Emperor Qianlong: the beginning of his glory

Chapter 11 Yang Mingshi is Released and Goes to the Capital
Qianlong was really in a dilemma at this time, so he nodded and said: "Yes..." "It's not bad!" The Empress Dowager immediately thumped the bed in a rage, pulled a yellow silk ribbon tied on the big welcoming pillow and threw it to Qin Meimei: "Go, Take it to Jinxia, ​​and just say what I say, I know everything about her!" Qianlong hurriedly said: "Mother! Don't be angry, I'm not—I'm... Listen to me—"

"Go, I have the final say on this matter!" The Empress Dowager shouted at Qin Meimei, and then ordered everyone, "You all get out!"

Everyone withdrew, and only the queen mother, emperor and empress remained in the palace, relatively silent, only listening to the unhurried "click" of the big golden chiming bell.When Qianlong looked at the queen with a wooden face, the queen didn't turn her face to look at the candle, as if she had no expression.

"You don't need to explain." The queen mother sighed relaxedly, and said: "Is there still a need to disassemble it? This kind of thing happens to everyone, and your brothers are all young. There are a few seductive goblins in front of the late emperor. How about I stop them?" If you spread the words, do you want the royal face? What's more, you are still in the filial piety! Don't think that I don't know about the death of the late emperor. In fact, the matter has come to this point. If you can't think about it, you have to think about it. It's not the slightest thing to say Good thing. Didn’t he also suffer from the woman? Besides, you have a lot of concubines with former queens, which one is not a beautiful fetus! You still look at the pot while eating from the bowl, and you still want to drag the person in front of you?” Qianlong blushed and bowed his head in agreement.I just hoped that she would finish speaking soon.But the queen mother talked endlessly, from Zhou Daji to Han Feiyan and Tang Yuhuan, and talked about the meal time before saying: "The queen took the emperor back to the palace, I am tired."

The Empress accompanied Qianlong just out of the Chuihua Gate in the courtyard of the Compassionate Ning Palace, when she saw Qin Meimei come back to pay Yi's decree, her face was as white as snow under the lamp.Seeing the two of them, Qin Meimei timidly stepped aside and let her go.Knowing that the matter was irreversible, Qianlong stared at Qin Meimei and swallowed.But the queen said: "Qin Meimei, the mission...is it done?"

"Return to the mistress, it's done...it's done..." He glanced at Qianlong who was full of clouds, and said softly, "She...she didn't say anything, she just broke the strings, lit three incense sticks, and ..."

"Where are the strings?" Fu Cha said tearfully, "Bring it here." Qin Meimei hesitated for a moment, took out a ball of strings from her cuff, and held it to Fu Cha with both hands.The Fucha family took it and looked at it, then passed it to Qianlong, and said to Qin Meimei: "Come to my palace tomorrow to get some money, and send it well."

Qianlong held the ball of strings tightly, his heart shrank into a ball as if soaked in boiling water, and he said after a long time: "Go in, and tell here all the servants who have served Lord Kangxi in the Palace of Compassion and Peace—don't disturb the old Buddha!" Seeing Fucha looking at Qin Meimei's back in puzzlement, Qianlong said, "Don't worry, I'm not here for this."

After staying for a while, Qin Meimei came out with five or six eunuchs, some in their sixties and some young in their thirties, and saluted Qianlong and the empress together in the wet rain.Qianlong swallowed a breath and asked: "Lafayette said to build temples, do you know about this?" An old eunuch with white beard and hair bowed and said with a male duck's voice: "Long live Lord, the servants in this palace all know……"

"There is only one thing I asked you to come here." Qianlong said coldly, "I take the law of Lord Kangxi as the law. You have all served Lord Kangxi. Lafayette Xiaozhuang also believed in Buddhism. You once asked the emperor to use money to build temples." something?"

"..."

