The Ming Dynasty's Five Hundred Years

Chapter 28 The Intent to Destroy Jingning
With the Crown Prince established and the heir apparent determined, the Ming Dynasty set sail anew.

Everyone knows that this is a new era!
The power dynamics will shift dramatically, and the political landscape will be reshuffled.

Although Li Qi had made up his mind to retire during the Jianwen reign, the Hongwu reign still had nearly six years to go.

He couldn't let Zhu Yuanzhang realize that he wanted to slack off.

"The emperor's role in me is to check and balance the literati in the south, such as those in Jiangnan. We should start from this point."

The situation among scholars has changed drastically. As the emperor's appointed leader of the northern scholars, I will be assigned to be the chief examiner at least once in the upcoming imperial examinations.

The North-South Examination Scandal of the 30th year of the Hongwu reign could not possibly happen again.

Li Qi meticulously planned out the major events that would remain in the Hongwu reign for the next six years, among which the Lan Yu case and the North-South Examination case were naturally the most well-known.

"When the time is right, we can propose to the emperor in advance the system of separate admissions for the North and South, and we can continue to expand and develop it in the future."

They even created a list of scholars from vassal states, requiring officials from vassal states like Korea to take the imperial examinations in the Ming Dynasty before returning home to serve as officials. This would cultivate a group of pro-Ming officials, making it easier to conquer other countries later on as technology advanced.

Li Qi pulled his wandering thoughts back.

"The scholars of Jiangnan should not make any major moves now. After all, the Jianwen reign lasted for four years, and I don't want to be counterattacked and punished in the future."

But a knife that dares not strike an enemy loses its value and may even be broken by its master.

Li Qi never forgot the contract he made with Zhu Yuanzhang: he would be Zhu Yuanzhang's sword.

"We still need to investigate Hu Yuan's position. I remember that in August of the 25th year of Hongwu, a case of a clerk fleeing occurred in Yingtian Prefecture."

Zhu Yuanzhang personally issued the arrest warrant, but the clerk named Hu San roamed freely through eight counties in Yingtian Prefecture, where local powerful families and monks helped him evade punishment from the court.

After recalling the case, Li Qi's face showed a hint of relief. The escape of the clerk was a minor matter, but it highlighted the weakness of the imperial court's control over Jiangnan. This was naturally due to the "lenient policies of the Yuan Dynasty," which allowed local tyrants to form.

Zhu Yuanzhang must have deeply abhorred these unofficial organizations that were usurping the power of the imperial court. Moreover, the fact that this matter involved temples and other religious organizations further touched a raw nerve for Zhu Yuanzhang.

"The case of the escaped clerks will take at least three to five years to sort out. Add to that the imperial examinations, lectures, and the case of Lan Yu, and the remaining six years of the Hongwu reign will be over."

After Li Qi finished planning everything, he let out a deep breath.

"Then now..."

Li Qi's eyes suddenly sharpened, and a strong killing intent burst forth. "It's time to use the Lan Yu case to get rid of Marquis Jingning, Ye Sheng!"

……

There were two groups of corrupt officials in the Ming Dynasty: one group consisted of civil officials and the other group consisted of military officials.

Civil officials were feudal landlords, while military officials were slave owners. Civil officials were notorious for their wickedness, but few people knew about the wickedness of military officials. Li Qi happened to have read Zhu Yuanzhang's "Great Proclamation to Military Officials," which was written specifically to criticize military officials. It was a living hell.

Zhu Yuanzhang once angrily denounced the military officers of the Ming Dynasty, saying, "These officials not only violate the laws of the court, but also cause suffering to the soldiers. They show no compassion whatsoever, and treat the soldiers' suffering worse than that of pigs and dogs."

Previously, in the case of the soldiers and civilians fighting over a wife when Li Qi killed Yang Jing, Yang Jing and a group of prefectural and county officials were all killed by Zhu Yuanzhang.

However, the Ministry of War, the garrison, and the Five Military Commissions involved in this case ultimately disappeared from the case file.

Yang Ye, a soldier who was one of the main figures in the case, was only reprimanded, but Zhu Yuanzhang did not kill him.

This outcome might seem very strange to ordinary people. How come the person who started it all got away with it?

