Censors kill people with their pens instead of knives.
A single pen distorts right and wrong, fabricating charges. No matter how eloquent you are, you will not be able to defend yourself.
Cui Lu is such a person.
As a military censor, Cui Lu's most important responsibility was to impeach supervisory officials.
Not long ago, Zuo Tongzheng Zhao Wenhua found him, hoping that he could impeach the Governor of Fujian and Zhejiang, Zhu Wan.
Cui Lu was certainly happy to do so. He had to work very hard to curry favor with Zhao Wenhua, a member of the Yan Party and the godson of the then Prime Minister, Yan Song.
Cui Lu was eager to show off, so he used all his skills to write a memorial, in which he denounced Zhu Wan as a traitor who had no loyalty to his king or father.
Just when Cui Lu was feeling very proud and eager to present the treasure, Zhao Wenhua found him and told him not to impeach Zhu Wan, at least not for the time being.
Zhao Wenhua certainly didn't need to explain, and Cui Lu didn't dare ask. Although it was a bit aggrieved and awkward, the matter was delayed.
Now Cui Lu has finally got his chance.
The four major families in Hangzhou, Liu, He, Lin and Wu, attacked Zhu Wan at the same time and instructed their nephews and nephews to write letters of impeachment.
These four major families are all wealthy families in Zhejiang, and many of their sons and nephews serve as officials in the court.
At one time, all the memorials impeaching Zhu Wan were gathered in the Ministry of Public Security, and Zhao Wenhua, the left minister of public security, naturally smelled an opportunity.
The reason why Zhao Wenhua did not dare to impeach Zhu Wan was because Zhu Wan had the evidence against him.
If impeachment is forced, it is likely to end in a lose-lose situation.
Now the format is very different.
There were countless officials who impeached Zhu Wan, so one more memorial would not attract any attention.
Zhao Wenhua naturally decided to take advantage of the situation and report Zhu Wan.
And the person he entrusted was Cui Lu.
Cui Lu was originally from Zhejiang, so he naturally understood why Zhu Wan had offended so many local powerful families.
As the saying goes, live by the mountain, eat from the mountain; live by the sea, eat from the sea.
Zhejiang is adjacent to the ocean, and fishing at sea is its most important livelihood.
However, one of the Ming Dynasty's ancestral precepts was a ban on sea fishing. Ordinary people were not allowed to do business or even go fishing.
But the laws have always been effective only for ordinary people. Those wealthy businessmen and prominent families who are rich and powerful naturally do not take the laws of the Ming Dynasty seriously.
Not only did they collude with Japanese pirates to engage in smuggling, they sometimes even robbed merchant ships to do business at no cost.
All the successive provincial governors and military commanders of Zhejiang were well aware of this, but no one offended these local prominent families.
They turned a blind eye to the smuggling activities of the prominent families in Zhejiang and only arrested some fishermen to pretend they were pirates to gain credit.
Zhu Wan was the only one who initiated drastic reforms upon taking office. Not only did he build ships, train soldiers, and rectify the administration, he also sent naval forces to patrol the coast and proactively attack smuggling ships when he encountered them.
If it were just that, it would be fine, but Zhu Wan went even further and destroyed Shuangyu Island in one fell swoop.
This really stirred up a hornet's nest.
You should know that Shuangyu is the largest smuggling port in Ningbo and even Zhejiang. Basically 90% of the goods of these maritime merchants have to be traded and loaded and unloaded in Shuangyu.
With Shuangyu destroyed, it was impossible to find a suitable harbor in a short period of time.
Sea voyages bring huge profits, and a delay of even one day will hurt, let alone several days or a month?
Under such circumstances, these maritime merchants who suffered huge losses naturally wanted to cut Zhu Wan, the culprit of all this, into pieces.
Although Zhu Wan was the Governor-General of Fujian and Zhejiang, a powerful official in charge of both military and political affairs, they were not easy to deal with.
