I don't want to do it, but he has a health bar

Chapter 219 Tragic Events after Death (Subscription Request)
On April 20th of the eighth year of Wanchang, Zhang Taiyue, the Prince's Grand Tutor, Minister of Personnel, and Grand Secretary of Zhongji Palace, died of illness.

For a time, the court and the country were shocked, and the people were mourning. His Majesty, the current emperor, stopped court.

As the funeral ceremony of the chief minister began, His Majesty the present day bestowed upon him the rank of pillar of the state, and gave him the posthumous title of "Wen Zhong".

Before Zhang Taiyue passed away, he seemed to have a premonition and recommended Pan Sheng, the seat master, to the current emperor as the prime minister.

This is a candidate recommended to help His Majesty continue to enforce the law.

but……

Everything did not develop as Zhang Taiyue had expected before his death.

On the third day after Zhang Taiyue's death, the eunuch who had been assisting Zhang Taiyue in the palace was demoted to Fengyu by the current emperor on charges of corruption and sent to Nanzhili.

Afterwards, the eunuch Feng Bao, who had once partnered with Prime Minister Zhang both internally and externally, completely lost his power.

On the fourth day after Zhang Taiyue's death, seven censors including the Imperial Censor Lei Zhen impeached Pan Sheng.

So the current Majesty ordered Pan Sheng to retire.

This Pan Sheng was recommended by Zhang Taiyue during his lifetime. The former Prime Minister had just passed away and it hadn’t even been seven days since his death. Yet, the Prime Minister he recommended during his lifetime was treated like this by the current emperor...

From this we can see that His Majesty has long been extremely dissatisfied with Zhang Taiyue's behavior during his lifetime.

Afterwards, with the tacit understanding of both parties, the censors in the court quickly turned their attention to Zhang Taiyue, who had already died of illness, and impeached Zhang Taiyue on the charge of corruption and malfeasance.

Then, as it was natural, the current Majesty immediately ordered the confiscation of Zhang Taiyue's property, and stripped him of all his palace ranks, deprived him of the imperial seals and imperial edicts granted to him during his lifetime, and made his crimes known to the world.

Not only that, the emperor even ordered the coffin to be opened and the corpse to be whipped!
This behavior shocked everyone in the government and the country!
Damn you!
Do you have to be so cruel?
No, the man has only been dead for a few days. Why are you being so cruel?
It is said that the dead are the greatest.

If this sets a precedent, then in the future, officials in the court will not be able to stop even if they die if they commit crimes, right?
Therefore, in order not to set a precedent, important officials in the field wrote letters one after another, begging the current emperor to revoke his decision.

Under pressure, Emperor Wanchang ultimately failed to whip Zhang Taiyue's corpse.

But his family could not escape the subsequent persecution.

Emperor Wanchang ordered a house search.

Emperor Wanchang originally thought that Zhang Taiyue, who lived a luxurious life, must have a lot of hidden wealth at home. After all, when he searched the eunuch Feng Bao, he seized more than five million taels of gold and silver, as well as countless jewels.

The former prime minister, who led an extravagant lifestyle and spent a lot of money, must have a large amount of gold, silver and treasures hidden in his home!
Therefore, Emperor Wanchang was full of expectations for confiscating the Zhang family's property.

But Emperor Wanchang was ultimately disappointed.

When the order to confiscate the property reached Zhang Taiyue's hometown of Jingzhou, local officials immediately imprisoned more than a hundred members of the Zhang family in an empty house without food or water.

So much so that by the time the imperial envoys from the capital arrived in Jingzhou, more than ten people in the Zhang family had starved to death.

The bodies were abandoned on the roadside and left to be eaten by wild dogs.

After the eunuchs from the capital dug up the Zhang family's house three feet deep, they only found 100,000 taels of silver.

This was far from the several million taels that Emperor Wanchang had expected. These eunuchs, who were seeking power, did not dare to return with just a mere 100,000 taels to report.

Therefore, this group of vicious eunuchs began to torture the Zhang family's sons, forcing them to admit that they had transferred their property elsewhere. Unable to bear the torture, Zhang Jingxiu, the eldest son of the Zhang family, randomly said a few names, and then the eunuchs immediately sent people to confiscate his house.

