Rebirth of Zhu Di's son

Chapter 406 The Big Case of Liu Yang
In September of the 19th year of Qianxi, the censors Xue Bomin and Jiang Shubin reported that the governor of northern Siam Liu Xin and the governor of southern Siam Yang Wei used their powers to collude with Li Youzhang, the chief envoy of northern Siam, Fan Shiqun, the chief envoy of southern Siam, and others to bend the law for personal gain and corrupt the principles. He ignored the laws of the court and harmed the people.

This is specifically reflected in the following five items.

First, indiscriminate mining and ticketing.

In the name of building roads and bridges, Liu Xin and Yang Wei engaged in indiscriminate mining and mining in Siam, and borrowed the help of local wealthy families to privately open a large number of iron mines (Note 1).

Second, concealment of mining taxes.

Last year, 1405 million taels of silver were supposed to be handed over from the Liang-Siam mining tax, but Liu Xin and Yang Wei instigated the chief envoys Li Youzhang and Fan Shiqun to hand over only 45 taels, and the remaining silver taels were misappropriated.

Third, they use clever names to line their own pockets.

Liu Xin and Yang Wei instructed the chief envoys Li Youzhang and Fan Shiqun to impose many other taxes on the indigenous people of Siam. They said they were "donations", but in fact they were compulsorily collected.

Fourth, harm the people.

Liu Xin and Yang Wei ordered their cronies to deceive mainland Han people into working in Liang Siam with high commissions. These deceived people would be sent to work in the illegal mines. Last year, more than [-] Han people died in the illegal mines.

Fifth, collude with pirates.

Liu Xin and Yang Wei instigated the local aboriginal chiefs to purchase Yanzhou Kunlun slaves from pirates to work in the black mines.

At the same time, Yu Qian, who returned to the capital from Funan, submitted a real-name report letter to Emperor Qianxi Zhu Gaoxu after learning that Prince Zhu Zhanyu was recovering well.

The author of this letter is Wang Hengfeng, who was born and raised in Chuzhou. When he was in his third year at Chuzhou Changke Academy, he had no choice but to drop out of school and return home because his parents were ill.

Later, both of his parents died of illness, and they borrowed money to treat their illnesses. So in order to repay the money, he was attracted by high-paying employees and was tricked into working in Siam's black mines.

He witnessed the brutal evil deeds in the black mines, but was powerless to do anything.

Because he had read a book and showed his will, he was promoted step by step to become a middle-level manager in the mine.

In order to exchange his name, he personally killed many employees. In the end, Huang Tian paid off and let him find out that the backers behind the black mine were actually the governor of southern Siam Yang Wei and the governor of northern Siam Liu Xin.

In order to deliver the letter to Zhu Gaoxu, he took the initiative to take charge of the rear during a mission to sell Kunlun slaves, and then fell into the hands of the Nanyang Navy's Siam Bay Naval Battalion.

He was surprised to find that there were generals in the naval camp in the Gulf of Siam who colluded with Yang Wei, the governor of southern Siam, and wanted to kill him and silence him.

He knew that he would never make it ashore alive, so he could only secretly write everything he knew into a letter, secretly stuff it into the clothes of a naval officer, and pray to God that the letter would eventually fall into the hands of His Majesty the Emperor.

Coincidentally, the naval officer and soldier who discovered the secret message in his clothes happened to be the subordinate of the naval battalion general who colluded with Yang Wei.

And he could not stand the way his superiors were groveling to Yang Wei, the governor of Siam, so he secretly sewed the secret message into the middle of his underwear. Later, when he returned to his hometown to visit relatives, he specially wore that piece of clothing.

In this way, after many twists and turns, the secret letter finally fell into the hands of Prince Zhu Zhanyu.

Zhu Zhanyu's high regard and appreciation for Liu Xin and Yang Wei are known to everyone in the world.

It can be said that Liu Xin's progress from an ordinary craftsman to a second-grade governor was entirely due to Zhu Zhanyu's cultivation and trust.

But Wang Hengfeng's letter of accusation tore off the disguise of Liu Xin and Yang Wei, allowing Prince Zhu Zhanyu to see clearly the true nature of Liu and Yang.

It was precisely because of this that at the beginning of last month, Zhu Zhanyu suddenly fell ill out of anger.Zhu Gaoxu read the secret letter and reacted very calmly. He just promoted Yu Qian step by step to the rank of second-rank censor of Youdu, and gave Yu Qian full responsibility for investigating Liu Yang's case.

