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

Chapter 360 The Ming Dynasty Values ​​Harmony

Above the golden steps, the figure on the Nine Dragon Throne had been sitting quietly for the time it takes for an incense stick to burn after that angry roar.

The way of Heaven is constant, but human power is finite.

Zhu Youjian truly felt the weight of these words!

Since ascending the throne, he has executed Shanxi merchants, quelled rebellions, killed corrupt officials, confiscated the property of princes, and even ruthlessly dealt with the Shandong Confucius Mansion, which was hailed as the "literary hub of the world," and the wealthy gentry of Jiangnan.

He believed that by removing the carbuncles and sores attached to the body of the Ming Dynasty, the decaying giant's body could be revived and he could stand up again.

But he was wrong.

A sword can sever a neck, but not a thought; the law can punish the body, but not the mind.

He can cut off a person's head, but he cannot sever the so-called scholar's integrity rooted in the marrow of scholars and formed through thousands of years of literary cultivation.

That was a seemingly noble but actually rotten persistence.

A thousand years of calligraphy and painting have forged character and integrity, but also created deep-seated problems.

Its wind is soft, and its bones are brittle!
This weakness, this compromise, this self-righteous strategy for governing the country made him feel more powerless and troubled than any corrupt official... even disgusted!
The emperor on the throne finally moved.

He calmly rose, his black casual robe embroidered with golden dragons seemingly able to absorb all the fleeting light and shadows in the hall.

Zhu Youjian descended the nine golden steps one by one.

The dragon boots tapped softly on the polished, mirror-like gold bricks.

The sound seemed to carry a peculiar rhythm, each note like a warning bell, each note like a death knell, striking straight into the deepest recesses of the officials' hearts.

Zhu Youjian walked straight to Qian Shizhen and Li Changgeng, who were kneeling at the front.

The entire court was dumbfounded.

The hearts of the pro-war generals sank to the bottom in an instant. Could it be that His Majesty... is really going to be swayed by this talk of national doom?
Meanwhile, the peace faction, led by Qian and Li, couldn't contain their joy. They saw a glimmer of hope, a ray of light that could turn the tide with their honest advice.

Zhu Youjian stopped and looked down at the two old ministers in front of him.

His gaze did not hold the thunderous rage that everyone had expected; in fact, it even carried a hint of gentleness.

He reached out and gently patted Qian Shizhen's shoulder, which was trembling slightly with excitement.

"Minister Qian, Minister Li."

The emperor's voice rang out, not loud, but clearly reaching everyone's ears. His tone was as calm as the surface of a lake in late autumn, without a ripple.

"I have listened to what you have to say."

He paused, as if organizing his thoughts, or perhaps savoring their conversation.

“Every word is written in blood, every sentence is written in tears, all for the sake of my Great Ming Dynasty, for the sake of the people of the world… This pure and devoted heart, I…” Zhu Youjian’s lips even curled up slightly, revealing an unfathomable arc, “I am deeply moved.”

Qian Shizhen and Li Changgeng were instantly moved to tears, and they almost kowtowed and shouted that His Majesty was wise.

The kneeling officials all wore expressions of joy and relief.

However, just as Qian Shizhen was about to kowtow and express his gratitude, the emperor's voice suddenly turned cold.

It was a chilling cold that seeped from the very marrow of one's bones, devoid of any trace of warmth.

"However, I have a question."

Zhu Youjian's hand was still on Qian Shizhen's shoulder, but that gentle touch now felt as heavy as a mountain, making it almost impossible for Qian Shizhen to breathe.

"Your words are utterly loyal and deeply sorrowful. But how similar are these words? To my ears, it sounds not of this time, but of dust rising from the old capital, from the palace of Lin'an!"

He slowly raised his head, his gaze no longer limited to the two people in front of him, but like a frost blade drawn from its sheath, slowly sweeping across the entire hall, scraping across the faces of every kneeling or standing official.

