On the grassland in front of him, there was an army standing there, wearing red mandarin duck uniforms. The fiery red color was particularly bright under the sunlight.
This is a cavalry army, the cavalry army of the Ming Dynasty. The handsome flag has the word "tiger" in it. At this moment, it obviously makes people feel like a tiger and a tiger, which makes people intimidated!
How...how could there be a Ming army outside the pass? Fan Yongdou was extremely surprised. But he also knew that there was no time for him to consider this issue. He quickly took the reins and prepared to turn around and escape into the mountains. Abandoning the horse and climbing the mountain, waiting until after dark, there might be a glimmer of hope of escaping and ascending to heaven.
However, when he turned around, ignoring the panic on the faces of the servants behind him, and looked behind them, he saw groups of cavalry in all directions, slowly driving their horses out from the other side of the mountain.
A dragnet with no escape!
At this moment, Fan Yongdou knew that the Ming army should have been waiting here for a long time, waiting for someone who might escape from Zhangjiakou Fort!
When I thought of mobilizing tens of thousands of troops, I first transferred the general, then the factory guards and soldiers lurked into the city, attacked the city with a large army, controlled Zhangjiakou Fort with the power of thunder, and even deployed another cavalry army outside the pass, so Except for the one in the Forbidden City, no one else has such a big arm!
But...but the guy from the Forbidden City didn't even leave the Forbidden City, so why did he make such a big move against people like himself, without any news beforehand? What's going on?
Fan Yongdou couldn't figure out why things turned out like this?
"Master, what should we do?" A servant panicked and asked him quickly.
Others couldn't help but get close to their master, hoping that their master could come up with some ways to resolve the current troubles like before.
Fan Yongdou can't be what he is today. He put aside the doubts in his heart and calmed down and said: "Remember, we are just ordinary people doing business in Zhangjiakou Fort. My surname is Qian. I was frightened by the army and ran to the grassland. . No matter how the Ming army asked, we were killed. I don’t believe it. Does the imperial court want to kill ordinary people?"
"Okay, let's listen to the master!" When his servants heard this, they all agreed.
Fan Yongdou was quick-witted and immediately explained some details, and then he was ready to pretend to be an ordinary person. Fortunately, when I escaped from the secret passage last night, I didn't have time to change my clothes. I was all dirty and didn't look like a respectable person doing big business.
Everyone was arrested on all sides.
After Hong Chengchou received the information from various places, he immediately sorted out the situation in his hands, and then sent people to rush back to the capital to continue reporting the victory to the emperor. At the same time, he continued to preside over affairs in the Jin region, ransacking homes and inventorying supplies. In addition to Zhangjiakou Fort, there were also other places where homes were ransacked and people arrested. The hometown of these Shanxi merchants is not in Zhangjiakou Fort.
In fact, there was no need for him to send someone to report. Emperor Chongzhen had already roughly understood the situation through the Class A eavesdropping seeds on his body.
He also felt relieved to know that all eight major Shanxi merchants had been arrested.
Good and evil will be rewarded in the end. It's not that they won't be repaid. The time has not yet come; when the time comes, God can allow himself to travel through time and become an emperor. In such a large province, he also captured all eight people. This is the power of retribution!
On the other hand, Emperor Chongzhen was also very happy with the captured materials.
In later generations, I heard that Heshen was defeated and Jiajing was enriched. So this time, it can be said that the Shanxi merchants were captured, and Ming Dynasty could take a breather.
Otherwise, the imperial treasury would have no money, the Gyeonggi region including several surrounding provinces would be ravaged by rebels, and various parts of the Central Plains would be ravaged by bandits. There would be floods in the south and drought in the north. I don’t know how to live a good life! But now, at least there is no problem in providing early disaster relief and reviving the army. You can even have funds to implement your plans step by step.
At this point, I can finally breathe a sigh of relief!
Now, with an army, money, and food in hand, this confidence is strong enough!
Emperor Chongzhen decided to take advantage of this opportunity to rectify the officialdom of the capital.
Therefore, the factory guards continued to take action, focusing on rectifying the two places of the Ministry of Personnel and the Metropolitan Procuratorate. Especially in the Metropolitan Procuratorate, basically all the censors and officials were imprisoned.
Logically speaking, the Metropolitan Procuratorate was to supervise all officials, impeach corrupt officials, and give the emperor suggestions to benefit the country and the people. However, by this time in the late Ming Dynasty, let alone supervising all officials, they were all a den of corruption, and no one was free from corruption. Yes, there is no charge for it.
For example, Liao Guolin, Yang Zhiqi and others clearly marked their prices. Whoever gave them money would talk to them; whoever gave them money would do things for them! Others have even become objects of party struggle. For the benefit of their own group, the impeachment does not distinguish between right and wrong, only which camp they belong to. All of these factors are closely related to the corruption in the officialdom in the late Ming Dynasty and the corruption in the Metropolitan Procuratorate itself.
