Chivalrous Past

In the last years of Jiaqing, the government was corrupt, donating officials and conferring titles became common, and local officials colluded with evil factions. In the fish and meat village, the people were in dire straits. Yancheng is located at the intersection of three rivers and a thoroughfare of water and land. The county magistrate Li Hongyan donated his official position and was greedy. In order to make a lot of money, in the name of "repairing the city wall", he openly levied huge sums of money and grain from the people and gentry, which was far more than what was needed to repair the city. If there was even the slightest resistance, he would secretly send his henchmen to pretend to be bandits and kill them brutally as a warning to others. The local squire Hong Damin was killed by Li Hongyan's men pretending to be bandits because he took the lead in opposing excessive taxes. His daughter Hong Yuru redressed her father's grievances and went to Fucheng to file a complaint. In order to eradicate the root cause, Li Hongyan secretly sent people to hunt him down.