The Ming Dynasty took an unconventional approach

Chapter 485 You Are Too Fat

Even more frantic than Pan Yue were the civil servants who opposed Wang Zhen. "Was it Prime Minister Yang who proposed to use Wang Zhen?"

"The news from the palace cannot be wrong. He heard it with his own ears from Prime Minister Yang and His Majesty."

"Prime Minister Yang is going to lose his reputation in his later years!"

"Could it be that Wang Zhen has something on Prime Minister Yang?"

"What leverage does Prime Minister Yang have? Yang Ji? Humph, he can be leverage on Wang Zhen, or on us."

"That's right, Yang Ji's reputation is not good. Send someone to Ji'an to investigate."

"So Prime Minister Yang knows how Yang Ji behaves? Tsk, it seems that Prime Minister Yang is not as honest and fair as the legend says."

Everyone remained silent, but as their eyes moved, they showed a little more contempt for Yang Shiqi.

Xue Xuan was released from prison, and Pan Hong watched from the sidelines: "Master Xue, if you go out and meet my two boys, you must let them go back to Datong, and don't let them stay in the capital."

Xue Xuan: "Brother Pan, you can just call me Jingxuan. I have been dismissed from my post and am no longer an official."

Pan Hong agreed immediately, and then said, "My name is Pan Bo Zheng."

Xue Xuan called him "Bo Zheng" and then bowed and left.

Pan Hong reluctantly held onto the door and watched him leave.

The man in the next cell saw that he didn't look away for a long time, so he said, "Don't look anymore, you won't be able to get out in this lifetime."

Pan Hong retracted his gaze and asked, "Master Lin has been imprisoned in the imperial prison for six years, right?"

Lord Lin was silent.

Pan Hong sighed and said, "I have been imprisoned for six days. Every day feels like a year. It feels like six years."

Lord Lin gritted his teeth and said, "Are you mocking me?"

Pan Hong said sincerely, "Master Lin, you think too much. I admire you. After all, I have only been here for six days, but it feels like six years. You have been here for 2,446 days, right? If you really feel like you have been here for a long time, then you have been in the imperial prison for 2,446 years..."

Pan Hong looked up at the skylight and said, "In two more hours, it will be two thousand four hundred and forty-seven years."

Lord Lin was stunned for a moment, then quickly came to his senses: "You have read my file, do you know when I was imprisoned?"

Pan Hong smiled and said, "I used to be a censor of the Metropolitan Censorate. The case that Lord Lin handled was handled by the Metropolitan Censorate. I was just a small censor at that time, doing odd jobs for the adults."

Lord Lin was silent.

Pan Hong was unwilling to let him go, and continued to talk nonsense with him: "I didn't expect that you, Lord Lin, are so resilient and still alive after so many years..."

Lord Lin gnashed his teeth and said, "What do you mean? Cursing me to die early?"

"No, no, Lord Lin, please don't misunderstand me. You and I are both in trouble now. How could I curse you to die early?"

Lord Lin sneered: "You are a dog, but I am not. I can't die if I am locked up here, but you may not."

"No, no, if you really want to say that," Pan Hong shook his head and said, "You are the dog, not me."

"After all, I didn't flood thousands of acres of fertile fields, and I didn't escape death by staying in prison."

Lord Lin sneered: "Do you think the people imprisoned in this imperial prison are real criminals? Let me tell you, there are always more good people than bad people in this prison, such as you and me!"

"If I hadn't dug the dike and released the water, I don't know how many people would have died."

Pan Hong: "Master Lin, do you know how many people died after the floods flooded thousands of acres of fertile land?"

"It's better than a flood in a town, right?" Pan Hong sneered, "Lord Lin dug this dam very skillfully. The people who were flooded were all families in the county with less than 12 mu of farmland per capita. After the flood, those who had land lost their land, and those who had less land lost their land. The tenant farmers became refugees and beggars. It's been six years, and this problem has not been eliminated yet.

