Chapter 98 Rage
Although he was extremely dissatisfied with the southeastern nobles, and although all means to solve the problem were ready, Master Feixuan did not plan to take action immediately - after all, the emperor was not as swift and decisive as his own ancestors, who would not feel comfortable if they did not kill someone in a day. After a long period of laziness, procrastination had penetrated into his bones, and he was not willing to take action at the end of the year. What's more, after a long period of fasting, God actually blessed him with snow, which just proved that Master Feixuan was blessed by heaven. At this time of joy and happiness, the emperor was complacent and still felt unsatisfied. In fact, he did not have the mind to care too much about those below.
Simply put, Master Feixuan's energy these days has been focused on the endless flattery of officials in their congratulatory messages and poems. His anger was only a flash and then disappeared. As long as some officials know when to stop, there is still room for easing the situation.
Unfortunately, once party struggles are tied to interest groups, they can no longer be quelled by the emperor's mere show of force. Emperor Gaozu was so powerful that no one dared to disobey him. Even though he was a little lenient in his later years, some people still dared to commit such a big thing as the North-South List Case. What's more, the True Lord's foundation was weak and his deterrent power was insufficient. He could only barely maintain his majesty by relying on political tricks? The warning of "Yuan Zhe Tiao Hui" is already severe and stern enough, but officials driven by interests still continue to do so without any restraint. However, two or three days later, the number of memorials submitted to the emperor increased several times, and they were all similar, impeaching the Prince of Mu for his various treasonous behaviors when he went south.
It was the end of the year and the festive season was approaching, and Zhenjun had prayed for a blessed snow with great difficulty (don't worry about how hard it was, just say whether it snowed or not). At this time, the whole country was celebrating, and all government offices were aware of the situation and would not use difficult and heavy official business to displease the emperor. If he repeatedly submitted impeachment petitions at this time, what else could it be but a blatant disrespect for authority?
The emperor today is no longer the coward who had to turn the other cheek when slapped on the left by the Japanese pirates. After proving the inequality of Master Feixuan, the emperor's thoughts are clear and his mind is open. He no longer bothers to endure it. As the saying goes in "A Mortal's Journey to Immortality", things change over time. Don't look down on the old and the poor. Master Feixuan waved his pen and ordered the East Factory to drag the censors who jumped the loudest to the outside of the palace gate and beat them up, "to use their blood to add joy to the New Year."
However, such tactics are not enough to deter certain people behind the scenes. In the past, when it came to the North-South list case, faced with Emperor Gaozu's clear instructions to admit northern scholars, the chief examiner disobeyed the order and even accused the northern scholars of "being rude and arrogant". They were all members of the Northern Yuan reactionaries. Now, the old examiner who has been tested in the officialdom certainly does not take Lao Deng's petty tricks seriously. You can hit me if you want and I can scold you if I want. Impeachment memorials were still flying all over the sky like snowflakes, and the focus of the impeachments was getting more and more bizarre - these censors even swore that the reason it hadn't snowed for the previous two or three months was because the Prince of Duke Mu was so rampant and offended the people, which almost led to a major change.
This is exactly the same tactic used to attack Wang Anshi's reform. Using the mysterious and unpredictable celestial phenomena as an excuse is actually no longer a matter of presenting evidence and reasoning to appease people. It is purely a mad dog biting like a raging cat, reflecting the other party's determination to fight to the death - no one can explain the celestial phenomena, so this kind of impeachment will be endless until one side is completely overthrown.
——No, is it that serious?
At this point, the imperial court has actually almost figured out what the prince has done in Jiangnan. Generally speaking, the destructive power of Dian Gong's madness is quite large, but after all, he did not stay in the south for a long time, so the damage caused was still controllable. According to the emperor's estimation, the prince's looting and smashing things happened everywhere after he went south, and the total loss was only about one million taels. It was indeed tragic, but it did not shake the foundation. Why would the Jiangnan nobles resort to such a desperate act?
Judging from such overwhelming hatred, it doesn't seem like they just robbed some supplies, but more like they were digging up the ancestral graves of certain clans!
...So, what exactly did this crazy man do in Jiangnan?
After receiving the 200th impeachment memorial, the emperor was at a loss.
