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When Lu Chunxiao hurried to the lobby of the Metropolitan Procuratorate's Yamen, he felt a little strange in his heart.
What crime did Zhan Shanchang commit? It turns out that these censors and officials, who have always been afraid of chaos in the world, dare not express their opinions at will, and they need to come up with their own ideas?
You know, although Lu Chunxiao is the leader of the Metropolitan Procuratorate, the imperial censors of the Metropolitan Procuratorate have a lot of freedom. Who they want to impeach and who they want to praise have never needed to be expressed by Lu Chunxiao. Now the imperial censors have a lot of freedom. The historians are all undecided. The nature of Zhan Shanchang's crime must be extremely serious.
But let alone Zhan Shanchang who has now lost his official position. Even when he was most prosperous in the past, he was just a minister of the Ministry of Household Affairs, barely on the edge of "an important minister of the imperial court". Even if such an official really wanted to To commit those serious crimes, I am afraid that I lack some qualifications and weight.
With such doubts, Lu Chunxiao hurriedly walked into the lobby of the Metropolitan Procuratorate's Yamen.
Then, Lu Chunxiao saw a group of censors gathered around and discussing, all of them had solemn expressions.
"In my opinion, all the incriminating evidence in this secret letter is detailed and conclusive, and there is a high probability that it will not be false!"
"Master Ge is too arbitrary. This time is not a trivial matter such as corruption, bribery, or forming a clique for personal gain. It is not just Zhan Shanchang who is involved. If there is no evidence in the end, we people will be in trouble!"
"How about we go to the Hubu Yamen to investigate the evidence first?"
"The Ministry of Finance may not cooperate! What if we are trying to scare the snake?"
"But you can't just turn a blind eye to something of such a serious nature, right?"
After hearing the discussions among the censors, Lu Chunxiao quickly walked closer and asked: "What are everyone talking about? What kind of difficulties are they encountering? You want me to come up with an idea personally?"
After meeting Lu Chunxiao, the censors immediately found their backbone and quickly handed a secret letter to Lu Chunxiao for review.
After Lu Chunxiao opened the secret letter and took a few glances, his expression suddenly became serious.
The content of this secret letter was actually a report of Zhan Shanchang's crime of colluding with the feudal king to oppress the people and secretly tampering with the accounts and albums of the household department!
According to the secret letter, Zhan Shanchang has colluded with many feudal kings since he became the minister of the Ministry of Finance for the year, and secretly assisted these princes to tamper with the fish scale album and yellow album of the Ministry of Revenue. Provide assistance to these lords to annex land and evade taxes!
You should know that in addition to the land granted by the emperor, land taxes were also required to be paid on the land purchased by the vassals with money.
The fish scale atlas of the Ministry of Household Affairs is a kind of land registration book. Houses, mountains, forests, ponds, fields, etc. are arranged and drawn in order and the corresponding names are indicated. It can be said to be a general album of folk fields. Because the drawings resemble fish scales, they are name.
If there are large-scale land changes in various places, they must be registered with the Yamen of the Ministry of Household Affairs, and the fish scale atlas must be revised accordingly. This was one of the central means of the Ming Dynasty to suppress illegal land annexation by the people, and it was also the Ministry of Household Affairs' levy of land tax. important basis.
The Yellow Book of the Ministry of Household Affairs, also known as the Yellow Book of Taxes and Services, is a household register created by the imperial court to verify household registration and collect taxes and levies. It is also an important basis for the imperial court to collect taxes and levies from the people.
Both the fish scale atlas and the yellow album were made in five copies and were kept in the counties, prefectures, chief envoys, as well as the Nanjing Household Department and the Capital Household Department.
After the mid-Ming Dynasty, due to changes in the social situation, wage labor gradually became common, the yellow book system was destroyed, and the fish scale atlas gradually became inconsistent with the actual situation. Most of the time, it was circulated as official documents, but wealthy families everywhere If they want to annex land on a large scale and evade taxes, the Yellow Book and the Fish Scale Atlas are still restrictions they cannot avoid. The fastest updated Qiqi /
This secret letter listed in detail the time and evidence that Zhan Shanchang had tampered with the fish scale album and the yellow album several times in the past year. Under Zhan Shanchang's secret tampering, a large number of fields disappeared in various places and were used by vassal kings everywhere. They secretly annexed, and thousands of households lost their land and were forced to become propertyless refugees. They could only rely on the lords of various places to make a living as tenants.
After reading the contents of this secret letter, Lu Chunxiao finally understood why the censors were undecided.
