After spending a few more days in the southwest region, Zhu Yunwen dispatched the ten Imperial Guard commanders who had been protecting him to investigate the truth behind the rebellion in the southwest.
The final answer was that some other chieftain families did not have a strong desire to rebel this time.
To some extent, they were coerced by the Yang family.
The Shui'an clan, to which Lady Shexiang belonged, was the most prominent example.
Upon learning of this situation, Zhu Yunwen decided to impose a lenient punishment on the matter.
First, some key members of the Yang clan in Bozhou will certainly face severe punishment, even though their family was the main force behind this rebellion and the Yang family chieftain is already dead.
But the entire family is also guilty.
Zhu Yunwen directly ordered that all the main members of the Yang family in Bozhou be imprisoned and spend the rest of their lives in jail.
As for other minor clansmen, they were directly demoted to commoners, and their descendants were forbidden from holding official positions, taking the imperial examinations, or engaging in commerce.
They could only be slaves at the very bottom of society.
As for other chieftain families, some key figures also suffered varying degrees of imprisonment.
For example, the Song family chieftain of Shuidong and some small chieftains in Qiannan had not been coerced by the Yang family much before. In the process of rebellion, they even often offered advice and were quite proactive.
Therefore, Zhu Yunwen directly ordered the execution of all the chieftains and key personnel of these families, and the demotion of the rest of the family members to slavery.
As for the Shui'an clan, to which Lady Shexiang belonged, they had always been quite averse to and opposed to rebellion, and had always been coerced, never expressing any subjective intention to rebel.
Zhu Yunwen then ordered that the matter be handled appropriately, demoting the Shui'an clan, to which Lady Shexiang belonged, to an ordinary clan, and punishing them by requiring them to use a large amount of their clan's wealth for the development of the southwest region.
Some key figures, such as Lady Shexiang, although they did not really intend to rebel, participated in it after all. Therefore, Lady Shexiang was stripped of her original position as the Pacification Commissioner of Guizhou and demoted to an ordinary person.
In truth, Lady Shexiang was quite wronged. She had no intention of rebelling in the first place, but the Yang family forcibly tied her to the rebel ship, ultimately leading to her tragic end.
Of course, Lady Shexiang was already mentally prepared.
After all, in her opinion, the Yang family chieftain was a madman. If she had disagreed with the rebellion from the beginning, who knew what the Yang family chieftain would have done to harm the Shui Xi family?
Although the Shui'an clan has been punished for this, thankfully there haven't been too many casualties within the family.
At this point, Zhu Yunwen gave Zhu Yuanzhang a detailed report on the events here and his punishments of these chieftain families.
Zhu Yuanzhang would have no objection to his handling of the matter.
At the same time, Zhu Yuanzhang was very happy, after all, this war was resolved by Zhu Yunwen in just about ten days.
Moreover, Zhu Yunwen's battle plans were also very impressive.
Not only did Zhu Yuanzhang appreciate this, but many military generals in the court also expressed that Zhu Yunwen had a strong talent in military affairs.
Therefore, everyone in the court had to accept the fact that Zhu Yunwen, who was very capable in politics, also possessed matching military capabilities.
Such an all-around genius, if he were to become emperor in the future, would very well surpass Zhu Yuanzhang of today.
…………
On the other hand, after punishing the rebellious chieftain families, Zhu Yunwen began to make arrangements for taking control of the southwest region.
Firstly, in many places in the southwest region, there were already government offices established by the imperial court. For example, the Pacification Commissioner's Office in some places was a special agency established by the imperial court in the local area.
The original Tusi (chieftains) were the true masters of the southwest region. Although the Tusi submitted to the imperial court, the court did not have actual control over the area. Therefore, the government offices established by the court here were very different from those in other places.
In other places, government offices were basically set up as provincial, prefectural, and county governments, etc.
However, the establishment of government offices in the southwest region is somewhat special, and the officials holding these positions are all chieftains from local chieftain families.
Therefore, the officials appointed by the imperial court in these places were also members of the Tusi families, and were commonly known as Tuguan (local officials).
Now that Zhu Yunwen has eliminated the Tusi families, he naturally intends to abolish government offices such as the Xuanwei Division.
This led to the division of the southwestern region into administrative areas, and the establishment of prefectural and county governments, etc.
Therefore, Zhu Yunwen directly grouped all the areas in the southwest region, including Guizhou, Bozhou, Sizhou, and Qiannan, which were previously under the control of the Tusi (local chieftains), together into a provincial-level administrative region and named it Guizhou Province.
The Guizhou Provincial Administration Commission was established, under which were various prefectural and county-level government offices.
After dividing the administrative regions, Zhu Yunwen appointed a court official whom he favored, considered capable, and loyal to him to serve as the Provincial Administration Commissioner of Guizhou.
He then wrote another order and sent it back to Nanjing to be delivered to the Ministry of Personnel.
The Ministry of Personnel will select capable officials from all over the country to come to this place and assume key positions in various government offices.
Now that this place has been taken over by the imperial court, it is necessary to send capable officials to carry out effective management and reform.
The southwestern region must be brought up to the pace of the imperial court in other areas as soon as possible.
After handling all these matters, Zhu Yunwen spent some time in Guizhou in the southwest.
With him in charge, no one dared to cause any trouble here.
My dear reader, there's more to this chapter! Please click the next page to continue reading—even more exciting content awaits!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
