The Ming Dynasty's Five Hundred Years

Chapter 303 A Major Reversal
Autumn deepens, and rain falls in torrents.

When people have no faith, killing will generate fear.

When people have faith, killing will only provoke stronger resistance.

At this moment, the anti-corruption officials in Henan and Shandong provinces felt a surge of desperation.

The prophecy of Yu Shaosi carrying a coffin out of the capital came true so quickly.

Who is in fear? Who is committing evil?
Just three days after Zhao Cheng's death, an imperial edict arrived from the capital, descending like thunder!

"Zhao Cheng was posthumously granted the title of Hanlin Academician. According to the salary of a Hanlin Academician, the Kaifeng Prefecture was ordered to provide his widowed mother and younger sister with money, grain, and cloth every year until his widowed mother passed away and his younger sister got married."

Although there wasn't a large portion of the allowance for maintaining integrity, the salary of a Hanlin Academician was enough for two women to live a stable life.

The imperial court's relief efforts for Zhao Cheng were a great relief to the people.

It has the effect of spending a fortune to buy a horse's bones.

Upon hearing this, all the officials of the Anti-Corruption Bureau were deeply moved.

Following the aforementioned relief efforts came the real focus: "The Jinyiwei Northern Garrison and the Imperial City Guard were ordered to protect the safety of the officials of the Anti-Corruption Bureau, and the Marquis of Baoling was ordered to lead the Beijing Garrison on an expedition to suppress the bandits in Shandong."

The latter was a decoy; what was truly shocking was the former. Nearly a hundred imperial guards were dispatched from the capital, and even two commanders of the Embroidered Uniform Guard were sent out, along with local Embroidered Uniform Guards. This kind of force had not been seen since the twenty-first year of the Yongle reign.

After arriving in Henan and Shandong, one group of Imperial Guards followed the officials of the Anti-Corruption Bureau, while the other group disappeared to investigate the true cause of Zhao Cheng's death.

Yu Qian, along with a group of anti-corruption officials, examined the original accounts, trying to find some clues.

As the saying goes, every contact leaves a trace!
There is never anything perfect in this world. Yu Qian led a group of people to verify the information they obtained from other people day and night. Those places that already had flaws could not withstand close scrutiny.

Those officials weren't exactly tough.

The death of Zhao Cheng, in particular, not only made Yu Qian and his colleagues feel a sense of shared sorrow, but also terrified many officials with guilty consciences.

Most of them had the audacity to embezzle, but not the audacity to kill officials of the imperial court. Their sentences ranged from imprisonment to exile, death sentence with reprieve, to immediate execution. Many of their crimes were not serious enough to warrant immediate execution.

The person who embezzled 30,000 taels might be doomed, but the person below might have embezzled 300 taels. As long as it wasn't during the Hongwu reign, the sentence wouldn't be beheading.

When the amnesty is granted,

Even the most corrupt officials can still distinguish between the death of one person and the death of their entire family.

After Zhao Cheng's death, even they themselves wondered if someone had taken a risk and obtained some evidence from him, so they decided to kill him without hesitation.

This is practically dragging everyone down with it.

The court's actions and reactions only prove that His Majesty the Emperor and the central government officials, especially Lord Shouzheng Li Xianmu, attach great importance to this matter and are extremely angry. The large number of Jinyiwei (Imperial Guards) coming to Henan and Shandong is like a sharp blade being drawn from its sheath. How can it be sheathed without drawing blood?

……

The Hall of Literary Glory.

Emperor Zhu Zhanji was flipping through the memorials in his hand, a cold smile playing on his lips. After looking through a few more, he turned to Li Xianmu, who was standing beside him, and asked, "Teacher, these memorials were deliberately not sent through the Grand Secretariat. What do you think?"

Upon hearing that these memorials had not gone through the cabinet, Li Xianmu immediately raised an eyebrow.

As the cabinet's power grew, the system of drafting proposals gradually became popular.

Nowadays, all memorials to the throne in the Ming Dynasty are first sent to the Office of General Affairs, where they are initially classified and their format is checked for correctness. If there are no problems, they are sent to the palace.

There were some specially stamped secret memorials that the Office of Transmission could not see in advance, but these were very few, and were all powers granted by the emperor.

After memorials were sent to the palace, urgent ones were given directly to the emperor, while most were handed over to the Grand Secretariat for processing and drafting, before being submitted to the emperor for approval.

From this process, it's clear to anyone with a discerning eye that the Office of Transmission, while ostensibly just a conduit for memorials, actually wields considerable power, even deciding which memorials are presented directly to the emperor and which are sent to the Grand Secretariat.

Ultimately, whether something is urgent or not depends, to some extent, only on the words of the Commissioner of the Court of State Ceremonies.

