The Ming Dynasty began from Sarhu

Chapter 839 Changes in Tianxin City

On November 18, the eighth year of Guangde, the Spanish missionary Velasco, the Director of the Imperial Observatory of the Great Qi Dynasty, was appointed by the emperor as the Minister of Rites and the Southeast Pacification Envoy, and led the delegation to Manila as the special envoy of the Great Qi Dynasty.

After arriving in Manila, Bei will hold talks with the Spanish, Dutch and British colonial representatives stationed there in order to properly resolve trade disputes, naval conflicts and other issues between Qi and European countries in the Pacific region.

Emperor Guangde is full of expectations for the Manila talks.

The imperial court provided Velasco with a luxurious delegation.

Three hundred grenadiers, five hundred sailors, cooks, doctors and merchants, thirty eunuchs, eighty artisans and craftsmen...

In addition, twelve newly-minted scholars who advocated peace also joined the delegation, traveling to a foreign land thousands of miles away to broaden their horizons and increase their knowledge.

Everything is ready. Just waiting for the monsoon to arrive in January.

However, before the delegation left Beijing, it was fiercely attacked by the war faction.

The censors were the first to take action.

They boasted that they were all upright officials in the Great Qi Dynasty, well-versed in the teachings of Confucius and Mencius, and had a deep understanding of the laws of rise and fall. Faced with this act of humiliating peace with an enemy country, they knew that if they did not give strong advice and let it go, it would inevitably affect the safety of the dynasty.

Memorials impeaching Velasco flew to the emperor's desk like snowflakes.

The censors denounced the Spaniards for causing chaos in Da Qi, acting for their own selfish interests, ignoring the hundreds of thousands of Da Qi soldiers fighting bloody battles outside, and colluding with European countries to tamper with the laws of the previous emperor. This is truly an unforgivable crime!
Someone found the correspondence between Velasco and the Manila Church in the third year of his reign, and "searched" among a pile of Latin letters for evidence that the Europeans had bribed Velasco with 1450 taels of silver.

The memorials attacking Velasco piled up like a mountain, and the missionaries had no way to defend themselves, so they simply let it go without making any response.

The imperial censors, who were full of martial virtue, then turned their guns and pointed their spearheads at the cabinet and the Suoyi Guards who were behind the missionaries.

On the ninth day of the twelfth month of the eighth year of Guangde, a comet appeared in the sky, shooting straight from the southwest to the northeast. Its pale color was like a white rainbow several meters long, stretching from the Wei Star and the Ji Star, passing the Altair, and sweeping all the way to the Vega Star.

Xunzi said: Eclipses of the sun and the moon, untimely winds and rains, and the appearance of strange stars are common occurrences throughout the ages.

The emperor is wise and the government is running smoothly, so even if disasters occur, it will not cause any serious harm.
If the emperor is foolish and tyrannical and the government affairs are neglected and chaotic, even if the country is full of auspicious signs, it will be of no use in the end.

However, the censors who were well-read in the books of Confucius and Mencius did not pay attention to Xunzi's words. In their opinion, the appearance of a comet meant that the emperor had lost his moral integrity.

It seems that the end of the eighth year of Guangde is very sad.

On December 11, Emperor Renzong, who had been silent for a long time, issued an edict to reflect on himself.

The so-called self-cultivation means introspection.

Of course, this does not mean that Liu Kan should reflect on himself. Emperor Guangde has always believed that everything he did was for the country and the people of Da Qi, and was beyond reproach.

He wanted all officials to reflect on themselves.

In theory, the emperor can ask all officials to review their work, and officials can also ask the emperor to review his work.

So the pro-war faction submitted memorials one after another, asking Emperor Guangde to reflect on himself.

The first person to ask the emperor to review his work was Wu Xingzhong, the editor of the Hanlin Academy. He said:
I've heard that Velasco was originally a scoundrel on the streets of Madrid, Spain, of humble origins, slashing and killing his way through the underworld. During the pre-Ming Dynasty, this scoundrel arrived in China aboard a pirate ship, roaming the Jiangnan region to preach, and excelled at finding nuns... After the change of dynasty, the late emperor magnanimously spared him, allowing him to serve in the Imperial Observatory, assisting Johann Adam Schall von Bell in compiling the calendar and observing celestial phenomena. Despite this immense imperial grace, this scoundrel, instead of seeking to repay his kindness, took advantage of the retired emperor's expedition to Annan and Your Majesty's inspection tour of the North Sea to preach recklessly and collude with the enemy.

Now, he is deceiving the court with the pretext of peace talks. Although Bei was not castrated before entering the palace, his harm is no less than that of Liu Jin and Wei Zhongxian during the Ming Dynasty. I hope Your Majesty will punish him severely, otherwise the morale of the nation will be increasingly eroded and the country will no longer exist...
The day after Wu Zhongxing submitted the memorial, Zhao Xian, Shen Xiaosi and others from the Hanlin Academy submitted a memorial to impeach Velasco.

Zhao Xian and Shen Xiansi were particularly harsh, accusing the cabinet of repeatedly interfering in overseas trade. Zhang Huangyan, Shi Kefa, and others, though nominally cabinet ministers, had in reality become lackeys of the Europeans. Evidence showed they each received 1450 million taels of silver from the Queen of England and were acquiring assets overseas, poised to flee at any moment.
If Emperor Guangde did not imprison Zhang Huangyan, Shi Kefa, and the other two this time, the Imperial Censorate would call on all officials in the country to resign en masse. After all, "gentlemen and villains cannot coexist under the same sky."

