Ming Dynasty: A mere unruly commoner is rebelling against the heaven?

Chapter 260: There was a fire in the harem and Concubine Shu was trapped. Do you have any clues?
Not many people can fall asleep in the capital tonight.

Amid the sorrowful cries, the warm morning sun still rose from the horizon.

Hundreds of officials from the capital city in official uniforms, hunched over and with solemn expressions, walked silently through the Meridian Gate, crossed the Jinshui Bridge, and came to the Fengtian Hall Square, waiting to attend court.

The officials on the Fengtian Temple Square subconsciously looked in front and behind them.

Compared with before, the Fengtian Temple Square today seems particularly empty.

Many of their colleagues were absent today.

Looking at so many empty seats in the court, the Minister of Personnel Wang Shu felt extremely depressed.

Throughout the Ming Dynasty, there were more than 20,000 civil officials directly under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Personnel.

In the capital, the number is 2,729.

After Zhu Youtang's repeated purges, the number was reduced to 2,144, even with a large number of alternate officials filling the vacancies.

There are already a large number of vacant positions in the imperial court, and no suitable officials can be found to fill them for the time being.

And last night, the Jinyiwei arrested 1,120 officials in one go.

The entire imperial court was half empty!
The last time the imperial court vacated so many official positions at once was during the Tianshun period.

In September of the sixth year of Tianshun, Emperor Yingzong's biological mother, Empress Dowager Sun, passed away.

Emperor Yingzong ordered Menda, the then commander-in-chief of the Imperial Guard, to reopen the criminal justice system and investigate all officials in the cabinet and the court.

In the first month of the seventh year of Tianshun, the Ministry of Personnel made a major plan and demoted 1642 officials to commoners at one time, which meant they were dismissed.

Emperor Yingzong's move was equivalent to directly dismissing one-tenth of the officials of the Ming Dynasty, which had a very bad impact on the officials of the Ming Dynasty.

This was not the first time that Emperor Yingzong dismissed officials on a large scale.

As early as the fourth year of Tianshun, Emperor Yingzong dismissed more than 900 officials at one time.

Therefore, Emperor Yingzong, this incompetent ruler, fought with civil officials all his life until his death.

Unlike Zhu Qiyu, a wise ruler, who did not dare to issue any order that would harm the interests of the civil servants during his eight years in power.

It vividly measures the material resources of the world and wins the favor of civil officials.

As long as he could become emperor, it didn’t matter how the civil officials divided up the benefits of the world.

Although Emperor Yingzong dismissed more than 1,600 officials at one time, that was aimed at the entire Ming officialdom.

The two capitals and thirteen provinces are such a large territory with so many officials. After dividing it up layer by layer, only a little over a hundred officials would be dismissed from one province, which is not a serious blow.

Although Zhu Youtang only arrested 1,120 officials this time, the number was still one-third less than that of Emperor Yingzong.

But the problem is that those arrested by Zhu Youtang were all officials from the capital!

More than half of the officials in the capital were arrested, and there was no one to do a lot of work. The Ming Dynasty court has essentially come to a standstill!
The subsequent appointment of officials will still be the responsibility of the Ministry of Personnel.

Thinking of this, the wrinkles on Wang Shu's face seemed to become deeper, and his head of white hair seemed to become thinner.

On the other side, the Chief Minister of the Cabinet Liu Jian, the Second Minister of the Cabinet Qiu Jun, and the Cabinet Elder Liu Dongyang, after glancing at the empty seats in the court, talked to each other briefly and discovered the common points of the absent officials.

"Prime Minister Liu, it seems that all the absent officials are from the capital and two provinces of Jiangnan?"

"Your Majesty, do you think... you are going to completely eliminate the Jiangnan forces in the court?"

Qiu Jun asked Liu Jian with a serious expression.

Because Zhu Youtang's cabinet was unprecedentedly composed entirely of northerners, the entire cabinet was spared.

Even among the six ministers of state, only one, He Qiaoxin, the Minister of Justice, was missing.

Liu Jian's eyes were filled with worry. "That should be the case. Ever since the court took action against the smuggling case in Jiangnan yesterday, His Majesty should have had the idea of ​​cleaning up the South."

"It's just that I don't know why yet, but last night His Majesty ordered the Royal Guards to arrest all Jiangnan officials in the capital."

"This is a major event that can shake the court and the country. It is good that Your Majesty has such courage, but... after this incident, Jiangnan will be in chaos."

"If Jiangnan is in chaos, the country will be in trouble..."

Li Dongyang sighed: "Your Majesty, is this action too reckless?"

"Even if we want to deal with the smuggling in Jiangnan, or even if we want to open the sea to the West, we should do it slowly."

"Your Majesty's move was so swift and fierce, leaving no room for maneuver. If the group of people in Jiangnan rebound, it will be a headache."

"Reckless?"

Liu Jian sneered. At this moment, he no longer dared to underestimate Zhu Youtang in the slightest.

"Your Majesty suddenly decided to lead the army in person and inspect the nine borders. Was that reckless?"

"But what was the result? The Zhou family of Xuanfu was wiped out, hundreds of border generals were executed, and His Majesty re-established nine border towns, appointed nine generals, and regained control of hundreds of thousands of troops in the north."

"From Prince Xing, Yu Shen, Xu Pu, Liu Daxia, Xie Qian, all the coup d'état factions in the capital city had their property confiscated and their clans exterminated?"

"Now, do you still think that His Majesty's actions were reckless?"

