Jiajing Chengming

Wang Yuan took a deep breath and gritted his teeth, saying, "Sir, I am sorry that I cannot obey your order. I do not understand why you have to do this! Are there any traitors? How many traitors are there? You should provide evidence!"

“If you understand, you must implement it, if you don’t understand, you must implement it!”

"Don't forget, you are an official of the Ming Dynasty, not an official of the Suzhou people."

Gui E said in a cold voice.

Wang Yuan took off his black hat and said, "Then I would rather not be an official."

Then, Wang Yuan said to the governor Xiong Jiayan: "Please suspend me from my post!"

The governor has the power to temporarily suspend local officials and appoint others to take over temporarily, so Xiong Jia looked at Gui E at this time.

Gui E nodded.

Xiong Jia said, "That's right!"

Then, Xiong Jia asked the officials present: "Is there anyone willing to concurrently serve as the prefect of Suzhou?"

The officials and gentry present looked at each other.

At this time, Tang Shunzhi pursed his lips and stood up: "I am willing to take this responsibility temporarily!"

"it is good!"

Gui E said something.

Therefore, Tang Shunzhi became the new acting prefect under the temporary appointment of Governor Xiong Jia, and was also tasked with determining the number of traitors according to the indicators.

Gu Ning and several other gentry stood up and glared at Tang Shunzhi.

At the same time, several Suzhou gentry became even more uneasy.

But these people didn't say anything. It was obvious that the changes happened too quickly and they needed to discuss it further.

Qian Wu was also getting more and more angry, and he cursed Gui E: "You dog official! I said I had no one to order me to do this, why are you punishing my fellow villagers?"

"I still say the same thing. You are not qualified to teach me how to exercise my authority and do things."

Gui E replied with a smile instead of anger.

Qian Wu's breathing became more and more rapid, but he could only curse Gui E as a dog official.

Gui E laughed triumphantly, then looked at Qian Wu coldly and said, "Then let your fellow villagers rebel!"

Then, Gui E ended the trial early.

After the trial, Xiong Jia came to see Gui E alone:

"During the trial, I couldn't refute the elder in front of everyone, but I don't understand why the elder acted so overbearingly."

"Of course there are some wealthy families in Suzhou who are dissatisfied with the imperial court, but it is unlikely that one out of every ten wealthy families are traitors. Aren't you afraid of wrongly accusing innocent people by forcibly issuing such a quota?"

"Yuezhi! You are not in the presence of the Emperor, so you have not learned much of His Majesty's wisdom. It is not surprising that you do not understand."

"What I want to tell you is that this land survey is said to be implemented by government orders, but in fact it is a struggle between the court and the local governments, between the imperial power and the power of the scholars, and between the scholars who advocated Datong and the scholars who advocated Confucianism and Legalism."

"Since it is a struggle, then in the words of Your Majesty, it is not a dinner party, nor is it about being gentle, kind, respectful, frugal and modest. Naturally, there is no question of right or wrong. There are only pros and cons, and only the violent overthrow of one force by another."

"Now, Suzhou is a solid block, and no one can get in. There are also the common people who are coerced by them to take the blame for them. So we can only use this method of directly stipulating how many people another force has in Suzhou to forcibly tear a hole between them."

"Think about it, with violence in our hands, if we forcibly label a small number of them as traitors, will they rebel directly or sacrifice these few people?"

When Gui E said this, Xiong Jia thought about it and said, "Then they must be sacrificing this small number of people, and even actively regard them as enemies. After all, these large households that occupy a large amount of land are also a big piece of fat meat, and it is more cost-effective to unite with the court to eat this piece of fat meat than to fight against the court to keep this piece of fat meat."

"Yes, this will cause them to fight each other. Once they fight, the people in the court will be able to divide and disintegrate them, or even control them."

"They are of the same blood and cover up for each other. If you really want to find out who is the traitor and who is the wise man, you will never find out in your lifetime. But doing this will allow them to expose each other's mistakes, and they may even take the initiative to mobilize hooligans to fight each other."

Gui E smiled grimly.

…………

"Mr. Jiang, please surrender yourselves to the Jiang family."

That night, many gentry in Suzhou did gather secretly.

Gu Ning spoke first and addressed Jiang Qing, the former Shaoqing of the Nanjing Imperial Equipment Department.

Jiang Qing stood up and asked coldly, "Why?"

"Before Qian Wu became a mulberry farmer, he was your child servant. Outsiders may not know this, but don't we know it?"

Gu Ning replied calmly.

Jiang Qing said in a deep voice: "He was my servant, but that doesn't mean I was the one who killed Qing Zhanglangguan."

"Does it matter?"

Gu Ning asked.

Jiang Qing asked back: "Isn't this important?"

"Why did you let your servant go out of the house to work as a mulberry farmer for no reason?"

"Besides, now the traitor Gui E has issued a clear order, requiring Suzhou Prefecture to select one person from the wealthy families with more than 10,000 acres of land to be treated as a traitor. Your Jiang family is the one who should be treated as the traitor among them!"

"Even though Qian Wu is from your Jiang family, your Jiang family has done a lot of usurious things over the years!"

Gu Ning replied.

Jiang Qing shuddered after hearing this, but he had to grit his teeth and sneer as he asked, "Our Jiang family is greedy for profit and exploits the villagers, but you Gu Ning have never done anything immoral?"

"Take last year's incident where your son raped and forced the weaver He to death. Everyone in the city knew about it. But her husband went to the city to file a complaint, but was buried alive by you. Don't forget that Qian Wu was one of the people who did this dirty work for your Gu family!"

Jiang Qing said.

Qin Jin's brother Qin Shi said at this time: "Okay, can we calm down a little? Don't let Gui use just one move and start an internal conflict."

"This is not an internal conflict, this is a struggle. You, the great Suzhou families, are no different from traitors. You appear to be benevolent and charitable on the surface, but who hasn't been robbing and plundering behind the scenes?"

"We, the middle-class nobles, have been bullied by you many times!"

"Land surveying is now a national policy and an ancestral rule! Logically, we shouldn't have objected, but you insisted on resisting. We had no choice but to resist. After all, if we didn't resist, the prices of raw silk, grain, and medicinal materials would all go up, and even our children's schooling would become a problem."

At this time, Zhou Zhuan, a scholar who had served as an ordinary official such as a teacher and a county magistrate, suddenly spoke up and expressed his opinion in a very serious manner.

Gu Ning, Jiang Qing and other high-ranking local officials suddenly turned gloomy and looked at Zhou Zhuan.

Gu Ning asked coldly: "What do you mean?"

"What do you mean? We are going to expose your crimes to the government and let them know that you are more worthy of being labeled as traitors!"

Zhong Penghan, who had only served one term as prefect, took over the conversation at this time.

"That's right, that's what we should do. If we really want to identify the traitor, you are the most qualified, not us!"

"All of you wealthy people who own hundreds of thousands of acres of land should confess your crimes! You can't really let people like us who can only own thousands of acres of land by honest business to be traitors. Even if we go, I'm afraid the court won't believe us!"

"You have sucked so much of the fat from the villagers, shouldn't you make some sacrifices for them?"

"Yes, you can't really think that the people of Suzhou will betray the court together with you big families!"

……

Other middle and lower class gentry began to clamor.

After hearing this, Gu Ning and other senior local officials became even more frightened.

Qin Shi collapsed to the ground and said to the servant who came to support him: "Hurry up and write a letter to the master, saying that there is a civil strife in Suzhou and our Qin family is doomed. Let him confess to His Majesty first and try to save our Qin family!" (End of this chapter)