Emperor Zhengde

Chapter 229: The Censors of the Censorate

After Hang Huai asked, no censor was willing to take responsibility for filing a case against Xue Fengming and Dai Guan.

Needless to say, Xue Fengming was the censor of the Censorate, and no one was willing to convict his friend from the same academy.

Dai Guan had long been praised by the civil service group as a loyal and upright minister because of his seven admonitions. When the Ministry of Revenue wrote to the Censorate, asking it to impeach Dai Guan, the Censorate chose to protect Dai Guan. Naturally, no censor was willing to judge Dai Guan guilty now.

Seeing this, the Left Censor-in-Chief Hang Huai had no choice but to instruct the Deputy Censor-in-Chief Yan Hong: "Deputy Yan, select two censors to take over this case. Now that the East Factory has brought out the charges, we, the Censorate, cannot ignore it. Otherwise, it would be unconstitutional, a figurehead, and dereliction of duty. Then, the people from the East Factory will have even more reason to punish us!"

"Your Majesty's methods are becoming more and more unfathomable. No one expected that he would let the East Factory conduct an inspection and force our Censorate to file a case. This is not using eunuchs to control civil officials, but forcing our civil officials to restrain each other! The censors and civil officials of our Censorate have completely become the knives in the hands of His Majesty. If we don't supervise the officials and deal with corrupt officials, His Majesty will let the East Factory force us to supervise the officials!"

Although Hang Huai realized that the imperial power would become increasingly powerful, he could do nothing about it, even though he was the Left Censor-in-Chief.

"Humph!"

At this time, Yan Hong looked angrily at the Left Censor-in-Chief Hang Huai, and said with a folded hand:
"Mr. Hang, you can't sit idly by and watch the East Factory do such atrocities in front of my Censorate. The East Factory set up an inspection department in my Censorate, arrested civil servants, and asked our Censorate to punish these civil servants. Wouldn't our Censorate become their running dog? How can my Censorate keep its dignity?"

In his heart, the Left Censor-in-Chief Hang Huai admitted that what Yan Hong said was correct. From now on, the Censorate could only act according to the court rules and could not use its supervisory power to control the emperor. However, as the Left Censor-in-Chief, in order to protect his position, he naturally could not admit it openly, and only shouted at Yan Hong:

"Shut up!"

Hang Huai slammed the table and continued to scold: "The Censorate is under the order of the emperor to supervise all officials. According to the Constitution, it has the power to file a case for impeachment. How can it be that he is a running dog of the East Factory!"

After Hang Huai said this, Yan Hong and the other censors shut up, but they still looked at Hang Huai with resentment on their faces, looking at the pile of evidence.

Hang Huai couldn't bear to let the situation in the entire Censorate remain so stagnant, and at the same time, he intentionally reminded the officials below, and said in a gentle tone: "Besides, this is the will of His Majesty, how can we go against it? You should just do your work sincerely. Do you dare to resign and force His Majesty to do it?"

"Mr. Hang is right. We dare not criticize the mistakes of our king and father. If this is the case, we can only resign!"

Yan Hong knew that Hang Huai was reminding his officials to force the emperor to resign en masse, so he took over the conversation, took off the black veil on his head, turned around and asked:

"Everyone, is there anyone willing to resign with Yan? Are you all willing to be the running dogs of the eunuch thief?!"

"He is willing to resign!"

At this time, the censor He Shaozheng stood up.

"Chen is willing to resign!"

Censor Chen Xiang also stood up.

"Li is willing to resign!"

"Zhang is willing to resign!"

"Xu is willing to resign!"

...Many censors expressed their intention to resign to express their indignation at the establishment of the Supervisory Office by the East Factory to inspect all officials.

Seeing that his subordinates were so emotional and threatened to resign, the Left Censor-in-Chief Hang Huai was very happy about it. He thought that one should not blame the majority, and that only in this way could His Majesty see the determination of the majority of the censors and perhaps make His Majesty make concessions and prevent the East Factory from interfering with the supervisory power of the Censorate.

But he knew that if he wanted to keep his position as the Left Censor-in-Chief, he could not show that he only cared about the power of his own Censorate and the civil service group. He had to show that he was thinking about the overall situation and the court. As the Chief Censor of the Censorate, he could not participate in the resignation.

