Red Mansion: I am Jia Lian

Chapter 323: Sven Sweeps Out and Breaks the Defense

The officials blocking the door were all dumbfounded, but they were not afraid. How could a group of miscellaneous soldiers from the Five Cities Army dare to attack a Jinshi master?
An official raised his hand and pointed at a group of people rushing towards him, shouting, "How dare you! You are rebelling against your superiors. What do you want to do?"

You don’t have to say it, you really don’t have to say it, the soldiers were so frightened that they stood still at that moment.

At this time, Jia Lian, who was standing behind the door of the R&D department, shouted: "Brothers, just do it. If anything goes wrong, I will take the responsibility. At worst, I will quit my job."

This sentence gave the soldiers of the Five Cities Military Department courage. Yes, who is our boss? He dared to break into the prince's mansion and force the prince's housekeeper to death. Ask around in the capital, which noble sons are not hiding from the Five Cities Military Department? Just you rotten fish and shrimp?

Go! The leading officer stretched out the stick in his hand and the blocking official fell to the ground. Two companions rushed over, held him down, and tied him up tightly with ropes. The arrested official cursed and swore, but the soldiers did not tolerate him and stuffed walnuts into his mouth!
In this way, more and more officials were tripped and tied up. When the first official said that he didn't need to be tied up and would not run away, the rest of the officials became obedient. They all raised their hands as required and were taken back to the Wucheng Bingmasi in great humiliation. Well, the study class prepared for the children of nobles had been idle for a while, but now it is in use again.

More than one hundred officials were captured by the Five Cities Army. Today, the people of the capital city have heard of a shocking event.

This is not the Li Ni case. At that time, the whole city was under martial law. Ordinary people dared not go out, unlike this time, who stood on the roadside and watched the fun.

If you ask any of these officials what the most humiliating moment in their life was, all of them will tell you it was today.

The worst of it were the few officials who resisted fiercely. Not only were their mouths blocked, but their hands and feet were tied, with a stick inserted through their middle, like pigs being carried through the streets.

The news spread as if it had wings and flew to the six ministries, the cabinet, and the palace.

Letting the lower-level officials stir up trouble first is a trick that the bigwigs often use. However, the development of the matter was beyond the expectations of the bigwigs.

Mobilize a hundred officials to block the door, scold Jia Lian and drown him with saliva. No matter how you look at it, I have the advantage.

Who could have thought that Jia Lian, this damn bastard, was so martial, his methods were so despicable, and his intentions were so vicious.

Even a fool could see that it took only a stick of incense for the troops from the Five Cities Army to arrive and capture the arson gang.

The capital was in an uproar because of this incident. So what was written in the memorial from Jia Lian, which was the origin of the incident?
The content is very simple. The current Longjinwei only has the power to conduct reconnaissance and collect intelligence. Jia Lian advocates that as the emperor's personal army, Longjinwei should restore the old system during the reign of Taizu.

What does it mean? During the reign of Emperor Taizu, the Dragon Guard had the power of investigation. This means that if there is sufficient evidence, the Dragon Guard can directly arrest officials, detain them, and interrogate them.

After the emperor ascended the throne, in order to stabilize the situation in the court, he compromised with the civil and military officials. The Dragon Guard only had the power of investigation in the capital, and the power of detention was given to the Ministry of Justice and the Dali Temple. The power of interrogation and trial was shared by the Inspectorate, the Ministry of Justice, and the Dali Temple. Outside the capital, the Dragon Guard only had the power of investigation.

Do you understand now? Why are the civil servants so excited?

The ancients attached great importance to reputation, and the more previous dynasties attached more importance to it.

Let’s take the well-known historical figure, General Li Guang, as an example. After he committed a crime and was arrested by the court judge, he chose to commit suicide because he could not bear the humiliation of the clerks.

What does "刀笔隶" mean? It refers to the people who do interrogations and record keeping. These people are not officials, but they are responsible for the interrogation.

During the Han Dynasty, many cases of murders caused by anger were recorded, such as the case of Xu Shu.

With the evolution of history, later generations do not express as much importance of fame and honor as they did before the Han Dynasty, but they still attach great importance to it.

Because personal reputation is often related to morality. Some people, in order to vent their anger, often do some dirty tricks in their personal publications. Some of the later ones who love to seek novelty often regard these folk unofficial histories as treasures and use them as evidence to judge some historical figures. For example, Ouyang Xiu's affair.

In short, as time goes by, technology advances, social wealth increases, and people's overall moral standards become lower and lower. Some literary and artistic works even dwell on major issues, such as "Man Jiang Hong".

