Jiajing Chengming

Chapter 212: Catch them and control all nine clans!

Zhang Lun stood there in a daze.

At this time, Xia Yan ordered, "Han Ping, have your soldiers remove all the dirt here and see what happens!"

"Yes!"

As more and more soil was dug up, Xia Yan saw more and more gold mines.

"You're using this to fool me and the court?!"

Xia Yan's face became increasingly gloomy.

Zhang Lun immediately knelt down and said, "Zhongcheng, please allow me to report this! I didn't intend to fool you like this. This was all suggested by those people below. Who would have thought that you are so meticulous!"

"Such a rich gold mine."

"I have never seen such a rich gold mine in my life."

"This will bring great benefits to the country. Zhang Zhizhou, oh Zhang Zhizhou, you should understand."

Xia Yan looked at the gold mine in front of him and sighed.

"Can you spare me a moment to talk?"

Zhang Lun took the initiative to speak at this time.

Xia Yan thought about it and said, "Okay!"

Afterwards, after washing his hands, Xia Yan and Zhang Lun came to a high slope and said, "Let's talk."

"Zhongcheng said that he had never seen such a rich gold mine in his life."

"I've never seen it before."

"I haven't seen any of the big families in Fujian and Zhejiang."

"I haven't even seen the inspector yet."

"But precisely because no one has ever seen such a large gold mine, this gold mine cannot fall into the hands of the court, especially not into the hands of Your Majesty!"

Zhang Lun started talking.

Xia Yan faced the wind, looked at the clouds, and asked, "What do you mean?"

"Compared with the previous Yuan Dynasty and the Zhao Song Dynasty, the status of the literati has greatly declined in this dynasty. Why is that? It is because Taizu moved away the wealthy families in the south of the Yangtze River. As a result, there are still too few people in the world who are rich enough to rival a country, and the wealth is too dispersed!"

"If all this gold really came into the hands of the imperial court, into the hands of the emperor, even if the emperor would not squander it, build large-scale projects, or reward royal relatives, he would probably do what Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty did and use military force!"

"If this happens, the warriors and the flatterers will rise up! Then what will happen to the status of our scholars and officials?"

"so!"

At this point, Xia Yan interrupted Zhang Lun and said, "So, you plan to embezzle the gold mine, saying that it has been mined out, so that you can become as rich as a country in the future, and even control the world?"

"I am just a governor who was demoted here. The one who is as rich as a country is not me, but the big local officials in Fujian, as well as you and Han Tongzhi."

Zhang Lun replied.

Xia Yan said: "You are insulting me!"

"How dare I!"

"I just want you to think about it. Although you will not offend the court if you report the truth to the court, you will go against the people's will here!"

"If you don't report the truth to the court, your family will continue to be rich and prosperous in Jiangxi!"

Zhang Lun said again.

Xia Yan thought for a moment and asked, "If I don't disobey them, how much will they be willing to give me?"

"Your share of the profits from this gold mine is one million taels of silver, which will be shipped back to your hometown in batches."

"Of course it's not just this gold mine, it's also these people."

Zhang Lun pointed to a large area of ​​huts in front of him and said, "There are also the wives of these exiled criminals. Many of them are the wives of exiled nobles. They are beautiful and talented. Although there are many of them, as long as the emperor reports that the mines are indeed exhausted, further mining will be a waste of money and manpower. Once the court orders a halt to mining, we can force their husbands to sell them to the Western Barbarians as slaves. The Western Barbarians are very willing to pay a high price to buy these wives of nobles who understand our Han culture as slaves. They will definitely charge a lot of money by then."

"Even if they don't mine, they still have to farm. Why would they force their husbands to sell these women from the noble families?"

Xia Yan asked.

Zhang Lun said, "You know, Zhongcheng, this isn't real farming. It's just because the emperor is kindhearted and doesn't want to just say he doesn't care about the lives of these miners and their families, so he changed it to farming and made some money from it. Who would really want to organize farming here? Farming here will not only affect the high rents in the interior, but also increase the tax revenue for the court. It's better to rent it to the Portuguese or sell it to them."

"Therefore, these miners will never have the opportunity to cultivate land. As long as the mining stops, they will run out of food and will have no choice but to sell their wives and daughters! Or even sell themselves."