Therefore, the Left Imperial Censor Hang Huai gave a sincere and earnest advice: "Don't be impulsive! Your Majesty is so wise that he will never allow eunuchs to monopolize power. Now that the East Factory has set up an inspection department, I'm afraid it's just the result of slander by traitors! You are also disciples of the saint, how can you abandon the emperor and the people of the world!"

"We are not resigning because we are abandoning the emperor or the people, but because we cannot bear to be in the same boat with the treacherous ministers and villains! Lord Xue is now being tortured by the East Factory, presumably because he has repeatedly impeached the treacherous minister Zhang Cong! But Your Majesty has been deceived by the treacherous ministers and eunuchs, so we can only resign and ask Your Majesty to distinguish between loyalty and treachery!"

Left Vice-Chief Censor Yan Hong knew that Hang Huai was trying to comfort him not because he didn't want people like him to resign, but because he couldn't take the lead in forcing the emperor to abdicate due to his position as Chief Censor, so he insisted on resigning.

"Yes, resign!"

"Since I cannot advise the emperor, I can only resign and retire!"

"If I don't resign, will I continue to be a beast of burden for eunuchs and traitors?!"

For a moment, these imperial censors started discussing one after another.

Hang Huai saw that his goal had been achieved, and the censors under him expressed their desire to resign, so he advised again: "Be quiet! Listen to what I say. Even if you want to resign, you have to follow the rules. We are censors, and we can't let the court say that we don't know the rules. Those who want to resign should write a letter of resignation! When the time comes, I will send it to the palace and let His Majesty make the decision!"

As a result, many of these censors such as Deputy Censor-in-Chief, Assistant Censor-in-Chief, and Supervisory Censors began to write letters of resignation and handed them over to the Left Censor-in-Chief Hang Huai.

Hang Huai then brought these letters of resignation into the palace.

As the Left Censor-in-Chief, in charge of the supervisory power of the Ming Empire, Hang Huai was directly controlled by Emperor Zhu Houzhao. Therefore, he could meet Zhu Houzhao directly without having to meet the cabinet ministers first.

Zhu Houzhao also met with Hang Huai. He even knew the purpose of Hang Huai's visit, but he did not expose it. He only asked: "General Hang, why are you bringing so many memorials? The East Factory reported that your Censor Xue Fengming slandered the court officials. Has your Censorate filed a case? Have you submitted any memorials? And the former head of the Ministry of Revenue Dai Guan left his post without permission. Have you submitted any memorials?"

"Your Majesty, I am incompetent. The Censor Xue Fengming and the former head of the Ministry of Revenue Dai Guan have high prestige among all officials, so no one in the Censorate is willing to file a petition for them. Moreover, they have successively requested to resign, including almost all the officials in the Censorate. I dare not make any decisions on my own, so I come here to ask for your instructions!"

Hang Huai first bowed deeply and admitted his incompetence to avoid Emperor Zhu Houzhao blaming him for the resignation of most of the censors (equivalent to a strike). Then he said that he could not make the decision and that Your Majesty needed to make the decision, which meant that Your Majesty needed to compromise.

"Are these the resignation memorials from the censors?" Zhu Houzhao asked.

"Both!" Hang Huai replied.

"Xue Fengming and Dai Guan really have very high prestige. The censors all over the world would actually give up their supervisory duties for them and even threaten to resign!" Zhu Houzhao said with a smile.

I don't know if I wrote it clearly. In short, according to the system, the censors of the Censorate are responsible for supervising corrupt officials, but in many cases, the censors use this power to control the monarchy. Here, Zhu Houzhao just used the East Factory to force the Censorate to do what they really should do, but the censors of the Censorate are obviously unwilling to be used by the emperor to deal with their own civil service class. They don't want to be the emperor's knife, they want to be the shackles of the civil service group to control the emperor, so they would rather choose to resign. And the Left Censor-in-Chief Hang Huai is naturally a two-faced person. This matter is not over yet. Zhu Houzhao wants to suppress the power of civil officials to discuss politics, which will definitely be opposed by the entire civil service group. Of course, Zhu Houzhao has his own way to break the deadlock.

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(End of this chapter)