Keeping the common folk from charging in was not mercy.
It was precaution.
They had seen this story before.
Back during the Baishui uprising of Wang Er, things had started with righteous anger too. But once untrained crowds got swept up in numbers, reason snapped like a rotten rope. Discipline vanished. Order collapsed. People who were supposed to be fighting for justice turned into something worse than bandits.
Gao Family Village had no intention of letting history repeat itself.
Mass movements were allowed.
But they had to stay rational.
Workers and farmers without military training, once packed together in huge numbers, could easily spiral out of control the moment fists started flying. Chaos would follow. And from chaos came decay.
They refused to let the people become beasts.
They refused to let them become roving bandits.
That kind of rot would poison the nation itself.
So this time, the ones who moved forward were not the crowd.
It was the Sichuan People's Militia.
They advanced in formation.
At the front charged Jiang Daliang.
He sprinted ahead, full of momentum, and delivered a heroic kick straight into the gates of the Prince of Shu's residence.
The gate did not move.
Instead, the recoil sent him flying backward. He landed flat on his backside with a thud that echoed with dignity lost.
Behind him, the rest of the militia rushed up.
Boom.
This time, the gates shattered into splinters.
In the chaos, Jiang Daliang scrambled back to his feet as if nothing had happened. He grabbed a squad and sprinted straight toward the inner courtyard. Within moments, they secured the entrance to the women's quarters.
"No one goes in," he barked.
That area was off limits.
As for everything else…
Well, not exactly a free for all.
Ji Menghan stood with a loudspeaker in hand, his voice blasting across the compound.
"No hitting! No smashing! No looting!"
"You are the People's Militia, not bandits!"
"All seized property goes to public accounts!"
"Say it with me, you are not bandits!"
The human tide surged through the Prince's residence like a flood, but it was a controlled flood.
Most of the Prince of Shu's wealth was confiscated.
A small portion was deliberately left behind, just enough for his family to survive.
As for the Prince himself, along with Eunuch Xia and the rest of the leadership…
Charges were clear.
Wealth without conscience. Oppression of the people.
Sentence.
Fifty years of labor reform at Longquan Mountain Camp in Chengdu.
Whether they would live long enough to see the outside world again…
That was another question.
---
Back in Gao Family Village.
Zhu Yujian, the former Prince of Tang, sat quietly with a book in his hands.
Forms of Government and Structures of Power.
He was completely absorbed.
Ever since the chaos at the Chang'an factory, he had moved here and thrown himself into study at the highest institution, Thirty-Two Middle School. The so called heavenly texts.
He had always been like this.
Even when he was imprisoned, starving, on the brink of death, he never stopped reading.
Focus was his greatest weapon.
Where others finished one book, he finished a row.
Where others finished a shelf, he finished a section.
By the time someone worked through a bookcase, he was already halfway through the library.
He avoided science texts.
Not because they were unimportant, but because he understood their depth. Each one could consume a lifetime. That was not where his strength lay.
Instead, he read politics. Economics. Governance. History.
The more he read, the clearer one truth became.
The Ming Dynasty was rotten to its core.
Covered in sores. Diseased beyond simple cure.
No amount of patching would fix it.
It might have to be torn down and rebuilt from nothing.
Every time that thought surfaced, it sent a chill through him.
If even he, a prince of the imperial clan, could think like this…
Then what hope did the dynasty have?
He was still lost in thought when movement in the distance caught his eye.
Crowds were gathering in the main square outside the central fortress.
Zhu Yujian blinked.
"The news broadcast is starting."
For someone of his status, news mattered even more than it did to common folk.
He quickly set his book aside and hurried to the square.
After a few advertisements, the broadcast began.
The screen lit up.
What appeared made his heart jump.
The People's Militia storming the Prince of Shu's residence.
The Prince being dragged out.
Sent to a labor reform camp.
Zhu Yujian sucked in a sharp breath.
He forced himself to keep watching, listening as the reporter explained everything from beginning to end.
When it was over, he let out a long sigh.
"I see…"
He was royalty.
And yet, he could not deny it.
The militia had done the right thing.
The princes across the land represented outdated productive forces. Relics clinging to a dead system. Worse, they actively tried to sabotage the new one.
Their downfall was deserved.
Still…
That was his family.
Seeing the Prince of Shu dragged away like that left a bitter taste in his mouth.
He stood there in silence for a long moment.
Then his eyes sharpened.
Decision made.
He turned and walked straight to the main hall of Gao Family Village, stopping before Gao Yiye.
"Saintess," he said, bowing slightly. "I wish to submit a request to Dao Xuan Tianzun."
Gao Yiye tilted her head, curious.
"A request? For what?"
Zhu Yujian exhaled softly.
"The Book of Life and Death, held by King Yama."
Gao Yiye blinked.
Zhu Yujian continued, voice steady but heavy.
"Dao Xuan Tianzun surely knows the fate awaiting this decaying dynasty. When it falls, the end of the Zhu imperial clan will not be kind."
"I want to see it."
"I want to know when, where, and how each of us meets our end."
"With that knowledge, I can persuade my relatives to surrender their privileges willingly."
"So they do not follow the same path as the Prince of Shu."
Gao Yiye listened, then nodded slowly.
"I see. That is… a reasonable request."
Before she could say more, the embroidered image of Dao Xuan Tianzun on her chest suddenly came to life, smiling.
"Interesting."
"Very well, Zhu Yujian. I grant your request."
"At sunrise tomorrow, you will receive the Book of Life and Death."
"But your clan is too large. I am not going to look up every single name."
"I will give you a few examples. The rest is up to you."
Zhu Yujian's eyes lit up.
"Thank you, Tianzun!"
---
Jinan.
Prince of De's residence.
Zhu Youshu was under immense pressure.
Not the kind you could see.
The kind you could feel in the air.
Jinan was changing.
Even though the rebel forces that once tried to attack the city had been repelled, most of Chuang Wang's hundred thousand troops were still here.
Alive.
Intact.
Working.
Some were building roads.
Some were laying bricks.
Some worked as carpenters.
Others as blacksmiths.
An entire army of former rebels had transformed into laborers, wandering the city like ordinary citizens.
It felt… wrong.
Or maybe not wrong.
Just unfamiliar.
More unsettling was this.
They no longer seemed to listen to the government.
The magistrate of Jinan had been placed under house arrest.
Zhu Youshu had not seen him in days.
In his place, governance was now handled by a man named Liu Maopao, along with a group of strange scholars.
They dressed like traditional literati.
Long robes. Scholar caps.
But when they spoke, something was off.
No flowery nonsense.
No empty phrases.
No endless quoting of classics.
Their words were sharp. Direct. Efficient.
They got things done.
And those former rebels?
They thrived under this system.
Inside Jinan, Zhu Youshu could feel the transformation day by day.
Buildings were changing.
People were changing.
Fewer talked about the imperial court.
Fewer mentioned the Emperor.
Instead, new words echoed through the streets.
"Dao Xuan Tianzun."
"Village Committee."
A new force was rising.
It was dragging the city forward at full speed.
And it had no intention of bringing him along.
If anything, it seemed… annoyed by his presence.
Zhu Youshu stood in his residence, hands clasped behind his back.
His heart pounded.
This…
This was bad.
Very bad.
He was starting to panic.