"This matter is your fault." Qianlong said, "If you encounter such a thing in the future, you will have to persuade Lafayette from the sidelines. Just quote the example of Lord Kangxi, and Lafayette will definitely listen to it—forgive you this time." , let’s not take this as an example.”

The queen said beside him: "If Lafayette has any ideas, what should be done will naturally be done. The emperor is a filial son. You can't push Lafayette to do this or that, so as to make money from it. If I know it, I will definitely punish you crime!" As he spoke, he and Qianlong went to Chengyu together.In Chengyu, Qianlong asked:

"Queen, why don't you persuade Lafayette to take back his promise to deal with Jinxia?"

"Because Lafayette handled it right."

"Well, then why did you give me the string again?"

"You should keep it as a thought. I can't be a jealous woman."

"Oh, why did you take money out of your own body to bury her richly?"

"Because I'm a woman too."

Neither Qianlong nor the queen spoke again.That night, they all lost sleep.

Yang Mingshi has been imprisoned in Kunming Mansion for three years.The governor of Yunnan and Guizhou who exposed the cheating case of Zhang Tinglu's examination room in the past was arrested and imprisoned for dredging the congestion of Erhai Lake and soliciting silver from salt merchants.Yang Mingshi was promoted from the governor of Guizhou to the governor of Yunnan and Guizhou. As soon as he took office, it rained continuously and called the police several times. All of them were caused by the collapse of the Erhai levee, flooding villages, destroying fertile land, and countless deaths.I reported to the Ministry of Accounting several times. At that time, the Ministry of Accounting was eager to urge officials from all over the country to pay the deficit and report to the emperor for performance appraisal. Who would allocate huge sums of money to do this good deed?Therefore, the following text called Yunnan "raising funds on the spot and repairing by itself".Yang Mingshi made a rough calculation, at least 200 million taels of silver.However, Yunnan and Guizhou provinces do not have such financial resources.Fortunately, Yunnan produced salt, so they made plans on the salt merchants, and ordered each main road in Yunnan and Guizhou provinces to set up cards to levy silver.However, Zhu Gang, the new governor of Guizhou, was selected by Li Wei, governor of Liangjiang. He wrote to Li Wei, "Yang Mingshi scraped the land here to collect salt tax." Li Wei replied happily: "Mother Xipi, no wonder the salt here Price increase. He is corrupt, so you just sue him!" Zhu Gang then wrote a solid memorial, suing Yang Mingshi for "reckless building and planning to invade money", forcing the card guards to exploit passers-by unreasonably.It is said that there is a reason to be heartbroken.Yang Mingshi always opposed Yongzheng's reform of taxation, officials and gentry's payment of grain, liquidation of deficits, establishment of clean banks, etc., and he was not punished only because of his clean government.Seeing this memorial, Yongzheng was furious.On the same day, an order was issued to speed up the dispatch to Yunnan and Guizhou with six hundred miles, and Zhu Gang was ordered to act as the governor, and Huang Bingxing, the servant of the household department, was sent to Dali at night.Huang Bing is a student of Zhang Tingyu, and he wants to avenge his teacher.When the second imperial envoy got off the bus, he dismissed Yang Mingshi and sent him to prison without any explanation. Regardless of the laws of the Qing Dynasty, he secretly used fire, oil dragon and other terrible instruments of torture to put Yang Mingshi to death.

Yang Mingshi was always too clean and honest, because he didn't charge a penny, he held a high position as the governor, and sometimes he was too poor to raise a kitchen.He didn't even bring his family with him, only a nephew from the same family took care of him inside and out.This is a fact known to all the gentry and common people in Yunnan and Guizhou provinces.They ransacked the family property, only found a few pieces of patched torn underwear and two strings of green clams.The two imperial envoys who could not communicate with each other counted the collected salt and silver as embezzlement.This angered the people of the two provinces.On the day of the torture, [-] ordinary people gathered outside the governor’s yamen, and there was a rage. Even Geshha and the yamen servants in the yamen turned against each other, shouting: “Mr. Yang is tortured, what is the future? We rebelled!” It was Yang Mingshi who came out in shackles and chains to reprimand, and ordered the people "not to violate the king's constitution" to be considered a relief.But this time, Zhu and Huang no longer dared to use punishment.Hastily with the end of the book.For some unknown reason, Yongzheng ordered Yang Mingshi to be hanged, but he didn't go to court for three consecutive years.

