Guide to Traveling through the Northern Song Dynasty.

Chapter 1151 Epilogue : The Queen Mother and the Prime Minister are still too strong

Another day, Xie Yan was having breakfast when he suddenly heard a noise coming from the direction of the government office.

Xie Yiqin's face changed slightly, he put down his bowl and chopsticks and went out.

Xie Yan and his second brother Xie Kan hurried to follow.

The younger sister also wanted to watch the fun, but her mother pushed her back to the dining table.

On the street in front of the government office, more than 200 parents and their children knelt there and cried loudly. They recounted the hardships of their lives and said that they would not be able to feed their children if child labor was banned, and begged the officials to give them a bite to eat.

The situation was similar at the gate of the government office next door, with wailing and crying everywhere.

The officials persuaded them patiently and politely, and did not use violent law enforcement to drive them away.

Xie Yiqin and the officials who had already arrived at work all had very ugly expressions at this moment.

These parents and child workers came from different factories, so they must have been organized to come together to petition. Moreover, the clerks also secretly sided with the petitioners, and the outside officials became weak and powerless.

"My Lord, how should we deal with this?" Xie Yiqin's full-time secretary (a Jinshi official) asked in a low voice.

Xie Yiqin said, "Let them cry first. I'm going to go to the government office." He then said to his two sons, "Stop watching and go study."

Xie Yiqin turned around and went out through the side door, then soon entered through the side door of the government office again, where he found the prefect Du Yinzheng, who also had a gloomy face.

Theoretically, the prefect was in charge of all affairs, but he was mainly responsible for government administration, people-friendly affairs, personnel, science and education, court congratulations, sacrifices, etc. Especially the assessment of officials, supervision of subordinate counties, and the transfer of official documents, which could easily overwhelm all the officials in the prefecture.

"Those factory owners didn't even say hello." Xie Yiqun sighed.

Du Yinzheng said: "You and I must work together this time. Instigating the people to cry and petition is just a test of the waters. Who knows what will happen next."

Although capital is invested in collusion with the powerful, not every official is eligible to be invested in.

The cake had almost been cut.

Officials like Du Yinzheng and Xie Yiqin would be transferred after working for a few years, and they had no deep ties with the wealthy and powerful families in their jurisdiction.

In other words, the local wealthy and powerful families don't need to curry favor with them at all.

He has someone else to back him up!

If the prefect and the magistrate are sensible, then naturally everyone will benefit. In many daily tasks, the local aristocratic families will actively cooperate and try their best to make the officials achieve good political achievements.

But if any corrupt official is ignorant, normal government administration will be difficult to carry out.

"Drag it?" Xie Yiqin asked.

Du Yinzheng thought about it carefully and nodded, "Drag it!"

The two officials reached a preliminary agreement, and left tacitly, as if nothing had happened today.

They didn't know how the situation would develop and could only delay as much as possible.

The real choice will not be made until the situation becomes clearer.

It is possible that the prefect and the magistrate worked together to carry out reforms.

It is also possible that the prefect and the magistrate would fight with each other!
Xie Yiqin returned to the hall and said to his subordinates, "Prepare some tea. Let them cry and shout. When they get tired, give them some tea. Anyone who dares to break into the hall will be immediately arrested and taken to the prison for trial!"

The commander's office further away received an encrypted military telegram.

Commander Shao Cheng stared at the telegram for a long time, hesitated for a long time, and finally made a decision: "Follow the orders of the Cabinet, the Ministry of War and the Hubei Provincial Command, send troops to arrest people!"

The military camp outside the city soon became lively.

There were even many soldiers who were on duty at the barracks who were not on duty at all. In order to gather the troops, the officers had to send out cavalry, who first blew the horn outside the city and then rushed into the city on horseback to blow the horn along the streets.

The military's discipline has become very bad!
The series of actions taken by the Huangzhou garrison soon alerted everyone. Not only did the officials come to inquire about the situation, but even the local noble families sent people to inquire about it.

Just as Commander Shao Cheng was leading his organized troops into the city, the prefect, the assistant magistrate, the county magistrate and other officials hurried to stop them.

"Commander Shao, without an order from the Ministry of War, garrisons from various places are not allowed to enter the city!" Du Yinzheng reminded.

Shao Cheng dismounted and handed over a telegram, saying, "This is a secret telegram from the Ministry of War and Hubei Dusi. Number: Bing09 Dingsi01 Yite06. If the governor has any doubts, he can call the Ministry of War or Hubei Dusi for verification. The verification code is 29455."

Du Yinzheng's eyes fell on the word "Yite". He nodded slightly to Xie Yiqin, and then the two went to the telegraph room together.

Half an hour later, the secret message was verified to be correct.

"A few common people are causing trouble, and the Ministry of War is directly involved?" Xie Yiqun was completely confused.

