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

Chapter 305 This principle, you didn't understand it after all.

When Lin Yuanshan's official boat arrived, the city of Jinling was already ablaze with autumn colors, and the music and singing on the painted boats on the Qinhuai River seemed to have subsided considerably due to the somber autumn atmosphere.

However, as the boat was firmly placed on the stone steps of the dock, Lin Yuanshan, dressed in a bright red python robe and surrounded by his entourage, prepared to receive the welcoming ceremony he had imagined, presided over by the Ministry of Rites or the Imperial Household Department. But the scene before him caused the string in his heart, which had been playing triumphant songs for thirty years, to suddenly snap with a "clang".

There were no ceremonial guards or smiling colleagues at the dock.

Only squads of Imperial Guards, dressed in black robes and with embroidered spring knives at their waists, stood solemnly, as immovable as mountains.

The chilling aura of the blade mingled with the autumn wind, completely erasing the hustle and bustle and warmth of the dock.

The leader was tall and stern-faced, and he wore a Qilin robe that only high-ranking officers of the Embroidered Uniform Guard could wear.

Lin Yuanshan's eyelids twitched suddenly; he recognized the person.

This person was none other than Li Ruolian, the newly appointed commander of the Embroidered Uniform Guard.

Li Ruolian personally coming to the dock to greet an official was itself an extraordinary event.

Before Lin Yuanshan could speak, Li Ruolian stepped forward, coldly cupped her hands, and said in a voice devoid of warmth, "Eunuch Lin, you have had a long journey. His Majesty has decreed that I escort you to the palace immediately to meet the Emperor, without delay."

Lin Yuanshan had been involved in the palace and the Grand Canal for thirty years, and had seen all kinds of storms.

But at this moment, the clear calculation in his mind was instantly thrown into chaos.

The situation seems to be out of control.

Even though his heart was in turmoil, Lin Yuanshan managed to maintain a calm demeanor.

He chuckled, but his laughter was drier than the autumn wind: "I am truly flattered that Commander Li has come to greet me personally."

As he spoke, he slowly walked off the deck.

Just as he brushed past a close attendant behind him, his fingers, hidden beneath the wide sleeves of his robe, flicked almost imperceptibly.

That taciturn man had also followed Lin Yuanshan for ten years.

He was not a eunuch, but a bodyguard that Lin Yuanshan had rescued from a pile of corpses, and he only obeyed Lin Yuanshan's orders.

The man's eyes flickered slightly, and he lowered his gaze, already understanding.

After doing all this, Lin Yuanshan seemed to have regained some confidence.

He straightened his clothes, gestured for Li Ruolian to proceed, and said with a forced smile, "Since His Majesty is in such a hurry to see me, let's go. Let's not keep the Emperor waiting."

He was surrounded by a group of Imperial Guards as he walked towards the palace.

The magnificent official ship moored at the dock, along with the dozens of elite guards he brought, had now become mere background figures.

On the way to Fengtian Hall, the ground was covered with cold stone slabs, and the palace walls stood solemnly on both sides. Every step felt like stepping on the earthen mound of one's own grave.

Lin Yuanshan's heart sank inch by inch.

……

Fengtian Hall was once the most solemn and magnificent palace in the Ming Dynasty.

In the past, this was the place where grand court assemblies were held, with civil and military officials gathered together.

At this moment, however, the enormous palace appeared eerily empty.

Tall, golden dragon pillars pierced the dome, and the interior of the hall was dimly lit. On the throne in the center sat a young emperor dressed in yellow robes.

That was the emperor.

He was very young, but his brows carried a melancholy and resolute air that belied his age.

His gaze was like two sharp swords tempered with ice, shooting straight at Lin Yuanshan, who had just been escorted into the hall.

"This old servant, Lin Yuanshan, the eunuch superintendent of the Huai'an Customs, kowtows to His Majesty, long live the Emperor! Long live the Emperor! Long live the Emperor!"

Lin Yuanshan knelt down and performed a grand salute.

He dared not look up, yet he could feel that gaze piercing his very bones.

