Ming Jiajing: Starting from Immortality

Chapter 115: Bloodbath in the County Government Office, Tatars Attack!

The Daxing County government was closed down.

After the decree that the fire consumption should be returned to the public was passed down to the Daxing County Court, the whole court was in chaos.

From the county magistrate to the three shifts of yamen runners, no one did their job and did not accept petitions. Just a hundred or so people sat in the lobby of the county government.

Even though the imperial edict clearly ordered all provinces, counties, and prefectures to purchase food from the people at a high price of five cents per dou of rice and one and a half cents per dou of grain, the people sent the food to the county government gate after hearing the news, but the Daxing County Government still refused to accept the food.

Such a shocking event of government dismissal occurred at the feet of the emperor and near the imperial city, and the news soon spread to the capital.

There was a lot of discussion in the government and the country.

No one expected that the national policy of returning fire consumption to the public would be met with silent resistance from local officials as soon as it was implemented.

The cabinet sent several letters to the Daxing County government, but to no avail. Just when they were helplessly preparing to report to the Yuxi Palace, the imperial edict arrived first.

The Daxing County Government Office gathered a crowd to rebel with evil intentions and executed them first and tried them later.

After seeing this imperial edict, Zhang Juzheng's cabinet immediately realized that the Daxing County Government was in trouble and quickly sent people to the Daxing County Government to check the details.

Before the cabinet's visitors arrived, the Jinyiwei had already arrived at the Daxing County Yamen.

Zhu Qi, one of the Thirteen Guards of the Imperial Guard, personally led a team to blockade the Daxing County Government Office to ensure that no one in the county office could escape.

Then, in front of countless civilians and spies from various families, he issued an order, "Kill without mercy!"

Just three words.

Without any prefix.

No modifiers.

Hundreds of Jinyiwei cavalry drew their embroidered spring swords and rushed into the Daxing County Government Office like wolves and tigers.

No matter if they were officials, clerks, or anyone else, as long as they were human beings, they would be killed with one strike.

The smell of blood spread, and the officials in the Daxing County Government wanted to escape, but they could no longer do so. Finally, they all gathered in the lobby.

Under the plaque that read "A Clear Mirror Hanging High" sat Ye Zhimin, the magistrate of Daxing County. But at this moment, he was almost scared crazy.

Bloodbath in the county government office!
Never before!

Never before!
How could the old emperor do that? How dare the old emperor do that?
Zhu Qi walked into the county government office stepping on the flowing blood. Because it was sticky, his boots made a crackling sound when he stepped on it.

"I am an official appointed by the court, a seventh-rank official. Even if I am guilty, I should be tried by the three judicial officials. Even if they want to kill me, they should let me go to the execution ground to be punished. You dogs, do you have any respect for the law of the country?" Ye Zhimin roared.

When people are extremely frightened, there are two ways of behaving: one is crying and making a fuss, the other is doing whatever one wants.

To Zhu Qi, Ye Zhimin's roar was like the howling of a dog with a broken spine.

"A seventh-rank official, a marquis of a place."

Zhu Qi looked at the man who was almost crazy and said, "There are far fewer turtles in the Yongding River than people of your color. Why do you dare to disobey orders? Did you take some medicine, or is there someone backing you up?"

The person behind the Daxing County Government.

As long as the Jinyiwei wants to investigate, it is actually not difficult to do so. They can just look through all the documents that were input into the Daxing County Government in the past and find out the person behind the investigation.

However, the emperor did not want to investigate, and the Jinyiwei were unwilling to get entangled with the corrupt officials in the court. They wanted to first convert the income of the Ming Dynasty people's hard work in farming for a year into silver.

The people are the most important.

Kill the chicken to scare the monkey.

And the Daxing County Yamen is the chicken to be killed.

"I have to fight hard to make a living!" Ye Zhimin was about to die, but he still did not repent.

Zhu Qi was too lazy to talk any more, so he turned around and walked out of the yamen.

The howling of death sounded behind him, but soon there was no movement. The terrain of Daxing County Government Office was low in the front and high in the back, and the gurgling blood gathered together, like a bloody river, flowing out of the government office.