Du Yin testified: "It has only been a short time since the incident. The Ministry of War cannot possibly know."

The two fell silent.

It is obvious that the secret order to mobilize the army was not only sent to Huangzhou Prefecture, but also to all parts of the country!

Today was just a coincidence.

They returned to the city gate and ordered the officials to let the army pass.

Hundreds of soldiers, fully equipped with weapons, quickly rushed to the petitioners.

Shao Cheng ordered: "Take them all to the military camp. If there is resistance, kill them without mercy!"

The petitioners stopped crying. They were trembling with fear and were taken to the military camp with their children obediently.

Xie Yiqin couldn't help but ask: "How to deal with them?"

"Wait for the boat." Shao Cheng said.

Du Yinzheng was even more confused: "What are you waiting for the boat for?"

Shao Cheng said: "Wait for the ship to go to Shanghai, and then be shipped overseas. If there are other people in the family, they can also apply to go to sea together. It's the same in all provinces of the country, the only difference is taking a ship or a train."

Hearing this, Du Yinzheng and Xie Yiqun looked at each other and both understood what had happened.

The Queen Mother, the Emperor, and the Prime Minister finally completely took control of the country's army, and directly flexed their muscles against officials, aristocratic families, powerful people, and the common people!
There must have been compromises and deals involved, otherwise it wouldn't have taken three years.

At first, they charged him with treason and cleared out the first three rows of the court (killed them all), reduced the first ten rows to only a few military officers (some were exiled or jailed), and jailed, exiled, or executed more than 200 civil and military officials who had colluded with the rebellion.

Although there are not many of them, they are all top dignitaries and their influence is so far-reaching that they dare not take the next step.

Because even though the tree had fallen, the monkeys had not yet dispersed.

These monkeys are all over the country, including civil officials, military generals, and countless aristocratic families. If something happens again, the whole country will be in chaos, and we may have to fight several wars to suppress the rebellion.

The Queen Mother, the Emperor, and the Prime Minister did not dare to act rashly, and the monkeys did not dare to make any unusual moves either. Because that was a crime of treason, the new central leadership team was in the right, and they were right no matter how many people were killed in the court.

As a result, over the past three years, the relationship between the central government and local governments has been extremely delicate.

The central government did not dare to arbitrarily replace local civil and military officials. At most, it appointed or dismissed some officials below the sixth rank, or transferred some officials whose terms of office had expired. At the same time, it waited for more local civil and military officials to express their attitudes and support the central government.

Local civil and military officials were even more passive, and even if they wanted to do something, they dared not do it openly, because if they openly disobeyed the central government, they would be caught and severely punished.

Three years later, the local troops finally got everything under control.

This was due to the foundation laid by Emperor Dingtai, who would rather force the army to rebel and quell the rebellion than reorganize the army and keep it firmly under the emperor's control.

Otherwise, things would never be so smooth now.

Because those top military officials who were executed, imprisoned, or exiled for treason had countless disciples and former officials who were in charge of the troops, and even had direct relatives leading troops outside!

Xie Yiqin watched the commander arresting people and walking away, and gradually strengthened his determination - he wanted to be a reformer.

He even suspected that there had been wars somewhere in the past three years, but the news was blocked.

Not long after returning to the hall, Xie Yiqin's old servant suddenly ran into the office with a telegram paper: "Sir, this is a civilian telegram from the provincial capital."

Xie Yiqin took the telegram and read it: "The new left and right governors and the provincial governor have all arrived in the provincial capital. The officials of the provincial governors remain unchanged. Friend."

He knew which friend it was from.

But why were the chief officials of the Governorate and the Provincial Court replaced without a single word?

As a magistrate of a prefecture, he actually needed a private telegram from his friend to find out about his position.

This was definitely the emperor using his privilege to directly issue an order to transfer officials without discussing it with the ministers of the cabinet. The news was so tightly sealed that even the procedures of the Ministry of Personnel had to be completed afterwards to prevent individual officials in the Ministry of Personnel from leaking the news in advance.

"The Queen Mother and the Prime Minister are too powerful!" Xie Yiqun felt a sense of fear.

Although he decided to be a reformer and stand on the side of the Queen Mother and the Prime Minister, he naturally hated such brutal behavior.

Not following the rules!

Officials hate it most because they can clearly follow the regular procedures but insist on using the emperor's privileges.

More than half a month ago, Xie Yiqin was still afraid that the Queen Mother and the Prime Minister were not firm and strong enough.

Now it feels too strong.

The Queen Mother had no experience in politics.

The Prime Minister only has experience as a local official, and his style of office is very strong.

After seizing power, they have been patient for three years, making careful plans with trepidation, and now they are eager to implement the policies.

Why can't you be strong?