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Zhan Shanchang colluded with the feudal princes to secretly tamper with the household account books, assist the feudal princes to annex land, oppress the people, evade taxes, etc. These crimes are of course extremely serious! In particular, the fact that court officials secretly colluded with the vassal king was the biggest taboo of the Ming Dynasty for hundreds of years!
But the most important thing is that this matter not only involves Zhan Shanchang, but also involves several clan kings!
Look at the origins of these vassal kings - King Lu, King Su, King Liao, King Zhou, King Dai, King Ji, King Ding, and King Yong! They are all the most influential vassal kings among the clans of the Ming Dynasty!
Once Zhan Shanchang is investigated for his crimes, it means that these vassal princes will also be investigated for their crimes of illegally annexing land, oppressing the people, and evading taxes!
This matter is of great importance!
If the charges cannot be proven in the end, the imperial censors who impeached the matter will inevitably be held accountable by the court, and they will also encounter counterattacks from the vassal kings. They may end up dead without a burial place. It can be said that the tiger's mouth is pulling out teeth and the risk is extremely high. big!
The censors seemed to be fearless, but they also knew who was a soft persimmon and who was a hard rock. At this time, they naturally did not dare to make mistakes and hesitated to move forward. They just hoped that Lu Chunxiao could take the lead in expressing his position.
Due to the seriousness of the matter, Lu Chunxiao also did not dare to express his position easily. Under the attention of all the censors, he just repeatedly checked the contents of the secret letter and remained silent for a long time.
Suddenly, Lu Chunxiao's expression changed, and he realized that these feudal kings involved in the case gave him a sense of déjà vu.
King Lu, King Su, King Liao, King Zhou, King Dai, King Ji, King Ding, King Yong... Isn't this the owner behind the "Eight Kings Boat Company"?
I think back then, the "Eight Kings Ship Company" secretly colluded with Japanese pirates to invade Suzhou and other places and harmed countless people, but it made Emperor Deqing very angry!
However, because the nature of this matter was too serious, Emperor Deqing did not dare to pursue it openly. He could only endure it secretly, otherwise the reputation of the royal family would be ruined.
Because Emperor Deqing deliberately concealed it, the censors were not aware of this matter, but Lu Chunxiao, as a core member of the "Princeling Party", received some information.
Emperor Deqing must have been very dissatisfied with these vassal kings, and he had always wanted to find some suitable reasons to punish them!
And now, aren't the various evidences in this secret letter a suitable reason for Emperor Deqing to attack these feudal kings?
Illegal land annexation, tax evasion and tax evasion, and bullying of the people were all crimes. Even if Emperor Deqing could take the opportunity to find trouble for these vassals, it would not affect the reputation of the royal family. It was simply tailor-made and just right. !
Thinking of this, Lu Chunxiao's expression changed slightly again.
During this period of time, the situation of the crown prince Zhu Heyu has become increasingly bad. Everyone believes that he is about to be deposed, and the seventh prince Zhu Hejian will soon become the new crown prince.
Under such circumstances, the Qingliu people who had always been die-hard supporters of Crown Prince Zhu Heyu had a subtle attitude and did not hold a strong opposition attitude, because the Qingliu people were also optimistic about the seventh prince Zhu Hejian and did not think that Zhu Hejian would replace Zhu Heyu as the crown prince. The prince will harm their interests later.
However, Lu Chunxiao was somewhat different. He was a staunch supporter of Zhu Heyu and was unwilling to see Zhu Heyu deposed.
Therefore, Lu Chunxiao suddenly felt that the various intelligence and evidence contained in this secret letter might be an opportunity for Prince Zhu Heyu!
Prince Zhu Heyu was detained by Emperor Deqing for ten days, and it was about to end!
At tomorrow's morning court, Prince Zhu Heyu can go to court again to discuss politics!
At that time, if Prince Zhu Heyu is allowed to personally impeach the crimes of Zhan Shanchang and several vassal kings, it will comply with Emperor Deqing's wish to punish these vassal kings, and maybe it will please Emperor Deqing and let him Emperor Deqing changed his mind.
At the same time, after Prince Zhu Heyu led the Qingliu people to accomplish this great event, his reputation will rise again, and the Qingliu officials will resume their support for him!
In this way, Zhu Heyu's position as crown prince may be stable!
Thinking of this, Lu Chunxiao suddenly folded up the secret letter and put it in his arms, and told the censors: "My colleagues, this matter is of great importance. Even I dare not make a decision, but His Royal Highness the Crown Prince is grounded. The time has expired, and we can go to court tomorrow morning to discuss affairs. I think it is better to leave this matter to His Highness the Crown Prince himself to decide, what do you think?"