When he was an official, no one dared to give things away, and when he was in the classroom, people had no taboos.Some took care of him in the prison, lived in a single prison, and allowed his nephew to take care of him "due to illness".People who don't know their names often send clothes: "Brother jailer, save some, and the rest will be worn by grandpa"; every day someone will carry meat, "please take care of grandpa", leave it and leave.Therefore, Yang Mingshi, a prisoner waiting to die, is even richer than when he was governor.Every year during the autumn festival, how many people pray to Buddha and burn incense, hoping that "Yongzheng Lord squinted one eye" will miss Yang's name.Yang Mingshi was still studying and studying in prison, and sometimes he invited prison guards to give lectures. In his spare time, he practiced Taijiquan and took a leisurely walk in the courtyard.

After receiving the document sent by the court to release Yang Ming from Shangshufang, Zhu Gang suppressed it for a few days and failed to comply. The newspaper also impressively stated that "Dian Province has been ordered to go to the study to write an article, and Yang Mingshi was released." Zhu Gang didn't dare to delay any longer, and personally sat in a sedan chair with eight people and went to the prison to announce the decree.As soon as he entered the prison gate, he saw the warden coming out of a small tile-roofed house with a group of prison guards, all of them blushing from drinking.Zhu Gangling stood brilliantly behind the iron gate of the front door, and scolded with a straight face: "It's not a year or a festival, what kind of wine do you eat? Are you looking for a fight?"

"Return to Taiwan dialect, uh—" the warden sipped his wine and said, "Just now Master Taishui of Dali Mansion came to visit and said that he had seen the mansion newspaper. Master Yang will be leaving soon. The banquet was brought by Futai Mr. Yang refused to eat, so he rewarded the little ones—" Zhu Gang swallowed, and without saying anything, stepped into the hut.

This is a very elegantly furnished small house, the ceiling and walls are covered with mulberry paper, and the small wooden windows are pasted with very precious green organdy.A wooden couch occupies half of the room, and the paint is bright and shiny.On the couch were two neatly washed blue quilts, and there was a row of low bookshelves against the wall.The books on the shelves have been emptied, and there are tiles, inkstones, paper pens and other objects on the small wooden table.Yang Mingshi's nephew, Yang Feng'er, knelt on the couch with sweat on his face, binding up books.Yang Mingshi seemed to be sitting on a stool under the couch with a heavy heart, lost in thought.Seeing Zhu Gang coming in, he got up gracefully, and said calmly, "Mr. Zhu, are you all right?" He gave up his hand and asked Zhu Gang to sit opposite.

"Mr. Yang," Zhu Gang looked calm when he saw Yang Ming, and his flustered mood gradually calmed down. He smiled while sitting down, "I made you suffer. But you look good. Your body seems to be stronger than before. "Yang Mingshi said with a smile: "Born in sorrow, died in peace? I think the adults are here today, not just to talk about these things." Zhu Gang smiled and said: "I'm here to congratulate the adults. Today, the lord is lenient Benevolence is the government, and the court has ordered the brothers to come and release Yang Gong from prison and go to Beijing immediately. Yang Gong has been wronged for three years, and now he sees the sun again, and he is expected to fly to the sky. It’s really ecstatic!" He said loudly Outside: "Go and prepare a sedan chair for Mr. Yang! In the past, brothers acted according to orders, and there were many offenses. Huang Shilang - too, alas... This is not a place to talk, and I went to the yamen for a few days. My brother suppressed Mr. Yang See you off, let's talk about everything slowly."

(End of this chapter)