The Imperial Age with the Resurgence of Han Style

Chapter 383 The Era of Emperor Yonglong
"The coal produced in Yingzhou is black. Will all the officials there also be stained black?" Emperor Yonglong threw the file in his hand fiercely on the floor and said angrily: "If I remember correctly, in the 1722th year of Taiping (), dozens of officials in Yingzhou Prefecture colluded and conspired to embezzle nearly disaster relief funds, which angered the late emperor and ordered a thorough investigation and severe punishment. Five years ago, the Tongpan of Yingzhou Prefecture was corrupt and perverted the law, which led to another corruption case involving more than officials and clerks. Now, the largest workers' assembly and strike since the founding of the People's Republic of China has occurred, which has shocked the whole country. Haha, Yingzhou Prefecture is really a troubled place!"

Luo Kangning, director of the Public Opinion Research Office, stood by with his head bowed and remained silent, anxiously waiting for His Majesty's anger to subside.

Your Majesty has been on the throne for more than seven years. As he has become more familiar with court affairs and more adept at handling state affairs, Emperor Yonglong's authority has grown day by day, and he is no longer as cautious and careful as he was when he first ascended the throne.

There are rumors that the current Prime Minister Han Qingshan has resigned to His Majesty several times and requested to retire on the grounds of old age and frailty, thus completely withdrawing from the court and returning to his hometown to spend his remaining years.

After several attempts to persuade Han to stay, Emperor Yonglong finally accepted Han's resignation and planned to announce the matter after the Chinese New Year. He also ordered the Imperial Court and the Senate to nominate a new prime minister and establish a new cabinet government.

By then, the "Cabinet for the Care of the Orphans" arranged by the late Emperor Taiping will officially complete its historical mission, and the political situation of the empire will usher in a new stage, an era belonging to His Majesty Yonglong.

If we say that when Emperor Yonglong ascended the throne, he was still young and did not have much experience in governing, and needed a group of mature and prudent ministers to protect him, then the current Emperor has grown stronger, his political skills have become more sophisticated and mature, and he can already control this huge empire.

Five years ago, Your Majesty successfully used public opinion to turn the Yingzhou corruption case into a vigorous nationwide campaign to eradicate official corruption. It not only humiliated some aristocratic families and curbed their attempts to continue to monopolize the empire's political resources, but also indirectly enhanced the prestige of Your Majesty the Emperor and established the image of an enlightened monarch in front of countless citizens.

Three years ago (1733), despite opposition from many cabinet ministers, the empire joined forces with the military and domestic hardliners to launch a war against Annan. In this war, the empire destroyed the Annan Le Dynasty in just ten days, and joined forces with Guangnan, Champa, and Lang Quoc to divide up most of its territory. Its power reached the border of Daqin, which greatly increased the empire's momentum.

Through this battle, His Majesty the Emperor won the trust and support of the military to a certain extent, proving that under the leadership of the young emperor, the empire can still spread the power of the Great Qi throughout the world and plant the red and yellow dragon flag in a wider territory.

At the same time, Emperor Yonglong also used the wartime mechanism - although the cabinet government had strongly opposed the empire entering a wartime mechanism on the grounds that the war was small in scale and would not affect a wide range of people, at the strong request of the emperor and the military (on the pretext that it would trigger the Qi-Qin War) and with the support of some hard-line ministers, the resolution for the empire to enter a secondary wartime mechanism was passed - taking the opportunity to place trusted officials in many departments such as the military and government and dismiss court officials with dissident opinions, in order to strengthen control over the government.

Fortunately, the war ended quickly after only ten days, the Qin State did not intervene, and the wartime mechanism was lifted, so that the Emperor's plan to expand his imperial power failed.

Last year, when the Polish succession crisis broke out on the European continent, the General Representative for Mediterranean Affairs ignored the opposition of the General Representative to Europe and forcibly pushed forward the occupation of Sicily by the imperial army. The cabinet government would never believe that this move did not have the tacit approval of His Majesty the Emperor.

It is obvious that the emperor wants to centralize and control the imperial power by stirring up trouble in the Mediterranean and involving the empire in a new regional armed conflict or even a war.

However, the General Representative to Europe was no mediocre person. He formed alliances on the European continent, eased the relationship between the Empire and Austria, provided economic assistance to it, and brought the other side to deal with the military threats from France and Spain. At the same time, he made diplomatic visits to the Netherlands, Ireland, England, Prussia, Sweden and other European countries in an attempt to establish a potential anti-French alliance, force France to feel a certain threat, and deter the other side from easily taking military action against us, thus successfully easing the Mediterranean crisis.

You know, France is a big European country, and it is tens of thousands of miles away from the mainland of Hanzhou. Once a war breaks out, it will definitely implement some kind of wartime mechanism within the empire to try its best to defeat the other side.

