Ming Jiajing: Starting from Immortality

Chapter 63: Jiajing’s major case, the purge begins!
The memorial submitted by Prince Yu was now unfolded and placed on his desk.

Chen Hong lowered his head slightly, stood beside the desk and quietly looked at Prince Yu who was staring at the memorial.

The emperor did not read this memorial. In official circles, this is called "throwing the memorial back"!
However, the emperor did not read the memorials, but he asked the person who led the memorial to read them carefully.

Prince Yu understood that his father was angry.

My father was generally accustomed to the pressure from his ministers. Ever since the "Great Ceremony Debate" over succession to the throne, the struggle between my father and his ministers has never stopped.

But as a son, it was the first time that he participated in the struggle between the emperor and his ministers, and he stood firmly among the civil officials in the court.

Prince Yu knew that in his father's heart, the imperial power was above everything else. His father no longer regarded this memorial as an ordinary coercion, but as a coercion of the Yuxi Palace by Prince Yu's Mansion and the civil service group.

Aims to force the emperor to give up power.

Yuxi Palace was furious.

then.

Chen Hong, the chief eunuch of the Imperial Household Department, and the men from the Eastern Depot were sent to Prince Yu's mansion.

Chen Hong was greatly surprised. Faced with such a huge event and the unprecedented anger of the emperor, Prince Yu, who usually became anxious and uneasy when hearing about changes in Yuxi Palace, did not show any panic at all. He stood there steadily with a deep look in his eyes.

"Your Highness." Chen Hong had no choice but to call out as he had received the imperial decree.

Prince Yu then slowly turned his gaze towards him.

Chen Hong lowered his head again: "Your Majesty has ordered me to ask the prince, after reading this memorial, what does the prince want to say."

Prince Yu looked upwards with empty eyes: "As Prince Yu, my words have been written down in the memorials along with all the officials. Your Majesty can read the memorials."

Chen Hong was so frightened that he trembled and knelt down, staring at Prince Yu with frightened eyes.

Prince Yu, do you agree to the abdication?

Prince Yu still felt that this was not enough, and continued, "As a son, as a descendant of our ancestors, I want to ask, what does the emperor want to do?"

Since the Lantern Festival.

Two eunuchs in charge of writing in the Imperial Household Department died, as did countless other eunuchs.

Xu Jie, Gao Gong and Yan Shifan of the outer court cabinet were first expelled from the cabinet, followed by the death of Luo Longwen, the Tongzhengshi of the Ministry of Public Security, Ouyang Bijin, the Left Censor-in-Chief of the Censorate, and more than 200 Beijing officials, implicated nearly 10,000 people. Not long ago, the chief minister of the cabinet Yan Song, the Minister of Revenue Xu Jie, and the Vice Minister of Works Yan Shifan were thrown into imperial prison, followed by Hu Zongxian, the Governor-General of Zhejiang and Governor of Zhejiang.

The eunuch Lu Fang, who was in charge of the Imperial Household Department, and the eunuch Yang Jinshui, who was in charge of the Jiangnan Weaving Bureau and the Zhejiang Maritime Customs, were also imprisoned.

In just a few dozen days, the number of people executed or imprisoned in the capital was greater than in the past twenty years, and their identities were more serious.

Officials in the inner court, the outer court, and the localities were all feeling insecure, and the scholars were in a state of panic.

If this continues, the two capitals and thirteen provinces of the Ming Dynasty will be in chaos everywhere, with Japanese pirates in the south and Tatars in the north. Our ancestors' country cannot withstand such turmoil!

"Your Highness!" Chen Hong's voice was trembling, "I beg Your Highness to take back these two words!"

From the perspective of Prince Yu and his son, these words of Prince Yu were all extremely treasonous.

Forcing the emperor to abdicate is disloyalty.

To ask the emperor in return is unfilial.

If an ordinary family has a disloyal and unfilial son, they will suffer a bloody battle, let alone the imperial family.

For the first time, Prince Yu's stubbornness, inherited from his ancestral bloodline, surged in his body, and he answered firmly: "No, I will never take it back.

It has been twelve years since the death of Crown Prince Zhuangjing, and I have been Prince Yu for twenty-two years.

Did I do anything wrong as Prince Yu? Did I ever covet anything as Prince Yu? Why didn't my father see me for decades? Why didn't my father appoint a crown prince for decades?
If my father lives a long life, will he pass the throne to me? If I become the emperor, will I be a tyrant?
Is Father worried about me becoming the crown prince and handling state affairs after becoming the emperor? But I have the approval of half of the court.

