Black Abacus became a pirate – half because circumstances forced him into it, and half because he was willing.
His name was Hei Guangzu, and his ancestral home was in Guizhou. Twenty years earlier, when the Yun-Gui chieftains rebelled, his whole family was implicated and fled to Jiangnan, where they put down roots. Because the family had a little savings, he was able to study for a few years. He passed the children’s examination smoothly enough, but when it came time to take the xiucai examination, he simply could not pass.
Jiangnan’s literary culture was too strong. To use a later expression, the involution was too fierce – even street vendors could recite a couple of lines of poetry.
He really fucking could not pass.
So he cheated, but his methods were not clever enough, and he was discovered. His examination status was stripped outright, cutting off his path to the civil examinations.
Black Abacus was unwilling to let his life end just like that. Steeling himself, he joined a pirate crew outright. Burning, killing, and plundering – life was far more satisfying than being a poor scholar.
The only drawback was that his immediate superior, Chen One-Eye, was hard to serve.
Arrogant and suspicious, jealous and guarded, the two maintained surface harmony while inwardly estranged for years, until it finally exploded.
Chen One-Eye was the pirate chief, and most of his men were loyal to him. But Black Abacus was no pushover either. He lined his own pockets, secretly cultivated some discontented men, and quietly set up several contact points ashore.
Getting Dongyu Village to join was his scheme.
First, rope in a group of people and trick them into joining and doing the deed. Then, with coercion and inducement, tell them: you have already stained your hands with blood, you cannot go back to the past, you are no longer law-abiding commoners. Besides, if you follow me, life will be much better than fishing.
Under this double pressure, most of the fishermen had no choice but to join.
This time, under the pretext of worshipping Mazu, he tricked the women and children of Xiyu Village into coming and held them hostage to force Xiyu Village to merge into his own gang. It was the same method.
At first, Black Abacus truly thought his luck had turned. He had just gotten people, and immediately a ship came. He assumed it was some merchant’s cargo vessel – after all, the fishing village harbor was extremely small, and ordinarily no large ship would come.
So when he killed the boatmen, he had no intention of leaving any survivors either. If they were chopped down, they were chopped down.
Who would have thought that after the trap to lure them in was set, once blows were exchanged, several of them turned out to be skilled fighters. Only then did he realize something was wrong. He sent someone to contact their eyes and ears in the county town and learned that these were actually distinguished people from the capital.
This had stirred up a hornet’s nest.
Chen One-Eye’s forces could only be considered a small-to-medium pirate outfit, still far from being a great pirate. So how could Black Abacus possibly have the right to challenge government troops?
But if he did nothing, he was just waiting to die.
And he was a man with a certain willingness to risk everything. Back then, when he failed the examinations, he became a pirate outright. This time, he had just raised his banner and already run into a tough opponent. Yet he did not flee upon hearing the news. Instead, he began to scheme.
“I’m doing this for everyone’s good too,” Black Abacus said earnestly. “If we kneel down and beg for mercy, will the officials be so compassionate as to let us off? Don’t forget why you followed me in the first place – isn’t it because taxes are fiercer than tigers? You risk your lives going out to sea to fish, and the money you earn gambling with your lives is mostly taken away by the officials with a mere lift of their hands.”
The able-bodied young men of the two fishing villages all fell silent.
If life were still livable, no one would want to become a bandit. But fishing was hard to begin with, and they often ran into natural and man-made disasters, while the government kept collecting taxes from time to time. It was truly hard to endure.
Black Abacus added, “We don’t have to do anything else. Invite the people over, discuss it properly, and maybe there can be a good outcome.”
The two village chiefs looked at each other in silence.
Xiyu Village chief: You’ve landed me in deep trouble.
Dongyu chief: We have no other way out.
The two old men looked at each other, sighed, and each went back to persuade their people.
After a while, they returned and said they agreed to Black Abacus’s plan, but as for kidnapping hostages, the two villages would not take part. If anyone went, it would have to be Black Abacus’s pirate underlings.
Black Abacus agreed at once, sneering inwardly: You’ve boarded the pirate ship, and you still want a chastity arch? When the time comes, it won’t be up to you whether you follow or not.
But to their faces he said, “The county town always has some military defenses. You can’t go empty-handed. I have some weapons; take them yourselves.”
In an ordinary commoner’s household, an iron pot and an iron knife were already considerable property. But pirates did not take swords and blades seriously at all. What they wanted most was firearms.
Unfortunately, the firearms camp guarded its gates more and more tightly. Even great pirates had no connections and truly could not get any.
