Take control of Wei Zhongxian at the start and confiscate 100 million from him!

Chapter 182 Qingjun’s Side

Luoyang, Henan.

Prince Fu's Mansion.

This magnificent city, standing tall in the heart of the world, seems to be a microcosm of the extravagance and power of the entire Ming Empire.

The Prince Fu's Mansion is the most central element of this microcosm.

It occupies the most prosperous area of ​​Luoyang, with flying eaves and brackets, carved beams and painted rafters. Its magnificent scale even faintly resembles that of the Forbidden City.

However, deep within this magnificent royal palace, a silent execution by slow slicing is taking place in a warm chamber.

The low sandalwood table in the center of the room was filled with all kinds of exquisite pastries and fruits, including candied plums from the newly tribute from Jiangnan, agate grapes from the Western Regions, and jade dew pastries carefully baked by the master of Wangfu pastry with milk and fine flour. Each one was enough to make ordinary wealthy people outside drool.

But at this moment, all these delicacies were, without exception, tinged with a layer of icy coldness.

Because their owner was trapped in an enormous huanghuali armchair, like a pool of lard about to melt from the heat, exuding an aura of decay and fear.

Prince Fu, Zhu Changxun.

The richest and fattest prince in the Ming Dynasty.

His obese body, weighing over 300 pounds, almost burst the sturdy armchair.

The finest Shu brocade robe was soaked through with his constant cold sweat, clinging tightly to his fat and outlining a daunting silhouette.

The underground heating was burning brightly, making the entire warm room feel like springtime, but he felt as if he had fallen into an ice cave, and even the layers of fat on his chin undulated like waves.

His breathing was as heavy as that of a dying old ox, each gasp accompanied by a "ho...ho..." sound, as if his throat was blocked.

His small eyes, squeezed into slits by his obesity, were now staring unfocused at a point in the void in front of him, his gaze unfocused, his pupils overflowing with fear.

"Dead... really killed..."

He muttered to himself in a voice only he could hear, like a madman who had lost his mind.

"He said he'd kill... and he just killed him..."

killed.

That young imperial nephew actually made a move.

Prince Qin, Zhu Cunshu, like him, was a descendant of Emperor Taizu Gao, a son of the dragon.

But when the emperor ordered him to die, he died.

The copy of the "Da Ming Yue Bao" newspaper from the capital is now spread out on the low sandalwood table in front of Zhu Changxun.

It was like a death warrant, and ever since Zhu Changxun saw those words on black and white paper, it had been a constant, thunderous reminder in his heart.

The Ming Dynasty Daily, in the clearest and most straightforward official language, listed the ten major crimes of the "criminal prince" Zhu Cunshu, the Prince of Qin, and then announced to the world that the Prince of Qin had been executed in the West Market and that all his property had been confiscated and put into use for disaster relief in the Northwest.

There was no conspiracy, no assassination, and not even the slightest concealment.

That young royal nephew treated the death of the King of Qin as an achievement, a great event worthy of boasting to the world!

At first, Zhu Changxun was in an absurd daze.

He couldn't understand.

However, the confidant he sent to the capital with the humble greetings he had personally written disappeared without a trace, and the people he sent to inquire about the situation also vanished without a trace.

This complete silence and isolation from the central government, in stark contrast to the ruthless atmosphere displayed in the "Da Ming Yue Bao" newspaper, sent shivers down his spine.

This invisible wall, this slowly tightening net, has trapped him firmly in the magnificent cage of Luoyang. He no longer feels like the powerful and influential Prince Fu, whose words could decide the life and death of thousands.

He was a fat pig kept in a pen, watching helplessly as the butcher sharpened his knife and posted a slaughter notice on the wall, unaware of when the butcher would kick the door open.

Prince Fu felt a violent dizziness and barely managed to stay upright by holding onto the armrest of the grand chair.

He couldn't help but compare himself to the Qin King, who had turned to ashes in that monthly report.

The more you compare, the colder your heart becomes; the more you compare, the more your soul dissipates.

What was the crime that imperial nephew accused the King of Qin of?

Encroaching on farmland? Zhu Changxun immediately pictured the vast Wangzhuang estate in Henan Province, which belonged entirely to his Prince Fu's mansion.

That was 40,000 hectares of land granted to him by his father, Emperor Wanli, which he had painstakingly managed to obtain.

This 40,000 hectares alone is the largest ever held by any vassal king in history.

Moreover, over the years, through means such as donations and tax deductions, he has annexed far more than 60,000 to 70,000 hectares of farmland belonging to the people.
The King of Qin's possessions are so meager that he's not even worthy of carrying his shoes!

Extravagant lifestyle? He looked down at his palace, which had taken nearly ten years to build and cost 2.8 million taels of silver. He then thought of the hundreds of beautiful women he had gathered from the Central Plains and Jiangnan in the backyard.

Exploiting local areas? Zhu Changxun's breath hitched. He thought of the Huizhou salt merchants he had partnered with, who monopolized smuggled salt in several provinces, and the silver flowing into his private coffers each year exceeded the official taxes collected by the imperial court from Henan province alone. And last year, the streets outside Luoyang were littered with corpses of the starving.

