Emperor Zhengde

Chapter 351: The Prime Minister Requests for a Caning
As the emperor Zhu Houzhao, he didn't care what the censors said or scolded him. After all, the military and political power were in his hands, so he could rule the way he wanted.

However, what really annoyed Zhu Houzhao was that officials like the Cabinet Assistant Minister would choose to resign because of the public opinion created by the censors.

Of course, Xia Yan's resignation was not a real one, but a false one. However, by doing so, he was obviously putting the blame on the emperor, meaning that he was not greedy for power, but that it was His Majesty who needed me and needed me to take charge of the power.

Of course, Zhu Houzhao didn't care about the reputation of the monarch. When he saw Xia Yan wrote a letter of resignation, he just smiled coldly and said, "I am not afraid of being a tyrant, but I don't know when I can meet a prime minister who doesn't care about reputation."

Immediately, Zhu Houzhao naturally refuted Xia Yan's memorial and refused to allow Xia Yan to resign. He also asked the imperial writers in the attendant room to comfort him.

But Zhu Houzhao did not punish the censor Han Yiyou for this.

Xia Yan was very depressed about this, because he wished the emperor would beat Han Yiyou in court for his sake, or even chop off Han Yiyou's head, or even better, put Han Yiyou in prison and threaten him with death, and then he would come to beg for mercy and spare his death penalty, to show that he, as the prime minister, was still very magnanimous.

But Zhu Houzhao did not do this again because there was no need.

"Now is not the early days of my reign. When my power is not stable, how can I let you be gentlemen and let me be cursed? Xia Yan, Xia Yan, when I let you fight against the clean stream, I never meant to let the clean stream fight against you. No matter what, the country requires balance. If you want to be a powerful official, then be a powerful official. Why do you have to pretend that you don't have power desires?"

Zhu Houzhao sighed a few times to himself, and then continued to go fishing in the deep palace, or visit the people in disguise when he had nothing to do.

But Xia Yan also had his own way, which was to submit resignation letters repeatedly. His purpose was naturally to annoy the emperor. His meaning was that if the emperor did not severely punish Han Yiyou, I would keep submitting resignation letters.

However, censors like Han Yiyou were unwilling to give up. If your Majesty does not deal with Xia Yan, I will continue to submit memorials to impeach Xia Yan.

At the beginning, Zhu Houzhao continued to reject Xia Yan's resignation letter, and at the same time ignored Han Yiyu and others' impeachment of Xia Yan.

But over time, Zhu Houzhao did become annoyed and even angry, because he put state affairs aside and spent all day dealing with trivial matters such as resignation and impeachment, which was simply a dereliction of duty and a waste of state power!

Of course, more importantly, the endless submission of resignation and impeachment memorials is a waste of national public resources. After all, paper for memorials costs money.

Zhu Houzhao knew that Xia Yan would only be happy if he arrested Han Yiyou and put him in the imperial prison and beat him with a stick.

But he was indeed unwilling to use his imperial power to fight for the Prime Minister, nor did he want to be used by the Prime Minister.

Zhu Houzhao was no longer young, and he understood the reasons behind the conflicts among officials. Naturally, he would not kill the censors based on their superficial likes and dislikes first and then vent his anger for the ministers he trusted.

After all, doing so would kill people, but it would also make the officials he trusted become unscrupulous, thinking that he was really easy to fool, forcing him to kill again and replace people like a revolving lantern, making it difficult for the government to remain calm.

Fortunately, in recent years, he, the emperor, was still young. Although there was bloodshed in the court, the general direction of external expansion and internal reform had not changed, and those who held power in the court were all reformist officials who did practical things.

Even if Xia Yan was a reformist official, even if he really stood up for Xia Yan now, it would not have much impact. Letting reformist officials control the government would not be a problem for the general direction of the empire, just like letting Zhang Juzheng be a dictator in the early Wanli period.

But Zhu Houzhao now did not want to make the political struggle between opposing officials too intense. As he entered old age, he began to think that in order to ensure a smooth transition of the empire and maintain political clarity, these officials had to supervise each other and no side could be suppressed too harshly. In particular, future kings would take to the throne, and he needed to leave them a balanced political situation.

Otherwise, it would be like when he was young, with the whole court being ruled by upright people. Wouldn't that sow the seeds for internal turmoil in the dynasty?
But the emperor had his own ideas, the chief minister of the cabinet, Xia Yan, had his own ideas, and officials such as Xu Jin who represented the merchant class also had their own ideas.

Xia Yan wanted to force the emperor to suppress the censors, and then attack the civil servants such as Xu Jin who were behind them.

However, civil servants such as Xu Jin wanted to use the censors to create public opinion to force the emperor to suppress Xia Yan, and thus negate the system of the Council of Political Affairs.

Zhu Houzhao was forced to take a stance at the moment, which made him very depressed. He was depressed as to why Xia Yan couldn't just ignore the public opinions and do his job properly. He was also depressed as to whether these censors could just shut up and not give up until they achieved their goals.

This day.

