Take control of Wei Zhongxian at the start and confiscate 100 million from him!

Chapter 215 Wen Tiren: I fucking laughed.
Qufu, Shandong.

The study in the Confucius Mansion was brightly lit by candlelight.

Kong Yinzhi died.

He was executed by slow slicing, the cruelest form of torture in the Ming Dynasty.

More than seventy ringleaders of the Kong clan were also executed, their heads rolling and their blood flowing like a river.

A bloodbath has come to an end.

But Zhu Youjian knew that punishments were tangible, but the peace and stability of the world depended on the hearts of the people.

The execution of the Confucius family was merely cutting off the deeply rooted branches. To eradicate the poison that had permeated the scholarly community for hundreds of years and to erase the almost sacred mark the Confucius family had left on the hearts of scholars across the land was a hundred times more difficult than killing people.

He slowly walked to the window and gazed at the majestic outline of the Confucius Temple under the night sky.

He personally separated it from the private property of the Kong family, brought it under the control of the imperial court, and proclaimed the birth of the "Grand Priest" system. With an easily attainable honor, he successfully divided the scholars of the land, drawing the vast majority of poor scholars onto his side.

But this is not enough.

The human heart is forgetful, but also adept at beautifying and sympathizing.

The bloodshed of today may, ten or twenty years from now, be transformed into a tragic song of "tyrant slaughtering the descendants of saints" through the embellishment of certain "historical writings".

Kong Yinzhi's crimes will be forgotten, but Zhu Youjian's cruelty will be magnified, becoming an excellent excuse for later scholars to attack the imperial power.

Zhu Youjian would never allow such a thing to happen.

He not only wants to be the creator of this history, but also its sole and ultimate interpreter!
What the Ming Dynasty, and indeed all of China, needs is not a momentary fear, but a lifetime of memory, a thousand-year imprint!
He wants to launch an unprecedented war, a war without bloodshed, but far more brutal than bloodshed!

The battlefield is in people's hearts; weapons are pen and ink; and provisions are the countless sins of the Confucian family.

Zhu Youjian's gaze sharpened like a knife once again.

"Someone! Summon Wen Tiren and Tian Ergeng."

A moment later, two figures entered the study and bowed respectfully.

Zhu Youjian withdrew his gaze from the night outside the window and slowly turned it to the two of them.

He began succinctly, “I executed Kong Yinzhi by slow slicing and brought to justice more than seventy members of the Kong family, the chief villains. This was merely cutting away the rotten flesh of the carbuncle. But the toxins remain in the blood, and the memories remain in people’s hearts.”

The emperor continued in a deep voice, "What I want is not a simple criminal trial, nor a few edicts proclaiming the truth to the world. I want this trial, along with everything about the Kong family, to become an indelible mark in the hearts of all scholars and common people of my Great Ming Dynasty for the next hundred, two hundred, or even a thousand years to come!"

His voice suddenly rose in pitch, and the candlelight seemed to flicker.

"From this day forward, I decree that when the people of the world, whether three-year-old children or eighty-year-old elders, mention 'Duke Yansheng' or 'Confucius Mansion in Qufu,' what should come to mind is not 'Teacher for All Ages,' nor 'Moral Exemplar'! But blood! Tears! Countless wronged souls and endless sins! It is I who, with three hundred and sixty cuts, one cut at a time, have carved those two words onto Kong Yinzhi's body—'Traitor to the Nation'!"

"National traitor!"

These two words struck Wen Tiren's heart like two heavy hammers.

He felt a chill run down his spine and lowered his head even further.

Wen Tiren had long understood the emperor's ambitions, which far exceeded what could be measured by punishing a single family. What he wanted to do was to shatter the ancestral tablet of the Confucius Mansion, which had stood for a thousand years, and to forever hold the pen of history, which judged this period and recorded its merits and demerits, in his own hands!

The emperor himself wanted to replace the two characters "Confucius Mansion" with a new soul forged from darkness, ugliness, and sin!

Wen Tiren.

"Your subject is here." Wen Tiren's voice trembled slightly.

