Jiajing Chengming

Chapter 343 Jiajing suppressed the power of scholars and impeached himself!

"The report of the Censorate that Xue Liang accused Zhang Yin was about the evil thief Li Fuda, and that Marquis Wuding and the two uncles of the state had connections with him. What do you think?"

After Fei Hong came, Zhu Houcong asked about him.

Fei Hong then replied: "In my humble opinion, this is most likely a false accusation! This shows that some people are still dissatisfied with your majesty's use of nobles to seize power and profit, but we cannot rule out the possibility that Zhang Yin has signs of associating with rebels, because flies don't bite seamless eggs."

"This is not a simple matter! The tree wants to be still but the wind does not stop!"

Zhu Houcong sneered and replied.

Although he only knew that there was a case of Li Fuda during the Jiajing period that was mentioned in many novels and he was not very clear about the details, he could sense that there was a complicated purpose behind it.

Let’s talk.

The Li Fuda case also occurred in history in the fifth year of Jiajing.

Specifically, Xue Liang, a local thug who owed Zhang Yin, the commander of Taiyuan Guard, fifteen taels of silver and was forced by Zhang Yin to repay the debt, filed a complaint saying that Zhang Yin's real identity was Li Fuda.

According to the preliminary conclusion of the Shanxi governor and the Censorate, what Xue Liang reported was not true, because Zhang Yin's identity was a military craftsman, which did not match Li Fuda's civilian status, and his age did not match.

However, because Guo Xun had an old acquaintance with Zhang Yin, when Ma Lu took office as the Inspector General of Shanxi, he wrote a letter to Ma Lu, asking him not to cause trouble for his people again.

As a result, Guo Xun's plan backfired, and Ma Lu became suspicious. He re-examined the case and overturned the verdict, believing that Zhang Yin was indeed Li Fuda because Zhang Yin did look like the recorded Li Fuda.

After the case was reported to the Censorate, the Censorate also agreed with Ma Lu's opinion when reviewing the case and reported that Guo Xun was guilty of treason.

Naturally, Guo Xun argued to Emperor Jiajing, saying that if Zhang Yin was a traitor, there was no need for him to show up in person just to lend out fifteen taels of silver, and not be seen by Xue Liang and exposed. He would be very cautious and would not let the whole city know that he looked like Li Fuda, but would disguise himself first. He also mentioned the doubts from the initial trial, that is, the two people's hometowns and ages did not match.

In history, Emperor Jiajing found it difficult to distinguish the truth from the false, so he compromised on the case and only agreed with the decision of the Censorate, sentencing Zhang Yin to death and determining that what Ma Lu reported was true.

In this way, even if it was a wrongful case, it was only Zhang Yin who was wronged, and it did not involve Guo Xun, nor the political struggle in the court at that time.

However, the civil servants who were dissatisfied with Guo Xun refused to give up, because their purpose in bringing up this case was not to deal with Zhang Yin, but to deal with Guo Xun and get rid of this nobleman who had defected to Emperor Jiajing.

Therefore, in history, more than 20 people including the Imperial Censors Wang Ke and Zheng Yipeng, the Censor Cheng Qi Chong, the Nanjing Censor Yao Mingfeng, the Reviewer Du Luan, the Criminal Doctor Liu Shi, and the Chief Official Tang Shu, successively submitted memorials to impeach Guo Xun, believing that Guo Xun was Li Fuda's backer and should be punished together.

Guo Xun also defended himself repeatedly, saying that he was disliked by many ministers because he supported Jiajing in respecting his biological parents.

Guo Xun also begged Zhang Cong and Gui E to speak for him. They also believed that the ministers who were dissatisfied with the agreed ceremony were stirring up trouble and using this as an opportunity to express their dissatisfaction with the emperor.

Jiajing decided to escort Li Fuda to the capital to be tried by the three judicial officials.

However, the three judicial organs came to the same conclusion after the trial and demanded that Guo Xun be severely punished.

He did not give Emperor Jiajing any face at all.

In history, Jiajing had no choice but to gather civil and military officials to investigate the case.

But the result is still the same.

Seeing that the entire bureaucratic group seemed to be against his will, the historical Jiajing became furious and wanted to conduct the interrogation personally.

It was only after the persuasion of Grand Secretary Yang Yiqing that Jiajing handed the case over to the three judicial officials for interrogation.

The officials of the Three Judicial Departments did not dare to insist on their own opinions and re-charged Xue Liang with false accusation, confirming that Zhang Yin was not Li Fuda. However, the officials of the Three Judicial Departments did not hold Ma Lu, the instigator, accountable.

Therefore, Emperor Jiajing was very dissatisfied with this, so he asked Zhang Cong, Gui E and Fang Xianfu to take charge of the affairs of the Ministry of Justice, the Censorate and the Dali Temple respectively, and arrested the Minister of Justice Yan Yishou, Vice Ministers Liu Yu and Wang Qi, and interrogated them severely.

Finally, Emperor Jiajing relied on Zhang Cong and others to investigate the officials who had private correspondence behind Chu Ma Lu.

However, Gui E and others used torture to extract confessions.

However, during the Jiajing period, the case was finally concluded that Zhang Yin and Li Fuda were two different people, and Guo Xun was not defeated by ministers who were dissatisfied with him because of this case.

