And these civil servants who were close to Fang Shihong were basically civil servants who were enemies of the Donglin Party.
Many of them were members of the Qi, Chu and Zhejiang parties during the Wanli period.
Now because Fang Shihong, the chief minister's son, took the initiative to make friends, they were united through Fang Shihong.
After Fang Shihong said this, these civil servants immediately followed the instructions.
It didn't take long.
The entire capital suddenly had dozens of bookstores.
Moreover, these bookstores all put a publication called "Exposing the Disasters of the Donglin Clique" in front of the store doors, making people sell it.
The entire publication "Disasters of the Donglin Clique Revealed" exposes all the scandals committed by the Donglin Party since the end of Wanli, including those who secretly betrayed Xiong Tingbi and Fang Congzhe after Taichang, and planted spies in the inner court with the intention of replacing the emperor. As well as colluding with Shanxi merchants for smuggling in the Liao region.
Feng Quan is the main author.
As a Hanlin man, he has great literary talent and writes clearly and vividly what the Donglin Party has done.
Moreover, he also systematically summarized the trilogy of political struggles carried out by the Donglin Party, that is, first to impeach together, then to ask for bribes, and finally to secure the bribes from the impeached.
After all, Feng Quan's own father had been attacked by the Donglin Party, so he knew the tricks of the Donglin Party very well.
besides.
Other civil servants who had enmity with the Donglin Party followed Fang Shihong's instructions and compiled the Donglin Party's conspiracy into vivid storylines for storytellers to tell, and also compiled ballads for storytellers to sing. Why did Zhou Yanru and Miao Changqi collude with the inner court? Words such as "the Donglin Party is a party without a king and a father" began to appear intensively in the mouths of children in the capital city.
Next, after the hype was almost over, a group of scholars whom Fang Shihong bribed himself began to imitate the Donglin Party in writing disclosure posts.
The main content of the post is that the Donglin Party is a clique that brings disaster to the country and the people, and that all Donglin Party members are corrupt, accepting bribes, hypocritical and traitorous, and are not true gentlemen but real villains, etc.
For this reason, Fang Shihong also prepared to organize a group of literati to complain in front of the Metropolitan Procuratorate, expose the crimes of the Donglin Party, and asked the imperial censor officials to find out the crimes of the Donglin Party and report them to the court.
The Jin Yiwei, who was responsible for the security and order in the imperial city and the central government offices, naturally knew about this, but Zhu Youxiao had already asked Wei Zhongxian to warn the Jin Yiwei leaders such as Tian Ergen and Xu Xianchun in advance, telling them not to interfere in the internal fighting among the scholar-bureaucrats.
Therefore, Jin Yiwei has no control over comments criticizing the Donglin Party and other behaviors such as posting and revealing posts.
This is equivalent to the emperor not ending up in person, standing on the dry bank and watching the non-Donglin Party fight against the Donglin Party under Fang Shihong's instigation.
…
"Excessive! Who wrote this "Revealing the Disasters of Donglin Clique"? Who asked you to sell it, Jin Yiwei, why didn't you confiscate this book! You actually said that I, Donglin, formed a clique for personal gain, excluded dissidents, had no king or father, and intended to cause trouble. Disrupting the government and disrupting the government! This is simply a frame-up!"
Hou Xun, an official of Donglin, became angry after discovering the "Disasters of Donglin Clique" and took the publication back to the Metropolitan Procuratorate and showed it to other censors.
Censor Li Yingsheng and Zhou Qiyuan were both furious.
"We must go to court and ask the imperial court to ban this book. This is nonsense, slander, and pure slander! According to the laws of the Ming Dynasty, all those who create monster books and speak evil words should be executed!"
Li Yingsheng immediately tore up the book and yelled.
…
"Hou Xun, Li Yingsheng, Zhou Qiyuan and other imperial censors jointly asked the department to strictly investigate the compiler and author of "Revealing the Disasters of the Donglin Clique" and destroy and ban the book. They also asked the factory guards to strictly investigate the people behind the scenes! The princes thought this was the case. How should the matter be settled?"
The cabinet soon received a joint letter from Hou Xun and others.
Fang Congzhe also asked about Han Xu and Wang Xiangchun.