At that time, the emperor will inevitably extend his hand to the cabinet and the military, and then exert greater influence and seize more power.

Since the accidental death of the former Crown Prince Mingde and the succession of Emperor Yonglong at the young age, the cabinet finally took the opportunity to slightly tilt the power of the empire, which had been in a balanced state for decades, towards the "power of the prime minister", implicitly realizing the beautiful situation of "governing the world together with the literati and officials" as in the early Song Dynasty.

But looking at the various actions of Emperor Yonglong in recent years, it is obvious that he was unwilling to let the imperial power "fall into others' hands". He became a "Son of Heavenly Palace" and tried his best to "break" the weakened imperial power back, and even secretly suppressed the "power of the prime minister".

This move made many civil servants in the cabinet feel inexplicably nervous.

These good days haven’t even lasted a few days!

However, with the booming industry and commerce in Qi State, the economy developed by leaps and bounds. Both the imperial government and private industries accumulated a large amount of wealth, which made local and even central officials more or less involved in the intricate chain of interests, and few of them were clean.

In supporting the Censorate's efforts to promote clean government and eradicate corruption, Emperor Yonglong succeeded in almost every investigation and removed many central and local officials, somewhat weakening the power of the cabinet. In the process, the emperor gained enormous prestige.

In this situation where the power of the empire was growing and declining, the Prime Minister, as the head of the civil service, did not try to save the situation and curb the gradually resurgent imperial power. Instead, he took advantage of the situation to retire and handed over the initiative of the cabinet government change to His Majesty the Emperor.

Now, even a political idiot can see that His Majesty the Emperor is restoring the "sacred imperial power", and with the means demonstrated by Emperor Yonglong and his huge age advantage, he is likely to become another authoritarian emperor after Taizu.

Well, as a politically mature official who was also in charge of the empire's largest intelligence agency, Luo Kangning naturally behaved extremely respectfully in front of the emperor. After reporting to His Majesty the events before and after the Yingzhou coal miners' strike, he said nothing and waited for the emperor's judgment.

Your Majesty seemed so angry after reading the report, naturally it was not because he thought the Yingzhou local government handled the workers' strike and rally incorrectly.

On the contrary, Your Majesty's first reaction after hearing about the Yingzhou workers' assembly and strike was to inquire whether similar incidents of workers' "disturbance" were occurring in other places within the empire, whether they had been suppressed and pacified in a timely manner, and whether local public opinion had expanded, thereby affecting local security and stability.

Regardless of the reasons for the Yingzhou coal mine workers' strike and rally, their unauthorized organization of rallies and the gathering of more than tens of thousands of people still shocked His Majesty the Emperor, who ordered the Public Opinion Survey Office and the Military Police Command to closely monitor developments and report on the progress of the incident every day.

When the nearby prefectures and counties dispatched a large number of armed gendarmes to Yingzhou, promptly dispersed the workers' gatherings and arrested the workers' leaders who took the lead in organizing strikes and gatherings, thus preventing the entire situation from further escalating, Luo Kangning clearly saw that His Majesty the Emperor was greatly relieved.

In other words, His Majesty is inclined to suppress the strike and assembly of tens of thousands of coal workers by force at the first opportunity, rather than to use tender appeasement and consolation.

What a joke! A city with hundreds of thousands of people in the core area of ​​the empire actually organized a rally of tens of thousands of workers. If someone instigated it and gave them a little arming, wouldn't it be a well-organized "rebel army" that could directly threaten the security and stability of the southeastern region of the empire?

This is absolutely intolerable!
The reason for His Majesty's anger was that the Yingzhou local officials, in their subsequent report to the cabinet, simply brushed off their dereliction of duty and negligence, and instead threw all the blame on the "troublemaking" coal miners. "... the miners were lazy and stubborn, and they went on strike, made noise and riots in the government offices, and coerced the mine owners to raise wages."

"… the miners were brutal and used their equipment to injure people, and destroyed a large number of coal mining facilities and machines, causing losses of hundreds of thousands of dollars and causing coal exports to be halted for months."

Perhaps they felt that such a big incident had to have someone to take the blame, so the Yingzhou local government, in addition to pushing forward the prosecutor in charge of public security, also dismissed more than a dozen low-level officials and clerks from their posts, as an explanation for the whole incident.

Afterwards, local officials in Yingzhou had the nerve to propose that, given that many coal mines within their jurisdiction had been sabotaged by workers, they petitioned the Ministry of Revenue to reduce or exempt some of the taxes levied on these coal mines.

