Jiajing Chengming

"Why are you crying?"

Zhu Houcong frowned and replied.

Liang Cai simply kowtowed and said, "I beg Your Majesty to allow me to resign and return home."

"Tell me first, why did you hide it from my imperial envoy?"

"Don't you know how serious the consequences of dishonesty in politics are?"

Zhu Houcong asked.

"Your Majesty, your Majesty is incompetent and your Majesty failed to supervise."

Liang Cai replied in a taciturn manner.

Zhu Houcong laughed: "Can this be excused by incompetence and negligence?"

"Does that mean that any minister can treat the affairs of the Shogunate as a joke and use this excuse to evade me?"

"Don't think that because you haven't been greedy or taken anything, you don't have to bear any responsibility!"

When Zhu Houcong got to this point, he ordered, "Pass the imperial decree that the Minister of Revenue Liang Cai has concealed state funds, undermined state politics, and acted like a traitor, and he has no words to defend himself. I order the three judicial officials to sentence him to death!"

Liang Cai immediately raised his head.

Suddenly, Liang Cai said loudly: "Your Majesty, Yan Song is a despicable villain, and he wants to bribe us! He plans to give 40% of the annual money and grain allocated to Ji and Liao to us, and then make false accounts to embezzle it! But Your Majesty did not kill Yan Song, but only killed us! In this way, how can you make the people of the world sincerely submit!"

"But you have irrefutable evidence, and you yourself admitted that you had hidden something!"

"Yan Song bribed, can you provide evidence? Even if he did bribe, his behavior is not as serious as your behavior of treating military and national affairs as a trifle! Don't think that it's no big deal if you just abuse your power a little bit!"

"You are the Grand Tutor, not the Imperial Censor, nor the Provincial Governor. Your every word and action affects the safety of the entire country!"

Zhu Houcong replied coldly.

Liang Cai collapsed to the ground dejectedly, and then asked: "Your Majesty, regardless of the facts, is it true that Yan Song did nothing wrong?"

"Your Majesty, please make a judgment in the Spring and Autumn Period! To uphold justice!"

Liang Cai then kowtowed and begged Zhu Houcong to come.

Zhu Houcong said: "I speak for the emperor, so I should put the country and the people first. You don't care about the country and the people, and you are not loyal and honest to the emperor. I must get rid of you to set an example!"

talking.

Zhu Houcong waved his hand and said, "Drag him away! Imprison him in jail!"

then.

Zhu Houcong also ordered: "Pass the order to arrest all the officials in charge of salt administration in Jizhou and Datong and put them in jail for trial! In addition, arrest the corrupt merchant Bai Cang! Arrest the officials in the Ministry of Revenue who hid the official grain, and allow Yan Song to impose fines on the salt merchants who violated the salt regulations!"

Not long after, the censor Chen Bangfu also learned that Yan Song had truthfully reported to the emperor that wealthy merchants in Jizhou were violating regulations in selling Huai salt.

For this reason, Chen Bangfu met Yan Shifan again.

"Why did your father do this?"

Chen Bangfu asked through gritted teeth.

Yan Shifan said: "This is difficult because of you Qingliu. It is you who are forcing my father into a dead end!"

"It's not our fault!"

Chen Bangfu replied sternly.

"If you want to blame someone, blame Liang Cai. It's not that we, Qingliu, don't want to reconcile. It's Liang Cai who doesn't want to reconcile!"

Chen Bangfu then added.

"useless!"

Yan Shifan laughed and asked again: "Then again, who asked you Qingliu to push Liang Cai up? Now you want him to take the blame! Don't you recognize him?"

"At that time, he was considered honest and dared to offend the military hero!"

Chen Bangfu replied.

"Then you can't blame them!"

"It's good to handle official business impartially. My Yan family doesn't have to do anything to let down His Majesty or the court."

"My father also said that he did not hate Liang Cai, but admired and appreciated him, and even felt ashamed that he was not as principled as Liang Cai."

Yan Shifan replied with a smile.

Chen Bangfu said with a sad face: "But your father should understand that once this layer of window paper is broken, it will not be as simple as a fine of grain. Instead, the entire wealthy family behind it will suffer a huge loss of interests because they can no longer secretly monopolize the salt profits of the world with Huai salt!"

