Jiajing Chengming

As soon as Zhu Houcong heard that it was Gao Gong, he immediately became interested.

"Let them come to see me!"

Zhu Houcong just gave this instruction.

Because no matter what, since Gao Gong had come, Zhu Houcong still wanted to meet this powerful official who was respected by Emperor Longqing as his "real father" in history.

Not long after, Gao Jie and Gao Gong met the chief eunuch Huang Jin of the Imperial Household Department, and learned that the emperor wanted to see them in person.

"Brother, His Majesty is indeed diligent and caring for the people. As soon as we stopped him, he actually came to see us in person!"

Gao Gong therefore couldn't help but say to Gao Jie.

Gao Jie nodded, also looking moved.

"Student Gao Jie."

"Students are high up."

"See Your Majesty!"

When Zhu Houcong saw Gao Jie and Gao Gong, he nodded and looked at Gao Gong a few more times. Seeing that the other person had a long face and thick eyebrows, he asked, "What do you want to sue?"

"Your Majesty, we want to sue the local wealthy and powerful for occupying more than 30,000 mu of official land that was cultivated by the former inspector Guo Fengxian. Please, Your Majesty, make a decision for the people of our hometown!"

Gao Jie replied at this time.

Gao Gong then replied, "No one in the village dares to accuse you of this, but when I and my brother heard that the emperor would be passing through, we decided to come and file a complaint, so as to return the government land to the state and save the common people from danger!"

"Your Majesty, please make the decision. If I have made a false accusation, I am willing to take the blame!"

Then, Gao Jie and Gao Gong bowed their heads and answered together.

"It is rare that although you are the children of officials, you care about the country's economy and people's livelihood and are willing to stand up for this."

"I am very relieved."

Zhu Houcong then ordered: "Pass the order, give each of them fifty silver coins."

Gao Jie and Gao Gong hurriedly expressed their gratitude.

Zhu Houcong also instructed Zhang Cong: "Send an order to the governor of Henan to ask them to investigate. Not a single acre of my land can be taken away by the wealthy and powerful. All of it must be returned to the original tenants!"

Zhang Cong bowed and said yes.

After Henan Governor Ge Hao learned about this, he had to come to Dengfeng in person because the emperor had issued an edict and the imperial carriage had not yet left Henan.

Afterwards, there was a major replacement of officials from the magistrate of Dengfeng to his subordinates in Dengfeng County.

The Dai family and other wealthy families suspected of occupying government land were also found to have occupied a large amount of government land and secretly deposited a large amount of private land in Dengfeng County.

Many of the slaves and farmhands of these wealthy and luxurious families were also arrested and brought to justice.

When Dai Shi, the head of the Dai family, found out about this, he was naturally furious. Especially when he found out that it was the brothers Gao Jie and Gao Gong who exposed this matter, he slammed the table and said, "He is a good student of Gao Fengxi's school! How could he be so disloyal to his fellow villagers!"

"Brother, what should we do now?"

"Are you really going to give up all the more than 10,000 mu of land and more than 70,000 dan of tax grain you've taken?"

Dai Fu then asked about Dai Shilai.

Dai Shi replied with a look of grief and anger: "Not only must you spit it out, you must also write a letter to apologize! I'm afraid that this is not enough, and you must also sacrifice your life as the head of the family."

"I just don't understand why there are such bastards in our official family!"

Dai Fu was so angry after hearing this that he put his hands on his hips and replied.

Dai Shi took a deep breath and said with a wry smile, "It is precisely because of this kind of bastard that the emperor can be so harsh and resolute in killing him, and that we, the wealthy and powerful, can be so embarrassed that we can only use shameful activities to express our dissatisfaction."

Zhu Houcong had not originally expected that local officials and wealthy families in Henan would take the initiative to report local problems, giving him an opportunity to teach these wealthy families a lesson by taking advantage of natural disasters to create man-made disasters and posting anonymous notices to protest against him.

After all, local officials will seek to protect themselves and are unwilling to cause trouble; and it is unlikely to find anyone among the local wealthy and powerful who would betray their own class.

However, the appearance of Gao Jie and Gao Gong gave Zhu Houcong an opportunity to strike back at these wealthy and extravagant families and vent his anger. Therefore, Zhu Houcong rewarded the two and, after the investigation by Henan Governor Ge Hao, ordered:
"Seizing government farmland and illegally borrowing land from the people is an act of disloyalty. The slaves may have been the ones who condoned the illegal activities, but the owner of the house cannot escape responsibility either! Arrest all the owners of these wealthy and luxurious households and the slaves and officials who directly participated in the seizure of government farmland and illegally borrowing land from the people. Let the Henan Governor Ge Hao execute the king's order and behead them with banners and use these heads as a display to show the public!"