The late emperor spent his entire life laying the foundation for today's situation.

Moreover, they had killed so many top dignitaries and had already offended countless civil and military officials. If they acted calmly now, would they be able to reconcile with those monkeys?
In the Ming Dynasty today, even the ruling class is seriously divided.

Not everyone has a share in the emerging bureaucratic capital.

There are still a large number of traditional gentry landlords who, while occupying land, also run some traditional industries and commerce. They cannot benefit from the emerging industries and commerce, so they are extremely disgusted with the dramatic changes in the industrial and commercial structure.

There are even many educated people who miss and glorify the past and believe that factories and steam engines should not have appeared.

It has destroyed the environment, harmed the people, corrupted morality, and caused the world to go downhill.

These people are eager to strike a severe blow against bureaucratic capital, but at the same time they hope to become a part of it.

Therefore, the newly appointed ministers in the court are called reformists, but in fact they are conservatives. The so-called conservative here means that from the long-term process of historical development, they are trying to stop capitalism and the industrial revolution!

It is definitely impossible to stop it, but it can be limited, which means stepping on the brakes.

The current situation really requires someone to step on the brakes.

……

In the Luoyang Imperial Palace, a female official in her fifties was checking the emperor's homework.

She is the long-missing female scholar Tao Jinfeng.

After correcting the homework, the little emperor went to play happily.

Tao Jinfeng smiled and said to the Queen Mother: "Your Majesty has made great progress in his studies these days. He will surely be a wise ruler in the future."

Empress Dowager Ye sighed, "You are just knowledgeable, but you are still far from being a wise ruler. You have been an official in the local government for nearly 30 years. Do you think this reform will be successful?"

Tao Jinfeng said: "The late emperor had actually already made half of the changes, but because of his old age and the obstruction of a large number of powerful people, the reform stopped at a critical moment. What we have to do now is just to follow in the footsteps of the late emperor."

"The situation was too dangerous in the late emperor's later years, which makes me very scared now," said Empress Dowager Ye.

Tao Jinfeng said: "Whenever there is a reform, some people will benefit and some will suffer. The dangers encountered by the late emperor in his later years were caused by his trusted aides, many of whom became the beneficiaries of the reform. They benefited and were in high positions, so naturally they were unwilling to continue the reform."

Empress Dowager Ye was silent.

Tao Jinfeng said: "The Queen Mother's real enemy is not the local monkeys who have lost their big trees. The late emperor has already uprooted the big trees with his own arrangements. The Queen Mother's reforms will surely succeed, and they will succeed easily. The Queen Mother's real enemy is the current group of reformist officials, who will inevitably become deep-rooted big trees in the future."

"Then what's the purpose of my reform? I'm pulling out a crooked forest and then planting another one with my own hands, waiting for it to grow crooked." Empress Dowager Ye was a little discouraged.

Tao Jinfeng said: "The forest in the past did not listen to the planter. The future forest, even if it eventually grows crooked, will grow in the direction set by the planter. What's more, although the current Ming Dynasty looks strong, its meridians are blocked and need to be unblocked."

Empress Dowager Ye suddenly laughed and said, "I thought the lady was going to talk about saving the world and the people."

Tao Jinfeng said: "The late emperor overcame all objections and allowed a woman to serve as an official. When I was young, my idea was simple, that is, to do a good job in office to repay the late emperor's kindness. Later I found that there is no such thing as a truly good official. It is good enough to stick to one's original intention. In ancient times, there was an official called Zhou Mu, which was an appropriate name. As long as you become an official, you are the emperor's shepherd, and the common people are the flock of sheep being driven."

"The lady has insightful views," said Empress Dowager Ye.

Tao Jinfeng said: "As a shepherd, you must be loyal to your duties and not steal. You must not let the sheep be taken away by wolves. You must clean the sheepfold to prevent them from getting sick, and you must repair the sheep shed to protect them from wind and rain."

Empress Dowager Ye asked, "How about the lady's reinstatement?"

Tao Jinfeng shook her head: "Why bother making trouble? I am already over fifty years old, without a husband, a child or a daughter. To be frank, I would be satisfied if I could treat the official as my own son, teach him carefully and take care of him until the end of his life."

"Madam, what do you think of Prime Minister Deng?" asked Empress Dowager Ye.

Tao Jinfeng said: "He is two years older than me, but he is my junior. He thinks highly of himself. When he was young, he was arrogant because of his talent. He was demoted to a poor county for many years by the previous emperor. Now he has become as tough as steel. But he is still a little too tough. Although his edges and corners have been smoothed, he is still as hard as stone. He is already a towering tree, and he will not grow crooked anymore. The queen mother can rest assured to employ him. As for his descendants, it is too far away, who can say for sure."

(End of this chapter)