Anyone whose gaze fell upon him felt a chill run down their spine and instinctively lowered their head.

"Back then, Yue Fei decisively defeated the Jin army at Zhuxian Town, his army poised to strike directly at the Jin capital and recapture the old city. At that time, were the officials in Lin'an just as heartbroken and tearful as they are today, saying, 'The national treasury is empty, the soldiers are exhausted, ten years of effort have been wasted in a single day! What have the people done wrong? Wouldn't it be better to cede territory, become a vassal state, pay tribute, and sue for peace, in exchange for the people of Jiangnan living in a corner of the country?'"

Zhu Youjian's voice suddenly rose, each word like a heavy hammer, slamming into the golden dragon pillar of the Hall of Supreme Harmony, producing a deafening buzz!

"Qin Hui!!"

The emperor abruptly withdrew his hand and shouted in a stern voice, his voice filled with boundless royal rage!
"Was Qin Hui back then just like you, claiming to be acting in the country and for the people, always thinking of the emperor, and advising Emperor Gaozong to prioritize peace?!"

"what?!"

The name "Qin Hui" was like two cruel branding irons from hell, branding Qian Shizhen and Li Changgeng's faces and hearts with intense pain!
The color drained from their faces instantly, leaving them deathly pale.

The excitement, the pride, and the sense of nobility in speaking up for the people that I felt just moments ago were instantly shattered and vanished!

All that remains is the fear of being stripped naked and nailed to the pillar of historical shame.

Their bodies went limp, and they collapsed to the ground, trembling like leaves, unable to utter a single word of explanation.

The entire Hall of Supreme Harmony was deathly silent.

Everyone was stunned by the emperor's earth-shattering turn of events and his piercing question.

Zhu Youjian did not look at the two old ministers who were limp and weak.

He turned and slowly walked back to the throne, standing with his hands behind his back, his posture as upright as a pine tree.

"Today, I will give you, my beloved ministers, a thorough analysis of how this voice of national ruin is disguised as words of loyalty and righteousness!"

The emperor's gaze was cold and piercing.

"You keep saying you can't win, that the Jianzhou Jurchens are unparalleled in horsemanship and archery, and that our Ming soldiers are just throwing their lives away. These words may seem like wise advice on how to govern a country, but in reality, they are cowardice before the battle even begins, a path to self-destruction!"

Zhu Youjian's voice echoed in the hall.

"Throughout history, the outcome of national wars has never been solely determined by the superiority of weapons. If we consider only weaponry, why did the Mongol cavalry, which swept across the world, ultimately fail and sink before our Great Ming? When our Great Ming was founded, our founding emperor, a commoner, drove out the barbarians and restored China. Did he rely on weapons that were superior to those of the Mongol Yuan dynasty?"

He paused, then spoke in a more emphatical tone:
"No! It is the will of the people! It is that spirit of 'rather die than be enslaved'! It is that determination to reclaim our lost land! The armor of the heart is as solid as a fortress; the sword of the gods is as sharp as an arrow! You, as high-ranking officials of the court, do not think about how to boost morale and unite the people, but instead exaggerate the enemy's abilities and belittle the bravery of our Ming soldiers. Is this any way to govern the country? This is clearly acting as lobbyists for the Jianzhou Jurchens, undermining the will to resist of our army and people!"

Qian Shizhen and Li Changgeng lay on the ground, their bodies trembling even more violently.

Zhu Youjian turned his gaze to a group of civil officials who were standing there but wished they hadn't come to court that day, and his voice carried a hint of sarcasm.

"You all say that the national treasury is empty, the expenditures are enormous, and war is not worthwhile. Very well! I will do the math for you!"

The emperor held up one finger. "You only calculate how much silver is spent and how many people die in a single day of fighting. I know this better than you! My private treasury and my personal assets have all been invested in this! I remember every single name of my soldiers!"

His voice suddenly became somber, but then turned sharp.

