I am Emperor Shizu of Song

Chapter 77 History Will Prove My Innocence
To be honest, when Zhao Zicheng first impeached Zhu Jie and petitioned the emperor to abolish the Hua Shi Gang, his reputation did not rise very fast.

Whether it is the reputation among the scholars or the reputation among ordinary people.

But when Zhu Zhen took revenge on him, Zhao Zicheng's reputation skyrocketed overnight.

In fact, this is easy to understand, because over the years, there have been many people who have had more or less opinions about Zhu Zhen and secretly plotted against him, but none of them made a big deal.

If the incident hadn't been made public, who knows how dedicated the petitioner was, or if it was just a joke? Who knows if the emperor took it seriously, if he actually heard it? And how much of an impact would it have had on abolishing the Flower and Stone Gang?
Zhu Jie's blatant revenge became a certification of Zhao Zicheng's loyalty and righteousness, making his name famous throughout the country within ten days.

This means that Zhu Zhen, the damn mad dog, was really hurt by the beating! He was anxious!

It's like how, in history, there were many loyal civil and military officials who resisted the Qing Dynasty during the late Ming Dynasty, but none of them were particularly famous. But in the 42nd year of the Qianlong Emperor's reign, during a period of persecution, Emperor Qianlong suddenly issued an edict: The Biography of Yuan Gong, the Grand Marshal, and the Record of the Loyal Shrine of Yue Fei, Prince of E, were simultaneously banned, along with a ban on the commemoration of Yue Fei and Yuan Keli.

Yuan Keli's fame suddenly soared, overshadowing other loyal and righteous officials who fought against the Qing Dynasty in the late Ming Dynasty. Yuan Keli's descendants would tell everyone that "my ancestor was imprisoned together with Yue Fei!"
Yuan Keli himself actually died of illness in the early years of Chongzhen. He was only fighting against the Later Jin at that time, and his achievements were not very significant. But after the Qianlong ban came out, all this was unimportant. At that time, the anti-Qing and pro-Ming forces in the society all elevated him to the level of a totem.

Zhao Zi said that the current situation also follows the same communication principles.

He has naturally become a totem against Zhu Jie and the Hua Shi Gang. It no longer matters how much contribution he has made.

If Zhao Zicheng had followed the normal official channels, even if he had become a prefect, he would never have achieved the same rise in popularity as he did today. Even if he had become a pacification envoy, it would not have been as effective.

For those of you who don't believe this, ask yourself this: How many future college students know the name of their city's mayor? And who knows the name of a provincial leader? No matter how high one's position, fame alone is not as great as the bonus of becoming a spiritual totem.

As a member of the royal family, Zhao Zicheng's future path will be different from that of other people in the bureaucratic system.

He did not pursue how high his official position would be before the troubled times came; he only cared about how well-known he was. Of course, the distance of one's bloodline was also very important, but bloodline was determined at birth, so there was no way to work on it; one could only work on one's reputation.

……

As Zhao Zicheng was temporarily detained, several chain reactions with different angles and postures occurred in parallel.

First, in Gusu City, a small group of local wealthy and prominent families, led by the Murong family, who had close ties with Zhao Zicheng, wanted to rescue Zhao Zicheng almost immediately.

"How could Brother Zhao be arrested? Zhu Zhen is too arrogant. His Yingfeng Bureau must not be the Ministry of Justice, how could he have such leniency? Even if he wants to retaliate, he can only report it to the court and handle it impartially! No, sister, mother, let's find a way to save Brother Zhao!"

The most impetuous and reckless person was probably the chivalrous Murong Yan. She had read a fair amount, though not as much or as thoroughly as her mother and sister. After all, she was still young, a sixteen-year-old girl, so absorbed in martial arts training that it was inevitable she would panic and act rashly when faced with a sudden change.

If it weren't for this chivalrous temperament, he wouldn't have saved Yang Zhi from his capsized boat and gotten into trouble.

