Since Zou Youlian climbed up to become associated with County Magistrate Hong, he started to exploit those relationships by trafficking men bound for labor. After County Magistrate Hong retired to his hometown, his successors were County Magistrate Yan and County Magistrate Zhu. During their tenures, a total of 785 adult men were trafficked by Zou Youlian.
All these men were sold through Gao Tong, to mines that offered high prices—each man could be sold for up to ten taels of Silver, amounting to more than 7,800 taels.
After Gao Tong took his sixty percent, Zou Youlian still got 3,000 taels of Silver.
County Magistrate Xu laid out the evidence and had Steward Yu read it aloud at the court. But Zou Youlian was stubborn, not uttering a single word. His children and grandchildren were already deceased, he has nothing left but his condemned life; there was no need for him to confess just to facilitate someone else's promotion.