Hearing this, Li Dongyang and Qiu Jun were silent.

Just looking at the empty dragon throne under the Fengtian Gate, there was a hint of fear in his eyes.

……

The Hall of Nourishing Heart.

Zhu Youtang also did not sleep all night. He sat on the couch in the west side hall, thinking about the next plan. Arresting all Jiangnan officials was to completely break off relations with the Jiangnan smuggling group.

From now on, it will be either me or him in the territory of Ming Dynasty!

As long as Zhu Youtang is still in power, there will be no more Jiangnan smuggling groups!
Arresting Jiangnan officials is only the first step. What to do next is the real headache.

The most troublesome thing is how to dig out these deeply hidden Jiangnan smuggling groups!
Although Zhu Youtang was invincible in terms of military force, the enemy was in the dark while he was in the light, which still made things very troublesome.

While he was thinking, the newly appointed Secretary of the Imperial Household Department, Xiao Jing, came into the room and reminded him gently, "Your Majesty, it's time to go to court. The civil and military officials are already waiting in the Fengtian Palace Square."

Zhu Youtang came to his senses, stood up and walked to the bed in the west side hall.

Zhang Wan'er was still unconscious on the bed, but her face had become much rosier and her breathing had become steady.

Zhu Youtang reached out and touched Zhang Wan'er's forehead. Then he turned around, put on his court robes with the help of the palace maids, walked out of the Yangxin Palace, and sat on the dragon chariot.

The dragon chariot moved forward and stopped at the Fengtian Gate.

Zhu Youtang's face was as gloomy as water. He walked slowly to the dragon throne and sat down.

In an instant, all the officials present knelt down and saluted Zhu Youtang.

"Long live my emperor! Long live!"

Zhu Youtang looked down and saw that the officials in the court were standing sparsely together and seemed somewhat embarrassed, as if the Ming Dynasty was on the brink of destruction.

"Stand up." Zhu Youtang's face was cold and emotionless.

"Thank you, Your Majesty."

The officials in the court stood up, their hearts full of doubts and anxiety.

One is to wonder why Zhu Youtang arrested so many officials last night.

The second reason is that I am curious about why Zhu Youtang would specially convene another court meeting today.

The civil and military officials in the court thought that Zhu Youtang would talk about some unimportant things first before getting to the point.

But this time, Zhu Youtang did not wait for other officials to report state affairs. He directly slammed the dragon table and roared in anger, suppressing his anger: "Mou Bin, bring them all to me!"

"Yes, Your Majesty!"

Mou Bin, who was guarding at the steps of Zhu Youtang with a knife in hand, quickly ran out of the Fengtian Hall Square after receiving the order.

A quarter of an hour later, the Jiangnan officials who had been arrested by the Jinyiwei yesterday were escorted by the Jinyiwei into the Meridian Gate and lined up in front of Zhu Youtang.

When they saw Zhu Youtang, these civil servants in Jiangnan seemed to have seen their only lifeline, and they kowtowed to him and begged for mercy frantically.

"Your Majesty, I didn't do anything! I didn't dare to be greedy for even a tael of silver, and I didn't dare to do anything bad! Your Majesty, I must have been wronged, Your Majesty!"

"Yes, Your Majesty! I have always been law-abiding and have never done anything bad. I have never taken even a tael of silver. How could the Imperial Guards have arrested me? There must be some misunderstanding, Your Majesty!"

"Your Majesty, please spare me! Your Majesty, please spare me! I didn't do anything, I really didn't do anything!"

"..."

Everything seemed normal to these officials except that they looked a little flustered, paler, had messy hair and dirtier clothes.

He did not suffer any inhuman torture in the imperial prison.

After all, time was so tight that the Jinyiwei had been busy arresting people all night and had no time to interrogate these officials.

But just a walk around the imperial prison was enough to scare most of the officials in Jiangnan to death.

There were a large number of officials, with thousands of them crowding into Fengtian Gate Square and kneeling all the way from the foot of Fengtian Gate to the front of Jinshui Bridge.

Their voices begging for mercy were heard one after another, making a huge noise, which made Zhu Youtang feel disgusted.

"Be quiet, everyone!"

Zhu Youtang slammed the dragon table hard, and the Fengtian Gate Square suddenly fell silent.

Thousands of eyes looked at him with fear and expectation.

Zhu Youtang's eyes swept across the faces of these Jiangnan civil servants one by one, and his voice was as cold as ice and snow: "Do you know why I want to arrest you?"

Thousands of civil servants in Jiangnan looked at each other in confusion.

Only a few high-ranking officials of the Nine Ministers quietly lowered their heads.

Among them was the Minister of Justice He Qiaoxin.

Zhu Youtang's gaze fell on him.

"Last night, my Xianfu Palace suddenly caught fire, trapping Consort Shu, who was pregnant with the heir, in the palace."

"After Wang Zhi investigated, he concluded that someone must have deliberately set the fire with the intention of murdering Concubine Shu and the heir."

"Do you have any clues about this case?"

After hearing this, all the civil and military officials in the capital finally understood why Zhu Youtang had set up a grand prison last night.

The harem was set on fire and the pregnant concubines were murdered.

This crime is enough to exterminate all three clans!
All the civil and military officials in the court looked stern and their faces became extremely solemn.

As for the civil servants from Jiangnan who were being arrested by the Embroidered Uniform Guard, their faces were as pale as paper, completely devoid of any color.

(End of this chapter)