"My edict, along with the previous articles in the *Daming Daily*, is just the beginning. Next, I order you to immediately launch a three-pronged offensive, this is the 'Pillar of Public Opinion.' I will use it to support a new era, and also to erect a monument of shame in people's hearts that will stand for a thousand years!"

The emperor strolled with his hands behind his back, his gaze shifting between Wen Tiren and Tian Ergeng. His leisurely demeanor conveyed an air of composure as if he held the hearts of the people in the palm of his hand.

He first looked at Wen Tiren, his voice calm.

"There are two kinds of people's hearts. One is the heart of all the people under heaven, and the other is the heart of scholars. I want them both."

He stopped in his tracks, a hint of pity flashing in his eyes, yet his gaze was as cold as a god looking down upon ants.

"To win the hearts of the people, you must make them feel your pain, make them cry, and make them hate!"
"I will erect a monument of blood and tears for the Kong family in the *Daming Daily*! It will be called *The Blood and Tears of Qufu*, serialized every seven days! Every wrongful conviction in the Imperial Investigation Bureau will be written into a heart-wrenching story! I don't want cold, hard case reports; I want the top scholars of the Hanlin Academy to use their most beautiful and eloquent language to depict those most tragic experiences!"

The emperor's tone suddenly turned sharp, each word like a blade chilled to the bone:
"I want every literate person to be able to see, between the lines, the blood splattering as the tenant farmer Zhang Laosan was beaten to death by the servants of the Kong family! To hear the desperate cries of the widow Li before she threw herself into a well after her last three acres of land were taken from her! And then, accompanied by the most vivid illustrations: a woman embracing a corpse, an old man with a broken leg, children enslaved... I want to use the most direct sensory pain to carve the sins of the Kong family deep into the bones of every single person, like a knife and an axe!"

Wen Tiren felt a chill creeping through the room. He could already imagine the overwhelming public resentment that would be stirred up when these vividly illustrated and ornately written accounts of "human tragedies" spread throughout the country via newspapers.

This act uses the pen as a boundary and ink as a plow, deeply cultivating the emperor's desires and aversions in the hearts of millions of people.

Upright and honorable, yet irresistible!

Zhu Youjian seemed to see through his thoughts, and the corners of his mouth lifted slightly.

"But public anger alone is like water without a source; it can only create a temporary uproar. To make this fire burn long and powerfully, we must win over the hearts of the scholars. Those self-proclaimed virtuous scholars value Confucian ethics and moral principles above all else. They will privately accuse me of inciting the ignorant masses and using emotions to disrupt the law. Therefore, I want you great Confucian scholars to stand up and use what they believe in most to slap them in the face!"

The emperor took a step forward, his aura imposing.

"I am going to start a second column called 'The Great Confucian Scholar's Sharp Commentary'! You, Wen Tiren, as the Minister of Rites and a role model for scholars, should write the first one for me! Begin by stating that 'those who follow the path of the sages and commit rebellious acts should be punished the same as commoners, or even more severely!'"
Then, I will personally select renowned scholars and Confucian masters to take turns speaking! I will have them cite classical texts, from the "righteousness above family ties" of the Spring and Autumn Annals to the "hearing of the execution of the tyrant Zhou" of Mencius, to explain the principles thoroughly to me!

"I want them to use the most profound Confucian classics and the most eloquent words to tell all the scholars in the world: what the emperor is doing today is not destroying Confucianism, but protecting it! Executing Kong Yinzhi is not murdering a sage, but cleaning up the sage's house and removing the poison from his bones!"
I will use the most authoritative reason to give the most sacred endorsement to this massacre! I will ensure that all those who wish to oppose it will find not a single word in their sacred texts that can defend the Confucian school!

Wen Tiren's forehead was unknowingly covered in a fine layer of cold sweat.

This decree effectively bound him and his trusted ministers to the banners drawn by the emperor himself.

From then on, they became the ones who cheered for this sweeping change, and they had to use their lifelong reputation and knowledge to silence the gossip of the world for the monarch.

From then on, the wise ruler and his virtuous ministers were in the same boat, sharing both glory and ruin!
Finally, the emperor's gaze passed over Wen Tiren and landed on Tian Ergeng.

"With the support of the people and the justification of righteousness... we still lack the most potent medicine, the medicine that can truly destroy the heart."