The county government office was divided into the main hall, the second hall, the third hall, and the back hall. The three halls were collectively called the front hall, which was where the county magistrate tried cases, while the back hall was where the county magistrate's family lived.

In compliance with the emperor's will, all the people in the county government were executed.

When Liu Tai, the secretary of the Cabinet, arrived at the Daxing County Government Office on the order of the Grand Secretary, he saw corpses being carried out by the Embroidered Uniform Guards.

The people of Daxing who were watching from the outside were cheering and cursing the dead county magistrate and county officials.

Daxing County Government is nice.

The third hall and the rear court were decorated in a rich and clean style. The floor tiles were all made of marble, so shiny that they reflected light in the air. This made it convenient for the Jinyiwei to clean up afterwards.

Clean water washed away the blood stains, but it could not wash away the smell of blood that people smelled.

Liu Tai felt very unwell.

Zhu Qi looked at Liu Tai's frown and smiled, "The matter of sending new officials to take charge of Daxing County Government has been handed over to the cabinet. There is an imperial decree: hurry up!"

After the grain is harvested and dried, the longer it is stored, the greater the loss. Everything can wait, except things that concern the interests of the people.

Liu Tai bowed to Zhu Qi and said, "I will obey your instructions!"

Daxing Massacre.

It shocked the entire Ming Dynasty.

The emperor officially drew a line for officials in the two capitals and thirteen provinces. According to the imperial edict, there were only two choices: obey or disobey. There was no middle option.

Your Majesty, do not accept any form of threats or resistance!

The Ministry of Revenue allocated 10 million taels of silver solely for purchasing grain from the Ming Dynasty at a unified price.

Countless people sent the grain they collected from their homes to the county government to pay taxes. At the same time, they exchanged the grain other than the family's food rations for silver. Hundreds of millions of kilograms of grain were continuously transported to the granaries in various places.

There was no fire consumption, and the silver used by the court to buy grain was pure silver, so the people were eager to sell grain to the court. This forced the already hated local rice and grain shops to raise the price of grain purchased from the people in order to survive.

In places with sufficient grain, such as the Central Plains and Huguang, rice and grain shops did not raise their prices too high. However, in some provinces and prefectures with scarce grain, especially where the local grain production was insufficient to feed the people, the price of a dou of rice was once raised to seven cents of silver.

Of course, there were inevitably unscrupulous merchants who drove up the price of grain, and the court's method of dealing with these black-hearted merchants was very simple. Grain was collected from all over the country, and as soon as the grain entered the Changping warehouse, it was sold at a fair price.

In this way, the imperial court is losing money, and the unscrupulous merchants who deliberately hoard grain are also losing money. If the stalemate continues, the imperial court will surely win.

How can human power compete with such a huge imperial court?
Unscrupulous merchants suffered heavy losses and left the market one after another, and just when everyone thought that the dispute over food prices would end there.

A giant crocodile has died!

The Xishan Shanxi merchants were doing their best to buy up the grain sold at a fair price by the court. No matter how much the government offices and county yamen sold, the Shanxi merchants would buy as much!

Xishan was not a province with a grain shortage, but rather one of the major grain-producing provinces in the Ming Dynasty.

As a matter of common sense, no matter how much grain the Shanxi merchants consume, it will not affect the grain prices in Xishan.

Moreover, the main business of Shanxi merchants was money shops and bill offices, and they did not trade much grain. This sudden move alarmed all the government offices, big and small, in Xishan.

The Xishan government office, not understanding what this meant, could only report the unusual situation.

That's when.

Ok Hee Palace.

Zhu Houcong read the secret report from the Embroidered Uniform Guards, and learned that the two grain routes of the Shanxi merchants in the two border towns of Xuanfu and Datong had been cut off by the Embroidered Uniform Guards.

The Tatar army on the grassland had unusual movements, and Altan intended to use force to force the Ming court to return Bahanaji.

At this time, Shanxi merchants were frantically purchasing grain...

(End of this chapter)