Fortunately, her impulsiveness was quickly persuaded by her sister Murong Qiu. Murong Qiu was not as good as her in martial arts and could not stop her by force, so she had to call her mother to reason with her:

"Little sister, don't panic! Brother Zhao is fine! This is all part of his plan! He's a member of the royal family, and the matter has already become a big deal. Even if Zhu Jie puts him under house arrest, he would only dare to use verbal attacks to gather evidence of his 'great disrespect and his presumptuous attempts to obstruct the Flower and Stone Gang and the people's tributes to Your Majesty.' He wouldn't dare use force to inflict physical pain on him!"
How can you save him? If you resort to violence, it will only put him in an unfair position and make him the wrong party! At this time, just let him stay in there for a month or two. It will be fine and will only benefit him! The longer he stays in there for a month or two, the more famous he will be in the future! The people of Jiangdong will be grateful to him for this!"

Murong Yan couldn't reason with her sister and tried to force her way out, but her martial arts skills weren't as good as her mother's. In the end, her mother restrained her to prevent her from causing more trouble than she could help. After a while, she finally calmed down.

Murong Qiu persuaded his sister to stop, and continued to follow this line of thought to check for omissions and fill in the gaps, kindly reminding:

"Right now, we should still worry about our own family. Big Brother Zhao is temporarily imprisoned. If Zhu Zhen can't find a way out, he might start with other people and try to find evidence that Big Brother Zhao has long been dissatisfied with the Flower and Stone Gang, defied the imperial order and acted arbitrarily, and obstructed the Flower and Stone Gang in advance."

We should quickly leave the city and hide, or stay in the military camp on Taihu Lake for a month or so, so as not to reveal our whereabouts. As long as we don't get caught by Zhu Zhen, it will be the greatest help to Brother Zhao."

Duan Yuyan agreed with what he said, and immediately, not caring about the weight of the farm, she simply took the family's valuables and ran away. Murong Yan bit her lip and hesitated for a moment, but finally figured it out. Since this was all part of Brother Zhao's plan, it wasn't like she was abandoning him.

She was just a little sad. Why didn't Brother Zhao tell her all the details of the plan? Instead, her sister knew more. Although some of it was her sister's own speculation, there must be another part that Brother Zhao told her.

It seems that Brother Zhao is still worried about my lack of strategy and determination, and there are some things he cannot discuss with me.

The people from the Murong family quickly slipped away. Before leaving, Duan Yuyan instructed the housekeeper Deng Yue to notify several other wealthy families who had been close to Zhao Zicheng in recent months, so that they would not be implicated and attacked by Zhu Zhen.

Some of these wealthy families were more far-sighted and knowledgeable, and immediately left Suzhou for temporary refuge after receiving the reminder.

However, some individuals, less deeply involved, lingered, fearing attention and loss of valuables, and thus opted for the chance to stay. This was their own fault. If they were subsequently attacked by Zhu Zhen, it wouldn't be Zhao Zicheng's fault; he had done his utmost. Natural selection was a good way to weed out those with poor judgment.

Within two days after the Murong family left Suzhou City, Zhu Jie, as expected, began to vent his anger on other people who had previously cooperated with Zhao Zicheng because he could not make a breakthrough with Zhao Zicheng.

But this operation really did not yield any results. It only caught some small fish and shrimps that knew nothing about anything. Instead, it caused Zhu Zhen to accumulate more and more public resentment, and the officials and people of Suzhou became more and more hateful towards Zhu Zhen.

……

Around the seventh or eighth day after Zhao Zicheng was arrested, the news of his arrest finally reached Bian Jing - this speed was obviously much faster than the normal transmission of news, which shows that Zhao Zicheng had also made plans long ago.

He just waited to be caught, and then asked the younger brothers who had been arranged in advance to pass the news to Bian Jing as soon as possible.

In other words, within Jiangnan, on the first day, only the people of Gusu County knew about Zhu Jie's revenge on Zhao Zicheng. Around the third day, all four counties of Suzhou knew about it. By the fifth or sixth day, at the normal speed of news transmission, the news would only reach Zhao Zicheng's hometown of Xiuzhou, and at most Hangzhou and Changzhou, which border Suzhou and Xiuzhou.

