As Hai Rui expected, on March 26, the third year of Wanli, Huating and Songjiang Prefecture reported civil uprisings at the same time. In total, more than 13,000 hungry people in the two places were led by people with ulterior motives. The hungry people in Huating County first attacked Changping Granary, and then attacked Xu Mansion to steal grain; in Fucheng, they attacked the government treasury and government offices.
Because the government, county and military preparations had been prepared for a long time, Wang Yixiu, Yang Ruiyun, Cai Guoxi and others immediately took action, and the civil uprising was put out as soon as it started. The losses in both places were not big, only the gate of Xu Mansion was broken through, causing considerable losses. Later, officers and soldiers arrived, arrested all the leading hungry people, and suppressed the attack.
The main force of the civil uprising was a large number of slaves fired by the large families in the south of the Yangtze River on the grounds that the imperial court reiterated the slaveholding order, mixed with some tenants who had lost their livelihood and were unwilling to leave their hometowns. Therefore, to be precise, this civil uprising was a slave uprising. ——Historically known as the "Songjiang Slave Revolution." Since Zhu Yijun came to power, this democratic revolution was the largest in the Jiangnan region.
As Hai Rui expected, as soon as the civil uprising was reported to the capital, an urgent edict came out, appointing Hai Rui as the imperial envoy to "governor Jiangnan to supervise the Songjiang civil uprising project". He made great efforts to investigate the inside story of Songjiang slaves.
The content of the imperial edict was spread out, and people all over the Yangtze River started to have thoughts about it when they saw that the emperor had no intention of admitting his mistake. At this time, word came out from nowhere that the Xu family, the Dong family, the Zhuang family, and other family members were deliberately inciting a civil uprising to coerce the court because the emperor asked them to retreat from their fields—so the emperor sent Hai Qingtian to investigate thoroughly.
Within half a month, the news spread everywhere. When everyone heard that there was such an inside story, no one dared to do anything to support the rebellion. The southerners sympathized with the Xu family and criticized the imperial court because of the rumors. spread, causing the temperature to drop to a low level.
Hai Rui received the order on the eighth day of April, and his thoughts were as true as if he had swallowed a fly. However, after all, he was not someone who harmed national affairs with selfish motives, so he had no choice but to put his mind to work, give full play to his expertise in handling cases, and start to get to the root of the problem.
The two main masterminds of the civil uprising, Hai Rui knew clearly, were the Jiangnan wealthy family headed by the Xu family; and Zhu Yijun, who was far away in the capital and lived in the capital, could not deviate from the direction of the investigation at all.
Hai Rui wanted to find out what role the Jinyi Guards and the Guarding Eunuch Mansion had played in the uprising, but these people were all cunning. When the Imperial Envoy asked questions, he first included the Dong family, the Zhuang family, the Xu family and other wealthy families. The situation in which people connected with each other before the civil uprising was completely reversed.
But when Hai Rui asked them why they didn't report it to Governor Yingtian or Songjiang Prefecture in time, the unanimous answer was that monitoring the movements of these wealthy families and officials was routine work, but who would have thought that these people were so ambitious that they instigated a civil uprising to coerce the imperial court. ? Who would have thought of this?
Hai Ruixin said that the emperor fed me flies, but you are feeding me shit! But he is by no means a person who is incapable of adapting to changes. He has no good impression of these intricate Jiangnan wealthy families at all. He didn't have any concrete evidence against the emperor's evil hand, so he could only hold his nose and admit it.
By the end of April, Hai Rui had clarified the entire civil uprising case and formed a special report to be sent to the capital on an urgent basis.
In addition to reporting the case, Hai Rui also reminded the court that public opinion in the south of the Yangtze River was arousing at this time - expressing great sympathy for the tragic situation in which Xu Ge's hometown was hit by the slave rebellion, and the old man fled with his family in embarrassment, almost falling into the hands of thieves.
Hai Rui reported that the entire Jiangnan area was already criticizing the imperial court for reaffirming the slaveholding order and cracking down on wealthy families. If the court cannot handle it properly, there will be civil unrest!