From the perspective of social status, a scholar who passed the imperial examination was qualified to become an official, and who passed the imperial examination started at the seventh rank.

What about the Dragon Guard? Although he also holds a corresponding official position, due to his status as the emperor's lackey, the mainstream perception in society is that the Dragon Guard officials are all miscellaneous officials.

Their status is not as good as that of Yinguan, and they are even ranked behind Yinguan.

This situation was of course deliberately created by the gentry class, which had long dominated public opinion. However, they were more numerous and had a stronger voice. Almost all social consensus was created by the gentry class. When it was impossible to discredit the emperor, discrediting the Jinyiwei, the East Factory, and the West Factory was the inevitable result.

Why can't we discredit the emperor? Don't TV dramas have several sticks to beat the tyrant emperor and the flattering ministers?
Just watch the TV series. During the Sui Dynasty, the crime of "disrespect" appeared. Song Renzong, who was so easy to bully, was at most spit on by his ministers. The most Wei Zheng did was to pull the sleeve of Tang Taizong or suffocate a bird in his sleeve. Hai Rui, who was so fierce, only wrote a memorial to scold Jiajing.

Do you understand? If you can't fight head-on, then use a roundabout way. When you meet an emperor like Zhu Yuanzhang, then speak ill of the Jinyiwei in a small notebook. When Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Di are dead, then complain to the emperor. Abolish the Jinyiwei bit by bit, weaken the emperor's minions, and clip their wings. Why? Because no matter how powerful the emperor is, he is just one person. Without helpers, the emperor loses his eyes and ears, not to mention others. The Qing Dynasty played centralization to the peak. After the Taiping Rebellion, it was forced to delegate power to Han officials.

At all times, the struggle between the power of the monarch and the power of his subjects exists.

The Zhou Dynasty was no exception. During the reign of Taizu, who had just conquered the world, would never tolerate the bad habits of civil servants. He even did not tolerate the bad habits of his old brothers who had helped him conquer the world.

After the emperor ascended the throne, because he did not gain the throne legitimately, he could only win over the civil officials at the cost of gradually weakening the Dragon Guards, and he even used silver from the national treasury to lend to nobles and officials.

It is said to be a loan, but the person who borrowed the money never thought about the day when he would pay it back.

Officials are all the same. They hate being controlled by others. If possible, they would like to be the only one in the world who is supreme.

Of course this is unrealistic, so we try to reduce the number of the emperor's eyes and ears as much as possible, under the banner of mutual supervision among officials. Over time, I become the referee, the athlete, and the sports venue.

Let’s put it this way, ministers throughout history have all been striving towards one goal, and that is to be a figurehead monarch. The literati even gave it a nice name, [Governing with the Emperor’s Support].

History has proven many times that whenever a country approaches the era of "ruling by inaction", its national strength will decline sharply. Lin Ruhai advocated strengthening supervision over officials and setting up inspection teams. Officials jumped up like chrysanthemums being pierced. Jia Lian directly used his ultimate move and released the original form of Long Jinwei. Officials all over the world, both civil and military, jumped up and down. In Lu Xun's words, this is the broken window theory. If you want to open a window in a house, someone has to come out and say that the house should be demolished.

Did Emperor Chenghui want to restore the old system of Longjinwei during the reign of Emperor Taizu? Of course he did, as long as he was an emperor who wanted to make a difference.

The reality is that it is just a thought, it is impossible to do it. The reason is simple, lack of prestige. Prestige is something that cannot be seen or touched, but it is real.

So is Jia Lian really not afraid of being reviled by officials all over the world? He is really not afraid, because for Jia Lian, the civil officials will never treat him as one of their own. Not to mention, Jia Lian still looks lazy now, but he is actually doing things, but many things are not ripe because of the current situation. The harder he works, the more he fails.

Others saw Jia Lian running around here and there and not doing his job properly, but in fact, through his seemingly irrelevant actions, the entire country had been changing little by little.

The inertia of the two thousand years of feudal monarchical centralized system is too great to be stopped by one's own strength, and we can only take advantage of the situation.

Take banks as an example. On the road to making money, from the initial seigniorage to inter-regional remittance fees, issuance of licenses and other series of measures, funds will inevitably flow in the direction of making more money.

What is the most profitable direction in this era? Of course, it is foreign trade. Didn’t you see that Emperor Chenghui began to pay attention to the navy?
After experiencing days of financial difficulties, if the existing income cannot meet financial needs in the future, the emperor will definitely seek to expand outward to gain greater benefits.

Driven by the huge demand for tea, silk and porcelain from the West, the grassroots society will naturally work in this direction and drive the surrounding areas.

