Emperor Zhengde

Chapter 261 I’m guilty

Three days later.

"I, Tu Jie, have secretly reported to Your Majesty that this matter was planned by Wei Ying, the Left Vice Minister of the Ministry of Revenue. I pretended to be instructed by him to impeach Xiong Jia. Wei Ying said that the Left Censor-in-Chief Hang Huai was also dissatisfied with Xiong Jia's proposal to open the sea..."

Zhu Houzhao read the secret report from Tu Jie, the official in charge of the Ministry of Personnel, again and was quite shocked. He only asked Liu Jin: "Have you reached Hanghuai?"

"Your Majesty, we have been waiting outside for a long time," Liu Jin replied.

"Let him in," Zhu Houzhao said to Liu Jin, "Please remember what I told you."

"The eunuchs all remember it, Your Majesty, don't worry," Liu Jin replied and then retreated. After a while, he brought the Left Censor-in-Chief Hang Huai to Zhu Houzhao and then retreated immediately.

Hang Huai did not expect that Emperor Zhu Houzhao would summon him at this time. He felt very uneasy and thought that it might be related to Xiong Jia's matter.

On the surface, Hang Huai still pretended to be calm and bowed: "Your Majesty!"

"Well, come here, let Lord Hang sit down!"

Zhu Houzhao then said, "I have thought about it and it is better not to deal with Xiong Jia, the censor, rashly. You are his superior. I want to ask, what do you think of him?"

Hang Huai was shocked and thought, "It is indeed related to the Imperial Censor Xiong Jia, but from what His Majesty said, he doesn't seem to know that he forced Xiong Jia to commit suicide. I can't reveal any clues at this time to let His Majesty know. From what His Majesty said, he must think highly of Xiong Jia, so I just need to praise Xiong Jia a few words."

So Hang Huai said, "Your Majesty, I have observed Xiong Jia for a long time. He is smart and capable, but not pedantic. He dares to be the first. Otherwise, he would not have dared to be the first to speak out about opening the sea. It's not that I am rude. In my opinion, Xiong Jia will either be a cabinet minister or a minister in the future."

"I didn't expect you to think so highly of Xiong Jia," Zhu Houzhao said with a smile, and at this time, Liu Jin ran in hurriedly.

Zhu Houzhao hurriedly asked, "What's the matter? Why are you so flustered?"

"Your Majesty, there are rumors outside that Censor Xiong died suddenly!" Liu Jin said.

"what!"

When Zhu Houzhao heard this, he quickly stood up and glanced at Hang Huai.

Hang Huai didn't notice that the Emperor was looking at him. The corners of his mouth curled up slightly, revealing a bit of pride. He then hurriedly said in shock: "This, this, why is this happening? Why did Xiong Jia suddenly die?"

Hang Huai wiped his tears as he spoke: "It's a pity that my Censorate rarely has such a talented person! And now he is gone just like that. It's really a pity that the gods are jealous of talented people!"

At this time, Zhu Houzhao had no intention of watching Hang Huai's performance anymore, so he just said hurriedly: "Bring Xiong Jia out."

then.

Xiong Jia turned into a screen in the inner room and walked out. He bowed to Zhu Houzhao and said, "I, the Censor Xiong Jia, greet your Majesty!"

Zhu Houzhao nodded, said "no need to be polite", and then asked Liu Jin: "I just summoned Xiong Jia to see him, but before he could leave, I heard Xiong Jia say something important, so I summoned the Left Censor-in-Chief Hang Huai to see him. Who told you that Xiong Jia died suddenly?"

"Your Majesty, Your Majesty, I heard from the Jinyiwei outside that the news came from the Censorate," Liu Jin replied.

Zhu Houzhao looked at Hang Huai and said, "My dear Hang, do you in the Censorate also like to spread such rumors?"

Hang Huai could naturally guess at this time that he had forced Xiong Jia to commit suicide and had been exposed. He didn't say much and just prostrated himself on the ground: "I am guilty!"

Zhu Houzhao smiled faintly and said nothing more. He only ordered: "East Factory Inspectorate, take him away and arrest Wei Ying!"

