Ming Dynasty Detective 1546

Chapter 249 Even the Emperor Wants to Return Home in Glory
"It's truly remarkable that Fourteenth Brother has established himself in Chun'an so quickly!"

The latest letter on Haiyue's desk came from Chun'an.

Historically, Chun'an County was not affected by the policy of converting rice paddies to mulberry fields, but its geographical and economic position has always been very important.

As the largest county in Zhejiang Province, it borders Xiuning and Shexian counties of Huizhou Prefecture to the west, and is located at the junction of the two provinces. It is a land transportation hub connecting Jiangsu and Zhejiang with southern Anhui. The Xin'an River runs through the entire area and is also the main waterway of the upper reaches of the Qiantang River, undertaking the transportation of grain and military supplies.

As a result, Chun'an County also became a major tax-paying area. Although it was not a core grain-producing area in Jiangnan, it was located at a key point of the Grand Canal and was responsible for the collection and dispatch of materials such as silk and timber. It was a hub for the transfer of materials and could not be taken lightly.

Since Hai Rui took up his post with his mother, Xie, and his newlywed wife, Wu, he has faced a chaotic situation in the county.

When he rejected the local gentry's recommendation for a secretary and wanted to investigate old cases and redress long-standing injustices, bandits immediately began robbing ships, disrupting the canal transport, and overwhelming pressure came from all sides.

Hai Rui did not yield. Despite pressure from both inside and outside the government, he gradually sorted out the key issues and analyzed the situation. Then, he began to exert the power of the Marquis of Baili, starting by reshuffling the government offices.

Just as the young Jiajing Emperor was able to utterly defeat the deeply entrenched Yang Tinghe clique, the top officials of prefectures and counties have every right to rectify official corruption.

There are two main reasons why local officials are unable to control their subordinates:
First, many officials who were Jinshi graduates had their minds full of the Four Books and Five Classics, but lacked experience in governing. They were simply unable to apply their knowledge with their bookish ideals, so they were naturally manipulated and sidelined by shrewd and calculating clerks and gentry, and were forced to go along with the corrupt practices.
Secondly, even capable ministers often weigh the pros and cons and strive to avoid making mistakes during their tenure.

Why make enemies while in office, even to the point of creating deadly feuds?

Moreover, shrewd and selfish officials are only accountable to the source of their power. They see their colleagues all the time, and local gentry may have intricate connections with the court, which can all affect their future careers. Compared to them, what are those poor and miserable people?
It's just a number!

Hai Rui would not treat ordinary people as mere numbers.

The arrival of this letter signifies that he has initially taken control of the situation in Chun'an County, and the next step is to rigorously investigate the malpractices related to finances and grain, and rectify the chaos in Chun'an.

Haiyue was very pleased with this. With him in the capital, these local officials who truly did practical things for the people would not be impeached for "harsh scrutiny and harm to harmony" during future selections.

In addition to the letters from Yixin Hui to various places, there were also two letters belonging to the Jinyiwei system.

One of the letters was from Lu Bing.

Lu Bing is coming back.

This brother of Emperor Jiajing, who in history was promoted to deputy commander after beheading someone on the border and then rose rapidly through the ranks, has made a real contribution this time without relying on his close relationship with the emperor, and has gained profound prestige in the army.

Lu Bing was so excited that he was unwilling to return. After Annam was pacified, he stayed in the former Thang Long City, now Dongguan Town, for several months. With the power and prestige of the Imperial Inspector, he enabled his confidants to make gains.

Now that the first wave of resistance in Jiaozhi has been initially quelled, Lu Bing returned to the capital with a sense of unfulfilled ambition.

The other letter was from Sun Weixian.

With the war at the front intensifying, this commander of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, carrying the imperial decree, headed south. At that moment, even the wealthiest merchants in Suzhou and Hangzhou trembled and prostrated themselves in fear.

Those granaries that were usually stockpiled for profit were all opened under the threat of being accused of treason.

