Jiajing Chengming

Chapter 275: Plagiarizing a noble family and betraying a former university scholar!

At the beginning of April in the fourth year of Jiajing, at Luhe Posthouse in Tongzhou.

This place has always been a key water and land transportation hub for the Ming Dynasty's north-south transportation.

Therefore, boats and carriages were crowded together, and officials and hats and robes were like clouds.

Even at night, the lights are on, and it seems like there are tens of thousands of houses.

The Hanlin Liu family who lived here were naturally quite famous in Tongzhou City as a noble family in the city.

Therefore, when Jinyiwei Lu Bing and his entourage arrived in Tongzhou, they quickly found out where the Hanlin Liu family lived.

When the Jinyiwei arrived at Hanlin Liu's house, Xing Luan, the prefect of Tongzhou, had already appeared outside the gate of Liu's house and asked Lu Bing and other Jinyiwei in a deep voice:

"Why are you Tiqi here?"

Lu Bing, who was riding on a horse, tightened the reins in his hand, first glanced at his Jinyiwei, and then replied to Xing Luan:

"I am ordered to arrest the criminals who plotted treason!"

The Jinyiwei cavalry under Lu Bing's command quickly dispersed to both sides, surrounded the Liu family, and drove away the surrounding people.

Xing Luan sneered, "Liu Hanlin is from a noble family, how could he be a traitor? You treacherous lackeys will only harm loyal people and undermine the virtue of His Majesty!"

"Who is Gong?"

Lu Bing asked.

Xing Luan said: "Xing Luan, the governor of Tongzhou!"

"What a good prefect, you actually acted as a watchdog for the gentry. You are an official of the Ming Dynasty, not a servant of the Liu family!"

Lu Bing smiled coldly, and then said: "Be sensible and disperse quickly, otherwise don't blame the king for being ruthless!"

Xing Luan gritted his teeth and said, "It is an honor to be a lackey of a noble family. It is better than being a treacherous lackey like you. Unless you step over me today, you will never be able to enter the Liu family!"

"Aren't you afraid that the imperial court will blame you for harboring traitors?!"

Lu Bing asked.

Xing Luan seemed not to be afraid of all this, and said in a deep voice: "I think you are the traitors who are disobeying the emperor's orders!"

"You have the guts!"

After Lu Bing said this, he got off his horse, drew his knife, and walked towards Xing Luan.

Xing Luan asked coldly: "Do you still dare to kill me, an official appointed by the imperial court?"

"You thieves! Stop being so arrogant!"

Xing Luan pointed at Lu Bing and cursed, then clenched his fists.

Lu Bing didn't say anything, but just walked towards Xing Luan and stepped onto the stairs.

"I will definitely join you!"

But when Lu Bing stepped onto the stairs and walked to the eaves of the Liu family's main gate, only three steps away from Xing Luan, Xing Luan suddenly ran down the stairs, only saying these words while panting.

Seeing this, Lu Bing smiled coldly, then stepped into the Liu family's gate.

Xing Luan had already asked his servants to help him into the sedan chair and ordered, "Return to the provincial government immediately!"

After Lu Bing stepped into the Liu family's gate, the Jinyiwei behind him also rushed in.

When the Hanlin Liu family saw the Jinyiwei rushing in, they were naturally terrified, and even cried for their parents one after another.

Butler Liu Lin was calmer and seemed to have expected this, so he smiled sadly and said, "As expected, you guys came after all. I thought my father really wouldn't reveal his real family."

Lu Bing simply said: "If you don't want others to know, then don't do it. Your Liu family is really good at hiding it!"

"take away!"

Lu Bing said as he gave the order.

Liu Lin suddenly changed color at this time, and asked loudly: "If you didn't insist on changing the system, who would harm the imperial physician, who would think they lived too long!"

Lu Bing said nothing more.

As a close minister to the emperor, he would also be confused and lost after experiencing so many things.

He also didn't understand why the emperor wanted to reform the system if it was so risky.

For him, the victim this time was only Imperial Physician Zhou, but he was worried that in the future it might not just be Imperial Physician Zhou who would be victimized, but someone might even directly harm the emperor himself.

Lu Bing also knew that there is a saying that one can steal for a thousand days but never be on guard against thieves for a thousand days.

Therefore, his favorability towards reformers like Zhang Cong actually began to decline.

Of course, his favorability towards Zhang Cong decreased because he felt that this would bring risks to Emperor Zhu Houcong, not because he was dissatisfied with Zhang Cong's ideas.

During the great discussion on rituals, he had a very favorable impression of Zhang Cong, because Zhang Cong at that time dared to fight for rituals on behalf of the emperor.

For Lu Bing, as long as the emperor was at peace, he would be at peace; as long as the emperor had power, he would have power.

Therefore, now that Zhang Cong was making the emperor uneasy, he also became uneasy, and began to doubt and bewilderment about Zhang Cong's ideas.

But Lu Bing hid his doubts and confusion in his heart, and on the surface he still resolutely carried out the tasks assigned to him by the emperor.

Zhu Houcong knew that those who opposed the reform were not well organized, and that those on his side who supported the reform were actually not well organized either. Many of them became supporters of the reformists without knowing why, and many of them only stood on the side of the reform out of loyalty to him personally.

Therefore!
Zhu Houcong knew that he would need to strengthen ideological work and give his people clear political goals and make them all accept a common goal.