What did he do? Not only did he not give away a single grain of rice, but he also ordered an intensified effort to collect rent from the tenants.

Encroaching on farmland, living a life of extravagance, exploiting local communities...

Those glaring accusations in the "Da Ming Yue Bao" were hardly written for the Prince of Qin. They were clearly a death warrant tailor-made for Zhu Changxun, stroke by stroke, based on his actions!
"Huh...huh..."

A tremendous fear gripped his heart like an icy hand, and he finally understood something he had never been able to grasp in the past few decades.

He always believed that his surname was Zhu and that he was a descendant of Emperor Taizu Gao.

As long as they don't raise the flag of rebellion, no matter how unhappy the emperor is, he has to grit his teeth and support them. This is called sharing the fate of the country, a dignity established by the ancestors.

Now he understands.

All wrong.

In the eyes of this ruthless imperial nephew, these uncles and cousins ​​were neither elders nor relatives.

They were merely his reserves for replenishing his private treasury!
Killing a not-so-wealthy King of Qin would allow him to announce it to the world through the "Da Ming Yue Bao" and confiscate millions of his family's assets... This deal was too good to pass up! His imperial nephew had already tasted the sweetness of it, so how could he possibly stop there?

Who will he kill next?
Is there even a question? Is there any pig fatter than him in the entire Ming Dynasty?!
A surge of powerless rage suddenly erupted from the abyss of fear.

Why? !

How am I bothering him by just being law-abiding?

Isn't it just because of the old dispute over the foundation of the nation? That happened decades ago!

Zhu Changxun's fat face turned a deep liver color, but this anger lasted only three breaths before being mercilessly extinguished by a deeper, colder fear.

He was scared, he was really scared.

Just then, "Squeak—"

The door hinges clicked softly.

Zhu Changxun shuddered and looked toward the door in alarm. His trusted steward bowed and led a middle-aged scholar in a blue cloth robe into the room silently.

The head steward gave a wink, then backed out and gently closed the door to the warm chamber.

The visitor was Wang Zongde, one of the eight chief stewards of the Yangzhou Huizhou Merchants Association, and his most important partner in the private salt business.

Wang Zongde, who used to bow and scrape, was different today. He still bowed deeply to the ground and performed the salute respectfully, but Zhu Changxun keenly noticed that beneath his submissive posture, there was a pair of eyes that were so calm that they were cold.

Those eyes didn't look like a merchant paying respects to a prince; they looked more like those of a seasoned coroner calmly scrutinizing a stiffening corpse, calculating where to make the first incision.

After Wang Zongde finished his greetings, he stood there quietly, hands at his sides and head bowed, letting the suffocating silence ferment in the warm pavilion.

He knew that at this moment, Prince Fu's reason and dignity had been completely shattered by the emperor's various actions since his ascension to the throne. Only silence could make this fat, trapped beast burn with its desire to survive to the extreme.

Finally, Zhu Changxun broke down.

He trembled as he picked up the ice-cold tea, spilling most of it onto his royal robes. "The...the capital..." His voice was hoarse, like sandpaper scraping, "What...what do you mean?"

coming.

Wang Zongde sneered inwardly, but a perfectly measured look of pity and sorrow appeared on his face. He took two steps forward, lowered his voice, and spoke not of national affairs, but of money and life.

"Your Highness, you have also seen the copy of the 'Da Ming Yue Bao' (Great Ming Moon Report)."

Wang Zongde's voice was as light as a feather, yet it struck Zhu Changxun's heart with a thud.

"The listed assets above are merely official documentation. According to our sources in the capital, the confiscated assets of the Prince of Qin's mansion... silver, jewels, antiques, land deeds... all have been transferred to the national treasury!"

Zhu Changxun narrowed his eyes even more.

Wang Zongde leaned closer, his voice like a viper's hiss: "The Emperor... has tasted the sweetness."

"The officials in the capital who are familiar with us have sent word that the cabinet and the Ministry of Revenue have begun to organize the genealogies of the imperial clan and the yellow registers of land ownership..."

"There are already rumors that the next target will be either the Prince of Fu in Henan or the Prince of Chu in Huguang... In short, they will target the wealthiest of them."

Wang Zongde looked up at Prince Fu's swollen face, which had instantly lost blood, and softly uttered the most heart-wrenching words: "Your Highness, the Emperor... is treating the members of the imperial clan who were enfeoffed by our founding emperor as his own... money bags to replenish his private treasury!"

The three words "money bag" were like three red-hot iron nails driven hard into Zhu Changxun's brain!

"He...he dares!" Zhu Changxun suddenly sat up, letting out a scream that was a mixture of terror and anger. "Is he trying to force everyone to rebel?!"

It's now!

Wang Zongde immediately knelt down, his face filled with fear and loyalty: "Your Highness, please be careful with your words! We scholars from Jiangnan are loyal to the country, how dare we have any rebellious thoughts?"

"Quite the opposite!" His voice suddenly rose, filled with righteous indignation, "We are here precisely to purge the emperor of his corrupt advisors and save him from this dire situation!"

