelong servant of the Ma family, entering and exiting the inner courtyard as I please, when was I ever blocked by anyone? What do you two mean?"

  The two housekeepers smiled wryly: "Marshall, we don't dare to stop you either. Just now, a servant named Li Chunjiu came to inform us that he wanted to invite the second young master to the front yard, but ended up disturbing his afternoon nap. He was furious and gave strict orders not to let anyone in, saying... Ma Qianjiu will definitely come too, and block him together."

  "What?" Ma Qianjiu was furious: "What kind of nonsense is this? Second Master is still talking nonsense."

  Next to him, Zhu Yuanzhang secretly smiled, this second young master was really too lazy. In his previous life when Zhu Yuanzhang was the emperor, he was diligent in governance. If officials had urgent matters to discuss with him, even if it was midnight, he would get out of bed to review memorials. He wouldn't be as useless as the second young master of the Ma family.

  Ma Qianjiu angrily said: "Get out of the way, you only have Second Young Master in your eyes, don't you also have Eldest Young Master?"

  Those two houseboys didn't budge, blocking the doorway with a bitter smile: "This... we... don't have the guts... it's just that Second Young Master's orders can't be disobeyed..."

  Zhu Yuanzhang suddenly realized that the people of the Ma family were also divided into two factions. One faction was the Eldest Young Master's faction, mainly consisting of the former courtyard's house slaves, with Ma Qianjiu as its leader. The other faction was the Second Young Master's faction, mainly consisting of the inner courtyard's house slaves, and Qi Guan Shi, who was also standing on the side of the Second Young Master, was in charge of handling matters for him. Qi Guan Shi hinted that he wanted to choose a obedient person as the new manager of the side courtyard, so that he could help in the future, and his hidden meaning was also to continue to let the side courtyard stand on the side of the Second Young Master.

  Before, Zhu Yuanzhang was of low status and didn't notice this factional issue. Moreover, the eldest young master wasn't in the mansion, so this situation wasn't obvious either. It wasn't until something happened this time that both sides started to show their strength, and he discovered that the house servant who had just transmitted the message was firmly standing on Second Young Master's side, which is why he didn't want to help Ma Qianjiu transmit the message. The two gatekeeper house servants in front were also standing on Second Young Master's side and weren't taking Ma Qianjiu's side.

  What a joke! Zhu Yuanzhang sighed secretly, thinking that factions were everywhere. In the past, he also had two major factions under his command, Li Shan-chang's faction and Liu Ji's faction. The two factions fought fiercely, with civil and military officials taking sides, and they often clashed over trivial matters such as passing on messages or guarding the gate. He didn't expect that even in a humble rural family like this one, similar problems existed, also over small things like passing on messages or guarding the gate. Aren't you guys tired of it?

  I guess I have to take sides too?

  Zhu Yuanzhang didn't even need to think before deciding which side to stand on, raised two fists and struck the gatekeeper's house servants left and right... his fist arrived, people flew, two house servants covered their chests and fell back a zhang away.