……

"After today, Xiong Jia will be dead. From now on, who in the government or the public will dare to talk about opening the sea again!"

Wei Ying was talking to Tu Jiexiao at this time.

"That may not be the case. Opening up the sea is the general trend of the world and the will of the people. How can the gentry in the south of the Yangtze River stop it?" Tu Jie said with a smile.

Wei Ying's expression changed involuntarily: "Brother Boyuan (Tu Jie's pen name), why are you saying that? Aren't you also against opening the sea? Why did you suddenly change your tone today?!"

boom!
The wooden door was suddenly knocked open.

Two Jinyiwei armed with embroidered spring swords rushed in, and one of them directly showed a wooden sign: "We are from the East Factory Inspectorate. We are ordered to bring Wei Ying, the Left Vice Minister of the Ministry of Revenue, back for questioning. We hope that Lord Wei will cooperate with our actions!!"

Wei Ying stood up in surprise: "This is outside the city, how did you know I was here?"

Tu Jie smiled faintly and just drank his tea. The two Jinyiwei had already grabbed Wei Ying's arms: "Let's go, Lord Wei, we are just asking you questions on behalf of His Majesty, Lord Wei, don't panic!"

Wei Ying also understood at this time and looked at Tu Jie: "It's you! It's you! You are so good Tu Jie! I treated you as my confidant, but I didn't expect you to betray me. You actually betrayed me! I, Wei Ying, am really blind!"

Wei Ying was dragged out.

A Jinyiwei came to Tu Jie and said with a smile: "Master Tu is frightened, please continue drinking. His Majesty has ordered the Ministry of Personnel to transfer the Supervisory Censor of the Metropolitan Procuratorate. The case of Wei Ying is up to you to file."

"Please rest assured, Your Majesty. I will not let you down," Tu Jie stood up and bowed to accept the order.

At this time, Wei Ying was still shouting: "Tu Jie, you shameless villain!"

……

At this time, the Left Censor-in-Chief Hang Huai had walked out of the dark room of the East Depot Inspectorate, looking very haggard. At this time, people from the East Depot also brought Zhu Houzhao's decree, which was to demote Hang Huai to a commoner and exile him to serve in the mines in the newly opened colony of Cape Verde (Cape of Good Hope), and he was not allowed to return home for twenty years.

Hang Huai went to Cape Verde alone on the Ming Dynasty's three-class sailing ship "Qiantang River" and died in Cape Verde the following year.

Back to the topic.

Wei Ying was also exposed by the Censor Tu Jie for the murder of Xu Ai and Xiong Jia, and was sentenced to death by the Ministry of Justice, and his property was confiscated.

Xiong Jia quickly submitted a memorial to the court requesting a full opening of the sea. Zhu Houzhao approved it, and ordered Songjiang Prefecture to be opened first within a year, and the full opening of the sea ban within five years. He also ordered the Nanjing Zhijiang Shipyard to expand its shipbuilding scale.

Xiong Jia was soon appointed as the military governor of Susong, Southern Zhili, the prefect of Songjiang, and the director of the Maritime Customs, responsible for the opening of the sea in Songjiang Prefecture.

At the same time, Zhu Houzhao also issued an edict that customs duties would be returned to the court from the 13th year of Zhengde. He also issued an edict to exempt the whole country from corvée labor. All departments and royal officials and gentry were not allowed to use the people for free. Those who violated the edict would be punished for forcing people into slavery.

"Since the beginning of the dynasty, there has been no talk of exempting the whole country from corvée. Even during the powerful Han and Tang dynasties, there was no such move to benefit the people. Now that Your Majesty has issued an edict to permanently exempt the whole country from corvée, you are worthy of being the first sage monarch in history. I, Yan Song, am lucky to be born in this dynasty. I am grateful to God for allowing the Ming Dynasty to have such a wise monarch!"

As soon as Yan Song came in front of Zhu Houzhao, he spared no effort to flatter Zhu Houzhao. Zhu Houzhao had just issued an edict to exempt the whole country from corvée labor, which naturally gave Yan Song material to flatter Zhu Houzhao. Therefore, Zhu Houzhao himself could not bear it and quickly put down the memorial in his hand:
"Alright! If it weren't for the good work you did in Nanzhili, I would have really thought you were just a flatterer. Do you know why I summoned you today?"