After all the censors looked at each other, they all believed that this matter needed to be decided by Prince Zhu Heyu personally, and they all nodded in agreement.
After getting the approval of all the censors, Lu Chunxiao didn't waste any time and immediately left the Imperial Court Yamen and rushed towards the Prince's East Palace.
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Just when Lu Chunxiao entered the East Palace to visit Prince Zhu Heyu, Zhao Junchen also received the news in time.
The secret letter received by the Metropolitan Procuratorate reporting Zhan Shanchang and the vassal kings was naturally sent secretly by someone sent by Zhao Junchen.
In order for Zhan Shanchang to "reasonably commit suicide", a suitable charge must be found. This charge cannot implicate Zhao Junchen and the "Zhao Party", and must be extremely serious in nature, making Emperor Deqing completely unforgivable!
Only in this way, no one will be suspicious after Zhan Shanchang "commits suicide".
So, Zhao Junchen thought of the shareholders behind the "Eight Kings Shipping Company"!
Emperor Deqing has long been deeply disgusted with these bold vassal princes. If any official secretly colludes with these vassal princes, Emperor Deqing will never forgive him.
At the same time, Zhao Junchen and the "Zhao Party" have no contact with these feudal kings, so Zhan Shanchang's crime will not be implicated on them.
In fact, it is not false that Zhan Shanchang secretly tampered with the yellow album and the fish scale album for these vassal kings.
For more than a year, these vassal kings have continued to annex people's lands, and often give Zhao Junchen generous gifts, asking Zhao Junchen to tamper with their account books and cover up their actions.
Since the establishment of the vassal system in the Ming Dynasty, this process has been going on for hundreds of years. Whenever the vassal kings annexed a certain amount of land, they would collude with officials at all levels to secretly modify the account books at all levels and conceal their amount of land.
After Zhao Junchen became the Minister of the Ministry of Household Affairs, he originally did not intend to break this unspoken rule easily and damage the interests of the officials of the Ministry of Household Affairs.
But Zhao Junchen also knew that if the money and food situation of the Ming Dynasty was to be completely reversed, the clan worms everywhere must be eradicated!
Especially after the incident of "Eight Kings Boat Company" colluding with Japanese pirates was exposed, this kind of thing became more and more inevitable!
Therefore, for more than a year, whenever the vassal kings sent people to find Zhao Junchen and asked Zhao Junchen to tamper with the household atlas for them, Zhao Junchen thought that sooner or later he would fall out with the vassal kings, but he was unwilling to do so. I personally handled this matter, so I handed these matters over to the officials of the Ministry of Household Affairs below to handle, some of which were handled by Zhan Shanchang. Qiqi's first release on the entire network
This is not to say that Zhao Junchen had already had the idea of harming Zhan Shanchang, but Zhao Junchen did not want to hand over his handle to the vassal kings, and he also believed that he would have a way to protect Zhan Shanchang and others in the future.
But this time, Zhao Junchen wanted to make Zhan Shanchang "reasonably commit suicide", so this situation was just right to take advantage of.
Therefore, Zhao Junchen secretly exposed Zhan Shanchang's secret assistance to the feudal princes in tampering with the account books of the Ministry of Accounts!
Moreover, there were actually several Household Department officials responsible for tampering with the Household Department atlas, but this time Zhao Junchen blamed Zhan Shanchang for all the crimes.
There are three benefits to this approach.
The first is to create a reason for Zhan Shanchang to commit suicide; the second is to take the opportunity to weaken the clan's power and further reverse the court's financial status; the third is to give Prince Zhu Heyu an opportunity to delay the time for the seventh prince Zhu Hejian to become the crown prince!
In addition, once Emperor Deqing begins to investigate the crimes of these vassal princes, the situation in the court will become even more chaotic, which will also give Zhao Junchen an opportunity to fish in troubled waters.
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At this time, in the study room of Zhao Mansion.
When Zhao Junchen received the news and learned that Lu Chunxiao had hurried to the Prince's East Palace, he couldn't help but smile.
"This Lu Chunxiao is not a stupid person. He doesn't need our secret reminder at all. He can think of the benefits of this matter to Prince Zhu Heyu... It's not like my painstaking planning was in vain!"
On the side, Zhang Yuer also smiled and said: "This Lu Chunxiao can sit in the position he is today. At most, he is pedantic in temperament, but he is definitely not a fool!"
After lightly smiling and nodding, Zhao Junchen ordered: "Now we can start the next step of the plan...send someone to call Zhan Shanchang here and tell him that I have urgent matters to discuss with him!"
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