Saving the Ming Dynasty: I can exchange bodies with Chongzhen

Chapter 59: Bloodstained Palace Gate, Part
"Minister of Personnel, Fei Chaonan asked for leave without any illness, deceiving the emperor!"

Li Ruo Lian, who was reading out the names, suddenly paused and looked at Gui Zongju, the head of the Ministry of Revenue, who spoke up, "Who is the one who ordered this?"

When the eunuch came out just now, he had already brought him the emperor's oral order.

You can kill them all, but you can’t kill them all!

The eunuch made a gesture to him.

However, before Gui Zongju, the head of the Ministry of Revenue, could speak, Fei Chaonan, whose name was called, knelt down in front of Li Ruolian, "Yes, I am willing..."

"I am willing to identify the person who ordered me to come here as Zhang Sizhi, the Right Vice Minister of the Ministry of Personnel."

Li Ruo Lian's eyes suddenly lit up, "Okay, come here, let him sign and seal!"

Immediately, a clerk from the Embroidered Uniform Guard brought a table over, wrote furiously, quickly finished the document, and placed it in front of him.

At this moment, Sun Boshang, the doctor of the Ministry of Rites, struggled to jump up, his eyes full of contempt, stiffened his neck and cursed: "Old pig dog, you are a bastard, you betrayed your superiors and your teacher."

"You little bitch, if you sign it, I will fuck all your ancestors!" An imperial censor also struggled and cursed with a red face and thick neck.

"Without Lord Zhang's support, you wouldn't know where to crawl now, you ungrateful thing."

"A person without a teacher or father should have been drowned in a urinal when he was born..."

"This..." Fei Chaonan, a doctor from the Ministry of Rites, blushed when he heard the shouting and cursing behind him, and he hesitated again.

Since the establishment of the imperial examination system in the Sui and Tang dynasties, it has indeed broken the previous monopoly of the gentry to a certain extent.

However, the imperial examination system had undergone great changes in the Ming Dynasty. The Ming Dynasty implemented the eight-legged essay system to select scholars and tested people based on the works of Zhu Xi, which posed a big problem.

How good is your article? Whether it meets the topic or not is difficult to determine, and it all depends on the subjective judgment of the examiner. Because of the recent times, there is no consensus on many issues, and there are no later writers to annotate and verify them. No one knows what Zhu Zi meant by this sentence.

In addition, since the Jiajing period, the palace examination of the Ming Dynasty had long been just a formality, so the power of the chief examiners of the imperial examinations reached an unprecedented level.

Anyone who passes the imperial examination must first call the examiner "teacher".

In addition, the young scholars who have just entered the court need support from senior officials, and the important officials in the court also need fresh blood to work for them.

Since the inception of the imperial examination system, these scholars who passed the exam after ten years of hard study and entered the central government found that it was difficult to survive in the cruel political struggle without finding a backer.

These young scholars wanted to compete for official positions and advancement, so they could only pay their respects to these important officials in the court with the etiquette of teachers and students and ask for their protection and promotion.

This is the seat teacher system.

As a result, these successful Jinshi candidates formed a powerful force together with important officials in the court. They could even force the emperor to abandon his personal will when dealing with imperial affairs and thus influence the political situation in the court.

Respect teachers, value learning, preach, govern the country, and bring peace to the world.

Respecting teachers comes first.

Standing in the snow outside a teacher's door, respecting the teacher. This is the principle that these scholars learned on the first day of their study, so Fei Chaonan, the doctor of the Ministry of Rites, hesitated at this moment, and the pen he picked up could not stop shaking.

Li Ruolian turned his head suddenly and shouted at the Jinyiwei: "What are you standing there for? Anyone who deceives the emperor and refuses to repent will be executed immediately!"

"Pfft~"

"Pfft~"

"..."

The strong men of the Jinyiwei went forward and chopped down several of the howling ones the most fiercely. Scarlet blood foam flowed along the ground... and merged with the old blood on the ground, mixing and coagulating.

The scene suddenly became silent with all the shouting.

"You regret it?" Li Ruolian walked to Fei Chaonan, the doctor of the Ministry of Personnel, and said coldly, "Come on, don't force me. Take the document away, and the strong man will come forward and drag him down and chop him off."

The Jinyiwei warrior holding a bloody sword rushed forward, pretending to arrest someone.

"Sign, I sign..." Fei Chaonan, a doctor in the Ministry of Rites, suddenly laid down on the table, holding the document tightly, fearing that the other party would take it away. He grabbed the brush and dipped it in his mouth, then quickly signed and sealed it.

At the moment when several people died in front of him, he made a decision. Respecting teachers ranked first, but staying alive ranked higher.

"Okay, next one!" Li Ruolian shouted loudly: "The head of the Ministry of Revenue, Qi Youtai..."

Before he finished speaking, he was already on his knees, crying and wailing, "Commander Li, I am willing to identify who instructed me. They did not come forward, but let us be scapegoats, which caused us so much harm. I will never forgive them."

"Commander Li, I am also willing to command...!"

"I am also willing to identify..."

"Don't be in a hurry, come one by one!" The Jinyiwei maintained order and asked the officials not to crowd.

Li Ruolian had a blank expression on her face, but she breathed a sigh of relief in her heart and gently wiped the fine layer of sweat on her forehead.

It was a chilly spring day with a whistling breeze, but he found that his back was soaked with sweat without him knowing when.

"Fortunately, including the few who died before, the total number is less than 20, less than half of the 50 given by the emperor."

The eunuch showed him one hand and counted on five fingers.

With so many ministers, even if more than a hundred were killed, let alone all of them, the whole world would be in an uproar.