But after Jiajing's death, Xu Jie turned the case over again.

Because after forty years, that is, the forty-fifth year of Jiajing.

The notorious thief Cai Boguan was captured in Sichuan and confessed that he had learned sorcery from Li Tong in Shanxi.

So the government arrested Li Tong in Shanxi for questioning. Li Tong confessed that he was a descendant of Li Fuda, and that his family had been in charge of the White Lotus Sect for generations. He falsely claimed to be a descendant of the Tang Dynasty, misled the masses, and plotted a rebellion.

The name he gave was exactly the same as in this case, and Li Tong was later sentenced to death.

In this way, in the early years of the Longqing period, Xu Jie rehabilitated the exiled ministers and restored them to their posts.

However, his contemporary Guo Zizhan doubted that the case should be as the first trial result indicated, that Zhang Yin was not Li Fuda.

After all, if Zhang Yin was really Li Fuda, there would be no need to wait for forty years before his descendants suddenly sent people to Sichuan to rebel after the death of Emperor Jiajing, instead of leading believers in the local area to rebel.

Later famous officials Gao Gong and Zhang Juzheng also insisted that the judgments made by Zhang Cong and Gui E in the past were correct, and that Xu Jie was the one who confused right and wrong, that is, Zhang Yin was not Li Fuda, even though Zhang Yin might have had contact with the White Lotus Sect.

The essence of this is the struggle between imperial power and scholar power.

In the early years of Jiajing, the upright officials who valued the power of scholars were naturally not happy that Jiajing used Guo Xun and other nobles to consolidate the imperial power. Therefore, they took advantage of the fact that Zhang Yin and Li Fuda were very similar and Xue Liang accused Zhang Yin of being a thief to implicate Guo Xun, so that Guo Xun would fall and challenge the emperor.

In history, Jiajing originally wanted to settle the matter peacefully and did not want to intensify the internal strife, so he let it go and only executed Zhang Yin, hoping to make a big deal out of a small matter. However, the upright people who represented the power of the scholars would not give in and insisted that Jiajing deal with Guo Xun. Seeing this, Guo Xun and Zhang Cong and other imperial party members also instigated Jiajing not to give in.

Therefore, in history, Jiajing once again fought against the entire Qingliu. With the support of Zhang Cong, Gui E and other imperial party members, he suppressed the Qingliu. For this purpose, he also let Zhang Yin, who might not be so clean, go.

In any case, the Ming Dynasty's system and the social background at the time determined that as long as the emperor was unwilling to voluntarily give up power, the power of the scholars would never be able to defeat the emperor.

Therefore, Jiajing suppressed the upright opinion.

But after Jiajing's death, and because Emperor Longqing was not a power-hungry person, Xu Jie, who represented the Qingliu, took the opportunity to overturn the verdict and revive the power of the literati.

However, Gao Gong and Zhang Juzheng were two ministers who were committed to reform, advocated the use of law-abiding officials, and hoped to use the imperial power to carry out reforms. Therefore, they advocated trusting the results of Zhang Cong and Gui E's handling of the matter and did not agree with Xu Jie's handling of the matter.

Because in the Ming Dynasty the emperor essentially held both power and prime ministerial power, so if any reform was to be carried out, the emperor's help was still necessary.

In short.

Just as Yang Jinshui said, some things don't weigh even a few ounces if they are not weighed, but if they are weighed, they weigh even a thousand pounds.

If Ma Lu and his followers who were striving to make the power of scholars greater than the power of the emperor had not forced Jiajing to take this matter to heart, it would have been just a minor case and would not have involved a power struggle that lasted for half a century.

Even if it was really a wrongful case, the only unlucky one was Zhang Yin, the commander of Taiyuan Guard.

But Ma Lu and his fellow Qingliu people behind him were determined to put this case on the scale, which made the case suddenly become complicated. Even for half a century, people were still talking about it, and it was still mentioned in later generations.

But historically, generally speaking, it was Ma Lu and other upright people who won, because Xu Jie stabbed Jiajing in the back after his death and restored their reputation.

Although Gao Gong and Zhang Juzheng did not support this, their policies also died out. The literati and officials who surrendered to the Qing Dynasty in the late Ming Dynasty and their children still stood on the side of Ma Lu, Xu Jie and others when compiling the history of the Ming Dynasty. For example, Zhang Tingyu believed that Zhang Yin was Li Fuda.

It's just that a few people have been raising questions.

Now, Zhu Houcong from later generations also encountered this case which had a significant impact on history in the fifth year of Jiajing.

He could smell the political motivations and challenges behind this.

That's why he said this to Fei Hong and asked Fei Hong: "What do you think I should do?"

"Your Majesty is trying to revive the country and eliminate the bad and promote the good. It is like swimming against the current, which is bound to cause waves."

When Fei Hong said this, he took out a book from his sleeve and said, "I also have a book here that I am going to show to Your Majesty."

Zhu Houcong took it and after reading it, he found that it was a memorial from Zhang Lu, the censor from Fujian, impeaching Fei Hong for occupying his position without doing anything and causing the court to spend money before it could earn money.

(End of this chapter)