This deep confusion lasted for several days before I finally got a perfect answer.
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[Echoes of Later Times: The Aftermath of the Battle of Shangyu]
[…Compared to the many important significances that only emerged one by one hundreds of years later, the impact of the Shangyu naval battle on the then Da'an government was immediate - the national treasury received a large amount of income through the indemnity from Portugal; merchants obtained the privilege of freely doing business in Southeast Asia through the "Shangyu Treaty"; and a channel for transporting grain was opened in the north. But the most direct and crucial change can be summed up in one word: after the Battle of Shangyu, the "Jiayin Reform" that was on the verge of being launched finally found its enemy.
Reform involves the redistribution of interests. In order to ensure internal unity, it is necessary to create enemies outside. This has been the practice from Sang Hongyang to Wang Anshi. But in the early days of the Jiayin Reform, the reform team was quite confused about this fundamental policy - Portugal and the Japanese pirates were of course the legitimate enemies, but these enemies were too weak to be included in the long-term plan. Or we can put it more simply and bluntly. After dealing with the Portuguese pirates, what reason should Da'an use to wage foreign war?
In the words of Prince Mu, "We can't just do whatever we want and beat whoever we want."
(This sentence was recorded by Zhang Taiyue, a member of the cabinet at the time, but in the "Ruwang Diary", the prince added a sentence at the end: "Although I really want to do this.")
It may be difficult for people in later generations to understand this dilemma, but in the Da'an Dynasty, which was very particular about having a legitimate reason for its cause and had been conservative and closed for more than 160 years since Emperor Xuanzong abandoned the frontier, a suitable enemy was indeed an indispensable argument to prove the legitimacy of reform. The anti-colonial narrative had not yet emerged at that time, and the court's rejection of foreign invaders was limited to a kind of instinct to defend the country. It did not realize how dangerous the expansion of Western powers on the ocean was.
In this atmosphere, it is actually difficult for reformists to convince their conservative and rigid colleagues. The Jiayin Reform did bring huge profits, but the profits also had to be justified by appropriate reasons. Even if there are great scholars debating for you, you still have to tell them which direction to debate in, right?
The great significance of the Shangyu naval battle was that it found out the whole world's fault that could be criticized by the reformists for a hundred years - the coastal smuggling group.
】
Master Feixuan rubbed his eyes twice before he was finally sure that he had not read the word wrong. Although the Heavenly Book did not explicitly state it, after spending a lot of effort to understand the strange term "the fault of this world", the True Lord could be 100% sure that the coastal smuggling group that the so-called reformists had criticized for a hundred years must be the work of the Prince of Mu. This inexplicable crazy smell of a brain that should be looked at by Li Shizhen could not be imitated by others.
[Of course, the criticism of smuggling gangs is not groundless. There was indeed a gang of collusion between officials and businessmen along the coast that had been engaged in smuggling for a long time; this gang did have close ties with Japanese pirates and even Portuguese tycoons; the contradiction between the Jiayin Reform and the smuggling group was indeed irreconcilable - one of the core contents of the reform was to control the entire maritime trade in Southeast Asia and completely cut off the channels for invasion by foreign forces. The conflict of interests between the two sides was a life-and-death struggle from the very beginning, and struggle was inevitable.
But the reformists' ideas on struggle were truly different. They claimed that the emergence of smuggling gangs was not an isolated phenomenon, but rather a group of traitors supported by the so-called "trade protectionist gangs" in the country, who colluded with each other internally and externally to deliberately hinder the free trade policy in the Jiayin Reform. As for the list of "trade protectionist gangs", it will be updated according to actual circumstances. In the first two years of the Jiayin Reform, there were only Japan and Portugal on the list; after the Battle of Luzon, Spain and the Netherlands were added; after the Battle of India, England and France were added... In general, it highlighted the country's flexibility and ability to adapt to the times; it perfectly solved the problem of the enemy being too weak and lacking in deterrence.
——The only embarrassing thing is that when drafting the gang list, the reformists claimed that this was an "invasion of Da'an by a few countries with ulterior motives." However, according to subsequent statistics, this so-called "few countries" accounted for about 60% of the civilized world at the time, which was still a considerable number.