Your Majesty will not bear this bad reputation, and the final blame will only fall on him, the commander of the Jinyiwei.

……

After dealing with those who were not sick, Li Ruolian once again turned his attention to the ministers who were diagnosed with illnesses.

Compared to those who were healthy, there were more than 50 people diagnosed with diseases at the scene. Compared to those who were healthy, they seemed a little calmer. But at this time, they were also terrified.

They could never have imagined that the emperor would really dare to kill people.

Seeing others rushing to identify their superiors, their eyes were filled with contempt, "What a shame to be in the same position as you."

"That's right. If you point fingers at your teacher, even if you survive, you will be despised for the rest of your life."

Having learned from previous experience, they only dared to say these words in a low voice and not out loud.

Li Ruo Lian, the commander of the Jinyiwei, came to the crowd and said loudly: "Your Majesty is kind and righteous. Since the ministers are ill, I will grant you a vacation. Considering that you may have other hidden illnesses, I will grant you a year's vacation."

"My Lords, since His Majesty has approved your sick leave, you can go home and recuperate!"

"A year's vacation?"

"This……"

"No...I'm only taking three days off!"

All fifty or so people were stunned.

The eyes of these fifty or so men were wide open, and all the blood in their bodies was desperately rushing into their hearts, but soon the hearts could not bear it and the blood was squeezed out.

In the competition for promotion, every step is crucial. If you simply give them a year's vacation, it is foreseeable that they will not be able to keep their positions when they come back.

It had already been snatched away by someone else. This was not as good as the treatment given to those officials who had previously identified their superiors.

Not to mention a year's sick leave, even officials are unwilling to observe the mourning period, which is a noble obligation.

The Ming Dynasty ruled the world with filial piety. The entire court advocated filial piety, and officials had to set an example themselves. Otherwise, people would question whether you could serve the country and the people when you couldn't even mourn for your parents.

Because the mourning period is long, who knows if there will be a suitable position for yourself after the mourning period.
During the period of mourning, His Majesty was also "deprived of his affection", which meant that he was recalled by the Emperor to continue serving as an official during the period of mourning.

But if the emperor gave him a year's sick leave, it was certain that even if he could return to his position, it would be gone.

This is even more painful than killing them. The average age of Jinshi in the Ming Dynasty was 35 years old. They started studying in the government office at the age of seven or eight and continued until they were 35. It would have been a long time, but the admission rate was extremely low. There were millions of students across the country, and it was often difficult for several counties to produce a Jinshi. You can imagine how difficult it was.

They finally climbed up and became Jinshi, but the emperor suddenly gave them a year's leave, which was equivalent to directly cutting off their official careers.

How could they not be frightened?

The head of the Ministry of Rites who had just been contemptuous and sarcastic was the first to kneel down and said, "Your Majesty, we are unworthy and are willing to point out the head of the Ministry of Revenue..."

"Your Majesty, I am not sick. I can eat two big bowls of rice in one meal!" The head of the Ministry of Revenue's warehouse knelt on the ground and shouted loudly.

"Your Majesty, this is not a disease. I just have athlete's foot... I am willing to identify it."

"..."

……

In the Qianqing Palace,

"Your Majesty, they are all willing to identify their chief officer."

"How many have been killed?"

"Your Majesty, we only killed less than 20."

I wonder what Li Ruolian would think if he knew that the information the emperor asked the eunuch to convey to him was 50%.

"Only 20 of them and they're all scared? A bunch of cowards!" Zhu Changgan spat on the ground, then calmly took the teapot handed over by Wang Chengen. He listened to the news coming in from outside and took a sip, "Let Li Ruolian confirm all the evidence!"

The civil service group in the Ming Dynasty had absolute power, formed cliques for personal gain, and engaged in constant party struggles.

The emperor could only give symbolic consent.

All officials in the court know that all major events in the court are now decided by the civil service group, and the officials do not agree with the emperor at all.

This is also the reason why the policies promulgated during the reign of Chongzhen could not be implemented at all. Although Chongzhen tried his best to maintain imperial power, he had little success.

On the contrary, factionalism and party struggles reached a climax during the Chongzhen period. Various forces of all sizes were present in the court, including the Zhejiang Party, the Liu Party, the Wen Party, etc., and the most famous was the Donglin Party.

Those who do not belong to his faction or are not his close followers will not be used no matter how capable they are because of different interests. Even if they are used, they will be hindered in every way and framed with crimes. As for the overall situation of the court, he does not care at all.

From Xiong Tingbi and Yuan Chonghuan during the resistance against the Later Jin Dynasty to Shi Kefa of the Southern Ming Dynasty, the tragic deaths of these court ministers were all due to factional struggles.

The root of the problem lies in the cancer of the sitting-teacher system.

"I am fighting against this group of cancers, and I am fighting against this bond!"

Wang Chengen swallowed his saliva and said, "Your Majesty, who are these people..."

"Let those officials who have signed the agreement be fined three years' salary and immediately return to the six ministries without delay." Zhu Changgan said coldly: "It is better to use the power than to do good. Let them go back and disgust their superiors to death."

Among those who were found to be healthy by the Imperial Medical Bureau and the Imperial Pharmacy, those in Zhu Changgan's circle were all officials of the fifth and sixth ranks, such as Langzhong, Yuanwailang, and Zhushi of the six ministries.

These officials are the middle-level leaders of the six ministries and the ones who actually hold power.

The reason why they all came here to report sick leave today was because their so-called "teachers" were messing around behind the scenes.

"Killing is not the goal, differentiation is."

What Zhu Changgan wanted to do was to take advantage of this opportunity to tear open the relationship between the senior ministers in the court and the group of officials below them.

(End of this chapter)