Chongzhen revived the Ming Dynasty

Chapter 713 Petition and Prosecution

The attack on Zhang Pu became a turning point in the slave resistance in Suzhou.

If the previous demonstration was peaceful and Zhang Pu behaved like a modest gentleman, after the attack, the narrow-minded side of his character quickly emerged.

He was almost beaten to disability, but he was determined to turn the world upside down. He wrote a few articles and arranged for them to be printed from now on.

At dawn the next day, he brought a group of supporters and stood in front of the Wu family's door, demanding that the person be released.

As the sun rose higher, more and more people gathered. Most of those who had listened to Zhang Pu's lectures before but did not come came after hearing that he had been attacked.

Zhang Pu stood in the crowd and read out loud the news he had learned from the court:
"The Emperor has ordered that no one may enslave citizens of the Ming Dynasty."

“Even the untouchables and their descendants can become citizens and enjoy citizen rights by serving in the army and paying taxes.”

"Zhang Yao is an employee of my Ming Pao. He also paid a thousand taels of silver to obtain the status of a public official, which is higher than that of a citizen."

"The Wu family detained him for no reason. Do you think it's reasonable?"

Everyone shouted "It's not right", especially those who had donated money to become officials but were still being held hostage by their masters, and they loudly supported Zhang Pu.

They had long been dissatisfied with the lack of results of the previous sit-in demonstrations. Today, Zhang Pu made his attitude clear, and these people immediately took the lead in singing "Unity is Strength" that they heard last night, and were ready to rush into the Wu family.

Wu Shirui turned pale with fear, and his uncle Wang Shimin's face was also extremely green, and he roared:
"Inverted!"

“It’s really the opposite!”

"This Zhang Pu is bringing his slaves with him to gather a crowd to rebel!"

He ordered the servants to block the door and not let them in.

He also said to the officers and soldiers sent by the governor's office:

"Aren't you guys going to take action yet?"

"What if we delay any longer and a mutiny occurs?"

These officers and soldiers had already received instructions from Cao Wenheng that as long as there was no real civil unrest, they didn't have to worry about what Zhang Pu did.

At this time, facing Wang Shimin's words, they could only smile and say that without orders, they had no power to take action against the people.

Wang Shimin was so angry that he jumped up and down, cursing Cao Wenheng for not only touching the Shen family, but also using his relatives from the Wang family as a pretext. He would definitely report him to the court one day.

However, this kind of threat is like talking to a cow when it comes to ordinary officers and soldiers. They don't understand what's going on in the court, they only know the soldiers under the command of Governor Cao.

Even if Cao Wenheng was here, knowing the emperor's attitude, he would not pay any attention to Wang Shimin.

If Cao Wenheng had not been worried about a real slave rebellion and Zhang Pu being injured, he would have transferred his officers and soldiers away long ago. He could not afford to lose face by sending soldiers to guard the homes of wealthy families.

He has not shown up in public these days, and has left the matter to officials from Suzhou Prefecture to handle.

In order to stabilize the local area, officials of Suzhou Prefecture had frequent contacts with wealthy families. Just when Wang Shimin was anxious, the prefect Kou Shen, along with officials and runners of Suzhou Prefecture, finally arrived.

Obviously, he also anticipated that things would escalate today and made preparations in advance.

Kou Shen ordered the yamen runners to stop the crowd that was about to break into the Wu family, and shouted:

"What are you doing?"

"Zhang Pu, do you want to gather a crowd to rebel?"

He saved the lives of the people of Suzhou and had a very high prestige in Suzhou Prefecture. When these servants saw him, their voices immediately lowered.

Zhang Pu came out upon seeing this and said respectfully:

"Mr. Kou, it's not us who want to rebel."

"It's just that the Wu family is stubborn and ignores us because they have someone to protect them."

"Today I will sue you in front of the Lord of the Palace. The Wu family detained officials and Ming Pao employees without reason, which violated the laws of the Ming Dynasty."

He submitted a petition, requesting Kou Shen to accept it.

However, Kou Shen did not accept it, but said to Huang Daozhou:
"The court has ordered that criminal cases in all prefectures be tried by prosecutors."

"Huang Tuiguan, you are sent by the imperial court."

"It's up to you to decide whether to take this case!"

Huang Daozhou thought for a moment and stepped forward to take the complaint.

Wang Shimin saw that the situation was not good and said loudly:

"Huang Tuiguan, don't listen to his sophistry."

"Zhang Yao is in the Wu family. We have never heard that he donated money to the public."

"Besides, with his wealth, how can he afford to donate to the government?"

"We are going to counter-sue him for stealing the Wu family's assets."

This is a common occurrence in cases involving slaves in Suzhou.

A wealthy slave donated money to the emperor, but was sued by his master for stealing money.