His Majesty the Emperor was naturally extremely dissatisfied with this. In addition, from the report submitted by the Public Opinion Survey Office, it was obvious that local officials had a huge interest relationship with the coal mines. The two sides were in collusion with each other. After forcing the coal miners to gather and "make trouble", they did not forget to compensate these damaged mines and asked for tax reductions and exemptions for them.

If you officials could pay more attention, show some sympathy for the difficulties faced by coal miners, and talk to the mine owners to increase their salaries a little, incidents like this wouldn't have happened!
You tell me, why do these officials only care about food and not about beatings?
Over the past decade or so, Yingzhou Prefecture has been purged twice for corruption and malfeasance. How come it is that even now, it still does not know how to restrain itself and continues to act so recklessly?

Do you really think that the emperor dare not kill anyone?

"Summon Qiu Biaochen, the president of the Supervisory Council, into the palace." Emperor Yonglong ordered, then waved his hand, signaling Luo Kangning to leave.

Luo Kangning bowed slightly to Emperor Yonglong, slowly left the hall, and couldn't help but let out a sigh of relief.

"I'm afraid Yingzhou Prefecture is going to be cleaned up for the third time!"
-
"Mr. Prime Minister, you shouldn't retire at this time." Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior Zeng Shixue said with dissatisfaction as he looked at Prime Minister Han Qingshan, who was lying in a rocking chair with a leisurely and contented expression.

"I turned 68 this April. How could I not retire?" Han Qingshan replied with a smile, "You know, Emperor Taizu abdicated the throne and passed the throne to Emperor Taizong because he was 65 and weak and sick. If that's the case, I should have retired three years ago."

"Sir, this is a different time." Zeng Shixue shook his head and said, "Back then, Emperor Taizu served as a young man for more than 40 years, working so hard that he became weak and sick, and had to abdicate as the emperor at the age of 60. But you are in good health now, and you are not seriously ill. You can still helm the empire for a few more years. Why do you have to leave in such a hurry?"

"Haha, do you really think that Emperor Taizu abdicated because of his poor health?" Han Qingshan picked up the teacup from the small table beside him, took a few sips, and then looked at the cabinet minister. "You know, after Emperor Taizu abdicated, he lived without illness or disaster until the 1704th year of Shaoning (), and died in the same year as Emperor Taizong."

"Lord, why are you talking about Emperor Taizu?" Zeng Shixue said with a sullen face, "You should know why I came to your house."

"In a few days, it will be Shixue's 64th birthday."

"What? Are you going to give me a big gift, Lord?" Zeng Shixue asked with a sneer.

"Among the five of us in the cabinet, even the youngest, Zhizhong (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Personnel Luo Zhizhong), is already sixty-two years old." Han Qingshan stroked his white beard and said slowly, "Then do you know how old His Majesty is now?"

"Your Majesty just celebrated his 30th birthday in October..." Zeng Shixue replied casually, but suddenly felt something was wrong. "Hey, Lord, what do you mean by that?"

"Don't you think that we old guys seem a little too... old in front of His Majesty?" Han Qingshan said leisurely, "Our era has passed."

"Then... then the time that belongs to Your Majesty has arrived?"

"What do you say?"

"Your Majesty..., Your Majesty is too young and will make mistakes..."

"The world teaches us to be careful with our words!" Han Qingshan glared at him, "As a subject, how can I speak lightly of your majesty's mistakes?"

"But, Your Majesty... He is indeed too young. He needs the full support of us old ministers to help him correct his mistakes!"

"Your Majesty is already thirty years old, just in his prime, how can you say he is too young?" Han Qingshan said in a deep voice: "If I remember correctly, Shixue has been in charge of a county for two years at this age."

"Lord, how can a county compare to the size of a country?" Zeng Shixue shook his head and said, "What's more, our Great Qi is a huge empire with countless overseas colonies. If there is any mistake, it will affect the livelihood and well-being of countless people, and will also affect the future policy direction of the empire, and even cause changes in the world situation."

"Xunzi said, 'The course of nature is constant, it does not exist for the sake of Yao, nor does it perish for the sake of Jie.'" Han Qingshan said, "The same will be true for our Great Qi Empire. Without me, without your legacy, and without all the old ministers, it will still follow inertia, continue to move forward, continue to grow, and continue to be glorious. Even if there may be bumps and stumbles along the way, with the size and heritage of our Great Qi, it will naturally overcome all obstacles and move towards the glory it deserves!"

"But……"

"There is nothing but or not." Han Qingshan lay on the rocking chair, closed his eyes slightly, and rocked leisurely. "To be honest, even if Your Majesty messes around and ruins the fortune of our Great Qi Empire, the worst result is that we will retreat to Hanzhou, but we will still be a rare great power in the world. ... After all, Emperor Taizu left us an extremely strong capital, which allows us to make many mistakes and still have the power to recover."

(End of this chapter)