After Zhang Lun finished speaking, Xia Yan nodded and sighed, "These are the nine clans of the Nanzhi nobles who were exiled here because of their feelings for the benevolent rule of the Xiao Temple, and we are going to harm them!"

"This can be regarded as a way for them to continue to do righteous deeds for the Temple of Filial Piety and for the scholars of the world!"

"Besides, His Majesty hates them to the core and won't really care about them! We just need to pretend."

"Don't worry too much, sir."

Zhang Lun said.

Xia Yan said: "Give me a written receipt, so that after I submit the report, you won't regret not sending the one million taels to my hometown!"

"The document has been prepared."

"They already knew that they couldn't fool Zhong Cheng by smearing mud!"

Zhang Lun took out a document from his sleeve and gave it to Xia Yan.

Xia Yan laughed: "I'm afraid you think you can fool them as much as you can, so you can save a lot."

More than half a month later.

Xia Yan returned to Zhenhai, Zhejiang.

Here, he wrote a secret memorial to Zhu Houcong.

He decided to report the truth.

Because he knew what answer the emperor wanted to know, if the answer was not what the emperor wanted, then he would definitely not have a good ending. During his time in Gyeonggi Province, he had already understood the emperor's methods and knew that the emperor was very vigilant against the rentiers in the world.

After Xia Yan finished writing the secret memorial and locked it in a secret memorial box, he gave it to his servant Qu Zhong and instructed him, "You personally take it to the capital and hand it over to the Ministry of Public Administration."

Qu Zhong said yes, and after leaving Xia Yan, he took the secret report and went to Hangzhou first. He entered a temple in Hangzhou and met Sheng Quan who was temporarily staying in the temple.

Sheng Quan asked Qu Zhong: "Did you bring the secret report?"

Qu Zhong nodded.

"Compare it again! Are this secret music box and our imitation secret music box absolutely the same?"

Sheng Quan put the secret memorial box he brought, which was also engraved with Xia Yan's autograph, together with the secret memorial box brought by Qu Zhong.

Qu Zhong looked at it carefully and said, "It's the same."

After looking at it carefully for a while, Sheng Quan nodded, and then smashed open Xia Yan's secret music box with a hammer.

It turned out that Sheng Quan and other wealthy families in Fujian had long known that Xia Yan was going to investigate the mines, and had bribed his servants in advance. When Xia Yan was away, they had their servants take out his secret box and had skilled craftsmen trace and imitate it and make it look old in order to make it look real.

Therefore, Sheng Quan dared to replace Xia Yan's secret music box.

After smashing open Xia Yan's secret report box, Sheng Quan took out Xia Yan's secret report and opened it to read.

"I, Xia Yan, the Right Censor-in-Chief, the Governor of Zhejiang Military Affairs and the Salt Administration, respectfully report that I have been ordered to go to Donglai to investigate the mines. I have found that the gold mines have indeed been mined out, but the surrounding areas are rich in water and moist soil, which can be used as a place for military farming..."

Sheng Quan read it while watching it, and gradually smiled: "The master will definitely be happy when he knows it!"

……

……

When Xia Yan returned to Hangzhou, he went to Yuyao first, and met Zhu Wu alone in Yuyao city that night, and handed the secret box to Zhu Wu.

Zhu Wu took the secret box, signed it, gave Xia Yan a reply, and then disappeared into the dark.

It turned out that Zhu Houcong specially gave two secret reporting boxes to the ministers who had the right to make secret reports, in order to enable them to enhance confidentiality when reporting major events and confuse those who would spy on the secrets.

Coming from the future, he has experience with information leakage and confidentiality, so he knows the importance of keeping information confidential.

Moreover, he also knew that the Ming Dynasty in history had made many major mistakes due to the lack of information confidentiality.

For example, when General Yang Hao was conquering Liao, Nurhaci knew about his strategy before he even left Shanhaiguan.

There was also Chen Xinjia who, under the imperial order, secretly negotiated peace with the Qing Dynasty. However, the peace letter was easily stolen by his family servants and leaked.

Even during the Wanli period, there was an incident in which the secret revelations made by the Prime Minister Shen Shixing to Wanli were known in advance by the Six Departments' Censors and leaked out in advance, causing Shen Shixing to leave the position of Prime Minister ahead of schedule.

