The Ming Dynasty began from Sarhu

Chapter 180 Killing and Punishing the Heart

In the garden of the second hall of the Qufu County Government Office, Ping Liaohou sat on a large armchair, holding a copy of Feng Menglong's latest novel, "The Story of the Three Sui Emperors Suppressing Demons in the Northern Song Dynasty", and was reading it with great interest.

The 64th Duke of Yansheng, Kong Yinzhi (Zi Maojia), and the chief minister of Wenxiang Sect, Xu Hongru, stood in front of Marquis Pingliao.

Four guards in plain clothes and armed with sharp blades stared at the two men.

The fat and bloated Kong Yanzhi and the muscular Wenxiangjiao Dagui standing together formed a strong contrast.

If it weren't for Marquis Ping Liao's keen eye for talent and pairing them up, these two beasts would never have had any contact in this life.

The two men had completely different temperaments, the only thing they had in common was that they enjoyed killing, and both had killed many people within their capabilities.

Duke Yansheng held his head high, like a fat crane.

Whenever he spoke to people, he always spoke through his nostrils. It was no wonder, after all, this was the norm for those in power.

In comparison, Xu Hongru was more down-to-earth. As soon as he saw Ping Liaohou, he kowtowed and begged for mercy, crying and telling himself that he was bewitched by the second-in-command Chen Xiucai and joined the Wenxiang Sect in a moment of confusion. From the time he joined the sect until now, he has never done anything bad and is a good person through and through.

"You are a good guy?"

Liu Zhaosun put down the book and looked at Xu Hongru coldly.

Xu Hongru nodded repeatedly.

"I think you are too."

Liu Zhaosun stood up and patted the cabinet's shoulder.

"This time, I mobilized my army to march into Shandong just for you two. Today, I finally invited you two here. It was not easy."

Xu Hongru continued to talk about his grievances.

"Xu Hongru, I heard that you had an affair with the Jiannu?"

"No, no, absolutely not."

Liu Zhaosun smiled coldly: "I bet you don't have it either."

Xu Hongru was an old hand in the world. He knew from the tone of his voice that Liu Zhaosun had already made up his mind to kill him, so he quickly begged for mercy:
"Lord Liu, I still have silver, three hundred thousand taels, all hidden in Yuncheng. If you spare my life, I will give it all to you. Also, I know the hiding places of the Wenxiang Sect's treasures in Henan, Huguang, and Northern Zhili. As long as I am here, Ping Liaohou can continue to get silver and military merit! Don't you want to be emperor? There are people in the Wenxiang Sect who have silver. As long as you and I join forces, you take Liaodong and I take Shandong..."

Liu Zhaosun waved his hand to interrupt.

"Whoever said I want to be emperor, that's all a rumor!"

After saying that, he turned to Kong Yinzhi and said calmly.

"Duke Yansheng, Xu Hongru said he still has 300,000 taels of silver. So, what else can you give me in exchange for your life?"

Kong Yinzhi's face darkened and he snorted through his nose.

Xu Hongru interrupted, "Lord Liu, his family has over a million taels of silver, and there are hundreds of thousands more hidden outside the city. If I tell him everything, can I buy his life?"

Liu Zhaosun chuckled and glanced sideways at Master Kong.

Duke Yansheng was furious. This warrior was an official appointed by the imperial court after all. When he first met him, he showed no respect for the descendants of Confucius and started to extort money. He could not help but get furious and cursed loudly:

"Liu Zhaosun, you bastard, you beast, you treacherous, disloyal bastard! You're so audacious that you even dared to covet the Confucius Mansion! What you did in Dengzhou may have fooled others, but not me! I urge you to immediately hand over the silver you stole and give me half of the gold and silver seized from the Wenxiang Sect, and this matter will be over. Otherwise!"

Liu Zhaosun said coldly: "How else can you do that?"

"Otherwise, tomorrow we will jointly impeach you, along with the County Magistrate, the Military Commissioner, and the Military Supervisor, for being an accomplice to the evil, colluding with the Wenxiang Sect and harming the people! You're using the guise of aid to plunder! Believe it or not, once this memorial is submitted, you'll be imprisoned!"

"I believe it. I believe that Duke Yansheng has a wide network of contacts. I admire him!"

Liu Zhaosun stopped teasing the man surnamed Kong and turned to Xu Hongru:
"Xu Dagui, I heard that your men killed the servants of the Kong Mansion, leaving only the wives, concubines and children of Duke Yansheng?"

Xu Hongru looked bewildered. When the Kong Mansion was breached by the Kaiyuan soldiers, the followers of the Wenxiang Sect fled in panic, and there was no time to kill the people in the Kong Mansion.

Wen Xiangjiao Dagui was stunned for a moment. Suddenly, he was shocked by Liu Zhaosun's cruelty. He opened his mouth and couldn't speak for a long time.

"Xu Hongru, you, for your own selfish reasons, have slaughtered countless civilians from Yuncheng to Dengzhou, and from Dengzhou to Qufu. Do you think I will let you go? No matter how much silver you are offered, you will be executed by slow slicing like Wang Haoxian."

Xu Hongru realized his death was nearing, so he stopped begging for mercy and sat down dejectedly on the ground: "Liu Zhaosun, you massacred the Kong family, dug up the Kong family's ancestral graves, and finally tried to blame all these crimes on the Wenxiang Sect. You... are so cruel!"

Liu Zhaosun nodded, his expression unchanged.

