The Wanli Emperor of the Ming Dynasty was extremely rebellious

Chapter 78: Kill
Prince Lu is preparing for his wedding.

Wanli was preparing to start a massacre.

With this killing spree, he wanted to scare away those civil servants with ulterior motives, and he wanted to frighten the vested interest groups that were swallowing up the interests of the Ming Dynasty.

He wanted to assert his authority as emperor and let all the civil and military officials in the court know the consequences of going against him.

Not to mention the two capitals and thirteen provinces of the Ming Dynasty, this time he must at least kill so many people that no one in the court in the capital dares to sing against him.

On this day, around the hour of You, the sun set in the west, and the setting sun looked like blood.

To the west of the imperial city, at the Xisi Pailou intersection, soldiers from the Beijing Garrison and the Embroidered Uniform Guard lined up both sides of the four streets.

On the northeast side of the intersection, there was a large circle of Jinyiwei lined up in the square outside the gate of Chen Huangqin's residence.

Wanli is inspecting the newly built execution ground.

There were two places for executions in the capital of the Ming Dynasty, one was outside the Meridian Gate, and the other was near the intersection of Xisi Pailou.

Those who were beheaded at the Meridian Gate were all court officials.

The intersection of Xisi Pailou is called Xishi for short, and those who were beheaded there were basically criminals who had been tried.

The only cabinet chief minister in the Jiajing Dynasty who was beheaded in public was Xia Yan, who was "abandoned and beheaded in Xishi". This means that he was dragged to Xishi, killed with a knife, and then left there for dead.

In fact, many execution scenes in dramas are fake.

There were no special execution grounds either in the capital or in the local areas.

After all, it is rare for a place to execute a few criminals in a year, so officials are too lazy to spend money to build execution platforms and beheading platforms.

That's such a waste of money. It's just killing one person. Why waste so much money?
In the Ming Dynasty, public beheadings were basically carried out by dragging the person to a crowded street where a riot had occurred and then beheading him with a knife.

It is impossible to verify whether there were special execution grounds in other places.

There was definitely no such thing outside the Meridian Gate. If he was dragged outside the Meridian Gate and beheaded, he would be dragged to the square outside the Meridian Gate and beheaded with a knife.

However, in order to create a deterrent effect, Wanli ordered the construction of an execution ground.

There was also a stone tablet about ten feet high at the execution ground, with four bright red characters "Xi Shi Execution Ground" engraved on it.

There are also execution platforms built with bricks, tiles and slabs, and execution platforms built with stones.

The execution platform was against the wall of Chen Huangqin's residence. It was about ten feet high and more than ten feet in circumference. There were steps on both sides leading up to it. There was also a half eaves built on top. In the middle was a large desk. On the wall behind the desk hung a large plaque with three large characters "Execution Platform" written on it. Below it were densely packed laws on beheading.

The execution platform was in the middle of the square, roughly one person high and three or four feet in diameter. There were bluestone steps leading up to it on all sides. In the four corners of the bluestone steps were four stone sculptures of soul-calming beasts, which were slightly lower than the platform.

Wanli stood on the high execution platform, carefully inspected it, and then nodded slightly and said: "Well, that's right. This beheading must be accompanied by specialized officials. From now on, the Supervisory Office will be responsible for supervising the execution, the Dali Temple will be responsible for reading the charges, and the Ministry of Justice will be responsible for verifying the body and carrying out the execution."

Upon hearing this, Gao Maocai, Left Censor-in-Chief of the Supervisory Office, Xin Zixiu, Minister of Justice, and Zhang Mengli, Minister of the Supreme Court, all bowed and said, "Your humble servants obey your order."

Gao Maocai and Xin Zixiu had both served as provincial governors and had the power to execute criminals. So beheading a criminal was naturally a trivial matter for them.

Zhang Mengli was a well-known upright figure in the court, and he didn't seem to get along well with Zhang Juzheng.

However, this guy was doing well as the governor of Henan and Shuntian. He went to Gansu as the governor and served there for two months, but was brought back by rumors.

This proves that this guy is not on good terms with the three major powerful families in Puzhou. Although Zhang Juzheng does not like this upright person, he still promoted him to the position of Chief Justice of Dali Temple, which shows that this person's talent is still quite outstanding.

Wanli nodded slightly, then said to Yu Youcai: "Bingzhong, this time your disciples in the Inspectorate will take turns supervising the execution to practice your courage."

what?
Execution!

