The incident in which candidates from the Southern Zhili Autumn Examination cried in the temple and boycotted the exam lasted for three days and finally came to a temporary end.
In the early morning of August 19, as candidates entered the examination room one after another, Li Banghua breathed a sigh of relief.
He knew very well that although the matter had been settled, the impact had not.
In particular, the court's use of tough measures against local gentry would definitely lead to the gentry's united resistance.
There are both civil and military methods of resistance.
Culture is about reason, and martial arts is about force.
In the near future, the southern gentry of the Ming Dynasty will slander and impeach him through various means.
What's worse, they would secretly support thieves and bandits to rob and cause chaos in the local area, making it impossible for the Ming Dynasty to rest in peace.
Once there are too many thieves and bandits in a place, public security will be disrupted and local officials will be the first to be impeached.
If the problem cannot be solved again and again, the court can only replace officials in order to stabilize the situation.
If the gentry are dissatisfied with the new officials, they will use the same methods as before to force the court to replace them until they find satisfactory officials.
Until then.
The local officials and local gentry of the Ming Dynasty became grasshoppers on the same rope.
He would never allow this situation to happen.
The only way to break the impasse is to win over these candidates and make them serve the court wholeheartedly.
With them around, the local gentry would not dare to act recklessly.
Li Banghua dragged his tired body back to the posthouse and called several key officials in the imperial envoy's team together to discuss the next countermeasures.
Before everyone sat down, the Minister of War Zhang Bojing whispered to Li Banghua, "Sir, there is something going on in Changzhou Prefecture."
"Something happened to Shi Hongsheng?" Li Banghua was shocked.
Shi Hongsheng had just been recommended by him to be the prefect of Changzhou. If something happened to him, he would be implicated.
The rule in officialdom is that if something goes wrong with the person being recommended, the recommender must also take responsibility.
Simply put, it is a system of collective responsibility in official circles.
This system has both advantages and disadvantages, and under the circumstances at the time, the advantages clearly outweighed the disadvantages.
"Shi Hongsheng is fine," Zhang Bojing explained hastily, "According to Shi Hongsheng's letter, Li Shi, the eunuch in charge of the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau, went to Changzhou Prefecture to buy raw silk for making fabrics for the imperial court."
During the Ming Dynasty, weaving bureaus were established in Nanjing, Suzhou and Hangzhou to weave various high-end textiles for imperial court and official use.
These three weaving bureaus are collectively known as the Jiangnan Weaving Bureau.
Each of the three weaving bureaus had a eunuch in charge of managing various affairs, also known as the weaving eunuch.
Above the three eunuchs there is a chief eunuch.
In the late Ming Dynasty, due to the development of the textile industry in Jiangnan and the repeated corruption and illegal activities of the weaving eunuchs, the Suzhou and Hangzhou weaving bureaus were abolished one after another.
Only the Jiangning Manufacturing Bureau (Nanjing Weaving Bureau) was left to specialize in making royal items.
Zhang Boxing went on to say, "After Li Shi, the chief eunuch of the Jiangnan Weaving Bureau, arrived in Changzhou, he demanded a bribe from Shi Hongsheng and asked him to perform the ritual of greeting between a superior and a subordinate. Shi Hongsheng neither accepted the bribe nor performed the ritual of greeting, which made Li Shi very angry. He threatened to write a letter to the emperor, accusing him of insulting the emperor's ministers."
"Shi Hongsheng has just arrived and I don't know how to deal with it, so I wrote to ask the elder for advice."
Li Banghua placed his right hand on the table, tapping it while thinking.
The timing of Li Shi's bribery was too coincidental.
He had just dealt with the students' boycott when this happened.
Is it a coincidence?
uncertain.
Actually, it doesn’t matter.
The key is that he wants to know whether Li Shi's behavior is a personal act or he was instructed by someone.
If it was a personal act, he wouldn't have to worry too much about it. He just needed to write a letter to Beijing to explain the situation.
But if someone was instigating it, things would be troublesome.
Because the occurrence of this incident showed that the eunuch party was going to go to war with him.
The eunuch party was different from other parties in the court.
First of all, they are loyal to the emperor, but not necessarily loyal to the Ming Dynasty.
This statement is not contradictory.
Let’s take the simplest example.
Exploiting miners to make money for the palace was an act of loyalty to Chongzhen.
After a long time, the people were forced to rebel, and the ultimate victim was the Ming Dynasty.
Not only did their behavior do no good to the Ming Dynasty, it actually harmed it.
This is the origin of being loyal to the emperor not necessarily being loyal to the Ming Dynasty.
Secondly.
The eunuch party had only two purposes in participating in party struggles.
1. Compete for favor.
Second, make money.
There were tens of thousands of eunuchs in the palace, and they were organized into small groups.
When one of them becomes favored, the other eunuchs will also benefit from it.
The next lucrative overseas assignment will fall on them.
(There were many lucrative positions, such as the eunuchs in charge of the weaving bureau, the eunuchs supervising the army, the eunuchs managing the imperial farms in various places, etc.)
They would try every possible means to collect money to honor the eunuchs above them, and the eunuchs above them would use the money to bribe some ministers.
When the censor impeached someone, these ministers would come forward to speak well of them.
Chongzhen will face a huge problem next.
Should I believe the eunuch's words or the censor's words?
This is an eternal problem.
Logically speaking, the eunuchs were his internal servants, and he should trust them.
but...
There are many demons at the foot of Lingshan Mountain.
The closer one is to the center of power, the easier it is for them to use the power in their hands to commit crimes.
Don’t you trust the eunuchs but the censors?
Eunuchs are at least loyal to the emperor, but the same may not be true for censors.
The best solution is to strike a balance between the two.
From time to time, he would suppress court officials and also punish eunuchs, so that neither of them could dominate the power.
At the same time, we must prevent the two from joining forces to deceive.
The emperor has policies and his ministers have countermeasures.
In order to protect themselves, ministers would choose whether to ally with the eunuchs depending on the emperor's personality.
During Wei Zhongxian's reign, officials who allied with the eunuchs were called the eunuch party, and officials who did not allied with the eunuchs were called the rebel party.
Among the rebel parties, the Donglin Party was the most powerful.
Li Banghua had no interest in factional struggles, and even less did he want to anger the eunuch party.
but...
The actions of the eunuch party hindered his progress.
"Sir, how do I reply to Shi Hongsheng?" Zhang Boxing asked.
Li Banghua hesitated for a moment and then said, "Write a letter to Li Shi, the eunuch in charge of the Weaving Bureau, and ask him to return to Nanjing immediately to explain the situation to this imperial envoy."
"Ah?" Everyone in the room was stunned.
Zhang Bojing said in a trembling voice: "Did the Lord forget that he is a eunuch in the inner court?"
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