To prove their innocence, the merchants had to personally escort the grain ships up the river—a scene that echoed the saying, "White-clad men rowing oars across Dongting Lake."

However, when the news of Annam's fall and the return of Jiaozhi arrived, the merchants who were forced to donate did not show any joy or pride on their faces. Instead, they secretly squeezed their teacups so hard they creaked.

They could calculate the market price of each bushel of grain, but they couldn't understand the principle that "when the nation prospers, trade routes will be open."

Now that times have changed and it's clear that even the Grand Secretary Zhang Cong will no longer raise his sword to slaughter indiscriminately, these merchants have begun to coordinate, wanting the capital to know that the merchants' money always bears the mark of their teeth.

Sun Weixian was the first to be targeted. In his letter, he complained a lot about Yan Song, implying that the recommender had betrayed him and instead of transferring him back, he intended to use him to quell the anger of the merchants in Jiangnan.

He was extremely unwilling when he was transferred from Nanjing to the capital.
I can't stay in Southern Zhili anymore; I want to go back to the capital to avoid trouble at all times.

Haiyue put down the letter, pondered for a moment, and actually decided to transfer Sun Weixian back.

We must not discourage those who have made contributions. Besides, some things become easier with practice. With this experience, we will be more skilled at eliminating parasites in the future.

"Hahaha! Mingwei, I'm back!"

The day after Lu Bing returned to Beijing, he appeared in Dongjiang Rice Lane. He was much darker-skinned but also more robust. His smile was still as hearty as ever. After vividly recounting the prestige of Annam, he clapped his hands and laughed upon learning that Zhu Yuying was pregnant, saying, "My wife is also pregnant. What a coincidence! Let's arrange a marriage between our families!"

"Let the children play together, and it's not too late to arrange a marriage if they take a liking to each other!" Haiyue herself dislikes arranged marriages by her parents and is even more disgusted by so-called childhood betrothals. She will not rashly make decisions for her own children.

Lu Bing was taken aback. With his current achievements and background, he had a promising future. Even the Grand Secretary would have hoped to form a marriage alliance with him. He hadn't expected this person to be so different. He chuckled and said, "It has to be you, Mingwei, who has always been consistent! You should have gone to Annam. Without your insightful advice as a Hanlin scholar, the pacification of Annam would not have been so smooth!"

"The victory in the Annam campaign was due to the soldiers' bravery and the court's strategic planning; I was merely fulfilling my duty."

Haiyue smiled and said, "Wenfu has been traveling long distances and should take a good rest. Your wife has been traveling with the army and is now pregnant. She needs her husband by her side!"

"Yes, yes!"

Lu Bing nodded repeatedly, but then said with a wry smile, "However, we may not be able to rest until the child is born. Do you know that His Majesty intends to make a southern tour?"

Haiyue was quite surprised: "Southern tour?"

"Yes! Let's go to Chengtian Prefecture!"

Lu Bing's tone was tinged with emotion and longing: "Let's go back to my hometown and take a look..."

Chengtian Prefecture was the hometown of Emperor Jiajing, Anlu Prefecture, and together with Yingtian Prefecture and Shuntian Prefecture, it was known as the "Three Heavens".

The tomb of Xingxian Prince, the father of Jiajing, was originally just a prince's tomb. However, with the end of the Great Rites Controversy and the consolidation of imperial power, the tomb of Xingxian Prince was upgraded to an imperial mausoleum and named "Xianling".

However, Zhu Houcong could not visit Xianling Mausoleum in person during the Qingming Festival to pay homage to his ancestors because it was too far away. Historically, he had wanted to move his biological father's mausoleum to Beijing.

However, this matter would be a waste of resources and manpower, and not very meaningful. Xia Yan, who was the Minister of Rites at the time, said, "Emperor Xingxian's body has been buried for a long time. If we rashly open the tomb, we may dissipate the spiritual energy of the mausoleum. I'm afraid Emperor Xingxian would not want to do that."

