Jiajing Chengming

Chapter 397: The prince was killed and the royal family reform was effective!

Zhou Jin followed up and said, "That's right. Back then, we were able to achieve the goal of civil power over military power and then suppress the lord's power because many people died in the Tumu Fort incident. Similarly, it is impossible to reverse this situation now without bloodshed!"

"The South is the most likely place to be in chaos!"

"Although there are many arrogant and fierce soldiers in the northern border troops, they have military pay because they have to resist foreign invaders. Even if there is deduction, the soldiers will not be deducted too much, and they can support their families. Therefore, few of them become slaves to officers and wealthy families such as the King of the Frontier!"

"So it's fine to let them riot because of insufficient pay, but if you really ask them to rebel for the wealthy, they won't listen."

"But it's different in the south. Not only are the military farms being occupied more seriously, but the number of military households fleeing and becoming slaves is also even more serious. Those powerful families who dare to occupy military farms all have a large number of domestic slaves who have been raised for generations."

"These military households that surrendered as slaves had been guarding the homes of these powerful families since their ancestors. Even their wives, children, and personal futures were managed by their masters. Therefore, the wealthy families in the south that occupied the military land were more likely to organize these families to rebel."

Wu Tingju spoke at this time.

He actually reported this matter to the emperor.

His point, to put it simply, is that the degree of personal dependence of the military households in the South on the southern military landlords who belong to the military system is very high, while the degree of personal dependence of the military households in the North on the military officers and these military landlords is not very high. Therefore, doing so is more likely to lead to chaos in the South.

As a military veteran, he is the victim of this reform.

However, because he held a high position and did not care so much about personal interests, he had no intention of opposing the emperor. However, based on his own perspective, he responsibly expressed his concerns to Jiajing.

Because he believed that not all children of wealthy families who came from military backgrounds were as broad-minded and far-sighted as he was.

Many military officials and gentry who are not enterprising and do not care much about whether they can gain privileges by relying on their military status in the process of taking the imperial examinations and becoming officials, but only want to annex more military fields into private fields and more military households into domestic slaves, and who want to become richer and richer just by doing nothing, will probably be very resistant to this military household reform which is aimed at making ordinary military households truly valuable.

After all, these people would rather be like the wealthy families from other places and hope to treat the lower-level military households as less human beings than possible. This way, it will appear that keeping the military households as slaves is a good thing and is intended to prevent more thieves and vagrants in the world.

But Emperor Jiajing only said, "I understand."

Wu Tingju was tactful enough not to persuade him any further.

Now, after saying this, he said to Zhou Jinyan: "If there is a war in the south, Nanjing will be particularly important, so you and I cannot be careless. We must prepare enough food and grass, urge the officers and soldiers to be alert, and strictly investigate the spies."

Zhou Jin nodded: "As you said, I dare not take it lightly."

Wang Jin, Ye Guizhang, Liu Pu and other high-ranking officials were brazenly executed in a densely populated place like Nando, and naturally it could not be concealed from the world.

Soon, Fang Liang, the deputy commander of the Fujian Xingdu Office in Jianning Prefecture, Fujian, who had been in contact with Wang Jin and Ye Guizhang, heard about this.

The beams are ready to rebel.

It’s not that he doesn’t know that rebellion is very risky.

Rather, it was because he simply could not tolerate Jiajing's real intention to reform the military households, improve their status, and impose taxes on the occupied military land as if it were civilian land.

You know, he has long been accustomed to forcing the military households in his garrison to work like slaves for his family, forcing these military households to offer young and beautiful women to him as concubines and maids, and making the military households in his garrison live like his slaves.

Therefore, he naturally could not accept the fact that his family could no longer enslave the military households in the garrison.

For this reason, Fang Liang went to see his fellow townsman, the Chief Censor Fang Huai, who had retired and returned to his hometown overnight.

Because they had already discussed together in secret about supporting King Yi.

"Let's raise an army!"

"Since Nanjing has failed to burn the military household register and win over the imperial envoy, there is no point in waiting any longer."

"We can't stop Zhu Houcong without rebelling!"

Fang Liang said to Fang Huai.

Fang Huai glanced at Fang Liang, then at his brother Fang An, the hereditary commander of the Jianning Left Guard. "What do you think of this, brother?"

Fang An narrowed his eyes and said, "There is really no way out now. The Qing army censor will arrive at Jianning's garrison soon. We must gather all the military households here before he arrives, and march to Jianchang as quickly as possible to support Prince Yi!"

Fang Huai nodded after hearing this, then looked at Fang Liang: "Then let's go to Jianchang first and support Prince Yi!"

Fang Liang nodded.

Therefore, Fang Liang, Fang Huai and others who had been prepared for a long time took the soldiers and bandits they had recruited long ago, formed an army of tens of thousands of rebels, and headed towards Jianchang.

Most of these rebels were domestic slaves and tenants who were deeply dependent on them, as well as local militiamen, bullies and thugs.

After all, these powerful families embezzled a lot of military land, and naturally they also kept a lot of slaves and servants, and also supported a lot of evil forces at the grassroots level.

Because they had made preparations in advance, they formed an intricate network of relationships in the local area through marriage alliances and other means.

Therefore, there were powerful families along the way who were also willing to respond and provide them with help, allowing them to easily capture the cities of Yanping Wei, Shunchang, Shaowu Wei, Guangze, and Xincheng, and then reach Jianchang Prefecture.

During this period, some officials naturally died because they refused to surrender, while others chose to surrender to the enemy.