Yu Youcai subconsciously glanced at the execution platform, shrank his neck slightly, and then bowed and said, "Your humble servant obeys your order."

This guy is really timid.

However, he doesn't need to train his courage, just be obedient.

Wanli looked at the blood-red setting sun and said decisively, "Yingzhen, order notices to be posted throughout the capital. The executions will begin at noon tomorrow morning. All the suspects in Zhang Cheng's treasonous case will be beheaded one by one at the West Market Execution Ground, starting with the Wuding Marquis' line and then Zhang Cheng's relatives."

This was also the rule for beheadings. Before the beheading, a notice had to be posted to let the beheaded prisoner's relatives and friends know when to collect the body. The next morning, before the hour of noon, when it was still dark, the people of the capital began to gather towards the west of the city.

There was a huge crowd of people there. From Xisi Pailou South Street to West Chang'an Street, then to Shibei Hutong, Banqiao Hutong and Jinyiwei Back Street, it was almost packed with people.

Because the prisoners were all pulled out from the Jinyiwei Beizhenfu Division Prison, the carriages loaded with prison cages on the street were lined up in a row.

Among the common people, there are brave and timid ones. The brave ones go directly to the execution ground to watch, while the timid ones watch from the road and it is considered a rare and exciting sight.

At around noon, just as the sun was rising, officials from the Dali Temple stood on the execution platform with the charges in hand and began to read them.

The first person to be executed was Guo Dacheng, Marquis of Wuding.

Although his eyes were filled with reluctance, confusion, fear, and even anger, he remained silent, seemingly admitting his guilt and accepting punishment.

In fact, this is caused by drugs. The Ministry of Justice has specially cultivated a kind of anesthetic kernel. As long as it is stuffed into the prisoner's mouth and covered for about a quarter of an hour, the prisoner's tongue and throat will be completely numb and he will be unable to speak at all.

After the officials from the Ministry of Justice verified the identity of the person, they went to the execution platform to report in a serious manner.

The executioner was the newly appointed censor of the Inspectorate, Yu Youcai's new disciple. Although he still looked a little childish, there was no fear in his eyes.

He listened carefully to the report, then immediately drew out his command arrow, wrote quickly, threw it over, and then shouted loudly: "Behead."

The official from the Ministry of Justice took the token, immediately raised it high, and shouted loudly: "Behead!"

The executioner did not hesitate, raised his sword and slashed it down.

If this were normal, it would be over.

However, this was a case of treason, and not just one or two people were executed. There were thousands of people in the Wuding Marquis' line.

The officials of the Dali Temple, the Censors of the Supervisory Office, and the officials of the Ministry of Justice were like emotionless machines. They read out names one by one, examined them one by one, and beheaded them one by one. They killed from morning to night, but not all the relatives of Marquis Wu Ding were killed.

The next morning around noon, we continued.

The people of the capital were so thrilled to watch the show that the crowd at the West Market execution ground not only did not decrease, but instead grew larger and larger.

As the news spread, people from the south, north, east and even outside the city came to watch the fun.

The common people enjoyed watching the excitement.

This killing spree scared some people to death.

Zhang Siwei and his gang were horrified when they heard the news.

The little emperor is really killing!
Moreover, there are hundreds of them a day, and it takes a whole day to finish cutting them.

Shen Shixing and his party were also terrified, fearing that the little emperor would have a seizure one day and use them as a target.

Empress Dowager Li couldn't bear it anymore.

Her son, who is the emperor, is really cruel. This is no joke.

Zhang Jing ordered people to check it out. They chopped down more than a hundred pieces in one day, and continued the next day with no intention of stopping at all.

If we keep chopping like this, it will eventually be Li Wenquan's turn.

She could only ask Li Xuancheng to convey the message that Prince Lu's marriage and enfeoffment should be carried out according to Wanli's rules: five hundred thousand taels would be five hundred thousand taels, and one thousand hectares of land would be one thousand hectares of land.

Upon hearing the news, Wanli finally relented and exiled Li Wenquan to the border of Yunnan.

This is the benefit of killing everyone at once. When the emperor does not show his power, many people lose their awe of the imperial power.

The Ming Dynasty had not had such a cruel and ruthless emperor since the Hongwu Emperor and the Yongle Emperor, so many people did not take the emperor seriously.

This time, many people finally understood that when the emperor showed his power, countless people would lose their heads.

If you don't want to walk into the edge of a knife, it's best to be honest. Otherwise, the execution of your entire family would be the least of your worries!
(End of this chapter)