During the xu watch that night, Ran Sheng led twenty soldiers under his command out through Qiantang County's West Gate, guided by the county's Court Clerk, Military Affairs Clerk, Bandit-Catching Clerk, and two Manor Retainers from the Ding Clan Manor. Beneath the bright, cold moon of early winter, they hurried toward the Chu Clan Manor seven li away.
The Chu Clan Manor stood at the southern foot of Qiyun Mountain. Originally, it had bordered both mountain and river, occupied a hundred qing, and housed several hundred Manor Retainers. The clan had also owned another estate of several dozen qing on the southern bank of the Qiantang. But since Chu Jian had been reduced to a commoner and the Chu Clan stripped of its gentry status the year before last, not only had the twenty qing of official fields originally granted to them been reclaimed, but most of the land they had seized over the years through trickery and force had also been ordered returned to its owner-farmers. Their holdings now amounted to less than a third of their peak, roughly forty qing, leaving them below even Liu Family Fort among commoner landlords. Of their original fifty protected households, half had dispersed, while those who remained had been entered into the official registers again and now had to pay taxes and perform service; they could no longer serve the Chu Clan exclusively as before. The Chu Clan Prestige had plummeted a thousand fathoms. Chu Wenqian and Chu Wenbin had also lost their qualifications as fifth-rank scholars, and the clan's younger generation no longer had any chance of entering official service. They were worse off than ordinary cold-gate commoner clans with unblemished family backgrounds. To Chu Jian, who had always prided himself on his exceptional talent and knowledge, this pierced his heart