It was quite obvious that Zhu Xiong Ying wanted to give the Confucianists a warning and to embarrass the lineage of the Duke Yansheng. After all, the current 56th generation descendant, Kong Ne, was a first-rank official, the head of all court officials!

Even someone as powerful as Zhu Yuanzhang couldn't remove Mencius from the Confucian Temple, much less deny the status of Confucianism. Because all scholars in the land identified themselves as Confucius and Mencius—that was the truth.

Zhu Xiong Ying was indeed very angry. More than twenty years had passed since the founding of the Ming Dynasty, and many people still missed the rule of the Yuan Dynasty. Even though he knew that the Yan-Yun region was a high-risk area for missing the rule of foreign tribes, he did not expect that there would still be some powerful families daring to defy the trend.

After all, it wasn't just Zhu Xiong Ying who was forcibly changing customs and habits. At the beginning of the founding of the country, Zhu ordered the change of some customs and habits from the Mongol period, but now it seems that the effect is not great.

Zhu Xiong Ying is now essentially using this as an excuse to make a fuss, mainly because the Kong family's position is too secure. No matter whose family sits on the throne, because of Confucius's status, the Kong family's descendants enjoy endless blessings, and they also own a lot of land in Qufu.

The descendants of Confucius are not necessarily all good people. Moreover, whenever foreign tribes invade, the descendants of Confucius are always at the forefront and are the most fond of 'changing dynasties', which is not a good thing.

Zhu Xiong Ying knew, of course, that he couldn't defeat the Confucius family all at once, but this time he wanted to use this as an excuse to promote the lineage of the Duke Yansheng and make the descendants of Confucius lose face. He had to try to weaken the status of Confucianism and constantly use various issues as pretexts.

Song Zhong led the Imperial Guards out with great force, and several powerful families in Beiping Prefecture were almost completely wiped out.

Fortunately, Zhu Xiong Ying was relatively polite. He needed to make an example of someone, so he didn't execute any of their entire families, not even the collateral branches. He only arrested the main family members, which could be considered merciful.

Zhu Xiong Ying didn't care at all about the crying, begging, or cursing. Song Zhong and his Imperial Guards were even less moved. They were used to such things and knew exactly how to complete the tasks assigned by the Crown Prince.

Zhu Xiong Ying's "uncle-in-law" Liu Zhi arrived in Beiping, having separated from the main group, which relieved Zhu Xiong Ying somewhat.

Speaking of Liu Bowen, he was a representative of the Zhejiang East civil official group back then, and Liu Zhi is naturally one of the representatives of the Zhejiang East group now, although his more prominent identity now is Liu Bowen's grandson, the heir to the title of Earl of Chengyi, and the Imperial Son-in-Law Commandant.

"Uncle-in-law, do you think these powerful families have forgotten that they are Han Chinese?" Zhu Xiong Ying handed a memorial to Liu Zhi and said with a hint of sarcasm, "These people are truly loyal to the emperor!"

Liu Zhi naturally understood Zhu Xiong Ying's sarcasm, and immediately said, "Your Highness, if we consider some of the knowledge of Confucianism, they have done a good job."

That's true. A large part of the reason why rulers throughout history favored Confucianism was that it helped them consolidate their rule; many of their ideas were beneficial to imperial power. Of course, many Confucian ideas also suggested that scholar-officials could participate in governing the country, and the high status of scholars during the Song Dynasty was probably what they aspired to.

Zhu Xiong Ying continued, "I remember that during the Yuan Dynasty, although Confucianism was also highly valued, it was also severely suppressed. But now it seems that these scholars are really interesting; they still care about their status as the 'stinking ninth category'."

Liu Zhi remained silent in embarrassment, because the Yuan Dynasty liked to classify people into different social classes, and the status of scholars, or Confucian scholars, was really low, at least in name only.

Zhu Xiong Ying continued, "These powerful families are even more interesting. Since they like the rule of foreign races and miss their former masters, then I will give them a chance!"

Liu Zhi shuddered, because his wife had practically raised Zhu Xiong Ying, and naturally had recounted many things about Zhu Xiong Ying's childhood. Besides repeatedly mentioning the Crown Prince's precocious intelligence, she had also said that the Crown Prince possessed strategic acumen.

Although it was said in a rather tactful way, Liu Zhi could still tell that his wife had said quite a few times that the Crown Prince was actually very cunning and vengeful, just like the current Emperor of the Ming Dynasty!