Three years ago, of the 10,000 mu of fertile land that was flooded, more than 7,600 mu were purchased by five families to form farms, and the remaining 2,000 mu were bought by dozens of small landowners. Only a very small number of original villagers were able to keep some of their land.

Pan Hong looked directly at Lord Lin: "The market that once existed on that land has disappeared, the population has dispersed, and only the graves in the wasteland still have some traces of them. In this case, Lord Lin still insists that he has done nothing wrong?"

Lord Lin's expression changed slightly, "I, I saved everyone in the town..."

Pan Hong: "The lives of the big landlords and gentry are lives, but the lives of ordinary people are not lives?"

"Don't spit blood at me. There are more than 80,000 people in the town. Are they all landlords and gentry?"

Pan Hong sneered, "This matter has already been discussed in the court. I don't want to argue with Lord Lin again. Whether it is a merit or a fault, future generations will judge it a hundred years later. Whether it is right or wrong, Lord Lin can ask himself in his dreams at midnight."

Lord Lin looked pale.

At this time, the civil servants in the hall also looked pale, with a hint of blue in their faces.

As soon as Wang Zhen returned to the Imperial Household Department, he started to cause trouble. First, Wang Wen impeached the Fuzhou governor for raising pirates and colluding with pirates to invade coastal areas.
Then Sima Shun, the Southern Pacification Governor, wrote a letter to the emperor talking about the smuggling of salt in the Jiangsu and Zhejiang areas.

What’s worse is that the two men also submitted two account books, and no one knew what was written on the books. Anyway, the emperor’s expression became uglier and uglier the more he looked at them.

Then, Wang Wen mentioned the incident in the summer of the second year of Zhengtong when Lin You, the prefect of Ji'an, dug the dike and flooded ten thousand acres of fertile farmland. He said, "It is said that Lin You dug the dike to avoid the fertile farmland of Yang Shoufu's family, so the flood flooded ten thousand acres of fertile farmland of ordinary people. Six years have passed, and the refugees who were flooded are still hungry and naked and wandering outside."

Yang Shiqi stood there with his brows lowered, as if he hadn't heard anything.

Other civil servants remained silent and were unwilling to defend Yang Shiqi.

Yang Pu pursed his lips, stepped out and said: "Your Majesty, Wang Wen is a false accusation. At that time, Prime Minister Yang was in the capital, and the flood came so suddenly and quickly, how could he know about it?

Besides, Prime Minister Yang doesn't have that much land, just a hundred acres of good land, why would he destroy tens of thousands of acres of good land for a hundred acres of good land?"

"That may not be the case. After the flood, the Yang family bought a lot of land. It is said that most of the land was flooded and bought at a low price. Maybe this is also one of Prime Minister Yang's calculations?"

Yang Shiqi replied calmly: "You fart."

"Whether it's bullshit or not, Your Majesty, just send someone to Ji'an to investigate and you'll know."

Yang Shiqi was not worried and looked calm.

Now even the civil servants were confused. Did he clean up the mess or was he still unaware of what happened in Ji'an?

After the court session, Yang Shiqi slowly walked up to the men and said, "Lord Jiang."

"The subordinate is here."

Yang Shiqi: "I can stand the test, but can the salt transport stand the test?"

Lord Jiang lowered his eyes, his expression unchanged, only his fingers trembled slightly.

Yang Shiqi said, "Aren't you curious about what's written in the account book in your Majesty's hand? If we want to investigate smuggled salt, we must investigate the salt transportation. If we investigate the salt, should we also investigate the grain transportation? Smuggling is serious in the Jiangnan area. Last year, pirates came ashore and destroyed villages with swords in their hands. We need to investigate all these things one by one. Are you ready?"

Lord Jiang couldn't help but look up at Yang Shiqi and asked in a low voice, "Why is the Prime Minister standing on Wang Zhen's side?"

Yang Shiqi shook his head slightly: "I am not on Wang Zhen's side, I am on the side of His Majesty and the people of the world.

You guys are eating too much, you should lose some weight, otherwise, during the Chinese New Year, you will be made into a dish for slaughtering pigs."

Good night

(End of this chapter)