"The person who compiled this book is obviously lying and slandering the imperial court. When did our Ming Dynasty have cliques?! What's more, if the emperor is holy, the seas and rivers are clear, and the officials are pure and the people are pure, how can there be any party strife?! The official thinks that such nonsense is strictly prohibited in front of the ministers! It appears on the market, but there is no need to delve too deeply into it and cause panic.”
When Han Xu started talking, he could guess that people outside the Donglin Party must be behind this, but now he had instructions from Ye Xianggao to try not to be too radical, which meant that he was denying that these compiled books were While making false slanders, he believed that the court should not delve too deeply into it.
"I also ask Yuan Fu to make a decision. I have limited opinions on this matter."
Wang Xiangqian directly let Zaifang Congzhe make his own decision.
Fang Congzhe said: "From my perspective, this is just a trivial matter, so don't make a fuss about it. Civil disputes are common. At that time, the dispute over the country was more intense than this, and it was meaningless. Managing a big country is like cooking a small delicacy. This is not a big deal. It's not appropriate to start a big fight, these censors are too nervous."
As he spoke, Fang Congzhe wrote three words on the memorial: "I understand."
"I know" means that there is no intention to deal with it.
Seeing this, Han Xu wanted to say a few more words but finally shut up.
After this memorial was sent by the eunuch in the clerk's room to the Supervisor of Ceremonies, and then sent to Zhu Youxiao by the Supervisor of Ceremonies, Zhu Youxiao just took a look at it and asked the Supervisor of Ceremonies to approve it.
It is obvious that both Zhu Youxiao and Fang Congzhe are allowing non-Donglin officials to manipulate public opinion and compete with the Donglin Party for the power of public opinion.
And because of this, the non-Donglin civil servants secretly manipulated by Fang Shihong became more and more troublesome.
In fact, these civil servants who were not from the Donglin Department actually followed the example of the previous Donglin Department scholars who interceded for Li Sancai. They also came to the Metropolitan Procuratorate and shouted: "Please ask the Metropolitan Procuratorate to investigate the clique of Donglin officials for personal gain." , corruption, extortion of bribes and other illegal things!”
"Please ask the Metropolitan Procuratorate to investigate Donglin officials' illegal activities such as forming cliques for personal gain, embezzlement and extortion of bribes, etc."
"Please ask the Metropolitan Procuratorate to investigate Donglin officials' illegal activities such as forming cliques for personal gain, embezzlement and extortion of bribes, etc."
"Please ask the Metropolitan Procuratorate to investigate Donglin officials' illegal activities such as forming cliques for personal gain, embezzlement and extortion of bribes, etc."
The scholars organized by Fang Shihong shouted so loudly in front of the Metropolitan Procuratorate, alarming many scholars and people around them.
The left deputy censor of the Metropolitan Procuratorate, Wang Zhiyin, was originally worried that his and Li Sancai's affairs would be exposed because of Li Sancai's execution. Now he saw so many scholars in front of the gate of the Metropolitan Procuratorate, shouting that the Donglin Party Forming cliques for personal gain, embezzling and extorting bribes, naturally made them even more angry and violent.
"What are you doing? Leave me immediately. Do you know what you are doing? You are slandering the imperial officials, criticizing the government, and making nonsense! You are seeking death!"
Therefore, Wang Zhiyin yelled at the scholars outside who asked the Metropolitan Procuratorate to severely punish Donglin officials for their illegal activities. This was very different from the previous attitude of the Donglin scholars when they made trouble for Li Sancai in front of the Metropolitan Procuratorate, although they were all the same. He is a scholar.
But these scholars naturally did not listen to Wang Zhiyin and did not leave. They continued to shout about the Donglin Party's crimes of forming a clique for selfish purposes.
Is the censor Li Yingsheng even more angry because of this? He asked: "Where are the Jin Yiwei, why don't you come and arrest these bastards and interrogate them severely!"
But Hou Xun saw that he immediately returned to his duty room and started writing furiously. He gritted his teeth and said: "These bastards who have no laws are really unworthy of being scholars. I will go to the court and ask the court to deal with them immediately and remove them from their honors." , put them in jail, find out the mastermind behind the scenes, and then best kill them all to maintain the dignity of the imperial court!"