As long as one doesn't go too far, the emperor generally won't mind.

The Office of Transmission may remain unassuming on ordinary days, but at crucial moments, it can deliver important memorials to the emperor at the right time!
These memorials will become sharp swords piercing certain people.

This was a similar situation; these memorials bypassed the cabinet and went directly to the emperor.

Why is this so?
Because some people did not want these memorials to pass through Li Xianmu's eyes first, hoping to minimize Li Xianmu's influence in this matter.

Unfortunately, the emperor was unwilling to let them have their way. After reviewing these memorials, he immediately summoned Li Xianmu and asked him for his opinion.

Li Xianmu took out the memorial and glanced at it. He saw that the signature area had been blacked out, and it was impossible to tell who had written it.

He glanced at the emperor out of the corner of his eye without changing his expression, but a sense of emotion stirred within him.

The emperor was truly born to be an emperor.

Although they trusted him completely and had some dissatisfaction with these memorials, they still naturally protected the information of the memorialists.

This inevitably brings to mind the passage in "Records of the Grand Historian: The Biography of Xiang Yu" where Xiang Yu directly tells Liu Bang, "These are the words of Cao Wushang, the Left Sima of Liu Bang." The contrast between the two reveals a world of difference in their political abilities.

The Ming Dynasty had four outstanding emperors: Taizu, Taizong, Renzong, and the current emperor, which led to its current strength.

Pulling his thoughts back from the outside world, Li Xianmu focused his attention on the memorials, and then frowned more and more as he read them.

As he finished reading, his tightly furrowed brows slowly relaxed, revealing a hint of mockery, and he shook his head with a sarcastic laugh.

"What nonsense!"

Li Xianmu spoke sternly.

Zhu Zhanji's furrowed brows completely disappeared. "I also feel that these memorials are somewhat far-fetched and unreasonable, but I can't quite put my finger on what's wrong with them." The memorials concerned the situation in Henan and Shandong.

About seven days after the imperial edict was issued to Henan, the entire provinces of Henan and Shandong were thrown into chaos by forces such as the Anti-Corruption Bureau, the Embroidered Uniform Guard, the Imperial Guard, and the Beijing Garrison. The sheer scale of the operation terrified almost everyone who was paying attention.

What exactly is the emperor trying to do? And what is Li Xianmu trying to do?
Does investigating the death of a low-ranking official really require such a great deal of effort?

Moreover, Zhao Cheng may not have died at the hands of his colleagues; he could have truly died at the hands of bandits. Such a large-scale operation is already the limit. Do we really have to find out the real culprit now?

Does the Anti-Corruption Bureau need to investigate so many things in Shandong and Henan regarding the Yellow River dike case?

They're investigating things that have absolutely nothing to do with the Yellow River dike case. The Henan branch of the maritime transport authority is being visited frequently, and they're even occasionally asked about grain transport and treasury silver.

How can you just check like that? (What if they actually find something wrong?)

Throughout history and across the world, every government and dynasty has countless problems. Most of the time, it is in a Schrödinger's cat state, and it can continue to operate smoothly as long as it is not investigated.

However, if a real investigation were to be conducted, a small problem could very well escalate into a huge disaster.

Take Watergate, for example. No one could have imagined that a wiretapping scandal would ultimately lead to the downfall of a president. It's a perfect illustration of that Western folk song: "For want of a nail, the shoe was lost. For want of a shoe, the horse was lost. For want of a horse, the battle was lost. For want of a battle, the kingdom was lost."

There's a more fitting saying in China: "Some things are nothing on the scale, but once you put them on, they weigh a ton."

Apart from people like Li Xianmu who dared to guarantee that they were absolutely fine, most other people, including Li Xianmu's father-in-law, the Duke of Yingguo, and his elder brother, the Duke of Hanguo, did not dare to say that they were fine.

Yu Qian and others have greatly expanded the scope of their investigation. Now, those who are afraid are not only those who may be involved in the Yellow River dike case, but also others who have interests in Shandong, Henan, and the Grand Canal, as well as those who have connections with these government officials.

The number of officials who may be investigated and implicated has increased more than tenfold.

As a result, many people submitted memorials requesting that the Anti-Corruption Bureau and the Embroidered Uniform Guard, "although they have cases to investigate, they must not disturb the people. Shandong and Henan are important areas close to the capital. If they are not careful, they may affect the safety of the capital. This must be taken seriously."

The purposes and reasons for submitting such memorials vary widely.

Some people might genuinely think this way, because everything has two sides. Yu Qian and his team's extensive investigation could indeed cause panic among the locals.

After all, no one knows if the fire will burn them. As for the idea that the innocent will clear themselves, that's something only children would believe.