The emperor on his throne did not order him to rise. The hall was deathly silent, a silence more terrifying than any thunderous rage.

It was unclear how much time had passed—perhaps an hour, yet also as if it were just a moment—when the emperor's young yet icy voice echoed in the empty hall:
"Lin Yuanshan, do you know your crime?"

Lin Yuanshan's heart skipped a beat, but he still tried to remain calm and kowtowed, saying, "This old servant is foolish and does not know what crime I have committed. Please enlighten me, Your Majesty."

"What a dullard!" Zhu Youjian sneered, waving his hand at the eunuch Wang Chengen beside him, "Bring it up and let him see for himself!"

Wang Chengen stepped forward in response and slammed stacks of yellowed account books and scrolls of contracts filled with secret codes in front of Lin Yuanshan.

Papers were scattered all over the ground like snowflakes, each one covered with sins.

Lin Yuanshan's pupils suddenly contracted.

It contained detailed records of his embezzlement of customs duties and misappropriation of grain transport over the years, with every single entry clearly documented. The sheer amount of money involved was enough to warrant his death ten times over.

What terrified him even more was that among them were many secret agreements he had signed with officials and gentry in Jiangnan, leaders of the Grand Canal Gang, and even some impoverished members of the imperial family!

This was a premeditated hunt!

When the emperor toured Jiangnan, he executed officials and gentry, and while reforming the textile bureau, he was also collecting evidence of his crimes!

Long-forgotten memories flashed through Lin Yuanshan's mind.

Some of these contracts were left behind by him twenty years ago when he had just established himself on the canal transport line, in an attempt to win people over, before he had become too shrewd.

He thought that with the passage of time, those old stories would be forgotten and that he would have already settled things with those involved through various means.

Lin Yuanshan never expected that these seeds, which he thought had long since rotted in the soil, would be dug up one by one by this young emperor!

He prided himself on being calm and shrewd, believing that he would be flawless in his actions over the next ten years, but he forgot that he had also made mistakes when he was young, and that he had also made foolish mistakes in retrospect.

But the emperor had grasped his entire past and present!
In this light, he was already fish on the emperor's chopping block, a target that had to be killed.

A deep chill permeated his entire body.

Lin Yuanshan knew that at this point, any pleading or explanation would be futile.

Begging for mercy will only lead to a more undignified death.

He took a deep breath, and his survival instinct and the fierce courage of a ruthless hero were instead aroused in the face of adversity.

Lin Yuanshan slowly raised his head, looked directly at the young emperor on the throne, and a strange smile appeared on his face.

Since death is inevitable, let's just tear off the mask of civility and take the offensive as our defense; perhaps we can still fight for a sliver of hope!
“Your Majesty,” he no longer referred to himself as “old servant,” and his voice became steady and hoarse, “I accept these things. The victor is king, the loser is villain; I have lost, and I have nothing to say.”

He changed the subject, a glint of cunning in his eyes: "But I really want to know, what exactly does His Majesty want to do after going to such lengths to dredge up all these old, trivial matters? Is it just to kill me alone?"

Zhu Youjian stared at him coldly, without uttering a word. Seeing this, Lin Yuanshan simply played his cards one by one.

He pointed to the contracts scattered on the ground and sneered, "Your Majesty, look at the names on these ledgers! How wide the network is! From gentry in Jiangnan to officials in the capital, which one has clean hands? Your Majesty is wise; you should know that water can carry a boat, but it can also capsize it. If we were to shake half the court for the sake of one of my family..."

Then, Lin Yuanshan played his second card: "Furthermore, Your Majesty, the livelihoods of tens of thousands of people in the Grand Canal, from boatmen to trackers, from managers to clerks, depend on our family. The transportation of grain from the north and south is the lifeblood of the nation."

These things cannot be accomplished in a day.

Even if this old servant is guilty of a thousand crimes, if this bloodline is severed, what will the soldiers in the north and the people of the capital eat? Besides my family, who else can take over this mess in such a short time? And who dares to take it on?

