Lin Gao Qiming

Chapter 1101 Benefits of Party Struggle

He first flipped through the transcripts of memorials. Most of these were memorials from local and central officials about the situation in Dengzhou, and there were a lot of impeachment memorials among them, a considerable part of which was aimed at Zhou Yanru and Sun Yuanhua.

Zhou Yanru was suspected of being corrupt and bribery, and Chongzhen had suspected it for a long time. He also asked Dongchang to inquire quietly, but the return came up was "there is a reason for the incident, and there is no factual evidence".This troubled the suspicious emperor even more.

In recent years, the state affairs have become increasingly difficult, and he always hopes that the ministers can do things with sincerity. However, what he can see from the pile of memorials is that apart from the state's difficulties, there are endless attacks among the ministers.

In contrast, although Zhou Yanru has been repeatedly impeached, he can still satisfy him in handling affairs.In addition, he also vaguely felt that someone was instigating behind the wave of impeachment against Zhou Yanru.

"Every one of you said that Zhou Yanru was corrupt and wronged the country, but if you changed it, you wouldn't hurt the country?" He sneered in his heart, but he was very helpless.No matter whether it is a court meeting or a memorandum, most of them are just empty talk—how could he not know that many of the current practices are treating headaches and feet, not solving problems, or even drinking poison to quench thirst, but what if it is not the case?

Zhou Yanru had expressed several times that he wanted to recusal himself, and he gave orders to comfort him, but in the face of the impeachment memorials that kept flying in, he wavered again.

Then there were several impeachment memorials, but they were not aimed at Zhou Yanru and Sun Yuanhua, but Liu Zongzhou impeached Min Hongxue, Minister of the Household Department.

Min Hongxue was a warm and benevolent person, and the emperor himself knew this very well.Liu Zongzhou's impeachment of Min Hongxue was obviously aimed at Wen Tiren.

The emperor felt: In the past few days, there have been subtle changes in the content of memorials from various places.The impeachment of Wen Tiren and others, most of whom are members of the Donglin Party, has increased significantly.They took the trouble to remind the emperor in their memorials: Wen Tiren was once "affiliated to the party", and after joining the cabinet, he tried to reverse the case of "rebelling against the party" and "imperially appointed rebellion". Some memorials also listed Wen Tiren and his accomplices their words and deeds.

In addition to targeting Wen Tiren's party, all officials at all levels involved in the Dengzhou incident have recently been violently attacked.Bi Ziyin, the magistrate of Wuqiao County, was dismissed because he connived at the "strike" and provoked a mutiny. His elder brother Bi Ziyan was also violently attacked.

In addition, several ruling officials of Xincheng Wang's family were also accused of being responsible for the "upheaval".

"There is no good person!" Chongzhen left the memorial in great distress.He vaguely felt that the Dengzhou military rebellion was no longer a simple military rebellion, and it seemed that there was an opportunity for the court ministers to take this opportunity to fight among parties.

He held his head in silence, unwilling to open another memorial.The eunuchs and maids around were all silent, not daring to say more.

Just as he was feeling bored, Cao Huachun, the eunuch on duty at this time, brought another stack of documents.When he saw that the first letter was a secret report on military affairs from Shandong, his heart was shocked again, and he was unwilling to open it: recently, one piece of news from Shandong has been broken than the other:
Just half a month ago, the imperial court discussed the transfer of Tongzhou soldiers, let Yang Yufan command them, add up the ranks, let him rule the officers and soldiers of Shandong battalions, and transfer Tianjin soldiers and horses to be led by Wang Hong, the commander-in-chief; Bing Liu Guozhu commanded.Go to exterminate within a limited time.

On January 25, Yang Yufan led his own soldiers and officers and soldiers from Duoying, Yiying, and Qingying to Zhuqiao Town. In the evening, Tianjin soldiers led by Wang Hong also arrived. On the 28th, they went east to Xincheng.On January 29, the rebels came out from Dengzhou to fight. As a result, Tianjin soldiers retreated first, and Wang Hong fled.Surrounded by rebel soldiers, Yang Yufan broke out of the encirclement and fled to Laizhou in the middle of the night.

Could it be that Laizhou has also fallen now?Some terrible conjectures emerged in his mind at the same time. Although he is not good at fighting, he has already learned the importance of Laizhou from the memorials about the Dengzhou Incident that have been flying in these days. The army fled to various places, causing "corruption throughout Shandong and disaster to Zhili".

The disastrous defeat of the Tianjin soldiers led by Yang Yufan a few days ago seems to have foreshadowed that the Dengzhou Rebellion will not end easily-it may become another "rebellious bandit".

"Sun Yuanhua really deserves to die!" Chongzhen said secretly, reluctantly picked up the melody and opened it.

At this time, he found that the memorial was sent by Sun Yuanhua, and he felt a little more at ease.Sun Yuanhua is now charged with the fall of Dengzhou, and if Laizhou is lost, he will definitely have no reason to "break through", and he must die in the city.

So Laizhou is still there!

After hastily reading the two sentences of "Reason", I couldn't believe it. I read it again, a smile flashed on the corner of my mouth, and after reading the full text, the blood returned to my face.He breathed a sigh of relief, leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes.For a while, he seemed to feel that this matter was not reliable enough, so he quickly opened the reports of Wang Daochun, the inspector censor, Xu Congzhi, the new Shandong governor, and Yang Yu, the general soldier.

He read it all with a smile on his face.As if to vent his excitement, he stood up and walked a few steps back and forth in the hall.