In addition to the work of the censors in the Metropolitan Procuratorate, even if they were replaced, they would not be able to do worse than them. Therefore, Emperor Chongzhen showed no mercy at all. Anyway, after arresting a few censors, they confessed to other censors, so they were not polite, and they continued to arrest them.
Soon, Jinyiwei Prison and Dongchang Prison could no longer be held, so they began to move to the Penal Department Prison. Even those who were not involved in treason and treason with Shanxi merchants, but were simply corrupt, were transferred to the prison of the Ministry of Punishment.
Regarding this situation, many officials were panicked at first and didn't know what to do.
Previously, they tried to blackmail the emperor by pretending to be sick and going on strike. But unexpectedly, the emperor actually sent factory guards and imperial doctors to come out. Once the dignified minister of the Ministry of official affairs was found to be pretending to be ill, a crime of deceiving the emperor, his head was already on the same level as that of the original chief minister Liu Yuliang. Keep company.
With such harsh measures from the emperor, who would dare to pretend to be sick? They didn't even dare to do things like working as a foreigner, fooling the emperor, or just not working. I'm afraid that the emperor will send someone to check, and then his head will be lost, which will be a big loss.
How should I put it? The concept of emperors and scholar-bureaucrats co-ruling the world that began in the Song Dynasty emerged again in the Ming Dynasty when Emperor Hongzhi began. Even many times, when civil servants and emperors confront each other, it is an honor.
Even the shrewd Emperor Jiajing had to go through so many years and cause so many troubles over a simple matter like letting his own father enter the Ancestral Temple; there was also the Emperor Wanli who wanted to change his son to be the prince, but in the face of the opposition of the civil servants, he insisted on Not replaced.
It can be said that the civil servants in the late Ming Dynasty had already begun to unite to deal with the emperor. They only suffered a setback during the Tianqi Dynasty. The power of the eunuchs expanded and they suppressed the civil servant group. This situation can actually be regarded as a reaction to the expansion of civil power.
Now, in the hands of Emperor Chongzhen, he completed the deployment and took control of the military power. With such a strong performance, he once again attacked the civilian clique. And this time, he was in charge. Whether it's treason or corruption, everyone despises them. Even if the civil servants wanted to object, they could not stand on reason. And this is the basis for their opposition to the emperor.
Therefore, this time, it can be said that the civil service group does not even have the ability to fight back.
Therefore, when Emperor Chongzhen was about to capture the Imperial Procuratorate, these civil servants found a point to counterattack. Even if you, the emperor, arrest officials on such a large scale and use the banner, isn't that treason?
If they talk about corruption, then they have nothing to say, but how many people dare to commit such a major crime as treason? They believe that the vast majority of people would not dare to commit the serious crime of treason. Because your emperor is so aggressive in arresting people that even cabinet ministers and ordinary grain merchants are included in the conspiracy. This is an exaggeration.
The emperor kept saying that there was evidence, but this evidence could not be produced for a long time. This gave them confidence. They felt that the evidence the emperor mentioned before was just an excuse. Now that so many people have been arrested, they are unable to get off the ground. They dare not show any more evidence, lest the evidence be too ridiculous and let the world see the emperor clearly. Doing whatever you want!
For this reason, the emperor is arresting people, and they are secretly instigating this matter. Focus on the treason case. Try to make a breakthrough from this aspect and teach the emperor a lesson. Tell him that even if you are an emperor, if you behave like this, you will be infamy in the history books, tyrant!
At the same time, they sent all the memorials that could be sent from everywhere, all kinds of memorials asking for money or food, anyway, all kinds of difficult memorials, to the cabinet and presented them to the emperor. They also wrote memorials respectively, emphasizing that these difficulties must be solved immediately.
For example, more than 100,000 people were rescued by King Yuan Qin's army, as well as millions of refugees in various places affected by the military disaster. The cities everywhere that were attacked and burned down all need help from the court, and everything is in ruins. Emperor, look at it. what to do? If you arrest all the officials, who will do such a thing?
A rumor even began to spread among the people, saying that the emperor had lost his mind and gone crazy. Instead of helping the people, he went crazy to arrest the officials who were doing it. The Ming Dynasty was going to die!
Emperor Chongzhen ignored this situation. Even after receiving the good news from Hong Chengchou, he still ignored it and kept following the plan, basically arresting the Metropolitan Procuratorate and the Ministry of Civil Affairs and interrogating the results.
By this time, things in Shanxi had basically come to an end. The properties of the eight major Shanxi merchants in various places, including other smuggling Shanxi merchants who were attached to the eight major Shanxi merchants, had all been confiscated and arrested.
The summarized memorial was quickly sent to the emperor's front and back, and Emperor Chongzhen began to convene a court meeting, preparing to talk about the treason case.