According to normal transmission speed, by the seventh or eighth day, only people in Huzhou and Zhenjiang would know about the news from Suzhou. At the same time, people in Bianjing, thousands of miles away, would also know about it. This speed could be described as a targeted spread of 300 miles a day, only half as slow as the 600-mile express delivery of urgent military information from the imperial court.

The news of Zhao Zicheng's arrest reached the capital through two channels, one open and one secret.

The obvious channel naturally relied on Wei Tongpan, who had previously reached a secret cooperation with Zhao Zicheng.

According to the laws of the Song Dynasty, the deputy magistrate at the prefecture level was also responsible for supervising the local area.

Above the prefectures, theoretically, there were administrative agencies at the praetorian level. However, the Song Dynasty practiced a system of "real prefectures and virtual praetorian" (praetorian), similar to the later practice of "strengthening prefecture-level cities and weakening provincial powers." At the praetorian level, while there were pacification envoys and judicial commissioners, the prefectural magistrates were not directly under the supervision of the judicial commissioners when exercising their supervisory powers.

In other words, when handling daily unjust cases or reporting illegal acts of prefects and county governors, the Tongpan can choose to report through the Tidianxingyusi and report step by step.

However, when encountering a particularly important and urgent case, if the Tongpan felt it necessary to "throw the impeachment memorial directly in front of the emperor" and deliver it directly to the central government, he could also use "urgent delivery" to secretly present it to the emperor without going through the Ministry of Justice or the Censorate.

The system design of the Song Dynasty allowed the existence of such channels in order to avoid extreme situations where the lower levels would collude to deceive their superiors and conceal the truth from their subordinates. Inspectors were given the privilege of breaking through the traditional reporting process step by step.

This is recorded in many historical materials of the Northern Song Dynasty. For example, Li Tao's "Continued Zizhi Tongjian Changbian" recorded that when Fan Feng was the magistrate of Zibo Prefecture during the reign of Emperor Renzong of Song, he secretly reported the corruption of the prefect to the emperor.

In history, Wei Xian was able to reach the emperor directly and petition him to abolish the Flower and Stone Tax by using this channel.

However, this kind of memorial often requires gambling on the political future of a Tongpan. If the memorial submitted beyond the level is not approved in the end, and you abuse this privilege, then your official career will basically be over.

But this time, when Wei Xian saw that Zhu Zhen was so greedy and his retaliation was so despicable, he became furious and no longer hesitated. He used all his authority at once and fully supported Zhao Zicheng. He secretly reported all of Zhu Zhen's actions in Suzhou to Bian Jing.

At the same time, Zhao Zicheng's second channel of information was naturally to continue sending it to Chen Dong and other friends and classmates in Beijing.

This channel was mainly used to stir up public opinion and rumors, so that everyone could see Zhu Zhen's counterattack in Jiangnan.

Before this, Zhao Zicheng’s memorial had been fermenting in Bian Jing for more than half a month.

When Chen Dong and others first learned that Zhao Zicheng was impeaching Zhu Zhen, they also expressed symbolic support, but it did not make a big fuss. They could only admire and support Zhao Zicheng in their hearts - the reason was very simple, because Chen Dong and others went through normal channels, tried to write letters to express their opinions, or stopped the sedan chairs and carriages of the ruling officials, and petitioned in the streets. The officials who were questioned could choose to pass the buck, pretend to be ignorant, and muddle through the matter first.

With just one sentence, "I will report the people's sentiments to the emperor. Please wait for the results," Chen Dong and others would be silenced temporarily.

The court hasn't said it won't accept the case or discuss it. Isn't it just going through the motions? What's the rush?

If things get any more urgent, it means that Chen Dong and his men are not in the right and are not abiding by the court's procedural justice.

But this time, the situation was different, because the bad news that Zhao Zicheng was retaliated by Zhu Jie also reached Tokyo. The court officials' attempt to use the strategy of procrastination was no longer effective.

"Zhu Jie and those corrupt officials are in cahoots! The court previously said they would discuss abolishing the Flower and Stone Gang! In the end, instead of receiving good news from the court, we only received their revenge against loyal officials and righteous men!"

"Everyone, let's go to the Xuande Gate and knock on the gate to make our pleas! We must make sure this matter is made known to the emperor!"

(End of this chapter)