All these people reported the same news. Sun Yuanhua defeated Mao Chenglu's rebel army in Huang County and beheaded thousands of people.Kill the rebel general Mao Chenglu.Then he severely injured the siege rebels under the city of Laizhou and beheaded hundreds of them again.There were not many officers and soldiers injured.

"Unexpectedly, Sun Yuanhua still has some ability to do things!" He thought about it for a few days, and there were memorials saying that Sun Yuanhua had run Dengzhou for a long time, had a better understanding of the situation in Shandong and Dongjiang, and was well-known among the Liao people.

Originally, he had planned to dismiss Sun Yuanhua, but the current situation made him hesitate again—especially with the first victory on the Shandong battlefield.Although he was annoyed that Sun Yuanhua had fallen into Dengzhou, he thought that relying on the thousands of remnants and defeated generals in Laizhou, he could finally curb the overwhelming momentum of the rebels in Laizhou.When someone reported the situation in Shandong a few days ago, he insisted that "you can't change coaches in front of the battle."

If he is removed at this moment, the new governor of Denglai may not be able to gain the support and trust of the generals and gentry—if there is trouble, there will be a mutiny—the emperor knows the army too well, and this gang of Qiu Ba has gradually changed since the end of the apocalypse. He became rebellious and rebellious, asking for food and salary in advance, gathering people to mutiny at the slightest dissatisfaction, but now there are fires in all directions, smoke is everywhere, and troops are required to maintain everywhere...

Thinking of this, he decided not to replace Sun Yuanhua, but to let him continue to "make contributions" and stay in Laizhou.At the end of last year, he had already "downgraded him to three grades and kept him in the post." This time he decided not to give him meritorious service.As for Yang Yufan, because he had just lost a battle and received a downgrade, the punishment was revoked this time for meritorious service; as for Xu Congzhi, Zhu Wannian, the magistrate of Laizhou, and the county magistrate of Ye County, all of them were rewarded for meritorious service.In addition, in the back of the memorial, the local gentry, gentlemen and people who have contributed are listed, and as usual, there are rewards.The emperor no longer looked at it carefully, and the Ministry of Rites handled it at the discretion of the Ministry of Rites.

Even so, he is still not at ease. Recently, he has gradually distrusted his foreign ministers, and he always feels that they are not as reliable as his internal ministers.So he decided to choose two reliable and "knowledge soldiers" eunuchs to go to Laizhou to supervise the army for Sun Yuanhua and Xu Congzhi respectively.He is considering who is more suitable among the eunuchs of the Royal Horse Supervisor.In his opinion, nothing is more suitable than a high dive.But Gao Qiqian is a rare "knowledge soldier" talent among the courtiers.He felt that he should be reserved for more critical occasions: once the arrangements for the Dengzhou campaign were in order, an eunuch would also be sent to supervise the army.

While meditating, he suddenly saw Cao Huachun, the eunuch who was about to withdraw, and his heart couldn't help but move.Cao Huachun had served him in Prince Xin's Mansion back then, but was pushed out by Wei Zhongxian and dispatched to Nanjing during the reign of Emperor Tianqi—he belonged to the eunuch Conglong who had suffered together, so he trusted him very much.Immediately asked:
"You are outside, but have you ever heard of the incident between Zhou Yanru and Wen Tiren?"

Cao Huachun bowed and said: "The servants serve the emperor every day in the palace, and the outside affairs are only rumored occasionally. Besides, this is a major matter for the court. How dare the servants say it?"

"Just tell me straight."

Cao Huachun had been entrusted by Eunuch Yang a few days ago, received some benefits, and also received money and a letter from Qian Qianyi, a member of the Donglin Party who lived at home, asking him to speak for Zhou Yanru.Qian Qianyi has a different relationship with him—Cao Huachun came from Wang An’s sect, and Qian Qianyi once wrote Wang An’s epitaph—so he was already prepared to excuse Zhou Yanru and Sun Yuanhua.But usually he didn't have the opportunity to discuss this matter face to face, now he was asked by the emperor, and took the opportunity to kneel down and play.

He had considered the content of the memorial long ago, and mainly started with the party struggle that the emperor most tabooed, implying that this attack on Sun Yuanhua and Zhou Yanru had elements of the party struggle between Wen Tiren and Zhou Yanru.

These words really had an impact on Chongzhen.Since he took the throne, the most taboo thing is the faction in the court, let alone forming a party.So although Donglin was rehabilitated in his hands, since the Chongzhen Dynasty, except for the "Zhuzheng Dynasty" in the early years of Chongzhen, the Donglin party members have never been able to occupy the central area.He appointed Wen Tiren, who was scolded as "the remnant of the eunuch party" as the chief assistant for a long time, and he had the intention of countering Dong Lin.He originally suspected that there was factionalism involved, but now Cao Huachun's insinuations made him suddenly alert.

He asked Cao Huachun to retreat, and Sun Yuanhua had no intention of replacing him. These words made him more determined, but he was a little unwilling to spare Sun Yuanhua like this: After all, Dengzhou is an important military town that costs 80 taels a year. If the teacher loses ground, it is not too much to ask for success.He considered again and again, and decided to dismiss the former Dengzhou officials who had already broken through: Wang Zheng of the Supervisory Army, Song Guanglan of Denglai Dao, and send them to Datongwei.Zhang Tao resigned and stayed in the Laizhou Army.The rest of the staff were all dismissed.

(End of this chapter)