At the same time, Jin Yiwei was ordered to track down the relevant personnel in the case. Wherever the bribes came from, they would be investigated. Whoever Liu Xin and Yang Wei colluded with would be investigated, no matter who was involved.

The corruption and perversion of the law by Liu Xin, Yang Wei and others was the source of the disaster, and the local officials related to them could not escape the blame.

As for the number of mines exaggerated by the local government, Zhu Gaoxu no longer digs into the details.

But for the losses caused by this case, such as the embezzled mining taxes, Zhu Gaoxu sent people to Liang Siam to recover the stolen goods.

However, there are policies above and countermeasures below.

For example, Wang Xiangren, the magistrate of Peizhou County in Ivory Prefecture, clearly knew that the county official Ma Zhigang had 4000 taels of stolen money in his hands, but he issued a notice asking the people under his rule to apportion the stolen money to each household and guarantee compensation for the stolen money.

From this we can know that local officials did not cough up the stolen money, but passed the shortfall onto the local people again.

Zhu Gaoxu was extremely angry after learning the news through the intelligence network of the members of the Tiandihui, and then issued an imperial edict.

The general idea of ​​this edict is that some local officials in Liang Siam took this opportunity to seize the people throughout the county, which is equivalent to levying an additional tax. Of the total tax collected, about [-]% is enough to compensate for the stolen money, and the rest Then it fell into the pockets of officials, and the stolen money originally collected naturally belonged to these dirty officials. Therefore, the common people from all over the country should go to Beijing to report the crimes of local dirty officials, as well as the rich people and wealthy chiefs who colluded with these dirty officials.

At this point, this case is no longer a problem between Liu Xin, Yang Wei and several principal culprits, but Zhu Gaoxu's pursuit of Liu Yang's accomplices in both Siam and Siam.

In order to ensure that all the evil was eliminated, Zhu Gaoxu followed the harsh line of "it would be better to kill a thousand by mistake than to let one person slip through the net."

For him, the bloodless exercise of power cannot guarantee the long-term peace and stability of Siam and even the Funan Peninsula.

Under strict investigation, Zhu Gaoxu soon discovered that almost all officials of the two Siamese and Third Divisions had become Liu and Yang's accomplices. Of course, this result was something Zhu Gaoxu should have thought of beforehand.

Among the officials involved in the case include Ye Wenchang, the commander of the North Siam Metropolitan Command, Chao Naijun, the commander of the Southern Siam Metropolitan Division, Pei Zhaonian, the chief secretary of the northern Siamese government, and Cheng Bin, the chief secretary of the southern Siamese government.

At that time, except for the senior officials of the two Siamese and Third Divisions listed above, all officials at the provincial level and below were involved and were either dismissed or killed.

The Liu Yang case was so widely implicated in both Siam that it was simply sensational, and it once made officials in both Siam panic.

So much so that when the officials of the two Siam and Three Divisions met in the morning, their first words changed from "Have you eaten?" to "How many of your divisions were captured by the Jin Yiwei today?"

A total of more than [-] people were killed in the Liu Yang case, including more than [-] officials (mostly officials) and more than [-] local indigenous chiefs, wealthy businessmen and their minions.

At the same time, more than [-] officials and their families were demoted or exiled due to the case.

This thunderous double-line purge made Zhu Gaoxu's reputation as the iron-blooded emperor, and also laid a solid foundation for the long-term peace and stability of the five provinces of Funan later.

Note 1: As energy and mineral raw materials, iron ore products play an extremely important and irreplaceable role in economic development and people’s lives, and the development of iron ore mining is of great significance in promoting economic growth, such as iron pots, Shovels, hoes, plows, rails, trains, etc. are all inseparable from iron.

The economic development of Ming Dynasty has resulted in a large demand for iron ore products, which has promoted the development of iron ore mining. The development of iron ore mining has played a supporting and guaranteeing role in economic growth. It has also stimulated various industries related to economic development, further stimulating and Promoted the overall economic growth of Ming Dynasty.

Therefore, both Liu Xin and Yang Wei, as well as the governors of other provinces, paid special attention to iron ore. After all, what Ming Dynasty needed most for laying railways when it entered the steam era was iron.

(End of this chapter)