Huang Daozhou had seen more than one or two related cases, and he immediately said:

"Since it is a counterclaim, is there a pleading?"

"If you have finished writing, bring it to me."

Wang Shimin never expected that Zhang Yao had already become a public official, and he didn't understand why Zhang Pu had only revealed this matter today. He was certainly not prepared for this.

Looking at the bewildered Wu Shirui, he obviously hadn't expected this. He could only say to Huang Daozhou:
"The petition has not been written yet. Can you wait for a moment?"

Before Huang Daozhou could answer, Zhang Pu said sarcastically:
"Mr. Wang, is the government office your own?"

"I'll wait for you specially!"

Wang Shimin snorted angrily, stared at Zhang Pu and said:

"Zhang Ximing, what do you want?"

"After all this time, don't you think it's not enough?"

"What other methods do you have? We will continue!"

Zhang Pu laughed wildly and said loudly:
"Then you'd better take it!"

He took a piece of paper from Wu Weiye and handed it to Huang Daozhou, saying:
"As scholars and newspaper professionals, students have supervisory power."

"Today, I will report the Wu family for privately keeping slaves as common people."

"Please ask Magistrate Huang to punish him with a hundred strokes of the cane immediately and release this slave to become a good person."

This frightened Wu Shirui so much that he collapsed to the ground, and Wang Shimin's expression changed when he looked at Zhang Pu.

If he could barely accept the release of slaves and servants who had donated money to the government, Zhang Pu's behavior was undoubtedly intolerable to him.

Because this meant that he would also have to release all the slaves in his house and make them good women, or even be beaten with a stick 100 times.

However, this was not the end. Zhang Pu took out another document from Wu Weiye, put them together and said:
"Students also want to report the Wu family for occupying government land and failing to pay taxes."

"According to the students' measurements, the Wu family owns at least 800 acres of land, more than half of which is government land."

"When we checked their taxes, we found that they only paid 750 acres of land and only 20% of the property tax."

"In addition, he privately kept slaves to evade military service and refused to fulfill his basic civic obligations of paying taxes and serving in the military."

"Please ask Magistrate Huang to accept the report, impose a fine on the Wu family, and deprive them of their citizenship."

As soon as these words were spoken, there was an uproar all around.

Because no one expected that Zhang Pu would not only ask the Wu family to release all their slaves, but also to cancel their citizenship.

In other words, the Wu family will no longer be citizens, and they will no longer be good people?
This made all the slaves who followed Zhang Pu feel happy.

They have had enough of the Wu family's high-handedness these days and are eager to pull them down.

Wang Shimin was extremely angry at this time.

Because he never expected that Zhang Pu not only wanted to rescue a pariah, but also wanted to demote the Wu family to pariahs.

What on earth does he rely on? Isn't he afraid of offending all the gentry in Jiangnan?
If Huang Daozhou really takes over the documentary investigation, how can he save his nephew and his family?
-
At this time, Huang Daozhou was hesitating whether to accept the report.

He had heard that the newspaper industry had the right of public opinion supervision, but he did not expect that this kind of supervision was not limited to publishing articles, but could also be directly reported.

No wonder many people say that they are folk censors, which is indeed a bit like the power of censors.

Looking at Kou Shen beside him, Huang Daozhou found that he nodded slightly, and immediately made up his mind, took the report and said: "Since Editor-in-Chief Zhang has the power of supervision, I will accept this report."

"But Editor-in-Chief Zhang still needs to wait for the result."

Zhang Pu bowed respectfully and said:

"Students wait for news!"

Then he said to Wu Weiye:

"The complaint and the accusation have been accepted. Today's newspaper can be published."

"Everyone must know that the Wu family has committed three crimes."

As soon as these words were spoken, before Huang Daozhou could say anything, Wang Shimin's face changed drastically.

Because he realized: Zhang Pu’s real killer move was this.

The fact that the three cases Zhang Pu complained about and reported were accepted undoubtedly indicated that these three cases were considered illegal by the government.

Next, there will inevitably be many people who are unwilling to be slaves and will find ways to sue and report.

Even his Wang family could not escape. He was very strict in managing his household and was resented by many servants.

This made him point at Zhang Pu and say repeatedly:

"Good! Good! Good..."

"Today, I have witnessed your methods, Zhang Ximing."

"There's a long way to go, we'll see later!"

He left the Wu family in a hurry, planning to settle down at home first.

No matter what, I can't let anyone sue the Wang family and implicate myself in the matter.

After he left, Zhang Pu laughed out loud.

The others looked at his panicked back and laughed as well.

Before today, they had never imagined that the grandson of the high and mighty Prime Minister would one day be forced to flee by them.

These oppressed slaves all felt a sense of resentment.

Kou Shen looked at them, shook his head and sighed. He walked over to Huang Daozhou and said to him:
"If you feel embarrassed, you can let the Nanjing Supreme Court try it."