Unfortunately, the total amount of silver seized from those families was less than 100,000 taels.

The Zhang family complained with tears and blood, but their cries were useless.

Now...they only have the power to commit suicide.

When the eldest son of the Zhang family learned that the families he had blind dates with had their properties confiscated because of him, he felt so ashamed that he wrote a suicide note in blood in extreme anger.

The blood-stained letter was both a confession and an attempt to clear up the injustice for his father.

As the eldest son of the Zhang family, Zhang Jingxiu's suicide note is full of literary talent and sonorous words, each of which is filled with indignation and despair expressed with his life.

Perhaps, he thought that this blood letter could awaken the conscience of some people.

However, the darkness of the world was beyond his imagination.

His blood letter couldn't even be delivered.

Even if it is passed on, it will be useless.

The emperor didn't care.

The ministers didn't care.

When a giant falls, the first to arrive are vultures and flies. They want to eat the giant's corpse to strengthen themselves.

In the end, Zhang Jingxiu abandoned his beloved wife and young son and hanged himself.

When Zhang's wife learned that her husband had committed suicide, she was so heartbroken that she used a spoon to disfigure herself to avoid being sold to the Jiaofangsi. She planned to remain faithful to the Zhang family and raise the eldest grandson of the Zhang family to adulthood.

Zhang Jingxiu's younger brother, Zhang Maoxiu, the top scholar in the sixth year of Wanchang, also could not endure the inhuman torture and chose to commit suicide twice, but was rescued both times and luckily managed to save his life.

Not many people in the court cared about these tragic events that happened one after another.

But over the years, Zhang Taiyue's reputation among the people has become increasingly grand.

Therefore, after hearing about these tragic events, many ordinary people could not help but cover their faces and shed tears, secretly sighing that the world is unpredictable.

Fortunately, the farce did not continue.

The tragic experience of the Zhang brothers and the current desolation and misery of the Zhang family were so tragic that even their former political enemies, such as Yang Wei, the Minister of Personnel who had political disagreements with Zhang Taiyue and was driven out of the capital by Zhang Taiyue and then returned to the court, could not help but cry. They jointly submitted a memorial to the emperor, requesting that His Majesty forgive the Zhang family.

Emperor Wanchang, who was finally able to rule the country, seemed to realize that he had gone too far, causing widespread discussion among the people and growing public anger, and even an increasing number of petitions to the court.

So, under pressure from his ministers, Emperor Wanchang pretended to be "benevolent and righteous" and issued an edict to pardon his family's relatives, leaving them a residence and a small amount of land.

However, Emperor Wanchang still held on to the Zhang family's property tightly, and ordered the eunuchs sent out to escort the Zhang family's property back to the capital immediately. Even the stone archway that could not be transported was not spared, and local officials were ordered to sell it and send it to the capital.

The Zhang family suffered the same fate.

The series of laws formulated by Zhang Taiyue during his lifetime...naturally, they were forgotten after he left.

Most of the officials employed by Zhang Taiyue during his lifetime were demoted and dismissed, and some were even executed.

The policies that benefited the people that had been implemented in various parts of Dayu were abolished by Emperor Wanchang.

Even all the collaborations with Okhotsk were stopped.

Emperor Wanchang's move was strongly supported by officials, gentry, and gentry from all over the country.

Zhang Taiyue, who once held great power...

Officially a thing of the past.

……

June 15th, the eighth year of Wanchang.

As the summer heat gradually rose, Lu Jing, dressed in a single layer of clothing, slowly walked into the capital of Dayu through the city gate.

Although he had served as an official in Dayu, this was Lu Jing's first time to visit the capital of Dayu.

The capital of Dayu gathers all kinds of products from all over the world, and its prosperity is unparalleled in the world.

The demeanor of the people walking on the street and so on is indeed incomparable to other customs in Dayu.

Soon, Lu Jing arrived at a teahouse outside Jingzi Hutong in Beijing and sat down.

And in this teahouse, there was already someone waiting for Lu Jing.

Lu Jing sat down and said with a smile: "Long time no see."

(End of this chapter)