After Zhang Juzheng read the memorial, he saw that Hai Rui had made a solid case that Xu Jie's two sons had colluded with the Dong family, Zhuang family and other wealthy families before the civil uprising. He was shocked and for the first time in his life, he had doubts about Hai Rui's integrity. Suspect.
Based on his understanding of Xu Jie, his teacher's slippery skills have surpassed nature and reached the level of being transformed by gods. How could Hai Rui be left with such a big deal? However, the confessions of the masterminds behind the Dong and Zhuang families that Hai Rui attached at the end of the memorial, coupled with the surveillance records provided by Jin Yiwei, made Zhang Juzheng feel less at ease with the Xu family.
But the old Xu family still had to be saved. If the emperor broke down the Xu family and ransacked their homes, not only would the political price paid by the court be huge, but the damage to Zhang Juzheng's own authority would also be great.
There was no other way, so Zhang Juzheng stopped asking for help and directly asked to see the emperor with Hai Rui's thick memorial.
Zhu Yijun met Zhang Juzheng in the East Nuan Pavilion of Yangxin Hall. When Zhang Juzheng saw him, he saw some locked sandalwood boxes on his table, engraved with complicated patterns, and Zhu Yijun was reading the "Silver Seal Directives" written by governors and imperial envoys from various places.
At this time, the late spring sunshine shone on Zhu Yijun's face. Zhang Juzheng, who was standing behind him, suddenly discovered that the original plump cheeks on the emperor's face had disappeared. Sitting on the throne, it could be seen that his figure had become more and more slender, and a faint Adam's apple began to appear under his chin. I couldn't help but sigh in my heart: "The emperor has begun to grow into an adult, but I have aged very much in the past two years."
Putting aside his emotional thoughts, Zhang Juzheng presented Hai Rui's memorial to the emperor. Zhu Yijun opened the page and asked, "Is this also Hai Rui's memorial?" After speaking, he raised the unfinished secret memorial in his hand and said, "This is also Hai Rui's memorial, because it is a silver medal memorial, which is faster than giving it to the court. .”
After speaking, he said with a smile: "This is my critic. In the secret memorial, Hai Ruiqing's family accused me of secretly practicing deceit and using the Songjiang Civil Rebellion to promote political affairs. I was not following the right path - this is unfounded. How dare you say that.”
When Zhang Juzheng heard this, he thought that Hai Rui always had a non-stop temperament. As soon as I thought about it, my heart suddenly shuddered again, and my back was suddenly covered with cold sweat.
Without showing off, he calmly asked the emperor to read through the memorial that Hai Rui had given to the court. After Zhu Yijun looked at it, he asked with a smile: "Old gentleman, you don't stick to the yellow and come to play directly. What do you have to say?"
Zhang Juzheng coughed lightly first. It was not suitable for him to follow the official procedure at this time. After showing off Xu Jie's contribution to maintaining the integrity of the court during the Jiajing Dynasty, his contribution to bringing order out of chaos, and his contribution to protecting the late emperor's accession to the throne, he frankly revealed his selfish intentions and asked the emperor to give him face and spare Xu. The house is full.
Zhu Yijun pondered for a while and then said: "Well, I don't care about the Xu family. Even if the old gentleman doesn't talk about it, he won't do anything to his family. He must leave some dignity to the court. However, Hai Rui memorial The public opinion in Jiangnan mentioned later should not be taken carelessly."
After Zhang Juzheng heard this, he thought to himself that if I didn't tell him, it would be strange if you didn't kill him. With so many people killed in the past two years, the emperor never cared about the identity of the victims. As for decency? What it is?
Taking advantage of the opportunity, he said: "I think that if we take things slowly in the south of the Yangtze River, the ice will be broken one day. If so many big families are raided at once, I'm really worried that other Jin gentry will feel the same sadness as the rabbit dies and the fox dies."
"After all, these Jin gentry are the hope of the place. If they are resentful towards the imperial court, the resistance to governance in the future will be even greater. Please take a closer look, Your Majesty."