"They even submitted a petition to the imperial court, asking for a ruling."

"You are an official of the Hanlin Academy, I believe the officials of the Ministry of Rites will help you."

Huang Daozhou stared blankly at the petition and the accusation, and also felt it was difficult to deal with. But he said to Kou Shen:

"I still want to try and get them to reach a settlement."

"It's not a good thing to bring everything to court."

Thinking of Kou Shen's performance just now, he asked the prefect in a low voice:

"Could it be that the Lord of the Mansion wants to use this incident to pressure those wealthy families to hand over the official land?"

Kou Shen nodded slightly and also whispered:
"Those big players won't behave if we don't teach them a lesson."

"Just like the Wu family, despite the strict government regulations on measuring land and paying property taxes, they still dared to conceal their land and evade taxes."

"Now we are going to take back the government land they have cultivated. Who knows what kind of trouble it will cause?"

"And I don't know how to explain this to the governor..."

Surveying land and collecting taxes was Cao Wenheng's greatest political achievement this year.

For this reason, he even forced the Shen family to pay taxes, offending many gentry in Jiangnan.

I thought the land survey should have been completed, and the yellow book of Suzhou Prefecture was also being compiled.

Unexpectedly, Zhang Pu suddenly exposed it and reported that the Wu family concealed the land and evaded taxes.

This small family is like this, let alone other families.

It is estimated that Cao Wenheng would be very angry, and the officials of Suzhou Prefecture would inevitably suffer.

After listening to these stories, Huang Daozhou felt even more deeply the difficulties faced by local officials.

There are officials such as the governor above and gentry and common people below. If either side handles the situation poorly, they will be criticized.

Fortunately, I am not just a local official, my main job is the editor of the Hanlin Academy. Otherwise, Kou Shen would not be so polite and discuss with me in a friendly manner.

That day, Huang Daozhou summoned Zhang Pu and Wu Shirui to the yamen and asked them whether they were willing to reconcile.

After Wu Shirui knew that he might become a pariah, he no longer wanted to save his slaves and repeatedly said to Zhang Pu:

"Zhang Ximing... No, Mr. Ximing, Xiaoke knows he is wrong. Let Zhang Yao and his parents go now."

"Mr. Ximing, please be magnanimous and spare Xiaoke, how about that?"

Zhang Pu snorted coldly and said:

"Are you scared now? What did you do before?"

"You detained my newspaper employees for no reason. Do you think I'm easy to bully?"

Wu Shirui said humbly:

"Please forgive me, Mr. Ximing. Xiaoke is willing to compensate."

"Please tell me the amount, Mr. Ximing, and I will definitely give it to you."

Huang Daozhou also said:
"Isn't this good?"

"It is better to resolve this feud than to create one."

"Zhang Tianru, what do you think?"

Zhang Pu cupped his hands and said:
"It's not that the students don't want to reconcile, but now it's not just a one-person matter."

"The Zhang family violated the imperial law and occupied official land."

"Even if I withdraw the lawsuit and cancel the report, the government still has to give an explanation."

"Otherwise, where is the dignity of etiquette and law? Where is the public property of the court?"

Huang Daozhou was stunned when he heard this and looked at Wu Shirui again.

Wu Shirui said with a painful expression:
"I am willing to pay the fine for the taxes that the Wu family failed to pay."

"But the official land was bought by my ancestors, I can't just give it to the court like that!"

"I also spent money to buy the indentures of those slaves, and they were well fed and well cared for."

"Now you can let him go just like that. There is no such thing in the world!"

As he spoke, he presented a pile of documents, which were all records of the sale of his family's land, the indentures of his slaves, and even their debts.

Huang Daozhou checked it and found that it was indeed a formal document. If the Wu family was asked to release the slaves and hand over the official land for free, it would probably be seriously damaged and resentful of the court.

Zhang Pu looked at it with a squinting eye and reminded Huang Daozhou:
"Huang Tuiguan, these are all evidence of guilt! You must collect them."

"No matter what, the Wu family is not a high-ranking official, let alone an aristocrat. They are not qualified to keep slaves."

Wu Shirui was so angry that he pointed at Zhang Pu and cursed:

"Zhang Ximing, I'm already like this, do you still have to force me?"

"At worst, we can fight to the death and see who can hold on longer!"

Zhang Pu slapped his fingers away and said nonchalantly:
"The fish will definitely die, but the nets are strong nowadays and won't break that easily."

“It has come to this. You don’t think that I am leading a group of people to sit in silence just for my own benefit, do you?”

"If you speak nicely, I can still show you a way out."

"If you continue to be stubborn, then you will be a small fish in the storm!"

Huang Daozhou left the yamen with his disciples and others, and his first mediation attempt was declared a failure.

(End of this chapter)