"Originally, the profits from maritime trade have made it impossible for the world's wealthy and powerful to share in the profits. In addition, the reform of the canal transportation system has also reduced the profits of the world's wealthy and powerful. Now that you have broken this layer of window paper, won't it be even more difficult for the world's wealthy and powerful to maintain their previous lives?"

"It's nothing more than marrying fewer wives and concubines and building fewer gardens."

"Besides, aren't you Qingliu gentlemen? You should value righteousness over profit."

"How can you talk about Li in every sentence?"

Yan Shifan asked with a smile.

"you!"

Chen Bangfu was speechless for a moment, then continued:
"Normally, I wouldn't say these blunt words. I'm saying this now just because I hope your father can understand that he chose to break the window paper, which cuts off the financial path of the world's wealthy and powerful families! This will intensify the struggle in the court! It will also make it more difficult for your Yan family to gain a foothold in the world!"

"Does our Yan family have any way out?"

"Ever since your former party leader Yang Tinghe relentlessly pursued me, with the attitude of preferring to kill three thousand people by mistake rather than let one go, and banished my father to Nanjing, and then exiled him to a remote place, our Yan family has had no way out!"

"And, even so, my father is still trying to ease the relationship with you Qingliu, but you are still pressing forward!"

Yan Shifan snorted coldly when he got to this point, and said, "So who can be blamed for this?"

"Yang Tinghe and Liang Cai are too arrogant and domineering, but it's useless to say these things now. Zhang Fujing and his party have already begun to use your father to make trouble. Do you know?"

"They exposed Liang Cai's hiding of over a million dan of government grain!"

"If this kind of thing is not exposed, it will not harm the overall situation; but if it is exposed, it will be a major event that can easily cost lives, and it will force the power of the scholars to have a fierce conflict with the imperial power again."

Chen Bangfu looked at Yan Shifan and said, "Because I spoke up for your father, I was not punished. I was only reprimanded for not investigating carefully and fined three months' salary. Of course, it's nothing, but what really worries people is that it will inevitably lead to another bloody storm in the court!"

"Who can be blamed for this?"

Yan Shifan replied with a smile. Then, he commented on Zhang Cong, who benefited the most from this incident: "However, this student of my father is really admirable. He always strikes at the best time and can expose the true face of the most sanctimonious people!"

"If you ask me, the only person who can truly lead the scholars and correct the mistakes of the emperor and father is probably him!"

"After all, he is truly working for the country and the people. He is a man who is loyal but treacherous. With such a capable person around, my father will not become a treacherous minister, and Your Majesty will not become a tyrant!"

Chen Bangfu didn't say much.

Because he didn't want to exaggerate.

Moreover, after Liang Cai was imprisoned and sentenced to death, the upright ministers in the court still felt sympathy for Liang Cai.

On the day when Zhu Houcong was holding a court meeting with all officials at Zuoshun Gate, Fang Xianfu, the Minister of the Dali Temple, stepped forward and said, "Your Majesty, in the past, when the Martial Temple evaluated the governors of the country, Liang Cai was named the second most honest governor in the country. So although he is biased and careless, please forgive his death penalty for his integrity and uprightness!"

"Can't an honest official be killed?"

Zhu Houcong asked this question directly.

Fang Xianfu was speechless for a moment.

Zhu Houcong continued: "If an honest official makes a mistake, he should be punished by death! Honesty is not the highest requirement, but the basic ethics that an official should have, not a golden ticket to immunity from death!"

"Liang Cai treated military and national affairs as a child's play, hiding more than a million shi of grain without reporting it!"

"If we don't punish him severely, how can we enforce the law if the Minister of Finance again causes trouble for the country in the future?"

"Besides, it's not like I didn't give him a chance, but he didn't defend himself or investigate the situation earlier!"

After Zhu Houcong asked, Fang Xianfu could only bow and say: "I have not considered it carefully. I would like to take back what I just said."

Zhu Houcong continued to insist: "This is the Grand Tutor you recommended by the court!"

"I am guilty!"

Yang Yiqing immediately took the initiative to confess his guilt.

Zhang Cong and others also stepped forward and confessed their guilt.