After Zhu Yijun heard this, a smile appeared at the corner of his mouth that made Zhang Juzheng feel empty. The emperor took out a folded piece of paper from the desk drawer, handed it to him and said, "I have prepared something for them, old gentleman, take a look first."
Zhang Juzheng didn't know why, so he reached out and took it from Wei Chao. I saw that the soft paper in my hand was stacked as big as a book. The front and back sides were all printed with large and small fonts. When they were all unfolded, there were four pages.
When Zhang Juzheng looked at it carefully, he saw the name "Huangming Nanjing Daily" written on the first page on the front. It was inscribed by Yubi himself and overprinted by the bookshop. There were also some small prints such as the first issue number at the bottom. Zhang Juzheng did not read carefully. His eyeballs were directly caught by the huge italic characters on the first page: "Whose fault is the Songjiang Civil War? - Exclusively for this newspaper, we will reveal the secret for you. !”
Zhang Juzheng's heart seemed to be grabbed by something, and his head was pounding. He had not known that the emperor had secretly prepared such a thing. Judging from the name of the paper and the title of the first article, this... what is this? An announcement from the imperial court?
Zhu Yijun smiled and said: "I am also deeply worried about the public opinion in Jiangnan that Hai Rui is worried about. I thought that instead of letting the people in Jiangnan spread gossip, how could the imperial court directly announce the truth of the matter and guide public opinion? I named this paper 'Daily Report' , will be published in the south first, one issue per day, please take a look at the specific content first.”
Zhang Juzheng felt that the air in the Nuan Pavilion was so hot and humid today that there were dense beads of sweat on his forehead. He looked through the newspaper the emperor mentioned and saw that the article on the front page was arranged vertically on the right hand side, with half text and half white, taking up most of the page. The subsequent articles were arranged in an irregular manner, and punctuation marks were added throughout the newspaper. Easy to read.
He read it at a glance and saw that the content of the first article was similar to that of Hai Rui's memorial, but the angle was more oriented toward the imperial court, and it heavily criticized several wealthy families who incited hungry people to lead to the civil uprising.
The second article turned out to be a policy announcement of the imperial court's plan to overhaul water conservancy this year. It praised Zhu Yijun's plan to overhaul water conservancy across the country, praising it as an unprecedented virtuous policy. There was also a hymn at the end of the article.
These two articles fill up the first page.
The content of the second page is news from various places, covering all the new things happening in various places in the south of the Yangtze River - Zhang Juzheng saw at a glance that it was the public and private things done by the Jinyiwei in various jurisdictions.
There is an article that is a little bit cynical. It is actually the whole story of a sexy criminal case that happened in Nanjing. Except for some words of encouragement at the beginning of the article, the whole article is about the case. It is all in vernacular, but it is like a script. Ups and downs.
Zhang Juzheng turned over and saw an article on the third page in which the imperial court encouraged the planting of sweet potatoes and potatoes. It introduced the cultivation and breeding methods of the two crops in detail, and made some attractive announcements about their yields. . Zhang Juzheng saw it and nodded secretly.
The rest of the third edition also talks about some common sense in daily life such as boiling water to drink it will prevent you from getting sick. Zhang Juzheng was greatly inspired by some health-preserving prescriptions.
Most of the last edition is actually the most popular one published by Qingliu Bookstore - "Yang Family General", but the content is about Yang Silang's dialogue about Chinese rituals and music between Fan Bang and the princess. Through Yang Silang's mouth, he promoted It understands the significance of bundling one's hair and right collar to the mutual recognition between the people of the country.
What makes it narrow is that it is written around the two boxes in the middle of the fourth edition. The upper box is mostly empty, and it says "Advertising Space Recruitment, please contact us if interested"; the second box says "Qingyang Fragrance, Top Luxury - Lingqing's Wanru Qingyang" , turned out to be an advertisement for Rishenglong perfume.
Zhang Juzheng finished reading and didn't know what to say. It was rare for Zhu Yijun to see Zhang Juzheng bewildered by new things, and he felt extremely satisfied psychologically. I thought to myself: "Are these so-called 'Scholars', modern newspapers, a dimensionality reduction attack?"
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