"I have said that I came to Shandong this time just for you two. You two are guilty of heinous crimes. I cannot sleep or eat unless I kill you. Today I can finally fulfill my wish, and I can finally put down the heavy stone in my heart."

Kong Yanzhi was furious. No one had ever dared to talk to him like that. He swung a chair towards Liu Zhaosun. As soon as he raised the chair, four goose-feather knives were placed on his neck at the same time.

Liu Zhaosun said word by word:

"Master Kong, my brothers all have bad tempers. If you dare to talk nonsense again, they will cut off your tongue and eat it with wine."

Duke Yansheng looked at the goose-feather knife on his neck, and his hands and feet suddenly turned cold.

"Kong Maojia! The Kong family's crimes are no less serious than those of the Wenxiang Sect!"

Duke Yansheng cursed:
"Liu Zhaosun, you traitor! You deceived your superiors and subordinates, committing all sorts of evil. You used the excuse of suppressing the Wenxiang Sect to massacre people in Qufu and offend the Confucius Temple, committing such heinous crimes in Shandong! Do you think you can fool the world with such tricks? From now on, all scholars in the world will be your enemies! The emperor will find out about this sooner or later, and you can expect to have your entire clan exterminated! You warrior!"

The guard pressed Kong Yanzhi to the ground. Ping Liaodong drew out his goose-feather knife and pressed the blade against the thick neck of Duke Yansheng. With a little force, a few drops of blood oozed out of the blade.

Duke Yansheng screamed like a pig being slaughtered. Xu Hongru, who was standing next to him, was so scared that his face turned pale and he dared not look Liu Zhaosun in the eye.

"The grace of a gentleman is exhausted after five generations. The Kong family of Qufu has received the grace of the country for generations, but not a single one of them is loyal and righteous. Every time a dynasty changes, when the Jin people come, you kneel to the Jin; when the Mongols come, you kneel to the Yuan. If the Jiannu come, won't you shave your pigtails and kneel to the Jiannu?"

"What I respect is Wen Tianxiang's loyalty, which shines through history; Confucius and Mencius, whose unwavering courage and unyielding spirit endured poverty and humbleness; and Yu Shaobao, whose innocence remains untouched in the world. It is General Yan's head, and the blood of Minister Ji! This is the backbone of China!"

"What virtue and ability did the Kong family of Qufu have to deserve to be called the model teachers of all ages? They relied on their favor to be arrogant and exploited people; they were licentious and cruel to countless women. When they met foreign invaders, they could only fawn over them!"

"You are aiding and abetting the evil, and you are delusionally trying to break the backbone of China. So what if I chop down a few of your trees and destroy a few of your monuments?"

"Whoever seeks to destroy the backbone of China, I will chop off his head! I will grind his bones into ashes!"

After Liu Zhaosun finished speaking, he kicked Kong Yanzhi, who was begging for mercy, and raised the goose-feather knife that had killed Nurhaci. He pointed it at the neck of Duke Yansheng and slashed it down.

~~~~~
On November 2, the first year of Taichang, after two months of fighting, Liu Zhaosun finally put down the Wenxiang Sect rebellion in Shandong.

From September till now, the Kaiyuan army has defeated the rebels once in Dengzhou, twice in Laizhou, and three times in Qufu.

Three battles and three victories, a total of 58,000 Wenxiang rebels were killed or captured, and hundreds of thousands of civilians were rescued. The Wenxiang Sect, which had been entrenched in Shandong for more than ten years, was completely eliminated.

The leader of the Wenxiang Sect, Xu Hongru, was killed by rebel soldiers, and the whereabouts of Yanshenggong Kong Yanzhi are unknown. It is said that he has been brutally murdered by Wenxiang Sect thugs.

The Kong family was brutally wiped out, and all the gold, jade, treasures and mountains of grain and cloth accumulated in the mansion for hundreds of years were looted.

The Confucius Forest in Qufu was felled by rioters, leaving thousands of precious ancient trees missing. Many of these trees were said to be thousands of years old and invaluable.

The remaining trees were completely felled by the surrounding tenants, even the roots were dug up by the hardworking tenants. The forest of steles left by the literati and poets of past dynasties disappeared, and only reappeared in the Jiangnan cultural relics market several years later...

The mob dug up the tombs of all the successive Yanshenggongs, and the burial objects in the tombs were divided up, leaving only a dilapidated coffin. In this way, the descendants of Confucius were exposed in the wilderness, and their bodies were not found.

The Confucius Mansion in Qufu was completely destroyed from then on.

According to Ping Liaohou's plan, the Confucius Mansion and Zhang Tianshi in the south were also on the road to destruction.

When the news reached the capital, the city was shaken.

All officials were outraged, Emperor Taichang cried bitterly, and suspended court for three days for Duke Yansheng.

The people of the capital were cheering and jumping for joy.

The common people in the capital had no feelings for the distant Yansheng Duke and the ancestors of the Kong family, and did not care about the life and death of the Kong family.

Everyone only cares about themselves.

The Kaiyuan Army suppressed the Wenxiang Sect and protected the North-South Grand Canal. The canal transportation was finally restored and the skyrocketing prices in the capital ended. People no longer had to spend two or three times the price to buy rice at the rice shop and no longer had to suffer exploitation from unscrupulous merchants.

Food, clothing, housing and transportation are what the people care about most.

In mid-November, the court's reward for Ping Liaohou was finally implemented.

(End of this chapter)