Is the emperor worried about my moral character? But the scholars are full of praise for me.

Twelve years, twelve years!

Does my father still think that I am of limited ability and low moral character?
However, my father's grandfather, King Xingxian, passed away when my father was twelve years old. At that time, my father took over the huge King Xing's Palace as the Crown Prince of Xing.

When my father was fourteen years old, Emperor Wuzong passed away. Following the ancestral precept of "the younger brother succeeds the elder brother", my father went to Beijing alone from Anlu Prefecture, Huguang, and inherited the throne.

I am the emperor's son. I am twenty-four years old. Does the emperor think that I am not even worthy of being the crown prince?

I know that after I say these words, the Emperor will strip me of my title, perhaps demote me to a commoner, or even allow me to commit suicide, but I only have one thing to say.

If the emperor secretly murdered Yan Song, Xu Jie, Yan Shifan, and Hu Zongxian, and the government and the people were in turmoil, and local rebellions broke out, was it my fault or the emperor's fault? "

Chen Hong lay down, crying inconsolably until he fainted.

……

Ok Hee Palace.

The secret agent of Jinyiwei quickly brought a record of Prince Zhangyu's palace. Zhu Houcong placed it on the imperial desk, holding the lamp in his hand, his eyes reflecting the light, and looked at each page carefully.

Having lived two lives, Zhu Houcong knew clearly that the so-called "two dragons must not meet" and the so-called "considering the safety of the prince" were all just a cover-up for his years of practicing Taoism and the fading of family affection.

Zhu Houcong did not appoint a crown prince for more than ten years because he felt that Zhu Zaihou was not a suitable candidate for crown prince, nor a suitable future emperor of the Ming Dynasty. Zhu Houcong believed this throughout his two lifetimes.

That is a "lustful dragon"!
He may not be considered a foolish ruler, but he is not a wise ruler either. He cannot even be called a ruler who maintains the status quo.

The admiration of half of the court officials was not due to Zhu Zaihou's ability, nor his personal charm, but the product of the confluence of the former Yan Party and Qingliu.

As for the fact that scholars all over the world praised Zhu Zaihou's character, Zhu Houcong scoffed at it. He believed that an emperor praised by literati of all generations was never a truly good emperor.

Zhu Zaihou only saw how many eunuchs and civil servants he had killed, but he completely failed to see how much silver the national treasury and the imperial purse had increased, how much military pay had increased in the southeast and north of the Ming Dynasty, and how Chun'an, which had experienced floods, had burst into vitality in Hai Rui's hands.

Zhu Zaihou only heard how tragically the eunuchs and civil servants died.

In this world, we are not afraid of people being stupid, but we are afraid of people being stupid and not knowing it.

The prince who is high above you.

Regardless of whether Chen Hong was pretending to be unconscious or really was unconscious, Jinyiwei Commander Lu Bing had no choice but to meet the emperor.

The emperor and Prince Yu, father and son, fell out with each other, and the entire Ming Dynasty was plunged into darkness.

What the Jinyiwei had to do was to dispel the gloom over the two capitals and thirteen provinces according to the emperor's orders.

"How is the Jinyiwei's efforts to locate Lu Fang's brocade box, the people and evidence of corruption among officials in the two capitals and thirteen provinces?" Zhu Houcong's voice was cold and chilly.

"Your Majesty, only the evidence of corruption and the identity of 899 officials in Shuntian and 1,002 officials in Yingtian have been completely identified. The corruption and identity of officials in the remaining thirteen provinces have not yet been completely identified." Lu Bing replied with his head buried.

Although the records of officials' corruption in Lu Fang's brocade box were very detailed, the Jinyiwei had to verify some of them to avoid arresting the wrong people. In addition, if the Jinyiwei collected new evidence of corruption from some officials, they would also add new crimes.

Zhu Houcong threw the paper in his hand onto the imperial desk and closed his eyes: "Let's start with the two capitals. According to the previous laws, those who should be killed should be killed, those who should be executed should be executed, and those who should be exterminated should be exterminated throughout their clan!"

If these corrupt officials were allowed to remain, rebellions would break out everywhere in the Ming Dynasty, leading to the real destruction of the country.

"Yes!"

(End of this chapter)