When the memorial was presented, Liu Kan was furious and ordered severe punishment for all officials who impeached and attacked Velasco.

"You are like mad dogs barking at the sun. Your crimes are not only attacking your colleagues, but also defying the emperor and offending his majesty!"

After the imperial edict was issued, the Raincoat Guards immediately arrested the two censors whose remarks were most outrageous and took them outside the Meridian Gate. Emperor Guangde also ordered Zhao Xian and Shen Xiaosi to be caned 500 times each.

"Beat those two barking dogs hard for me. If I don't kill them, I will kill you!" This was the emperor's oral order to the commander of the貓衣卫.

Minister of Rites Ruan Dacheng, Minister of Personnel Chen Zizhuang, and Director of the Imperial Observatory Belasco submitted a petition for rescue, hoping that the emperor would show mercy.

Du Yinxi, the president of the Hanlin Academy, gathered more than a dozen colleagues to visit Shi Kefa, but Shi Kefa made an excuse not to meet him.

When Zhang Huangyan was about to send his servants out to explain that his old illness had relapsed, Du Yinxi had already rushed into Zhang Huangyan's mansion.

"I ask Lord Zhang to submit a petition, asking for help from Zhao Xian and Shen Xiansi. They are young and impetuous, and may be ignorant and presumptuous, but they are only doing it for the sake of the country. They have no intention of attacking the Prime Minister and the Minister of History."

Zhang Huangyan said coldly: "The Holy Wrath is serious, I cannot say anything."

"Even if the Holy Wrath is severe," Du Yinxi tried to persuade, "it is also for the sake of preserving the Red Haired Barbarians and your cabinet."

Zhang Huangyan suppressed his anger. At this time, Du Yinxi still called Velasco a red-haired barbarian, which showed that this so-called plea was just perfunctory.

"Under the emperor's wrath, only if Mr. Zhang comes forward to petition the emperor will he pardon them."

Zhang Huangyan suddenly drew out his sword and handed it to Du Yinxi.

"Here! Here! Here! Here's a knife. The emperor wants the cabinet to negotiate with the Europeans, but you're forcing the cabinet to go to war with the Europeans. Here's a knife! Kill me!"

Du Yinxi had never seen such a scene before and fled in horror.

On December 12, Zhao Xian, Shen Xiansi and eight other imperial censors and Hanlin editors were each beaten with 500 sticks and dragged out of Chang'an Gate. When Wang Zhu, the secretary of the Central Secretariat, arrived with doctors, all of them had already died...

The upright scholars who read the books of sages in the Hanlin Academy were furious.

They requested the Minister of Rites Ruan Dacheng and the Minister of Personnel Chen Zizhuang to go with them to Velasco's private residence to advise the Spaniards in person, asking the red-haired foreigner to give up his "treasonous" intentions and stop going to Manila.

They also believed that when the emperor, the eldest princess, the king of Han, and the king of Chu had clearly issued the order to attack Manila, any words or actions that suggested peace and compromise with the Europeans would be an infringement on the national interests of the Great Qi and a humiliation to the 100,000 soldiers who were marching south.

Ruan Dacheng declined the invitation from the Hanlin scholars on the pretext of being busy with government affairs.

Chen Zizhuang was unable to join the Qingliu group to fight against the Red-haired Barbarians because his "foot disease relapsed and he was unable to move forward."

So the Hanlin scholars hired young scoundrels from the downtown area of the capital to block the gate of the missionary compound. In addition to cursing and shouting, they also threw feces and urine into the compound. They used "emotional appeals and rational explanations" to threaten Velasco to immediately resign his title of plenipotentiary envoy.

With the tacit approval of the Suoyi Guards, the Catholic Church, which had been missing for a long time in Tianxin City, suddenly surfaced. Thousands of believers, armed with sticks and swords, went to the missionary's private residence and launched a crazy revenge on the young scoundrels who were blocking the gate.

The young gangs were usually fierce and acted arrogantly when bullying the people in the capital. However, they were inferior to the devout and well-organized Catholics. They were beaten back step by step and soon became completely defeated.

The Hanlin scholars who organized the "persuasion" of the Qingpi saw that the situation was not good and fled early. In the chaos, one of the Hanlin scholars was beaten to death by the believers.

After the fight between the two sides ended, the soldiers of the Wucheng Bingmasi rushed over, beat up the injured rogue, and arrested him and put him in jail.

According to the regulations of the Great Qi Dynasty, the Five Cities Army and the Suoyi Guard were directly under the jurisdiction of Emperor Guangde and only took orders from the emperor, so the mastermind behind this matter was obvious.

This incident caused even greater anger among the pro-war faction on the 29th day of the twelfth lunar month.

Under the instigation of the King of Han, the King of Chu, and the eldest princess, thirty-one vassal princes and nobles including the King of Pingxi and the Earl of Ningyuan, three cabinet ministers in the capital, eighteen governors and governors-general across the country, together with three hundred and sixty censors and one hundred and twenty imperial censors, jointly submitted a petition demanding severe punishment for the murderer, execution of Belasco, and compensation for eight censors, censors, and editors of the Imperial Academy who were beaten to death in court.

Otherwise, the governors, provincial governors, prefects, county magistrates, military supervisors, generals, garrison eunuchs, totaling 2,800 to 2,900 people in the two capitals and 49 provinces of the Great Qi will all resign and return home.

(End of this chapter)