My Portable Ming Dynasty

Chapter 48: Exile (More Updates!)

Half an hour ago, the cabinet.

Hai Rui's expedited document was not delivered to the cabinet until the evening.

When Gao Gong saw this petition, he felt very complicated.

Hai Rui, the governor of Yingtian, was recommended by the Ministry of Personnel, which he controlled, and had been in office for just over a month.

This was originally Su Ze's suggestion, to let Hai Rui, the Ming Dynasty's magic sword, go to Jiangnan to test its power.

But Gao Gong didn't expect that Hai Rui's magic sword would be so fast and so sharp!

Hai Rui's memorial was very beautifully written, and there was no ambiguity in the entire memorial. It all dealt with the facts.

Hai Rui recorded in detail the Xu family's occupation of people's land in Songjiang Prefecture, Xu Jie's sons' usury, and their leading role in tax resistance.

Along with the memorial came the record of Hai Rui's personal trial and the "Wanmin Shu" signed and sealed by the people of Xu Mansion who were involved in the lawsuit.

Whether it is official document writing or legal judgment, there is no mistake at all!
Hai Rui did not make any attacks or implicate the retired Prime Minister Xu Jie. The entire memorial was about the Xu family of Songjiang, without any subjective or idealistic inferences.

But only those who have been in the officialdom know that this kind of knife is the fastest!

The entire process was flawless. Hai Rui submitted his memorial publicly, which meant that his memorial could withstand scrutiny by all officials and censors.

Everything was done legally, reasonably and in compliance with regulations. In his memorial, Hai Rui asked the court how to deal with the Xu family in Songjiang, especially Xu Jie's two sons who were loan sharks.

Because Xu Jie's sons all became officials through imperial favor, their punishment required the court to review their crimes, so Hai Rui's actions were also normal procedures.

After reading the memorial, Gao Gong felt mixed emotions.

Xu Jie fell.

Unlike the last time he retired, it was normal for Ming Dynasty officials to retire and be reinstated. When Xu Jie retired last time, his reputation and students and former officials remained.

However, Hai Rui's memorial completely shattered the reputation that Xu Jie had built up over decades. Politically, Xu Jie was equivalent to a dead man.

Gao Gong is essentially an emotional person. Yan Song and Xu Jie, two other prime ministers, ended up like this. If he also becomes the prime minister in the future, can he have a good ending?
But Gao Gong was a resolute man after all. He calmed down his melancholy mood and handed Hai Rui's memorial to the Prime Minister Li Chunfang.

After reading Hai Rui's memorial, Li Chunfang's first thought was, "Is Su Ze really a demon monkey?"
The censor knocked on the palace gate at Zuoshun Gate just as Hai Rui’s memorial arrived?
With Li Chunfang's political wisdom, he had already guessed the emperor's reaction.

Politically, the Ming Dynasty had two capitals. There was a Nanjing court in Nanjing that was almost one-to-one with the capital. Not only did Nanjing have the Six Ministries, but it also had censors in six departments and thirteen regions.

Songjiang Prefecture is under the nose of Nanjing. So many officials from Nanzhili and the censors from the six departments and thirteen districts of Nanjing turned a blind eye to the Xu family of Songjiang?
The imperial court's officials attacked Su Ze again. What would the emperor think?
Have the six departments and thirteen ministries in the two capitals become members of Xu's party?

The opinions of the censors are no longer trusted, so can the "Yuefu Xinbao" published by Su Ze become the emperor's new eyes and ears?

And Xu Jie.

Li Chunfang was recommended by Xu Jie to join the cabinet and was also Xu Jie's lecturer.

But after seeing Hai Rui's memorial, Li Chunfang knew that Xu Jie was finished.

Xu Jie's personal political career is over, and if Xu Jie's followers cannot find a new home, they will soon lose power and be driven out.

The Kedao would inevitably become the main department for the emperor to clean up.

At this point, Li Chunfang had quickly accepted the reality. What he had to do now was to help the emperor clean out the remnants of Xu Jie in the Ministry of Personnel, and then place his own disciples in place.