Therefore, Zhu Houcong has always paid attention to strengthening the confidentiality system, and clearly required that when reporting important matters, the intermediate links must be reduced as much as possible, the intermediaries who transmit information must be absolutely reliable and specialized, and the transmitters and receivers must keep it confidential to everyone, including family members and contacts.

The secret report of the governor Xia Yan was only delivered through Jinyiwei Zhu Wu. His family members and servants actually did not know the actual transmission route.

Zhu Houcong also received two secret reports from Xia Yan after this.

One is a seal without the signature of the Jinyiwei, and the other is a seal with the signature of the Jinyiwei.

The former said that the mineral resources in Donglai had indeed been exhausted, while the latter said that they had not been exhausted. The officials and wealthy families in Fujian were colluding to deceive the court and wanted to sell the exiled Han women to the Western Barbarians as slaves.

Now it's up to him to make a decision. If he wants to keep things quiet, he should choose the first option and pretend he doesn't know about these bad things. If he wants to investigate further, he should choose the second option.

After reading the latter secret report, Zhu Houcong could not help but think of the teacher's analysis, and became more convinced that these landlords were naturally inclined to collude with foreigners and sell out their own people, and were naturally motivated to become compradors. It was obvious that the exiled Han women were from the same class as them, but they had no intention of helping them after they fell into trouble, and instead wanted to take advantage of them to make money.

The backward and reactionary nature of the landlord class's profit-seeking made Zhu Houcong want to eliminate them as soon as possible to prevent them from dragging the entire nation into darkness again.

In order to avoid all this, make the newly developed resources beneficial to the country and the people, and even develop more new resources to benefit the country and the people in the future, Zhu Houcong needs to catch examples and strictly control these insects.

Therefore, Zhu Houcong only took the latter secret report and summoned the cabinet ministers: "The evidence is conclusive. According to Xia Yan's report, these black-hearted people are greedy for the country's big mines, and they also want to sell the exiled women of the nobles to the Western Barbarians as slaves! I have never seen such evil! Immediately draft an order to arrest Lai Yuan and Zhang Lun, and let the local officials control their nine clans. Put the officials in the court into the imperial prison!"

Cabinet ministers were not surprised.

After all, they are all scholars and officials, so they naturally know people of the same class as themselves very well.

The only thing that surprised them was that Xia Yan actually chose to reveal the truth to the emperor, and also that the emperor actually knew the truth.

Especially the latter!
They couldn't help but feel amazed and terrified at the emperor's ability to grasp the facts thousands of miles away.

What is amazing is how good the emperor is at ensuring the confidentiality of information.

What they were afraid of was that even after they retired and returned home, the emperor would know what they were really doing.

But no matter what, now that the truth about Donglai Minerals has been revealed, they naturally have to obey the order.

As the cabinet edicts were issued one after another, the Jinyiwei and local officials officially dispatched the imperial guards and government troops.

After meeting Xia Yan, Zhang Lun returned to Fujian to avoid any complications and personally reported to the Inspector Lai Yuan the details of Xia Yan's visit to the mines.

Lai Yuan smiled and said, "There's also a letter from Zhejiang. Xia Yan did make this secret report. Now it seems that we should contact the Portuguese to sell people and rent land!"

Zhang Lun then asked Lai Yuan: "Feng Xian, do you know about your promotion back to Beijing to be the chief official?"

"The military selection department official!"

Lai Yuan smiled as he spoke: "The last military selection official, Gui E, went to Huguang, and this position has not been decided yet!"

"Feng Xian, you really did me a great favor!"

Zhang Lun quickly knelt down.

Lai Yuan raised his hand to let Zhang Lun stand up, then waved his hand to let Zhang Lun leave.

After Zhang Lun left, he returned to the inn. Since he was in a good mood, he specially called a prostitute to sleep with him.

When Zhang Lun and the prostitute took off all their clothes and were having sex passionately, they heard the door suddenly burst open and several armored soldiers wearing round helmets rushed in with knives.

"Is it Zhang Lun?!"

The leader of the fans screamed in fright and quickly took the quilt to cover her privacy.

Zhang Lun also quickly covered his penis and pointed at these people and asked:
"Who are you and what do you want? My name is not Zhang Lun. I am just a merchant staying at the post house. Who allowed you to break in?"

(End of this chapter)