If they could get their hands on some, never mind one county town – they could fight all the way to the prefectural city.
In the morning, Cheng Danruo woke up in a daze and heard a commotion outside. Before she could collect herself, Zi Su rushed hurriedly into the room, her expression terrified and her voice distorted. “Miss, the pirates are here.”
Cheng Danruo woke with a start. “What?”
“Just now Steward Zhang went out to inquire for news. He said the streets are in chaos. The county magistrate ran away through the back door of the county office. The pirates have broken in!” As Zi Su spoke, she was on the verge of breaking down.
She had lived safely in the inner quarters of the Chen family for more than ten years. This was her first time traveling far from home. Before she could even feel the hardship of the journey, she had first encountered pirates. She had barely escaped that disaster, and now the county town had been breached.
Cheng Danruo, however, kept her composure. She immediately threw on her clothes. “Take the money pouch. Give me my medicine box. Don’t bother with anything else. Right, also grab some cakes and put them away.”
Ancient times were not like modern times. Very few people could live a lifetime in safety.
Natural disasters and man-made calamities would come knocking every few days.
Was it exaggerated for pirates to occupy a county town? Not at all.
They had even struck Nanjing and Beijing, so what was taking a tiny Yancheng?
Do not ask where the soldiers guarding the gates were, and do not ask why no one was defending the place. The answer was really simple.
They had run away.
After packing her things, Cheng Danruo immediately rushed to Yan Hongzhi’s room. He had also heard the news, and his face lost color. “How could they have broken into the county town?”
“The reason doesn’t matter.” She came straight to the point. “I’m just afraid they’re coming for us. Let’s avoid them first. Too many people know we are here.”
Yan Hongzhi reacted quickly too. Struggling to get up, he said, “That makes sense.” He immediately added, “Which family is the most powerful local clan in the county? They must have guards and household retainers.”
How many people were there in a county office? All told, perhaps two or three hundred.
But aside from officials such as the county magistrate, the assistant magistrate, and the registrar, the clerks handling concrete affairs in the six offices – namely the clerical staff of the six offices of personnel, revenue, rites, military, justice, and works – along with errand runners, duty watchers, attendants, cooks, night watchmen, and patrolmen, the ones who could actually fight were probably only the constables in the duty office.
These people were divided into three kinds – the sturdy squad, responsible for keeping order in the hall, standing on duty, and catching thieves; the swift squad, in charge of arresting bandits and maintaining public order; and the ceremonial squad, the honor guard.
Among them, the trash who flattered superiors and bullied inferiors, borrowed authority to intimidate others, collected protection fees, and squeezed the people dry made up at least half.
When the pirates came knocking, the number of people who would actually stand up was probably fewer than the fingers of one hand.
By comparison, the household guards and retainers kept by the local powerful clans and great families were far more reliable than the county office.
Cheng Danruo had no choice. She would certainly follow Yan Hongzhi. “Let’s go out through the back door.”
Fortunately, the guards who had stayed behind did not have much combat experience and were also wounded, but they came from the Xie family, so their loyalty and ability were beyond doubt. No matter how badly hurt they were, at this moment they were all neatly equipped and ready to fight.
When they heard that he wanted to seek refuge with a local powerful clan, they had no objections and immediately went to prepare.
But do not forget, Black Abacus had a spy in the county office.
This morning, before dawn had fully broken, just as the city gates opened, he brought his men disguised as porters and slipped into the city in twos and threes. Then they gathered at the county office, and with several vicious pirates clearing the way, they drove straight in.
The constables on duty were no match at all. They threw down their armor and fled in utter panic.
The county magistrate had not even gotten out of bed. When he heard the pirates had broken in, he crawled up from his wife’s bed, grabbed his official seal and the family valuables, and ran.
In less than half an hour, Black Abacus and his men had occupied the county office. From the spy’s mouth he learned their lodging place. Without even drinking a mouthful of water, he immediately brought his men over to intercept and kill them.
They happened to block Yan Hongzhi and his group.
The guard said, “We can’t get out. We can only defend the inn and hold out as long as possible.”
As the backbone, Yan Hongzhi, though his throat was swollen and painful and his head dizzy, could not go back to rest. He sat steadily in the hall to take charge of the situation. “Do as you say.”
These past two days, the guards had not been idle, just nursing their wounds. They had gotten some swords, bows, and arrows from the county office and kept them ready. Now they were put to use. They also found tables, chairs, and water vats to block the front and back doors, preventing the pirates from breaking in.