As the growth rate of tariff revenue dropped again, Zhu Houzhao realized that the restrictions on the outflow of silver from other countries might have become more stringent. At the same time, domestic smuggling trade might become more rampant. He asked the chief minister Xia Yan to preside over a court meeting with officials from the Ministry of Revenue and the State Administration of Taxation to discuss how to deal with these two issues.

But at the beginning of the court discussion, Lu Gong, the chief secretary of the Ministry of Revenue, stood up first and said, "Your Majesty, I have a memorial to impeach Xia Yan for abusing power, harboring treasonous intentions, and colluding with military officials to disrupt the government. I ask Your Majesty to execute Xia Yan, dismiss the ministers of state affairs, abolish the Council of State Affairs, and restore the court recommendation system left by the previous emperor!"

"Your Majesty, I also second the proposal. Prime Minister Xia Yan joined forces with his lackey Wen Yuan to demote ministers with different opinions and open a backdoor. His heart is worthy of death!"

Min Xian, right assistant minister of the National Tax Bureau, also stood up.

"Impeachment of officials is the power of the Censorate. What we are discussing now is the decline in the growth rate of tariff revenue. Everyone, step back!"

Zhu Houzhao said coldly that his bottom line was that these people could make trouble, but they could not affect the court's business.

After Zhu Houzhao's words, these civil servants who were dissatisfied with Xia Yan quieted down. However, Xu Jin smiled slightly at this time. He knew that it would be impossible to make the emperor hate Xia Yan in this way. If he wanted the emperor to hate Xia Yan, he could only impeach Xia Yan continuously and then force Xia Yan to fight back. Then the emperor would hate Xia Yan for being narrow-minded and unworthy of being a prime minister.

Therefore, Xu Jin gave a wink to Zhang Wei, one of his confidants, Langzhong of the Yunnan Qingli Division of the Ministry of Revenue.

then.

Zhang Kui stood up and said, "Your Majesty, I impeach Han Yiyou, Deng Dong and others for falsely accusing the prime minister, framing loyal officials, and fabricating and distorting facts. They claim to be rectifying the government, but in fact they are doing it for their own selfish purposes! I ask Your Majesty to dismiss these lawless officials and imitate the actions of the past to punish the villains with iron and blood!"

"Your Majesty, I second the motion. Yuan Fu Xia Yan is indeed a minister of state. Without Yuan Fu, the Ming Dynasty would not have such peace. And these villains like Han Yiyou are ungrateful and seek fame. They arbitrarily criticize others. If they are not killed, it will not be enough to correct the conscience of the ministers!"

Liu Duyu, a doctor from the Fujian Division of the National Audit Office, also stood up.

Zhu Houzhao glanced at Xia Yan coldly. He didn't expect that Xia Yan would follow the example of other non-reformist civil servants and attack his political opponents during such a court meeting.

As the emperor, did I take the time to come to attend the court meeting just to watch you fight each other?! How ridiculous!
Xia Yan had not expected that there would be such a group of officials speaking for him, which surprised him a little, and he thought that he was not fighting alone. Xia Yan even wanted to help these officials speak for him and impeach those officials who impeached him.

But when Xia Yan noticed the fierce look in Emperor Zhu Houzhao's eyes, he couldn't help but shudder, as if someone had poured a basin of cold water on him. He began to realize that this might not be someone else's good intention, and that people like Xu Jin were deliberately trying to sow discord between him and the emperor.

For a while, the quarrel in the court became more and more fierce. The officials who impeached Xia Yan accused the officials who protected Xia Yan of being Xia Yan's running dogs, while those who protected Xia Yan said that the officials who impeached Xia Yan were villains.

The more these people quarreled, the happier Xu Jin felt, especially when he saw the Emperor Zhu Houzhao's face becoming increasingly darker.

What Xu Jin wanted was to take advantage of the court meeting to perform the drama of impeaching Xia Yan and protecting Xia Yan in front of Emperor Zhu Houzhao, so that Emperor Zhu Houzhao would gradually dislike Xia Yan. As for the increase in tariffs, decrease in benefits and rampant smuggling, he didn't care, and he was even unwilling to let this matter be taken seriously by the court, because the smuggling and evasion of tariffs were undoubtedly the merchant class behind him.

Zhu Houzhao was indeed very angry at this time. He didn't understand why the two factions were attacking each other at this time regardless of the real business, nor did he know who was behind all this.

But Zhu Houzhao hated this situation that was not under his control, so he was on the verge of getting furious.

"Your Majesty! Please allow me to take charge of this situation!"

Xia Yan knew that he couldn't let this kind of quarrel continue at this time. No matter whether these civil servants who spoke for him had good intentions or did it on purpose, the more he quarreled, the more dissatisfied the emperor would be with him. Therefore, when both sides took a break from the quarrel, he immediately stood up and said something loudly.

"allow!"

Zhu Houzhao was very pleased to see that Xia Yan dared to stand up at this time, and quickly agreed. If Xia Yan failed to handle this matter well, he would kill these civil servants first.

"Quiet!"

Xia Yan shouted loudly, and all the officials present fell silent.

But at this moment, Lu Gong shouted loudly: "Bah! You are a traitor! How can I tolerate you scolding all the officials in this hall!"