Zhang Lun, a relative of Prince Yi, Zeng Gong, the deputy captain of the ceremonial guard of the prince's palace, and Xu Qiang, a captain of the palace, were dissatisfied with Jiajing's refusal to accept Prince Yi's unreasonable demands for tax revenue from Qingjiang River, just like Zhang Sheng, a relative of Prince Yi before him. Moreover, they had long been tied to the interests of Fang, Fang and others, and had conspired with them. When Fang, Liang and others' tens of thousands of troops arrived, they joined forces from inside and outside, killed the soldiers defending the city, and opened up the city of Jianchang Prefecture.

Zheng Yuan, the prefect of Jianchang Prefecture, had no choice but to leave the prefectural government office and kneel down to beg for surrender.

The rebels Fang Liang, Fang Huai and others accepted Zheng Yuan's surrender, and brought Zheng Yuan to Prince Yi's Palace, and sent troops to surround the Prince Yi's Palace.

Because Jiajing had just carried out a reform of the royal family, the royal relatives of Prince Yi's branch had actually much less resentment towards Jiajing.

Even so, Jiajing had previously rejected the requests of Prince Yi's Palace, such as seeking officials and collecting taxes, and had also dealt with two royal relatives of Prince Yi's Palace.

But after all, Jiajing later reformed the royal family, which reduced many obstacles in reporting births, requesting marriages, and receiving salary and rice subsidies. There were also fewer restrictions on career choices for the royal family members, and money was regularly allocated to the royal family to open clan schools.

Therefore, Prince Yi Zhu Youbin and his descendants now have less and less intention to rebel. In fact, Prince Yi's eldest son Zhu Houye was very angry about the appearance of the rebels, and suggested that Prince Yi Zhu Youbin organize the royal palace troops and the official troops of Jianchang Prefecture to stop the invading rebels, and would rather die than surrender to the enemy, waiting for the arrival of the imperial court reinforcements.

Prince Yi also agreed with this and asked the officials in the palace to guard the place strictly. He also sent someone to meet Zheng Yuan, the prefect of Jianchang.

However, neither Prince Yi nor the Crown Prince expected that, although they were unwilling, some unsatisfied officials in their own palace had already turned rebel and acted as traitors, allowing the rebels to easily enter Jianchang City. Even the prefect Zheng Yuan chose to surrender, leaving them no chance to escape.

This enabled the rebels to successfully attack the palace after killing many officials and soldiers who tried to stop them, and captured Prince Yi and his family in the main hall.

When Chief Censor Fang Huai, Chief Commander-in-Chief Fang Liang, and Prefect Zheng Yuan arrived at the main hall, Prince Yi's family had already been tied up.

"Untie!"

Fang Huai shouted when he saw this.

Fang Liang also waved his hand.

As a result, Prince Yi and his entire family were kidnapped.

Then, Fang Huai knelt down before Prince Yi and said, "Please forgive me, Your Highness!"

Fang Liang and others knelt down.

"Rebellious ministers and traitors!"

Before Prince Yi finished speaking, Crown Prince Zhu Houye had already cursed.

After hearing this, Fang Huai gave a look to Fang Liang.

Fang Liang stood up, holding the knife at his waist, and walked towards Zhu Houye.

Zhu Houye continued to curse: "Your Majesty loves the people like his own children, and governs the country well, making the court treasury full and the army strong. He has also successfully solved many problems of our royal family, and all the nobles in the world praise you. Now that your financial resources have greatly increased, you are going to solve the difficulties of the military households, which will undoubtedly boost the morale of the army. If you rebel at this time, you are simply courting death and leaving your own nine clans unattended!"

"Your Highness, please stop talking nonsense. I just want to ask you, do you want to join us in occupying Nanjing first, and then mobilize the generals of the northern border towns to respond, and then purge the emperor's side?"

"You should know that if you succeed in clearing out the imperial court, you will have a chance to become the crown prince!"

"If you don't want to, you can only die here and sacrifice yourself for your cousin!"

Swish!
Fang Liang pulled out a knife, pointed it at Zhu Houye and asked.

Zhu Houye turned his head away: "I would rather die than be a thief!"

Pfft!

Fang Liang gritted his teeth and stabbed Zhu Houye's chest directly.

Zhu Houye suddenly showed pain on his face and fell to the ground.

"Big brother!"

Seeing this, the young Zhu Houhuang shouted and rushed towards the beam: "You bad guy, I will beat you to death!"

Fang Liang stabbed the eleven-year-old Zhu Houhuang to death on the spot, causing him to twitch on the ground and spit out blood: "It hurts!"

By this time, Prince Yi was so frightened that he stood there in a daze.

Fang Huai shouted at this time: "Your Highness, please protect the laws of our ancestors and help us to clear the court!"

Fang Liang walked towards Zhu Hou, the ten-year-old fourth son of Prince Yi, holding a bloody knife.

Zhu Hou hurriedly ran behind Prince Yi, stunned with fear.

"Wait!"

Seeing this, King Yi had to shout loudly.

"I will help you to clear out the emperor's entourage!"

then.

Prince Yi said just this, then he collapsed to the ground, hugged Zhu Hou and cried, "Just please don't kill my young son!
Fang Liang did not continue to kill people at this time. He just knelt down at Fang Huai's signal and said, "Please forgive me, Your Highness!"

"Your Highness, Commander Fang executed the rebels for the sake of your throne. Please forgive his crime."

Fang Huai said at this time.

"Okay, I'll forgive you!"

Prince Yi nodded weakly.

Fang Huai, Fang Liang and other rebel civil and military officials all smiled.

Then, Fang Huai said, "Please ask King Yi to issue a royal decree to call on all the righteous men in the world to come together in Jianchang to hold a meeting and punish the treacherous ministers Yang Yiqing and Zhang Cong who are causing chaos in the court!"

"It depends on you."

King Yi replied.

"The ministers will obey the king's order!"

So Fang Huai and others actually did so.

(End of this chapter)