Bringing the Railway to Daming

That night, at Baohua Tower in Qufu.

Both Master Kong the Fifth and his second son, Kong Gongzhe, showed great respect to Magistrate Kong Gongsheng by attending the banquet.

Kong Gongsheng booked the largest private room in Baohualou, which was on the third floor, and invited the most famous singers in Qufu County and a troupe of dancers from his residence to perform songs and dances to entertain the guests.

Halfway through the banquet, Kong Gongsheng, Kong Wuye, and Kong Gongzhe each embraced a dancer, behaving in a dissolute manner.

At this point, Kong Gongsheng finally got down to business, though he was still using one hand to harass the dancer.

"Fifth Master, Second Young Master, do you know Zou Lan'er?"

Kong Gongzhe asked with great interest, "Zou Lan'er? Could she be a new famous actress or top courtesan in Qufu or Yanzhou?"

Hearing this, Kong Gongsheng thought that Zou Lan'er's matter had nothing to do with Kong Gongzhe, so he looked at Kong Wuye.

Master Kong said, "Xiwen (Kong Gongzhe's courtesy name), have you forgotten? More than two months ago, you came to my house for a banquet and took a fancy to a maid named Lan'er, so you asked for her."

"Na Lan'er's father is named Zou Er. He actually came to see that little maid for two consecutive months, and I had to send someone to get rid of him each time."

"Oh," Kong Gongzhe suddenly remembered something, "So it was that Lan'er. If Uncle Wu hadn't told me, I would have almost forgotten about this little maid. I thought she was quite innocent and lovely, and I originally wanted to take her into my room and cherish her."

"Who knew that this little maid would be so ungrateful and unwilling, and even dared to resist and injure me. In a fit of anger, I taught her a severe lesson and had her locked up. But she was injured somewhere and died the next day."

"I had no choice but to have her buried under the peony garden in the mansion, to use as fertilizer. Fifth Uncle, you wouldn't be thinking of taking that maid back again, would you? It's been so long, her body is probably rotten by now."

Kong Gongzhe spoke in a very calm tone when recounting this event, as if he were talking about an ordinary little thing in life.

This calm demeanor surprised both Master Kong Wu and Kong Gongsheng, who then secretly admired him: "As expected of the second son of the Duke of Yansheng, he is truly not flustered at all when faced with trouble."

After regaining his senses, Fifth Master Kong said, "Xiwen, you are looking down on your Fifth Uncle. Even if a person is alive, I will never ask for them back once I have given them away, let alone if they have become fertilizer for flowers."

Kong Gongsheng then said, "Fifth Master, Second Young Master, Zou Lan'er's matter is probably a bit troublesome—today, Zou Er wrote a petition, hired a lawyer, and came to the magistrate to accuse you two of taking Zou Lan'er's life."

Master Kong glared and said, "How dare Zou Er?"

Kong Gongzhe asked, puzzled, "And who is Zou Er?"

"Zou Er is Zou Lan'er's father, and also a tenant farmer of Fifth Master's family."

Upon hearing that he was a tenant farmer of the Kong family, Kong Gongzhe said, "Oh, just a tenant farmer? That can be easily resolved. Why did you bring it up at this banquet, Brother Gongsheng? It's such a downer."

Kong Gongzhe's expression was initially calm, but as he spoke, he became somewhat displeased.

He felt that the county magistrate Kong Gongsheng was too narrow-minded—why was it worth making a fuss about a tenant farmer's matter?

Kong Gongsheng said, "Second Young Master, don't be in a hurry, let me finish. I sent people to investigate, and this Zou Er is just an ordinary tenant farmer with no background."

"I just don't know where they found this lawyer. The petition is well-written. But no matter how well the petition is written, he's just a lawyer. When the case is heard in three days, I will let them know who is in charge of upholding the law in Qufu."

Kong Wuye chimed in, "That goes without saying, it's up to us, the descendants of King Wenxuan, to decide."

The first person to posthumously honor Confucius after his death was Duke Ai of Lu, who bestowed upon him the title of Ni Fu.

Later, during the Han, Northern Wei, Northern Zhou, Sui, and Tang dynasties, titles were bestowed upon them, with the highest being the title of Duke. Most of them were only given the titles of Former Teacher or Former Sage.

During the Kaiyuan era of the Tang Dynasty, Emperor Xuanzong, perhaps to showcase the grandeur of the Tang Dynasty, or perhaps because he was simply rather willful, surpassed all previous dynasties by posthumously honoring Confucius as the King of Wenxuan!
Subsequently, both the Song and Yuan dynasties followed the precedent set by the Tang dynasty and conferred upon Confucius the title of King Wenxuan.

In the meantime, the Western Xia went even further, posthumously honoring Confucius as Emperor Wenxuan. Well, if Confucius were alive, he would surely think of how he knew that he had been posthumously honored as an emperor by later generations.

After Zhu Yuanzhang established the Ming Dynasty, he treated the Confucius Temple in a way that was in line with the previous dynasty, and even slightly surpassed it. In addition to upholding the Confucianism banner, he also intended to demonstrate the grandeur of the founding of the Ming Dynasty.

Therefore, Confucius's current title in the Ming Dynasty is "Great Accomplished Sage and King of Literature".

It was only during the Jiajing era that a man named Zhang Cong appeared, who argued that Confucius's title of king was improper and unjustifiable. Only then did the court remove Confucius's title of king and instead bestow upon him the title of "Supreme Sage and Teacher".

In other words, the Confucius Mansion was the most prestigious in history before the Jiajing era of the Ming Dynasty. After some intellectual trends emerged during the Jiajing era that reflected on the excessive sanctification of Confucius, the Confucius Mansion's status in Confucian circles declined significantly.