When the external development of the Great Zhou is driven by the interests of the people and the interests of the upper and lower levels are consistent, the power that emerges will be unmatched.

The reason is simple. This is a big country that is currently leading the West in all aspects of economy and culture.

In the cabinet, the five big men sat in silence, and no one spoke. It was not because they were afraid of Jia Lian's reputation as a "disaster star", but because this matter was too embarrassing.

You all thought that the officials below would definitely block the door and cause trouble. When they wrote the memorials, they must have thought about it and made arrangements in advance.

They are all over 50 years old, but they were fooled by a young man. It's a shame that everyone knows.

If he had thought more about it at the beginning, considering Jia Lian's previous style of doing things, he would have told his subordinates in advance not to make too much trouble and just submit a memorial to impeach, instead of playing around with physics.

"Well, it's too late to regret now. Let's ask someone to invite Lin Ruhai. Wucheng Bingmasi is a subordinate department of the Inspectorate after all." The Prime Minister Kong Zhao was the first to speak. It's definitely not enough to rely on others in this situation. I have to do it myself. Whether it's embarrassing or not, we should control the situation first and get the people out. Don't let Jia Lian take the opportunity to make things worse.

"I'll go see Lin Ruhai later!" Pan Jixun stood up decisively and left the suffocating small cabinet meeting room.

When the news reached the Inspectorate, Lin Ruhai was stunned at first. When he submitted the memorial, he knew he would be impeached and was prepared to be attacked by everyone.

He even had a draft of the next counterattack memorial ready in his mind, and was just waiting to submit the second memorial to compete with those insects.

In short, the history of the Inspectorate not having a seat in the cabinet will definitely end in the hands of Lin.

Lin Ruhai thought of everything, but he didn't expect that Jia Lian would throw a bomb into the cesspool without even saying hello, arousing public indignation (feces).

Just when Lin Ruhai was thinking about how to resolve the situation, news came that Jia Lian had done something even more drastic: he arrested more than a hundred officials in the capital in one go.

Lin Ruhai was completely stunned. He really didn't expect that the Wucheng Bingmasi could be used in this way.

Before Lin Ruhai could figure out how to deal with the matter in order to minimize its impact, someone had already arrived.

The person who came was Lord Mao, the Minister of the Dali Temple. After meeting, he was polite at first, and then he started to speak rudely: "Lord Lin, is the Wucheng Bingma Division going to rebel? You don't want to intervene?"

Before Lin Ruhai could answer, another person came in, the Minister of Justice Wang Gang, and spoke rudely: "The civility is gone, the civility is gone, the court officials are being carried around like animals, Lord Lin, Jia Lian is committing a crime."

These two came in one after the other, but the words they said didn't seem to be intended to calm things down. Instead, they were intended to add fuel to the fire and make things worse.

Lin Ruhai understood what they meant immediately. Isn't it just for cabinet recruitment? Do you think you have a chance? Okay, okay, you have bad intentions. Don't blame me for being rude.

"You two are also Jia Lian's superiors, why don't you go find him in person?" Lin Ruhai asked slowly, and his originally agitated mood unexpectedly calmed down.

After the two exchanged glances, neither of them took the initiative to speak. They were actually afraid. What were they afraid of? Of course, seeing that Lin Ruhai would not take the bait, they were afraid of being retaliated.

Maybe Lin Ruhai didn't have any means to retaliate against them, but he had the ability to drag them to death together.

All I can say is that the two of them were too impatient. The issue of cabinet additions hasn't been finalized yet, but they've already started fighting among themselves.

Lin Ruhai's question put the two in a dilemma. After all, their underwear had been seen through. If they insisted on emphasizing that the Wucheng Bingmasi was a subordinate unit of the Inspectorate, it was not impossible to say it, but that would offend the people to death. As an old hand, Wang Gang quickly changed his mind: "Jia Lian is young and hot-tempered. Lord Lin should go and talk to him properly. Don't be too impulsive, so as not to make things worse."

The change of mind was really quick, worthy of an old thief who had been in the political arena for many years. Lord Mao also echoed: "Yes, big things can be reduced to small things, and small things can be eliminated, which is good for everyone."

You see, no one mentions anymore that the Wucheng Bingmasi is under the Inspectorate.

Because everyone knew that Jia Lian was the kind of ruthless person who could force the Five Cities Army to leave the Inspectorate. If someone else did this, no one would believe it, but it was hard to say for Jia Lian.

The atmosphere relaxed and Lin Ruhai was no longer able to lose his temper. The scene was a little quiet until Pan Jixun rushed in from the door, breaking the silence.

(End of this chapter)