Politics doesn't believe in innocence; it only believes in taking sides.

Throughout history, the number of officials who have been falsely accused and executed could fill the ocean.

But Li Xianmu believed that those moderate, mild-mannered, and easy-going officials might not be able to stand it, but they would definitely not do it so quickly. Those who submitted the memorial this time must be rather guilty, or perhaps they were persuaded to submit it.

The fact that the enemy is starting to panic proves that the current actions are effective, so Li Xianmu's claim that their suggestion to stop expanding their influence is "utter nonsense."

Zhu Zhanji also agreed with Li Xianmu's idea, and said, "However, regarding the matter of Shandong and Henan, we still need to establish a line in the end. Teacher, you are now trying to stir up trouble and lure the snake out of its hole, right?"
After achieving our goal, we must quickly calm things down in Henan and Shandong. It's harvest season, and the recent rains have already led to a poor harvest. If this incident further delays the harvest, it would be a huge loss.

In an agrarian society where agriculture is the foundation, nothing can compare to the autumn harvest. It must be said that their timing in submitting their memorial at this time was extremely opportune.

This forced the emperor and Li Xianmu to be hesitant to act rashly.

In Zhu Zhanji's view, this matter was indeed difficult to resolve. Could they really lure the snake out of its hole in such a short time?

If luring the snake out of its hole fails, then all that effort and resources invested will have been wasted.

Li Xianmu smiled slightly upon hearing this.

“Your Majesty’s thoughts are beyond my comprehension. My purpose in letting Yu Qian act so boldly in Henan was not to lure the snake out of its hole, but to divert attention and then use this as a warning to others.”

"Oh?"

Zhu Zhanji sat up straight, his face filled with intense curiosity. "What does this mean?"

"Does Your Majesty still remember the causes behind these two major cases?"

Zhu Zhanji was stunned for a moment, and involuntarily recalled the events. Then, a major event flashed through his mind, and he said with some horror, "It is the matter of deposing the empress. These days, one major event after another has occurred in the court, and I have actually forgotten about this matter."

This is perfectly understandable. After all, the Gansu fake disaster relief case, the Yellow River dike case, and the Zhao Cheng death case were all major cases involving the lives and deaths of many people. The matter of deposing the empress did not have such a great influence and was more often used as an excuse for political struggle.

Back then, regarding the issue of deposing the empress, some people wanted to challenge Li Xianmu and even gained the upper hand.

However, Li Xianmu did not engage in battle. Instead, he chose to use the Anti-Corruption Bureau to open up the second and third fronts. The scale and consequences of the latter two fronts far exceeded those of the first front, so naturally no one paid attention to the first front.

But Li Xianmu never forgot that his true goal was to achieve a decisive victory on the first battlefield.

Now that everyone's attention is focused on the Yellow River dike case, it is the perfect time for him to return to the important matter of deposing the empress!

So, as soon as the emperor finished speaking, Li Xianmu nodded heavily and said in a deep voice, "It is indeed about the matter of deposing the empress. Your Majesty, the cases of the Yellow River dikes in Shandong and Henan are still unresolved. Yu Qian has expanded the scope of the investigation, causing countless officials to panic, fearing that they will be implicated."

If His Majesty were to bring up the matter of deposing the Empress again at this time, how many people in the court would dare to oppose it again?
As long as there isn't much opposition, this matter can be implemented directly. Your Majesty, I congratulate you.

Zhu Zhanji suddenly realized that Yu Qian's actions in Henan and Shandong were like a knife hanging over everyone's heads, which could implicate some people at any time. At this time, most people would shrink back and would never provoke him, the emperor.

As for the very few people, he could simply ignore them or even investigate and prosecute them directly.

The troubles that had previously plagued him about deposing the empress have now vanished with ease under the current circumstances.

The matter of deposing the empress itself did not change, but the power dynamic between the court and the public changed. Before, those officials used traditional ethics and morality as a sword against him, the emperor; now, he, the emperor, has turned the tables and is pointing it at the officials.

"Wonderful! Absolutely wonderful!"

Zhu Zhanji couldn't help but admire it more and more as he thought about it.

Seeing that the emperor fully agreed, Li Xianmu pressed on, saying, "Your Majesty, I think it's best not to depose the empress directly. It would be better to do it gracefully, letting the empress voluntarily 'step down'. Otherwise, if word gets out, it will set a bad example. If the empress voluntarily 'steps down', it will sound much better."

Zhu Zhanji thought for a moment and then nodded emphatically, saying, "Teacher, you are right. I know I have wronged the Empress. As long as she is willing to abdicate, I will not make things difficult for a woman like her."

(End of this chapter)