Nearly a thousand hidden households, hired farmers, tenant households, and displaced people, carrying shoulder poles, hoes, and iron rakes, gathered before the Kuaiji Commandery Office, jostling and shouting...
More than two hundred cavalry and foot archers from Kuaiji Commandery and Shanyin County formed ranks to block the rioting populace from storming the Commandery Office. Following Chen Caozhi's orders, Ran Sheng and his twenty soldiers carefully watched the assembled troublemakers, looking for those making the fiercest commotion, each keeping his eyes on two instigators-
Dai Shu, Chen Caozhi, Xie Daoyun, and the commandery and county officials walked out through the hall's main entrance. The runners and archers parted to leave an opening. Chen Caozhi nodded to Dai Shu, stepped forward twice, and called out, "People of Kuaiji, hear me out-"
Seeing someone emerge from the Commandery Office-a tall, handsome young official in a gauze cap and silk jacket addressing them-the rioting crowd quieted a little. Someone disliked that silence and shouted, "That's Chen Caozhi! With Chen Caozhi in Kuaiji, the common people have nothing to eat-"
At this cry, many others joined in, as though Chen Caozhi were the Locust God, leaving no harvest wherever he went. Some even threw radish tops, vegetable roots, and eggs. Although they dared not throw them directly at Chen Caozhi and the other officials, the ground became a mess, making for an ugly scene-
Kuaiji Neishi Dai Shu stepped forward to soothe them, but the noisy crowd paid no attention to what he said, merely shouting and yelling. Some demanded the abolition of tuduan and the removal of the previously registered hidden households from the registers, allowing them to return to the gentry clans' manors; others shouted for the Tuduan Commissioner to get out of Kuaiji, saying Chen Caozhi was disrupting government and harassing the