Li Qi wasn't surprised at all, because this was a topic that couldn't be touched; whoever touched it would die. He even put aside his sense of public duty and didn't delve into it.

Why did Yang Ye, a military household member, suddenly seek to marry an ordinary woman who had long been married and had children, and whose beauty had faded after twenty years?
Because he has no wife, he has not been able to marry in the past twenty years.

Ultimately, in the Ming Dynasty, no one was willing to marry their daughter to a military household.

Military households, or, to use a more academic term, "military serfs."

Why would the garrison and the Ministry of War help Yang Ye, an ordinary military household with no power or influence?

Why would the county government, which usually pays lip service to its superiors, go to such lengths this time, even risking being reported to higher authorities, to separate Wang Wu and Ru Niang and take Ru Niang away?
Because requiring military households' families to accompany the army was a major matter personally overseen by the emperor!
Therefore, after Yang Ye reported that he had a marriage contract, the garrison and the Ministry of War naturally dared not delay the emperor's personally overseen plan to strengthen the army, and immediately issued an order to the county government.

The county government also knew that this was an important task that had to be done, and that the personal fates of Wang Wu and Ru Niang were not important in this matter.

This explains why, after the case of the military and civilians fighting over a wife ended, the garrison, the Ministry of War, and the Five Military Commissions were not punished.

This is not a simple folktale about a wicked person causing trouble and then a wise and discerning emperor seeing through everything; rather, it is a tragedy caused by a fundamental systemic problem.

This is also why Li Qi dared not investigate further.

He, and the current Li family, have absolutely no ability to change the fundamental military system of the Ming Empire.

The fact that he could use the Wang Wu and Yang Ye case to stop the trend of forcibly marrying commoners' wives was the limit of what he could do.

If we want to make fundamental changes, we should wait for the Li family to produce a regent with absolute power like Zhang Juzheng.

Just like Li Qi now, he doesn't have the ability to change the garrison system, but he still has the means to impeach the Marquis of Jingning by taking advantage of the garrison issue.

"The emperor now harbors murderous intent towards Lan Yu. Ye Sheng is Lan Yu's relative by marriage. Historically, the purge of the Lan faction began with Marquis Jingning, Ye Sheng."

In fact, Ye Sheng would have died even if Li Qi did nothing, but he was always unhappy about having others do things for him. Besides, if he killed Ye Sheng himself, the system would most likely reward him with achievement points.

Moreover, the reason given for eliminating Ye Sheng in history was his collusion with Hu Weiyong. Li Qi felt that this reason was too lenient on Ye Sheng. He not only wanted Ye Sheng dead, but also wanted him to be disgraced forever.

Zhu Yuanzhang launched many major campaigns, each one resulting in bloodshed and displaying his formidable imperial authority.

However, Li Qi always believed that Zhu Yuanzhang's methods were too crude, as if he was afraid that others would not see that he wanted to eliminate dissidents.

Whether it was killing Yang Jing, Zhan Hui, or Li Yuanming, or lecturing at the Imperial Academy and discussing the succession in the Fengtian Hall, Li Qi's actions were all conducted openly and honestly.

When they debated the Heavenly Scripture in the Fengtian Hall, Zhan Hui and Li Yuanming felt they had no chance of survival and couldn't even beg for mercy. They only deeply regretted their carelessness but didn't feel they had died unjustly.

Looking at Zhu Yuanzhang's purge of Hu Weiyong's faction, including the killing of Li Shanchang, it's clear that Li Shanchang harbored ulterior motives and deserved to die. However, in the end, the people and later generations only remembered him for killing meritorious officials.

Li Qi thought to himself, "The Marquis of Jingning deserves to die, but the reason for his execution cannot be that he colluded with Hu Weiyong. We need to give the emperor another reason."

Moreover, the key issue is not the severity of the crime, but rather how to legitimately imprison him in the Imperial Guard's prison.

Once he's in the imperial prison, he'll naturally "confess" and confess to some "rebellious acts." Based on Li Qi's understanding of the Ming Dynasty's nobles, garrison troops, and military serfs, everyone must have countless blood debts on their hands. Killing them ten or a hundred times wouldn't be a problem.

(End of this chapter)