If things were peaceful, it would be best. But if their vital interests were truly affected, they wouldn't mind fighting Zhu Wan to the bitter end.
This is the reason why the censors have been frantically impeaching Zhu Wan recently.
Cui Lu felt that this was a godsend opportunity.
First of all, this impeachment trend gave him good cover.
One of the memorials mixed in among so many others would not attract much attention.
Secondly, he can take the credit that belongs to everyone.
As long as Zhu Wan overthrows Zhao Tongzheng, he will be happy.
Zhao Tongzheng didn't care too much about which memorial impeached Zhu Wan. He only cared about the result.
Fortunately, Cui Lu still remembered the general content of the impeachment memorial. Otherwise, if he were to rewrite it, it would be a death sentence.
Cui Lu picked up his brush, dipped it in ink, and wrote quickly with great confidence.
This battle was the moment when he became famous.
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Emperor Jiajing generally did not believe the four words "the court is full of upright people".
In his eyes, everyone in the world is greedy, and his ministers are no exception.
So what's the point of talking about a court filled with upright officials? The so-called loyal ministers are nothing more than a group of people chasing fame and fortune.
In the eyes of Emperor Jiajing, the whole world belonged to the Zhu family. Therefore, every grain of rice and every penny should belong to the Zhu family.
The ministers ate the rice and took the money of the Zhu family, not only were they ungrateful, they even embezzled the money.
All the money stolen was from the Zhu family.
Therefore, Emperor Jiajing was wary of his ministers as if they were thieves.
Anyone who did not meet his liking would be arrested and interrogated.
Those who committed minor crimes were punished with caning in court, while those who committed serious crimes were beheaded and their property confiscated.
The so-called harmony between the monarch and his subjects is just a joke.
Of course, Emperor Jiajing still needed his ministers to work for him.
Otherwise, he would be exhausted to death and still not be able to handle the complicated government affairs alone.
Emperor Jiajing made a clear distinction between use and defense.
Sometimes Emperor Jiajing even allowed his ministers to impeach each other, so that he could rest assured.
This is the mind of an emperor, which cannot be easily revealed to outsiders.
There have been many memorials impeaching the Governor of Fujian and Zhejiang recently, but Emperor Jiajing did not take them seriously.
This was because he had just read a book called "Records of the Anti-Japanese War".
Although the content of this book is somewhat extreme, it is still very thought-provoking.
Among them, the description of the real Japanese and the fake Japanese made Emperor Jiajing sigh the most.
He always thought that the vicious Japanese pirates were all Japanese ronin.
Now it seems that was wrong.
Many of the Japanese pirates were actually his subjects, his people!
This made Emperor Jiajing feel mixed emotions.
Why are there so many fake Japanese?
This is clearly stated in "Records of the Anti-Japanese War".
Local merchants colluded with Japanese pirates to engage in smuggling, and they needed to hire seamen because they were short of manpower. This led to the phenomenon that the number of fake Japanese pirates was several times greater than the real ones.
After some thought, Emperor Jiajing felt that it made sense.
Human nature is profit-seeking.
The huge profits from smuggling made these maritime merchants disregard the interests of their country and take risks in violation of national policies.
At this point, Emperor Jiajing had a clear understanding of the true faces of these maritime merchants.
When Zhu Wan destroyed Shuangyu, the local maritime merchants were naturally the ones who suffered the most.
Could it be a coincidence that so many officials impeached Zhu Wan at this time?
Emperor Jiajing was not stupid, so how could he not see the connection?
Nowadays, the largest number of officials in the court are from Jiangxi, followed by Fujian and Zhejiang.
Officials from Fujian and Zhejiang are the mouthpieces of the family, so it was naturally premeditated for them to speak out at the same time at this time.
How could such a little trick be hidden from Emperor Jiajing?
He is a self-proclaimed holy monarch with double pupils.
Emperor Jiajing decided to keep these memorials impeaching Zhu Wan in the palace and not send them out, to give these "loyal and good" ministers some leeway for the time being.
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