"But why don't you consider another factor? Once peace is reached, do you think you can put away your weapons and let your horses graze freely? Wrong! That's not peace, that's confrontation! That means our Great Ming will have to build longer and more expensive defenses along the new border year after year! That's a gold-devouring behemoth that can never be satisfied!"

"If we retreat one step today, the enemy will advance one step, and our Great Ming's defenses will have to retreat a hundred miles. If we retreat another step tomorrow, our Great Ming will have to pay ten times, a hundred times the price to build new fortresses! Have you considered the endless losses caused by our cowardice?!"

"You haven't even considered the costs!" Zhu Youjian's voice rose again. "The people's hearts are scattered, the national spirit is gone, and the backbone of my Han people has been broken! How should this priceless treasure, this foundation that has allowed the Ming Dynasty to stand for more than two hundred years, be valued?! You only see the cost of the war, but you don't see the cost of surrender! You only calculate the price of life-saving medicine, but you don't calculate how much it will cost to hold a national funeral!"

"They only consider the dead ends, not the living ones; they only see the immediate losses, not the long-term consequences! How dare such short-sighted people talk about the grand plans of the nation?!"

The entire court was completely silent.
Many of the officials who had previously echoed him were now sweating profusely.

Zhu Youjian's gaze grew increasingly icy as he slowly paced back and forth, his eyes sweeping over the self-proclaimed upright officials.

"And the most hateful of all are you, who raise the banner of protecting the people and upholding righteousness, yet commit such despicable acts!"

The emperor's voice was filled with barely suppressed anger and contempt.

"What have the people done wrong? Well said! Well said indeed! I also want to ask, what have the people done wrong?! I want to ask you, is your so-called preservation of the people simply to make my people lay down their weapons, open the city gates, and bow their knees—knees they have never bowed before—to those barbarians who regard us Han people as pigs and dogs?!"

"Is your so-called benevolence and righteousness to make them slaves for generations, with men driven by enemy soldiers and women subjected to humiliation, and all the grain they produce and the cloth they weave offered up to the peace lord you have bought in exchange?!"

He approached the kneeling officials step by step, each word like a poisoned ice pick.

"I will show you what true benevolence and righteousness are! True benevolence and righteousness means not yielding an inch of land, fighting to the death, and using my blood and flesh, and the blood and flesh of my soldiers, to build an iron wall before the people of my Great Ming! So that they can work peacefully in the fields and laugh in the streets, instead of trembling under the enemy's whip!"

"What you're doing isn't benevolence and righteousness! It's aiding the enemy! It's nurturing a bandit! It's leaving a legacy of disaster for ten thousand years! The temporary peace you're seeking for the people today is just the burial ground for endless calamities for their descendants!"

These words, like a peeling knife, stripped away the beautiful facade of the peacemakers as champions of the people, revealing their cowardly, selfish, and even vicious nature.

Finally, Zhu Youjian's gaze returned to the throne, and his tone became calmer, but this calmness was more unsettling than any roar.

"Even worse, their intentions are despicable."

He said slowly, "When the soldiers who advocate war are shouting that they are loyal to the country and fighting on the battlefield, you are spreading rumors in the rear, distorting their meaning, saying that they are loyal to the emperor alone and are willing to die for the ambition of the monarch alone. What a sharp tongue! What a vicious heart!"

"By cleverly separating the fight for the people of the Ming Dynasty from loyalty to the emperor, this sacred war of defending the country is reduced to the personal desires of the emperor alone. This will sow doubt among the people, leave the soldiers wondering for whom they are fighting, and ultimately destroy the last bit of fighting spirit of the Ming Dynasty in resisting foreign aggression!"

"Isn't my empire the empire of the people? Isn't my domain your domain? When the nest is overturned, how can the eggs remain intact? You are all learned and sensible, don't you even understand this most basic principle?!"

Zhu Youjian's gaze once again locked onto Qian Shizhen and Li Changgeng, who were slumped like mud, his eyes filled with extreme contempt.