This is his greatest confidence – “Decades of business have made the canal transport industry inseparable from me!”
After Lin Yuanshan finished speaking, he stared intently at the emperor on the throne, like a gambler who had lost all his chips, waiting for his opponent's final verdict.

He gambled that the young emperor would be wary and would choose to let him redeem himself for the sake of overall stability.

However, the emperor's face remained expressionless, his gaze like a sharp blade, cutting through Lin Yuanshan's bravado and reaching the deepest, most vulnerable part of his heart.

"Lin Yuanshan, you have served three emperors both inside and outside the palace, and you claim to have seen through the world. Then I would like to ask you," every word of the emperor struck Lin Yuanshan's heart heavily, "have you ever seen in the history books any pair of emperors and ministers who, after tearing each other apart like you and me today, were able to mend their broken relationship and live in peace?"

A hint of world-weariness and coldness, incongruous with his age, flashed in his dark eyes.

"Huo Guang of the Han Dynasty held immense power, but his entire family was exterminated; Li Linfu of the Tang Dynasty was all talk and no action, but in the end, his coffin was dug up and his corpse mutilated; in our great Ming Dynasty, there was Liu Jin before and Yan Song more recently, and which of them didn't end up with their families destroyed and their people killed when the tree fell?"

When Liu Jin's name was mentioned, Zhu Youjian's tone was deliberately contemptuous.

"Your self-righteous belief that the law does not punish the masses, has it ever worked in front of them? What do you consider indispensable, which you regard as your own life, mean in the face of my empire? Even Liu Jin, who was a 'planting emperor,' was killed without hesitation by my grandfather, Emperor Wuzong, and ended up being executed by slow slicing, cut into a thousand pieces! You, a customs eunuch who entrenched yourself in the canal transport, do you really think your head is harder than his?"

Zhu Youjian gave a cold laugh and said in a low voice:
"You've been running this business for thirty years, yet you still don't understand the simplest of principles. The struggles in the imperial court are never about entertaining guests, writing essays, painting, or embroidering. They can't be so elegant, so unhurried, so refined."

"It's a fight to the death!"

"So you didn't understand this principle before!"

That last sentence was like a poisoned dagger, completely piercing through all of Lin Yuanshan's illusions and defenses.

All his previous probing, threats, and deals were seen by the other party as nothing more than the laughable ramblings of a dying man.

Zhu Youjian paused, then abruptly changed the subject, his words like the sharpest knife piercing Lin Yuanshan's most vulnerable spot:
"I know you have a nephew in Hejian named Lin Wenyu, is that right?"

Lin Yuanshan finally frowned!
Lin Wenyu is the only remaining member of his Lin family, and the source of all his hope and sustenance!
An unprecedented rage and panic instantly shattered all of Lin Yuanshan's pretense.

He suddenly raised his head, his eyes bloodshot.

"Your Majesty!" For the first time, he forgot his rank and roared, "The sins of the family should not be visited upon them! This is the rule since ancient times! If you kill me, I will accept it! But if you dare to harm my nephew in the slightest, I... I will haunt you even as a ghost!"

Faced with the threat, Zhu Youjian simply smiled faintly, a smile filled with the cruelty of a cat toying with a mouse.

"I will not kill him."

These four words did not reassure Lin Yuanshan; instead, they instilled a deeper fear in him.

The emperor continued in his emotionless tone, "Not only will I not kill him, but I will also ensure that your Lin family will be remembered for eternity."

Lin Yuanshan was stunned.

"I have already issued an edict to erect a monument and cast a statue for you, Lin Yuanshan, in the most prominent places at Qingjiangpu Wharf under your jurisdiction and in your hometown of Hejian."

"It will be a kneeling statue, cast with the finest molten iron, so that you will kneel forever by the canal, apologizing to the people you have exploited."

"That monument will be taller than any merit monument. I will personally write the inscription, detailing every crime you committed, from embezzling funds to forming cliques for personal gain, so that your descendants, the descendants of the Lin family of Hejian, can see it for generations to come! Let all the scholars in the world know what kind of person you, Lin Yuanshan, are! Let your name be forever recorded in history, alongside those of Qin Hui and Yan Song!"