In this way, he could prevent his subordinates from being confused and influenced by people with ulterior motives, or from having other radical ideas. For Zhu Houcong personally, he also knew that radical internal reforms would bring great hidden dangers to him as the emperor.

Although the imperial power was supreme in the Ming Dynasty, it did not mean that there would not be people so bold as to want to kill the emperor.

As the saying goes, one is willing to sacrifice his life to bring down the emperor.

When it comes to the competition for existing interests, there will always be radicals who do extreme things, and the people who benefit the most will react more violently when their interests are disturbed.

Therefore, Zhu Houcong's main idea was to make the cake bigger, rather than to adjust the existing cake distribution system. He would not adopt the kind of reform advocated by Yang Tinghe and others that would sacrifice the interests of the emperor and the country.

Because strictly speaking, this kind of reform is also adjusting the distribution of interests, but the objects chosen for sacrifice are the emperor and the country, which will still put the emperor in an uneasy situation.

Because even if the emperor is willing to be frugal, the people around him will not be willing to follow suit. They will only resent the emperor because he is too frugal and they don't get much benefit from it.

Zhu Houcong's withdrawal of the eunuchs who were guarding the whole country did not cause instability in the inner court because at the same time he increased the income of the inner treasury, and while taking away the power of the eunuchs, he also gave them more financial benefits.

Otherwise, he might have ended up like in history, where the concubines and eunuchs wished him dead when he was strangled by the palace maids because of excessive cuts in palace expenses and strict restrictions on the upgrade of treatment and status of concubines.

Otherwise, it would not have been possible that a dozen young palace maids spent most of the day busying themselves around the emperor trying to kill him, but not a single eunuch or concubine knew about it.

It can be seen that it was not just the palace maids who wished that Jiajing would be strangled to death by the palace maids.

The background for this situation was that Emperor Jiajing in history drastically cut court expenses.

Zhu Houcong wanted to make the cake bigger for two reasons besides considering his own safety:

Firstly, now is not a time when internal and external troubles are serious, and most people in the ruling class would rather live in peace and tranquility without any turmoil.

Secondly, there are no strong enemies outside, so it is a good time to expand outward.

Of course, Zhu Houcong felt that this did not mean that the distribution would not be adjusted at all. After all, if the distribution was not adjusted at all, he would not be able to concentrate part of the manpower and material resources to make a bigger cake.

Therefore, Zhu Houcong now imposed additional customs duties, changed the grain transport system, and made appropriate adjustments to the tax system and grain transportation system.

only!

Zhu Houcong now also needs to unify his own ideas with the common ideas of the interest groups around him and needs to strengthen the work of ideological unification.

After all, even if various systems are appropriately adjusted, it is inevitable that conflicts and contradictions will be exacerbated.

At this time, Zhu Houcong could not just let his subordinates understand and guess in order to maintain the sense of mystery, but he had to teach and guide them appropriately.

Back to the topic.

Now is not the time for Zhu Houcong to do this.

Because those who opposed the reform could not help but take action first, he first severely dealt with those who challenged his imperial power so that he could devote his energy to carrying out ideological education work internally.

After Lu Bing took Liu's family back to the capital, Zhu Houcong asked Zhang Tong to bring these people to Liu Yinghuai.

During this period, Liu Yinghuai has been denying that he knows anyone else besides Li Yang who is involved in the poisoning of Doctor Zhou.

No matter how Zhang Tong tortured.

On this day, Zhang Tong brought the Liu family to Liu Yinghuai and asked him, "Liu Yinghuai, are you really unwilling to name the others?"

Liu Yinghuai also pretended to be tired and said, "I really don't know anyone else. If you want me to identify someone, just tell me! Otherwise, the person I framed is not the one you want to arrest."

"Open the skylight!"

"Let him see who are the people kneeling in front of him now!"

Zhang Tong gave an order at this time.

Suddenly, the skylight on the roof above Liu Yinghuai's head was opened.

The dazzling sunlight immediately formed beams of light and shot into the interrogation room which was dyed dim by the candlelight. Liu Yinghuai could not help but close his eyes.

"Dad! It's me! I'm Liu Qi!"

At this time.

Liu Lin, who was kneeling beside Liu Yinghuai, cried out.

Liu Yinghuai suddenly opened his eyes and looked at Liu Lin, his third son Liu Fu and others.

"Why are you here?"

Liu Yinghuai asked in shock.

"The so-called family members who lived with you in Beijing before were not your family members! I told you that I tortured them, but you were not moved at all!"

As Zhang Tong spoke, he suddenly drew his knife and stabbed Liu Lin in the back.

Liu Lin fell directly to the ground.

"you!"

Liu Yinghuai looked up in surprise.

Zhang Tong asked, "Tell me, is there any other murderer? Is there anyone else instructing your Liu family to do this?!"

"Otherwise they will all die!"

As Zhang Tong spoke, he suddenly raised his voice and his tone became cold.

Liu Yinghuai couldn't help but close his eyes, and then said: "Yes! The grandson of the former Li Wenda, the former doctor of the Ministry of Literature, Li Yun, he instructed our Liu family to do this!"

Liu Yinghuai started to cry as he spoke: "But, my whole family will still be wiped out like this! Woohoo!"

(End of this chapter)