He looked at Tian Ergeng as if admiring his most prized weapon: "Tian Ergeng, those key stewards and accountants from the Confucius family in your prison are more valuable than their lives. Let them live, let them write 'confessions'!"

"I want them to write down for me every single detail of the shady, unspeakable things that happen inside the Confucius Mansion! How the Duke Yansheng seized sacrificial fields and lined his own pockets; how the sons of the Confucius family forcibly took women and indulged in debauchery; how the stewards in the mansion lent money at exorbitant interest rates, driving people to ruin and death! I want details! The more detailed the better!"

He paused, enjoying Wen Tiren's somewhat dazed expression, and chuckled, "These things will be verified by the Embroidered Uniform Guard, then handed over to the Ministry of Rites for polishing. The best ones will be published under real names in the third column, called 'Confessions of the Steward of the Confucius Mansion'!"

Wen Tiren listened attentively with his head bowed, and then the deep confusion in his heart gradually dissipated.

The emperor's ruthless methods since his ascension to the throne, including the extermination of tribes and the execution by slow slicing, far surpassed those of the founding emperor.

The entire Confucius family was guilty of heinous crimes, each and every one of which was punishable by death, including confiscation of property and extermination of the entire clan.

However, those key figures who held all the secrets of the Kong family were not all killed; some were still imprisoned in the imperial prison.

This is illogical! When did the emperor become so benevolent?
Wen Tiren had previously been secretly thinking that the emperor left these important figures from the Confucius family behind so that they could serve as witnesses during the public trial, corroborating the physical evidence in the case file, thus making the Confucius family's crimes obvious and impossible to overturn.

Although this is the proper and righteous path, it is not particularly extraordinary.

现在
So that's how it is!

It's not that we won't kill them, it's that letting them live temporarily is more useful than letting them die!
Emperor! What...what are you doing?!

In an instant, Wen Tiren's blood seemed to freeze, causing even this Minister of Rites, who had been navigating the treacherous waters of officialdom for decades and was accustomed to the ups and downs of life, to tremble slightly.

"The Record of Blood and Tears" stirs up the fire of public sentiment, while "The Great Confucian's Sharp Commentary" occupies the moral high ground.

And this... this damned "Confession of the Steward of the Kong Family Mansion" is an invisible blade coated with deadly poison. It's not aimed at the necks of the Kong family members, but rather at the hearts of everyone in the world, stirring them up violently!

Its poison surpasses that of arsenic! Its power far exceeds that of the Embroidered Spring Knife!

From ordinary people to peddlers and laborers, and even high-ranking officials, who wasn't curious about the secrets hidden in the lofty "Sage's Residence"?
Who wouldn't want to peek into the decadent private life of the descendant of that "teacher of all ages"?

This kind of thing, which satisfies everyone's curiosity and voyeuristic desires, will spread far faster and wider than the former two!
It will spread like an unquenchable plague, rampant in teahouses and taverns, in brothels and entertainment venues, in streets and alleys, and in fields and fields!

It will transform the image of "Duke Yansheng" from an abstract villain into a concrete, ugly, and vivid "lecher," "corrupt official," and "hypocrite"!
It will completely strip away the last shred of the sacred halo of the Confucius family, nailing them to the vulgar pillar of shame to be spitted on and ridiculed by everyone!
At this moment, Wen Tiren gained a new and profound understanding of the phrase "killing someone by destroying their spirit."

The emperor not only wanted the Confucius family to die on the execution ground, but also wanted them to be remembered and talked about for eternity, becoming a laughingstock that people would despise forever!

Having figured all this out, a strange smile involuntarily appeared on Wen Tiren's face.

It was a laugh mixed with horror, bitterness, and utter reverence.

He laughed, he really laughed.

Before becoming Minister of Rites, Wen Tiren even thought that with his political skills, he could easily handle even a one-on-one confrontation with Qian Qianyi, Qian Longxi, and their Donglin Party members in the imperial court.

But now, standing before this young emperor who was not yet twenty, he realized how ridiculous and naive his proud schemes and cunning were!
It's like... a three-year-old child playing with mud.

But the emperor before us is already wielding the power of wind and thunder, reshaping the universe!
(End of this chapter)