"Today I will give you my words and explain them to all the civil and military officials."

"There are two kinds of people in this court. One kind is the peace faction, like Ministers Qian and Li."

He deliberately emphasized the words "peace faction".

"You may not be bad, and you may even think you have the world at heart. You are just naive! Naively thinking that jackals will be satisfied because of your concessions; naively thinking that cutting off your own flesh to feed tigers will earn them their mercy! You are short-sighted, only seeking immediate peace, but you don't know that every treaty you sign today is a death warrant to be handed to me tomorrow! It is a noose around the necks of the people of my Great Ming!"

He paused for a moment, the murderous intent in his voice almost solidifying.

"And the other type is the surrender faction!"

"What they think about is never the country, the people, or even me, the emperor! What they think about is how to keep their official positions and their vast wealth in front of the new master after the city falls, and even... go further!"

"In order to pledge allegiance to their new master, they will slaughter their own compatriots more ruthlessly than the enemy, and destroy their own heritage more diligently than the enemy! Such people, like Qin Hui of the Southern Song Dynasty, if there is one, I will kill him! If there are two, I will kill them both! I will exterminate their three clans, dig up their ancestral graves, and inscribe their crimes on a stone tablet, erect it in the bustling city, so that they will be infamous for ten thousand years and never be able to rise again!"

The chilling killing intent made the temperature in the hall seem to drop several degrees.

Finally, Zhu Youjian's gaze once again pierced Qian Shizhen and Li Changgeng.

"Qian Aiqing, Li Changgeng."

He addressed him by his first name.

"I will assume for the time being that you are the former, and not the latter."

This seemingly magnanimous conclusion left the two feeling a despair deeper than death itself.

"but!"

Zhu Youjian's voice rang out again, filled with endless disappointment.

"Naiveté is the greatest evil in the face of national subjugation and annihilation! Your words and actions are paving the way for the true surrenderers! They are undermining the morale of the army and the people that I have painstakingly built up! They are destroying the last chance for my Great Ming Dynasty to turn the tide at this critical moment!"

"How are you any different from Qin Hui's accomplices?!"

"Your Majesty... Your Majesty deserves to die..."

Qian Shizhen and Li Changgeng could no longer withstand such soul-crushing interrogation, and could only frantically kowtow, uttering incomprehensible sobs.

This kind of mental torture is a thousand times more painful than being dragged out and beheaded.

Zhu Youjian looked at them, his eyes now devoid of any emotion.

"Someone is coming."

Two Imperial Guard captains stepped forward in response, their armor plates clashing together with a cold, metallic sound.

"Qian Shizhen and Li Changgeng, as important officials of the court, do not think of serving the country, but instead advocate peace, which undermines the morale of the army and is improper in their words and deeds. Therefore, they are hereby removed from all their current official positions."

He paused, his gaze sweeping across the entire room.
"...Reassigned as 'Wartime Inspector Censor'!"

This unfamiliar official position surprised everyone.

"Set off immediately, without guards or servants, traveling alone on horseback to the Liaodong front!"

The emperor's voice was cold and clear.

"I do not want you to sit comfortably in the rear reading reports and be armchair strategists! I want you to see for yourselves! To see how the soldiers of my Great Ming Dynasty use their chests to withstand the enemy's swords and spears in the freezing cold! To see how the people of my Great Ming Dynasty suffer loss of family and homelessness under the iron hooves of the Jianzhou Jurchens!"

"You think you can do the math? Then go and do the math for me! Go and calculate how much silver that inch of land soaked in blood is worth! Go and calculate how much the tears of a kidnapped Han girl should be valued! Go and calculate who should be held responsible for the innocent souls in a slaughtered village!"

"When you've figured things out and settled this score, then you can come back to the capital! If you can't figure it out... then bury these old bones in the black soil of Liaodong, and that will be considered serving your country!"

"roll!"

(End of this chapter)