On the sixth day of July, news of what happened in Cao's mansion reached Nanjing City.
"What?" Cao Rong, the right assistant minister of the Nanjing Ministry of War, thought there was something wrong with his ears and asked again, "You said that the magistrate of Xiushui led his soldiers to massacre Cao's mansion?"
"yes."
"Which Cao Mansion?"
"It is your mansion, sir..."
"......Ah!" Cao Rong shouted and fainted.
When he woke up, he was already lying on the bed.
There were many people standing by the bed.
In addition to officials from the Nanjing court, there was also the prince's teacher Ni Yuanlu.
Cao Rong asked: "My family..."
Ma Shiying stood by and explained: "Brother Cao's wife is fine, she was just frightened. But many servants in the mansion died, and..."
"What else?"
"In addition, the Xiushui County Magistrate found 200,000 taels of silver in Lord Cao's house! They confiscated all the silver in the name of disobeying the imperial edict, and it is now being transported to the Jiaxing Treasury!"
Two hundred thousand taels?
When Cao Rong heard this number, he immediately felt something was wrong.
The amount of silver deposited in his house is at least 500,000 taels.
How did it become two hundred thousand taels?
What about the remaining 300,000 taels of silver?
Didn’t find it?
cannot!
Officials of the Ming Dynasty all had two basic skills.
One is to hide the silver.
They always find ways to hide their money in unexpected places.
Another skill is to find silver during a house search.
No matter where the silver was hidden, they would find it.
The magistrate of Xiushui apparently also possessed these two skills.
The place where he hid the silver would definitely not escape the eyes of the Xiushui County Magistrate.
In other words...the magistrate of Xiushui embezzled 300,000 taels of silver.
He wanted to expose the other party, but the money came from unknown sources.
When the court investigated, he could not explain clearly.
However, this did not affect his impeachment of the Xiushui County Magistrate.
Cao Rong said to everyone: "Xiushui County Magistrate deliberately murdered my family. You gentlemen must help me get justice!"
Ni Yuanlu was the first to express his opinion: "Don't worry, Lord Cao, we will go to discuss it with the prince right away."
Cao Rong's tears flowed down, "Thank you for your help, Master Ni. I am grateful!"
Everyone stayed for a while, then stood up and went to Chunhe Hall to discuss with Crown Prince Zhu Cilang.
As soon as they met, Cao Rong started crying.
He said that the magistrate of Xiushui County was disregarding human lives and robbing people of their property, and asked Zhu Cilang to help him deal with it.
Zhu Cilang immediately realized the seriousness of the problem.
The magistrate of Xiushui was a seventh-rank official, and Cao Rong was a third-rank official.
A seventh-rank county magistrate dared to lead troops to attack the residence of a third-rank official and killed people.
This means there is definitely someone behind this.
It is still unknown who the mastermind behind this is, but he must be investigated thoroughly.
otherwise...
Today, a seventh-rank county magistrate dared to commit treason and attack the residence of a third-rank official.
So tomorrow, can the sixth-rank official lead his troops to attack the second-rank official's home?
Can ordinary people also raid the homes of officials?
Once this trend is formed, everyone in the officialdom will feel insecure.
Once the officialdom is in chaos, the court will be in chaos, and the people will also be in chaos.
In order to find out the truth as soon as possible and stabilize people's hearts.
Zhu Cilang sent a special envoy to Jiaxing Prefecture, Zhejiang to inquire about the truth.
Although he no longer had the power to govern the country, it did not prevent him from intervening in some major cases.
Five days later, the news came back: the magistrate of Xiushui explained that he was the only one who did it, and no one else was involved.
He also denied the crime he had committed.
Since Nanjing had no authority to handle the case, local officials could only record the case in detail and send it to the capital immediately.
On July 15, the files were delivered to the capital.
The first reaction of Cabinet Chief Minister Xie Sanbin after reading the file was joy.
The Donglin Party is now engaged in internal strife.
Cao Rong was Qian Qianyi's party member. Attacking Cao Rong was equivalent to attacking Qian Qianyi.
But then he realized that someone was taking advantage of the conflict between him and Qian Qianyi.
Who could it be?
Xie Sanbin thought for a long time but couldn't come up with an answer, so he decided to launch a counterattack.
Doesn’t the other party want to benefit from it?
Not only will he not let the other party succeed, he will also destroy the other party's vanguard.
The so-called vanguard was the magistrate of Xiushui.
He took the case file to the Censorate and consulted with the Left Censor-in-Chief Shi Bangyao to discuss the conviction of the Xiushui County Magistrate.
The two exchanged pleasantries for a while, and Xie Sanbin explained his purpose: "Master Shi, the magistrate of Xiushui has committed crimes and robbed the people of their wealth. This has an extremely bad impact. Shouldn't the Censorate initiate an impeachment immediately?"
After reading the file, Shi Bangyao frowned and pondered for a long time, then immediately summoned officials from the Censorate to discuss the matter.
After discussing for a long time, the Censorate came to a conclusion: the magistrate of Xiushui was not only innocent, but was a typical example of promoting national policies and enforcing the law impartially.
"What?" Xie Sanbin almost dropped his jaw in shock: "How is this possible?"
Shi Bangyao asked back, "Master Xie, what crime do you think Magistrate Wang has committed?"
"How can he be innocent when he led his troops into an official's residence?"
Without waiting for Xie Sanbin to finish his words, Shi Bangyao said directly: "The court is forcibly implementing currency reform, and someone has revealed that Cao's mansion has hidden silver. According to the rules, Magistrate Wang must personally search and clear the Cao's mansion of all charges."
"As a result, the Cao family not only refused to cooperate, but also resisted law enforcement. As a result, the two sides clashed and a murder occurred."
"That's the problem!" Xie Sanbin said, "If they searched the residence of a third-rank official without the imperial order, wouldn't all the officials in the Ming Dynasty feel insecure if this trend became a norm?"
"Alas!" Shi Bangyao sighed, "There's nothing we can do! The lower-level officials don't want to do this either, but if we don't do this, how can we enforce the currency reform? We can't just rely on words, right? And before the search, we had Madam Li's consent..."
Xie Sanbin pointed to a place in the file and said, "Mrs. Li said she didn't agree."
Shi Bangyao pointed to another part of the file and said, "There were hundreds of people watching, and many of them heard Lady Li say this with their own ears."
"In addition," Shi Bangyao said with some gloating, "As an official appointed by the imperial court, Cao Rong should have supported the currency reform and actively exchanged his family's silver into Ming Yuanbao! But he did the opposite. Today, he suffered this disaster, which can be regarded as God's mercy."
Xie Sanbin refused to give up and began to use his connections to convict the magistrate of Xiushui.
As a result, not only was the Xiushui county magistrate not convicted, but the incident quickly spread throughout the capital.
You should know that there are many students in the capital who are against Confucianism.
They are all people who oppose the powerful and hate evil.
After hearing about this, they immediately expressed their support for the magistrate of Xiushui and jointly put pressure on the cabinet.
In order to calm the situation, Xie Sanbin had no choice but to let it go.
When the news reached Nanjing, the Donglin Party in Nanjing were all in an uproar.
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