This was a very clever idea. Fearing being branded as unfilial, Jiajing abandoned the plan to move the mausoleum.

However, at the end of the seventeenth year of Jiajing's reign, Empress Dowager Jiang passed away. Before her death, she requested that she be buried with Prince Xingxian. Emperor Jiajing kept her will in mind and wanted to move Xianling to Dayu Mountain in Beijing. However, a report came from Chengtian Prefecture that the underground palace of Xianling was flooded and it would be difficult to move it. Emperor Jiajing was shocked to hear this and, disregarding the objections of his ministers, took Xia Yan, Yan Song and other civil and military officials on a southern tour to Chengtian Prefecture in Huguang to inspect the condition of Xianling.

This is the background of Jiajing's southern tour in history. It was a combination of political display, filial piety, and personal feelings. The surface reason was to resolve the controversy over the joint burial of his parents. The deeper purpose was to strengthen imperial power through ritualized tours. The final result was that after the southern tour, he completely turned to Taoist practice and neglected government affairs, marking a turning point in the political direction of the Ming Dynasty.

"After the Emperor buried Empress Dowager Zhangsheng in the eighteenth year, he stopped attending court; after the palace maid incident in the twentieth year, he moved to the Wanshou Palace in the Western Garden and stopped entering the inner palace."

Therefore, many people in later generations believed that Jiajing began to neglect his duties after being strangled by a palace maid. However, this is not true. His enthusiasm for governing the country had already faded before that. The spirit of hard work he had shown in his early years was gone. The palace maid strangling him was just the last straw that broke the camel's back, making it impossible for the officials to see the emperor again.

Because Emperor Jiajing in history stopped attending court after his southern tour, Haiyue was somewhat wary when she heard that this major event had been moved forward.

Lu Bing was unaware of those details, but he knew the court's attitude towards the emperor leaving the capital was one of opposition. He then said in a low voice, "His Majesty has always missed the days in Anlu; he simply wants to go back and visit..."

Haiyue pondered for a moment, then nodded in realization.

Even emperors have a strong desire to return home in glory, especially figures like Jiajing, who left his hometown at the age of thirteen to enter the cold Forbidden City and engage in battles of wits with the Empress Dowager and his ministers.

This suggests that the reason why Zhu Di was elevated to Emperor Chengzu during the previous ancestral worship ceremony was likely because the next step was to remove the memorial tablet of Emperor Renzong (Zhu Gaochi) from the Imperial Ancestral Temple and posthumously honor his biological father, Prince Xingxian (Zhu Youyuan), as Emperor Ruizong, and place his memorial tablet inside.

By conquering Annam and seizing the prestige of Jiaozhi, the court and the public could find no fault with this trip. This was the true objective of the southern tour, and it was far more glorious than any previous attempt to defy public opinion.

Having confirmed this, Haiyue knew that Jiajing's trip was inevitable. She said solemnly, "Wenfu, the traitors of the Liyuan Society have not yet been eliminated. We must not be careless!"

"Do not worry!"

Lu Bing looked disdainful. Having experienced the bloodshed on the battlefield, he had become disdainful of those treacherous villains in the shadows: "If they cause trouble again during His Majesty's tour, the Embroidered Uniform Guard can wipe them out in one fell swoop to eliminate future troubles!"

Haiyue didn't say much, but after Lu Bing left, she immediately sent a letter to her page, Gonghao.

Before long, Tao Dianzhen, dressed in a Taoist robe, appeared before them and respectfully bowed: "Hai Hanlin!"

Haiyue looked at the Taoist priest who was diligently searching for the bandits of Liyuan Society and said calmly, "His Majesty may be planning a southern tour. I would like to recommend you to accompany him and provide protection. What do you think?"

Tao Dianzhen's eyes lit up with ecstasy, and he immediately bowed: "This humble Taoist will certainly live up to the trust placed in him by Hanlin Hai, and will do everything in my power to protect His Majesty's safety!"

(End of this chapter)