Prince Fu was taken aback.

Wang Zongde looked up, his eyes filled with grief and indignation: "Your Highness has lived in Luoyang for a long time and is unaware of the truth. The Emperor is now being bewitched by Xu Guangqi, Sun Yuanhua and their group of Western Christians, a bunch of 'demons' who only know strange skills and tricks! What they practice is the 'sorcery' of the Western barbarians, and what they are destroying is the ancestral system of our Great Ming Dynasty for two hundred years!"

"Your Highness, consider this: 'collective tax payment' is an attempt to uproot the very foundation of the gentry and commoners of the land. So, what's the next step?"

Wang Zongde stared intently at Prince Fu: "The next step is to clear out Wangzhuang and take back all the favors bestowed upon you by the Taizu, Chengzu, and Wanli Emperors! We'll call it 'giving the people a break'!"

"Our resistance to the new policies in Jiangnan is precisely to force the emperor to repent and punish the treacherous officials!"

“Only when the treacherous officials are eliminated and the emperor returns to the righteous path can our Great Ming Dynasty be secure! Your Highness, your safety will naturally be guaranteed!” Wang Zongde kowtowed again, his voice resounding: “Your Highness! This is not treason! This is ‘supporting the nation’!”

"To uphold the nation's interests..."

Zhu Changxun repeated blankly, a glimmer of light rekindling in his small eyes, which were squeezed by fat, amidst the scattered fear. His mind, which had been turned into mush, seemed to have been cleaved open by these four words.

It's not a rebellion, it's... upholding the nation?
Wang Zongde slowly rose, dusted himself off, and said softly in a tone of sharing a secret, "Your Highness, you don't need to worry. You... are not alone."

"The prince of Shu has sent 300,000 bolts of Shu brocade to be donated to scholars in Jiangnan to purchase writing materials."

"The Prince of Chu from Huguang also heard that the canal transport was not going smoothly, so he specially 'donated' silver to repair the docks..."

Even if Zhu Changxun was stupid, he could still understand the coded message: 300,000 bolts of Shu brocade meant 300,000 taels of silver!

“Everyone understands this,” Wang Zongde sighed meaningfully, “it’s a matter of mutual dependence.”

"Your Highness, think about it. This great ship is now in turmoil. It carries the entire royal family and the gentry of the land. If one day the ship is capsized by the helmsman, all of us will fall into the water, and none of us will survive!"

After he finished speaking, the warm pavilion fell silent again. The suffocating fear was dissipating, and what emerged was an atmosphere full of calculation and ruthlessness.

Seeing the slight softening in Prince Fu's eyes, Wang Zongde knew that the time was right. Instead of backing down, he took another step forward and lowered his voice even further.

“Your Highness,” Wang Zongde’s gaze was sharp as a knife, piercing the deepest vanity and fear in the heart of the Prince of Fu, “the gentry of Jiangnan, and the relatives of Huguang and Sichuan, though of one mind, are like a heap of loose sand.”

He paused, giving Zhu Changxun a moment to catch his breath and think, before suddenly throwing out the fatal bait:
"It's simply because we lack a righteous and respected person to take the lead and raise the banner of 'purging the court of corrupt officials'!"

"Looking at the whole world," Wang Zongde's voice was filled with undeniable certainty, "in terms of blood ties, you are the current emperor's direct uncle; in terms of the late emperor's favor, you are the Wanli Emperor's most beloved prince; in terms of wealth, you are the head of all the princes! There is no one else but you, Your Highness!"

"Your Highness!" Wang Zongde's voice suddenly rose, filled with a seductive power, "Now that things have come to this, will you sit and wait to die, becoming the second disgraced prince with an even worse fate than the Prince of Qin, or will you raise your arms and fight for the greater cause of 'saving the nation,' to carve out a way out for yourself, and for the imperial family and gentry of the world?"

He finally leaned close to Prince Fu's ear and whispered the words that most ignited his ambition:
"Whether you remain the fish on the chopping block or become the one holding the chess pieces is entirely up to you, Your Highness... in the blink of an eye!"

These words were like a sharp knife, instantly slicing through Zhu Changxun's chaotic mind, which was filled with fear and greed! All hesitation and escape routes were cut off in that instant.

To sit and wait for death, or to raise an arm and fight?
Fish or chess player?

Zhu Changxun slowly sat back in the armchair. His eyes, which had been narrowed to slits, had somehow lost all their turbidity and fear.

Since sitting and waiting to die is the only option, standing up and struggling might... offer a chance to survive!
for a long time.

He suddenly reached out and swept the cold, leftover tea in front of him onto the ground!

"Snapped!"

The precious Jian kiln teacup made a dull cracking sound on the thick carpet.

Zhu Changxun's heavy body suddenly sat up straight, his fat face flushed with an eerie red from extreme repression and excitement.

He stared intently at Wang Zongde, his gaze as if he wanted to devour the man who had given him both the antidote and the poison.

He forced out a few words through gritted teeth:

"Go ahead."

"What do you want me to do?"

(End of this chapter)