Lin Yuanshan froze completely.

die?
He is not afraid of death.

Having lived a life of constant danger for thirty years, he had long since put his life on the line.

House search?

He wasn't afraid.

Even if 90% of the wealth he hid was confiscated, the remaining 10% would still be enough for Lin Wenyu to live a life of wealth and luxury.

But reputation... but the future of the family...

He was a eunuch, a man with a physical disability, whose greatest obsession in life was to bring glory to his ancestors and make the Lin family family honored because of him.

He used half of the money he embezzled to cultivate relationships, and almost the entire other half was sent back to his hometown in Hejian to repair ancestral halls, establish clan schools, and acquire sacrificial lands... He wanted to make the Lin family a prominent family in Hejian, so that future generations could stand tall and be respected.

Now, what the emperor needs to do is uproot this greatest obsession of his, throw it on the ground, and crush it into dust in the most humiliating way!

Physical death is but a moment of pain, but this kind of complete spiritual destruction, this punishment that will never allow the family to rise again and will forever be nailed to the pillar of shame, is ten thousand times more painful than death!
This is the most vicious and heart-wrenching method!
"what--"

Lin Yuanshan could no longer hold on; his tough exterior as a tyrant was shattered by this fatal blow.

He let out a long, mournful howl that sounded inhuman, and collapsed to the ground, as if all his bones had been removed.

His pride in his composure, shrewdness, and valor vanished in that moment.

Tears streamed down his face as he acted like a madman, frantically kowtowing on the ground, his forehead slamming against the gold bricks with dull thuds, blood flowing freely.

"No... Your Majesty... No! Please! Please!" he wailed incoherently. "This old servant was wrong! This old servant deserves to die! Kill me! Cut me into a thousand pieces! I only beg you... I only beg you to spare the Lin family's reputation... spare my poor nephew..."

His last, and only, line of defense has completely collapsed.

Lin Yuanshan, like a dying mad dog, began to frantically bite in order to gain that last glimmer of hope.

He roared and spilled everything he knew, trying to buy his family a chance to survive!
“Your Majesty! The crime doesn’t just involve this old servant! The Grand Canal Transport Commissioner Yang Yipeng! He… he takes more ‘waste rice’ from the grain transport every year than I ever did! I have his account books! I have his handwritten letters!”

"And...and the Duke of Ying in the capital! Zhang Weixian! It's...it's him! Every year he takes 200,000 taels of 'tribute' from the grain transport! He says...he says it's for bribing the palace and the border generals! He tacitly approved many of my actions! He's the one who backed me up! Your Majesty! Do you dare touch him? He's a trusted minister entrusted with the care of the young emperor! Do you dare touch this pillar of the nation? Do you dare!"

His voice, which had initially been pleading, had turned into a final, hysterical outburst, filled with blood and tears as it echoed in the empty, deathly silent Fengtian Hall.

The emperor finally moved slowly.

He walked step by step to Lin Yuanshan, who was limp as a rag doll, but he didn't look at him. Instead, his gaze was fixed on the distant and empty outside the main hall.

“Do you know, Lin Yuanshan,” Zhu Youjian began, “that at the beginning of my reign, I repeatedly issued orders to strictly prohibit corruption in the grain transport system. But when these orders were issued, they were met with indifference and disobedience from various regions.”

He paused, as if recalling something.

"Later, I went on a killing spree in Jiangnan, with heads rolling and rivers of blood flowing. I thought that the bloodshed would be enough to wake you all up. But I was wrong."

Zhu Youjian finally lowered his head, looking down at the former canal transport tycoon who was now weeping at his feet. There was no anger in his eyes, only a weary look of having seen through everything.

"In return, you forget it as soon as you turn your backs and become even more ruthless. This canal transport system is still like a bunch of greedy maggots, frantically sucking blood from the Ming Dynasty."

He leaned slightly closer to Lin Yuanshan, and in a whisper that only the two of them could hear, asked the question that had been weighing on his mind for so long, a question that had puzzled him for so long:

"Where did you get the audacity?"

(End of this chapter)