"Zhang Nianhua! You are such a sycophant, aren't you afraid that you will end up like this?!"
After Zhang Wenxi obtained the emperor's permission, he really started to investigate the situation of the soldiers in the Fengyang area, and even started to investigate the situation of the soldiers in the guard station.
As a result, a large number of civil servants and generals in Fengyang were arrested or dismissed, and the gentry were also dismissed or exiled for serving as soldiers.
When Huaiyang's Deputy Military Envoy Lu Liangui was arrested and brought to Beijing, he loudly scolded Zhang Wenxi.
Zhang Wenxi didn't take it seriously.
Relying on the power of the Military Selection Department given to him by the emperor, he attracted a group of Fengyang military officials who also wanted to make progress and did not use soldiers to stand on his side. Although Lu Liangui and other bureaucrats and gentry could no longer use the soldiers of the imperial court, they began to exploit them. Soldiers get rich, but they can only tolerate it openly.
But by doing this, Zhang Wenxi was offending the bureaucratic landlord class, so the bureaucrats who represented the interests of the bureaucratic landlords naturally hated him and began to impeach him in court and slander him among the people.
"I impeach Zhang Wenxi, the Inspector of Fengyang and a member of the Privy Council's Military Selection Department, for mistreating the gentry and framing officials and generals, which has caused local people's resentment to boil and put every official in danger!"
On this day, Li Ke, Chen Ye, gave Zhu Yijun a book to impeach Zhang Wenxi.
After the first assistant Shen Shixing saw it, he summoned Chen Ye and asked: "How did Zhang Wenxi abuse the gentry and frame the officials?"
Chen Ye then took out the posters and tabloids and said: "Back to Yuanfu, there are posters as evidence, and there are a large number of tabloids in Huaiyang area that revealed that Zhang Wenxi, in order to prove to the Privy Council that he was effective in rectifying military affairs, forcibly falsely accused the military constitution, guerrillas, and Qianhu They even blackmailed big households and forced them to pay five hundred taels of paperwork, otherwise they would falsely accuse the camp soldiers of being slaves and forcefully extort money from them."
Shen Shixing took the notices and tabloids and read them. After reading them, he said: "This is not enough evidence. Who knows if it is a frame-up. But you are giving advice, so you can hear what happened."
"What Yuan Fu said is true, but the subordinates are afraid that if this continues, Fengyang officials will resign out of self-risk, and large households are only afraid to move elsewhere or reduce their expenditures, which will greatly affect local commerce and trade, which will lead to an increase in refugees. "
Chen Ye replied at this time.
Shen Shixing said: "This is just your guess. Your Majesty cannot be allowed to listen to your own words."
Therefore, Shen Shixing drafted Chen Ye's memorial and asked Zhang Wenxi to defend himself.
Yuan Yikui, the censor, therefore believed that Shen Shixing was shielding Zhang Wenxi, so he impeached Shen Shixing for protecting a private party and harboring cunning intentions.
Zhu Yijun directly ordered Yuan Yikui to be exiled to the army and Anton Nuerqian was exiled.
When the bureaucrats impeached Zhang Wenxi, he, as the emperor, did not have to personally express his position, but to impeach the chief foreman Shen Shixing, he, the emperor, had to have a clear stance, otherwise it would only make Shen Shixing afraid of doing anything again.
Yuan Yikui was exiled by the army, and his son Yuan Yuanrong went to Shu to replace him.
Zhu Yijun immediately disapproved it, saying that filial piety could not replace loyalty and etiquette should not be messed up. He only gave Yuan Yuanrong a great gift to accompany his father to Nuerqian.
After receiving the imperial edict, Yuan Yuanrong opened his mouth wide and did not recover for a long time. He did not expect that the emperor would not accept this trick.
However, Yuan Yuanrong's behavior also gained the sympathy of many bureaucrats. For a time, many officials complained, saying that Yuan Yuanrong's filial piety was commendable, but the court's treatment was too unkind and would deepen the resentment of the people all over the world and block speech. Road, the envoys dare not speak.
However, these officials who were promoted to the throne were all dismissed one after another.