Zhu Houcong felt somewhat proud of this.

Because the Qingliu people originally wanted to embarrass Yan Song, who was particularly dismissive, but they ended up stripping the officials they recommended to the court and exposing their ugly appearance.

But Zhu Houcong did not show any pride, he just waved his hand:

"Forget it! I have had this experience myself. After all, I am the one who makes the final choice!"

"But this does not mean that I will, for the sake of my own reputation and the reputation of the court officials, condone the evil and allow the future Grand Tutor to not take military and national affairs seriously!"

"As the sage said, if you are not in a position, you should not interfere in other people's affairs. Similarly, if you are in a position, you should also interfere in other people's affairs. As the Minister of Revenue, the most basic requirement should be to know how much money and grain the court has!"

After Zhu Houcong said this, the Minister of Punishment Hu Shining took the initiative to come forward and said: "Your Majesty, the Ministry of Revenue has more than one million shi of grain. Liang Cai was just unaware of it and did not do it on purpose. I ask Your Majesty to forgive his crime!"

"More than a million shi of grain is not a hundred liters of grain. He doesn't even know this. What is he doing as the Minister of Revenue?"

"Even if he didn't know, Duke Jing of Qi asked Confucius about politics, and Confucius replied: 'The ruler is the ruler, the minister is the minister, the father is the father, the son is the son.' The Duke said: 'Well! If the ruler is not the ruler, the minister is not the minister, and the son is not the son, even if there is grain, how can I eat it?' As the Minister of Education, he has the power and the responsibility! He should have the duty of a minister! He should bear the primary crime of hiding more than one million shi of grain!"

"There is no need to discuss this matter any further. Liang Cai should be sentenced to death!"

After Zhu Houcong said this, he looked at the court officials sternly.

Hu Shi Ning also looked stern, and at this moment he knelt down and said, "Your Majesty, if you want to kill the loyal minister, you'd rather kill Shi Ning! Shi Ning would not dare to kill the loyal minister for Your Majesty!"

Zhu Houcong's face darkened.

After a while.

"it is good!"

Zhu Houcong said this one word.

Snapped!
Zhu Houcong then slammed the table and stood up, staring at Hu Shi Ning angrily: "I will grant you your wish!"

"Issue an imperial decree to grant the Minister of Justice Hu Shi Ning a piece of white silk! At noon tomorrow, he must hang himself in the imperial prison!"

Hu Shi Ning blushed, then gritted his teeth and said, "I obey your order!"

"Anyone who dares to abuse his seniority and violate the law will be killed!"

Zhu Houcong then looked coldly at the other court officials.

All the court officials said nothing and only looked shocked.

There was a moment of silence in the court, so deep that one could hear a pin drop.

Zhu Houcong knew that the court officials were not in the mood to discuss other matters, so he announced the adjournment of the court.

After Zhu Houcong returned to the imperial study, Yang Yiqing, Zhao Huang, Zhang Cong, and Gui E followed him, and Yang Yiqing bowed to Zhu Houcong and said, "Your Majesty, please pardon the death penalty for the Grand Secretary!"

"No!"

Zhu Houcong said.

Yang Yiqing said anxiously: "Your Majesty, if you do this, you will kill the backbone of scholars all over the world!"

"Can the backbone of scholars save the world?!"

"Can the world be kept in peace and stability for a long time?!"

Zhu Houcong asked Yang Yiqing in a stern voice.

"Lu Xiufu has a backbone, but he can only jump into the sea with his monarch on his back!"

"Wen Tianxiang has a strong character, but he can only sigh in loneliness in the ocean!"

Zhu Houcong continued, and said in a deep voice: "The one who can save the world is me, not the scholars!"

"Whoever stands in my way of saving the world must die!"

"Don't say that he is not a true gentleman. Even if he is a true gentleman, he must die if he blocks the road!"

"As for Hu Shi Ning, I know he has made contributions to the country, but he cannot be arrogant because of his achievements! He can refuse to obey my orders and choose to rebel, even if he starts an uprising among the people, but I will never take back my words to sentence him to death!"

"There is no gentleness, courtesy, frugality or modesty in this."

Zhu Houcong's words sounded particularly cold to Yang Yiqing. (End of this chapter)