My Portable Ming Dynasty

Chapter 47 Assists
When Li Fang and his group of eunuchs met Emperor Longqing, he had a silk ribbon tied on his head. Li Fang hurried forward and said:

"Has the Emperor's headache come back again?"

Emperor Longqing nodded and said:
"The doctor has already used the needle, it's not a problem."

Emperor Longqing had severe headaches when he was in Prince Yu's Mansion, and the problem became more serious after he became emperor.

I heard that the imperial physician had examined it, but Li Fang still said worriedly:

"Regarding the incident outside Zuo Shun Gate, I will send someone to appease the people. We cannot allow these censors and officials to disturb the emperor's presence."

Emperor Longqing smiled bitterly and said:
"You want to persuade me? Even if Prime Minister Li came, he wouldn't be able to drive those guys away."

"Normally, these censors and officials would make a scene if they were rude, but this time they were right, so how could we let it go?"

Li Fang heard that Emperor Longqing wanted to keep things quiet, so he said:

"Su Hanlin is an official of the Imperial Household Department and has no power to participate in government affairs. We should reprimand him according to Prime Minister Li's opinion. This will also allow those censors outside Zuo Shunmen to be dismissed."

Emperor Longqing held his forehead with his hand. In fact, he still thought that Su Ze's suggestion was good. At least it could provide the emperor with another channel to understand the people's sentiments.

It’s just that Su Ze was too good at causing trouble, so these censors all knocked on the palace gate at Zuo Shunmen.

But in this way, it seemed that he was forced by the censors to reprimand Su Ze, and Emperor Longqing felt a little unwilling.

He struggled a bit and said, "Is this a public discussion of the Imperial Household Department?"

Just as Li Fang was about to say that this was a public discussion in the Imperial Household Department, Feng Bao suddenly looked up and said:

"Your Majesty, I have a memorial here."

"Memorial?"

"A memorial from Eunuch Yang Qing, the Jiangning Textile Supervisor."

Jiangning weaving eunuch?
Li Fang was a little confused. The Jiangning Weaving Eunuch was sent by the court to Jiangning to be in charge of the Jiangning Manufacturing Bureau's purchase of royal fabrics.

Because it was located in Jiangning, a land of fish and rice, it was a lucrative position that all eunuchs in the palace envied.

Yang Qing was an old man from the previous dynasty and had nothing to do with Feng Bao. Why did he submit Yang Qing's memorial at this time?
Li Fang knew that something was wrong, but at this time, he couldn't stop Feng Bao. He could only watch Feng Bao deliver Yang Qing's memorial to Emperor Longqing.

It was normal for the weaving eunuchs to submit memorials to the emperor.

On the one hand, these eunuchs sent abroad needed to maintain a relationship with the emperor and needed to pay their respects and report on their work regularly.

On the other hand, these eunuchs from other towns actually also had the responsibility of monitoring the local areas, and could be considered the tentacles of imperial power.

Looking at Yang Qing's memorial, Emperor Longqing's expression became more and more ugly!
After reading it, Emperor Longqing slammed the memorial on the imperial desk and said angrily:

"Clear Stream, Clear Stream! Is this my Clear Stream!?"

Li Fang quickly stepped forward and said:

"Your Majesty, please calm down! Take care of your health!"

Emperor Longqing's headache worsened. He pointed at the memorial on the imperial desk and said to Li Fang:

"Look, these are my clear streams!"

Li Fang picked up the memorial on the imperial desk, and after reading it, his hands and feet were cold.

It turned out that the memorial submitted by Yang Qing, the eunuch in charge of the Jiangning Weaving Bureau, was not about the Jiangnan Arsenal, but rather about a major event currently unfolding in Southern Zhili. Upon arriving in Jiangning, Hai Rui immediately began clearing the fields.

The so-called "clearing the land" was a common method used in the Ming Dynasty to curb the annexation of land by powerful people. It was to encourage the common people to sue the big landlords, and the government would support the common people in distributing part of the land from the big landlords to the people.

This is because the land of local wealthy families is often acquired by annexing the common people. There are bound to be unclear points in the annexation process. As long as the government favors ordinary people, it can actually curb annexation.

Of course, it is unclear how many local officials cleared land in order to curb mergers and acquisitions, how many officials used clearing land as an excuse to crack down on local tyrants, and how many officials cleared land to make money for themselves.

However, Hai Rui's land clearing was indeed intended to curb mergers and acquisitions, and he wanted the big landlords in Jiangnan to give up some of their land.

As a result, Hai Rui cleared the land and ended up clearing the land from the home of Xu Jie, a retired landlord in Songjiang Prefecture.

After Hai Rui issued the order to clear the land, many people filed lawsuits, accusing Xu Ge Lao's family of seizing land, lending money at high interest rates and other evil deeds.

Hai Rui, the governor of Yingtian, immediately began an investigation and soon found out that Xu Jie's family owned 60,000 acres of land in Songjiang Prefecture.

Not only land, the Xu Jie family was also engaged in the local usury business. His sons Xu Fan and Xu Kun were greedy by nature. They built luxurious mansions in Songjiang Prefecture. They used tens of thousands of taels of silver to lend money at high interest rates, while still owing taxes to the court.

Hai Rui sent officials to collect the overdue taxes, but Xu Jie's descendants were also arrogant and even organized rural gentry to resist the taxes.

For a while, the whole of Jiangnan was filled with discussions about Xu Jie and his son, and a large number of people went to the government office to sue the Xu family.

As the eunuch in charge of the Jiangning weaving factory, Yang Qing naturally wrote a memorial about this matter and sent someone to deliver it to the capital at full speed.

Emperor Longqing covered his head and said:

"Xu Jie has been in power for many years, and his family is rampant in Songjiang. Are all the officials blind or dumb?"

"You keep saying you're the voice of the Ming Dynasty! Has anyone submitted a report on the Songjiang incident?"

"These are the clean officials of my Ming Dynasty! Now this group of clean officials is still knocking on the gate of Zuo Shunmen, trying to force me!"

Li Fang's heart skipped a beat, knowing that things were going to get bad. It was obvious that the emperor was going to vent all his anger on the censors!

He said quickly:
"Your Majesty, calm down. This memorial only contains Yang Qing's one-sided statement, which may not be reliable. The censors outside Zuo Shunmen also have nothing to do with this matter involving Lord Xu."

Li Fang subconsciously wanted to defend these censors, and after hearing his words, Emperor Longqing calmed down a little.

This was not because Li Fang and Xu Jie had any old relationship, but because Li Fang, as the eunuch in charge of the Imperial Household Department, was the highest-ranking person in the system, and he subconsciously wanted to maintain the status quo.

Isn’t there a saying that “those in power are all conservatives”?

Those who propose reforms are often the opposition, while the ruling party generally hopes for political stability so that they can continue to govern.

Li Fang naturally did not want the conflicts between the inner and outer courts to intensify, as this would shake his position as the eunuch in charge of the seal.

Feng Bao and his covetous followers wanted to pull him down all the time.

After finally persuading the emperor, at this moment, someone suddenly came with a message that the four ministers of the cabinet requested to see the emperor!

Emperor Longqing thought it was about the Zuo Shun Gate knocking on the palace gate, so he said to Li Fang: "Announce!"

After a while, four cabinet members stood in front of the throne.

Emperor Longqing said weakly:
"The four of you are here regarding the matter of Zuo Shunmen, right?"

The four cabinet ministers were silent for a moment, and finally Gao Gong stepped out and said:
"Your Majesty, we have come here regarding the urgent report that Yingtian Governor Hai Rui just sent to the cabinet."

(End of this chapter)