"Yes!"

then.

Dai Shi and other wealthy and luxurious family owners, as well as their corresponding slaves and officials, were escorted to the office of the Henan Governor, where Ge Hao requested the royal flag and beheaded them one after another in the market.

The secret agent of the Jinyiwei who was ordered to keep an eye on the matter went back and informed Zhu Houcong who was in the Weihui Palace.

Zhu Houcong felt a little better after knowing this.

In any case, he got rid of his anger in this way.

After all, what these wealthy and luxurious families had done recently were really abominable, especially the indirect death of the emperor's second daughter, which made Zhu Houcong feel heartbroken. It also made Zhu Houcong determined to fight to the death with the disloyal people among these wealthy and luxurious families, and he would never show mercy.

Although Zhu Houcong was an emperor and not a bandit, he had to have a legitimate reason to take revenge on the wealthy and powerful people. He could not simply confiscate the property of a wealthy person and exterminate their entire family. He even had to praise those wealthy people who did good deeds and donated grain to help the people in public. However, as long as he got the chance to do so, he would definitely be ruthless.

He wanted people to know that he was not only generous but also heartless.

Therefore, after learning that these people had been beheaded, Zhu Houcong ordered the governor of Henan to impose a tenfold fine on these people for hiding their fields and evading taxes. In order to motivate local officials, he clearly stated that the regular taxes would be shipped to the Ministry of Revenue, and the fines would be retained for local use, and they only needed to turn in the expenditure account books.

Therefore, not long after Dai Fu returned with a heavy heart about his brother being beheaded, and was crying in front of his brother's body without his head, he saw Henan prefect Han Yue surrounding his home with soldiers.

Dai Fu was shocked and hurriedly bowed to Han Yue and asked, "What is the prefect doing?"

"Your family has evaded taxes by falsely depositing over 70,000 shi of grain on their land. According to the decree, you will be fined tenfold and put into the treasury! This will deter disloyal households!"

"Will your government pay the fine on its own initiative, or will you allow me to lead my troops in and forcibly confiscate it?"

Han Yue came out of the sedan chair holding the imperial edict and asked Dai Fu.

Dai Fu took the decree with trembling hands, and was filled with hatred in his heart: "Zhu Houcong is really cruel and ruthless. He wants to punish my wealthy family to death when he gets the chance, and he also fines ten times. What's the difference between this and directly confiscating all my property and confiscating it?"

"May I ask you to give me your report! Although my Dai family has some small fortune, we really cannot afford to pay such a large fine!"

Dai Fu still wanted Han Yue to show some sympathy for the scholars, so he started talking like this.

But Han Yue had received a secret letter from Zhang Cong, and the emperor had ordered that the money outside the regular taxes be given to the local governments for their own use. So, Han Yue, who only wanted to make money and please his superiors, did not intend to show mercy, but said directly with a serious face: "Since there is nothing, then force it to be copied, and copy as much as you can!"

talking.

Han Yue waved his hand, and the soldiers from the government office rushed in regardless of the fact that the Dai family was in mourning.

For a while, there was chaos inside and outside the Dai family, with people crying and dogs barking.

Dai Fu was also very angry when he saw this: "Mr. Han, you are so ruthless, aren't you afraid that your Han family will also have such a day in the future?!"

"Oh, God! Please open your eyes and take a look. What kind of world is this now? Our Dai family just wanted to get more land and accumulate more wealth for future generations, but we did something that was unfair to the court. Why did we end up in such a situation? Woo woo!"

Dai Fu fell to the ground and started crying.

Soon, a soldier came towards Han Yue and presented him with a printed plate with a warning about the natural disaster and asked the emperor to depose Zhang Cong and Gui E.

After seeing this, Han Yue realized that this could be a great achievement, so he was very happy and looked at Dai Fu: "Great, your Dai family actually did such a thing of spreading rumors to confuse the people and slander the prime minister!"

"You are slandering me! This is not my engraving! Someone put it in our house on purpose!"

Dai Fu quickly stopped crying and denied it.

But not long after, another soldier brought the corresponding anonymous notice that had not been sent out.

Han Yue therefore asked Dai Fu: "Were these anonymous posts also printed by others using your family's engravings to slander you?"

"Of course!"

"Who on earth did this? Who used our family's stereotypes to post a poster to slander our family?"

Dai Fu asked back in panic.

Han Yue asked in a deep voice: "Do you admit that this is your family's stereotype?" (End of this chapter)