However, it is precisely for this reason that Kong Gongsheng and Kong Wuye dare to call their Kong family's "family rules" the "laws of the state" of Qufu.

Kong Gongsheng specifically organized this banquet to explain the matter, intending to do Kong Wuye and Kong Gongzhe a favor. Kong Wuye seemed to accept the favor, but Kong Gongzhe didn't care at all, acting as if Kong Gongsheng was doing it for his own good.

This made Kong Gongsheng very angry.

But he dared not show it, and had to reiterate that he would handle the matter well and would not cause any trouble for the direct descendants.

Because he knew very well that although he was appointed by the imperial court, his actual power in Qufu was related to the Confucius Mansion—in fact, he had to consult with the Confucius Mansion on many matters in Qufu.

Local gentry in other prefectures and counties had considerable influence over the government, but the Confucius family was almost the only "gentry" and "powerful family" in Qufu, so naturally they had a greater influence on all aspects of Qufu.

Of course, to put it simply, Kong Gongsheng willingly served as a lackey for the direct line of the Kong family...
···
Zhu Yuanzhang learned that the magistrate of Qufu would not hold court for three days to hear the case, so he waited patiently.

However, the Embroidered Uniform Guard was very efficient. In just two days, they found out a lot about Kong Gongzhe.

"At least five maids have been beaten to death or tortured to death in the past three years?" Zhu Yuanzhang flipped through the information collected by the Embroidered Uniform Guard, a cold glint flashing in his eyes.

Cheng Ji nodded and said, "Although Kong Gongzhe is only twenty-two years old this year, according to the information we have found out, he may have developed a liking for humiliating and abusing maids when he was a teenager."

"However, because some of the maids were 'born into the Kong family,' and others had lost contact with their families long ago, and because the investigation time was limited, we can only confirm that five maids were killed by Kong Gongzhe at present."

"Moreover, our people have confirmed that Kong Gongzhe's favorite thing to do is to bury his dead maids in the peony garden behind his residence, saying that the female corpses will make the peonies bloom more beautifully as fertilizer."

boom!
Upon hearing this, Zhu Yuanzhang slammed the documents in his hand on the table in anger and snorted, "If a corpse is used as fertilizer, how can the flowers not bloom beautifully? In my opinion, this boy has lost all humanity!"

At this moment, Zhu Yuanzhang was somewhat relieved that Cheng Ji came to report at night, when Liu Chang'an and Liu Ruoyue were already asleep. Otherwise, they might have been frightened upon hearing this and suffered psychological trauma.

He then asked, "Did Kong Ne know about the things Kong Gongzhe committed?"

Kong Ne was the second Duke Yansheng of the Ming Dynasty, succeeding to the position in the seventeenth year of the Hongwu reign. Although he was nominally the head of the civil officials of the Ming Dynasty (after Zhu Yuanzhang abolished the prime minister, the Duke Yansheng became the head of the civil officials of the Ming Dynasty), he had always behaved properly before – he always attended the grand court assembly on time and never caused any trouble.

Cheng Ji hesitated slightly before saying, "According to our investigation, Kong Ne should know, but unfortunately the Embroidered Uniform Guard has not yet obtained concrete evidence."

Zhu Yuanzhang then asked, "Have Kong Ne himself and his eldest son Kong Gongjian committed any crimes?"

Cheng Ji said, "The matter of Kong Ne has not yet been investigated, but Kong Gongjian is indeed homosexual, likes to play with young servants, and even secretly keeps a famous actress as his mistress."

"Aside from that, we didn't find anything else about Kong Gongjian. However, his stewards and servants took advantage of his reputation to do bad things such as lending money at exorbitant interest rates, forced buying and selling, and seriously injuring people."

"As for whether Kong Nei and Kong Gongjian knew about these things, evidence is needed to confirm this at present."

Zhu Yuanzhang snorted coldly, "Even if they really don't know, they should be severely punished. Continue to investigate the crimes of important figures in the Kong family such as Kong Ne and Kong Gongjian. We want to see just how much shame these descendants of Confucius have brought to their ancestors."

Cheng Ji solemnly replied, "Yes!"

Another day passed in the blink of an eye, and finally the court in Qufu opened to hear the case of Zou Er suing Master Kong Wu and Kong Gongzhe for the murder of his daughter Zou Lan'er.

In later TV dramas, it seems that whenever a case is heard in the county government, the people can freely gather in the county government compound to watch. In some cases, the county government hall is even like a shop, facing the street without any barriers.

This is obviously impossible.

In fact, county government offices throughout history have always been courtyard-style buildings.

Most cases are handled by the county yamen's criminal division, and only a very few cases require the county magistrate to convene a court session for trial.

Furthermore, even when the county magistrate holds a trial, he will at most invite a few local gentry to sit and watch inside the hall. As for ordinary people wanting to enter the county government office to watch, that only happens in very few special circumstances.

For example, a county magistrate needs to prove something to the people by trying a case, or to appease public anger through the trial.

Zou Er's case is clearly not included in this category.

Therefore, when Zou Er and his lawyer Chen Li arrived at the county government office that day, there was only the county magistrate Kong Gongsheng, his advisor, the clerk of the criminal office, the clerk, and the county government's yamen runners (because of the reform of officials, local clerks and yamen runners also became minor officials with official positions).

As an ordinary elite Imperial Guard, Chen Li knew that this was a rare opportunity for him to show his abilities, so he had made ample preparations for Zou Er's case over the past three days.

But the moment Kong Gongsheng opened his mouth, he realized he had been too "naive." (End of Chapter)