Jiajing Chengming

Chapter 385 The conflict between the imperial party and the gentry is irreconcilable, it's a fight to the death!

Yan Song did not listen, but ordered Henan Commander Lou Da to lead soldiers to beat these wealthy gentry with sticks, saying that these people were disrupting politics and interfering with the law, and obstructing the court from investigating and arresting rebels.

For a moment, sticks were flying.

"Ah, stop hitting me!"

"Let's go!"

Some wealthy and powerful people could not bear the beating and died at home a few days after returning home.

The gentry and wealthy families in Kaifeng Prefecture were even more furious because of this, but because there were royal guards stationed in Kaifeng City and other important roads, they could only dare not speak out.

Yan Song also took advantage of the fact that there were large troops stationed outside and ordered the local soldiers in Henan to frantically arrest people, instead of letting his own guards arrest anyone. He took the initiative to let the local officials and soldiers bear the infamy of offending the gentry and wealthy families, so as to achieve the goal of making it difficult for local troops and local wealthy families to collude with each other in the future.

These local soldiers in Henan Province had indeed suffered a lot of bullying from the gentry and wealthy families, so when they were ordered to arrest people, they were naturally very rough and often insulted and beat them.

The gentry and wealthy families could not bear it, and some of them with strong personalities chose to commit suicide.

Most of them did not dare to commit suicide, but they just cursed Yan Song for oppressing the gentry and secretly posted anonymous notices, calling him a living devil.

Yan Song turned a deaf ear to this. He knew that being an official was not like being a Bodhisattva, and it was normal for some actions to be criticized.

The key point is that it is useless for the gentry to commit suicide or curse.

Unless they really rebel, they cannot defeat the emperor's personal guards stationed in important places.

After all, the soldiers of the emperor's personal guard were all wearing armor, equipped with large guns weighing more than 20 kilograms and vehicle-mounted submachine guns.

Some local bandits, who were on the same side as the gentry, tried to charge at the soldiers, but were beaten and destroyed for miles before they even came into contact with them.

Therefore, later on, the middle and lower class gentry were the first to be unable to bear it and decided to compromise. They also began to take the initiative to file complaints, exposing the crimes of the top local gentry in the hope of gaining merit and avoiding punishment.

Some wealthy gentry who knew more about the murder of the imperial envoy began to take the initiative to reveal the circumstances behind the murder of the imperial envoy Xu Yi who had come to Kaifeng to investigate.

Yan Song and the three imperial envoys finally got some clues. After more and more wealthy gentry revealed the information and they continued to dig deeper, they locked on the family of Zhou Xuanwen, the former left vice minister of the Ministry of Justice, and finally arrested Zhou Xuanjian, the current head of the Zhou family.

Zhou Xuanjian was forced to confess that it was his uncle, Wang Han, a minor official in the Ministry of Rites, who instructed him to do so.

In this way, Yan Song closed the case and reported it to Zhu Houcong.

Zhu Houcong was very satisfied after seeing Yan Song's report: "Very good! Promote him to a lower official rank. Also, recall the imperial guards sent to Kaifeng. Kaifeng will lift martial law. Let the three imperial envoys who went to Kaifeng to investigate the case bring the relevant imperial prisoners back to Beijing. Also, interrogate Wang Han, a minor official from the Ministry of Rites! Tell him not to be stubborn and to be lenient if he confesses and to be strict if he resists. Otherwise, I have a hundred ways to make his life worse than death!"

Yang Yiqing and others nodded in agreement, but they were also a little scared.

They had to admit that the emperor was now very powerful with soldiers and money and food, and he could squeeze the gentry and wealthy families like squeezing dough. No matter whether they were Henan officials in the court or local gentry and wealthy families, they could only bear the emperor's wrath obediently and dared not say a single harsh word.

When Wang Han in the imperial prison learned the emperor's will, his lips twitched involuntarily.