Of course, if readers in later generations can understand this kind of embarrassment, then the people at that time must have been even more embarrassed. This theory was unpopular for quite a long time. It was not until the third year of the Jiayin Reform that the emperor suddenly fell into a coma during fasting, and showed extremely strange delirium and convulsions. Even after he was cured, he drooled profusely, which caused great panic in the court and the country. In the chaos, the Prince of Mu, who was in control of the secrets at the time, acted quickly and arrested the alchemists who were sent from the south to pray for the emperor, accusing them of colluding with the Japanese pirates and plotting to poison the emperor.
Such a crude operation certainly cannot convince the public. So soon someone wrote a letter to question the case, accusing the crown prince of false accusations without any evidence at all; the crown prince insisted that there was nothing wrong with his accusation and that everything was the fault of trade protectionism led by the Japanese pirates (that's why it was called "the whole world's fault").
The final investigation proved that both sides were correct. The Prince of Mu did not have any substantial evidence. All he relied on was some simple and unfounded suspicion - "If a hundred bad things happened in the world, one hundred and one of them must have been done by the Japanese pirates"!
But what is even more outrageous is that this unfounded and naive suspicion was actually correct: the Jinyiwei found high concentrations of opium poppy extracts in the spices presented by the alchemist, and the source of the extracts was directly pointed to Japan. Judging from various signs afterwards, there may really be evil intentions hidden behind this spice - Japan smuggled opium into the country, and the smuggling team, which was a collaboration between officials and businessmen, got through the connections with alchemists and sent these dangerous extracts to the emperor, using the hallucinogenic and addictive effects of opium to control the emperor; if the emperor's physique was not too sensitive and his reaction to the overdose of drugs was extremely strong, this plan would actually be quite feasible.
An addicted, mentally broken, and paranoid emperor who is trapped in hallucinations; he is simply the most reliable and useful puppet in the world. So sometimes you can't help but admire the Japanese pirates. They are always so creative in creating the lower limits of human beings.
So, in the words of the prince himself, although he doesn’t know how to handle cases, he is quite knowledgeable about the Japanese pirates...】
Master Fei Xuan tried hard to open his eyes wide, his throat gurgling, the breath stuck in his throat and couldn't go up or down. He choked so much that his eyes rolled back and his lips trembled, and the blue veins on his neck popped out one by one. After finally swallowing the burning anger that made his heart tremble, Lao Deng finally widened his eyes and let out a scream so sharp that it almost hurt his eardrums:
“Rebellion!!”
·
Li Zaifang and Huang Shanggang crawled in with their shits on. When they looked up, they saw the emperor's old face, which was as swollen as a big eggplant, and then a stack of memorials was thrown at them:
"Catch them!" the True Lord roared, "Catch these traitors for me! Catch the guy named Ye for me! Don't let them get away!"
This is another political upheaval! The roar was deafening, and Li Zaifang was so frightened that his legs were shaking. However, he was an experienced and knowledgeable eunuch in the inner court, and even though he encountered a sudden change, he still racked his brains to come up with a sentence:
"I will obey the Emperor's order and do it immediately! But this is a big matter, involving so many people. I am incompetent and I am afraid that I can't do it alone..."
The focus of this sentence is not "cannot be done well" but "such a big thing". Arresting so many people in one go, even retired senior officials, wouldn't this break all the tacit understanding between the monarch and his subjects and turn against all the prominent families in the south?
After the apparent tacit understanding is broken, the only option is to resort to absolute violence, but can the court withstand this turmoil?
If it were usual, this sentence would have been a wake-up call, enough to wake up the furious emperor. But unfortunately, the world has changed, and the emperor's mentality has changed a lot:
"Then transfer the newly trained musketeers to the outskirts of Beijing! And send a few dozen rockets!"
The past is the past, and the present is the present. You were arrogant before the Shangyu naval battle, and you are still arrogant after the Shangyu naval battle. Then wasn’t the Shangyu naval battle fought in vain?
Whoever holds the gun holds everything. With muskets and rockets in hand, I don't believe that those rubbish can still rise to the sky. In the final analysis, the so-called "whole world's fault" smuggling group sounds impressive, but its actual performance is just a mess - if they had some other capabilities, would they have cooperated with such petty scoundrels as the Japanese pirates?