Politics is about me and not you. Zhu Yijun of the Central Court and the people in power cannot allow the bureaucrats below to turn against them.
Zhang Wenxi's self-defense memorial was also sent to Beijing not long after, and Shen Shixing also believed it when he was planning to deal with it. Instead, Chen Ye was demoted and transferred to Japan to supervise the affairs of Japan, which was actually demoted and exiled.
After all, being transferred from an official in the capital to a local official in Guanzhong is considered to be a promotion and a secret demotion, let alone going to Japan to serve as an inspector.
The officials, gentry, and right-wing officials in Fengyang were naturally greatly disappointed by this, and began to express their sympathy for Chen Ye, Yuan Yingkui, etc. in folk tabloids and in daily conversations.
But they could only do this, and they did not dare to really confront the court. Instead, the people intensified their efforts to fabricate rumors to smear Zhang Wenxi.
However, they soon discovered that there were reports from the public about the situation of officials and gentry serving in the camps, and the common people in the camps reported that the gentry arrested soldiers and civilians without authorization, and even many officials, gentry and officials arrested soldiers and civilians wherever they went, which led to Many soldiers and civilians were killed and injured, and tabloids began to appear in large numbers about wives and daughters being raped.
In fact, the number of such tabloids far exceeds the number of tabloid posts smearing Zhang Wenxi.
Almost everywhere in big cities like Huai'an and Yangzhou there are blank spaces with these kinds of tabloid revelations.
What's more, there are many tabloids piled directly in densely populated areas for people to pick up or distributed by children.
Zhu Yijun actually asked Jin Yiwei to do this in order to first confuse public opinion and then correct it.
That is to say, first expose the shady materials of the gentry and landlords who oppress the people, and then let the people of the world start to learn to think between the two opposing public opinions, so that the public opinion can really become a kind of supervision of the bureaucrats instead of becoming bureaucrats. Especially a mouthpiece of civil servants and bureaucrats.
Since Jiangzuo Temple developed the rotary wooden type printing press, the official printing technology of the Ming Dynasty has naturally been greatly improved, and the printing speed has been much faster, so it has become more advantageous in the battle of public opinion.
What's more, the imperial court itself is stronger in terms of financial and human resources.
In addition, the Jin Yiwei who was responsible for this matter was much better at execution than before after being rectified by Zhang Jingxiu.
Therefore, after Zhu Yijun asked Jin Yiwei to do this, the public opinion of exposing the powerful gentry's use of soldiers and horses overshadowed the public opinion of attacking Zhang Wenxi.
"Excessive! Very excessive! Who did this?!"
"Why are they all talking about the use of soldiers! Doesn't the Lord know that he ordered the ban?"
Lu Shude, who was preparing to go to Nanjing to serve as minister of Taichang Temple, asked Shi Yingyue, the governor of Xinfengyang, on this day.
Shi Yingyue asked Lu Shude with some confusion: "Don't say it can't be banned at all. Even if it can be banned, how can we scholar-bureaucrats stop the mouths of the world?"
"Then we can't let such a material argument, which is clearly humiliating the gentlemen and humiliating the nobles, be publicized like this!"
"As a member of the scholar-bureaucrats, do you have to sit back and watch such unhealthy trends spread?"
Lu Shude asked.
Snapped!
Shi Yingyue slapped the table and asked Lu Shude: "Why do you mean I sit back and watch? Don't you still want the people of the world to speak through newspapers?"
Lu Shude couldn't help but said angrily for a moment: "That's not what I meant. What I meant was that if it goes on like this, it is very inappropriate! It will insult the politeness of the world!"
"It's okay. There are still many gentlemen in the world. A few tabloids will not ruin the image of us scholar-bureaucrats. You must have confidence in us civil servants and scholar-bureaucrats."
Shi Yingyue said this.
"Announcement!"
After hearing this, Lu Shude could only sigh, then nodded and asked again: "Ke Gong, are you really not worried that this will cause everyone in Fengyang to resign and make everyone uneasy?"
"The key point is, I haven't seen anyone resigning angrily because of these tabloid posts exposing the illegal use of soldiers and civilians, let alone the public life being affected by this?"
(End of chapter)