“Doctor Cheng, do you have any poison that kills on contact with blood?” Li Bowu was gone, and among the guards left behind, one surnamed Zhao was the leader.
Cheng Danruo said, “Arsenic.”
A good doctor had to carry not only a knife but also arsenic. Who knew when it might be needed?
“Please bring it to me.”
Arsenic dissolved in water and smeared on arrowheads greatly increased their lethality.
Cheng Danruo thought for a moment, then called over Zi Su and Mo Dian and went straight into Xie Xuanying’s room. She said, “Mo Dian, bring me one of Young Master Xie’s garments.”
Mo Dian was Yan Hongzhi’s young servant. Although he did not know what Cheng Danruo intended, after days of spending time together the two sides had built a certain trust, so he did as she said, opened the clothing chest, and took out a sky-blue Daoist robe.
Cheng Danruo took it and put it on. Sure enough, the cuffs and hem were too long. “Zi Su, get needle and thread and sew it for me.”
“Yes.” Zi Su’s mind was in chaos. When told to do something, she instinctively obeyed. She took needle and thread from her pouch, pinched out several pleats, and quickly stitched them, shortening the sleeves.
The hem was the same. She folded it several more layers at the waist to shorten the robe that otherwise dragged on the ground.
Cheng Danruo then pulled out her hairpin, combed her long hair, and when Zi Su finished altering the clothes, said, “Do a man’s hairstyle for me.”
Zi Su understood. “You want to disguise yourself as a man?”
Cheng Danruo nodded without explaining, and told Mo Dian to bring a hairpin and jade pendant as well. Following Xie Xuanying’s style, she dressed and groomed herself from head to toe.
Looking at herself in the mirror, although the Daoist robe had been stitched in several places, the fold marks were obvious and hard to hide from people.
She thought for a moment and quickly had an idea. She returned to her own room and took out the cloak from before, draping it over herself.
Earlier, when they had returned to the inn, she had wanted to return the cloak, but Xie Xuanying said, “This was newly made. If you do not disdain it, just take it and use it for now.”
Autumn temperatures dropped quickly. When they got off the boat, she had thought they would stay only a day or two, and the luggage was all still on the boat. When the temperature fell at night, a few thin shirts really could not hold up.
Cheng Danruo considered that he probably would not want something worn by someone else, so she accepted it and had Zi Su alter it while brewing medicine. It fit quite well.
Now, with the thin silk cloak draped outside, the ill-fitting Daoist robe underneath could not be seen to be a problem.
She did not change her shoes. When traveling, she wore boots, only in a plainer style, which did not match the luxuriousness of the clothing. But the pirates came from rough backgrounds, and probably could not tell good fabric from bad. For the time being, this would have to do.
Back in the main hall, when Yan Hongzhi saw her changed into Xie Xuanying’s attire, he was momentarily stunned.
“I think no one should know where Young Master Xie went,” Cheng Danruo explained. “The worst-case scenario is that we cannot hold them off and they rush in to seize people. If both masters are here, they will not go looking for Young Master Xie again.”
Yan Hongzhi found this deeply reasonable, but said, “Miss Cheng, the one they want is me. You would be better off disguising yourself as a maid. I think they will not make things difficult for you.”
Cheng Danruo had considered that option too.
She was not so noble as to take risks for someone she had only known for a short time.
But when pirates saw women, would they let them go?
No.
They felt no burden at all in violating maidservants. And once a woman lost her chastity, in ancient times it was as good as being sentenced to death.
Impersonating Xie Xuanying was different.
He was a man of high status. The pirates would not dare kill him. They would keep him alive to sell him at a high price, which would instead protect her safety.
“Sir, now is the time for everyone to pull together through this crisis.” The thoughts above were not convenient to state directly, and Cheng Danruo also had a more sufficient reason. “If one person retreats, ten thousand will retreat.”
Yan Hongzhi fell silent and said no more.
She looked at the guards. “From now on, I am Young Master Xie. The person who left is Guard Li. He went into the city to find a doctor. Everyone else who is missing is dead. Understand?”
The guards’ foremost duty was to protect Xie Xuanying. Seeing her voluntarily take his place, they were naturally overjoyed and hurriedly agreed.
Cheng Danruo added, “This is not a foolproof plan. Two people escaped earlier. You must shoot dead two of those who have seen him before they rush in, only then can we hide the truth.”
Guard Zhao cupped his hands. “Miss Cheng – no, Young Master, rest assured. I understand.”