Li Chunfang was quiet and inactive, but this required someone to help him. If the court situation became unbalanced and Gao Gong became the sole heir, then his position as the Prime Minister would no longer be quiet and inactive, but rather sidelined.

Li Chunfang made a plan. What he had to do now was to quickly cut ties with the censors of Xu Jie's party, show the cabinet and the emperor a consistent attitude to the outside world, and hold the six departments and thirteen departments of the two capitals accountable for their negligence.

Li Chunfang then handed the memorial to Zhao Zhenji and Zhang Juzheng, and both of them had similar ideas.

Li Chunfang looked around, stood up and said:
"Enter the palace."
-
With the secret report from the Jiangnan weaving eunuch and after reading Hai Rui's memorial, Emperor Longqing calmed down.

The crimes listed by Hai Rui against the Xu family of Songjiang also implicated Xu Jie's sons Xu Fan and Xu Kun. According to current evidence, Xu Jie was guilty of allowing his sons to commit crimes.

This actually made Emperor Longqing feel relieved.

The emperor could not afford to completely overthrow the former prime minister, who was also the regent who helped him ascend the throne and the important minister entrusted by the late emperor to take care of his son.

Now, the blame is being placed on Xu Jie's son, and the intensity is just right.

Emperor Longqing looked at the four ministers in the cabinet and asked:
"What should be done with Prime Minister Xu's second son?"

Hearing that Emperor Longqing still called Xu "Prime Minister", Li Chunfang, Zhao Zhenji and Zhang Juzheng all breathed a sigh of relief. This meant that the emperor had already determined the nature of the case and would not hold a full-scale liquidation against Xu Jie, but would only pursue his son.

Gao Gong said seriously:

"Remove him from his official position and exile him."

Now it was Zhang Juzheng's turn to be surprised. According to Hai Rui's memorial, it would not be excessive to execute Xu Jie's two sons. However, Gao Gong only proposed exile and did not continue to hunt down Xu Jie's sons.

Emperor Longqing nodded, very satisfied with the result. He said:
"How about exile to Xuwen, Guangdong?"

Xuwen County, Guangdong, is located at the southernmost tip of the Leizhou Peninsula.

The Ming Dynasty was not the Song Dynasty. Compared with exile to the northwest and northeast, exile to Xuwen was actually a preferential treatment. After all, after hundreds of years of development, the Guangdong and Guangxi regions were no longer the desolate frontier plagued by malaria in the Song Dynasty.

All the ministers in the cabinet had no objection, so Emperor Longqing asked again:
"How should we deal with the censors who knocked on the palace gate?"

At this time, Zhao Zhenji stood up and said to the emperor:

"Your Majesty, the foundation of the country has just been established this month. It is inappropriate to see blood."

Old fox!
Gao Gong glanced at Zhao Zhenji, a great Confucian scholar who always talked about following one's heart and pursuing one's conscience. He actually brought out the Han Confucian theory of prophecies and divinations. However, this sentence was very effective for the superstitious emperor.

Longqing's father, Jiajing, was willing to not see his own son for decades just because of the saying "two dragons should not meet each other". Naturally, Emperor Longqing was unwilling to see bloodshed in the same month that his beloved son was canonized.

Gao Gong further thought that Zhao Zhenji's protection of the censor was a signal to Xu Jie's disciples that he was willing to continue to protect them.

Things have come to this point, and it is impossible to kill them all. Gao Gong said:

"Deposed."

Emperor Longqing nodded and said, "The leader is Chen Zan, the Imperial Censor of the Criminal Department. He has been demoted to serve as the Magistrate of Xuwen County, Guangdong."

Unlike the Great Ceremony Debate when Jiajing confronted his ministers, the emperor and the cabinet reached a consensus, and the fate of these officials who knocked on the palace gate at Zuo Shunmen had already been decided.

Emperor Longqing looked at the four cabinet ministers and continued:

"I think the Yuefu New Newspaper that Su Zilin mentioned can be organized."

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(End of this chapter)