"This was my idea. But if more and more people in the Ministry of Rites had not begun to hope that the court would reform the Ministry of Rites like it did the Ministry of Personnel, so that we, the clerks, could be turned into officials and also start to implement the examination system, we would not have done this." Wang Han replied to Shi Bao, the hall official of the Jinyiwei Zhenfu Division.

After hearing this, Shi Bao asked in a cold voice: "Are you not satisfied with being transferred to be officials?"

"If you throw a brick in the capital, you can hit several officials. Who wants to be an official in the capital?"

"Besides, under the emperor's feet, even the cabinet ministers have to be humble and behave themselves. It's better to be a county magistrate in the local area! In the capital, the most comfortable thing is to be a clerk in various departments. There is no loss. The officials above are only busy with party struggles and intrigues and don't care about specific affairs, so most of the time we can fill in the gaps at will, and then we can move the public treasury back home at will. By the way, we can also take advantage of the opportunity that the father of the informant and the clerk can inherit the business of the son, so that our family can always monopolize the clerk positions in the department, and then control the department by dragging the officials of the department into the water."

"But now, you want to take the examination, and the examination means that people from small families but with talent can also come in and participate in the specific affairs of each ministry. In this case, how can we, the children of rich families who cannot pass the examination, become powerful officials in various ministries?"

Wang Han sneered and told the truth about what he was thinking.

Shi Bao did not refute this.

Because he admitted that what Wang Han said was true, these people had serious and irreconcilable differences with himself and the imperial party over the court system.

The other party represented the local gentry and wealthy families. They wanted to take advantage of the institutional loopholes since the Jingtai period that allowed people to use their income from reporting to the government to become clerks, and thus control the various departments of the imperial court and, in turn, the interests of the entire country.

As for the imperial party, they want to fill this loophole and make the world have no clerks but only officials. To become an official, one must take exams, study hard, and write articles non-stop!

After all, under the current conditions where a student has to rank in the top 100 among thousands or even tens of thousands of scholars in the county to have a hope of becoming a student, it is really difficult to pass the examination to become an official for most ordinary people who are not gifted. It is indeed difficult to pass the examination without memorizing and writing tens of thousands of articles or practicing calligraphy until their hands cramp.

But in this case, unless the gentry and wealthy families have strict family education and their children are diligent, they can pass the imperial examinations more easily than children from poor families because of their advantage in resources, and then monopolize power in the world.

Unfortunately, not all gentry and wealthy families can strictly discipline their children, and not all of their children are diligent and studious. Moreover, even if some of them are selected as officials because of their diligence and studious nature, they come from different regions and families and cannot form a monopoly advantage of "hereditary" positions. Therefore, as long as people are selected only through strict examinations, it will indeed be detrimental to the gentry and wealthy families' control of the state apparatus.

After Zhu Houcong learned Wang Han's answer from the Northern Pacification Office, he also knew that this was caused by the irreconcilable contradictions between the central court and local tycoons in the struggle for power and interests.

Therefore, he did not say much, and only let the Three Courts to sentence Wang Han and his accomplices. In the end, the Three Courts showed leniency because of his confession. They beheaded Wang Han and his accomplices, confiscated their property, and exiled their three clans to Donglai.

Zhu Houcong approved this.

During this period, Zhu Houcong also learned the news that Zhang Heling, Marquis of Shouning in Jiangnan, had been murdered.

The dignitaries and gentry in the capital also learned about this incident soon after and spread the news.

Many officials who had long hated Zhang Heling and others for lending money at low interest rates to the emperor could not help but celebrate in secret, saying that the emperor's financial resources would now be greatly reduced and he would no longer be able to carry out reforms.

"When Zhang Heling was murdered, Empress Dowager Zhang in the palace would be sad and angry at the emperor! As a result, the harem began to become restless!"

"That's right! More importantly, Empress Dowager Zhang and Zhang Yanling, the brainless members of the Zhang family, are probably beginning to realize the consequences of offending the gentry and wealthy families in the world, and they dare not lend money at low interest rates for the inner court!"

"It's really a delight! If someone could give Zhang Yanling and even Empress Dowager Zhang in the palace to... that would be great!"

(End of this chapter)