Xia Yan knew that if he could not maintain the court at this time, the Emperor would consider changing the Prime Minister.

Sometimes, being the Prime Minister means you have to take the blame for the emperor, be the emperor's shadow, and do things that the emperor wants to do but cannot do. You cannot really expect the emperor to stand up and take charge of the situation himself, especially now that the emperor is getting older, the more willing he is to support you behind the scenes, and the less willing he is to let you, the Prime Minister, get away with it while leaving the emperor with a bad reputation.

Xia Yan decided that he didn't care about face anymore. He should learn from the emperor. Instead of forcing the emperor to stand up for him, he should stand up for himself. He should not expect the emperor to stand up for him and put these people in prison so that he could seek leniency and gain fame. If he wanted to keep his power now, he could only break off with these officials and give up his reputation! He had to become a traitor.

So, after taking a look at Lu Gong, Xia Yan turned around and asked Zhu Houzhao, "Your Majesty, Lu Gong has disturbed the court and interfered with government affairs. I ask Your Majesty to allow the Jinyiwei to dismiss Lu Gong from office and expel him from the court!"

Zhu Houzhao nodded and said, "I grant your request. I will remove Lu Gong from his post and expel him from the court. I will also have the Ministry of Personnel revoke his official title!"

The civil servants present were all stunned. They did not expect that Xia Yan would directly ask the emperor to remove Lu Gong from his post in the court.

At this time, Deng Dong, the Imperial Censor, also stood up to defend Lu Gong, but at this time, Lu Gong himself started to yell:
"Your Majesty! I have not interfered with government affairs or disturbed the court. I just don't allow treacherous ministers to deceive Your Majesty. The treacherous minister Xia Yan has taken advantage of Your Majesty's favor and has been tyrannical and arrogant in front of the emperor. I ask Your Majesty to kill the treacherous minister Xia Yan and rectify the government!"

"Your Majesty, Lu Gong not only does not know his faults, but also slanders his superiors and attempts to coerce the emperor. I am the chief minister of the cabinet and have the right to preside over the order of the court's internal affairs. I should deal with him severely. Please allow me to ask the Jinyiwei to beat Lu Gong with 60 strokes of the cane!"

Xia Yan also said without showing any weakness.

Zhu Houzhao nodded and said, "As Xia Aiqing requested, drag Lu Gong out!"

So, the Jinyiwei came over and dragged Lu Gong out.

Lu Gong continued to curse Xia Yan.

But soon, the sound of sticks cracking was heard, a full sixty times.

The officials present had not yet reacted to save Lu Gong, but just as someone was about to step forward, Xia Yan asked directly: "Are there any who want to disrupt the court, harm the country and cause chaos? Do you want to be beaten in the court and dismissed from office?"

Now that Xia Yan asked this, everyone was afraid of being beaten in court but also did not want to lose their jobs. In addition, Xia Yan was so powerful that no one dared to stand up.

Xu Jin was also shocked, but he also secretly sighed that Xia Yan was indeed no simple person. In order to maintain the favor of His Majesty and to maintain his own power, he dared to give up his reputation and even beat people in the court!
Of course, there were also young and impulsive officials who could not stand Xia Yan's domineering behavior in the court. After some ideological struggle, they finally wanted to stand up and continue to impeach Xia Yan.

But at this time, Yan Song hurriedly stood up and said: "What the Prime Minister said is very true. I dare not harm the country. The Prime Minister is presiding over the situation in accordance with the will of Your Majesty. Lu Gong deserves the punishment. I think we should discuss the matter immediately so as not to delay the important matters of the court!"

Yan Song was also shocked at first why Xia Yan suddenly asked the emperor to use the Jinyiwei to beat people in the court, and did such a crazy thing! But soon, he also knew that what His Majesty the Emperor wanted most now was to make the court quiet down and let the courtiers discuss business instead of attacking each other, and Xia Yan was undoubtedly right to do so, which would undoubtedly satisfy His Majesty the Emperor.

Because His Majesty the Emperor doesn't care what you do, as long as you can keep the court quiet and let the officials do their work.

Therefore, Yan Song rushed to be the first to stand up and cater to Xia Yan. It seemed that he was catering to Xia Yan, but in fact he was doing what Emperor Zhu Houzhao wanted.

Even Yan Song knew that Emperor Zhu Houzhao would definitely like to see the chief minister of the cabinet ranked first among all officials. Therefore, even though he was already one of the third ministers of the cabinet, he called himself a humble official to show that he only followed Xia Yan's orders.

Of course, he also had to be careful, knowing that if he just followed Xia Yan's lead and did not even object to him beating the court official in court, civil servants like Xu Jin would definitely look down on him and hate Xia Yan's tyranny even more. This would undoubtedly be better for him, Yan Song. After all, only if Xu Jin and Xia Yan fought to the death could he benefit.

Xu Jin really hated Yan Song's behavior of immediately standing up to defend Xia Yan at this time, and couldn't help but curse inwardly: "Running dog!"

Thank you for your reward of 100 Qidian coins from your book friend Wei Du. Thank you for your reward of 100 Qidian coins from your book friend Yi Jin Bai Tang.

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(End of this chapter)