The best strategy is to attack the enemy's plans, the next best is to destroy their alliances. When they resort to using drugs and trickery to plot against others, it is actually quite appropriate to describe them as "gangsters."
The emperor's thoughts were still clear despite his rage, as if he had already planned everything out. Li Zaifang did not dare to persuade him anymore. He kowtowed, picked up the memorial, and quietly left. True Lord Fei Xuan did not hesitate, turned his head and looked at the trembling Huang Shanggang, and gave the second order directly:
"Call Mu Qi here, call Mu Qi here!"
·
Although nominally only Mu Qi was invited, the qualifications of the Prince of Mu were too shallow, and there was no reason to summon him alone. Huang Shanggang thought about it again and again and decided to summon all the people on duty in the cabinet to the palace to listen to the emperor's instructions together.
Because the news leaked by Eunuch Huang was extremely shocking, the on-duty Lords Yan and Xu almost stepped into the palace trembling with fear, for fear of being struck by a rage. Only the Prince of Duke Mu had already prepared himself to be punished. As the saying goes, a dead pig is not afraid of boiling water, and he followed in with a letter of apology. Although there was no response after submitting the previous memorial, a minister's attitude of apology should always be sincere; so he honestly wrote another memorial, reflecting on himself thoroughly from head to toe, and asked the emperor to punish him for the second time.
Master Feixuan was one of the ministers summoned to the Qingliang Palace, his eyes still bloodshot. He looked extremely impatient, and didn't even bother to follow any formalities. He waved his hand to dispense with the formalities, then looked directly at the prince and suddenly frowned:
"What's that in your hand?"
The prince quickly stepped forward and handed over the petition with both hands:
"This is my confession of guilt. I have committed a serious crime and am extremely terrified..."
The emperor didn't even listen to the end. He reached out and snatched the memorial. After unfolding it and glancing at it, he immediately crumpled it into a ball and threw it directly into the brazier:
"It's already this late, and you're still doing this useless, superficial stuff!"
This is so vulgar! Not only was the Prince of Duke Mu stunned, even Lord Yan and Lord Xu could not help but frown - they had served Lord Feixuan for so many years and had never seen the emperor so furious and out of control. Isn't it beneath the dignity of the royal family to swear in front of the ministers?
Of course, it is nothing if not humiliating. The emperor's anger came out of nowhere, and he was so rude and disrespectful to the prince. It might be that he had some grudge against him because of what happened in the south. If this anger spreads and affects the people involved...
The corners of Lord Yan's mouth twitched slightly.
But fortunately, Prince Mu is still very capable of taking on responsibilities. He did not let his anger get to him, and replied honestly:
"Your Majesty, please give your instructions."
Don't you always accuse your subordinates of not doing their jobs? So what is the real business?
The emperor snorted, and his expression softened a little.
"Didn't you write a memorial accusing the Japanese pirates along the coast of possibly having a connection with the remnants of Emperor Jianwen?" He said expressionlessly, "I suddenly remembered this matter. Now that the emperor and his subjects are here, please explain this reason in detail."
Mu Qi: ...Ah?
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It turns out that as long as you are not embarrassed, others will be embarrassed. Although this question came unexpectedly, Mu Qi remained calm and tried to explain the overall view of the Mu Mansion on the remnants of Jianwen as concisely as possible, focusing on the great vision of the "Wandering Jianwen Plan". During the whole process, Yan Fenyi and Xu Shaohu, two old men who had never seen the world, also witnessed the event and listened to this unprecedented exquisite speculation with their own ears; the expressions of the two old men changed accordingly, from confusion to surprise, and from surprise to confusion again. As the saying goes, seeing a mountain is not a mountain and seeing water is not water, the vacuum is wonderful and still water gives birth to flowers - in short, in the end, they solidified into a rather weird expression:
——Where am I? What the hell is this? What kind of crazy talk is this person saying?
After the explanation, the palace was strangely quiet for a moment, without even the sound of breathing, until the emperor spoke softly:
"What do you two Grand Secretaries think?"
Two university scholars: …………
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