"I don't know, Your Majesty, please tell me clearly," Yan Song said.

"I heard that you and Wang Tingxiang from the Ministry of Revenue have come up with some theory of Qi. It sounds interesting to me. Can you tell me about it?" Zhu Houzhao asked.

When Yan Song heard what Zhu Houzhao said, he thought that the emperor was going to blame him for not doing his job properly, so he hurriedly said, "Your Majesty, please forgive me, I was just talking nonsense with them, I..."

"I don't mean to blame you. Can you tell me what your Qi studies are?" Zhu Houzhao asked.

"I obey your command. This is the inspiration Your Majesty gave me. Your Majesty's sacred learning has taught me that many things have their own natures. For example, iron is hard, while charcoal is flammable. High concentrations of green vitriol (sulfuric acid) can easily corrode other things, while mercury evaporates easily when released. However, all things can also transform into each other, such as the technique of wet copper refining. Therefore, I believe that all things are gas, and different gases can form different things, enriching the different natures of all things!"

Yan Song said.

Zhu Houzhao knew that Yan Song's meaning was similar to the later generations' belief that matter is composed of elements, and different elements constitute matter of different properties.

Zhu Houzhao was very pleased with this. In his opinion, Yan Song's Qi theory was indeed a great progress, and it was obvious that he had the consciousness of materialism. He asked again: "What you said makes sense. It is rare for you to have such insight. However, you haven't talked about the root of Qi. Different Qi, the Qi of all things in the world is colorless and tasteless. How do you know they are different? I think it is more appropriate to use element instead of Qi to attribute the things you mentioned. Yuan means root, Su means pure, both of which are indivisible in nature."

"For example, the element of this wooden table can be made into carbon, because it is flammable, just like the charcoal in the furnace. The sulfur in the crater can also be made into sulfur," Zhu Houzhao said as he wrote on the paper with a brush and showed it to Yan Song.

Yan Song was shocked after reading it and said hurriedly: "Your Majesty can not only be my king and father, but also my teacher! Element, this word is very good, water can be an element, gold can also be an element."

"This is not right. When studying, one should make bold assumptions and carefully verify. Whether water and gold can be elements depends on whether they can be divided. For example, water may not necessarily be an element because you cannot be sure whether it can be divided again."

After Zhu Houzhao said this, Yan Song nodded as if he understood something, but he felt that this was difficult to prove, because in his impression, water would turn into gas if burned with fire. According to his understanding, gas is the root of all things, that is, the element, and water is undoubtedly an element.

Zhu Houzhao didn't want to tell Yan Song directly that water was not a substance composed of a single element and could not represent an element. Water was a compound. He still hoped that Yan Song could prove it himself.

However, Zhu Houzhao decided to rely on the knowledge of the periodic law of elements and first teach Yan Song some methods of summarizing chemical elements. Therefore, Zhu Houzhao called Yan Song to his desk and drew a simple basic framework of the periodic table with a brush, but did not fill in the elements directly. In fact, after graduating from university for so many years, he could not remember the position and arrangement of all the elements. He only remembered a few commonly used ones, so he said to Yan Song:
"This is a table I came up with on the spur of the moment. We can fill in the elements we already know. Assuming that the substances we think of now do represent an element, such as gold, iron, silver, copper, zinc, and sulfur, we can fill them in separately. Perhaps we can fill in all the elements and discover more subtle patterns."

"Your Majesty, water and fire are also elements and can be filled in," Yan Song said.

Zhu Houzhao immediately lost interest in communicating with Yan Song and put down his pen: "If you want to say that water and fire are elements, then so be it! This child is incorrigible!"

Yan Song was a little surprised, wondering if he had said something wrong to make His Majesty so angry, and hurriedly said, "Your Majesty said that water and fire are not elements. Since Your Majesty said they are not elements, then they are not elements. I am guilty of my shallow knowledge."

(End of this chapter)